But how could we falsify "Free will is an illusion"? — WISDOMfromPO-MO
Short from showing that free will isn't an illusion, you can show that Harris's argument are unsound, inconsistent, and also that his conception of free will is some sort of a strawman. Daniel Dennett has written a devastating review of Harris's Free Will. Although I don't endorse fully Dennett's own brand of compatibilism, myself, I think his view is much more sensible and sophisticate than Harris's. And also, he is fairly successful in pointing out the most glaring flaws in Harris's arguments. — Pierre-Normand
Yeah, of which Harris' has replied and showed how Dennett has misunderstood and misconstrued his statements. This is a great one: — intrapersona
In fact, Harris himself is guiltier than most in producing flawed theories about the source of our sense of freedom and responsibility. — Pierre-Normand
Harris is painting himself into a corner here. In his analogy, Atlantis stands for the crudest from of "contra-causal" libertarianism, which very few philosophers endorse; while Sicily stands for compatibilism, which a majority of philosophers endorse in one form of another. Harris then complains that it's as if Dennett were accusing him of denying the existence of Sicily. But arguing that compatibilism is incoherent and not worthy of any serious consideration also is something that Harris attempts to do in his book. So, in the analogy, it's as if Harris was arguing that there really isn't any such place as Sicily and that it is a mythical place as well. Dennett complaint therefore is on target. — Pierre-Normand
If we (globally) agree to make a value judgement and decide that morality is worth keeping, we expect people to be able to discern between right and wrong to a degree, very clear guidelines are set in judicial systems across the world and things become more cloudy in social interactions yet we have peer pressure, culture, valuing the opinion of those we relate to, etc. The main thing most would agree on is that humans have the right of self-determination to a degree we don't let that right detract upon that same right we grant others.
To falsify "Free will is an illusion" you'd have to set up a practical exam for moral competence. We tend to go by the concept of innocent until proven guilty and I guess / hope most of us raise our children to be competent to engage the world socially (among other things), the proof expected here is in the pudding and I would feel it violates our right of self-determination to expect more in an empirical sense. Again we have judicial systems to impose the outer limits.
This is not to say that the incentives to behave better in the future should never be subject to criticism, just that anyone who claims free will doesn't exist yet still desires to keep some form of morality could easily start to suffer from trust issues ...unless they arrogantly rationalize their way out of it. — Gooseone
Harris' has come from a background in buddhist meditation where it is observed through meditative practices that your sense of identity is basically an illusion. — intrapersona
Did you create yourself? No, you only exist because of some fluke of nature, or the design of some higher power. Did you choose your mother and father? Did you choose your country of birth? Does someone choose to be neglected? Does someone choose to be abused? Does someone choose the beliefs of the society they are born into? No, no, and no.
The very first choice a person makes is a product of their biological make-up, and the sensory experiences they've encountered up to that point, none of which were controlled by that person. Every decision thereafter is based on a combination of instinct, and the perceived results of previous choices. Even your choice to believe or not believe what you are currently reading is based on the experiences you've had and the choices you've made up until now. At the root of that series of choices are inputs over which you had no control. — CasKev
The main thing most would agree on is that humans have the right of self-determination to a degree we don't let that right detract upon that same right we grant others. — Gooseone
Ok cool thanks for breaking down that analogy further. So, what does Dennett have to say about unconscious choices dominating our free-will? Harris' has come from a background in buddhist meditation where it is observed through meditative practices that your sense of identity is basically an illusion. Tie this in with the neurological findings of unconscious decision making and it looks pretty solid, so how is Dennet refuting these findings with compatibilism?
