I’m not sure I understand every statement in the first post, but I would not say wanting comes from nothing.
No, wanting could comes from nothing if we have free will. You can choose X or Y. Where your choice come from? Nowhere. On top of that I think we can make a choice which has
content.
We don’t want food until we’re hungry, or warmth unless we’re cold. Wanting is, in a sense, caused. We want when some object (hunger, coldness, a particular sensation, a question to which we don’t know an answer…) presents itself to us.
Lets call all sort of wanting which is caused as needing. So we have needing which is caused and we have wanting which is self-caused, when it comes to a free choice, if there is any.
It’s the intellect and will that allow voluntary response to such things, the intellect comprehending and the will directing.
Yes, that is the problem, the will, which is self-caused therefore its outcome comes from nowhere. It is the person who makes the decision and that cannot be caused by something else. The question is how such a thing is possible? How one can make/create a choice which even has
content, example: I want it this way or that way. There are two scenarios available here: The
content comes from needing or we even create the
content.
So there are two things involved in everytime we make a free decision: (1) We choose the option, which is not caused by anything else therefore it is self-caused therefore it comes from nowhere and (2) We even create the content for what we want which this is not caused by anything else therefore it is self-caused therefore it comes from nowhere.
You could of course say that the content comes from needing therefore it is caused but that questions freedom in choosing.
In simple word, we are either creative in choosing or not, free agent or machine.
