Name: Free Will
ISBN: 9781451683400

Sam Harris

The physiologist Benjamin Libet famously demonstrated that activity in the brain's motor regions can be detected some 300 milliseconds before a person feels that he has decided to move. Another lab recently used fMRI data to show that some "conscious" decisions can be predicted up to 10 seconds before they enter awareness (long before the preparatory motor activity detected by Libet). Clearly, findings of this kind are difficult to reconcile with the sense that one is the conscious source of one's actions. The question of free will is no mere curio of philosophy seminars. A belief in free will underwrites both the religious notion of "sin" and our enduring commitment to retributive justice. The Supreme Court has called free will a "universal and persistent" foundation for our system of law. Any scientific developments that threatened our notion of free will would seem to put the ethics of punishing people for their bad behaviour in question.In Free Will Harris debates these ideas and asks whether or not, given what brain science is telling us, we actually have free will?

Free Will

Prakash Rajendran

Quite an interesting book. Started with a disbelief but made me question everything

4th star is for the conclusion and the 5th star is for all the things that I didn’t understand but will come back to this again.

My biggest take away was that I need to do more reading on this. However, his arguments feels reductive and seem to lack nuance. I wouldn’t recommend this if you’re interested in this branch of philosophy 

Steven Harrison

It was a simple introduction to free will and determinism. It was more of an essay than a book and his determinism is simply regurgitated throughout the book using the same language. However he does make valid points and it heavily emphasised the role of biology and chance influencing our decisions and used many examples from our choice of food to criminal cases and the concept of morality to question how truly free we are. 

sidni 

Interesting thoughts but more a short essay. Would've wished for this to be a chapter in a more elaborate book.

Lena Köninger

Wilde

A great introduction to the topic of free will and determinism. Not for the philosophically advanced but this book does offer some interesting psychological perspectives that are too often overlooked in philosophy. I particularly liked the discussion of the political ramifications of free will and determinism.

Andy Sporring

Gaurav Verma

This book made me really uncomfortable. All my life I believed in my power of free will, doing what I want. All that turned out to be a myth and here in the book, Sam Harris presents it in such a convincing way that I'm starting to believe that free will actually doesn't exist. 

It has forced me to really think about free will and if it actually is an illusion or if I do have power over my will if any. The book was kinda a revelation to me and changed the way I look at things. Absolutely incredible but ngl I was in existential crisis for sometime after reading this.

Femke

I don't really know what to say. This book just screws with my brain.

Sloan, Kara

Very intriguing, although I feel like he just kind of skims over the idea of thought being something that is not time restrictive when that in itself would, I believe, refute the point he's trying to make. The basis of the idea that we don't actually have free will but 'should' strive to live a productive and helpful existence, but that our neurobiological conditioning is more predictive and fatalistic, in which case we don't really have a choice over our actions? However, the key point is that thoughts and conscious self-awareness are something that can happen somewhat separate from the dimension of time. We can project into the future what might happen based on the information of the reactions of today's actions, new knowledge, and events. In which case the 'free-will' would be directly proportional to our cognitive ability to make a choice about possible and probable future events and actions. I think that view is supplemental to his ideas regarding rehabilitation and building of community rather than punitive action for wrongdoing. One cannot act on what one does not know or understand. So education and learning are key to building 'free-will' (also semantically speaking it changes it from 'free-will' to 'learned-will' in which case it is the collective responsibility to help and support others in their ability to choose)

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.

Natalie Hanna

Free will and determinism are some of my favorite topics but I don't think the way Harris presents it here is super effective :/

Hala Abdulaziz 

The concept this book focused on was mind blowing, however, I found myself confused a lot of the time because of the writing style, I kept rereading the same sentences multiple times to get the meaning. 
In general, it was such an eye opening read, and I’m definitely going to read more about this topic .

Natasha Schön

This is a short but powerful book on the concept of free will. Sam does an excellent job at distinguishing between the source of our thoughts (free will) and the freedom to act according to those thoughts (freedom to act out our free will). I enjoyed his discussion on the moral, societal, and political implications of free will, arguing that we can still function and progress without it. Although some points are up for discussion, this is a book that will get your gears grinding. Honestly, I expected nothing less from Sam Harris.

I.m. ruzz

a tiny book, or long essay, which never quite finds its own feet. Harris' mind is a fine instrument but he hardly has time to tune it before the book ends. 

the end of faith is an important book in which he decimated the idea of faith. he makes a case here against the idea of free will but without much fervour.