Did anyone else laugh hard when he described a scenario involving finding himself nude in a market with the desire to steal tins of anchovies? Fucking genius, Sam could do stand-up.
So now we do hear about choice. But it seems like he is trying to have his cake and eat it too.
Claiming that choice is indeed real, and does indeed matter...and then turning around and saying that people simply act on intention, and cannot be held morally responsible for their actions is in direct contradiction to what choice is.
Ex. 5 about the man with the brain tumor: although the tumor could indeed give rise to a strange intention, he still is responsible for DECIDING to go along with it.
@Tartersauce101 But this observation "your fault", your bias. You're the one who wants to define responsibility as "because he chose". It's as if you've decided that agency must exist, now you don't let Sam show the apparent paradox. There is no "responsible agent", it's a feeling and social standard which evolved for our benefit. Give me ~500 years and I'll rewire your brain so you'll "choose to agree with me freely". Choice is just a mental process; who said choice was free?
@Tartersauce101 This is the language we have to work with. "Choice" even though it isn't really choice, is the only label we have for the process by which a selection of one option over another is made.
The man with the brain tumour is ACCOUNTABLE for his actions but can in no way be called RESPONSIBLE for them. Saying he is responsible for deciding to go along with his intention is like saying he is responsible for deciding to go along with being born.
No free will then in consequence no true morality. No any reward and no any punishment has a solid fundamental base.
Sam is right as a atheist. However we believe that free will is from the human soul, a spiritual entity. Without souls man can not be free. He would be like animal.
oh PLEEEEASE! LOL!! Sam is NOT a neuroscientist and has no serious knowledge in the field, yet he makes grandiose, far-reaching conclusions on THAT WHICH HE HAS NO KNOWLEDGE...and then has the egoistic, arrogant audacity to call his arguments logical. LOL. give me a break!!! tiny lesson in logic: cannot develop valid conclusion on what you do not know! Sam is, at the very BEST, a pseudo-intellectual FARCE to be avoided. his kind of brainwashing is the illusion, seemingly clever, but not REAL.
@gooodmuslim What fuckin planet are you on? Sam Harris is not a neuro-scientist? I will ignore the apparent fact that you are religious as reasoning for your idiocy and just assume for all intents and purposes that you are a moron on your own outside the influence of anything else. And JUST BECAUSE you capitalize selected text doesn't give it ANY more weight. Asshole.
@MathematicsInfinitus The point is we have self-awareness of unconscious processes, but we don't have conscious control of these processes. We make choices unconsciously, and our experience of them as being consciously chosen is an illusion. It's counter-intuitive I know, it took me a while to accept.
It would be a contradiction to be conscious and not to have a free will. Conscience and free will go together. Animals have no free will because they have no conscience. They are not aware of their own existence.
People wake up! It is against our human dignity to say that we have no freedom of choice.
@hempartist420 ....So in that sense I guess Sam Harris & anyone who believes that free-will is merely an illusion is only correct in that assumption when they are refering to waking reality. In "the here & now" locality is limitted to the realms of the body & time is always linear. The body is particle-like. An unobserved particle can function as a wave in "the double slit" experiment (look it up). Dreaming is like the wave-function of the body, where locality is transcended & time is not linear
@hempartist420 The way I see destiny is as a timeline, but I don't see it as being the only timeline. I imagine there are billions ~& trillions of different timelines all branching off from the present moment each based on different possible outcomes of events taking place on the quantum level throughout the universe. I imagine that when I dream precognitively I am looking only at possible timelines, a mish-mash of potential futures, & that I choose my destiny there & then & each time I sleep.
@hempartist420 The way I see destiny is as a timeline, but I don't see it as being the only timeline. I imagine there are billions ~& trillions of different timelines all branching off from the present moment each based on different possible outcomes of events taking place on the quantum level throughout the universe. I imagine that when I dream precognitively I am looking only at possible timelines, a mish-mash of potential futures, & that I choose my destiny there & then & each time I sleep.
