George Hammond: How Can We Be Sure We Have Free Will?

Many people are convinced our lives, and all actions in the universe, are totally determined. One question remains: How did they make up their minds that that is true? One decent definition of the difference between mind and matter is that minds make decisions. Even if you decide to let someone else make all your decisions for you, that itself is a decision. Which you can revoke at will. Join us at Monday Night Philosophy to remind yourself (in the Platonic sense) that there are indeed many reasons to recover your own agency, to realize that you make decisions all the time that are not determined by—even if they are influenced by—outside forces, and to refresh your awareness of the inner control over your own life that everyone inherently possesses, whether they sense it or not, whether they feel it or not. Because when you have recovered your former certainty that you have free will, you will also understand that one of the most intriguing and ironic uses of our free wills are our always temporary decisions to believe that we don’t have it. Organizer: George Hammond   Commonwealth Club World Affairs of California is a nonprofit public forum; we welcome donations made during registration to support the production of our programming. A Humanities Member-led Forum program. Forums at the Club are organized and run by volunteer programmers who are members of The Commonwealth Club, and they cover a diverse range of topics. Learn more about our Forums. Commonwealth Club World Affairs is a public forum. Any views expressed in our programs are those of the speakers and not of Commonwealth Club World Affairs.   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices