Thinking Beyond Science

Actions, intentions, beliefs, and desires can exist only in a system that is significantly constrained by patterns of behavior and the laws of stimulus-response. The possibility of reasoning with other human beings-or, indeed, of finding their behaviors and utterances comprehensible at all depends on the assumption that their thoughts and actions will obediently ride the rails of a shared reality.

If we pay attention to our inner life, we will see that the emergence of choices, efforts, and intentions is a fundamentally mysterious process. Yes, we can decide to go on a diet- and we know a lot about the variables that will enable us to stick to it_-but we cannot know why we were finally able to adhere to this discipline when all our previous attempts failed. We might have a story to tell about why things were different this time around, but it would be nothing more than a post hoc description of events that we did not control.

We can do what we decide to do but we cannot decide what we will decide to do. Of course, we can create a framework in which certain decisions are more likely than others -we can, for instance, purge our house of all sweets, making it very unlikely that we will eat dessert later in the evening-but we cannot know why we were able to submit to such a framework today when we weren’t yesterday.

Choices, efforts, intentions, and reasoning influence our behavior but they are themselves part of a chain of causes that precede conscious awareness and over which we exert no ultimate control. My choices matter- and there are paths toward making wiser ones but I cannot choose what I choose. And if it ever appears that I do for instance, after going back and forth between two options-_I do not choose to choose what I choose.

Many people believe that human freedom consists in our ability to do what, upon reflection, we believe we should do–which often means overcoming our short-term desires and following our long-term goals or better judgment. This is certainly an ability that people possess, to a greater or lesser degree, and which other animals appear to lack, but it is nevertheless a capacity of our minds that has unconscious roots.

One of the most refreshing ideas to come out of existentialism (perhaps the only one) is that we are free to interpret and reinterpret the meaning of our lives. You can consider your first marriage, which ended in divorce, to be a “failure,” or you can view it as a circumstance that caused you to grow in ways that were crucial to your future happiness.

Becoming sensitive to the background causes of one’s thoughts and feelings can-paradoxically-allow for greater creative control over one’s life. It is one thing to bicker with your wife because you are in a bad mood; it is another to realize that your mood and behavior have been caused by low blood sugar. This understanding reveals you to be a biochemical puppet, of course, but it also allows you to grab hold of one of your strings: A bite of food may be all that your personality requires.

One way of viewing the connection between free will and moral responsibility is to note that we generally attribute these qualities to people only with respect to actions that punishment might deter.? I cannot hold you responsible for behaviors that you could not possibly control. If we made sneezing illegal, for instance, some number of people would break the law no matter how grave the consequences. A behavior like kidnap-ping, however, seems to require conscious deliberation and sustained effort at every turn- hence it should admit of deterrence. If the threat of punishment could cause you to stop doing what you are doing, your behavior falls squarely within conventional notions of free will and moral responsibility.

To say that someone freely chose to squander his life’s savings at the poker table is to say that he had every opportunity to do otherwise and that nothing about what he did was inadvertent. He played poker not by accident or while in the grip of delusion but because he wanted to, intended to, and decided to, moment after moment.

For most purposes, it makes sense to ignore the deep causes of desires and intentions- genes, synaptic potentials, etc. -and focus instead on the conventional outlines of the person. We do this when thinking about our own choices and behaviors because it’s the easiest way to organize our thoughts and actions. Why did I order beer instead of wine? Because I prefer beer. Why do I prefer it? I don’t know, but I generally have no need to ask. Knowing that I like beer more than wine is all I need to know to function in a restaurant.

Source : Free Will by Sam Harris

Goodreads : https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/13259270-free-will

Read Previous Article : https://thinkingbeyondscience.in/2024/11/28/the-illusion-of-free-will-examining-autonomy-responsibility-and-human-agency/