When he made the analogy to the responsibility of action. I instantly imagined Sam Harris insanely running naked through a crowded market with a hundred anchovy cans in his hands. Like a true scholar.
@Galv140577 what do you mean by this? no one has ever chosen to exist, we exist because our parents had sex. we may continue to exist because we may continue to choose not to kill ourselves from day to day, but there are of course an endless number of situations and events that could arise in our futures that could end our existences, and those events are completely independent of us in every way. I suppose, however, that i misunderstood your comment.
@thesearewarningsigns The conscious mind is only capable of seeing one side of reality at a time. On the one hand everything is predetermined, but on the other hand there is free will which overrides predeterminism. The subconscious mind can be aware of both these sides of reality simultaneously because you can be subconsciously aware of your old destiny while consciously choosing a new one.
@Galv140577 so if you chose to die there there is no free will?....there is a fault to this argument...i think sam harris kicked ass when it came to explaining this...nonetheless i was born and came to existence not because i chose to do so that choice was made for me ....i still exist because not existing is not a choice...
@Galv140577 so if you chose to die there there is no free will?....there is a fault to this argument...i think sam harris kicked ass when it came to explaining this...nonetheless i was born and came to existence not because i chose to do so that choice was made for me ....i still exist because not existing is not a choice...
If you knew what the next set of winning lottery numbers were going to be & you wanted to win the jackpot you could choose to bet on those numbers & win it, but what if the outcome of the lottery draw depended on minute influences (look up 'chaos theory butterfly effect') such as whether or not you bought a ticket. If you were already destined to buy a ticket you would win, but if the result you had fore-knowledge of didn't involve you buying a ticket you wouldn't
If a choice is truly FREE, that it is free to be this way or that way, and there is nothing that will cause or effect it to be this way or that way except this spooky phantom thing called "free" will, then the choice CANNOT BE KNOWN BEFORE IT IS MADE.God forsaw EVERYTHING in His creation BEFORE the creation. Therefore, nothing is "free" to go contrary to what God already knows MUST AND WILL BE! Free will is the biggest farce ever.
Unless we assume something on insufficient evidence the decision to time travel and put certain thoughts into you are still an effect of your brain's physical state. It's a paradox.
@viiScorp It's a paradox that can only be unravelled through time, & it's the reason why time began in the first place.
Did the universe begin because something caused it to begin? or did it begin of it's own accord?
If the universe began because something else caused it to begin then this is not the universe, it is only a part of it that was caused to begin by some other part, it's all-inclusive.
If the universe began at all it began as a matter of it's own free will. It's not an illusion.
If quantum particles can time-travel so can a human being made of them. Conciousness is as much the result of chemical reactions in the brain as chemical reactions in the brain are the result of conciousness. If you could conciously reach back through time in a dream to re-live some moment of your past but impose your will on some aspect of it, how do you know that the present you awaken in the next morning does not stem from the past you intentionally altered in your sleep the night before?
@Galv140577 Absolute nonsense. You can say consciousness is a result of chemical reactions and have evidence to back it up. There is no evidence for the reverse statement, so it is useless to say it. A human being quite simply does not and cannot move like a quantum particle. To say otherwise is science-fiction.
@Galv140577 I'm not sure what would qualify as evidence, or if it's possible for anything to qualify. Questions and statements about the universe/reality need to be valid. There are ideas a person could come up with that are unverifiable. Not being able to prove something doesn't make it true. If you were to come up with evidence, it would have to be something that was open for experimentation. If the results come up the same time and time again, we could consider it as evidence.
@chiefrocc How about this evidence: the odds against evolution-by-chance alone being the explanation behind the existence of us intelligent sentient life-forms are far beyond "astronomical". Most religious people would argue this one simple fact (the sheer improbability of our existence) to be a valid case for the existence of "God", or "Allah", or "Buddha", or whatever, etc... but to me it's a valid argument for the existence of free-will. Free-will is literally why the universe began.
