The Human Capacity - An Essay from the Writer of The Essential Sam Harris
In my role as author of The Essential Sam Harris series I have been given a lot of elbow room to layer in my own ideas and emphasis on topics rather than strictly represent and present Sam’s arguments and points of view. That is awesome and I am tremendously grateful for that freedom. Not many public intellectuals would let that happen for fear of exposure and a desire to have the last word. Kudos Sam Harris.
But there was one episode where I tried to pull off a pretty big lift that would have diverted the flow of the show into a long detailed explanation and defense of a position - an explanation of a position that really doesn’t jive with Sam. That was the Free Will episode. I pulled back on plenty of that stuff for the sake of producing something listenable that would be fair to all of those involved and hopefully prompt listeners to hear things in a new light. But there is still so much left unsaid about Free Will.
Yes. More on Free Will.
The rift between Dan Dennett and Sam Harris on this particular topic has always frustrated me. I confess that I think one party of that philosophical tug of war doesn’t fully understand the other, and it aint Dan. Before I go on, I’ll emphasize that I actually think Sam is correct about that particular debate, at least within the bounds of generally fair debate terms… but I’m not sure I’ve heard him fully address the counter conception (being very careful with my words here) head on.
I am calling it a “counter conception” because I think the anti-free-will argument as properly defined by Sam is unbeatable. Free Will is incoherent and most people are confused about that. Clearing up the confusion around magical notions of “libertarian free will” is a tremendously good thing. But I have witnessed the “anti-free-will” argument, when it is not presented in its complete form, leaving its listeners (and presenters) confused about the existence of something else incredibly important and actually true. This subsequent confusion has caused harm and also needs to be cleared up. The denial of the existence and meaning of this other thing has led to massive mistakes in thinking about topics like Artificial Intelligence, Consciousness, and even Political theories.
But I don’t intend to make an argument simply from the point of not spreading truth because of the harm it causes. (Dan has been accused of that before). I think there is a legitimate confusion in the anti-free-will argument that is misguiding people from significant truths. While clearing up one confusion many fall directly into another.
HuMAN / ANIMAL
What is it that makes a human a different thing than a gazelle?
The similarities of the two creatures are obvious. Both are biological products of evolution. Both are clumps of physics which obey deterministic laws, or are subject to random indeterminism. Both appear to have cravings and desires. Both appear to have fears and dislikes. Both have complex information processing machines in their heads. Both appear to have consciousness or something like subjective feelings which trigger their behaviors. Or, at least, both exhibit plenty of outward symptoms of consciousness like pain and pleasure.
So, what makes them different? Well, they certainly have different creature capacities. The human has a thumb. That has been stressed before. That’s a pretty cool difference which allows for a level of manual dexterity and environmental manipulation by the human. The gazelle is faster. I mean way faster. It also jumps super far. The differences in capacities of their brains seems monumental though. And here’s the one that matters. The human can ask what a human is and why it is - actually it can ask why anything is. The gazelle does not do that, it does not ask “why”.
This capacity to ask a “why” question is absolutely decisive when it comes to the ability of each creature to affect its environment. This is the capacity which puts a creature into the category where it can seek “explanations''. Without the capacity to ask “why”, a creature may “figure out” how to achieve something with knowledge embedded in its genetics, but it can not “explain” the process. The physicist David Deutsch has done the most important work in showing how profound that phenomenon is. The fact that this ability is acquired through evolution does not forever pin it to the same continuum of the other abilities we mentioned like grasping, jumping, flying, and infrared sensing. Acquiring this “whyness” ability really does knock a creature out of a normal orbit of types of knowledge creation. It is the distinguishing feature of ours that explains why we have a space program and gazelles don’t. And even more strongly emphasized, without this feature, we could not have made a space program. And if the gazelles started building a space program, we would know that they had this capacity.
But don’t confuse the space program for just being really big and complex as being the important part. I am using the space program as an example because of the nature of its effort to explore the cosmos for its own sake (ignore all the geopolitics that also enter the mix for now). The important part is noticing the structure of knowledge creation of “whyness” creatures is of an entirely different nature than the knowledge creation of “non-whyness” creatures like gazelles or beavers. We humans, of course, have both types of knowledge creation in us. Plenty of our knowledge creation is of the beaver and gazelle variety, no “why” necessary. Perhaps a better example would be that humans are capable of generating actual art - in the truest sense. Genuine artistic expression is only possible as the output of the “whyness” ability of a creature. But the “art” question is a bit too messy for this essay.
Here’s another easy way to notice the “whyness” difference.
WHYNESS AND ELEVATORS
In another episode I produced on violence, Gavin DeBecker sits with Sam and lays out the thesis from his book “The Gift of Fear”. In it, he points out that humans are the only animal that “prosecutes its fear.” For example, he looks at the moment a woman feels fear before stepping onto an elevator because the man inside makes her feel trepidation. He mentions how the woman will immediately start “prosecuting” her fear to see if it really stands up as legitimate. She’ll talk herself into getting on the elevator, not wanting to appear racist, or prejudiced, or weak, or promote profiling, etc... DeBecker’s book, and argument, is an effort to pay closer attention to this “fear feeling” we have and decipher its wisdom. DeBecker points out, rightfully, that no other animal does this.
