I’ve been coerced into free will.

I think my dad was so fascinated by this idea because he realizedon some fundamental level that he was not in control of his desires:I think he woke up every morning in his nice house...

Our desires are guided by what we believe to be good or bad; our beliefs are directed by our knowledge; our knowledge, in turn, is again a manipulation of our desires. Our Will, during this...

Freedom is inevitable; it is only the matter of the form in which it occurs. I think it is not the freedom per se that matters but the capacity to absorb it. I could have...

Free will, determinism, meaning, existence, etc. are academic problems, not problems in life.

Historical determinism is a recipe for political quietism.

At one conference Hameroff told Dennett, publicly, “You know, Dan, maybe the reason you like this [mechanistic] idea is because you’re a zombie. And maybe the reason I see things differently is because, I’m not.”Hameroff...

We’re presently in the midst of a third intellectual revolution. The first came with Newton: the planets obey physical laws. The second came with Darwin: biology obeys genetic laws. In today’s third revolution, were coming...

Which do you think is more valuable to humanity?a. Finding ways to tell humans that they have free will despite the incontrovertible fact that their actions are completely dictated by the laws of physics as...

But recently I have learned from discussions with a variety of scientists and other non-philosophers (e.g., the scientists participating with me in the Sean Carroll workshop on the future of naturalism) that they lean the...

Genetics, accidents of birth or events in early childhood have left criminals’ brains and bodies with measurable flaws predisposing them to committing assault, murder and other antisocial acts. …. Many offenders also have impairments in...

With determination, discipline and hard work all dreams become a reality.

My destiny plays with me in such a wayI feel I play with my destiny.

No one can tell you for certain if we have free will or we don’t. […] Whatever you choose to believe, you will probably want to agree with the philosopher John Locke, who argued that...

The future is certain. It is just not known.

Can’t you see there’s a determinism about the fate of nations? They all seem to get what they deserve in the long run.

if being is many, it must be both like and unlike, and this is impossible, for neither can the like be unlike, nor the unlike like

Not accomplishing your Life Plan is a tragic act of free will. It is akin to charting an elaborate vacation itinerary before arriving at your holiday destination, with all kinds of plans for outdoor adventures...

You can’t change the past. You can’t even change the future, in the sense that you can only change the present one moment at a time, stubbornly, until the future unwinds itself into the stories...

We all are characters in a movie.

In fact, if you are faced with the prospect of running across an open field in which lightning bolts are going to be a problem, you are much better off if their timing and location...

He did it because he could not help himself, which explains everything and nothing

Hope: Hold on, persistence effort!

From what deep springs of character our personal philosophies issue, we cannot be sure. In philosophers themselves we seem always able to notice some deep internal correspondence between the man and his philosophy. Are our...

I have had my mother’s wing of my genetic ancestry analyzed by the National Geographic tracing service and there it all is: the arrow moving northward from the African savannah, skirting the Mediterranean by way...

Destiny is always a doorstep away, if we know to move in the right direction.

Belief is not subject to the will. Men think as they must. Children do not, and cannot, believe exactly as they were taught. They are not exactly like their parents. They differ in temperament, in...

The cause-effect sequences in our brains are just as determining, just as inescapable, as anywhere else in Nature.

There’s no such thing as probability,” she says, slowly, with minimal movement of her jaw. “Things turn out the way they do.

Scientific research is based on the idea that everything that takes place is determined by laws of nature, and therefore this holds for the action of people. For this reason, a research scientist will hardly...

Be determined.You can make it in life.You can make all your dreams come true.

Similarly, knowledge of the future was incompatible with free will. What made it possible for me to exercise freedom of choice also made it impossible for me to know the future. Conversely, now that I...

The will has no overall purpose, aims at no highest good, and can never be satisfied. Although it is our essence, it strikes us as an alien agency within, striving for life and procreation blindly,...

Whether or not it is clear to you,no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should.

We hold these truths to be self-evident.{Franklin’s edit to the assertion in Thomas Jefferson’s original wording, ‘We hold these truths to be sacred and undeniable’ in a draft of the Declaration of Independence changes it...

I know that certain minds would regard as audacious the idea of relating the laws which preside over the play of our organs to those laws which govern inanimate bodies; but, although novel, this truth...

Genes do not make an individual homosexual. They play their part, but so does the rest of the universe.

Free will is the sensation of making a choice. The sensation is real, but the choice seems illusory. Laws of physics determine the future.

willed freely” are events that simply do not exist.

The physical universe was a language with a perfectly ambiguous grammar. Every physical event was an utterance that could be parsed in two entirely different ways, one casual and the other teleological, both valid, neither...

What each individual wills is obstructed by everyone else, and what emerges is something that no one willed.

This is one of man’s oldest riddles. How can the independence of human volition be harmonized with the fact that we are integral parts of a universe which is subject to the rigid order of...

Thought isn’t a form of energy. So how on Earth can it change material processes? That question has still not been answered.

Know, then, that now, precisely now, these people are more certain than ever before that they are completely free, and at the same time they themselves have brought us their freedom and obediently laid it...

Losing a belief in free will has not made me fatalistic—in fact, it has increased my feelings of freedom. My hopes, fears, and neuroses seem less personal and indelible. There is no telling how much...

Women, churchgoers, and conservative were more likely than men, nonchurch goers, and liberals to disagree with the reductionist (neural) account of human life.

Cleverness have no meanings until you find the stupidity that teach you.

There are but few important events in the affairs of men brought about by their own choice.

It is important to distinguish ‘pure chance’ from ‘chance’ or ‘accident.’ Things may happen by chance or accident in a purely deterministic universe…Now there is perhaps a sense of ‘could not have done otherwise’ in...

Few indeed are those who get a choice. We do as we are told. We stand or fall beside those who were born near to us, who look as we do, who speak the same...