Sam Harris is guy believes and argues that human beings do not have free will - and does so very convincingly. He's also happens to be a NYT Best-Selling Author of multiple books. You can listen to a talk he gave about it here:
http://keentalks.com/illusion-free-will/
Well I happen to disagree. I'll admit that I agree with just about everything he says about how we live in a deterministic universe where each effect has one or more causes that have determined what each effect is. But as I thought about it more, it occurred to me that there is something Sam Harris failed to consider fully - the notion of time.
What Mr. Harris basically states is that ever since the first "cause," what has followed is an unimaginably complicated series of resulting effects. Each of those effects is also a cause for the next series of effects, and so on and so on all the way up to everything that is happening everywhere in the universe right now - including everything that is happening in each person's brain which is causing their feelings, thoughts, behaviors, desires, etc. Therefore since all of these causes and effects control everything going on in our heads as well, when we think we're actually making decisions, or thinking of something new, etc. it's not because you are doing it, it's because all of the causes happening in your brain are producing the effects that determine what decision you make, what you think of, etc. So you think you are the one in control, when it's really just the chemical reactions going on in your brain, influences from your environment, radio waves bombarding you, the earth's magnetic field, and the butterfly that flapped it's wings on the other side of the world all interacting in a complicated chain of causes and effects that determine what you do, think, feel, etc.
And of course each effect is preceded in time by one or more causes. So anything that happens in the future is because of the things that are happening now, which will be causing those future things to happen. And this means that anything you think, feel, or do in the future will happen because of the things that have happened up to that point that have caused you to think, feel, or do those things - which means you don't have free will.
So here's where I think his argument breaks down. What if you could go back through the chain of causes and effects to the very first cause. What happened before that to cause that first cause? I submit that it was God who made that first cause happen in time. And how did God do it? Well here's the key point that I thought about that makes it possible for God to make the first cause happen, and for us to have free will right now as well. It is that not everything necessarily has to exist within the framework of time.
Now I now that last statement might be a little hard to grasp mentally, so let me try to guide you through it real quick to help. Imagine that you and God are just chilling side by side in space where there is nothing, not even time. God decides to create our universe, so he snaps his fingers and you see something like a tiny bubble appear that keeps getting bigger and bigger and bigger, in all directions, super fast - at let's say, the speed of light. You've heard of the big bang right? Well you are looking at the bubble expanding and everything in it being created - galaxies, stars, nebulas, planets, etc. And the walls of the bubble are the boundary of time.
Now maybe since God decided to give us human beings souls, which he tells us are eternal, maybe he creates our souls outside of that time bubble. And who's to say that things outside of the time bubble can't interact with things that are inside of the time bubble? If God can do it (since he made it in the first place), and He made us in His image as it says in the bible, then we can do it too - that is, our souls can do it too.
So if you put all of that together (our souls exist outside of time, but can interact with our bodies which exist inside of time), then we can still have free will. It is obviously true that we do live in a deterministic universe and that things that happen do determine future things that happen. And when it comes to our thoughts, feelings, opinions, etc. we are definitely products of our environments and the things that have and are influencing us every second of every day. And it is also possible for our souls to interact with our brains to produce new causes that overwhelmingly determine what the effects (what our thoughts, opinions, feelings, etc.) will be.
So it is completely possible for our brains and bodies to exist within time and be governed by the deterministic rules of the universe, and for us (our souls) to have free will by interacting with our brains and bodies within time to cause our thoughts, feelings, opinions, which determine how we act and what we do.
So that's what I believe. I don't know if I explained that very well, but what do you think?
1 comment:
Vance, another good post and thought-provoking, as usual.
I have to think that an individual such as Mr. Harris has indeed considered time very carefully in developing his ideas of free will.
More importantly, I think that your view and his aren't necessarily mutually exclusive, regardless of time (unless it is perhaps considered in a "before and after" sense).
From Mr. Harris's point of view, since everything is predicated upon what's previously occurred, we can't possibly have free will. In the sense that we are products of our environments, his assertion is true enough. But within those environments, we certainly do have freedom of action, in the sense we can "do" things; ie, we are capable of actions, whether or not we take them. In that sense, we are free within the environmental causality.
None of us is going to dispute that causation has many forms and we are subject to many influences: biological, external, etc. We act within the scope of these. Those acts are the choices we are capable of making.
I think this is sort of akin to your "bubbles of time" in the sense that we have two points of view operating in an overlapping way.
I think where we all get into trouble is when we're talking about choice. To me it's the most loaded and mis-understood word in the English language, because we tend to use it to all situations where something happens (or doesn't).
But how many people would say picking between two flavors of ice cream is really the same as taking a life-saving medicine? Or going to work (or staying in bed and risking the loss of income)? Etc. True, in the broad sense we can say these things are all 'choice.' We are capable (in the sense I am capable of hammering a nail or blowing up a balloon) of doing or not doing each of the things I mentioned. But the set of ramifications for each are not the same. That's where we get into trouble with choice. Picking between favorites is a choice, but not the same sort of choice of feeding our children or brushing our teeth.
Again, another excellent topic. Nice going.
Post a Comment