Since there is no free will, "responsibility" needs to be redefined

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."

Comments

[tai]

This debate never ends...

Free will exists at higher levels of consciousness.

But when people give up control over their minds to certain systems of thought, then yeah, no free will...

It’s all about different levels of awareness. We don’t have free will in the sense that we can’t control others but we’re certainly responsible for what we do given our circumstances.

There are like 50 shades of grey when it comes to free will. I don’t understand why people are so black and white about it.

[tai]

Free will is like a game. When the ball is in your court you do the best you can and hope your teammates do as well. But you can’t control how the weather might affect the game or whether or 100 other variables having to do with other people impact the game. But you can control what you do. You can try. And the ability to try even the tiniest bit is free will. It’s not black and white. And don’t forget the butterfly. Sometimes the tiniest changes result in massive changes. Like getting off course a millimeter or two. It can change everything.

Humans are obsessed with control. We’re obsessed with certainty and power.

[Uchit]

How can you have a free life when you are a poor sad soul born into the RSSB, a cult of satan. Here you are already brainwashed by the values and beliefs of your parents, who desperately look for answers to address the pain in there life and fell for a charlatan baba who sits on a stage and says he has them. You are forced to go to satsang to water that seed, which is really the company of complete lies; here you are surrounded by like minded brainwashed souls and ego driven key sevadars, you are told to be humble and bow down to this so called man of god, the saviour ; on leaving the satsang you are given propaganda newsletters and are encouraged to read propaganda material and edited rssb books, about a fake inner journey to make and a perfect living master. Further more you only hang out with your new brothers and sisters, do seva (slavery with false promises); also your marriages are arranged within the same circle. Marrages make sure all of your offspring are born into the path. You then sell your soul by getting initiated, where you are told to repeat the devils name for 2.5 hours every night at 3am. In short you, your siblings, your children are totally brainwashed into the devils web, for lifetimes. This is not the life of free will, but the life of puppet master who you foolishly trusted. What a tragic waste of lifetimes. Isn't it time to got out of this trap?

[Um]

@Uchit

If you replace RSSB by another religious organisation and the head of that organisation, you will find the same and even worse.

All people are born into a culture and identify themselves with it and so they become to have a language, nationality, religion, social group in terms of class and caste, political preferences etc.Identifications for which they are prepared to kill and be killed.

The animosity between socio-cultural groups is often such, that these groups don't want their members to contact people from other groups and if they do they are excommunicated or worse run the risk of being killed. Whole contrives, cities and neighbourhoods are divide into no-go areas. Think of Ireland, the separation in India and what is going on in the middle east etc.

History books tell us that many if not all wars, until these days are religion related.
How many are massacred and tortured in the process of "bringing the good news" of yet another new prophet, mystic etc.?

Tell us Uchit, which people, group etc can wash their hands in innocence?

What have you to offer us readers more than your warnings related to RSSB?

[Uchit]

Um
People, desperate for so called enlightenment are manipulated from religion to RSSB because it boasts that it is only focused on spirituality, yet RSSB is another cloaked religion and therefore people are still in the dark. There is one other difference , the narsasist GSD very happily disguises as a man of god, but is a wolf in sheep clothing. This makes him worse than Hitler. Catholics, Islam, Egyptian, the new RSSB are all vehicles for the negative power to keep people trapped in this prison.

[um]

@ Uchit

Yes, Yes, you have made that point again an again, in more or less the same words but what is your alternative for people identifying them selves with the demands of their socio-cultural religious group they are born in?

And what is your answer on the question which religious group can wash its hands in innocence?

[um]

@ Uchit

What did the "Egyptians" do that you name them in the same breath with Hitler?

From history we all know what Christians and Moslims did.

You did not name, the other world religions, Buddhists, Hindu's, Jews and Sikhs.
Why?

They are the ones that can wash their hands in innocence?

[tai]

If one truly believes there is absolutely no free will then you can’t get mad at anyone for anything. You cannot judge anyone. You might as well through all your opinions out the window with your “false” sense of discrimination.

If there is no free will then life is purposeless and god is just playing a cruel joke.

I believe we definitely have some free will... but I also believe in Quantum mechanics and parallel universes, so 🤪

[tai]

*throw

...but we shouldn’t judge people regardless of whether we have free will or not.

[Dungeness]

@ If there is no free will then life is purposeless and god is just playing a cruel joke.

But if God exists and no one's separate from God,
we're all complicit in the cruel joke. God's life is
just as purposeless too.

[um]

There is no end to that debate on free will.

Why?

Is it a matter that humans do not agree about the content of the concepts, will, free and the combination of the two?

Is there a difference between will and choice?

What I do know is that there are many things that i cannot control but are at the same time part of the world I consider "mine"

I have hands, fingers, arms and I can use them to lift my cup of coffee but at the same time I have no saying in the fact THAT i have them, how they are made, why they are made and what is the ultimate thought behind these things, if there is one. There is a difference between "mine arms" and "these arms"

I have also toughts and I can think, but I have no idea on how these thoughts do appear and from where, they are like clouds passing by there is nothing to will neither about the form or its content.

I go to bed and FALL asleep. But I have no control over it in the same way as lifting a cup of coffee. Nor do I have an idee about what sleep is and how it works and why it is there in the first place.

The list goes on and on, there is no end to it.

I can use things freely but at the same time i am controlled by them, have to accept them as they are, with their functional laws underneath them, laws that i mostly don't understand of have knowledge of.

I can become angry, it does happen and I can manage it but i cannot make it appear and disappear ..... not at will,...

So ridding a horse, I can make it go from left to right, but the horse is on its own and I have no absolute control over it, as long as we are at par it seems so, but in reality it is not. At any moment the horse can trow me of or there might happen something to the animal that is not in my hands.

So it seems to me that we can use things and that we are responsible for which things we chose to use and how we use them. Some things we even HAVE to use whether we like it or not and we have no control over the fact that things exist, exist as they are and function as they do.

So it seems we have conditioned free choice but no free will at all and we are responsible for the choices. That responsibility, the bill to be paid so to say, is also build in the things we do use. .... drinkiing makes people drunk and effects their body and mind..... gladiators had to fight in the arena of life, against partners beyond their choice, with weapons to defend themselves that were given to them, what free will did they have but to act within the circumstances and bear the consequences?

Did not arjuna say that after the arrow left the bow he could not call it back?

[um]

@ Dungeness

>>God's life is just as purposeless too.<<

May be that is the reason why mystics call it the "lords lila or play"
Plays don't have an other purpose that to be played, isn't it?

[tai]

@Dungeness

Yes, god’s life is just as purposeless too. I can understand why people don’t like him. This universe revolves around vengeance. “God” is all about revenge. That’s why one can never be truly free... karma/vengeance.

[tai]

The only reason humans invented a devil/kal/satan is so they wouldn’t have to blame “god” for everything.

[Dungeness]

@ May be that is the reason why mystics call it the "lords lila or play"
@ Plays don't have an other purpose that to be played, isn't it?

You're right, I think. And everyone gets to play.

"The play's the thing." --Shakespeare

[Dragonslayer]

Unbelievably deluded!!!!!
this planet is run by kaal, the devil, just open your eyes and look at the state of the world. Look at the fake saviours, GSD, RSSB, the planetary environmental issues, wars, the starvation, the bullies taking control of the innocent. Look at the heartless narcissists, that have the nerve to show one face in satsang, and off stage be a stinking, hypocrite to humanity. GSD, has taken billions from his nephews fraudulently, and can still not flinch with any remorse on stage, a total sociopath and narcissist sick individual, living off the misery of the sangat desperate for solice and a saviour. Finally look at covid and the effects. This is hell, and the so called gods are taking the piss of humanity like their play thing.

[Solomon]

Dragonslayer -
Hey , go watch MESSIAH on Netflix- you will have inspiration for more conspiracy theories.