Sam Harris is correct in his logical thinking. if he does not believe in God, conseqently, he can not believe in free will. Freedom Of choice comes from a spiritual essence in the human nature, which we name, a soul.
Free will can not come from a brain. In IBiology there is no place for a free will. Everything is somehow determined. Spiritual life is above any determination, though may be influenced by materialistic side of our human nature. In the nature of man spirit and body coexist and coo
@franciszek8D I don't think the idea of souls solves the freewill problem either. Where did the soul come from? Can you account for why some people are more evil than others? If it is the soul which determines our actions then who created the soul? Unless we had a choice of what particular soul we get then it would be the creator of the soul who is responsible for it.
I'm finding this extremely difficult to understand.....though I can get a feeling of what you are saying. I wouldn't be surprised if 99% people cannot make any sense of it and become outraged....
Why should the brain tumor make any difference for the question of moral responsibility? It doesn't matter whether the brain tumour or the prefrontal lobe are responsible. It doesn't matter which material object is responsible, the person isn't. He is just a bystander observing his own actions as if they were his own. No responsibility for lack of free will in any of these cases - according to your theory.
Your choice to write a book? If you are causally determined then you didn't have a choice, Sam!? The laws of nature forced you to write the book. God, you are a smart man, but here you left your brains in the gutter. So many logical inconsistencies. A voluntary action is an action guided by free will. That's what voluntary means! Now you aren't just splitting hairs, you are redefining the meaning of words...
A side note on the question of Guilt. Removing independent cause from the will of a perpetrator only removes the necessity to cast aspersions of moral outrage at an individual. We need not judge a person "evil" in order to find that same person culpable of a crime and in need of societal re-ordering. As such our ability to understand motivations is much more useful in deciding a course for possible rehabilitation.
cont. On the subjective level, it seems impossible to escape perception and interpretation as fundamental to that very thing which knowledge is, yet we are aware that we make choices from these impulses. As far as one can perceive and organize the mind with highest level, the more likely one is able to recognize equally beneficial impulses and their corresponding choices. Note that Harris himself argues that the most beneficial and highest of these principles is that which lowers suffering.
Again, I have to assert that freewill derives from one's ability to conceive and organize the mind around the concept of the metaphysical level of consciousness (not God, nor the A Priori per se, but that level of thought which elucidates concepts such as duty, justice, love, freedom etc. which arise out of lower states such as hope, loyalty, and choice etc.) One can experience the lower in varying degrees and manifest these experiences into parts of a greater order.
For a long time science has claimed that determinism proves no freewill. Now that science is learning that there is indeterminacy in consciousness they have decided that indeterminacy proves no freewill. If the brain generates thoughts then you would have no freewill if you were your thoughts. But there is no reason to believe that you are you thoughts. The findings only prove that you are not in control if you are your thoughts. If you are a soul then the real you may be in control
Harris makes such basic , deep level mistakes, and then proceeds to build his entire argument off of these terribly erroneous facts. Ugh. On whether human choice as Harris describes it matters: He says that his choice to write the book is "unquestionably the primary cause" of it being written. How so? It may be unquestionably the most proximate cause, but the primary? If Harris insists on equating the terms and basing an argument on it he needs to defend it and not lay it down as simple truth.
@henryporter101 Is that Harris' actual argument, that every action is determined? I hear something different - a specific, careful rejection of a position to which popular religions make foundational appeals, i.e. a loving god can send sinners to hell because humans have free will. If Harris *is* arguing that all actions are determined, then he hasn't met his burden of proof. However, if this is merely a rejection of the doctrine of free will, then I am completely satisfied by this argument.
@ivanmorenoroldan ...and so are you, if you claim that he is...i would venture to write that the only reason you view harris as a "genius", is because you "think" you "agree" with him...what he says "resonants" with you, because you already knew it...
...but, going a little farther, what if you had word-thoughts that no one ever had, or ever would agree with? is that possible? and wouldn't that be an even greater "genius"?...
...but wait...that would require a new language...
determinism comes from the brain, free will comes from the spirit
johnnyforz 1 week ago
Doesn't this move free will to a lower level in the functioning of the brain?