If a gazelle feels fear. It reacts. It does not question or deliberate or philosophize or ask why it feels it. It just feels. It just acts. A gazelle doesn’t get onto an elevator with a creature it fears.
A human feels. It thinks (asks why). It then acts. Sometimes, this middle step is to our detriment.
Now, we don’t hold gazelles responsible for their decisions. But we do hold humans responsible for theirs if they have this capacity to deliberate (some humans don’t, like babies or mentally injured people). The deliberation, philosophizing, and questioning capacity of the human animal is the reason we hold them responsible. That capacity of deliberation is the “Free Will” thing.
THAT’s “FREE WILL”? Come, On.
Okay, now Sam and the anti-free-will argument chimes in.
So, yes, of course upon close inspection in the moment of “why”, the subject themselves is only observing a blind process of a causal chain from which it can not escape. It did not create itself. There is no place to insert itself magically and determine itself. The action that the subject takes is the result of random or determined forces that will dictate itself ultimately, even if the subject has a convincing story about why it chose an action. The factors that will tip the scales towards taken actions are hidden in the dark. At an important level of analysis, there is no difference between the baby or mentally injured person and the person with the capacity I am referring to. The woman will either get on the elevator or not and the reasons will be pegged to an infinitely regressing causal chain. Fine. If that’s the kind of thing you need to be false to have “Free Will” then, yeah, it doesn’t exist. And it can not exist. Things just happen, no matter the range of possible things that could happen because of the capacities of the creatures involved.
Now, I probably agree with you (and Sam). That anything less than that is a counterfeit version of what the religious stories tell us is the “Free Will” that justifies their forms of cosmic eternal reward and punishment to the mysterious thing that did the choosing. Some people (including Sam) think that anything other than that is so different from the common understanding of “Free Will” that it's deceptive to use that term for it. Okay. Call it what you want. But the point I want to make here is that the thing present there, the “whyness” thing, is to be cherished and celebrated and understood even if it isn’t what we thought it was. And that is why I think this matters.
The problem is that there is a tendency in the Anti-Free Will crowd to dissolve more than just the magical religious fantasies of Free Will. They often end up erasing the uniqueness of the human altogether. I know this because Sam (and many others) have lost sight of this uniqueness and the resulting confusion leads to misunderstanding the structure of knowledge creation, causing them to miscast Artificial Intelligence concerns and misunderstand the frameworks which take particular aspects of Consciousness to be an illusion.
This now shifts a bit to more of a moral implication question but I also know that it matters.
THE WILL REMAINDER
So, if we experience “whyness” capacity as “Free Will” but then we notice that “Free Will” does not (and can not) exist, what should we do with this “whyness” thing? Dennett suggests that we should make a shift and realize that we have really just been “experiencing it wrong”. Whether you like that language or not, the idea is to not walk away from the whole thing after we recognize that we were mistaken about the existence of an aspect of it. What we should do is clear up our misunderstandings about it and look at it more honestly. There is something there. What it is, is the human “capacity” to ask why.
So, forget the magical conceptions of Free Will we once thought we had. We have a “whyness” capacity that will always be experienced as something like what we once thought Free Will was. This is what makes us such strange and tortured machines/animals.
This idea is not new. The notion that it is torture to ask “why” surfaces in just about every religion. Most famously, it is the analogy of what Adam and Eve suffered when the apple was eaten. They gained the ability to ask why - they became “human” as it were. Before that bite, they were just like the other animals in the garden. They were feeling things and acting upon them. They were just existing and being super chill. Then suddenly, they weren’t. They started asking why. It’s interesting to note that a request to have someone just “chill” out, is something like requesting them to stop asking “why” and just “be”.
In modern Christian framing, this “whyness” ability was a curse and they were banished. The Christian goal is to obediently wander in the fallen world of fellow tortured “why askers”. It is to fill in the answer of the “whyness” with obedient faith and trust with the hopes of returning to the garden where that curse will be lifted and you will once again be an animal who simply feels and acts. The “why-curse” at that point will either be answered or mercifully removed, which effectively are the exact same thing. This is certainly one way to deal with the curse of “whyness” that we are afflicted with.
But this denial strikes me as entirely anti-humanistic and pessimistic. If this why-capacity is what makes us human rather than merely animal, then the braver thing to do is own it and celebrate it. The work of the atheist who recognizes the incoherence of religious free will is to understand what we do have, which is something without a good name but is special and proudly human in a very real sense. There have been endless attempts to propose a decent word for this thing, most have been rejected by the Anti-Free-Willers as “changing the subject”. But I’ll try again. Let me propose this one… what we have is “human will.”
