Free Will

[Mr. Blonde]

I finished Sam Harris's new book Free Will last night and found it extremely interesting. I've talked to UB about it a bit -- it's only about 75 pages long, so I highly recommend the read.

The premise that Sam puts forward is that free will is indeed an illusion. This may not be a surprise to the more philosophical types, but the book has had quite a profound effect on me.

The evidence he presents for this position is more than I can write out here, but the basics are:

- By monitoring neurological activity we can see that the brain and body have already decided on a decision before our conscious self can say that we have "chosen" -- thus we are at the mercy of our bodies.

- All of the choices and decisions that we make (and he cites Determinism heavily in this section) are merely the product of genetics, environment, parents, situations we find ourselves in, and luck -- none of which we have any conscious control or "free will" at all in determining. We HAD to make a certain choice because, given past experiences and genetic makeup, there was no alternative. We can only say there might have been in hindsight.

- "Free will" or what we perceive as our freedom to make decisions is nothing more than a "feeling" -- we can't say why we actually chose one thing over another, and if we choose a Coke, and then intentionally change our mind to get a Sprite to spite the apparent lack of free will, we can't explain why we chose Sprite either. It just popped into our mind for no reason -- and where is the freedom in that? We can't possibly be aware of the myriad factors that affect any given decision, no matter how trivial -- so we can't accurately say that we made a fully involved "choice" on the matter. It just happens.

- This obviously has far reaching consequences for our legal system --- how much is one to blame for a crime they commit given their past experiences? If a tumor in a murderer's brain (which he had no choice over) mitigates his guilt, don't the past experiences (genetics, bad parents, bad environment, bad schools which someone had no choice over) of a murderer sans-tumor mitigate their guilt as well? How culpable is someone whose random experiences led them to act a certain way?


Here is an excerpt from the book I wrote out that I found particularly interesting:

"For better or worse, dispelling the illusion of free will has political implications---because liberals and conservatives are not equally in thrall to it. Liberals tend to understand that a person can be lucky or unlucky in all matters relevant to his success. Conservatives, however, often make a religious fetish of individualism. Many seem to have absolutely no awareness of how fortunate one must be to succeed at anything in life, no matter how hard one works. One must be lucky to be *able to work*. One must be lucky to be intelligent, physically healthy, and not bankrupted in middle age by the illness of a spouse.

Consider the biography of any "self made" man, and you will find that his success was entirely dependent on background conditions that he did not make and of which he was merely the beneficiary. There is not a person on earth who chose his genome, or the country of birth, or the political and economic conditions that prevailed at moments crucial to his progress. And yet, living in America, one gets the distinct sense that if certain conservatives were asked why they werent' born with club feet or orphaned before the age of five, they would not hesitate to take credit for these accomplishments.

Even if you have struggled to make the most of what nature gave you, you must still admit that your ability and inclination to struggle is part of your inheritance. How much credit does a person deserve for not being lazy? None at all. Laziness, like diligence, is a neurological condition. Of course, Conservatives are right to think that we must encourage people to work to the best of their abilities and discourage free riders whenever we can. And it is wise to hold people responsible for their actions when doing so influences their behavior and brings benefit to society. But this does not mean that we must be taken by the illusion of free will. We need only acknowledge that efforts matter and that people can change. We do not change ourselves, precisely -- because we have only ourselves with which to do the changing,---but we continually influence, and are influenced by, the world around us and the world within us. It may seem paradoxical to hold people responsible for what happens in their corner of the universe, but once we break the spell of free will, we can do this precisely to the degree that it is useful. Where people can change, we can demand that they do so. Where change is impossible, or unresponsive to demands, we can chart some other course. In improving ourselves and society, we are working directly with the forces of nature, for there is nothing but nature to work with."

Anyways, i'm curious what your guys' thoughts are on the matter. It seems we are pretty much just puppets.