
Free Will

A creative change of inputs to the system—learning new skills, forming new relationships, adopting new habits of attention—may radically transform one’s life.
Sam Harris • Free Will
How can we make sense of our lives, and hold people accountable for their choices, given the unconscious origins of our conscious minds?
Sam Harris • Free Will
intentions themselves come from, and what determines their character in every instance, remains perfectly mysterious in subjective terms.
Sam Harris • Free Will
One of the most refreshing ideas to come out of existentialism (perhaps the only one) is that we are free to interpret and reinterpret the meaning of our lives.
Sam Harris • Free Will
The role of luck, therefore, appears decisive.
Sam Harris • Free Will
It may be true that strict punishment—rather than mere containment or rehabilitation—is necessary to prevent certain crimes. But punishing people purely for pragmatic reasons would be very different from the approach that we currently take.
Sam Harris • Free Will
Our sense of our own freedom results from our not paying close attention to what it is like to be us.
Sam Harris • Free Will
Conservatives, however, often make a religious fetish of individualism.
Sam Harris • Free Will
The intention to do one thing and not another does not originate in consciousness—rather, it appears in consciousness, as does any thought or impulse that might oppose it.