Problems With Sam Harris

"it’s incredibly simple: there is no free will because there is no inherent self to possess will (or anything else for that matter) in the first place. start meditating if you care to realize this for yourself."

I spent 30 minutes on Reddit only to finally learn that this is what Harris believes. If you don't know him, he is a neuroscientist, notorious for writing as an anti-Christian. But when you get past this, he is a new-age faith "scientist" who believes that thoughts are automatic and that we don't have pure free will.

But if we get past the Eastern no-self thing, we can examine his argument. That thoughts come automatically. If we are asked to think of our favorite movie, we can't control which thought, which movie, will come into our mind. This on-the-spot challenge to come up with a favorite is a terrible example of thinking, but this is what he chooses to support his thesis.

When Harris claim our thoughts come automatically and that this shows real determinism, it is a funny example of modern HC. How can he possibly know that they are unwilled (originating thoughts) if we don't know what thoughts are? As a neuroscientist I get it that he understand brain, but not mind. In fact, we know very little about mind or consciousness. This was one of the things philosophers, when they were humble, thought of as darkened.

Do thoughts come to us without us asking for them? Do they just appear? If so, how would I solve a math problem? If we weren't able to direct our thinking and intend to think about something, no problem could ever be solved. no conversation could ever be had. I think what Harris is doing is, as scientism often does, isolating certain experiences. Intrusive thoughts, for example, things that seem to force themselves into our awareness. But even if I accept this event as not willed, it is still a part of our subconscious, which means, though we don't understand it, intrusive thoughts, and for that matter dreams, are likely willed into life by this deeper part of our consciousness.

Sam Harris is making this claim to achieve what a lot of scientists, playing philosopher, have attempted which is an ultra-modern denial of absolute free-will. We are not essentially free if our volition begins with thinking, and thinking is composed of thoughts, and thoughts come automatically or in Hume's tradition from a non-enduring non-stable self. Their problem begins of course with the confusion between "thoughts" and "brains."

But the real issue is talking about philosophy from the language of science and with the expectations of science, a different thing entirely.