The short answer is: evolution.
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A concrete example might be instructive. I don't want to bias the discussion by suggesting anything, so, if you would, please pick an example of an exercise of your free will. Any example you wish. The stronger case, the better.
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I have not written a letter to my best friend in a long time, and I love her very much, and there are things that I have to say to her, and I don't think that there is anything more important to do, so I write a letter, to be sent in the morning.
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In your formulation, how do you acquire awareness? And, can I take 'true cause' to mean that which is causally operative in your motivational rewards model? (I apologize if I'm not using your terms correctly here.)
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The only way of acquiring awareness works by tasking a part of your brain to create a model that guesses what another part of your brain is doing.
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What triggers the impetus to acquire awareness in this way?
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Usually the suspicion of a regulation problem.
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Ok. Would you agree that the suspicion (whether that's a thought or a feeling) of a regulation problem simply arises without intentionality?
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Metacognition can be intentional, but cognitive behaviors often form from outside of the currently active behavior cluster before they take over, which could indeed be described as "arising without intentionality".
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Perfect. (And, thanks for continuing to indulge me.) Let's take the case of intentional metacognition: the active cluster, whatever it comprises, is what is determining the character of the conscious experience, is that correct?
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Conscious experience is probably a memory of the contents of attention, i.e. a small subset of the currently active cognitive behaviors, but accessible only a few hundred or thousand milliseconds after the fact.
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Sorry, I'm not sure I'm continuing to track the conception of free will here. Are you positing a capacity for free will *outside* the context of a conscious experience? (Regardless of it's status as memory-as-attention)
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Yes. Free will is an ascription that we apply to elements of a narrative about our activities. This narrative is often only created retroactively when we need it, and may involve a high degree of fictitiousness.
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