Posted inFree will

Believing in free will isolates us

Before I head off into other directions in my blog posts, I want to share some additional thoughts about free will, and the lack thereof -- a subject that has been a theme of mine recently. (And also non-recently, since I've written a lot about free will over the years.) The main reason I don't believe in free will is that there doesn't seem to be any good reason to believe in it. By and large I prefer truth over falsehood, reality over illusion. Especially when it comes to science. Movies, novels, and TV shows -- I'm fine with falsehoods…
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Posted inFree will

Another good reason to not believe in free will

I'm addicted. To many things. One of them is reading about why free will makes no sense. I ingest books and essays on this subject with delight. Until another one comes along. Then I eagerly imbibe it also. This morning I got my No Free Will fix courtesy of a chapter in Galen Strawson's book, Things That Bother Me: Death, Freedom, The Self, Etc. The chapter, "Luck Swallows Everything," started off in a familiar fashion. Strawson, a philosopher, picked apart the easily pickable argument that free will exists in the form of compatibilism, an incoherent argument that we humans have…
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Posted inFree will

Why not believing in free will is so wonderful

I've written a lot about free will on this blog. More accurately, my posts on this subject have been about the near certainty that we humans lack free will. At least, as it is normally considered to exist. Meaning, almost everybody who believes in free will considers that it means we're able to choose one thing instead of another without any causal influence affecting that choice. Tonight I pondered whether to have leftover spaghetti for dinner, or to make tempe with rice. I decided on the tempe and rice. I had some reasons for that decision. This means that my…
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Posted inFree will

Free will is the missing ingredient in self-improvement

I've almost finished reading Lisa Feldman Barrett's How Emotions Are Made: The Secret Life of the Brain, a book I've been writing about lately.  I have few criticisms of it. But after I read the "Emotion and the Law" chapter, I realized what was missing from Barrett's book: a discussion of free will. Meaning, the lack thereof. Most of that chapter made sense to me. I'll explain the part that didn't. This passage struck me as fine. The third type of responsibility relates to the content within your conceptual system, separately from how your brain uses that system to predict when breaking…
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Posted inFree will Science

A physicist demolishes the argument in favor of free will

Ian caused a tremendous amount of damage today. Countless cars were destroyed. Lots of homes and business were rendered unusable. Emergency 911 calls largely weren't responded to, because Ian created so much trouble over such a large area. If Ian was a person, he'd be charged with innumerable crimes. But Ian was a massive Category 4 hurricane that struck Florida today, so there won't be any jail time for the perpetrator of all that havoc. Watching cable news cover the hurricane, I was impressed (as I have been with previous hurricanes) with how accurately forecasters were able to predict the…
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Posted inAtheism Free will

Before you decide to do something, you’re already acting

I'm a big non-believer in free will. OK, more simply put, I don't believe in free will -- even though, like almost everybody, I feel like I have it. Today I listened to a guided meditation by Jeff Warren on my Calm iPhone app. It starts off this way.  There's a famous neurobiology finding where a test subject is told to push a meaningless button whenever they feel like it. And meanwhile, scientists are watching the subject's brain activity on an EEG machine. And here's the weird thing. A full six seconds before the person has the thought, I'm going…
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Posted inFree will Meaning of life

Free will is part of the human mind, not the universe

Free will as people almost always understand it is an illusion. There's little or no doubt about that, as I noted in a recent post.  Here's an idea that is well worth pondering. I've enjoyed doing just that as I go to sleep, letting my mind wrap itself around an intriguing notion. So far as we know, we humans are the only entity in the universe that doesn't exist in full accord with determinism -- causes and effects operating in a lawful, orderly manner. Oh, but what about randomness? Sure, randomness is real. Every programmer knows about random number generators.…
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Posted inFree will

Spooky free will is an illusion

Everybody believes they have unfettered free will, yet almost certainly nobody does. This is just one of the illusions that Anil Seth debunks in his captivating book, "Being You: A New Science of Consciousness." I'm fascinated by free will. Of course, I don't have a choice in this. Seth makes a strong case for being skeptical about our ability to choose actions, thoughts, emotions, and such by somehow stepping outside of all influences other than...  That's what's so difficult to come up with. What could possibly reside in human consciousness that produces the "free" part of free will?  If something…
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Posted inBuddhism Free will Reality

“Moon” movie points to shocking non-supernatural realization

A year or so ago I watched "Moon" via Netflix. I guess at this point I need to enter an obligatory spoiler alert, in case anyone hasn't seen this 2009 movie and thinks they might want to see it without knowing a crucial plot element. This was an intriguing movie, though not super-entertaining. The acting was good, but not exceptional. What I distinctly remember was a shocking twist. There Sam Bell (played by Sam Rockwell) is, at a base on the moon where a mining operation is taking place. He's looking forward to returning home after a three-year solitary tour…
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Posted inFree will

Great argument against free will

I've written a lot about free will over the years, arguing for good reason that it doesn't exist. (You can find those posts by searching my blogs for "free will" in the Google search box in the right sidebar.) Here's a great concise argument against free will in the form of a letter to the editor in a recent issue of New Scientist.  Published 9 June 2021 From Adrian Bowyer, Foxham, Wiltshire, UK A number of people quoted in the article on the hypothesis of quantum superdeterminism criticise it by saying it would make free will untenable (15 May, p…
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Posted inBooks Free will Science

