Sam Harris on Free Will
Great video!
Why We Don’t Have Free Will
USA Today has this excellent article by Jerry Coyne, Professor of Evolution at the University of Chicago. Prof. Coyne’s explanation mirrors my own, however he is much more elegant. His conclusion: There’s not much downside to abandoning the notion of free will. It’s impossible, anyway, to act as though we don’t have it: you’ll pretend […]
A Brain Cell vs the Universe
Compare the picture of a brain cell on the left with the computer model of the current universe on the right. What does it tell us? Nothing really, except that the same patterns can be found across the universe. It’s a nice picture though. 🙂 H/T to Bill Schloendorn.
“Free Will Is An Illusion” Says Sam Harris
Just in case you didn’t believe me, neuroscientist and author Sam Harris has written an excellent piece on free will in the Christmas edition of New Statesmen magazine (which has been edited by Richard Dawkins). Here’s a screenshot of my iPad copy. It’s worth purchasing the app so you can read the whole thing, it’s […]
Thanks!
Thanks to everyone who purchased the book on launch day and especially to those of you who Tweeted or Facebooked it. There’s been some lovely feedback. If you get a chance, please drop a quick review on the Amazon page. It looks a bit barren up there at the moment. I’m thinking about doing an […]
Doubting Free Will: The Argument from Celebrity-Authority
Here’s a great list of quotes about free will via Bill Schloendorn. While they are all great, this one is my favourite: Charles Darwin: “…one doubts existence of free will [because] every action determined by heredity, constitution, example of others or teaching of others.” “This view should teach one profound humility, one deserves no credit […]
Do We Really Have Free Will?
A big shout out to Suzen JueL (@juel) for sharing this video with me this morning. Whether or not we have free will – and what it means if we don’t – is one of the “three illusions” I talk about in the book. This video is an excellent introduction. http://embed.5min.com/351686/ Do We Really Have […]
Day One.
Well the book is finally up on Amazon! I’ve been working on it periodically over the last six months and it’s good to have it out there. It’s obviously a small book – I wrote the majority of it in a couple of weeks – but I hope it’s enough to act as a pointer […]