Give up Free Will

[Guest guest]

SUSAN BLACKMORE

 

(Psychologist, Visiting Lecturer, University of the West of England,

Bristol; Author The Meme Machine)

 

It is possible to live happily and morally without believing in free

will. As Samuel Johnson said " All theory is against the freedom of

the will; all experience is for it. " With recent developments in

neuroscience and theories of consciousness, theory is even more

against it than it was in his time, more than 200 years ago. So I

long ago set about systematically changing the experience. I now have

no feeling of acting with free will, although the feeling took many

years to ebb away.

 

But what happens? People say I'm lying! They say it's impossible and

so I must be deluding myself to preserve my theory. And what can I do

or say to challenge them? I have no idea—other than to suggest that

other people try the exercise, demanding as it is.

 

When the feeling is gone, decisions just happen with no sense of

anyone making them, but then a new question arises—will the decisions

be morally acceptable? Here I have made a great leap of faith (or the

memes and genes and world have done so). It seems that when people

throw out the illusion of an inner self who acts, as many mystics and

Buddhist practitioners have done, they generally do behave in ways

that we think of as moral or good. So perhaps giving up free will is

not as dangerous as it sounds—but this too I cannot prove.

 

As for giving up the sense of an inner conscious self altogether—this

is very much harder. I just keep on seeming to exist. But though I

cannot prove it—I think it is true that I don't.

[Guest guest]

Thank you for posting this, Werner. I smile. When quantum

mechanics/physics discovered mirror neurons and realized the act of

looking actually changes what is seen, human knowledge moved into the

arena of metaphysics.

 

Now psychology has validated it.

 

Even as all the material/economic systems of our world are on the edge

of total collapse, we are reintegrating the essence of all *reality*.

Perhaps recreating the material world on a cosmic/subatomic level.

 

One can only *hope*.

 

~A

Who knows?

 

 

 

Nisargadatta , " Werner Woehr " <wwoehr wrote:

>

> SUSAN BLACKMORE

>

> (Psychologist, Visiting Lecturer, University of the West of England,

> Bristol; Author The Meme Machine)

>

> It is possible to live happily and morally without believing in free

> will. As Samuel Johnson said " All theory is against the freedom of

> the will; all experience is for it. " With recent developments in

> neuroscience and theories of consciousness, theory is even more

> against it than it was in his time, more than 200 years ago. So I

> long ago set about systematically changing the experience. I now have

> no feeling of acting with free will, although the feeling took many

> years to ebb away.

>

> But what happens? People say I'm lying! They say it's impossible and

> so I must be deluding myself to preserve my theory. And what can I do

> or say to challenge them? I have no idea—other than to suggest that

> other people try the exercise, demanding as it is.

>

> When the feeling is gone, decisions just happen with no sense of

> anyone making them, but then a new question arises—will the decisions

> be morally acceptable? Here I have made a great leap of faith (or the

> memes and genes and world have done so). It seems that when people

> throw out the illusion of an inner self who acts, as many mystics and

> Buddhist practitioners have done, they generally do behave in ways

> that we think of as moral or good. So perhaps giving up free will is

> not as dangerous as it sounds—but this too I cannot prove.

>

> As for giving up the sense of an inner conscious self altogether—this

> is very much harder. I just keep on seeming to exist. But though I

> cannot prove it—I think it is true that I don't.

>

[Guest guest]

http://www.susanblackmore.co.uk/