Sam Harris.and his view on “Free Will”

~by Jeanniebean

I can understand how a person who is technically identified as an atheist (although he doesn’t like the term) would eventually wander onto the topic of "free will" and come to the wrong conclusion.

By his own explanation of causal influences, and how they determine all of our decisions, actions and beliefs, if he believes in his own conclusions, then he unveils his own personal journey to that conclusion, of which he appears to be fairly certain. He feels that the scientific community should (or must) eventually declare the illusion of "free will." He states that "The illusion of free will is as certain as evolution." Free will does not exist. It is an illusion, according to him.

(Wow from here I could write a 300 page book pondering on what is and is not an "illusion" but alas, that is not the topic.)

In his video on youtube about "free will" he was asked a question by a member of the audience of how he personally came to these conclusions about free will and his response was not very clear. I don’t think he even knows how he arrived at his conclusion, but then of course that fits right into his conclusion because he claims that we have no idea why we think and do the things we think and do.

I can't help but feel that he likes this idea because he can always claim he is not responsible for any of his thoughts, words, or actions at any time. This even supports his belief that he has no "free will" and he himself is a product of his genes and life influences. So if he changes his mind or is proven wrong in the future, he will take no responsibility for his past conclusions.

In other words, he is of the opinion that we don’t understand ourselves in the slightest and we are not to blame if we are unlucky enough to have been born with the soul of a psychopathic killer, if indeed there are such things as souls.

I was recently told by a friend on facebook that something I had stated was a "false certainty" and I learned that a" false certainty" is a statement that, (whether true or false,) could not be proven by evidence or a conclusion or statement that a person claims is true but cannot possibly know the answer to, at least by scientific or logical standards.

I suspect the term "false certainty" is a popular one to use on blindly religious people who have been known to insist they know God exists or some other "outlandish" statement. I wonder though, how often these scientists recognize their own false certainties and statements.

Sam Harris is full of false certainties, but the most prominent one, which was the topic of the video, is that the idea of "free will" is an illusion. But what else could he do? What other conclusion could he have possibly come up with given his previous influences and professed beliefs? Once you build your model of reality on a false premise, you are bound to keep building in that same direction even if part of your model is somewhat accurate and impressive.

Here are some of the things he believes, according to his video:

He believes in luck. (or in this case, bad luck)
He said, "One has to be very unlucky to have the mind and the brain of a psychopath."

I doubt if he believes in people having souls, but he adopts that premise temporarily for those who do believe in souls and states: "Anyone born with the soul of a psychopath is inherently unlucky."

So this implies that his hypothetical "soul" inherented its psychopathic state. I don't think he understands what a "soul" is or how heredity works in the spirit world. (it doesn't) (Of course he does not believe in the spirit world anyway so I'm not surprized he didn't give this much thought.)

He absolves people of any responsibility when he states:
"You are no more responsible for the next thing you think any more than you are for the fact that you were born into this world. You have not built your mind."

He suggests that (if we have souls) and if a person is gay, that their soul just happens to be gay. (That is utterly absurd) He said: (for effect I suppose) "Souls just happen to be gay."
(By the way, being gay or strait, is a physical or mental condition.)

He said: "You can’t honestly take credit for your unconscious mental life." (or be blamed for it either according to him.) (Has he ever heard of self hypnosis?)

Oh by the way, he claims that "self" is an illusion.

His model creates victims out of even psychopathic serial killers. (Its not their fault they have no "free will".)

He said: "You can’t step out of this stream of choices and efforts. We can’t choose what we choose in life."

Of course he covers himself by saying that he does not mean that our decisions are not very important, but he fails to elaborate on how that makes any difference if we are not to blame (or are not responsible) for them.

Other false certainties based on his premise..

"Nobody picks their parents or the society in which they were born.
Nobody picks their life influences,
Nobody can pick their genes. "

(All arguable if spirit exists and incarnation and reincarnation is true.)

By making these claims, (which are false certainties in my book,) he is claiming to KNOW that there is nothing more to a human being than the physical body and the brain and this implies that a human being is nothing more than some biological computer programed by genes and influences, and running on a bunch of micro processing neurons.

I don’t blame him for his conclusions or his ignorance, and he certainly isn’t ready to take any responsibility for that anyway at this moment, or apparently ever, for anything he says or does according to his conclusions. After all, he has no free will. He has no control of what he chooses to choose.

According to him, we are all victims of our genes and our life influences. Responsibility is meaningless. Oh but our choices are important.. even though we have no control over them.

And this is one of the guys who has been elevated to the top of the atheist’s movement as a best selling author and was introduced as one of the four horsemen of the "non-apocalypse" right up there with Dan Dennett.

