A new Sam Harris article on living without free will.

A new Sam Harris article on living without free will.

by | Sep 10, 2012 | Blog, Free Will

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 belief in God, human beings will cease to be good to one another.

And concludes:

Recognizing that my conscious mind is always downstream from the underlying causes of my thoughts, intentions, and actions does not change the fact that thoughts, intentions, and actions of all kinds are necessary for living a happy life—or an unhappy one, for that matter.

I haven’t been noticeably harmed, and I believe I have benefited, from knowing that the next thought that unfurls in my mind will arise and become effective (or not) due to conditions that I cannot know and did not bring into being. The negative effects that people worry about—a lack of motivation, a plunge into nihilism—are simply not evident in my life. And the positive effects have been obvious. Seeing through the illusion of free will has lessened my feelings of hatred for bad people. I’m still capable of feeling hatred, of course, but when I think about the actual causes of a person’s behavior, the feeling falls away. It is a relief to put down this burden, and I think nothing would be lost if we all put it down together. On the contrary, much would be gained. We could forget about retribution and concentrate entirely on mitigating harm. (And if punishing people proved important for either deterrence or rehabilitation, we could make prison as unpleasant as required.)

Krauss on free will.

by | Sep 9, 2012 | Blog

Lawrence Krauss  a Canadian-American theoretical physicist who is a professor of physics, Foundation Professor of the School of Earth and Space Exploration, and director of the Origins Project at Arizona State University. He is the author of several bestselling books, including The Physics of Star Trek and A Universe from Nothing. He is an advocate of scientific skepticism, science education, and the science of morality.

Here’s what he had to say about free will in a recent article in The Guardian:

“Moreover, that many moral convictions vary from society to society means that they are learned and, therefore, the province of psychology. Others are more universal and are, therefore, hard-wired – a matter of neurobiology. A retreat to moral judgment too often assumes some sort of illusionary belief in free will which I think is naive.”

It’s been my experience that when someone genuinely stops believing in free will, there are a plethora of emotional and psychological benefits that follow. The most fascinating thing, to me, about the belief in free will is that when you actually look at it, it’s so completely and obviously bullshit. Anyone who has meditated will know that even when you are trying not to think, thoughts still appear in your head willy-nilly. You can’t turn them off at whim. All of us, I’m sure, have had the experience of trying to get to sleep at night and not being able to “switch off”. If we had control of the thought process, surely this would be simple – yet we find it’s impossible.

So it should be obvious to us that we aren’t in control of our thoughts, and yet the majority of people continue to believe that they are – and that creates problems, myriad problems. So many emotional problems are connected to the idea of having free will. Guilt, anger and regret cannot exist without the idea of free will. Why wouldn’t we all want to live without guilt, anger and regret?

We can and it’s so simple, it’s ridiculous. All we need to do is pay attention to the fact that free will doesn’t exist and hey presto – those emotions disappear. They have to – they have no foundation left to build upon.