AI megathread

But even the very notion of "free will" inherently means the free will of the conscious self, not of something else like the unconscious mind.

Well... no, not really, per https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/freewill/

Nothing about the concept really requires it to be about the conscious layer of the psyche.

There is nothing to suggest that other aspects of our psyche cannot also have free will, other than arbitrary definition.

It has been noted by Jung and others that other complexes in our psyche than the ego do appear to have autonomy ~ they have agendas of their own, that we are not consciously privy to.

I've noticed even in my spiritual experiences that my Shadow has an agenda. My higher Self has an agenda. Both ultimately positive, mind you. So, both my Shadow and higher Self have free will ~ I'm just not constantly aware of these aspects of my psyche.

If the unconscious actually makes choices and decisions independently of the conscious self (and accordingly sometimes in opposition to what the conscious self would have chosen), then the conscious self isn't really free.

This isn't true ~ the conscious self can choose to veto the desires of the various aspects within the unconscious through conscious effort and choice.

It is only when we do not exert our conscious free will that other aspects of our psyche can fill that void. It's sometimes desirable, when we need to let ourselves be guided by intuition or spiritual guidance, for example. Because sometimes, the unconscious aspects within our psyche just have more access to information than the ego, so they have more wisdom and ability to guide.

The ego is quite limited in its capability and ability to know, compared the sheer vastness of the many unconscious layers and aspects of our psyche.