Mental masturbation

When someone goes out of his or her way to ask me to do something very specific, I usually try to accommodate them, especially if the request is reasonable. Though I’ve been quite busy editing the draft of my coming novel Secondhand Sight, my friend Sean made a point of asking me to read Free Will by Sam Harris.

I protested that I was busy writing and editing my novel. Readers of my first Robert Mercer mystery, titled Coastal Empire, have been clamoring for the sequel, which won’t come after Secondhand Sight. I don’t want interest to wane, while I’m screwing around reading another writer’s book.

Sean persuaded me by countering that the Harris book was short, and an “easy read.”

So I splurged on Amazon, shelling out $3.99 for the Kindle edition.

What a sucker I am!

Oh, it was short, all right. And an easy read. But more importantly, the book proved to be an utter waste of my time and money.

Love ya, Sean, but I should have just kept writing.

Do not assume that I fail to appreciate Sam Harris as a writer. On the contrary, I thought his book The End of Faith was quite good, though I disagreed with most of his conclusions. It was quite brave of Harris to admit that he believes in a spiritual facet of the universe that inexplicably exists, but cannot be defined in conventional, scientific terms.

The “Fourth Horseman” clearly departed from Daniel Dennett, Christopher Hitchens, and Richard Dawkins on that point.  Harris said he prefers the term “mysticism” to “spiritualism” to describe this phenomena he accepts, because he believes the latter term has more “gravitas.”

But Harris does not believe in the concept of free will. To argue his point, he curiously makes the claim that if he had changed places with Stephen Hayes on July 23, 2007, he would have participated in the brutal assault on Dr. William Petit and the murder of his entire family because he would have had no choice in the matter. Actually, Harris did not say “he” would have committed the murders, but if we assume the space inhabited by the molecules and atoms shared the exact same experiences, environmental influences and genetic makeup as Hayes, from birth until that moment, then “he” would have done the same thing.

The philosophical argument is utter nonsense, sophistry at its worst — or, as the title of this article crudely described it, mental masturbation. It’s a complete waste of time to entertain the idea.

It doesn’t qualify as theory or hypothesis; it’s not even clever conjecture. It presumes the unknowable, the untestable, and ultimately the unbelievable.

Harris is making the claim that at every possible point in his imaginary life as Stephen Hayes, he would have made all the same choices, precisely because he had no choice. The idea is not only moronic, it’s immoral. In his argument that free will is merely an illusion, Harris is absolving Hayes of any responsibility for his actions in committing several despicable murders, in spite of any argument he might attempt to the contrary.

In my debate with the formidable Ed Buckner, former president of American Atheists, I vehemently argued that Harris’ argument against to the concept of free will was baseless and without merit well prior to reading his short, useless little book.

My point was simple — there was nothing in anyone’s genetic makeup, life experiences, or environmental pressures that forced those in attendance to sacrifice their Saturday afternoon in order to hear two grown men waste several hours of a beautiful afternoon, in an almost pointless debate about whether or not God exists.

The argument was pointless in the sense that both of us knew going in that there was little if any chance of persuading the other man that he was wrong. Ed didn’t appear to even listen to most of what I said. We both knew we both lacked any real scientific evidence to back our arguments, or defeat the other guys.

Our real challenge was to win over the audience. Except that was not really my goal, either. My only goal was not to fail completely.

I didn’t expect many in the audience to come with an open mind. My goal was to plant seeds of doubt, to persuade the atheists in attendance to really become a free thinker, and open their mind to the possibility of God. It doesn’t even have to be “my” God.

I’ve often said, get your own.

Only time will tell if our debate had any impact on anyone who attended.

But let’s be absolutely clear about a couple of things — I definitely had a choice whether or not to accept Ed’s challenge and meet him in debate by oral arguments. Attendance was not mandatory. Those in the audience also exercised their free will, when they chose to attend the event on a beautiful Saturday afternoon.

The argument that free will is an illusion is a silly one, and without merit.

I knew exactly what I was getting into when I accepted Ed’s challenge. I knew the odds were not in my favor, given his vast experience in debate, and my virginity with the art form. Yet I chose to meet him on his chosen field of battle, mostly because I was curious to learn if there was something he knew or believed that I hadn’t already considered. I risked humiliation, because my curiosity got the best of me. I have no regrets.

On the other hand, having now been there, done that, and I will go on record as saying that I have no intention of doing it again. I predict, should this opportunity ever arise again, I will once again exercise my free will, and this time, I state without equivocation beforehand that I will almost certainly only consider another debate of that nature when Hell becomes exothermic and freezes over.

Don’t get me wrong — I like Ed just fine, and I am not saying this because I think I lost our debate. Nor am I saying that was my last word on the matter.

However, next time, the debate will take place on my chosen battlefield — on the pages of a book. When I have more than a couple of hours to marshal my thoughts and put them all into writing, there won’t be much left to argue afterward.

But I will be fair. The title will be The Argument about God, as opposed to The Argument for God.

I plan to present the best arguments for both sides. When it has been published, you may choose to exercise your free will in deciding whether or not to read it. The book will be written, unless I stop breathing before it’s finished.

I’ve already decided. Of my own free will.

[Hat tip to Sean T. for inspiring this article]