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Breaking the Free Will Illusion for the Betterment of Humankind
Free will is an ability many think they posses. Most, however, aren’t aware of the dangers imposed by such a belief, and have never thought about free will other than their own assumptions based on a pervasive feeling. The logic, reason, and evidence, however, says something entirely different.
Have you ever blamed yourself for something you’ve done in the past? If so, for how long? Perhaps you still are? Have you ever held a grudge over another person or them you? Perhaps you have hatred for someone who has opposing ideas, thoughts, and beliefs. Or maybe you think someone is more deserving than another or to blame for their own situation?
The belief in free will embeds itself within so much of what we think, feel, and do. It isn't just about abstract philosophical metaphysics that applies only to those in academic circles. The belief in free will is a root feeling and concept that has an effect on how most people think about politics, religion, economics, morality / ethics, law, criminal and justice systems, feelings about ourselves, our relationship to others, and our relationship to the world around us. It’s for this reason that the topic needs to move away from academia and into the real world.
Individually, the free will topic means a lot to you and everything you think, say, and do. Overall, the topic means a great deal for the entirety of humanity.
There are real world consequences to holding such a belief in free will, and those consequences are more dire than one would suspect. Free will is often taken for granted and assumed as something positive. The reality, however, is something surprisingly different and, at least initially, counter-intuitive. In actuality, the belief in free will creates people who have resentment, guilt, and hatred. It drives inequality, egoism, poverty dismissal, retributive tendencies, non-connectedness, and a slew of other unhelpful and downright dangerous thoughts and feelings.
If we continue holding on to such illusions as if they are real, the future looks bleak. Rather than try to understand causes and fix things at base, we’ll just assume that people could have done other than they did. It is, after all, much easier to place blame on people than it is to look for actual causes. It’s a much simpler task to suggest that you or the another person simply could have or should have done differently.
If, however, we begin to break away from the illusion -- If we begin to understand that free will is not a rational belief -- only then can humanity progress to a state of less ego, more understanding, and start to develop solutions based on reality rather than fictions.
We can either keep holding on to the ultimately harmful free will illusion, or break the illusion in the most educated and safe ways possible. And the only way to break the illusion is with well reasoned information.
In this enlightening book, 'Trick Slattery gives the ultimate case against free will, and also explores why it's important that we begin to recognize this fact and understand what it means. He makes the case that it's not only an illusion, but a harmful illusion at that. The only way to begin mending the harms this illusion has caused is to understand why it simply can’t exist, and what it does and doesn’t mean that it doesn’t exist.
Free will is an illusion. We experience a feeling of free will, but that feeling doesn’t correlate with something real. It’s only a feeling. Come be a part of the history that breaks the free will illusion for the betterment of humankind!
Have you ever blamed yourself for something you’ve done in the past? If so, for how long? Perhaps you still are? Have you ever held a grudge over another person or them you? Perhaps you have hatred for someone who has opposing ideas, thoughts, and beliefs. Or maybe you think someone is more deserving than another or to blame for their own situation?
The belief in free will embeds itself within so much of what we think, feel, and do. It isn't just about abstract philosophical metaphysics that applies only to those in academic circles. The belief in free will is a root feeling and concept that has an effect on how most people think about politics, religion, economics, morality / ethics, law, criminal and justice systems, feelings about ourselves, our relationship to others, and our relationship to the world around us. It’s for this reason that the topic needs to move away from academia and into the real world.
Individually, the free will topic means a lot to you and everything you think, say, and do. Overall, the topic means a great deal for the entirety of humanity.
There are real world consequences to holding such a belief in free will, and those consequences are more dire than one would suspect. Free will is often taken for granted and assumed as something positive. The reality, however, is something surprisingly different and, at least initially, counter-intuitive. In actuality, the belief in free will creates people who have resentment, guilt, and hatred. It drives inequality, egoism, poverty dismissal, retributive tendencies, non-connectedness, and a slew of other unhelpful and downright dangerous thoughts and feelings.
If we continue holding on to such illusions as if they are real, the future looks bleak. Rather than try to understand causes and fix things at base, we’ll just assume that people could have done other than they did. It is, after all, much easier to place blame on people than it is to look for actual causes. It’s a much simpler task to suggest that you or the another person simply could have or should have done differently.