Well, from my perspective it seems that the only way would be to say that you ARE your unconscious mind which makes decisions. Which, correct me if I am wrong, Dennett does. Well if you ARE your unconscious mind then why can't you account for why you chose one decision over another? Or why can't you just fall asleep at anytime in one second as you wish? This does not mean to say that people's actions shouldn't go unpunished or that they are not to blame, just that the observer is not to blame. Because the observer and the actor are somewhat segregated. — intrapersona
This is why he also is pushing an utilitarian theory that has as its sole foundation the imperative to increase human "well being" regardless of the values people may endorse. — Pierre-Normand
Yep. But wouldn't this require a person/self to suffer to be correct? — JupiterJess
So, Harris's ethics (as expounded in The Moral Landscape) boils down to the affirmation of the intuition -- which he believes to be a self-evident a priori truth -- that it would be ethically good if all of the epiphenomenal "selves" being generated by biological brains in the universe were somehow being caused to have happy thoughts and pleasurable feelings. This is quite sophomoric, really. — Pierre-Normand
Thanks, so has anyone ever asked him how something can be epiphenomenal and yet cause him to still generate an entire philosophy based around it? I'm sure he must have considered it at least once. — JupiterJess
For me, this indicates that free will is illusory, despite the fact that we are able to make choices, for whatever reasons. Is there a way to make the above argument unsound? — CasKev
And these testaments are derived through introspection and a direct 1st person experience.
See the contradiciton? How you can recall an experience of "no self" without a self to reflect back on to? — JupiterJess
Your unconscious mind is a part of who you are, for sure. This includes most of your cognitive habits and abilities as well as the source of most of your "raw" motivations. Harris indeed has been, as you note, influenced by his Buddhist meditation practice in viewing the "self" from the stance of a passive observer who introspects her own states of mind and ponders over the origins of her random "thoughts". This is just about the worst possible stance for inquiring about free agency (or about knowledge, for that matter), which involves active involvement of an agent in the world (including the social world) and not a voluntary retreat from it.
Freedom is not to be found in the passive contemplation of one's own navel. The observer and the actor aren't two different entities. They are two different stances taken up alternatively (and oftentimes simultaneously within the normal flow of life) by the very same embodied human being. Also, the observer no more than the actor can be absolved from responsibility for what she comes to believe since she can reflect critically about the deliveries of her senses and memory. Harris often seems to think that the role of the epistemic "observer" (which he equates with the "self") is limited to her passively witnessing random thoughts popping up in her conscious mind as a result of automatic "free" association. — Pierre-Normand
Who determined the robot didn't want to harm anyone? does the robot has a sense of self preservation? Is it future goal oriented and if so, how does it moderate between achieving it's goals and not bothering people with it.
You make a caricature out of what morality actually comes down to. — Gooseone
Incase you haven't missed it, it can't be claimed to be who you are because YOU have no OWNERSHIP over it. I mean, sure you can influence it's decisions but you can influence your girlfriend/boyfriends decisions too, does that mean that they are part of who you are? I think not, just a part of your life.
And so by definition, anything that you are unaware of and can not control is therefore not you. Like your heart, or your cells, they form part of your body but they are not you. All YOU are is an awareness, an observer riding around in a body that you so naively and arrogantly call your own. The driver of the car is not the car, remember that. — intrapersona
P.S. Meditation is perhaps the clearest sense of attaining insight on the matter is it is primary. You can't claim physical activity anymore valuable in determining free will over self-observation. Self-observation is primary and comes before decision making. In anycase, it has already been observed by neurological studies that the unconscious mind makes the decisions.
Harris' has come from a background in buddhist meditation where it is observed through meditative practices that your sense of identity is basically an illusion. — intrapersona
Harris indeed has been, as you note, influenced by his Buddhist meditation practice in viewing the "self" from the stance of a passive observer who introspects her own states of mind and ponders over the origins of her random "thoughts". This is just about the worst possible stance for inquiring about free agency (or about knowledge, for that matter), which involves active involvement of an agent in the world (including the social world) and not a voluntary retreat from it. — Pierre-Normand
(...) Incidentally I did participate in a debate on the topic of Free Will on the Dharmawheel forum not long back, and I maintained the view that Buddhism basically supports the idea of free will - it has to, because it defines 'karma' in terms of 'intentional action', so I can't see how it could possibly not. But, interestingly, there was quite a bit of dissent from other contributors. — Wayfarer
Free-will is about desire for outcomes, states of affairs, experience etc. some of which are in the face of morality (which once again is based on learnt paradigms via fear conditioning as well as sound judgement and understanding of knowledge). — intrapersona
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