Ilicium 2 weeks ago
Did anyone else laugh hard when he described a scenario involving finding himself nude in a market with the desire to steal tins of anchovies? Fucking genius, Sam could do stand-up.
Olio89 1 month ago
So now we do hear about choice. But it seems like he is trying to have his cake and eat it too.
Claiming that choice is indeed real, and does indeed matter...and then turning around and saying that people simply act on intention, and cannot be held morally responsible for their actions is in direct contradiction to what choice is.
Ex. 5 about the man with the brain tumor: although the tumor could indeed give rise to a strange intention, he still is responsible for DECIDING to go along with it.
Tartersauce101 1 month ago
@Tartersauce101 But this observation "your fault", your bias. You're the one who wants to define responsibility as "because he chose". It's as if you've decided that agency must exist, now you don't let Sam show the apparent paradox. There is no "responsible agent", it's a feeling and social standard which evolved for our benefit. Give me ~500 years and I'll rewire your brain so you'll "choose to agree with me freely". Choice is just a mental process; who said choice was free?
badblueman 1 month ago
@Tartersauce101 This is the language we have to work with. "Choice" even though it isn't really choice, is the only label we have for the process by which a selection of one option over another is made.
The man with the brain tumour is ACCOUNTABLE for his actions but can in no way be called RESPONSIBLE for them. Saying he is responsible for deciding to go along with his intention is like saying he is responsible for deciding to go along with being born.
JoshwithaJ 3 weeks ago in playlist Sam Harris - Free Will
No free will then in consequence no true morality. No any reward and no any punishment has a solid fundamental base.
Sam is right as a atheist. However we believe that free will is from the human soul, a spiritual entity. Without souls man can not be free. He would be like animal.
franciszek8D 2 months ago
am I the only one who keeps seeing creepy skull faces in that photo?
spishcadet 2 months ago 3
Sam's not very compelling when he's reading his own text. :|
gwcstudio 2 months ago
oh PLEEEEASE! LOL!! Sam is NOT a neuroscientist and has no serious knowledge in the field, yet he makes grandiose, far-reaching conclusions on THAT WHICH HE HAS NO KNOWLEDGE...and then has the egoistic, arrogant audacity to call his arguments logical. LOL. give me a break!!! tiny lesson in logic: cannot develop valid conclusion on what you do not know! Sam is, at the very BEST, a pseudo-intellectual FARCE to be avoided. his kind of brainwashing is the illusion, seemingly clever, but not REAL.
gooodmuslim 2 months ago
@gooodmuslim have you watched unedited debates of Sam Harris?
pawndominance1 2 months ago
@gooodmuslim "Sam is NOT a neuroscientist and has no serious knowledge in the field"
Sam Harris has a Ph.D. in neuroscience which he recieved in 2009 from the University of California, Los Angeles.
spenceII 2 months ago
@gooodmuslim What fuckin planet are you on? Sam Harris is not a neuro-scientist? I will ignore the apparent fact that you are religious as reasoning for your idiocy and just assume for all intents and purposes that you are a moron on your own outside the influence of anything else. And JUST BECAUSE you capitalize selected text doesn't give it ANY more weight. Asshole.
SinceretheGhost 2 months ago
@gooodmuslim "Sam is NOT a neuroscientist and has no serious knowledge in the field,"
Harris holds a Ph.D. degree in neuroscience. It'd be refreshing if I actually came across a religious person who didn't lie.
TheHigherVoltage 1 month ago 4
I tried to spend all day in bed to see what would happen, but I just ended up wanking until my knob was sore.
So, I guess that's what happens.
DaToNyOyO 3 months ago 4
"Just try staying in bed all day waiting for something to happen." - Nah. I am not sold. How could I try to do anything if I have not free will?
