The quiet art of attention

I like to watch the movement of my attention. Nothing abstract, just to observe where attention is aimed - it takes a mere 30 seconds of watching.

What I’ve noticed, is it moves around, seemingly without my input, and lacking any conscious intent (a concept the blog post makes a point to reclaim).

The light of attention shines throughout the physical scene, but it is sensorily multidimensional. It might move to the pain in my back, or the sound of the frogs, or the mug on my desk, a random memory, or more relevant to the article, the latest arising thought.

I am watching this movement of ‘my’ attention, and yet I seem to be playing no part in the neither the objects of attention, or the movement of attention itself.

This isn’t to say I cannot decide right now to move my hand in front of my face and observe it, but this arising of intention is itself mysterious too.

As to argument against free will: do you not have the ability to choose between giving the next homeless person you see some money or being rude to them? Of course you do. You are also free to believe and then claim that the world is flat, but that don't make it true.

We can each choose to be compassionate, callous, or cruel -- to whomever we choose, to whatever extent we choose. The choices most people make are usually no more than the inertia of our cultural inheritances, which are, themselves, usually born of generational ignorance of the importance of active compassion and service to others' happiness.

The inertias of our world cultures are rife with ignorance of the fact that the happiest people are those that care for those around them. Of course, if worldly success is your only benchmark, then you are free to choose Musk's or Trump's path to "success", but you aren't going to find happiness there, no matter how easy it is to climb that ladder in this world's assbackwards value system. I challenge you to look at Jimmy Carter's or MLK's smiles for observable experience. Such a smile is earned and evidenced over our lifetime as obviously as a tree's growth rings reflect its experiences. Ours are indicative of our cumulative choices, for we are the only beings on Earth that have a moral compass and the imperative to choose accordingly.

It isn't necessary to explain where they come from to argue they are not, by our definition, freely made. Either they are causal, we can rewind time to the exact moment, where everything is the same, and you would make the same choice again, or there is a level of randomness inserted, which is also not free will.

If you introspect, you will find that you do not have anything that actually looks like free will. If you are asked to pick your favorite philosopher, you will have a few names pop into your mind, but you will not have control over those few names. You could continue to try and summon names, but you don't have control over which ones arrive either.

> As to argument against free will: do you not have the ability to choose between giving the next homeless person you see some money or being rude to them? Of course you do.

No, because the decision to do so is the sum product of all the things that have happened to me. If I choose to give money to the next homeless person I see as a result of this comment, it was not free-will, but the sum of all of those things and my response to this comment.

The flip side of this is that it need not be a negative thing. The will of the homeless person is also not free, the knowledge of which should expand your compassion for them as their situation is not the result of an endless series of bad choices, but the unfortunate chance outcomes of their existence in this environment.