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"If you believe in free will, or know someone who does, here is the perfect antidote. In this smart, engaging, and extremely readable little book, Sam Harris argues that free will doesn't exist, that we're better off knowing that it doesn't exist, and that--once we think about it in the right way--we can appreciate from our own experience that it doesn't exist. This is a delightful discussion by one of the sharpest scholars around."
--Paul Bloom, Professor of Psychology, Yale University, and author of "How Pleasure Works"
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The physiologist Benjamin Libet famously demonstrated that activity in the brain's motor regions can be detected some 300 milliseconds before a person feels that he has decided to move. Another lab recently used fMRI data to show that some "conscious" decisions can be predicted up to 10 seconds before they enter awareness (long before the preparatory motor activity detected by Libet). Clearly, findings of this kind are difficult to reconcile with the sense that one is the conscious source of one's actions. The question of free will is no mere curio of philosophy seminars. A belief in free will underwrites both the religious notion of "sin" and our enduring commitment to retributive justice. The Supreme Court has called free will a "universal and persistent" foundation for our system of law. Any scientific developments that threatened our notion of free will would seem to put the ethics of punishing people for their bad behaviour in question.In Free Will Harris debates these ideas and asks whether or not, given what brain science is telling us, we actually have free will?
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
An excellently written, clear, brief, concise essay on the problem of free will for all determined determinists out there. If you ponder consciousness at all and where free will arises from, if indeed we have any at all, this will pique your interest as it has certainly grabbed mine.
16 of 19 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Sam Harris, philosopher and neuroscientist, writes this treatise on Free Will from an incompatibilist view point. Most theologians and many philosophers today take the compatibilist approach, which is the view that determinism (we have no control over causal events) is compatible with the idea of free will. Harris makes out a forceful argument that this is not so. He believes that free will is an illusion. Citing the fact that "No human being is responsible for his genes or his upbringing, yet we have every reason to believe that these factors determine his character" to illustrate his point that we mistake conscious deliberations for free will. He asks, for example, if his decision to have a second cup of coffee was due to a random release of neurotransmitters, how could the indeterminacy of the initiating event count as an exercise of free will? If he drank a glass of water because he was thirsty, even though he was free to choose orange juice, it could hardly be an exercise of free will if the thought of an orange juice never crossed his mind. He goes further and suggests that even if we were to believe in a "soul" that dwells within us, we cannot be exercising free will - "if we have no idea what [our] soul is going to do next, [we] are not in control." Harris does not believe that determinism necessarily leads to fatalism and he explains so in pages 33-35. He also believes that belief in determinism "need not damage our system of criminal justice." (see pages 56-60). He concludes his book thus: "Now I feel that it is time for me to leave. I'm hungry, yes, but it also seems that I've made my point. In fact, I can't think of anything else to say on the subject. And where is the freedom in that?"
10 of 12 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
This is a stimulating read. Free will, Harris asserts, is illusory.
It is an undeniable truth that genetics, upbringing and our social and cultural environment impact on free will to a greater extent than we would like to think. Less convincing though, is the emphasis on mysterious processes by which thoughts just "pop up" into the conscious mind, "as though sprung from the void." In fact, the word "mysterious" pops up with surprising frequency.
While I agree that our free will is very limited for the reasons given, there seems to be some confusion concerning the relationship between the conscious and unconscious mind. "Thoughts and intentions simply arise in the mind," Harris comments, ecouraging us to believe that these are products of a mysterious independent agent acting solely in its own, incomprehensible interests, and over which we have no control. "...you might observe that you no more decide the next thought you think than the next thought I write."
Only up to a point. While it is true that thoughts and intentions do enter the conscious mind unbidden, it's surely a two-way street. Internal factors, genetics, personal circumstances and outside influences may all impinge upon our consciousness, but by the same token, there is no reason why our own consciousness cannot also feed into and influence activity in the subconscious brain.
The English composer Edward Elgar famously said, "There is music in the air, music all around us, the world is full of it and you simply take what you require." Yet I will never snatch a new symphony out of the air. The truth is, Elgar chose to spend his whole life immersed in the language of music. That choice profoundly influenced the emergent properties of his subconscious mind, resulting in the creation of his original sound world.
The synergy between the conscious and the unconscious mind may remain elusive. The range of choices available to us are circumscribed and much is beyond our control - but not all.
It is an undeniable truth that genetics, upbringing and our social and cultural environment impact on free will to a greater extent than we would like to think. Less convincing though, is the emphasis on mysterious processes by which thoughts just "pop up" into the conscious mind, "as though sprung from the void." In fact, the word "mysterious" pops up with surprising frequency.
While I agree that our free will is very limited for the reasons given, there seems to be some confusion concerning the relationship between the conscious and unconscious mind. "Thoughts and intentions simply arise in the mind," Harris comments, ecouraging us to believe that these are products of a mysterious independent agent acting solely in its own, incomprehensible interests, and over which we have no control. "...you might observe that you no more decide the next thought you think than the next thought I write."
Only up to a point. While it is true that thoughts and intentions do enter the conscious mind unbidden, it's surely a two-way street. Internal factors, genetics, personal circumstances and outside influences may all impinge upon our consciousness, but by the same token, there is no reason why our own consciousness cannot also feed into and influence activity in the subconscious brain.
The English composer Edward Elgar famously said, "There is music in the air, music all around us, the world is full of it and you simply take what you require." Yet I will never snatch a new symphony out of the air. The truth is, Elgar chose to spend his whole life immersed in the language of music. That choice profoundly influenced the emergent properties of his subconscious mind, resulting in the creation of his original sound world.
The synergy between the conscious and the unconscious mind may remain elusive. The range of choices available to us are circumscribed and much is beyond our control - but not all.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
Free Will by Sam Harris
A very clever and thought provoking explanation of how our brains pre-empt our conscious thoughts and actions. I recommend it highly.
Published 7 days ago by A. Oxford
great content. poorly put together book
Sam Harris is great and you should read all of his books. I was expecting a slightly longer book, this is more of a long essay. Read more
Published 19 days ago by phizzymizzy
Free Will
Very worth a read,not once but thrice to fully understand, confirms my opinion that we do not have free will whilst on the Earth Plane
Published 1 month ago by Welly
Brilliant
Succinct and enlightening, as ever with Dr Harris's works.
Prepare to have your whole worldview challenged as Harris takes you on an electrifying tour of your own... Read more
Prepare to have your whole worldview challenged as Harris takes you on an electrifying tour of your own... Read more
Published 2 months ago by EarlyStudent
we can make choices but can't choose the choices we make.
Once you `get' why there is no such thing as free will, it's hard to understand why other perfectly intelligent people cannot do so. Read more
Published 2 months ago by Barry
Celebrity Money Making Scheme?
£6.29 for a 30 minute read?
I might have bought this if it was a £1.94 Kindle edition like his Lying pamphlet, but all the reviews above have convinced me that it's... Read more
I might have bought this if it was a £1.94 Kindle edition like his Lying pamphlet, but all the reviews above have convinced me that it's... Read more
Published 2 months ago by MoQingbird
basic but has a point
For me, this book points in basic terms, the idea of free will being non existant and decisions based on various factors. Read more
Published 2 months ago by A customer
Missing the point
I must disappoint at least one reader: the free will issue is far too complex to be described in a 'crystal clear' way in just 80 pages. Read more
Published 2 months ago by Gerard P.
Diaphanous
Sam Harris' straightforward prose makes me feel like I'm looking through a crystal clear lake at the sediment of reason. Read more
Published 2 months ago by Mr Matt J Hanley
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