From:
david.j.worrell@gmail.com
Part I
Sam Harris argues that we would not blame a murderer for his acts "if we could see how the wrong genes were being relentlessly transcribed, if we could see how this person's genome and 'entanglement' with other people and ideas and events had sculpted
the microstructure of his brain so that it was guaranteed to produce violent states of mind, the basis for placing blame would disappear".
That is all merely begging the question. Harris first implies that genes are fully causative. And they are not. Nor is environment. And to be fair, neither is our free will. But Harris is also asserting indirectly that none of the "people, ideas, and
events" his hypothetical murderer interacted with were ever in any way modifiable by that person's individual conscious choice. And that's not the truth either.
The real question: at every step along the way, did the person have ANY chances and choices to do things *differently*. And the real answer in my opinion is almost always: yes, virtually every person alive - with possibly a few exceptions - has
hundreds of such chances and choices, all along the way. That is indeed why we
are all to some extent genuinely responsible for our own actions. To have a society where people are not even responsible for their own actions would be more insane than the
one we already have, if such a thing is possible.
Harris also makes a big deal out of the fact that "you do not decide the next thing you think". To me, that's a big "so what". His assumption seems to be that "free will" must somehow involve "choosing everything one thinks". That's
a red herring; it
is not the case, nor is it even necessary. Because free will is not about "thinking", although it may address it. It's about will, just like it says. And while one may not control everything one thinks (it's totally unnecessary) one still CAN in most
cases WILL oneself to pay attention to or focus on particular thoughts, ignore or dismiss particular thoughts, and in most cases even CHOOSE which thoughts, if any, one will actually ACT upon. To ACT is more than just "to think" or "to
think about
acting".
Free will is WILL. Not thinking. Free thinking is a different subject, although that may be an interesting subject too. :)
"Thoughts simply appear in consciousness", Harris says he believes. Well, this
too, while it might at first appear true, is merely an over-simplification.
Our thoughts are influenced by everything that happens to us, and by everything
we choose to do, and not only by our unconscious minds, but also by everything we ever choose to consciously *focus on*. We are capable of directing our attention to
consciously focus on specific collections of thought. We are not obligated to focus on just ANY thoughts. I am really, really into music; I am not much into pottery or basket-weaving (but now I'm thinking a little bit about pottery and baskets). Such "
focused attention" may be another 'aspect' of free will. However, I do not think it is the primary nature of free will. I will get to that below.
While it's true that we don't control all of our thoughts directly (at least, not usually - it is possible to learn to control thought to a relative extent -
such as with meditation and with formal study), but because thoughts are influenced by
everything we do and also by what randomly happens (and btw, what randomly happens is itself influenced by what we choose), we have the ability to indirectly significantly influence what we are thinking in general, and are also capable of consciously
choosing specific subjects to intellectually focus thinking on. I for example, chose to get a college degree in mathematics (although it was the hardest subject for me growing up), so I spent years thinking about math.
So Harris claims we can't control our thoughts. Yet I spent years directing my thoughts repeatedly toward math, even though it was hard for me.
Now let's address random events briefly. People like to imagine we have no control over "random events". Again, on the surface that appears to be true. And yet if I have 3 choices of where I could go today, let's say: downtown LA,
or the top of the San
Gabriel mountains, or the Foothill Police Department, not only my planned events but also the RANDOM events that could potentially happen in each location are all *different*.
Thus, my free choices also greatly affect even which potential RANDOM events I may be exposed to on any given day.
Digression:
('Don Juan' had a concept called "not being available". :) If you stand in the
middle of a busy road and act like a fool then you're EXPOSING yourself to the possibility of all kinds of bizarre random events. 'Don Juan' said that's a bad idea, because
you increase your chances of getting clobbered. And that's true. You can choose NOT to do that, minimizing your exposure to potentially bad 'random events'. In other words, not even 'random events' are totally random. You can *minimize* negative "
random events" using your *free choice*.)
It's even true that certain thoughts can be intrusive and can return against your will. If a thing is bothering you, this may happen. Yet even in this case, if you have developed strength of WILL, you can keep "putting it aside" and refuse to become
overly concerned with it. OR, you can choose to do something that constructively addresses what keeps bothering you. OR, you can choose to focus your attention on some other major interest that you know can distract you (maybe... listen to music for an
hour). I know, because I'm good at doing all 3 of those, after a lifetime of practice. But I am good at those things only because for years and years I CHOSE to exercise those capacities.
Another thing to do that can significantly affect "thinking" is just to regularly exercise your BODY. To do that is also a choice one can make. It takes *will power* to do it regularly and keep doing it. But if you manage to get your body in good
physical shape and keep it that way, then your thoughts will be less likely to "run away with you" (you'll probably sleep better too). This is my experience.
Harris acts like he doesn't believe there is such a thing as will power - as if
all people who are capable of achieving their goals by force of will were merely "blessed" or something. Bullshit. While natural ability certainly exists, and so do all
manner of other favorable circumstances, to achieve significant goals almost always ALSO takes work. Sustained action. :) Will is just like any other capacity; it can become stronger by exercising it.