HUMAN WILL
“Human will” is not free in the magical sense most people think, but it is unique and special. It is, confusingly, experienced as having a kind of freedom which it does not have upon close inspection. But it is not to be missed or ignored, or else one will miss the incredible experience of actually being a human. It is not to be denigrated as a curse or mistaken to be dissolved or shunned. It ultimately demands a level of responsibility to itself to ask the ultimate “whys” which seek ultimate reasons. It is true that Sam and other anti-free-willers make strong cases for why actions still “matter” to guard against the logical nihilism conclusions which come into view when free will disintegrates. But this always begs the deeper question as to “why” the universe matters at all. Losing “Free Will” must lead to the discovery of “Human Will”. The ultimate “why” question is tortuous but must be answered and sought with some courage. “Why does anything matter?”
Persisting for its own sake? Flourishing is an inherent good? Because the universe is here? I don’t know. This ultimate question drives itself towards moral foundations and famous distinctions like David Hume’s is/ought distinction (“There is no description of the way the universe “is” that tells us how the universe “ought” to be). As much as we want Hume to be wrong about this formulation, he is not. Even Sam has admitted as much. The universe does not provide its own answers for persisting or flourishing. We must formulate our own. My personal favorite is Carl Sagan’s observation that “We are a way for the universe to know itself.”
That poetic observation is an “is” that seems to suggest an “ought”. Of course, that is just my own version of hope and faith, a purely atheistic one, which recognizes that the universe knowing itself is the only game in town, other than suicide.
I do not contend that eternal whyness is not tortuous. I have friends who express the desire that we live in nature where survival is paramount. They contend that this is what humans really need to remember who they are. There are flow states to achieve in moments of raw nature, survival, or war. There is some deep human craving that desires to be in a glorious battle. There are secret longings for alien invasions or zombie apocalypses to trigger this state of awareness. There are desires for the rapture. All of these are versions of a deep craving out of fear of our human-will and human potential to ask why.
When the world is a battlefield and you are pushed to the edge of survival, the human-will gives way to animal engagement. There is no layer between you and your actions in the world. In a horrible twist of philosophy, being in a life-or-death battlefield can be a return to a mental Garden of Eden where “whyness” is absent, or smothered by the necessity of action. I had a friend once tell me about an experience as a sniper where he was so focused on his task and in touch with his biology that he could sense the salt levels in his blood. How cool and in-touch with that Garden of Eden? There is just the world and you are one with it. There is no time or place for “why”.
THERE IS NO WHY
You can sense that some forms of meditation seek this goal of dissolving the “why layer” so thoroughly that one just “is”. There is, no doubt, tremendous bliss in this state. And there is also no doubt that it is an affliction to be completely lost in the why-ness and “lost in thought” as to be confused and disconnected with life.
But this “whyness” power is the human condition. And it is realization of a human’s potential and engagement with his powers that must be the point of life.
This is where a focus on psychology, and integration of its best aims, is what I’m really after. Psychology has gotten a really bad name in intellectual circles lately. Most of that is self-inflicted. In the last century or so, the field has been focused on helping people “cope” with a political-economic system designed to keep the “whyness” at bay and keep people producing. So much psychoanalysis has dealt only with describing the way people feel unhappy and dissatisfied in the rhythm of their lives to “find peace”. That peace-finding is lovely but often leaves people just as deeply dissatisfied. They are calm in their defeat and now have methods of quieting the subtle torture and reminder that they are a human and thus a creature designed to ask “why”.
But the best psychology is that which attempts to understand all the ways in which people flee from the potential and power of the human condition and the embodiment of human-will. We do this through countless ways which I will not discuss here. But one such way is to ignore the capacity altogether as a vestige of a free-will illusion. Some may excitedly dissolve the self and illusion of Free Will in a subconscious effort to also dissolve the guilt they feel for not answering the universal call of the human-will. Erich Fromm wrote about this universal call wonderfully in his book “Man For Himself”. He called it “conscience” and showed how often that feeling of guilt is miscast as an internalized authoritarian form of guilt. That later one ought to be quieted and dissolved, but the former one, the demands of having human-will ought never extinguished lest we forfeit life.
I think no writer has gotten this better than the venerable Kurt Vonnegut Jr. He wrote in Cat’s Cradle:
“Tiger got to hunt, bird got to fly;
Man got to sit and wonder 'why, why, why?'
Tiger got to sleep, bird got to land;
Man got to tell himself he understand.”
Man is different. Man is crazy. Man’s capacity of asking why is his blessing and his curse. His habit of telling himself he understands is his superpower… because sometimes he just might.
That is Human Will. Don’t forget it when you cross out “Free Will”. Human Will may not be “free” but it exists and it matters. A defense of “Human Will” could be another way of “changing the subject” but it also might just be a way to shift the “Free Will” feeling down to where it always was in the first place. It was never a phenomena of physics (it certainly won’t be found there) but it was always a phenomena of human existence which desperately needs to be distinguished, defended, understood, and never denied.
This essay was my attempt to pick apart an intricate difference of emphasis in Sam Harris’s philosophy and my analysis. It should lay the groundwork for much of my writing in the series. As you listen to the episodes you will notice the constant tension and interplay between philosophy and psychology. I consider the translation between good philosophy and good psychology to be of urgent importance to a life well lived. I hope my ongoing efforts are helpful and illuminating.