What do you think?
Rate this book
Exploring the Illusion of Free Will
For the paperback edition the author has omitted chapter 2. While free will is the most discussed topic in philosophy, few books unequivocally refuting the notion have been published. Dan Wegner’s 2002 The Illusion of Conscious Will a pioneering, powerfully documented exception, psychology has essentially ignored the matter. That refuting the notion is profoundly important is not asserted solely by author George Ortega. American philosopher John Searle, (who in 2010 was listed the 13th most cited post-1900 philosopher in the world) strongly concurs. According to Searle, for free will to be acknowledged an illusion would be “a bigger revolution in our thinking than Einstein, or Copernicus, or Newton, or Galileo, or Darwin – it would alter our whole conception of our relation with the universe." Since 1997 when Ortega authored a physics paper on why the causality that refutes free will is a fundamental law of nature, he has worked to move the revelation that free will is illusory from academia to the public arena. His first success came in 2007 when he discovered an interested audience among the Internet’s leading voice-chat website, Paltalk. Under the username Blisser, Ortega repeatedly brought up and refuted free will in atheist rooms and in his own room completely dedicated to the topic. It was not, however, until early 2010 that Ortega succeeded in creating a major public buzz about free will being an illusion. On April 7th, he founded the Manhattan, NYC Meetup group “The Predetermined Will Society – Busting the Free Will Myth.” The visionary message of this world’s first discussion group devoted to publicizing the refutation of free will reached innumerable Meetup members, (from among the 22 million New York Metropolitan Area population) who encountered the group’s listing millions of times at the Meetup site. On January 6, 2011, Ortega premiered the first-ever cable TV series devoted to the topic, a weekly show called Exploring the Illusion of Free Will that continues to cablecast new material to Westchester County, New York, and to Manhattan, NYC. The promotions worked. With its April 16-22, 2011 article, “Free will; The illusion we can’t live without,” New Scientist became the first magazine in history to refute free will in a cover story. On March 6, 2012, best-selling New York Times author Sam Harris published his refutation book Free Will, and as its May/June, 2012 cover story, Scientific American Mind ran the piece "Who's in Control - How Physics and Neuroscience Dictate Your 'Free' Will." Ortega’s unique passion for, and leadership in publicizing, the truth about human will comes across throughout the book’s devastating, yet accessible, explanations of why free will is impossible, and in its descriptions of the harm free will-belief causes us personally and societally. What also sets Ortega’s work apart from refutations by others is his strong recognition that humanity’s overcoming the belief in free will is an historic evolutionary leap in human consciousness. Comprising edited transcripts of the first episodes of his revolutionary TV series, another of his book’s defining characteristics is the reiteration of free will refutations and of other salient material. Readers who lean toward free will belief are advised to not discount the utility, in fact the necessity, of such review. The emotional barriers to accepting that free will is impossible are powerful, and will not readily yield to an unrecapitulated presentation of the evidence. Ortega recognizes that unparalleled history has already been made as the age-old belief in free will has fallen to science, logic, and experience. In the epilogue, he includes a virtually complete list of free will-refuting articles in major publications over the last decade, and a list of 24 books devoted to refuting free will. Ortega, who is second cousin to composer Burt Bacharach, continues to reside in his Westchester County, NY hometown of White Plains.
150 pages, Paperback
First published June 20, 2013
3 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
February 9, 2021
This was, hands down, one of the worst books I've ever read (and I've read a book by Ken Ham on dinosaurs). It doesn't add anything at all to the discussion on free will, so you're better off saving your money (even though the book is less than $10).
The book is poorly written. I don't think he ever proofread. There are too many spelling, grammatical, and punctuation errors. On top of that, all the chapters are essentially the same, with very little variation.
Regarding the content:
Ortega's entire book is based on a strawman conception of free will. Ortega defines free will as "...we can decide whatever we want regardless of our basic character, our personality, our unconscious, what we've learned or haven't learned, our genetic makeup, and so many other factors that actually combine to compel our everything thought, feeling and action" (p. 31). He keeps presenting the idea of free will as something completely free of any causal factors. But no one understands free will like this. Free will, properly understood, just means "at any time I did X, all things being equal, I could have otherwise done Y." Or as Peter van Inwagen describes free will (and I'm paraphrasing), I have a free will if I have before me a set of choices and I have it within my power to do A and I have it within my power to do not-A and do B. That doesn't mean we're free of any causal factors. If I have a steak for dinner because I enjoy steak, that's a causal factor, sure. But it doesn't follow that I did not freely choose to have steak (I could have had a sandwich, instead).
