Why Free Will Is Real
Why Free Will Is Real

Author: Christian List

Publisher: Harvard University Press

Published: 2019-05-06

Total Pages: 225

ISBN-13: 0674239814

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A crystal-clear, scientifically rigorous argument for the existence of free will, challenging what many scientists and scientifically minded philosophers believe. Philosophers have argued about the nature and the very existence of free will for centuries. Today, many scientists and scientifically minded commentators are skeptical that it exists, especially when it is understood to require the ability to choose between alternative possibilities. If the laws of physics govern everything that happens, they argue, then how can our choices be free? Believers in free will must be misled by habit, sentiment, or religious doctrine. Why Free Will Is Real defies scientific orthodoxy and presents a bold new defense of free will in the same naturalistic terms that are usually deployed against it. Unlike those who defend free will by giving up the idea that it requires alternative possibilities to choose from, Christian List retains this idea as central, resisting the tendency to defend free will by watering it down. He concedes that free will and its prerequisites—intentional agency, alternative possibilities, and causal control over our actions—cannot be found among the fundamental physical features of the natural world. But, he argues, that’s not where we should be looking. Free will is a “higher-level” phenomenon found at the level of psychology. It is like other phenomena that emerge from physical processes but are autonomous from them and not best understood in fundamental physical terms—like an ecosystem or the economy. When we discover it in its proper context, acknowledging that free will is real is not just scientifically respectable; it is indispensable for explaining our world.

Free Will
Free Will

Author: Sam Harris

Publisher: Simon and Schuster

Published: 2012-03-06

Total Pages: 96

ISBN-13: 1451683405

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From the New York Times bestselling author of The End of Faith, a thought-provoking, "brilliant and witty" (Oliver Sacks) look at the notion of free will—and the implications that it is an illusion. A belief in free will touches nearly everything that human beings value. It is difficult to think about law, politics, religion, public policy, intimate relationships, morality—as well as feelings of remorse or personal achievement—without first imagining that every person is the true source of his or her thoughts and actions. And yet the facts tell us that free will is an illusion. In this enlightening book, Sam Harris argues that this truth about the human mind does not undermine morality or diminish the importance of social and political freedom, but it can and should change the way we think about some of the most important questions in life.

The Illusion of Conscious Will
The Illusion of Conscious Will

Author: Daniel M. Wegner

Publisher: MIT Press

Published: 2003-08-11

Total Pages: 725

ISBN-13: 0262290553

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A novel contribution to the age-old debate about free will versus determinism. Do we consciously cause our actions, or do they happen to us? Philosophers, psychologists, neuroscientists, theologians, and lawyers have long debated the existence of free will versus determinism. In this book Daniel Wegner offers a novel understanding of the issue. Like actions, he argues, the feeling of conscious will is created by the mind and brain. Yet if psychological and neural mechanisms are responsible for all human behavior, how could we have conscious will? The feeling of conscious will, Wegner shows, helps us to appreciate and remember our authorship of the things our minds and bodies do. Yes, we feel that we consciously will our actions, Wegner says, but at the same time, our actions happen to us. Although conscious will is an illusion, it serves as a guide to understanding ourselves and to developing a sense of responsibility and morality. Approaching conscious will as a topic of psychological study, Wegner examines the issue from a variety of angles. He looks at illusions of the will—those cases where people feel that they are willing an act that they are not doing or, conversely, are not willing an act that they in fact are doing. He explores conscious will in hypnosis, Ouija board spelling, automatic writing, and facilitated communication, as well as in such phenomena as spirit possession, dissociative identity disorder, and trance channeling. The result is a book that sidesteps endless debates to focus, more fruitfully, on the impact on our lives of the illusion of conscious will.

