Free Will [Deckle Edge]

Sam Harris makes a strong point in his book, which can basically be burned down to "We don't have free will because we don't know why we want chocolate vs vanilla ice cream on a particular day". And he stays on subject, hitting it from a sides before ending the book. However, its just a singular case he is making on a subject that has a lot of depth to it. At the end, I found myself very much wanting. There are so many directions to go from here. He is just touching on a subject which extends to the holographic universe concept. I would like to see this be a lot more fleshed out.

Other than that, its a good read. Sam has an iron grasp on the subject. I'd just like to hear more.

This is overall a very good book! Not very original for those who follow the scientific discoveries on the subject, but still a readable overview + an uncharacteristically encouraging message. Namely - so what if "we" are biological puppets?! The very fact that we are aware of this allows us to be more compassionate towards our humanity, maybe to build a more decent humanity!

... as if we had a CHOICE even in being compassionate...

Unlike the author, I sure hope that this is not The Definite Answer to the free will debate. But irrespective of whether it is or is not, there are 5 quotes I feel are worth sharing (or have felt worth sharing by the various causes beyond my control ... was it even me who felt ... ah, whatever, let this puppet who induces an illusion of me-ness press the keyboard buttons! ;)

1) "One fact now seems indisputable: Some moments before you are aware of what you will do next - a time in which you subjectively eappear to have complete freedom to behave however you please - your brain has already determined what you will do. You then become coscious of this "decision" and believe that you are in the process of making it."

2) "To say that they were free NOT to rape and murder is to say that they could have resisted the impulse to do so (or could have avoided feeling such an impulse altogether) - with the iniverse, including their brains, in precisely the same state it was in at the moment they committed their crimes. Assuming that violent criminals have such freedom, we reflexively bleame them for their actions."

3) "If you pay attention to your inner life, you will see that the emergence of choices, efforts, and intentions is fundamentally mysterious process. Yes, you can decide to go on a diet - and we know a lot about the variables that will enable you to stick to it - but you cannot know why you were finally able to adhere to this discipline when all your previous attempts failed. You might have a story to tell about why things were different this time around, but it would be nothing more than a post hoc description of events that you did not control."

4) "Anyone born with the soul of a psychopath has been profoundly unlucky"

5) "Despite our attachement to the notion of free will, most of us know that disorders of the brain can trump the best intentions of the mind. This shift in understanding represents progress toward a deeper, more consistent, and more compassionate view of our common humanity."

Harris has failed to keep up with the research in his own field: the Libet experiment interpretation purporting to eliminate free will has been multiply refuted. This sad little book is a pre-emptive, logically flawed, trivialization of the free will issue that mistakes the author's inability to find free will in a scientistic metaphysics for a proof that there is no free will. I wonder how many innocent victims have concluded that they are not free, creative, imaginative human beings based on this overconfidently dogmatic and yet demonstrably erroneous pronouncement on the issue.

Harris brilliantly captured the spirit of Determinism with many of its implications. In the same time he speaks briefly about what he perceives to be inadequate with Compatibilism and Libertarianism. It is a short book in which every word counts.

I bought this because I have recently watched a lot of Sam Harris' talks and debates, and while I thought he was sincere and smart, I didn't come away with a good sense of the foundation of his arguments. I eagerly anticipated reading a couple of his books to better understand his ideas.

I checked The Moral Landscape out of the library, and I bought Free Will (it was so new it was not yet available from the library). Both books were disappointing. I didn't even finish TML. Harris can't seem to clearly articulate his arguments. I eventually got tired of following him around in logical and moral circles, and picked up something else, though I still think his ideas are intriguing.

Free Will is essentially an expansion of one chapter of TML. It's short, with a lot of white space and big font. I did not check to be sure, but my sense is that a lot of the text was lifted directly from TML. Frankly, it feels like a rushed attempt to cash in on Harris' current notoriety as one of the "Four Horsemen". Harris also has an odd habit of laying out hypothetical scenarios of evil (say, wartime atrocities) with a disturbing level of detail that I find off-putting.

In a word: Unnecessary. There is not enough new material here to warrant another book.