Another problem is he doesn't source anything. So you have no way of knowing whether any of the stats he quotes are accurately represented, or if he's even familiar with any of the relevant works in the literature on free will.
There might be something to some of his arguments. The problem is he doesn't argue for them, he just assumes them, and asserts those who believe in free will just don't understand the arguments. Even more, his responses to all free will arguments are the same, so he doesn't even really engage with any arguments. He just says, essentially, that "because argument X supports my view, your arguments A, B, and C fail." He continues to just repeat his same mantras over and over that you start to wonder if it's not us, but himself, that he's trying to convince.
Ortega essentially starts off the book with a huge lie, that the vast majority of philosophers are determinists. However, this is untrue. In fact, Daniel Dennett (who has done a lot of work in the philosophy of consciousness, and I generally disagree with his conclusions) says that while there have been "quite a chorus of eminent scientists saying, point blank, that free will is an illusion"..."Many -- not all, and maybe not most -- philosophers say" they are wrong (Dennett, Intuition Pumps, p. 356. Scientists tend to believe in determinism, but philosophers tend to believe in free will -- and whether or not we have a free will is a philosophical question, not a scientific one. Science can tell us what the particular causes of our actions might be, but philosophers would have to answer how we get from there are causes for my actions to I have no choice but to perform actions consistent with the causes. Ortega makes no attempt to bridge this gap -- in fact, it is impossible to do.
Ortega also makes many factual errors. For example, he perpetuates the myth that people used to believe the world is flat (there may have been some, but most intellectuals never believed this). He mentions Columbus "proving" the earth was round, but Columbus already knew the earth was round. He was sailing west to come around and get to the Indies. The reason we call Native Americans Indians is because Columbus didn't realize there was a continent in the way. There were other reasons people knew the earth was round, such as whenever we had an eclipse and the Moon wandered into the path of the sun, it would cast a round shadow. Ortega also asserts that the Apostle Paul spoke *against* free will because he wrote "I really want to do what is right, but I can't." However, Ortega misunderstands what Paul meant (after all, free will is important to Christianity because of personal responsibility for sin). Paul was lamenting that he had that sin nature. If you don't do what you want to do, that doesn't necessarily mean you don't have a free will. I didn't want to finish reading Ortega's book, but I chose to so that I could write an informed review.
Even worse, Ortega presents a list of books that "refute" free will at the back of his book. But one the books listed is Jonathan Edwards' On the Freedom of the Will. The problem is, Edwards was a theologian who believed in free will. He just believed in a form of compatibilism (you are free to do what you want, but before Christ regenerates you, what you want to do is sin). This leads me to understand that Ortega can't understand the nuances of this debate.
One of Ortega's arguments is that believing in free will is cruel. If we don't believe in free will, then we will treat each other with understanding and not condemn each other because we have no control over our actions. But this is merely a fallacious appeal to consequences, for if we do have free will, then it makes sense that we *are* personally responsible for our actions and should hold each other accordingly. It's just as likely Ortega rejects belief in free will because he wants to feel better about his failings.
To say nothing of the fact that Ortega illustrates that one cannot live consistently rejecting free will. He constantly speaks as if he has a free will, despite constantly asserting that we don't have one. For example, in the very first chapter (p. 15), Ortega writes: "I purposely didn't overprepare this show because I wanted to demonstrate how these thoughts are coming to my mind from who knows where." Ortega concedes he has a free will because he chose not to overprepare for his show (and it shows by his lack of cogent argumentation).
There is much more I could say, but I'll save it. Just take my word for it that this book is not worth reading. If you really want to educate yourself in this issue, there are many much better books to read.
The book is poorly written. I don't think he ever proofread. There are too many spelling, grammatical, and punctuation errors. On top of that, all the chapters are essentially the same, with very little variation.
Regarding the content:
Ortega's entire book is based on a strawman conception of free will. Ortega defines free will as "...we can decide whatever we want regardless of our basic character, our personality, our unconscious, what we've learned or haven't learned, our genetic makeup, and so many other factors that actually combine to compel our everything thought, feeling and action" (p. 31). He keeps presenting the idea of free will as something completely free of any causal factors. But no one understands free will like this. Free will, properly understood, just means "at any time I did X, all things being equal, I could have otherwise done Y." Or as Peter van Inwagen describes free will (and I'm paraphrasing), I have a free will if I have before me a set of choices and I have it within my power to do A and I have it within my power to do not-A and do B. That doesn't mean we're free of any causal factors. If I have a steak for dinner because I enjoy steak, that's a causal factor, sure. But it doesn't follow that I did not freely choose to have steak (I could have had a sandwich, instead).
