Today we continue our free will discussion, but start with the question: how does the election of Trump fit into free will? Then we talk a little about recent neuroscience studies into free will and finish with a discussion about free will, morality and justice. Want to subscribe to the series? You can find us […]
On our new podcast series, Ray and I will be making our way through my 2011 book “The Three Illusions” – a guide to using a basic understanding of science and some common sense to rid yourself of anger, guilt, anxiety, fear and emotional pain. In this episode, we begin a journey to investigate whether […]
Hawkeye Pierce gets it. In this interview with Robert Sapolsky from Stanford, they talk about the illusion of free will. This interview is pretty good too.
If you haven’t seen the American sitcom “It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia”, then you are missing out. It’s one of my favourite comedies of all time. Seriously funny and wrong. Of course YMMV. This morning over coffee, Chrissy and I were watching this collection of bloopers from the show, and it struck me that if […]
I just finished reading Daniel C Dennett’s latest book “Intuition Pumps And Other Tools For Thinking” and, while it’s overall an engaging book, his final section is just plain disappointing. In the final chapters, Dennett attempts to demonstrate some of his “intuition pumps” (tools for improving our thinking about difficult problems) by tackling three very hard […]
Ask most people if they have free will (defined here as “the ability to think and act outside of the laws of cause and effect”) and they will tell you that they do. Ask them to describe in detail how they create a thought and they cannot. After reflection, some will accept that thoughts appear […]
I’m currently reading Stephen Hawking’s most recent book (co-authored with Leonard Mlodinow) “The Grand Design” and was pleased to find the following paragraphs about free will. “Do people have free will? If we have free will, where in the evolutionary tree did it develop? Do blue-green algae or bacteria have free will, or is their […]
Sam Harris has posted a new article today called “Life Without Free Will“. He starts off: One of the most common objections to my position on free will is that accepting it could have terrible consequences, psychologically or socially. This is a strange rejoinder, analogous to what many religious people allege against atheism: Without a […]