I'm taking your use of "essential" to mean "necessary". Addicts involved in recovery programs are routinely informed of alternative options. If awareness is freedom, then where is the freedom when there is awareness? Thanks — CeleRate

Not just awareness - also connection and collaboration. Being informed of alternative options is just the start. It’s all very well to tell someone they can take up a form of exercise as an alternative to drugs. They also need to connect with that potential information in some way that has meaning for them beyond their addiction. Addicts are no longer as diversely connected to the world as we might expect them to be. Their connections are often limited only to those that feed or enable their addiction. The isolation of recovery programs may help to decrease the value/potential of enabling connections, but those connections can never really be severed as such, so the effect is temporary at best. Addicts also need opportunities to build or rebuild more valuable connections with the world - ones that broaden and develop their perceived potential - otherwise it won’t be long before they seek out those addiction-enabling connections again, because they’re better than the alternative.

Addicts are especially limited in how they collaborate with the world, because they’ve been focused mainly on their own internal affect. Their collaborations are limited to those that feed their addiction. Collaboration is about working together to achieve something - the more broadly this achievement appears to benefit, the greater the perceived value. Addicts need opportunities to work with others on projects bigger than themselves, that actively appreciate and count on their involvement, whether it’s a family that needs them or a whole community.

Not just awareness - also connection and collaboration. — Possibility

If addicts recover, then they were aware, connected, and collaborative. If they do not recover, then any of the three systems might not have been functioning. Did I get that right?

If addicts recover, then they were aware, connected, and collaborative. If they do not recover, then any of the three systems might not have been functioning. Did I get that right? — CeleRate

To the extent that they’re failing or struggling to recover, they are likely unaware, isolated or excluded from a relation to their own potential, yes. You can’t force someone to be aware, to connect or to collaborate. But if we ignore, isolate or exclude them from these opportunities, then I’d say we’re part of the problem.

You can’t force someone to be aware, to connect or to collaborate. — Possibility

Also, forcing someone wouldn't be free will.

But if these are steps that individuals willingly and freely take. For those that feel guilt about hurting people they love and are connected to; for those that are aware of the options; for those that are participatory, willingly collaborating with others. What stops their will from resisting scratch tickets for example?

So, we must, in order to be free, be able to reject every want we have but if you'll notice this situation arises because we want to be free and that want - to be free - is programmed into us, without our consent as it were.

You are not talking about volition, but identity / personality. Instead of asking for independence and autonomy from what is not you, you want to be free from yourself.

But if these are steps that individuals willingly and freely take. For those that feel guilt about hurting people they love and are connected to; for those that are aware of the options; for those that are participatory, willingly collaborating with others. What stops their will from resisting scratch tickets for example? — CeleRate

I’m not sure what you’re asking here.

You know very well that free will is defined in terms of choice; no choice, no free will. — TheMadFool

Actually there are two aspects of "free will", one is the will itself, and the other what is attributed to it, freedom. "Choice" defines the "free" part, but it doesn't define the "will". I think Possibility outlined this for you in the reply. "Will" is the actual motivator of the act, it causes the act to occur. So even when we make a choice according to preferences, an act is not necessitated, because one might act on that preference later, or something else. Therefore we say that someone with a "strong will", or with "will power", can resist acting in ways one is inclined toward acting by one's preferences, because an act is not necessitated.

This is why your op, which says that preferences determine the will, is wrong. Preferences are what are judged in a "free choice", but they do not necessarily cause action. That is the only way we can prioritize things, by judging that even though I prefer this to that, I prefer something else even more, so I do not choose that. Notice the preference does not cause an action, because will power causes me not to act, allowing me to create a hierarchy of preferences prior to acting..

This is a distinction without a difference. The capacity to choose must include the act of choosing. How would I know if you had the capacity to eat? By eating, right? The capacity to do x is inferred from doing x. How else would I know you had the capacity to do x? — TheMadFool

Your request here is unreasonable. You are asking to demonstrate the existence of the capacity to act, with an act itself, when the act will only demonstrate an act, not the capacity to act. The determinist will cease this demonstration to say you acted therefore you are determined.

The capacity to act is a power, the potential to act, and is therefore a withholding of the act, like a seed which is some sort of alive thing withholding its power to act, until the environment is right. Any energy withheld within a material object is a capacity to act, and that's what E=MC2 signifies. Nuclear energy demonstrates that a physical object contains the capacity to act. In the case of "will", what we have not identified is the thing which withholds the action, creating the potential (capacity to act), such that it can be directed towards a preference. This is what is called the agent. But notice that the agent creates the capacity to act by withholding activity, will power, just like the seed does.

If a person does not resist buying scratch tickets when the three conditions you mentioned (awareness of options, connectedness, and willingness to participate) are present, then where is the will?

If a person does not resist buying scratch tickets when the three conditions you mentioned (awareness of options, connectedness, and willingness to participate) are present, then where is the will? — CeleRate

Focusing on resisting a particular action is not demonstrating awareness, connection or collaboration with the range of alternatives available. Remember that choice is about the act of choosing, the range of alternatives to choose from and the perceived capacity to choose a particular alternative. A will that is free is operating in all three areas with awareness, connection and collaboration.

This is also where self-examination and interoception is important: awareness is not just of the alternatives, but of how we connect personally to them in the moment. Why do I want to buy a scratch ticket right now? Why do I prefer this action now to the other options available? How does it make me feel, and why is this feeling so important to me now? Being honest, critical (without judgement) and deeply interoceptive with our answers (not excuses) will dispel the assumption that our personality consists of intrinsic wants and preferences we’re organically compelled to satisfy.

Focusing on resisting a particular action is not demonstrating awareness, connection or collaboration with the range of alternatives available. — Possibility

Is this a model you've come up with to explain free will?

Demonstrating awareness
Demonstrating connection
Demonstrating collaboration

Is this a model you've come up with to explain free will?

Demonstrating awareness
Demonstrating connection
Demonstrating collaboration — CeleRate

Not quite - I believe that the will is wholly a five-dimensional faculty, which determines and initiates all action according to ignorance/awareness, isolation/connection and exclusion/collaboration. But the freedom of the will is such that we can perceive our potential to determine each conceptual gate’s direction at the point of intention or motivation, express that intention as a demonstration (in potentiality) of each gate’s direction, and also evaluate the alternatives and their predicted outcomes - all prior to initiating the act of choosing.