快猫短视频

FOR such a big topic this is an awfully short book. But don鈥檛 blame neuroscientist Sam Harris for being brief. He had no choice.

In a brisk 66 pages Harris explains why we don鈥檛 have free will, points out why that doesn鈥檛 matter as much as it might appear to 鈥� and then simply stops in order to hammer home his point.

Free will touches everything we value 鈥� law, politics, relationships, morality and more. And yet it is an illusion. We either live in a deterministic universe where the future is set, or an indeterminate one where thoughts and actions happen at random. Neither is compatible with free will.

鈥淲e either live in a universe where the future is set, or one where thoughts and actions happen at random鈥�

Having laid this out, Harris tries to salvage something from the wreckage. In the process he ends up rowing back to a position not unlike the 鈥渃ompatibilists鈥� who argue that free will can be reconciled with the laws of physics, a notion he has earlier attacked.

Harris starts his rescue mission by pointing out that, even in the absence of free will, there is still a distinction between voluntary action and mere accidents. Imagine, he says, that while he is writing his book somebody outside fires up a leaf blower. He ignores the sound by attending to his work. The decision feels like the exercise of free will, but isn鈥檛.

Even so, the choice still matters because it leads to outcomes in the real world. 鈥淚f I had not decided to write this book, it would not have written itself.鈥� His choice 鈥渨as unquestionably the cause of it coming into being鈥�.

But that choice came out of the 鈥渄arkness of prior causes鈥� that Harris has no control over. As he puts it: 鈥淵ou can do what you decide to do, but you cannot decide what you will decide to do.鈥�

To me that sounds like a bit of sophistry. Harris shatters the illusion of free will and tries to numb the pain with an argument that it is all OK because our actions have consequences. But even if we can make choices that make a difference, does that make them any more our own? Does that take us anywhere new? I鈥檓 not sure.

Regardless, Harris presses on to explain how this version of not having free will plays out in the real world. At the very least, his argument provides a refreshing antidote to the nihilism that the debate tends to produce.