What is most unbelievable is, the first time I watched Sam speak in a video I was very ammused. But this time, I just shook my head in disbelief about how far off from truth he has wandered. Especially when he states that "Self" is an illusion. I am sure his is talking about the ego or something, I don't really care to know what he thinks "self" is other than an illusion. A guru of logic and reason he is not.

From the Power of Will:

The Will is sometimes defined as the "faculty of conscious, and especially of deliberative action." Whether the word "conscious" is essential to the definition may be questioned. Some actions which are unconscious are, nevertheless, probably expressions of the Will; and some involuntary acts, are certainly conscious. All voluntary acts are deliberative, for deliberation may proceed "with the swiftness of lightning," as the saying goes, but both deliberation and its attendant actions are not always conscious. A better definition of the Will, therefore, is "THE POWER OF SELF DIRECTION.”


From Power of Will
By FRANK CHANNING HADDOCK, M.S., PH.D
1919 The Pelton Publishing Company
Meriden, Conn.

Does anyone care to join the discussion about free will?

Where have all the thinkers gone on Mingle?

yes I m here I m just reading your comments .

Because I subscribe to the idea that everyone has free will, I'm going to come clean and admit I did not read all of the OP because, about half way in, I became too bored to continue

For me, free will is "of the mind" and the only true (pure) free will I have ...Thinking is a choice...When Rand speaks on the subject, she talks about volitional consciousness....Reason is not a given, it does not "work" all by itself...In other words, the function of your mind is not automatic...The "choice" to think and the "degree" to which one chooses to think is that person's free will...What you do with it determines every aspect of your life and defines you as the person you are!...


http://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/free_will.html

The O.P. were my comments on Sam Harris's video on youtube. Here is the link to that video if anyone would like to watch it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pCofmZlC72g

I fear, I must go now.

You so misrepresented Sam Harris and his interpretation of neuroscience.
You so shamelessly concluded he believes in luck by twisting his sentence.
Sam Harris never claimed determinism of human behavior but surely attacked free will. I think anyone having scientific temper does not believe in free will.
Not having free will does not necessarily mean determinism.
Psychopaths are of course not responsible for their behaviour. That does not mean they should not be locked. Actually psychopaths are the least responsible for their behaviour having inability to feel emotions which is an effective mechanism in us to prevent us from committing horrible acts.
Though we are not free to choose and are not fully responsible for our behaviour, we still are conscious, sentient beings who understand what is right and what is wrong. We understand how other people might feel and may not want to harm other people out of empathy.
Out of free will or determinism, we do possess abilities to work for betterment of human condition and understanding that human behaviour is regulated by many biological factors is the first step towards it.
Saying that having no free will would make us irresponsible is similar to creationists saying believing in evolution will make us cruel and inhuman.
Now please don't say you are creationist too.

No, I didn't "so misrepresent Sam Harris." He obviously does believe in "luck" as he said: (or in this case, bad luck)

"One has to be very unlucky to have the mind and the brain of a psychopath."

News flash: Everyone is especially responsible for their conscious behavior, and even for their unconscious behavior on a deeper level.

Now, unless you want to claim that no one is conscious and that we are all simply robots following programming. If that were the case, then yes, no one is responsible for their behavior.

You can't have it both ways. We are either responsible for our behavior or we are all victims or programmed robot zombies.

The idea that we don't have a will of our own to use as conscious beings is ludicrous. It absolves EVERYONE of their behavior.



How? How do you think you understand right from wrong?

A computer or a robot can be programmed to appear to know, in most cases, of what is considered "right" and "wrong."

Even a psychopath who has no emotions eventually 'learns" (from others) what is right (acceptable) or wrong in society. BUT he does not KNOW it from the heart, he knows it from the mind because he has learned it like a trained animal learns to obey and do tricks for rewards, and gets punished for misbehavior.

Essentially a psychopath has no morals, he just follows the rules so he won't get caught, or he doesn't follow the rules thinking he won't get caught, in either case he does not know how to feel compassion and does not know right from wrong. He is just a trained and very intelligent animal.



I didn't think I said "having no free will would make us "irresponsible." I said that it would absolve us of all responsibility. -- and I believe we are TOTALLY RESPONSIBLE.

I said that Sam Harris, with his ridiculous claim, absolves people of any responsibility at any time, and makes them into victims with his claim that they had no choice, and "no free will."

Its absurd. Not to mention he is totally going down the wrong path. And he calls himself a scientist. pppsppsffft! Bull chit.

If the scientific community embraces this kind of thinking they are taking three steps backwards and de-evolving.

