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Sam Harris

Free Will [Deckle Edge] Paperback – March 6, 2012

by Sam Harris (Author)

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A BELIEF IN FREE WILL touches nearly everything that human beings value. It is difficult to think about law, politics, religion, public policy, intimate relationships, morality—as well as feelings of remorse or personal achievement—without first imagining that every person is the true source of his or her thoughts and actions. And yet the facts tell us that free will is an illusion.

In this enlightening book, Sam Harris argues that this truth about the human mind does not undermine morality or diminish the importance of social and political freedom, but it can and should change the way we think about some of the most important questions in life.

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Editorial Reviews

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"In this elegant and provocative book, Sam Harris demonstrates—with great intellectual ferocity and panache—that free will is an inherently flawed and incoherent concept, even in subjective terms. If he is right, the book will radically change the way we view ourselves as human beings."
—V. S. Ramachandran, Director of the Center for Brain and Cognition, UCSD, and author of The Tell-Tale Brain

"Brilliant and witty—and never less than incisive—Free Will shows that Sam Harris can say more in 13,000 words than most people do in 100,000."
—Oliver Sacks

"Free will is an illusion so convincing that people simply refuse to believe that we don’t have it. In Free Will, Sam Harris combines neuroscience and psychology to lay this illusion to rest at last. Like all of Harris’s books, this one will not only unsettle you but make you think deeply. Read it: you have no choice."—Jerry A. Coyne, Professor of Ecology and Evolution, University of Chicago, and author of Why Evolution Is True

"Many say that believing that there is no free will is impossible—or, if possible, will cause nihilism and despair. In this feisty and personal essay, Harris offers himself as an example of a heart made less self-absorbed, and more morally sensitive and creative, because this particular wicked witch is dead."
—Owen Flanagan, Professor of Philosophy, Duke University, and author of The Really Hard Problem

"If you believe in free will, or know someone who does, here is the perfect antidote. In this smart, engaging, and extremely readable little book, Sam Harris argues that free will doesn’t exist, that we’re better off knowing that it doesn’t exist, and that—once we think about it in the right way—we can appreciate from our own experience that it doesn’t exist. This is a delightful discussion by one of the sharpest scholars around.”
—Paul Bloom, Professor of Psychology, Yale University, and author of How Pleasure Works

About the Author

Sam Harris is the author of the bestselling books The End of Faith, Letter to a Christian Nation, The Moral Landscape, Free Will, and Lying. The End of Faith won the 2005 PEN Award for Nonfiction. His writing has been published in over fifteen languages. Dr. Harris is cofounder and CEO of Project Reason, a nonprofit foundation devoted to spreading scientific knowledge and secular values in society. He received a degree in philosophy from Stanford University and a PhD in neuroscience from UCLA. Please visit his website at SamHarris.org.

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Product details

Paperback: 96 pages
Publisher: Free Press; 1st edition (March 6, 2012)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 9781451683400
ISBN-13: 978-1451683400
ASIN: 1451683405
Product Dimensions: 5.6 x 0.3 x 8 inches
Shipping Weight: 4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
Average Customer Review: 754 customer reviews
Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #20,311 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #131 in History & Philosophy of Science
- #28 in Sociology & Religion
- #15 in Free Will & Determinism Philosophy

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Thomas

The author should study quantum physics; he still thinks determinism is true

November 23, 2018

Format: Kindle EditionVerified Purchase

I agree with the premise of the book: we are merely collections of atoms subject to the laws of physics. Therefore, the laws of physics are what are ultimately responsible for our thoughts and actions. This has implications for the criminal justice system and how we ought to structure society in general.

The problem with the book is that the author seems to think determinism is true. A quote from the book reads, "Today, the only philosophically respectable way to endorse free will is to be a compatibilist—because we know that determinism, in every sense relevant to human behavior, is true." However, quantum physics says that the outcomes of physical processes cannot be predicted with certainty because they are not determined with certainty. Despite this, the author goes on and on about determinism although it is inconsistent with quantum physics.

To sum up, we are not ultimately responsible for our thoughts or actions -- physics is. But the author should have studied at least a little quantum physics before writing what ought to be a physics book.

