Sam Harris’s book on free will
came out today and I read it during dinner (it’s a short read). Here’s what
I had to say about the book back in December when he announced it:

Without arrogance or humility I can only say that I called it exactly as it
fell. That aside, I’ve been having a long-running email debate on the topic
with two friends, and I found it to have a number of areas where it advanced
the discussion. For example, I found the fact that he precisely identified
and referenced the nature of his disagreement with Dennett (the current
compatibilist flag-bearer) to be highly significant. I also thought that he
had a few n-liners that were particularly strong, such as:

Brilliant.

Interestingly, there is also a remote chance that my influence on Harris
actually affected the text, as the link I sent him (which he loved and
tweeted out) was
the two-lever argument you guys are so tired of familiar with. Anyway, something strikingly similar/familiar made it into his text:

Sound familiar? It’s like I wrote it! — down to the addition of chance as
one of the laws, which appeared in the version of the text I sent him.

I obviously don’t mean to say that he stole it; creators often confuse
sources while contemplating a topic, and the argument is quite similar to
others before it, but I do find it interesting that this is the same exact
argument that I sent to both him and Galen Strawson (who also approved of
it).

Anyway, enough of my celebration and delusions of significance. I will
simply say that I was not surprised at all by his arguments (or how well
presented they were). I actually find them to be so strong as to be obvious.
I will fully admit, however, that this conviction is reaching the point of
being vulnerable to confirmation bias, so I’m trying to keep that in check.

TL;DR: Bought it. Read it. Loved it. Exactly what I expected.

May 23, 2025