I think Sam’s free will take is more of an unexamined mind issue if you never observe your mind you’ll be ran by it with no other alternative. Once you see how your mind works you can start to bend it to your own free will. Like you say you can just do things
On par with the classic “know thyself” by Aristotle
No it’s a whole cloth rejection of free will. I read his book. It was very very stupid.
Even if he was right about Free Will (and there are interesting takes on either side of that debate) what he misses, quite spectacularly, is that any clear thinking person should and would always act *as if* they had free will.
He’s so blinkered he can’t take the next step.
He’s not right though. He misreads the FMRI data because he’s fundamentally a very stupid grifter.
Agreed. No one who is serious about consciousness or studies of the mind would ever entertain FMRI data.
His fundamental error imho is that he conflates non-dualism with solipsism and it’s fairly common among the Harris, Dennet, Dorkins crew.
Once you’ve planted your flagpole in the materialism camp you have to perform increasingly elaborate sleights of hand to get round the hard problem.
Wait until they realise that their beloved science is just discovering that space and time aren’t fundamental.