“Unique” — fascinating book about the science of human individuality

I love science. So I love scientific books. Since I'm also fascinated by what makes us into the person that we are, David Linden's "Unique: The New Science of Human Individuality" hits the sweet spot for me of reading pleasure.  Linden is a professor of neuroscience at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and the Kavli Neuroscience Discovery Institute. Impressive credentials. Plus, Linden is an excellent writer with a sense of humor.  Here's some excerpts from the three-fourths of the book that I've read so far. These will give you a flavor of the fascinating facts that Linden shares…
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Posted inFree will Personal/Stories

We don’t know what we don’t know until it’s too late

My mind, like God, works in mysterious ways. Of course, the big difference between my mind and God is that I, along with my mind, actually can be shown to exist. At any rate, this morning I found myself thinking along this line. If you consider that this shows I'm questionably sane, I'd be the first to agree with you. I've made a lot of mistakes in my life. So have you, I'm confident. But from here on I'm going to use "I" to refer to myself as an example that applies to almost everybody. The problem is, those mistakes…
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Posted inFree will

Since there is no free will, “responsibility” needs to be redefined

Over on his Waking Up app, Sam Harris has posted a series of podcasts regarding the absence of free will -- a subject Harris has frequently written and talked about.  The titles provide a feel for Harris' subject matter. (1) Cause & Effect(2) Thoughts Without a Thinker(3) Choice, Reason, & Knowledge(4) Love & Hate(5) Crime & Punishment(6) The Paradox of Responsibility(7) Why Do Anything? Today I listened to the talk about responsibility. Harris made a lot of sense, as he always does. When we think about someone acting responsibly, such as by telling the truth, there's several assumptions underlying the…
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Posted inFree will

Brian Greene: “Behavior is fully governed by physical law”

I love the idea that free will is an illusion. Sure, for each of us it feels like we can freely choose what to do. But as I've observed numerous times before, it also feels like the earth stands still and the sun sets, which is another illusion. So if we want to know reality as it is, not as how we consider it to be, it's important to not overly trust our subjective perceptions, because that can lead us astray. I've continued to enjoy my reading of Brian Greene's new book, "Until the End of Time: Mind, Matter, and Our…
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Posted inBooks Free will

Thomas Nagel on why free will doesn’t exist

I'm really enjoying my decision to buy a used copy of Thomas Nagel's The View from Nowhere via Amazon. But after reading the "Freedom" chapter this morning, I'm convinced that I didn't freely choose to buy the book. It felt that way to me, though. Which doesn't mean a whole lot, truth-wise, because reality is what it is, not how we consider it to be. I've written a lot about free will on this blog. (You can find those posts by using the Google search box in the right sidebar.) I don't believe it exists. Neither do many neuroscientists and…
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Posted inFree will

Fated to become who we are, each of us is marvelously unique

I'm fascinated by the subject of free will. Or more accurately, the lack thereof.  As noted in countless (more or less) blog posts I've written about free will, the arguments in favor of determinism strike me as much stronger than a belief in some sort of magic free will fairy dust that, poof!, somehow makes it possible for us humans to transcend our genetics, experiences, culture, education, upbringing, and so much else that has caused us to become the person we are now. My latest foray into this subject is Hannah Critchlow's book, "The Science of Fate: Why Your Future…
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Posted inAwareness Books Consciousness

“On Having No Head” has a few simple truths

On Having No Head is a book by D.E. Harding. I'd bought and read it quite a few years ago. Then, when I needed to weed out unwanted books to make room for more, On Having No Head was given away.  Recently, though, I heard Sam Harris speak about the book in his Waking Up iPhone app, so I decided to re-buy and re-read it. Here's my review, which is of a second edition of the book that contains a "Bringing the story up to date" section that was written over forty years after Harding wrote the first edition. My…
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Posted inFree will

Let’s explore the subtleties of determinism

This comment interchange on a recent post begs for further discussion. Which I'll start off below after sharing a screenshot of the interchange. Taking JB's second comment first, I understand why he feels this way -- that this blog is the wrong place for discussing "these kinds of subtle, abstract notions." Despite the name of this blog, many commenters are fervent believers in some form of religion, and they aren't very open to talking about ideas that challenge the tenets of their religion. But I started this blog 14 years ago with the intent of fostering just the sort of…
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Posted inBooks Consciousness Free will

Modern science is more mystical than ancient mysticism

For many years, about 37, I was deeply attracted to mysticism. One of the reasons was that I loved how mystic teachings taught the self was an illusion and our sense of free will masked God's overarching control over all things, including human actions. But gradually I realized the downsides of mysticism. There was no demonstrable evidence that God or anything supernatural existed. And my love of science eventually led me to embrace reality, rather than religion -- of which mysticism is an offshoot. Now, though, I've come to a pleasing conclusion: modern science actually is more mystical than ancient…
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Posted inFree will

Free will is a religious delusion, not an atheist one

After writing a recent post about the illusion of free will, "Simple task shows why free will is an illusion," a comment on the post included this: Mind blown because I assumed atheists believed in free will too. Thought the whole notion of not having free will was part of a mystical “everything is karma” sort of ideology. Sam Harris, who thought up the simple task I described in the post, is both a noted atheist and a strong advocate for free will being an illusion. Or delusion. Harris published "The End of Faith" in 2005. In 2012 he published…
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