Free Will
Ratings57
Average rating3.7
From the New York Times bestselling author of The End of Faith, a thought-provoking, "brilliant and witty" (Oliver Sacks) look at the notion of free will—and the implications that it is an illusion.
A belief in free will touches nearly everything that human beings value. It is difficult to think about law, politics, religion, public policy, intimate relationships, morality—as well as feelings of remorse or personal achievement—without first imagining that every person is the true source of his or her thoughts and actions. And yet the facts tell us that free will is an illusion.
In this enlightening book, Sam Harris argues that this truth about the human mind does not undermine morality or diminish the importance of social and political freedom, but it can and should change the way we think about some of the most important questions in life.
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I listened to the audiobook version of this twice today and I think I'm going to buy the Kindle version so that I can highlight passages and make notes. Also, I think I need to go through and read this more carefully in order to better contemplate Harris's argument.
His objection to the claim of free will seems to be the combination of several premises:
1) We live in a causal universe.
2) Our bodies including our neural processes are all subject to causality as well.
3) It's not possible to consciously know and control all the biological factors that go into our decisions.
Therefore, what we subjectively experience as “free will” or acts of choice actually arise deterministically and are beyond our actual control.
I won't get into all the arguments and counter-arguments here. I also think it's important to remember that the burden of proof is actually on those who claim that free will exists. I don't like Harris's choice of definition of what free will is and what the requirements are, but I assume he came upon those honestly when he chose to present this counter-argument to the claim. I do wish, though, he had given more lengthy treatment to the compatibalist arguments on the topic.
This is an interesting read and there are a number of challenging and thought-provoking ideas in this book. Also, it's a very short read.
