Free Will by Sam Harris

• If I had truly been in Komisarjevsky’s shoes on July 23, 2007—that is, if I had his genes and life experience and an identical brain (or soul) in an identical state—I would have acted exactly as he did. There is simply no intellectually respectable position from which to deny this. The role of luck, therefore, appears decisive.
• Understanding the neurophysiology of the brain, therefore, would seem to be as exculpatory as finding a tumor in it.
• Thoughts and intentions emerge from background causes of which we are unaware and over which we exert no conscious control. We do not have the freedom we think we have.
• A moment or two of serious self-scrutiny, and you might observe that you no more decide the next thought you think than the next thought I write.
• The Unconscious Origins of the Will
• By merely glancing at your face or listening to your tone of voice, others are often more aware of your state of mind and motivations than you are.
• Did I consciously choose coffee over tea? No. The choice was made for me by events in my brain that I, as the conscious witness of my thoughts and actions, could not inspect or influence.
• The intention to do one thing and not another does not originate in consciousness—rather, it appears in consciousness, as does any thought or impulse that might oppose it.
• More recently, direct recordings from the cortex showed that the activity of merely 256 neurons was sufficient to predict with 80 percent accuracy a person’s decision to move 700 milliseconds before he became aware of it.4
• If the laws of nature do not strike most of us as incompatible with free will, that is because we have not imagined how human behavior would appear if all cause-and-effect relationships were understood.
• We do not know what we intend to do until the intention itself arises. To understand this is to realize that we are not the authors of our thoughts and actions in the way that people generally suppose.
• Changing the Subject
• Unconscious neural events determine our thoughts and actions—and are themselves determined by prior causes of which we are subjectively unaware. However, the “free will” that compatibilists defend is not the free will that most people feel they have.
• My mental life is simply given to me by the cosmos. Why didn’t I decide to drink a glass of juice? The thought never occurred to me. Am I free to do that which does not occur to me to do? Of course not.
• Compatibilism amounts to nothing more than an assertion of the following creed: A puppet is free as long as he loves his strings.
• Are you producing red blood cells and digestive enzymes at this moment? Your body is doing these things, of course, but if it “decided” to do otherwise, you would be the victim of these changes, rather than their cause.
• Quantum effects are unlikely to be biologically salient in any case. They play a role in evolution because cosmic rays and other high-energy particles cause point mutations in DNA (and the behavior of such particles passing through the nucleus of a cell is governed by the laws of quantum mechanics). Evolution, therefore, seems unpredictable in principle.13
• Choices, Efforts, Intentions
• You are not in control of your mind—because you, as a conscious agent, are only part of your mind, living at the mercy of other parts.15
• You can do what you decide to do—but you cannot decide what you will decide to do. Of course, you can create a framework in which certain decisions are more likely than others—you can, for instance, purge your house of all sweets, making it very unlikely that you will eat dessert later in the evening—but you cannot know why you were able to submit to such a framework today when you weren’t yesterday.
• Choices, efforts, intentions, and reasoning influence our behavior—but they are themselves part of a chain of causes that precede conscious awareness and over which we exert no ultimate control.
• It simply suggests that different ways of thinking have different consequences. Some thoughts are depressing and disempowering; others inspire us. We can pursue any line of thought we want—but our choice is the product of prior events that we did not bring into being.
• You did not pick your parents or the time and place of your birth. You didn’t choose your gender or most of your life experiences. You had no control whatsoever over your genome or the development of your brain. And now your brain is making choices on the basis of preferences and beliefs that have been hammered into it over a lifetime—by your genes, your physical development since the moment you were conceived, and the interactions you have had with other people, events, and ideas. Where is the freedom in this? Yes, you are free to do what you want even now. But where did your desires come from?
• Might the Truth Be Bad for Us?
• Becoming sensitive to the background causes of one’s thoughts and feelings can—paradoxically—allow for greater creative control over one’s life. It is one thing to bicker with your wife because you are in a bad mood; it is another to realize that your mood and behavior have been caused by low blood sugar. This understanding reveals you to be a biochemical puppet, of course, but it also allows you to grab hold of one of your strings: A bite of food may be all that your personality requires. Getting behind our conscious thoughts and feelings can allow us to steer a more intelligent course through our lives (while knowing, of course, that we are ultimately being steered).