Another problem is he doesn't source anything. So you have no way of knowing whether any of the stats he quotes are accurately represented, or if he's even familiar with any of the relevant works in the literature on free will.
There might be something to some of his arguments. The problem is he doesn't argue for them, he just assumes them, and asserts those who believe in free will just don't understand the arguments. Even more, his responses to all free will arguments are the same, so he doesn't even really engage with any arguments. He just says, essentially, that "because argument X supports my view, your arguments A, B, and C fail." He continues to just repeat his same mantras over and over that you start to wonder if it's not us, but himself, that he's trying to convince.
Ortega essentially starts off the book with a huge lie, that the vast majority of philosophers are determinists. However, this is untrue. In fact, Daniel Dennett (who has done a lot of work in the philosophy of consciousness, and I generally disagree with his conclusions) says that while there have been "quite a chorus of eminent scientists saying, point blank, that free will is an illusion"..."Many -- not all, and maybe not most -- philosophers say" they are wrong (Dennett, Intuition Pumps, p. 356. Scientists tend to believe in determinism, but philosophers tend to believe in free will -- and whether or not we have a free will is a philosophical question, not a scientific one. Science can tell us what the particular causes of our actions might be, but philosophers would have to answer how we get from there are causes for my actions to I have no choice but to perform actions consistent with the causes. Ortega makes no attempt to bridge this gap -- in fact, it is impossible to do.
Ortega also makes many factual errors. For example, he perpetuates the myth that people used to believe the world is flat (there may have been some, but most intellectuals never believed this). He mentions Columbus "proving" the earth was round, but Columbus already knew the earth was round. He was sailing west to come around and get to the Indies. The reason we call Native Americans Indians is because Columbus didn't realize there was a continent in the way. There were other reasons people knew the earth was round, such as whenever we had an eclipse and the Moon wandered into the path of the sun, it would cast a round shadow. Ortega also asserts that the Apostle Paul spoke *against* free will because he wrote "I really want to do what is right, but I can't." However, Ortega misunderstands what Paul meant (after all, free will is important to Christianity because of personal responsibility for sin). Paul was lamenting that he had that sin nature. If you don't do what you want to do, that doesn't necessarily mean you don't have a free will. I didn't want to finish reading Ortega's book, but I chose to so that I could write an informed review.
Even worse, Ortega presents a list of books that "refute" free will at the back of his book. But one the books listed is Jonathan Edwards' On the Freedom of the Will. The problem is, Edwards was a theologian who believed in free will. He just believed in a form of compatibilism (you are free to do what you want, but before Christ regenerates you, what you want to do is sin). This leads me to understand that Ortega can't understand the nuances of this debate.
One of Ortega's arguments is that believing in free will is cruel. If we don't believe in free will, then we will treat each other with understanding and not condemn each other because we have no control over our actions. But this is merely a fallacious appeal to consequences, for if we do have free will, then it makes sense that we *are* personally responsible for our actions and should hold each other accordingly. It's just as likely Ortega rejects belief in free will because he wants to feel better about his failings.
To say nothing of the fact that Ortega illustrates that one cannot live consistently rejecting free will. He constantly speaks as if he has a free will, despite constantly asserting that we don't have one. For example, in the very first chapter (p. 15), Ortega writes: "I purposely didn't overprepare this show because I wanted to demonstrate how these thoughts are coming to my mind from who knows where." Ortega concedes he has a free will because he chose not to overprepare for his show (and it shows by his lack of cogent argumentation).
There is much more I could say, but I'll save it. Just take my word for it that this book is not worth reading. If you really want to educate yourself in this issue, there are many much better books to read.
September 3, 2015
This book will cause a change in your life. Which change it causes is determined by all of your past experiences which control your actions in such an obvious way that you too may overcome the illusion of free will!
The relevance of free will and its implications about morality are what caused me to search the internet for information about free will. I did not read this book of my own free will, and neither can you because you don't have a free will!
Some people's experiences make them find more relevance in the topic than others. If you are rich and powerful, you will often want to take credit for that success even though you had no choice in becoming the person you are.
Other people are unjustly treated for their gender, race, species, or sexual orientation. Often these are the people who know the powerful truth that they did not make their genetics or conditioning that led them to be what they are.
The relevance of free will and its implications about morality are what caused me to search the internet for information about free will. I did not read this book of my own free will, and neither can you because you don't have a free will!
Some people's experiences make them find more relevance in the topic than others. If you are rich and powerful, you will often want to take credit for that success even though you had no choice in becoming the person you are.
Other people are unjustly treated for their gender, race, species, or sexual orientation. Often these are the people who know the powerful truth that they did not make their genetics or conditioning that led them to be what they are.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews