In Sam Harris’ slim, pamphlet-sized book Free Will, he argues that free will is an illusion, that the choices we think we make from our own volition are analyzed by us after the fact, that brain activity occurred before these “choices” that determines our actions. By understanding and acknowledging the deterministic factors that control our behavior, we can, paradoxically, be in more control of our lives than if we live under the illusion of free will.
It appears some things we can control more than others. For example, I don't make friends easily. My wife says I'm too picky. She's partly right, but also I'm hardwired in a way that I'm not open and relaxed and secure in a way that draws people to me to form friendships. I wish I were hardwired differently, especially as the father of twin toddlers: I want my children to have a father who has a normal circle of friends, but I seem limited to my anti-social and, yes, I'll say it, egotisitcal, hardwiring in this regard.
On the other hand, I can assert discipline when the fear is great enough such as going to college and staying fit. I’ve always questioned my own free will and would shudder with embarrassment when people would congratulate me for getting my BA and Masters degrees. What was my choice? Manual labor? I matriculated college feeling like there was a gun to my head. Fail at higher education and live in squalor and misery.
Or when people say I’m in good shape for being fifty. What’s the alternative? To look like a tomato with four toothpicks sticking out of it? Again, there’s a gun to my head: Eat right and exercise or be an obese cripple subject to a myriad of obesity-related diseases. I am enticed by rewards and repelled by punishments. I seek success and avoid unacceptable consequences. I hardly call this free will.
The thousand-pound man featured on Oprah who was trapped in his bed, who needed a crane to lift him and out and take him to a hospital lacked the sense that there was a gun to his head. Why some of us feel the cold metal against our skull and why others do not remains a mystery.
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