Free Will

by Sam Harris

As sickening as I find their behavior, I have to admit that if I were to trade places with one of these men, atom for atom, I would be him: There is no extra part of me that could decide to see the world differently or to resist the impulse to victimize other people.

I believe this is something many people could benefit from realizing, that by entirely swapping places with someone, you would act no functionally different. I think such a realization would have profound impact of how people treat each other, particularly as it comes to political views.

Another lab extended this work using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI): Subjects were asked to press one of two buttons while watching a “clock” composed of a random sequence of letters appearing on a screen. They reported which letter was visible at the moment they decided to press one button or the other. The experimenters found two brain regions that contained information about which button subjects would press a full 7 to 10 seconds before the decision was consciously made.

Personally this resonates with my own experience of body movements while meditating. Too often I reach to scratch an itch instinctively and without mindful consideration, but those times I do observe the sensation mindfully and "consciously decide" (or so it feels) to scratch it, my hand is already halfway to doing so.