25 people found this helpful

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Vladimir Antimonov

Surprisingly insightful and a very good read overall

December 6, 2017

Format: Kindle EditionVerified Purchase

I was initially skeptical to even start this book, thinking that free will is one of those philosophical questions “destined” to never be resolved. However, after reading this short book I am convinced that free will in a sense in which I thought I had it is just not there. And this was quite an eye opener.

One popular review here mentions that the book is interesting in the beginning but then not so much - personally I found every page informative and very well written.

Highly recommended.

17 people found this helpful

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David Jacobson

Interesting, but a bit superficial because the subject and his thesis requires a more serious investigation

July 31, 2017

Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase

This is not really a book--it takes about 20 minutes to read. Yet, Dr. Harris, who is a very good writer, makes some interesting points. Since functional magnetic resonance imaging shows that a person's decision to move is registered in the brain several hundred milliseconds before we may be consciously aware of it and our thoughts appear to us without our conscious control, these facts suggest to him that we have no free will.
Then what is meditation about? The point of meditation is to watch our thoughts arise and not do anything with them (don't believe, don't disbelieve them, don't be carried away from observing them). It is obvious that this implies there is choice. If one is able to disassociate to some degree from our thinking, therefore not "biting" into our seemingly randomly generated thoughts, we are certainly free to ignore them or, even more interesting, we can discover that the world can be seen without the structure of presupposition.
It may be true that if someone has no insight into the workings of their mind, he is pushed, pulled and apparently controlled by conditioned, yet random thinking, peculiar to his/her own unique situation in time and space. But that's like saying meat can only be eaten raw, which was true until we learned to control fire. We do have ways of freeing ourselves from "acting upon" our thinking and this ability will, in fact, generate other thought processes that go beyond our present understanding of mind, either as a "free agent" or as Dr.Harris suggests, a programmed machine.

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Taylor M. Trask

Intellectually lazy

January 30, 2018

Format: Audible AudiobookVerified Purchase

I'm a huge Sam Harris fan - his "Waking Up" podcast is consistently in my weekly listens and the episode with Eric Weinstein remains one of my favorite pieces of audio. However, this book is a huge letdown. It is either poorly written, intentionally hyperbolic or both. It's like a lazy blog post written after a night of drinking.

Sam has a deep background in science and neuroscience, so it was startling and disappointing to see him write a manifesto that begins with a thesis and then back-fills it with nothing but personal anecdotes and off-hand observations to support it. He seems to think of free will as something that can only exist in a vacuum - completely devoid of context, internal or external forces, influences or stimuli. He simultaneously embraces the tenants of determinism while dismissing it. He constantly asks the reader/listener "why did you make a decision in your life?" and then removes all agency from our choices by ignoring anything in our collective experience which could inform that choice.

A great example of this comes when Sam reminisces about his past involvement in martial arts and his decision to quit. He deliberately asks "why did I do this?" Instead of reasoning through his mindset at the time, the increased value of other interests, the condition of his environment, his own emotional state, etc, he lazily concludes he doesn't know.

The whole book is intellectually lazy and sets this discussion of free will back years. If you're a real Sam fan, do yourself a favor and skip this.

48 people found this helpful

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Byron Varvarigos

A convincing argument that makes possible more clear-headedness and compassion

September 26, 2017

Format: Kindle EditionVerified Purchase

‘Free will’ requires there to be a central chooser, a ‘self’, and there isn’t one! A terrifying notion to many, because of long cultural belief that we exist as independent entities that can garner praise and blame, without which seemingly looms an abyss of anarchy, chaos, nonexistence. But the fact is that we always ARE here and now, no matter what we believe; and right/wrong and good/bad remain as qualities of behavior, the particulars varying from culture to culture. Nothing to fear besides a change of perspective, self-image, loss of false beliefs.

Inseparable from the universe, conditioned from the “big bang” to conception to physical death, free will for us is but an illusory concept. Then what is it that makes choices? The entire universe! In fact ‘you’ and ‘I’ exist only as ever-changing thoughts and feelings, moving processes in space-time, present participles rather than nouns: doing, thinking, etc., each in a unique way. Our freedom consists in deserving of neither praise nor blame, since what we do is (unpredictably, to a lesser or greater extent) inevitable. We are all constant change as mortal object of consciousness, stillness as mysterious subject.

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