How Physics Makes Us Free
How Physics Makes Us Free

Author: J. T. Ismael

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2016-02-03

Total Pages: 289

ISBN-13: 0190269456

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In 1687 Isaac Newton ushered in a new scientific era in which laws of nature could be used to predict the movements of matter with almost perfect precision. Newton's physics also posed a profound challenge to our self-understanding, however, for the very same laws that keep airplanes in the air and rivers flowing downhill tell us that it is in principle possible to predict what each of us will do every second of our entire lives, given the early conditions of the universe. Can it really be that even while you toss and turn late at night in the throes of an important decision and it seems like the scales of fate hang in the balance, that your decision is a foregone conclusion? Can it really be that everything you have done and everything you ever will do is determined by facts that were in place long before you were born? This problem is one of the staples of philosophical discussion. It is discussed by everyone from freshman in their first philosophy class, to theoretical physicists in bars after conferences. And yet there is no topic that remains more unsettling, and less well understood. If you want to get behind the façade, past the bare statement of determinism, and really try to understand what physics is telling us in its own terms, read this book. The problem of free will raises all kinds of questions. What does it mean to make a decision, and what does it mean to say that our actions are determined? What are laws of nature? What are causes? What sorts of things are we, when viewed through the lenses of physics, and how do we fit into the natural order? Ismael provides a deeply informed account of what physics tells us about ourselves. The result is a vision that is abstract, alien, illuminating, and-Ismael argues-affirmative of most of what we all believe about our own freedom. Written in a jargon-free style, How Physics Makes Us Free provides an accessible and innovative take on a central question of human existence.

The Moral Landscape
The Moral Landscape

Author: Sam Harris

Publisher: Simon and Schuster

Published: 2011-09-13

Total Pages: 322

ISBN-13: 143917122X

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Sam Harris dismantles the most common justification for religious faith--that a moral system cannot be based on science.

Chosen by God
Chosen by God

Author: R. C. Sproul

Publisher: Tyndale House Publishers, Inc.

Published: 2011-02-18

Total Pages: 196

ISBN-13: 1414361149

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Nearly 200,000 copies sold! Chosen by God by Dr. R. C. Sproul is a contemporary classic on predestination, a doctrine that isn’t just for Calvinists. It is a doctrine for all biblical Christians. In this updated and expanded edition of Chosen by God, Sproul shows that the doctrine of predestination doesn’t create a whimsical or spiteful picture of God, but rather paints a portrait of a loving God who provides redemption for radically corrupt humans. We choose God because he has opened our eyes to see his beauty; we love him because he first loved us. There is mystery in God’s ways, but not contradiction.

Free Will: A Guide for the Perplexed
Free Will: A Guide for the Perplexed

Author: T. J. Mawson

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA

Published: 2011-01-20

Total Pages: 205

ISBN-13: 1441153292

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In everyday life, we often suppose ourselves to be free to choose between several courses of action. But if we examine further, we find that this view seems to rest on metaphysical and meta-ethical presuppositions almost all of which look problematic. How can we be free if everything is determined by factors beyond our control, stretching back in time to the Big Bang and the laws of nature operating then? The only alternative to determinism is indeterminism, but is not indeterminism just there being a certain amount of randomness in the world? Does not randomness hinder you from being the author of your actions? Free Will: A Guide for the Perplexed looks at how much of the structure of our everyday judgments can survive the arguments behind such questions and thoughts. In doing so, it explores the alternative arguments that have been advanced concerning free will and related notions, including an up-to-date overview of the contemporary debates. In essence, the book seeks to understand and answer the age-old question, 'What is free will and do we have it?'

On the Incarnation
On the Incarnation

Author: Saint Athanasius (Patriarch of Alexandria)

Publisher: SPCK Publishing

Published: 2011

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9780881414271

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"By any standard, this is a classic of Christian theology. Composed by St. Athanasius in the fourth century, it expounds with simplicity the theological vision defended at the councils of Nicaea and Constantinople: that the Son of God himself became "fully human, so that we might become god." Its influence on all Christian theology thereafter, East and West, ensures its place as one of the few "must read" books of Christian theology for all time."--

Free Will as an Open Scientific Problem
Free Will as an Open Scientific Problem

Author: Mark Balaguer

Publisher: MIT Press

Published: 2012-01-13

Total Pages: 213

ISBN-13: 0262266156

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An argument that the problem of free will boils down to an open scientific question about the causal histories of certain kinds of neural events. In this largely antimetaphysical treatment of free will and determinism, Mark Balaguer argues that the philosophical problem of free will boils down to an open scientific question about the causal histories of certain kinds of neural events. In the course of his argument, Balaguer provides a naturalistic defense of the libertarian view of free will. The metaphysical component of the problem of free will, Balaguer argues, essentially boils down to the question of whether humans possess libertarian free will. Furthermore, he argues that, contrary to the traditional wisdom, the libertarian question reduces to a question about indeterminacy—in particular, to a straightforward empirical question about whether certain neural events in our heads are causally undetermined in a certain specific way; in other words, Balaguer argues that the right kind of indeterminacy would bring with it all of the other requirements for libertarian free will. Finally, he argues that because there is no good evidence as to whether or not the relevant neural events are undetermined in the way that's required, the question of whether human beings possess libertarian free will is a wide-open empirical question.