Attention is an interface, so free-will versus determinism debates about it are pointless.

Evidence

We should, however, take note of a fifth level, which accounts for the repositioning of the study of attention in ecological terms. Indeed, we risk getting caught up in pointless debates about ‘liberty’ or ‘determinism’ when we hope to define precisely the extent to which a reflection I carry out on my attention comes from my own free will or responds to an external stimulus. It is precisely the relationship between the two that constitutes my identity as it is destined to continue evolving as long as I am alive. As we have seen, attention should be thought of as an interface: it is what links a subject to the object it has selected in something external to it. So, it is irrelevant to wonder if it should be situated on one side rather than the other. — Yves Citton, The Ecology of Attention, 497

Categorization

• XREF: Parallel to mediatization theory’s relational view of self-environment as coconstituted rather than causally separable. — connects to: Free-will debates misfire because both sides miss how motives acquire their status

Broader Connections

• Free-will debates misfire because both sides miss how motives acquire their status #corroborates (0.75)