Thefollowing is a thought experiment which supposedly proves that free will doesnot exist, first used and authored by Sam Harris.
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Picka random country. Any country. Notice this processes which you are goingthrough. Notice the selecting and the choosing, and the "freeness"which you are going through. What if I were to say that this very processesproves that free will does not exist?
Inorder to unpack this, we must first establish the options that one has topick.
1)A person is not free to choose a country which they do not know exists.
2)A person cannot choose a country which didn't occur to them
3)You can only choose what occurs to you
Thefirst option is obvious. If you don't know it, then you cannot choose it. Youare not free to choose it, so to speak.
Thesecond option however, is a little more confronting. Perhaps all readers knowabout Argentina but for some reason, your Argentina neurons were notfunctioning and you did you think it it. This then begs the question, what canyou think about?
Thethird option is to unpack what you can choose. Say you chose America. The firstthing to note is that you only "chose" it because it occurred to you.But how do you choose what occurs to you? The process of something occurring toyou is unsoliccited, it is impossible to choose what occurs to you.
Secondly,say the countries America and China occurred to you (you did not choose forthese two countries to occur to you, they simply did). Ask yourself, why didyou choose America? When subjects in a lab are asked to justify their actions(whilst under the influence of some independent variable) the test subjectusually does not know the real reason why their actions occurred the way thatthey did (assuming an experienced experimenter was involved). However, thisisn't to say they don't have a tale to tell. If you asked a person who has beenhypnotised why they did certain things, they usually have bizzare reasons forwhy the did what they did (though unconvincing to us, the subject remains convincedof their tale). Returning to the case of free will, why does one choose Americaas opposed to China. Well, one may say that "they just had an Americanhotdog last night and so America appealed to them". However, this is nojustification, it is merely stating a fact. It's like if youasked a murderer why they murdered and they said "I killed him". Sowhy choose America instead of China because you ate a hotdog? Why couldn't youthink "well I've just had a hotdog, let's switch things up, I'll choose China".This process of "choosing" because of your apparent"justification" is no more than your neurons making a decision foryou and you being aware of this decision.
Youcannot know how things occur to you and neither can you know why you"chose" the option of which you did.
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BeforeI read Sam Harris's Free Will book, I was convincedthat free will was real. Now, after being confronted by this seemingly simplyline of thinking, I'm not so sure. Feel free to have a stab at Harris'slogic.
===
Picka random country. Any country. Notice this processes which you are goingthrough. Notice the selecting and the choosing, and the "freeness"which you are going through. What if I were to say that this very processesproves that free will does not exist?
Inorder to unpack this, we must first establish the options that one has topick.
1)A person is not free to choose a country which they do not know exists.
2)A person cannot choose a country which didn't occur to them
3)You can only choose what occurs to you
Thefirst option is obvious. If you don't know it, then you cannot choose it. Youare not free to choose it, so to speak.
Thesecond option however, is a little more confronting. Perhaps all readers knowabout Argentina but for some reason, your Argentina neurons were notfunctioning and you did you think it it. This then begs the question, what canyou think about?
Thethird option is to unpack what you can choose. Say you chose America. The firstthing to note is that you only "chose" it because it occurred to you.But how do you choose what occurs to you? The process of something occurring toyou is unsoliccited, it is impossible to choose what occurs to you.
Secondly,say the countries America and China occurred to you (you did not choose forthese two countries to occur to you, they simply did). Ask yourself, why didyou choose America? When subjects in a lab are asked to justify their actions(whilst under the influence of some independent variable) the test subjectusually does not know the real reason why their actions occurred the way thatthey did (assuming an experienced experimenter was involved). However, thisisn't to say they don't have a tale to tell. If you asked a person who has beenhypnotised why they did certain things, they usually have bizzare reasons forwhy the did what they did (though unconvincing to us, the subject remains convincedof their tale). Returning to the case of free will, why does one choose Americaas opposed to China. Well, one may say that "they just had an Americanhotdog last night and so America appealed to them". However, this is nojustification, it is merely stating a fact. It's like if youasked a murderer why they murdered and they said "I killed him". Sowhy choose America instead of China because you ate a hotdog? Why couldn't youthink "well I've just had a hotdog, let's switch things up, I'll choose China".This process of "choosing" because of your apparent"justification" is no more than your neurons making a decision foryou and you being aware of this decision.
Youcannot know how things occur to you and neither can you know why you"chose" the option of which you did.
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BeforeI read Sam Harris's Free Will book, I was convincedthat free will was real. Now, after being confronted by this seemingly simplyline of thinking, I'm not so sure. Feel free to have a stab at Harris'slogic.