I think the reason atheist scientific types are going down this wrong road is because they have closed their minds to an alternative to the "God" theory or a different way to look at what kind of "creative design" is going on and has been going on since the beginning.

They make bad analogies like this which are absurd:



How in your wildest imagination would anyone actually believe that "believing in evolution will make us cruel and inhuman?"

(I don't actually know anyone who believes that, nor have I heard any creationist say that.)

If anything makes us "cruel and inhuman" it is the belief or claim that we have no will of our own and are not responsible for our actions. We are all just victims of our genes, influences, programming, environment etc.

That thinking is going in the opposite direction of truth. It's okay with me though. If scientists really learn the truth, they will use it to destroy life or this society, like they usually do.

I feel like I came in half way through a movie, haha.
Don't know anything about creationists, so I leave that bit be.

This, however, I feel should be seen differently:


We ARE the produce / result of all that. Which does NOT make us victims. That view (victims) in itself is not the right approach to this. A victim is someone who's suffering because of something that happened to him, or feels sorry for himself. Basically victim calls for emotion.
If you simply take the fact that we ARE the produce / outcome of our past, genes, influences, programming and so on, why does there have to be any emotion involved?
The thing is, we have free will and choice, so we can choose how we are going to deal with these facts and influences. If you want to make conscious decisions, you first have to become aware of these facts and influences and what they do to you.
Otherwise it's not a conscious decision but instinctive reactions.
So we can TAKE responsibility for our past, actions, influences, genes and so on. And anyone who is aware of these things, should and likely will take responsibility or stick their head in the sand and pretend it's not there. Which is also a choice!

In spite of all that, free choice is open to debate. Do we really have 100% free choice? Or are things destined to be and simply unavoidable? If that is the case, we could have limited free choice, for instance in how we get to that destiny.

I was laughing aloud while reading the concoctions of confusion emitting from God denying "guru".There is no end to speculations,illusions,delusions and frustrations of those who chose darkness rather than light."The fool has said in his heart,there is no God" A wishful thinking like "no free will" was conjured to suit and temporary calm a guilty soul who sub-conciously knows that God exists and must punish ungodliness when the inevitable which is death happens to him or her.Five minutes after death,"science" will give way to reality

If your views are different from other people's because of your religious conviction, can you at least have the decency to be polite and respectful and stop ridiculing and judging other people?

I know you to be a happy and humorous lady,wouldnt you like my laughing aloud and happiness? When has that become a ridiculing and judging of those that have different view from mine?

sad example you set for Christians!

CrystalFairy

I don't mean to make the claim that we have 100% "free choice." I do mean to claim that everything has the potential for using their own will.

What is the will? It is THE POWER OF SELF DIRECTION.

To claim that no one has the power of self direction is to claim that we are like robots or zombies. It is absurd. Just because we have that power, does that mean we always use it?

No. Sometimes we don't. We can be and are always influenced, even programmed.

How much we utilize our will depends on our consciousness. Our consciousness depends on our minds and how we process our perceptions by our awareness. Consciousness comes from the mind and is not the same thing as awareness, although I believe they are closely related and connected.

We are not the product of our genes, but our genes are part of the building blocks. Instinct is biological programming that automatically directs us but even that can be self directed by the will.

uche9aa

I don't blame you for laughing actually. It was more like a shaking of my head back and forth when I listened to the absurd hypothesis coming from Sam Harris, (who I have a lot of respect for as he is an intelligent and rational person.) But he is wrong.

I am more of a pantheist who believes that God exists as part of everything else, and I am part of that also.

I exist. There is my proof.

Not really. I was thinking that Sam Harris is setting a sad example for Atheists(and science and rational and logical thinking) in expressing his certainty. This is what they call "false certainty."

Sam Harris believes in Luck. He believes in miracles. He admits that he does not understand consciousness. He admits that he doesn't understand exactly what life is or how it emerged from what scientists define as "inanimate, non-living, non-conscious, non-directed, substance." (A miracle, if that is their claim.)

So, if he does not understand these things how can he claim that we have no free will? He has surrendered to circumstance and influence. He has absolved himself and everyone else of any responsibility for anything.

Then he states that our decisions are still "important." This does not make logical sense. If we are not responsible for our decisions or our actions, how can he state that they are still important? He has not thought any of this through.

So I'm thinking if anyone ever gives Sam Harris an award for his achievements, he should turn it down according to his beliefs.--> (He couldn't help himself and is not responsible for anything he does, thinks, or says.)

Please listen to the video and you will see what I am talking about.

I'd say he is as phony as any of his Opponent-Religionists!
He is the other Side of the Coin,like if he were a plant!