Sam Harris on Free Will

When talking about free will, Sam Harris has used this analogy: If someone asks you to name a movie, you don’t choose whatever movie pops into your head. The thought just pops into your head (for whatever reason) and you say it. He cites this as evidence that we don’t have free will. But I think this reasoning is wrong.

Free will is the ability to not choose to follow the first thought that pops into your head. You can (and often do) have multiple thoughts conceiving of many possible movies. And you can choose among those options. That’s where free will comes in.

Of course, you can’t choose any movie because there are so many you haven’t seen or even heard of. You don’t have the free will to choose a movie you’ve never heard of. But you can search your memory to come up with several movies you do know. Then you can choose which one among those to make your final decision. You can do this all in a split second. We can think much faster than we can speak or articulate. Dozens of thoughts can go through your head at once, and you can choose one to follow.

I think it’s misleading to say that humans either do or don’t have free will. Rather humans have the potential for free will. If you act on instinct, or follow the first thought or idea that pops into your head, then no, that’s not free will. But if you act from consciousness and reason, i.e. composing multiple thoughts in your head and debating the options internally before choosing, then that is a form of free will. Maybe not complete freedom, but some is better than none. Naturally, certain people use more free will than others.

So do humans have free will? It depends which human and which choice.