• Moral Responsibility
• Why did I order beer instead of wine? Because I prefer beer. Why do I prefer it? I don’t know, but I generally have no need to ask. Knowing that I like beer more than wine is all I need to know to function in a restaurant. Whatever the reason, I prefer one taste to the other. Is there freedom in this? None whatsoever. Would I magically reclaim my freedom if I decided to spite my preference and order wine instead? No, because the roots of this intention would be as obscure as the preference itself.
• Politics
• And it is wise to hold people responsible for their actions when doing so influences their behavior and brings benefit to society. But this does not mean that we must be taken in by the illusion of free will.
• Where people can change, we can demand that they do so. Where change is impossible, or unresponsive to demands, we can chart some other course.
• Notes
• We now know that at least two systems in the brain—often referred to as “dual processes”—govern human cognition, emotion, and behavior. One is evolutionarily older, unconscious, slow to learn, and quick to respond; the other evolved more recently and is conscious, quick to learn, and slow to respond.
• People can be primed in a wide variety of ways, and these unconscious influences reliably alter their goals and subsequent behavior (H. Aarts, R. Custers, & H. Marien, 2008. Preparing and motivating behavior outside of awareness. Science 319[5780]: 1639; R. Custers & H. Aarts, 2010. The unconscious will: How the pursuit of goals operates outside of conscious awareness. Science 329 [5987]: 47–50).
• For a good survey of compatibilist thought, see http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/compatibilism/.
• Silver, 2006. Challenging nature: The clash of science and spirituality at the new frontiers of life. New York: Ecco, p. 50.
• http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/11/13/is-neuroscience-the-death-of-free-will/. 19. K. D. Vohs & J. W. Schooler,
• 1. Something done so as to accomplish a purpose.
• 1. A way of motion or functioning.
• 1. A fast-paced activity.Notebook Export
• Free Will
• Harris, Sam
• Contents
• If I had truly been in Komisarjevsky’s shoes on July 23, 2007—that is, if I had his genes and life experience and an identical brain (or soul) in an identical state—I would have acted exactly as he did. There is simply no intellectually respectable position from which to deny this. The role of luck, therefore, appears decisive.
• Understanding the neurophysiology of the brain, therefore, would seem to be as exculpatory as finding a tumor in it.
• Thoughts and intentions emerge from background causes of which we are unaware and over which we exert no conscious control. We do not have the freedom we think we have.
• A moment or two of serious self-scrutiny, and you might observe that you no more decide the next thought you think than the next thought I write.
• The Unconscious Origins of the Will
• By merely glancing at your face or listening to your tone of voice, others are often more aware of your state of mind and motivations than you are.
• Did I consciously choose coffee over tea? No. The choice was made for me by events in my brain that I, as the conscious witness of my thoughts and actions, could not inspect or influence.
• The intention to do one thing and not another does not originate in consciousness—rather, it appears in consciousness, as does any thought or impulse that might oppose it.
• More recently, direct recordings from the cortex showed that the activity of merely 256 neurons was sufficient to predict with 80 percent accuracy a person’s decision to move 700 milliseconds before he became aware of it.4
• If the laws of nature do not strike most of us as incompatible with free will, that is because we have not imagined how human behavior would appear if all cause-and-effect relationships were understood.
• We do not know what we intend to do until the intention itself arises. To understand this is to realize that we are not the authors of our thoughts and actions in the way that people generally suppose.
• Changing the Subject
• Unconscious neural events determine our thoughts and actions—and are themselves determined by prior causes of which we are subjectively unaware. However, the “free will” that compatibilists defend is not the free will that most people feel they have.
• My mental life is simply given to me by the cosmos. Why didn’t I decide to drink a glass of juice? The thought never occurred to me. Am I free to do that which does not occur to me to do? Of course not.
