What does the construal of experience that has evolved in language, as modelled by SFL grammatics, tell us about people using language?
(1) Someone using language is modelled as a projection nexus in which symbolic processing projects the content plane of language into semiotic existence.
(2) The Medium of symbolic processing, the Symboliser, is construed as a symbol source (Sayer) in the case of saying (verbal processes), and as endowed with consciousness (Senser) in the case of sensing (cognitive and desiderative mental processes).
(3) The symbolic processing that projects the content plane of language into semiotic existence can be either self-engendered (middle) or other-engendered (effective).
(4) Symbolic processing projects wording (lexicogrammar) into semiotic existence, in the case of saying (verbal processes), and it projects meaning (semantics) into semiotic existence, in the case of sensing (cognitive and desiderative mental processes).
(5) The linguistic content that is projected into semiotic existence is organised as a system in which options are networked according to relations that are both logical (expansion: elaboration, extension and enhancement) and experiential (symbolic identity: realisation).
(6) The activation of specific options in the network of relations — during logogenesis (the creation of text) — is the process of instantiation.
(7) The question of which options will be instantiated in a given situation type is built into the system of potential as probabilities, varying as registers, established through previous experiences of logogenesis in the context of ontogenesis.
The notion of "free will" is another matter.
Honestly, I cannot understand what people mean when they talk about the freedom of the human will. I have a feeling, for instance, that I will something or other; but what relation this has with freedom I cannot understand at all. I feel that I will to light my pipe and I do it; but how can I connect this up with the idea of freedom? What is behind the act of willing to light the pipe? Another act of willing?Schopenhauer once said: Der Mensch kann was er will; er kann aber nicht wollen was er will (Man can do what he will but he cannot will what he wills).
― Albert Einstein
Free will is a delusion caused by our inability to analyse our own motives.
— Charles Darwin