If, however, we begin to break away from the illusion -- If we begin to understand that free will is not a rational belief -- only then can humanity progress to a state of less ego, more understanding, and start to develop solutions based on reality rather than fictions.
We can either keep holding on to the ultimately harmful free will illusion, or break the illusion in the most educated and safe ways possible. And the only way to break the illusion is with well reasoned information.
In this enlightening book, 'Trick Slattery gives the ultimate case against free will, and also explores why it's important that we begin to recognize this fact and understand what it means. He makes the case that it's not only an illusion, but a harmful illusion at that. The only way to begin mending the harms this illusion has caused is to understand why it simply can’t exist, and what it does and doesn’t mean that it doesn’t exist.
Free will is an illusion. We experience a feeling of free will, but that feeling doesn’t correlate with something real. It’s only a feeling. Come be a part of the history that breaks the free will illusion for the betterment of humankind!
- GenresPhilosophyNonfiction
336 pages, Kindle Edition
First published May 20, 2014
18 people are currently reading
46 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
April 30, 2020
Entertaining to read, but suffers from a basic equivocation: Slattery insists 1) that "free will" must be defined by the ordinary folk conception thereof, and 2) that, contra the compatibilists (for whom Slattery shows unrestrained contempt, darkening his otherwise light-hearted presentation) this conception necessarily involves contra-causal choice (a contested claim, though not the most important issue here), but also 3) that we don't have to accept folk conceptions of "feasible," "control," and related terms, but should redefine their meaning, supposedly to accord with a deterministic physics so that nothing other than what actually happens counts as being feasible or controllable. Of course, ordinary people use such words in ways closer to how Slattery (correctly) defines "ability" in chapter 3: a power to make something happen (presumably, given suitable motivations, contexts, etc.) So he grants that Jack has the ability to jump over candlesticks but not over the moon, but denies that it is feasible for Jack to jump or not jump, or that he controls whether or not he will jump over a candlestick.
This is not what most ordinary people would say about such cases: even if Jack's jumping is fully determined, it is clearly feasible for him to not jump (most humans, including Jack, refrain from so jumping most of the time), and it is Jack, not Jill or anyone else, who controls whether and when he will jump. Whether some prior factors determined how the control system known as Jack, and his environment, would interact causing him to make the decision to jump or not at any given moment is immaterial to these ascriptions; he's still the one making that decision at that moment, and hence controlling his jumping.
The point may be even clearer with non-human examples, where no intuitions about will or choice (free or otherwise) can cloud the issue. Granted, the prior design and construction, and current heat and pressure conditions of my car engine ultimately caused the current gas:air ratio pumped into it to be X. Notwithstanding this--or rather, precisely because of this--at this moment it is my /fuel injection system/ and not those prior causes which is actively /controlling/ that ratio, and can feasibly deliver different ratios (under varying conditions of course). Indeed, being able to control this ratio in response to different conditions is exactly what the automotive engineers designed it, quite deterministically, to do; their determination of this effect works *via* the fuel injection system's capacity to control this ratio within a range of alternative feasible ratios. "Control" here obviously does not mean "picks randomly or contra-causally"; to the contrary, it means "selecting some result in light of present circumstances (typically as an effective means to some standing goal(s) which may or may not itself be represented by the system)." The fuel injection system is very much in control of the gas:air ratio in this respect; likewise Jack is in control of his jumping, howsoever determined each system is by more remote prior causes.
These claims about "control," etc., are not minor points, but seem to be essential to Slattery's main argument, which largely comes apart if not granted. It is one thing to insist upon using ordinary language and conceptions throughout an argument; yet another to allow folk terminology to be redefined in light of science, retaining these modified terms in order to reach a clearer understanding of the world using words which, if sufficiently well-defined, we hope can convey the relevant facts to ordinary people without too much confusion or bafflement; but it is quite a third thing to sometimes redefine ordinary terms while harshly reviling opposing views (e.g., compatibilism) because they (supposedly) do that as well. The nerve of them! (I am shocked, shocked, to see redefinition occurring in this establishment!) Slattery ascribes very cynical and immoral motivations to his compatibilist opponents, obfuscating their actual views and motivations while failing to attend to the beam in his own eye. "Free will" involves many complex issues, and the use of "infographics" and illustrations to clarify them is commendable; but precisely because the topic is complex and contested the public would be better served by a work with less hypocrisy built into the presentation.
