The illusion of free will is an illusion

Back and my undergraduate days, I discovered the inescapability of mechanistic determinism. I even wrote my senior thesis in philosophy on the topic or determinism and Laplace's demon. Although determinism appears to be inarguably true, I never took it much further in explaining what the implications were for free will, morality and responsibility.

I had a notion that chaos theory might explain the gap between the truth of determinism and the limits of predictability. That lack of predictability was where free will dwelled, but it no more undermined determinism than the inability to predict the weather indicated consciousness in clouds.

Sam Harris has been putting forth a compelling account of those implications for a while, and his latest podcast is a 45 minute walk-through of his full argument. Well worth the time.

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