Continuing the consideration of free will, and of SamHarris’ recent book on the subject, from last week.
As I indicated there, I’m not persuaded that Libet’sexperiments have the broad significance sometimes attributed to them.Accordingly, I find unpersuasive Harris’ reliance on those experiments in hisdiscussin of the factual question.
Beyond that, there is the value question. Harris wants us toabandon the idea of free will because it is part of the further idea of anautonomous self, and he wants us to give up that. The idea of a separate selfis (as Buddhism teaches) the cause of all suffering and the abandonment of thatillusion is enlightenment.
I recognize this idea as part of a noble philosophicalheritage. For myself, though, I’m sticking with … my Self. The idea of theself, as a locus of responsibility and originality, has given us the politicsof rights, of social mobility, the struggle for companionate over arrangedmarriage, and much else. How much “else” quickly becomes a matter of attributionand interpretation, but it seems likely for example that the idea of the lonelycreative genius which was so much a part of romanticism was itself a factor increating some of the works of art with which we associate the period.
Selfhood, whatever else we may say of it, is not only aboutsuffering. And it is my humble prejudice that we should keep selfhood (and suchnotions of freedom as are intermingled with that) until we have better reasonsfor abandoning it than anything yet presented.
I'll have a final comment on this line of thought tomorrow.
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