• Compatibilism amounts to nothing more than an assertion of the following creed: A puppet is free as long as he loves his strings.
• Are you producing red blood cells and digestive enzymes at this moment? Your body is doing these things, of course, but if it “decided” to do otherwise, you would be the victim of these changes, rather than their cause.
• Cause and Effect
• Quantum effects are unlikely to be biologically salient in any case. They play a role in evolution because cosmic rays and other high-energy particles cause point mutations in DNA (and the behavior of such particles passing through the nucleus of a cell is governed by the laws of quantum mechanics). Evolution, therefore, seems unpredictable in principle.13
• Choices, Efforts, Intentions
• You are not in control of your mind—because you, as a conscious agent, are only part of your mind, living at the mercy of other parts.15
• You can do what you decide to do—but you cannot decide what you will decide to do. Of course, you can create a framework in which certain decisions are more likely than others—you can, for instance, purge your house of all sweets, making it very unlikely that you will eat dessert later in the evening—but you cannot know why you were able to submit to such a framework today when you weren’t yesterday.
• Choices, efforts, intentions, and reasoning influence our behavior—but they are themselves part of a chain of causes that precede conscious awareness and over which we exert no ultimate control.
• It simply suggests that different ways of thinking have different consequences. Some thoughts are depressing and disempowering; others inspire us. We can pursue any line of thought we want—but our choice is the product of prior events that we did not bring into being.
• You did not pick your parents or the time and place of your birth. You didn’t choose your gender or most of your life experiences. You had no control whatsoever over your genome or the development of your brain. And now your brain is making choices on the basis of preferences and beliefs that have been hammered into it over a lifetime—by your genes, your physical development since the moment you were conceived, and the interactions you have had with other people, events, and ideas. Where is the freedom in this? Yes, you are free to do what you want even now. But where did your desires come from?
• Might the Truth Be Bad for Us?
• Becoming sensitive to the background causes of one’s thoughts and feelings can—paradoxically—allow for greater creative control over one’s life. It is one thing to bicker with your wife because you are in a bad mood; it is another to realize that your mood and behavior have been caused by low blood sugar. This understanding reveals you to be a biochemical puppet, of course, but it also allows you to grab hold of one of your strings: A bite of food may be all that your personality requires. Getting behind our conscious thoughts and feelings can allow us to steer a more intelligent course through our lives (while knowing, of course, that we are ultimately being steered).
• Moral Responsibility
• Why did I order beer instead of wine? Because I prefer beer. Why do I prefer it? I don’t know, but I generally have no need to ask. Knowing that I like beer more than wine is all I need to know to function in a restaurant. Whatever the reason, I prefer one taste to the other. Is there freedom in this? None whatsoever. Would I magically reclaim my freedom if I decided to spite my preference and order wine instead? No, because the roots of this intention would be as obscure as the preference itself.
• Politics
• And it is wise to hold people responsible for their actions when doing so influences their behavior and brings benefit to society. But this does not mean that we must be taken in by the illusion of free will.
• Where people can change, we can demand that they do so. Where change is impossible, or unresponsive to demands, we can chart some other course.
• Notes
• We now know that at least two systems in the brain—often referred to as “dual processes”—govern human cognition, emotion, and behavior. One is evolutionarily older, unconscious, slow to learn, and quick to respond; the other evolved more recently and is conscious, quick to learn, and slow to respond.
• People can be primed in a wide variety of ways, and these unconscious influences reliably alter their goals and subsequent behavior (H. Aarts, R. Custers, & H. Marien, 2008. Preparing and motivating behavior outside of awareness. Science 319[5780]: 1639; R. Custers & H. Aarts, 2010. The unconscious will: How the pursuit of goals operates outside of conscious awareness. Science 329 [5987]: 47–50).
• For a good survey of compatibilist thought, see http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/compatibilism/.
• Silver, 2006. Challenging nature: The clash of science and spirituality at the new frontiers of life. New York: Ecco, p. 50.
• http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/11/13/is-neuroscience-the-death-of-free-will/. 19. K. D. Vohs & J. W. Schooler