Customer Reviews

The Myth of Free Will, Vol. 1

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Almost no one wants to consider the possibility that free will is a myth or an illusion, but this short work does a good job of doing just that. First the editor, Chris Evatt, defines free will as something non-physical that can somehow override our physical brain. Then she presents a series of succinct essays that consider the evidence for rejecting this long-standing assumption. The essays are short but effective. They come from several points of view even though they have been clearly chosen to support her primary thesis.

I must admit that I come to this from the point of view of a scientist who has been exploring the growing evidence that our thoughts and decisions are not just rooted in the brain (and body), but that most of the decision-making circuitry is not accessible to our conscious awareness or control.
Besides the conciseness of the pieces, the other thing I appreciated was that several authors reflect on the potential consequences of letting go of the Cartesian concept of free will. I didn't always agree with all of their conclusions, but I found them very thought provoking.

I recently received this slim volume and was quite surprised by what I got. I am in complete agreement with the contents of the book, but the book is so slim and so slight that I could not figure out who the book was intended for, unless it's just people like me who will buy an inexpensive book with the phrase free will in the title. Each of the brief essays in the book would not cover one side of an 8.5 x 11 sheet of paper if singlespaced, and none of the topics are developed in any way; each essay is simply an assertion of something (true and correct) about free will but without any real supporting information. I'm not even sure that the book would be a proper introduction for a high school philosophy class, and it certainly wouldn't be appropriate for anyone beyond that. Some of the ideas in the book are thought provoking, but there is no development at all; it is nice that there are a couple of informative references for most of the essays, but they are very brief.

There are several other introductions to the idea of free will in the same price range, particularly Thomas Pink's Free Will: AVery Short Introduction in the Oxford Very Short Introduction series, which can be had for five cents less. Tom Clark's Encountering Naturalism covers as much as this book does on free will in a much briefer space, and has many other helpful ideas as well. There is a far more information available on Wikipedia's Free Will entry, as well as at the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy free will entry than is found in this book, and the last two are free. I feel badly saying such negative things about a book that I almost completely agree with, but there's really not much here, probably not even enough to call it a book.

Before reading this little book of essays I thought: "I choose, therefore I have free will. What more do I need to know?" But I found out that choosing is done by my brain, totally, nothing else is doing the job, or even helping out with the task, so I don't have or need free will. At first this new fact-of-life upset me because I wanted there to be more, some sort of ghostly "me" in and around my brain. Then I realized that without my complex, evolved human brain I would, as a species, have far fewer options (no cars, iPods, clothes, gourmet food) to choose from. This put me in a state of awe. Finally, being free of the free-will myth has empowered me in ways I could never have imagined. I've dropped a lot of unwarranted pride and blame and guilt. I give people a lot more slack and am able to set boundaries in a clearer way. Mainly, I reflect on my habits more. They intrigue me. Why did I (my brain) choose this and that? The essays in this little book really moved me, educated me, and changed me in a nice way.

In her book The Myth of Free Will, Cris Evatt has put together a brief but very useful compendium of thoughts on free will by contemporary thinkers. Since some people think of free will as simply the opportunity to act voluntarily, without coercion or compulsion, it's important to know up front that this sort of free will isn't being questioned. Rather, as Evatt makes clear in her introduction, it's the contra-causal freedom of the supernatural soul that's the myth. She lays out the naturalistic basis for challenging the soul's free will: that human decision-making is a neural, physical process, that genes and environmental influences explain who we are, that the soul doesn't explain anything, and that cause and effect determinism, with some randomness at the quantum level, is omnipresent in nature: nature is lawful, for the most part.

Among the better known soul-skeptics quoted are Daniel Dennett, Sam Harris, Steven Pinker, and V. S. Ramachandran, but there are many others, 40 all told, according to the book's subtitle. Given the intellectual firepower represented here, one might conclude that doubting contra-causal freedom is conventional wisdom among the cognoscenti these days. It is, but few are willing to risk making a big deal about it. This is why Evatt's book is important: she breaks the taboo on questioning the immaterial self and its supernatural free will, arguably the next step for fully naturalistic atheists and humanists. And she does so for a mainstream, non-philosophical audience by keeping things fairly simple and conversational, plus there are illustrations and portraits.

Susan Blackmore (author of The Meme Machine) contributes a nice foreword, in which she argues we can get along fine without supernatural free will, perhaps even do better, personally, morally and practically. There's some controversy on this score; for instance philosopher Daniel Dennett has argued that we've got to be very careful about letting this particular cat out of the bag. Still, Evatt's done us a big favor by showing there's a well-considered consensus that our contra-causal freedom is a myth, and that perhaps it's time to come to grips with this. Since I'm included in this volume, you can't take my word for it - read and decide for yourself. - Tom Clark, Naturalism.Org, author of Encountering Naturalism: A Worldview and Its Uses

For someone who has never given free will, much thought, I found the book fascinating. The author has collected a variety of short essays on free will written by notable authors in their field and organized them into a short easy read that does not overwhelm the reader. After each chapter, she shares insightful comments. The book serves as an excellent primer for those who want explore this subject.

This is a very good little book that contains 15 very brief essays on the subject, all written in this century by, mostly, notable and authoritative authors, as well as some complementary materials and resources. It is an excellent albeit modest introduction to the subject

The only problem I see with the book is lack of thorough proof reading, as there are a few annoying typos here and there.

Other than that, I would give it 5 starts.

What is great about this book is that you don't have to be a philosophy scholar to read it. It does not define "compatibilism" and "incompatiblism". Instead, anyone can pick it up and become knowledgable about free will as an illusion.

Cris Evatt has identified one of the major philosophical questions of our time and has found the best experts in the world to answer "Is there free will?" Provocative, controversial, and a quick read, this little book will change the way you view the world. Read it if you dare!