It means nothing to say that a person would have done otherwise had he chosen to do otherwise, because a person’s “choices” merely appear in his mental stream as though sprung from the void. In this sense, each of use is like a phenomenological glockenspiel played by an unseen hand. From the perspective of your conscious mind, you are no more responsible for the next thing you think (and therefore do) than you are for the fact that you were born into this world.
—
Sam Harris, The Moral Landscape
Ever since I can remember I’ve been obsessed with the idea of free will. I always assumed it was an illusion in exactly the way Harris explains it to be. It’s what fueled my interest in criminal behavior and how our criminal justice system chooses to approach the wide spectrum of it.
It’s also why I have this annoying habit of rationalizing every shitty thing people say or do around me.
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sagerabelaissoul reblogged this from theyoungvictoria and added:
He he. The ultimate cop-out. If we are merely the marionettes played by an invisible puppet master then we can’t be to...
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theyoungvictoria posted this