"Thoughts just emerge in consciousness; we are not authoring them," Harris claims. While that may be somewhat true superficially, it is also true that we are not NOT authoring them either (intentional double negative - more one this below). :) The extent
to which one has control over one's own thoughts is an individual matter, one related to everything one is, including all of one's prior *choices* in life. For example, when working on math problems, I largely thought about math (of course) and focused
on that subject (although yes, other thoughts could intrude). Similarly, when cooking, I'm focusing my attention mostly on the dishes I'm preparing. etc.
So Harris isn't looking at thinking deeply. He's acting as if all of our thoughts "just appear" without having any connection to the rest of our lives (lives which always include the effects all of our individual choices all along). And he isn't looking
at "random chance" very deeply either.
Harris: "if you can't control your next thought, and you don't know what it's going to be, where is your freedom of will?"
Jeremy: Sam, my will is located in my major *intentions* which are reflected in
my *actions*. It is not in my moment-to-moment thoughts. The reason you can't find free will is that you don't seem to know where it lives. You seem to believe the only thing
brains and bodies can ever do is 'think'. :)
That is your fundamental mistake, Sam. You should have been kicked out of philosopher's school. I'll tell you one philosopher who was big on WILL. Nietzsche. I don't always agree with him either, but at least he knew that 'will' is important (that may
even be where Carlos got many of his own strange ideas about will - one of Nietzche's books is even entitled 'Will To Power'). But Sam, you're so clueless
about it that you don't even realize it exists.
I've already told the personal story of how I learned how to do lucid dreaming by in the beginning INTENDING (willing myself) to become aware inside of dreams, and then doing it. True, I didn't have total control of this ability, and yet... it worked
rather well. This is another clear example in my own life of free will. It's not a thing I just "thought about". It was a significant set of ongoing acts which was at first willed and then DONE, and then repeated intentionally over and over. That is
free will.
I have also pointed out how virtually every intentional act WITHIN
a lucid dream is also itself an act of free will. No one can claim that
"dream environments" are 'causal' in any way over a lucid dreamer.
They simply are not. A lucid dreamer can do almost *anything* at will
inside a dream. A lucid dreamer can also override virtually anything
that is happening in a lucid dream by force of will. A lucid dreamer
can by pure CHOICE do things that are usually impossible, such as
walk through walls or transport themselves instantly in space.
All such lucid dream acts are further examples of free will.
will
noun
1. the faculty by which a person decides on and initiates action.
2. control deliberately exerted to do something or to restrain one's own impulses.
3. a deliberate or fixed desire or intention.
To try to describe it better - 'will' is sort of like "mounting and maintaining
an internal effort". It is not merely "thinking about one's goals". That's not it. Sometimes it seems like "creating and fostering a belief/feeling that you can do something".
The immediate content of your thoughts is largely irrelevant while accomplishing whatever it is. Although of course it's best if your thoughts aren't... completely insane or distracting. Will is... "creating impetus". It engenders "a feeling of
momentum". That's about the best I can describe 'will'.
(When I was a CC believer, I believed I could 'call upon the force that rules the universe' to assist with this impetus or momentum. I eventually had to drop
that belief since I had no objective evidence for "it" outside my own mind. But
I attempted to
beckon the cosmic force of Intent to provide power to (or perhaps even become) my own personal intent. That was the theory. Unproven, in spite of how I seemed to succeed but only within the private confines of my own dreaming.)
Harris argues that ALL of our experience "even the simplest conscious experiences are built on unconscious mechanisms... of which we are fundamentally unaware" and that "this machinery also governs what we think and feel and do and intend". Further, he
claims there were experiments that show how parts of this unconscious processing related to making choices occurs before a person is aware of acting upon a conscious choice. That is only semi-correct (these experiments have been seriously challenged as
you will see below).
This "unconscious processing" is one example of what I have been calling 'inputs to decision making' (although they may have other functions too).
But Harris seems to believe - simply because certain unconscious parts of our minds in some way "register" what we're going to do before we become consciously aware of having made the choice - this means the unconscious aspects must CONTROL everything we
do. He seems to think our conscious minds provide NO significant input or guidance - to the point where supposedly we have NO conscious control over our own actions.
I think that is an extreme conclusion not warranted by the evidence. The inference is questionable in several ways (as we will see), and I personally believe it is dead wrong since it differs from a greal deal of my own real world experience.
One simple way to think about it is: just as it takes some time to process our
sensory input so that we're always a step behind 'reality', it takes even more time to process our conscious choices ABOUT that 'reality' after our sensory data is assembled,
so that our conscious awareness of everything we choose to do (especially our choices) is even further behind. The processing of 'the neural aspects of making conscious choices' may simply be even more complex and time-consuming than our sensory
processing. This in no way means our choices are illusory (or that "unconscious
machinery" has already automatically decided everything we do).
There is no reason to necessarily conclude that "the fast machinery" that "registers" our choices before we become aware that we're aware of them is some
sort of "robotic decision maker". It may just be *recording* our wants before the full conscious
impact is apparent. Perhaps is necessary to STORE our intended actions somewhere before we can act, perhaps rather like my computer is storing these keystrokes I'm typing in memory slightly before they get written to the screen and I can see them with my
eyes. That doesn't mean the machinery is "in charge" in any real sense. It may just mean that conscious awareness and choice is a bit slow, relatively speaking. Not that it doesn't exist at all.
[I wrote the above while reasoning out the issue for myself prior to reading all the research that follows below in Part II, so I left it all in.]
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Continued in part II below...
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--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: www.darkrealms.ca (1:229/2)