MathematicsInfinitus 3 months ago
@MathematicsInfinitus
so you do stuff only because they are free choices?
niinja2 3 months ago
@MathematicsInfinitus The point is we have self-awareness of unconscious processes, but we don't have conscious control of these processes. We make choices unconsciously, and our experience of them as being consciously chosen is an illusion. It's counter-intuitive I know, it took me a while to accept.
strangestdude 2 months ago
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It would be a contradiction to be conscious and not to have a free will. Conscience and free will go together. Animals have no free will because they have no conscience. They are not aware of their own existence.
People wake up! It is against our human dignity to say that we have no freedom of choice.
franciszek8D 4 months ago
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Why do we feel sorry if we did something wrong? Without free will such feelings have no sense.
franciszek8D 4 months ago
@hempartist420 destiny is what you get when you leave everything to chance
Galv140577 4 months ago
@hempartist420 ....So in that sense I guess Sam Harris & anyone who believes that free-will is merely an illusion is only correct in that assumption when they are refering to waking reality. In "the here & now" locality is limitted to the realms of the body & time is always linear. The body is particle-like. An unobserved particle can function as a wave in "the double slit" experiment (look it up). Dreaming is like the wave-function of the body, where locality is transcended & time is not linear
Galv140577 5 months ago
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@hempartist420 The way I see destiny is as a timeline, but I don't see it as being the only timeline. I imagine there are billions ~& trillions of different timelines all branching off from the present moment each based on different possible outcomes of events taking place on the quantum level throughout the universe. I imagine that when I dream precognitively I am looking only at possible timelines, a mish-mash of potential futures, & that I choose my destiny there & then & each time I sleep.
Galv140577 5 months ago
@hempartist420 The way I see destiny is as a timeline, but I don't see it as being the only timeline. I imagine there are billions ~& trillions of different timelines all branching off from the present moment each based on different possible outcomes of events taking place on the quantum level throughout the universe. I imagine that when I dream precognitively I am looking only at possible timelines, a mish-mash of potential futures, & that I choose my destiny there & then & each time I sleep.
Galv140577 5 months ago
When he made the analogy to the responsibility of action. I instantly imagined Sam Harris insanely running naked through a crowded market with a hundred anchovy cans in his hands. Like a true scholar.
stylelix 5 months ago 2
You want evidence? You exist because you choose to exist, of your own free will, so does the entire universe.
Do you exist?
There's your "evidence".
Galv140577 6 months ago
@Galv140577 what do you mean by this? no one has ever chosen to exist, we exist because our parents had sex. we may continue to exist because we may continue to choose not to kill ourselves from day to day, but there are of course an endless number of situations and events that could arise in our futures that could end our existences, and those events are completely independent of us in every way. I suppose, however, that i misunderstood your comment.
thesearewarningsigns 5 months ago
@thesearewarningsigns The conscious mind is only capable of seeing one side of reality at a time. On the one hand everything is predetermined, but on the other hand there is free will which overrides predeterminism. The subconscious mind can be aware of both these sides of reality simultaneously because you can be subconsciously aware of your old destiny while consciously choosing a new one.
Galv140577 5 months ago
@Galv140577 so if you chose to die there there is no free will?....there is a fault to this argument...i think sam harris kicked ass when it came to explaining this...nonetheless i was born and came to existence not because i chose to do so that choice was made for me ....i still exist because not existing is not a choice...
ArticX 5 months ago
@Galv140577 so if you chose to die there there is no free will?....there is a fault to this argument...i think sam harris kicked ass when it came to explaining this...nonetheless i was born and came to existence not because i chose to do so that choice was made for me ....i still exist because not existing is not a choice...
ArticX 5 months ago
@ArticX Look at it this way...
If you knew what the next set of winning lottery numbers were going to be & you wanted to win the jackpot you could choose to bet on those numbers & win it, but what if the outcome of the lottery draw depended on minute influences (look up 'chaos theory butterfly effect') such as whether or not you bought a ticket. If you were already destined to buy a ticket you would win, but if the result you had fore-knowledge of didn't involve you buying a ticket you wouldn't
Galv140577 5 months ago
If a choice is truly FREE, that it is free to be this way or that way, and there is nothing that will cause or effect it to be this way or that way except this spooky phantom thing called "free" will, then the choice CANNOT BE KNOWN BEFORE IT IS MADE.God forsaw EVERYTHING in His creation BEFORE the creation. Therefore, nothing is "free" to go contrary to what God already knows MUST AND WILL BE! Free will is the biggest farce ever.
phillip78 6 months ago
@Galv140577
Unless we assume something on insufficient evidence the decision to time travel and put certain thoughts into you are still an effect of your brain's physical state. It's a paradox.
viiScorp 7 months ago
@viiScorp It's a paradox that can only be unravelled through time, & it's the reason why time began in the first place.
Did the universe begin because something caused it to begin? or did it begin of it's own accord?
If the universe began because something else caused it to begin then this is not the universe, it is only a part of it that was caused to begin by some other part, it's all-inclusive.
If the universe began at all it began as a matter of it's own free will. It's not an illusion.
Galv140577 6 months ago
If quantum particles can time-travel so can a human being made of them. Conciousness is as much the result of chemical reactions in the brain as chemical reactions in the brain are the result of conciousness. If you could conciously reach back through time in a dream to re-live some moment of your past but impose your will on some aspect of it, how do you know that the present you awaken in the next morning does not stem from the past you intentionally altered in your sleep the night before?
Galv140577 7 months ago
@Galv140577
wow
codownni 7 months ago
@Galv140577 Absolute nonsense. You can say consciousness is a result of chemical reactions and have evidence to back it up. There is no evidence for the reverse statement, so it is useless to say it. A human being quite simply does not and cannot move like a quantum particle. To say otherwise is science-fiction.
chiefrocc 6 months ago
@chiefrocc What would qualify as "evidence" in your opinion?
Galv140577 6 months ago
@Galv140577 I'm not sure what would qualify as evidence, or if it's possible for anything to qualify. Questions and statements about the universe/reality need to be valid. There are ideas a person could come up with that are unverifiable. Not being able to prove something doesn't make it true. If you were to come up with evidence, it would have to be something that was open for experimentation. If the results come up the same time and time again, we could consider it as evidence.
chiefrocc 6 months ago
@chiefrocc How about this evidence: the odds against evolution-by-chance alone being the explanation behind the existence of us intelligent sentient life-forms are far beyond "astronomical". Most religious people would argue this one simple fact (the sheer improbability of our existence) to be a valid case for the existence of "God", or "Allah", or "Buddha", or whatever, etc... but to me it's a valid argument for the existence of free-will. Free-will is literally why the universe began.
Galv140577 6 months ago
Damn those anchovies!
He's such a monster!
DrPhallus 9 months ago
Sam Harris is correct in his logical thinking. if he does not believe in God, conseqently, he can not believe in free will. Freedom Of choice comes from a spiritual essence in the human nature, which we name, a soul.
Free will can not come from a brain. In IBiology there is no place for a free will. Everything is somehow determined. Spiritual life is above any determination, though may be influenced by materialistic side of our human nature. In the nature of man spirit and body coexist and coo
franciszek8D 10 months ago
@franciszek8D I don't think the idea of souls solves the freewill problem either. Where did the soul come from? Can you account for why some people are more evil than others? If it is the soul which determines our actions then who created the soul? Unless we had a choice of what particular soul we get then it would be the creator of the soul who is responsible for it.