This is not what most ordinary people would say about such cases: even if Jack's jumping is fully determined, it is clearly feasible for him to not jump (most humans, including Jack, refrain from so jumping most of the time), and it is Jack, not Jill or anyone else, who controls whether and when he will jump. Whether some prior factors determined how the control system known as Jack, and his environment, would interact causing him to make the decision to jump or not at any given moment is immaterial to these ascriptions; he's still the one making that decision at that moment, and hence controlling his jumping.
The point may be even clearer with non-human examples, where no intuitions about will or choice (free or otherwise) can cloud the issue. Granted, the prior design and construction, and current heat and pressure conditions of my car engine ultimately caused the current gas:air ratio pumped into it to be X. Notwithstanding this--or rather, precisely because of this--at this moment it is my /fuel injection system/ and not those prior causes which is actively /controlling/ that ratio, and can feasibly deliver different ratios (under varying conditions of course). Indeed, being able to control this ratio in response to different conditions is exactly what the automotive engineers designed it, quite deterministically, to do; their determination of this effect works *via* the fuel injection system's capacity to control this ratio within a range of alternative feasible ratios. "Control" here obviously does not mean "picks randomly or contra-causally"; to the contrary, it means "selecting some result in light of present circumstances (typically as an effective means to some standing goal(s) which may or may not itself be represented by the system)." The fuel injection system is very much in control of the gas:air ratio in this respect; likewise Jack is in control of his jumping, howsoever determined each system is by more remote prior causes.
These claims about "control," etc., are not minor points, but seem to be essential to Slattery's main argument, which largely comes apart if not granted. It is one thing to insist upon using ordinary language and conceptions throughout an argument; yet another to allow folk terminology to be redefined in light of science, retaining these modified terms in order to reach a clearer understanding of the world using words which, if sufficiently well-defined, we hope can convey the relevant facts to ordinary people without too much confusion or bafflement; but it is quite a third thing to sometimes redefine ordinary terms while harshly reviling opposing views (e.g., compatibilism) because they (supposedly) do that as well. The nerve of them! (I am shocked, shocked, to see redefinition occurring in this establishment!) Slattery ascribes very cynical and immoral motivations to his compatibilist opponents, obfuscating their actual views and motivations while failing to attend to the beam in his own eye. "Free will" involves many complex issues, and the use of "infographics" and illustrations to clarify them is commendable; but precisely because the topic is complex and contested the public would be better served by a work with less hypocrisy built into the presentation.
February 21, 2020
One of the very best books on the topic of free will. It shows sound logical conclusive proof that libertarian free will is not only an illusion, but that it can't exist in any conceivable reality because it is a fundamentally incoherent concept.
September 3, 2015
This book not only refutes free will. It also explains the many benefits of overcoming this false belief. If you read through this book and still don't get it, don't feel bad. You don't have a free will because you are a slave to your desire to believe in free will. Even so, I think that this the funny examples and conversation between Liberius and Orion is something that everyone should see. I really hope it gets made into a movie or play.
November 13, 2014
Informative & Enlightening!
June 18, 2016
Life changing
Very well-written. Easy to understand. Profound. Everyone should read this book. I plan on continued study. Looking forward to the journey.
Very well-written. Easy to understand. Profound. Everyone should read this book. I plan on continued study. Looking forward to the journey.
January 5, 2020
I commend this book for addressing various rebuttals which people pose to hold onto the idea of 'Free Will'. Though it is bit tough to read if you are not familiar with the concepts I still recommend it to everyone to give it a try and educate oneself about it.
December 25, 2020
We don’t have free will. Period.
Very readable book on perhaps the most important topic of our times. We must change to survive and/or thrive otherwise we will continue to repeat the past.
Very readable book on perhaps the most important topic of our times. We must change to survive and/or thrive otherwise we will continue to repeat the past.
February 1, 2023
'Trick Slattery disproves free will nonsense one and for all. Now, I do not prefer to express things by saying there is "no free will," but I am mostly in agreement with this book because I certainly do not agree with the kind of views it mostly disproves.
A lot of philosophers, even extremely clever ones, are stuck being confused about certain things, and free will is one of them. It's painful to read someone like Robert Kane knowing the terrain inside out but still making excuses for positions that make no sense (neither the positions nor the excuses).
