FREE WILL by SAM HARRIS
" Sam Harris gives a very good and brief account of how the concept of free will is really a myth. Well written and succinct" "とても面白い本です。自分の意志で物事を決めて行動しているとおもっていますか。実はその判断しているのは「意識している自分」じゃないかもしれません。何かを決めた時、その反対の道を歩む自由は本当にありました？もしそうじゃなきゃ、犯罪者など悪い行動をとった人たちの処理はどうすればよいでしょうか" "The problem with the book is that the author seems to think determinism is true" one popular review here mentions that the book is interesting in the beginning but then not so much - personally I found every page informative and very well written.."
"우리는 우리의 생각과 행동의 주인인가?" "우리는 자유의지를 가지고 있는가?" Sam Harris 는 "NO" 라고 말한다. "Free will is an illusion. Our wills are simply not of our own making. Thoughts and intentions emerge from background causes of which are unaware and over which we exert no conscious control. We do not have the freedom we think we have." 사람들의 관점에 따라서 다양한 의견을 보이는 것이 사실이고 민감한 주제이기도 하지만 개인적으로 공감이 가는 내용의 책이다. 저자는 글을 정말 잘쓰는거 같다. 어려운 주제이기 때문에 잘못하면 어려운 단어들이나 표현들의 열거로 채워질 책이지만 이 책은 그렇지 않다. 아마 저자가 무슨 말을 해야 할지 잘 알기 때문인거 같다. 다만 작가가 최소한으로 언급하는 개념들에 대해서 이해가 부족한 경우에는 읽기가 어려울 수 있다. 그리고 이 주제에 대해서 어느정도 지식을 가진 사람들은 읽기가 쉬울 것이다.
- The popular conception of free will seems to rest on two assumptions :(1) that each of us could have behaved differently than we did in the past, and (2) that we are the conscious source of most of our thoughts and actions in the present. As we are about to see, however, both of these assumptions are false.
- Where intentions themselves come from, and what determines their character in every instance, remains perfectly mysterious in subjective terms ....... To understand this is to realize ......... we are not the authors of our thoughts and actions ....
- Both libertarianism, and compatibilism hold that if our behavior is fully determined by background causes, free will is an illusion.
- Compatibilists generally claim that a person is free as long as he is free from any outer or inner compulsions that would prevent him from acting on his actual desires and intentions....
- This process of conscious deliberation, while different from unconscious reflex, offers no foundation for freedom of will.
- 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.
- We can pursue any line of thought we want - but our choice is the product of prior events that we did not bring into being.
- Many philosophers, including me, ............... actions in the face of competing desires.
- Losing a belief in free will has not made me fatalistic - in fact, it has increased my feelings of freedom. My hopes, fears, and neuroses seem less personal and indelible.
- Ironically, one of the fears attending our progress in science is that a more complete understanding of ourselves will dehumanize us.
