People who go to study philosophy usually do so because they want to get the answer
to the big questions, the existential questions, the questions whose answers will tell you
how you should live your life.
After you study philosophy for a while, you realize that there is no such thing as the
answers, but there are answers.
Every philosophical question has several answers, and some of them are good answers.
You can then pick up the answers that seem most right to you, and they can help you manage
your life and have a satisfying and happy existence.
There are, however, some philosophical questions that defy good answers, and one of them is
the question of the freedom of will.
Practically every philosopher tries to answer this question, and substantiate their answer
by relying on their philosophical worldview.
In other words, show how it fits with their solution to the other philosophical questions.
But when you go through with their answer to its logical conclusion, at least for me
it always ends up being unsatisfying.
It either doesn't fit my lived experience, or doesn't integrate with the explanation
of how other things in the universe work, or doesn't feel like what you think freedom
of will should be like, or simply tells you that you have no free will.
Eventually, you end up asking yourself what is freedom and what is will, and what kind
of answer would actually satisfy you, and you realize that even those questions are
frustrating.
So this is a subject I don't like to think about.
Last year, I watched Sam Harris talking to Dave Rubin on the Rubin Report, and part of
the discussion was about Sam's view on free will, or lack thereof.
I watched with interest because Harris is a neuroscientist, so I thought that maybe
he'll have some original insights into the matter.
But I quickly realized that the talk was going over the same points that philosophers have
been discussing for millennia, and there was nothing new there for me.
So I zoned out, but I noted to myself that maybe I should pick it up later.
Because there is a question that I have for the philosophers who hold Sam's position,
and maybe as a neuroscientist he can give me another perspective on it.
So now I'm returning to it, and I want to present Sam Harris with my question.
Now, Harris wrote a book about this issue, a book which I did not read.
But I did watch these six videos on YouTube, in which he discusses the matter.
That may not sound like a lot, but together these six videos amount to six and a half
hours, six and a half hours of listening to Sam Harris intoning about that subject that
I don't like to think about.
I didn't get an answer to the question I want to ask, and I assume that this means that
the book will not provide an answer either.
So I'll just go ahead and ask directly.
As mentioned, Harris does not believe that we have free will.
I'll let him present his arguments:
Alright, I think that's presented well enough, and there's
no need for me to elaborate.
In the end, we hear Sam claim that we know that this belief is false.
In other words, that this traditional notion of free will is refuted by current scientific
knowledge.
So what do we have, then?
This is a common materialist view.
The universe is made entirely of matter, and matter obeys natural laws and cannot act otherwise.
So either the universe moves in an entirely deterministic fashion, or there is some random
element.
I'm guessing he takes the idea of randomness from quantum physics, but Epicurean philosophers
said essentially the same thing two thousand years ago.
They philosophized that the universe is made of atoms of matter, and the atoms all move
in a mechanistic fashion, but there is also a random element that makes them sometimes
swerve a little, for no reason.
This is how they explained the existence of free will, but Sam is right that this is not
a satisfying answer.
Neither the idea that I am caught in a deterministic system, nor the idea that I am controlled
by random chance, make me feel like I have free will.
To save free will, we are going to have to suggest another possibility.
Harris doesn't acknowledge that such a possibility exists, and that leads him to his conclusion
that there is no free will.
One of his arguments is that we do not choose the circumstances by which we are brought
into the world.
So our existence, and who we are, is foisted
upon us, and that's already taking away a big part of our freedom.
However, I would point out that this is not enough to show that there is no free will.
When we talk of free will, the question is if we are free to act within the circumstances
we are thrown into.
As Dan Dennett puts it in his talk with Harris, the sailor can't control what the sea will
be like, but he can control the boat.
Harris, however, does not believe that we control the boat.
He believes that everything we do in our life is pre-determined, that the position of atoms
in our body at the moment of our birth already determines all the actions that we will take
until the day we die.
Or there could also be some random element, which saves us from determinism, but over
which we have no control either.
So, to him, our life is determined by the circumstances we are thrown into, and there
is no freedom to resist.
This is Sam's main point.
Thoughts just pop into our mind, and we have no control over the process.
