Will as the Central Human Cogwheel

Some time back I posted a string of seminal thoughts on a new theory of the mind. I went on a Descartian journey that I never completed. But in musing upon those posts I will here assert that will is the central fact of human existence.

Think of thought as a funnel. Much of it swirls like napkins in the wind. Some lodges in the cabal of cogitation. Some becomes focused, and when it does, it must be filtered through the will--a sort of binary yes-no circuit, and when the will is engaged, that narrow field of deciding, action follows, a new funnel that with one choice can set a course where other decisions follow naturally in support.

Will is incarnation, the incarnation of thought, both cerebral and automatic. Once in a basketball game someone pushed me from behind and I pivoted and threw a right jab right to his jaw without thinking. This is bodily will, the natural instinct of self-preservation, the deepest law of the body, hard-wired.

As for cerebral thought, where, for instance, a man mulls over the purchase of a house or the prospect of divorce, much analysis obtains, but only when that analysis is funneled through the will can incarnation result.

God spoke and the world came to be. What is inevitable speech but the pronouncement of incarnation? When the All-Powerful speaks a word, thought is not divided from will or action, thus a word is sufficient for creation, but only because that word was willed.

Are you seated? Be still for a moment and contemplate raising your right arm. You must have the consent of your arm to lift it. A bodily response is required for incarnation. Will enacts the transfer of thought into reality.

I forget which 19th century German philosopher emphasized the will, but I am in agreement. "I will, therefore I am." (Here is no Adlerian intent because the will to power is another matter altogether.)

Of what practical value is this, then? Of great practical value.

"By your deeds you shall be judged" saith the prophets, from Egypt to Hammurabi to Islam. Deeds are proof of thought. Until then thought may be forgiven.

Christ takes it further: "If a man hates another in his heart he is guilty of murder." Just so. A festering thought can incarnate through the will into the action of murder, and the more the will aligns with the thought, the closer one comes to the deed. Stop evil before it is realized, in the chambers of the heart and the labyrinths of the mind. An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.

"As a man thinketh, so is he."

Why am I telling you this? Because I was sitting on the porch and these thoughts came to me. Then the choice of reading in bed or sitting down to blog was presented. I willed my body from the porch to the living room, turned the television off and sat down. And surprise, my computer opened up to the "new post" option, a blank screen. I had previously indicated to myself that I might want to blog, apparently.

Nevertheless, until I put my fingers to the keyboard it was all a fantasy. And briefly, before typing, I thought about reviewing my series on a new theory of the mind, but ultimately I decided that the reader would not be interested except for excerpts, and I had no desire to plow through old posts to retrieve a chestnut or two.

Meanwhile my thought tells me that I am fairly certain about my next post: Litnet Archaeology. In researching magazines in which I have been published, I noticed their eventual fates and found a pattern in e-zines which has probably not been noted before.

Until then,

At 1 Kilobunny,

CE