Author and philosopher Sam Harris
The Festival of Dangerous Ideas unites the most brilliant and daring minds across the globe for a weekend of talks at the Sydney Opera House. The likes of Germaine Greer and Jason Silva will debate topics as diverse as atheism, climate change, racism and genital mutilation.
The Festival kicked off on Friday night with Sam Harris’ illuminating talk, The Delusion of Free Will. Harris is an esteemed philosopher, neuroscientist and author, and a staunch advocate for the convergence of scientific knowledge and secular values.
In the opening address, Harris proposed a ‘dangerous’ idea: that free will is an illusion.
He used the case of a “generic murderer” as an example to demonstrate the illusory nature of free will. The actions of a murderer are a product of a long stream of prior causes. If Harris were to trade places with a murderer atom for atom, with an identical brain, soul and state, he too could not resist the impulse to victimise people.
Recognising that free will is an illusion could radicalise the way we attribute blame and enact retribution in the criminal justice system.
Harris also argued that we do not control our thoughts and impulses. All we can do is witness our decisions in life. “The next thing you do is going to come out of a wilderness of prior causes that you did not choose,” he suggests.
The questions fired at Harris by the audience were as equally dangerous as his address. One punter proposed the hypothetical, “What should we do in the aftermath of a faith-based nuclear attack?” If free will is an illusion, another audience member asked, how does this affect Harris’s marriage and his wife’s decision to love him?
Sam Harris received a degree in philosophy from Stanford University and a PhD in neuroscience from UCLA. He is the author of bestselling books including The End of Faith, The Moral Landscape and Free Will. He is co-founder and CEO of Project Reason, which is devoted to spreading scientific knowledge and secular values in society.
Check out The Festival of Dangerous Ideas from the 28-30 September, if your own free will permits.
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