The thoughts are born on the unconscious level, we become aware of them only after they were
formed, and they drive us.
So, not only did we not program our brain to be like it is, we also don't control the
thoughts that our brain thinks and the decisions that it takes.
We are just observers of the process, as if we were watching it on a movie screen.
At no point, according to Harris, do we have any ability to steer the boat.
So how can we say that we have free will?
Again, there is nothing new here, nothing that philosophers haven't said before.
So why do I think that it might be interesting to put my question to Sam?
Because of this.
This is knowledge that those past philosophers
didn't have, and it gives Sam a different perspective on the matter, which I would like
to challenge.
So, finally, I am now going to go ahead and ask my question.
My question is this: what about what is known as the "train of thought"?
Indeed, Sam, I agree with you that thoughts just pop in the mind, seemingly out of nowhere.
But once the thought exists, it can stay for a while, and develop itself.
Maybe all decisions are made in the subconscious before I am aware of them, but the decision
my subconscious makes is surely determined by where I took the train of thought to.
If I had gone in another direction somewhere along the line, the decision could have been
different.
And so, this is where I feel like I do have control over my thought.
Actually, I shouldn't say that I have control over my thought.
I am the thought.
I am driving myself, going according to my own logic.
Of course, there are a lot of distractions, like outside stimuli or random thoughts that
can come out of nowhere, but it is still possible for me, the thought, to maintain myself for
a certain period of time.
And this is where, maybe, free will does reside.
Let's look at it from a different angle.
As I understand it, when we look at the brain through our instruments and see a thought,
it appears as electric currents moving in certain paths, causing certain neurons to
fire.
What I am suggesting is that when there is a train of thought, it is the thought itself
that determines which path it will take in the brain.
To put it differently, it is the content of the thought that determines which neurons
will fire.
I am interested to know, Sam, how does that idea square off with our current knowledge
of the brain.
I disagree. I don't think that this is our subjective experience.
If it was like that, then every thought would appear momentarily, and then be immediately
followed by a thought that is completely disconnected to it.
That's not what happens.
Some thoughts are extended, and go down a certain path.
A train of thought is not controlled by randomness, nor is it deterministic.
It has several routes it can travel, and it chooses one of them.
Also, Sam, what do you mean by saying that I don't author the next thing that I think?
Are you suggesting that I am something different from the thought?
Are you suggesting a soul?
Evidently you don't, because elsewhere you rule out the existence of something like a
soul, or a self, or a subject.
But it seems to me that you are inadvertently falling into the trap of implying its existence.
Whenever you make the argument that we are not the author of our thought, an argument
you make often, it sounds like this is what you are doing.
When I say the word "I", meaning myself, there are two things I might be referring to.
First, it can mean the human organism that I am.
Secondly, it can mean the consciousness of this organism at this moment.
Now, the organism also stores memories, which I, the consciousness, have access to, and
that makes me feel like I am an entity, a subject that has a history.
But I agree with Harris that there is no subject, no entity that exists in my body like a ghost
in the machine.
What I am is just the current consciousness, and the memories are thoughts within this
consciousness.
So let's examine these two versions of "I", in light of Sam's argument.
If we are talking about the organism, then I am definitely the author of my thought.
The subconscious is also part of the organism, and the thought was created in it, so I authored
it.
And if we are talking about the consciousness, then I am the thought, and I am authoring
myself.
I didn't have control over being created, but once I came to be, I'm steering my way
in the brain.
I am self-driven, and therefore, to some extent, free.
Again, this freedom is very tenuous, as it is hard to keep a train of thought going.
So if we are talking about something I have to decide on the spot, it can be said that
I didn't have much control over this decision.
However, if we are talking about a decision that I have been deliberating for weeks, then
we are talking about an accumulation of many moments in which I had the ability to affect
it.
And this is where, perhaps, I do have control over my destiny.
Alright then.
That is my question, and I'm interested to know what Sam Harris thinks of this possibility.
From you, my viewers, I ask that you help me get Sam's attention to this video.
And, of course, tell me what you think about it.
As long as I venture into this subject that I don't like, let's have a discussion about it.
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