Sam Harris recently had a clip of him discussing free will and consciousness going around Twitter. I wanted to comment on some of those claims. Sam Harris: So, consciousness is just the ground truth, and yet it's very hard to operationalize and study neuroscientifically or in any other way, right? And, and it's, you know, there are reasons why that's the case, and they're interesting, but it's, it's just, so, that's consciousness. Free will is a very different case.
Ok, so interesting as always to read discussion about free will.
Now I will say that I’ve listened to a lot of Sam Harris, in particular around the discussion of free will, determinism and what that means for living and acting within an ethical framework. I don’t agree with everything he says always, but he has a good understanding of dharma teachings.
I don’t want to dive into the philosophy here I’m not well read! But want to point out a few things:
1- the transcript of Sam is quite terrible, he explains this much clearer with less um’a and and’s elsewhere, this kinda paints a negative picture from the start of the article.
2- This is such a small aspect of his reading of determinism. He unpacks all of the above mentioned issues if free will doesn’t exist elsewhere in his writing and audio. It’s like reading a headline and thinking you know the whole argument.
Nitpicking over, to address the explanatory gap and metaphysics points: Advaita and Buddhist teaching are strong influences to SH, and something that I think non-meditators can struggle to appreciate is the clarity with which one can witness consciousness, or rather experience phenomena AS consciousness.
Consciousness is experienced directly to be a ground zero of all experience and when you pay close enough attention with such forms of mental training the phenomena drop away and you are left with nothing but awareness. Exactly how that works is up for debate and kind of irrelevant - as Sam points out there is always an experience gap. We don’t seem to be able to go back another level and witness consciousness itself from outside of it, because we arise from inside it.
SH is not making metaphysical claims but direct experiential claims shared with mystics going back through prehistory.
However uncertain WHAT consciousness actually is, it js evident our entire experience arises from it, as it. Inseparable.
If trained to be able to our awareness can witness the flowing arising of experiences that merge and become the apparent pieces that constitute our selves or our free will. So whether you call free will (and by association our sense of self-identity) an illusion, an illusion of an illusion, or entirely non existent, or present but not who we are -- all depends on exact definition of free will
and gets a little silly I think. What is clear is that ‘free will’ is a phenomenon of pattern that can be witnessed, and when witnessed is not within ‘control’ of that which seems to witness. In fact, from the perspective of raw consciousness, nothing is see to be under ‘your’ control, you witness every decision ‘you’ make arising on its own from the conditions that got you there, including the happenstance that you learned about free will, had the time to investigate it directly and see it as also ‘empty of self’ (to use the Buddhist term).
But that’s the point, from there, EVERYTHING is free from self. YOU don’t appear exist in the normal sense. Awareness happens before the feeling of selfhood, and can see it arise and pass away just as you would a sound.
Then you come back to plain old reality with this insight and can’t avoid seeing it, but still you
Operate as as normal functioning animal, relying on decision making capabilities and self organising habits that construct an apparent and measurable personality, choices, preference etc etc. It’s just now you see that all of that comes from past events (this is what karma is btw- past action)
You can repeat the experiment to see whether you can find the moment of a decision arising and where it came from and whether that was ‘you’. I never have. Meditators and shamans for thousands of years have come to the same conclusion. But don’t believe me, find out how to try yourself!
Buddhist teachers point out that the original teachings made no definitive statements about free will or determinism. The teachings are pointing to that which is a useful lens to see reality, one that leads to greater peace and happiness and flourishing. It is a deep well of experience to investigate and I encourage you to see past the surface discomfort of ‘what do you mean I don’t have free will’. If taught poorly and incompletely or to deaf ears it sounds mechanistic and a horrible rendering down of experience into puppetry.
It isn’t, in my experience it is the most deeply freeing insight, and the most counter intuitive one I’ve encountered. I feel a kinder, happier, more generous and balanced human for finding this teaching!
Ok, so interesting as always to read discussion about free will.
Now I will say that I’ve listened to a lot of Sam Harris, in particular around the discussion of free will, determinism and what that means for living and acting within an ethical framework. I don’t agree with everything he says always, but he has a good understanding of dharma teachings.
I don’t want to dive into the philosophy here I’m not well read! But want to point out a few things:
1- the transcript of Sam is quite terrible, he explains this much clearer with less um’a and and’s elsewhere, this kinda paints a negative picture from the start of the article.
2- This is such a small aspect of his reading of determinism. He unpacks all of the above mentioned issues if free will doesn’t exist elsewhere in his writing and audio. It’s like reading a headline and thinking you know the whole argument.
Nitpicking over, to address the explanatory gap and metaphysics points: Advaita and Buddhist teaching are strong influences to SH, and something that I think non-meditators can struggle to appreciate is the clarity with which one can witness consciousness, or rather experience phenomena AS consciousness.
Consciousness is experienced directly to be a ground zero of all experience and when you pay close enough attention with such forms of mental training the phenomena drop away and you are left with nothing but awareness. Exactly how that works is up for debate and kind of irrelevant - as Sam points out there is always an experience gap. We don’t seem to be able to go back another level and witness consciousness itself from outside of it, because we arise from inside it.
SH is not making metaphysical claims but direct experiential claims shared with mystics going back through prehistory.
However uncertain WHAT consciousness actually is, it js evident our entire experience arises from it, as it. Inseparable.
If trained to be able to our awareness can witness the flowing arising of experiences that merge and become the apparent pieces that constitute our selves or our free will. So whether you call free will (and by association our sense of self-identity) an illusion, an illusion of an illusion, or entirely non existent, or present but not who we are -- all depends on exact definition of free will
and gets a little silly I think. What is clear is that ‘free will’ is a phenomenon of pattern that can be witnessed, and when witnessed is not within ‘control’ of that which seems to witness. In fact, from the perspective of raw consciousness, nothing is see to be under ‘your’ control, you witness every decision ‘you’ make arising on its own from the conditions that got you there, including the happenstance that you learned about free will, had the time to investigate it directly and see it as also ‘empty of self’ (to use the Buddhist term).
But that’s the point, from there, EVERYTHING is free from self. YOU don’t appear exist in the normal sense. Awareness happens before the feeling of selfhood, and can see it arise and pass away just as you would a sound.
Then you come back to plain old reality with this insight and can’t avoid seeing it, but still you
Operate as as normal functioning animal, relying on decision making capabilities and self organising habits that construct an apparent and measurable personality, choices, preference etc etc. It’s just now you see that all of that comes from past events (this is what karma is btw- past action)
You can repeat the experiment to see whether you can find the moment of a decision arising and where it came from and whether that was ‘you’. I never have. Meditators and shamans for thousands of years have come to the same conclusion. But don’t believe me, find out how to try yourself!
Buddhist teachers point out that the original teachings made no definitive statements about free will or determinism. The teachings are pointing to that which is a useful lens to see reality, one that leads to greater peace and happiness and flourishing. It is a deep well of experience to investigate and I encourage you to see past the surface discomfort of ‘what do you mean I don’t have free will’. If taught poorly and incompletely or to deaf ears it sounds mechanistic and a horrible rendering down of experience into puppetry.
It isn’t, in my experience it is the most deeply freeing insight, and the most counter intuitive one I’ve encountered. I feel a kinder, happier, more generous and balanced human for finding this teaching!
May you have a day of peace 🙏🙇🏼♂️ blessings!