Slattery gets the one point about the free will debate that everyone should: Anything that happens is, logically, either deterministically caused, or it is not. Anything that is deterministically caused could not have happened otherwise in the strict sense. Anything that is not deterministically caused could have happened otherwise for no reason, and things that could have happened otherwise for no reason aren't controlled by anyone, and you really wouldn't want that of your own decisions. Thus, there's no such thing as free will that's both controlled and could have happened otherwise in an indeterministic sense.
Slattery shows this and argues that it means free will is impossible, and that it's important for us to think that way too. Then he counters a long list of smokescreen arguments for this kind of free will and against denying it that shouldn't even have been raised because this simple point disproves it all in one go - but they have been raised, and are all the time.
Like I said, I'm not a fan of saying there's "no free will". The actual substance of the question, though, is in understanding that there can't be this nonsense kind of free will where things are both caused by us and uncaused, and also, as Slattery further discusses, we are held responsible for them in an unproductive way. If you actually understand this book instead of just taking a dumbed-down "no free will" meme from it, you will understand how things really are.
I prefer to take a different emphasis (which will be available in the future in my doctoral dissertation, along with an equally solid refutation of nonsense free will as here): I think it should be emphasized that there is something to our conceptions of free will that refers to something valuable we can have, and whose nature should be examined, but it's not libertarian free will (indeterministic), and in fact the connection of indeterminism with free will should be rejected so thoroughly we can just call the deterministic version "free will".
Retributivism based on libertarian free will should also be rejected more thoroughly: Slattery says that it makes no sense without libertarian free will, but it should be understood that it makes no sense WITH libertarian free will either. The desire to punish is only a psychological fact, and other than appealing to that intuition, there is no logical or moral justification for intrinsic-good retributivism (punishment for its own sake) based on any kind of free will. Understanding the relationship between free will and moral responsibility would be greatly helped by this realisation, and as simply a theoretical philosophical question, it's an outrage similar to the lack of understanding about free will and determinism that this is so rarely understood.
A lot of philosophers, even extremely clever ones, are stuck being confused about certain things, and free will is one of them. It's painful to read someone like Robert Kane knowing the terrain inside out but still making excuses for positions that make no sense (neither the positions nor the excuses).
Slattery gets the one point about the free will debate that everyone should: Anything that happens is, logically, either deterministically caused, or it is not. Anything that is deterministically caused could not have happened otherwise in the strict sense. Anything that is not deterministically caused could have happened otherwise for no reason, and things that could have happened otherwise for no reason aren't controlled by anyone, and you really wouldn't want that of your own decisions. Thus, there's no such thing as free will that's both controlled and could have happened otherwise in an indeterministic sense.
Slattery shows this and argues that it means free will is impossible, and that it's important for us to think that way too. Then he counters a long list of smokescreen arguments for this kind of free will and against denying it that shouldn't even have been raised because this simple point disproves it all in one go - but they have been raised, and are all the time.
Like I said, I'm not a fan of saying there's "no free will". The actual substance of the question, though, is in understanding that there can't be this nonsense kind of free will where things are both caused by us and uncaused, and also, as Slattery further discusses, we are held responsible for them in an unproductive way. If you actually understand this book instead of just taking a dumbed-down "no free will" meme from it, you will understand how things really are.
I prefer to take a different emphasis (which will be available in the future in my doctoral dissertation, along with an equally solid refutation of nonsense free will as here): I think it should be emphasized that there is something to our conceptions of free will that refers to something valuable we can have, and whose nature should be examined, but it's not libertarian free will (indeterministic), and in fact the connection of indeterminism with free will should be rejected so thoroughly we can just call the deterministic version "free will".
Retributivism based on libertarian free will should also be rejected more thoroughly: Slattery says that it makes no sense without libertarian free will, but it should be understood that it makes no sense WITH libertarian free will either. The desire to punish is only a psychological fact, and other than appealing to that intuition, there is no logical or moral justification for intrinsic-good retributivism (punishment for its own sake) based on any kind of free will. Understanding the relationship between free will and moral responsibility would be greatly helped by this realisation, and as simply a theoretical philosophical question, it's an outrage similar to the lack of understanding about free will and determinism that this is so rarely understood.
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews