Sam Harris Speech, October 29, 2012 - Bon Mot Book Club
"If you pay attention, you can see, you no more author the next thing you think, then the next thing I say."
Sam Harris Part 1, Speech, October 29, 2012 - Bon Mot Book Club
"You're trying to listen to me, but you also have a voice inside your head that says things. It says things that are completely unconstrained by the thing you're trying to focus on. I'm standing hear trying to reason with you, and you are thinking, he does look a little like Ben Stiller."
"Thoughts just emerge in consciousness, we are not authoring them. That would require we think them before we think them. If you can't control your next thought, and you don't know what it is going to be till it arises, where's your freedom of will?" ~ Sam Harris
A belief in free will touches nearly everything that human beings value. It is difficult to think about law, politics, religion, public policy, intimate relationships, morality—as well as feelings of remorse or personal achievement—without first imagining that every person is the true source of his or her thoughts and actions. And yet the facts tell us that free will is an illusion. In this enlightening book, Sam Harris argues that this truth about the human mind does not undermine morality or diminish the importance of social and political freedom, but it can and should change the way we think about some of the most important questions in life.
"Religion gives people bad reasons to be good, where good reasons are actually available to us." Sam Harris