Sam Harris, the author of The End of Faith, Letter to a Christian Nation, and the Moral Landscape, writes another thought provoking book about the illusion of free will. The idea of free will is an important part of our legal system and in this book, Sam Harris challenges that idea. I bought it because Sam Harris is one of my favorite authors and his books are never boring. I'm not sure that I like the idea that I don't have free will, that I'm not in control of myself. But Sam Harris makes the case in this book that free will is an illusion, that there is more going in our brains than we are aware of.
I would definitely recommended this book to anyone who is either a fan of Sam Harris or wants to read a book that will make them question one of the longest held beliefs in history, the belief of free will.

Sam as always challenges old assumptions with fresh vision. Whenever I finish one of his works I feel I have spent an hour at the gym. I am pure excitement with possibilities. Be careful, your world will end.

Sam's writing is always thought provoking, and he doesn't shy away from topics that have the potential to upset people or shake their world views to the core.

Most people have the subjective feeling that they're the author's of their own thoughts & behaviors. Whether it's a simple decision, such as choosing between soup or salad, or contemplating a life changing action (i.e., going back to school, pursuing a new career, etc.), it certainly feels as though we are free to go one way or the other.

Free will is not only deeply felt, but it is the basis for establishing morality, religious virtue, and is a fundamental part of the US justice system. As such, the idea that people are no more in charge of their thoughts and behaviors than they are for making red blood cells seems preposterous, offensive, and even dangerous. As Sam cogently & concisely argues, however, free will is an illusion.

While this truth might seem depressing, Sam reveals why the lack of free will is not nihilistic, and how it can enhance feelings of compassion while simultaneously reducing the urges for vengeance & retribution.

This book is a great read on a topic that has important, real world implications. I highly recommend it, though through no free will of my own ;)

Very well written and easy to understand. Sam Harris presents the problem of free will and demonstrates why we don't have free will with very sound arguments that aren't easy to refute. For anyone interested in the question of free will, this book is a must.

Sam Harris certainly seems to get the fact that free will is an illusion. His book "Free Will" is a good start for people new to the topic. There are much longer books refuting free will by explaining all the different prior causes which we had no choice in.

I agree with his assessment of compatibilism. It is nothing more than changing the definition of free will to something different that what has been understood for centuries.

There is nothing to fear from understanding we don't have a free will nor do we need to keep believing a lie to justify our attempts at removing dangerous criminals from society. The only thing worth fearing is the conscious intent to do harm.

This book is a small thin paperback with good quality paper and cover. It is very portable and is a most excellent "travel companion" item. As for the contents of the book, it seems like this author does not know how to write badly. I am hard-pressed to find a single sentence that is not fully focused on the subject in discussion and designed to move the discussion forward. He is always engaging and his ideas are complex, well expressed and provocative. He leaves no "paid by the number of words used" mental aftertaste. I strongly recommend this book.

If nothing else, reading this book ought to help build your own compassion for yourself and others. We got the cards we were dealt. We are unconscious of so much of who we are. We often don't know why we do what we do, so in essence we make stuff up to make sense of it all. Another important point: people become dangerous or destructive, we need to contain them, and perhaps see if there is any "fix" there. But retribution, blaming, and cruel and unusual punishments, and hating others can be exchanged for fearing what they are obviously capable of, and preventing them from harming more people.

Free Will/Won't ----- a different angle
Before language we lived in groups and members cooperated. When we learned more efficient cooperation it was due to improvements in communication of what the different organisms intended to do. It was done by by signs, sounds and, later, words. The intensions/decisions were formed in the (sub)conscious workings of that organism.
With time, we got better and better in communications and we even created a word for the 'announcement': 'I' ! But that did not mean that we added a function to our organism: an 'I' that suddenly could deliberate and decide about things!
Through 1000s of years we then used 'I' to give agency to decisions that were communicated and then we started to believe that what was communicated was really made by 'I', as we had little idea about how a decision came to.
We are still in that situation; most people have no idea about how an organism makes decisions....they just assume that 'I' did it.
And .... As 'I' did it...'I' have Free Will.
Voila!
But.....
My organism is still doing decisions in the same way as it has done for 1000s of years! Only better due to access to more information.
A big confusion was created when this witnessing and announcing function of my organism's deliberations and decisions was also supposed to have the powers to do them; i.e. when the announcement got the confusing ID: 'I' ? Or rather: Who is there to have Free Will? There is no one!
Without anybody to own the Free Will/Won't mechanism; it can not exist.
But my organism will continue to make decisions and announce them and many people will continue to believe that a Free Will decision has been announced.