Fishqueen1972 8 months ago
I'm finding this extremely difficult to understand.....though I can get a feeling of what you are saying. I wouldn't be surprised if 99% people cannot make any sense of it and become outraged....
amiyaiitkgp 10 months ago
Why should the brain tumor make any difference for the question of moral responsibility? It doesn't matter whether the brain tumour or the prefrontal lobe are responsible. It doesn't matter which material object is responsible, the person isn't. He is just a bystander observing his own actions as if they were his own. No responsibility for lack of free will in any of these cases - according to your theory.
bhigr 10 months ago
@bhigr Can you make less sense?
buktomsin 8 months ago
@buktomsin Why should I?
bhigr 8 months ago
@bhigr ha, you really shouldn't :D
buktomsin 8 months ago
Your choice to write a book? If you are causally determined then you didn't have a choice, Sam!? The laws of nature forced you to write the book. God, you are a smart man, but here you left your brains in the gutter. So many logical inconsistencies. A voluntary action is an action guided by free will. That's what voluntary means! Now you aren't just splitting hairs, you are redefining the meaning of words...
bhigr 10 months ago
A side note on the question of Guilt. Removing independent cause from the will of a perpetrator only removes the necessity to cast aspersions of moral outrage at an individual. We need not judge a person "evil" in order to find that same person culpable of a crime and in need of societal re-ordering. As such our ability to understand motivations is much more useful in deciding a course for possible rehabilitation.
tomblack2112 11 months ago 20
cont. On the subjective level, it seems impossible to escape perception and interpretation as fundamental to that very thing which knowledge is, yet we are aware that we make choices from these impulses. As far as one can perceive and organize the mind with highest level, the more likely one is able to recognize equally beneficial impulses and their corresponding choices. Note that Harris himself argues that the most beneficial and highest of these principles is that which lowers suffering.
tomblack2112 11 months ago
Again, I have to assert that freewill derives from one's ability to conceive and organize the mind around the concept of the metaphysical level of consciousness (not God, nor the A Priori per se, but that level of thought which elucidates concepts such as duty, justice, love, freedom etc. which arise out of lower states such as hope, loyalty, and choice etc.) One can experience the lower in varying degrees and manifest these experiences into parts of a greater order.
tomblack2112 11 months ago
@tomblack2112 Looks like you haven't understood everything he said. May I suggest you to listen again ?
Acrimonator 10 months ago
For a long time science has claimed that determinism proves no freewill. Now that science is learning that there is indeterminacy in consciousness they have decided that indeterminacy proves no freewill. If the brain generates thoughts then you would have no freewill if you were your thoughts. But there is no reason to believe that you are you thoughts. The findings only prove that you are not in control if you are your thoughts. If you are a soul then the real you may be in control
brgordon38 1 year ago
Careful with the copyright dude... that's his very last book. You didn't even try to cut and edit it...
StBarthelemy1572 1 year ago
Harris makes such basic , deep level mistakes, and then proceeds to build his entire argument off of these terribly erroneous facts. Ugh. On whether human choice as Harris describes it matters: He says that his choice to write the book is "unquestionably the primary cause" of it being written. How so? It may be unquestionably the most proximate cause, but the primary? If Harris insists on equating the terms and basing an argument on it he needs to defend it and not lay it down as simple truth.
mkjohn1 1 year ago
@mkjohn1 That grand statement needs a grand explanation, else it is just hollow what you said...
Aeythvaenn 1 year ago
Comment removed
henryporter101 1 year ago
@henryporter101 Is that Harris' actual argument, that every action is determined? I hear something different - a specific, careful rejection of a position to which popular religions make foundational appeals, i.e. a loving god can send sinners to hell because humans have free will. If Harris *is* arguing that all actions are determined, then he hasn't met his burden of proof. However, if this is merely a rejection of the doctrine of free will, then I am completely satisfied by this argument.
vau0807 1 year ago
Comment removed
henryporter101 1 year ago
Heroic efforts from what? If there is no internal origin of will, than why do impulses get resisted in the first place?
TacticusPrime 1 year ago
SAM HARRIS IS A F'N GENIUS!
ivanmorenoroldan 1 year ago 63
@ivanmorenoroldan ...and so are you, if you claim that he is...i would venture to write that the only reason you view harris as a "genius", is because you "think" you "agree" with him...what he says "resonants" with you, because you already knew it...
...but, going a little farther, what if you had word-thoughts that no one ever had, or ever would agree with? is that possible? and wouldn't that be an even greater "genius"?...
...but wait...that would require a new language...
thefreedomartist 2 months ago