Over on his Waking Up app, Sam Harris has posted a series of podcasts regarding the absence of free will -- a subject Harris has frequently written and talked about.
The titles provide a feel for Harris' subject matter.
(1) Cause & Effect
(2) Thoughts Without a Thinker
(3) Choice, Reason, & Knowledge
(4) Love & Hate
(5) Crime & Punishment
(6) The Paradox of Responsibility
(7) Why Do Anything?
Today I listened to the talk about responsibility. Harris made a lot of sense, as he always does.
When we think about someone acting responsibly, such as by telling the truth, there's several assumptions underlying the usual way people look upon the meaning of "responsible."
Most obviously, if I am responsible for an action, this means that I was the one who carried out the action. This is akin to a parent saying to her three children, upon noticing that a dish has been broken, "Who is responsible for this?"
But the meaning Harris talked about involves whether someone could have done an action differently. An example Harris used was a golfer missing a short putt.
Given my putting skills, it wouldn't be a surprise if I missed a three foot putt. However, Harris said that if the top-ranked golfer in the world misses a short putt, questions are going to be asked: What went wrong? How did this happen? Could the golfer have done better?
The first two questions fall within how Harris views free will. Namely, that it doesn't exist. Causes and effects make the world go 'round, including making skilled golfers miss short putts occasionally. Maybe something distracted the golfer, so his mind was elsewhere.
That would answer the "how" question. We're left with the question of whether the golfer could have done better, if he could have made the putt.
Not if the state of every atom in the universe, including the golfer's brain, was in the same state as when he missed the putt. Exactly the same causes are going to produce exactly the same effects. There's no immaterial free will genie inside our head who can conjure up a different outcome from precisely the same inputs.
So if somehow the golfer had been able to return in time to the moment he was about to attempt the putt, the same thing would have happened. He would miss the putt.
Where does this leave the second notion about responsibility, that the golfer could have made the putt if he had just tried harder? That would be true if the golfer's brain was different from the state it was in when he failed to sink the putt.
If the golfer had been more focused, more attentive, more relaxed, more something, then the outcome of the putt could have been different. But this assumes that time travel is possible, that the golfer could change the past to fashion a more satisfying result -- a successful three-foot putt.
But this isn't possible, so it is senseless for someone to say, "That top-ranked golfer is responsible for missing a short putt." Sure, as noted above the golfer moved the club that struck the ball that failed to go into the hole, so in that sense he was responsible.
However, in no way was the golfer at fault for not doing something that could have been done differently, because there always is only one thing going on in reality: whatever is going on.
Harris notes that since free will doesn't exist, this should make us look upon criminals in a more enlightened fashion. Just as the golfer did the only thing he was able to do, so is a murderer; so is a thief; so is any other sort of law breaker.
Unfortunately, the legal system is founded on a mistaken belief that a person could have acted differently, if they had chosen to do so. This makes punishment a primary motivation since it is assumed that a criminal deserves to be held responsible for their actions. A more enlightened view would see that prevention of future crimes is a better goal, which might require keeping a person in prison during a hoped-for rehabilitation period.
Of course, that isn't guaranteed. But it is worth a try, since punishment makes no sense if free will is an illusion.
It would be akin to punishing a baby for pooping in its diaper. That's what babies do. They have no choice. Likewise, punishing a grizzly bear for attacking a human makes no sense, since the bear had no choice.
I find this view of responsibility to be highly appealing.
All of us can think of things in our past that we wish we had done differently. That sense of regret is healthy if it motivates us to perform wiser actions in the future. But it is unhealthy if we revisit past mistakes, believing that it would've been possible for us to have behaved more responsibly.
No, that wasn't possible. Missed putts can't be redone, nor can anything else.
We can learn from our mistakes. We can't undo them. Only in our imagination is it possible to have done this rather than that. In the real world, there is only what actually happened, not what might have happened in an alternative reality.
So forgive yourself for what you regret. There's no real need to do this, given that you could only have done what you actually did. However, it might make you feel better to say to yourself what a good friend would say to you: "Don't be hard on yourself; it wasn't your responsibility."
More churchless do's and don'ts from commenters
In my recent post, "Here's some churchless do's and don'ts for the new year," I invited blog visitors to leave their own do's and don'ts in a comment. So far, five people have done that.
Here's what they said. Nicely done, guys.
Osho Robbins
DON'T seek God because He ain't seeking you
DO live your life as an ordinary person
DON'T seek enlightenment because it's already there
DO simply BE YOURSELF
DON'T try to be anything other than what you are
DO simply BE YOURSELF
DON'T complain about your life
DO simply accept what you have in life
DON'T think you NEED anything to be happy
DO be happy regardless of circumstances
DON'T seek perfection as it does not exist
DO embrace all aspects of who you are
DON'T be fake and a hypocrite
DO be authentic and true to yourself and others
DON'T connect your self worth to what you do or achieve
DO understand there is NO SELF
DO understand that if there is no SELF there is no SELF WORTH either
DO understand that the SELF you experience is not YOU
DO understand that there IS NO YOU
DON'T SEEK heaven, God, Self or Nirvana - they don't exist
DO live each moment of your life
DON'T take anything for granted
DO realise that you cannot take anything with you because there is nowhere to go
DO simply live and LET GO in each moment
DON'T hold on to anything as all is false
DO enjoy each moment and let it go
finally....
DON'T try to be anyone special or above the rest
instead
DO be ordinary and be happy with what life gives you each moment
and when death comes - embrace that as you embraced life
Spence Tepper
Don't worry about Do's and Don'ts.
Be yourself. Be willing to learn more about that... Or not.
Try to be a better person if you can....
Or just be whatever you are.... But try to be nice.
If you can hurt yourself and others less, and help yourself and others more, that's always a good thing.
If you choose to believe in anything and have faith, there is power in that.
If you choose to tear down walls, that's nice too.
But there is great power all around and within you, and it is accessible when you put your daily thinking and logic aside to see, to feel, to hear, to witness.
The engines of the creation are on all the time and you have connections to them.
Whether it is within yourself or this world. It is all inside you. There is nothing outside you that you can sense.
But in all events, be gentle. Everything that is and that we are, including our choices, comes from things we don't fully understand.
And our actions have results we can never fully predict. Results affecting others.
So be gentle. Seek to be awake more than in control.
manoj
DON'T waste your precious life following a debilitating Cult (Radha Soami)
DO realize we are already, what we are looking for
DON'T bother with Fake Babas too (GSD)
DO look for inspiration from within
DON'T look back, that's not where you're going
DO realize the impossible is always possible
DO it all, while you have the time...
Uchit
DONT fall for a sheep in wolves clothing , GSD being a perfect example
DO do your independant research before you trust someone
DONT listen to a man that thinks he knows it all on a stage
DO listen to your own gut instinct
DONT Become a RSSB agent, a servant of satan, thinking it is seva.
DO look after your self and loved ones
DONT be a sheep and blindly follow the crowd
Dragonslayer
Do - enjoy your life and your dreams
Don't - waste your life in cults like RSSB
Do - keep your own power
Don't - give your power to fake clowns
Do - learn from your mistakes
Don't - stay in places you don't progress
Do - wake your brothers and sisters from the RSSB hell hole
Don't - Give up
Do- enjoy your freedom
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