*Distance.* There must be distance between the willing and what is obtained by willing. The obtained state is not yet actual; possible lines toward it must be distinguishable; and a persisting medium must carry the transition from present condition to obtained condition. Where willing and obtaining are identical, will disappears into identity. Where they differ, the structure of the difference is already in play.

*The three modal axes.* The distance just identified decomposes into three conditions that map onto Time, Space, and Substance (T, S, Φ — the three roles derived through Modal Identity and Conditions-as-Nature, §[§2.6](<2.6 Triconditionality of Nature.md>)–2.7). *Time* supplies the not-yet: a state not yet actual, so that what is willed differs from what is. *Space* supplies the distinction among lines: more than one path from present to obtained, so that selecting one displaces the others. *Substance* supplies continuity: something holds together across the transition, so that the agent who acts and the agent who obtains the result are the same agent. Strip any of the three away and willing collapses. A timeless agent has no not-yet to will toward. An agent without distinct lines has nothing to select among. An agent without persistence cannot be the same one at the moment of willing and at the moment of obtaining. T, S, and Φ are not philosophical categories grafted onto agency from outside; they are what willing consists in.

*Modal depth.* The bare three-axis distance is necessary but not sufficient for what the literature has called *free* will. Free will is the depth of the distance — not libertarian exemption from structure but modal depth within structure: the expanded capacity to hold alternatives open, model their consequences, inhibit immediate response, and revise the map. Whether the agent can then enact the line it selects — participate in which possibility becomes actual — is a further condition, *latitude*, external to depth rather than part of it ([§8.9.5](<8.9.5 What is Concluded.md>)). At shallow depth, life is responsive. A bacterium follows a nutrient gradient or avoids a toxin; that is directed responsiveness, not free will in the relevant sense. At greater depth, response becomes mapped line. At still greater depth, mapped lines can be held open before action. The more alternatives an agent can hold, compare, and revise before one path runs, the freer the will becomes. A bigger mind, in the sense relevant here, is a modal-mapping system with greater depth, broader integration across modules, more capacity to inhibit immediate response, and longer reach into both modeled futures and accumulated pasts — not a brain with more storage.

*Asymmetric freedom.* The depth of will is asymmetric across the present moment. The forward side of will is the field of possible futures ahead: what can be done, what can be avoided, what can be obtained, what may follow. The back side of will is the accumulated modal network behind: memory, experience, learned consequence, social pattern, emotional calibration, bodily habit, and prior encounter. A person's freedom depends on both. Two agents may face the same external option while not possessing the same freedom toward it, because they do not bring the same modal map to the choice. The structural requirement is therefore not just that a modal field be present at the moment of willing but that the agent bring sufficient accumulated depth to register what the field affords.

*Two kinds of registered constraint.* A modal-mapping system deep enough to support will must register constraint of two kinds. Some constraint distinguishes possibilities from one another — the wall is not the doorway, the closed door is not the open one, the past is not the future, this object is not that one. Some constraint settles which possibility becomes actual — the line taken excludes the line not taken, the door once opened cannot also be left closed in the same moment, the chosen action displaces its alternatives. Both are required: the structure that keeps possibilities distinct, and the structure under which one possibility comes to occupy the place the others could have.

*Placement in the cascade.* These conditions explain why will belongs after meaning in the cascade. Drive supplies direction ([§8.1](<8.1 Drive.md>)). Feeling supplies valence ([§8.2](<8.2 Feeling.md>)). Knowledge stabilizes the map ([§8.3](<8.3 Knowledge.md>)). Reasoning navigates alternatives ([§8.4](<8.4 Reasoning.md>)). Meaning weights the map as worth pursuing or avoiding ([§8.8](<8.8 Meaning.md>)). Will acts through it. A choice is only as free as the modal network through which the agent understands it — and the network is what the prior registers have built. The willing subject is not outside causation but is the point at which causation has been internally mapped deeply enough for it to participate in which possible line becomes actual.

The framework models willing through temporal, spatial, and persistent dimensions of action, and models freer action through a capacity to represent alternatives, consequences, and prior learning. This is a philosophical account of agency, not an established result that free will requires the book's specific modal-depth architecture. Other accounts of agency, responsibility, and consent remain live.


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← [8.9.1 What is Disputed](<8.9.1 What is Disputed.md>) | [8.9.3 What is Predicted](<8.9.3 What is Predicted.md>) →
