How can we be “free” as conscious agents if everything that… - Sam Harris

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How can we be “free” as conscious agents if everything that we consciously intend is caused by events in our brain that we do not intend and of which we are entirely unaware? We can’t. To say that “my brain” decided to think or act in a particular way, whether consciously or not, and that this is the basis for my freedom, is to ignore the very source of our belief in free will: the feeling of conscious agency. People feel that they are the authors of their thoughts and actions, and this is the only reason why there seems to be a problem of free will worth talking about.

Sam Harris

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About Sam Harris

Samuel Benjamin Harris (born April 9, 1967) is an American author, philosopher, public intellectual, and neuroscientist, as well as the co-founder and CEO of Project Reason. He is the author of The End of Faith (2004), which won the PEN/Martha Albrand Award for First Nonfiction in 2005 and appeared on The New York Times best seller list for 33 weeks, Letter to a Christian Nation (2006), The Moral Landscape (2010), Lying (2011), Free Will (2012), and most recently Waking Up: A Guide to Spirituality Without Religion (2014).

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Birth Name: Samuel Benjamin Harris

Alternative Names: Samuel Harris

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How can we be “free” as conscious agents if everything that we consciously intend is caused by events in our brain that we do not intend and of which we are entirely unaware?

How can we be “free” as conscious agents if everything that we consciously intend is caused by events in our brain that we do not intend and of which we are entirely unaware? We can’t.

Originators like Sam Harris:

William James Bertrand Russell Richard Dawkins Aldous Huxley Dan Brown

Additional quotes by Sam Harris

Honest people are a refuge: You know they mean what they say; you know they will not say one thing to your face and another behind your back; you know they will tell you when they think you have failed — and for this reason their praise cannot be mistaken for mere flattery.

Why should we live in relationship to ourselves rather than merely as ourselves?

We do not know what we intend to do until the intention itself arises. To understand this is to realize that we are not the authors of our thoughts and actions in the way that people generally suppose.

How can we be “free” as conscious agents if everything that we consciously intend is caused by events in our brain that we do not intend and of which… - Sam Harris

About Sam Harris

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