I should have known before I purchased this that it would not meet the hype. The topic is intriguing and Sam Harris might not be on the side you think he is on. Trouble with Harris, that I already knew and chose to ignore, is that he has a lot of holes in his arguments that he covers with superiority and excess confidence - he dares you to disagree with him. I often like his larger argument yet find his supporting points to be weak - many of which he posits as if they are undoubtedly true when in fact there is a lot of room for debate. This is a fail and a failing in my view.

Makes a good reflexion about free will, however It is actually not explaining you what free will is, he is just taking sides. I think it still worth reading it. I am with him in some points but I wouldn't say that those points are true.. And it some times feels like he thinks he is right, rather than pointing an idea.

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?"

This concise read will be sure to get one thinking. With new research into neurology and the science of the brain, we are left to wonder if the concept of free will is nothing more than an illusion. Should people be held more of less accountable for their actions? Harris is sure to provoke the layman as much as the expert on this touchy subject.

Free Will provides an enticing introduction to the topic of free will. Sam Harris briefly covers what neuroscience currently understands about how we make choices - an understanding which remains far from sufficiently comprehensive. He then critiques how philosophers deal with this evidence in order to present Harris' own arguments for how we should handle our newfound, though still developing, understanding. Harris also laudably introduces us to arguments contra his own, and as always those presentations are fair to their advocates along with also providing a great set of footnotes for further research. Free Will makes for a fine extra-curricular first reading assignment for a college course on the topic.

However Mr. Harris' argument on how we should define free will given competing definitions is not convincing. Like Samuel Vicchrilli in his review of this same book, I found the compatibilist hypothesis more compelling, largely due to Harris' impressive footnoting and linking to competing source docs. I'm unimpressed with Mr. Harris' argument partly due to the lack of content to help this reader get my arms around a topic beyond my own intuitions, in spite of:
1) my not having any problem abandoning long-held conclusions when superior explanatory models are presented, and
2) Harris perfectly describing why most people initially reject the idea we have no free will - where that hesitance includes myself.

For neophytes like me on this topic, I'm glad I purchased this book. In fact I plan to re-read it given its brevity and my increasing interest in the topic, which was enhanced by reading Free Will. For those who criticize Mr. Harris lack of effort on this topic given the brevity of the book, I think they've got a point if they spent $10 on the paperback; however I'm happy with the value I received paying $3.99 for the Kindle for iPhone version.

The book provides a philosophical and introspective analysis of the possible definitions of "free will" and the theoretical backgrounds for its possible existence.
The book poses some interesting questions and provides a compelling argument that the boundaries of what we call "free will" and ownership of our actions are more or less arbitrary, which was definitely worth reading and thinking about.

On the other hand, there was no actual science involved (no particular insights from neuroscience/quantum physics/etc), which failed my expectations from a book written by a well-known scientist. Most of the philosophical arguments presented in the book one could develop oneself (as opposed to complex neuroscientific experiments).

After reading the synopsis and some of the reviews for this book I was not going to buy it. Then I decided to exercise my FREE WILL and bought it anyway just to prove I had free will. I’ve given the book a 3 star rating not because I believe in determinism (which I don’t) but because the author made about the best argument that can be made for determinism. Unfortunately (or fortunately for the rest of us) he is dead wrong. It’s too bad that many in our current society who offer excuses for everything that does not go well for them now have a highly educated man giving them yet another excuse.

In a nutshell he argues that “You can do what you decide to do — but you cannot decide what you will decide to do”. So no matter how strongly you believe you have free will to make a decision, he circles around and claims that the decision had already been made for you and the proof is that you made that decision! Incredible.

He states “You do whatever it is you do, and it is meaningless to assert that you could have done otherwise”. In what sense is it meaningless? Of course is meaningful. If the person who murders your daughter can excuse his act on the Harris basis that he did not have free will and is therefore not responsible for his act, it is anything but meaningless.

Harris shows here that psychological dualism does not make sense, and even that it contradicts felt experience. There is not an "I" separate from our body (which includes the brain where probably all our mental activity takes place). A lot of our mental processing occurs without our being aware of it!

Harris shows here that psychological dualism does not make sense, and even that it contradicts felt experience. There is not an "I" separate from our body (which includes the brain where probably all our mental activity takes place). A lot of our mental processing occurs without our being aware of it!

I enjoy, agree with and have read almost everything published by Sam Harris and highly recommend this book. I will confess that I did not like what I read as I was a 'believer' in the existence of free will. However, life is filled with opportunities to let go of so many sacred cows and the belief in the existence of free will has been added to the list now. Sam is so indescribably logical that he provokes deep thinking and that is why I continue to be a member of his audience. I highly recommend this book. He may not persuade you to change your mind. However, I guarantee that at the very least his words will be thought provoking.

An easy and quick to read exposition of Mr. Harris' view on this philosophical and scientific enigma. Easier perhaps because I already agree with him.

I find Dr. Dennet's writing far more difficult to read, perhaps for the same reason, but I would like to now return to the "Waking Up" podcast where he and Mr. Harris debate these concepts over drinks. Is there merit to compatible-ist thinking that I have yet to comprehend? Should I keep trying to find out, or is it as much like Religion as Mr. Harris says? I don't feel any need for a cushion against the harsh nature of reality.

Thank you, Mr. Harris, for making your work so accessible to us amateur philosophers out here. I will continue to follow and support you wherever I can.

Sam Harris very convincingly shows that we do not have free will. He mentions some scientific experiments that take some delusional efforts to be reconciled with this incoherent notion of free will. He makes the point that I think most people miss which is that your lack of free will is very apparent when you really start paying attention to yourself. The points Sam makes in this book are great consciousness raisers, which is expected given that we are completely oblivious to most of the forces driving us. If you go into this book thinking that because you can deliberate you have free will, well, that's why it's an illusion. Sam makes a great argument.

this short book adds little nuance over Sam's legally available talk on the subject available on youtube posted under the Skeptic Magazine account. I don't want to per-empt Sam's argument here other to state that it is intelligent, considered, and worth reading/watching/listening to, but it's hardly bulletproof from either a descriptive or normative perspective.

As has been pointed out, it's short work and shorter still if you get essentially the same information in the youtube video. Definitely worth watching as part of your journey of self-analysis.

In Free Will, the latest mini-book by Sam Harris (much like Lying), the author is mostly preaching to the converted. I suspect that fans of his previous books, The End of Faith and Letter to a Christian Nation, will already agree that the popular notion of free will "cannot be made conceptually coherent." I agree too, and Harris does a good (though brief) job of explaining why the "libertarian" notion of free will (as it is called in philosophical circles) doesn't stand up to much scrutiny.

The bigger surprise, however, is Harris' attack on compatibilism - the view that free will and determinism are compatible - which he likens to theology, saying that it "amounts to nothing more than an assertion to the following creed: A puppet is free as long as he loves his strings." I found this section a bit lacking and unfair. Though Harris does argue his point well, mainly contending that the compatibilist notion of free will is vastly different than the popular notion of free will.

After all, Harris certainly knows how to make a persuasive argument. He also does a great job of discussing how determinism plays into the judicial system and politics, as well as dispelling concerns about fatalism. However, at only 66 pages, it would have been nice if he'd expanded a bit more in general. But still, it was still an overall interesting book, and well worth the small investment of time.

Short and to the point, Harris makes a good argument for his opinion of free will.
I won't spoil the side he takes, but the discussion of the mind's ability to think random thoughts that can influence our behavior and resultant thoughts is worth looking at.
Are we truly free in our will or are we victim to the randomness of what ideas may pop up at any instant in our daily life?
This is the kind of question Harris deals with in this small but worth-reading book.