Free Will

Shawn asks an intriguing question about free will.

Now the notion of "free will" has been debated since ancient times. It was a fave of theologians.

But it's also a bit of red herring.

It may well be that I am a pawn of my instincts and prejudices.

However, whilst some insight into my motivations may be useful, I still have to make decisions. I am never completely free (except in perhaps an existential sense). But how do I continue to make decisions?

Snowden's point, in my view, is less about "free will" in its classical sense than self-awareness and the "double hermeneutic" when studying human beings - i.e. they can understand they are being studied and change their behaviour accordingly. Hence the Cynefin injunction that every diagnostic is an intervention in the (socially) complex space.