Free will

One of the most interesting aspects of this Susan Blackmore talk (to me) is that she seems to think that if we gave up on the idea that we have free will that we would end up acting much more meek and poor in spirit as Jesus suggested we should or with much less attachment to things, including ideas and concepts, as the Buddha suggested we should. She does not explicitly go to this, but if you view it from a philosophical perspective I think it is where she is headed. And as counterintuitive as that seems (to a red blooded American) I think she might be on to something.

I personally think we have a tiny amount of free will, probably about 0.1-1% of what we have generally been taught we have, and even at those times it is primarily a choice to embrace or reject/fight reality. Even that amount of free will though when exercised changes everything downstream from it and used over a lifetime changes plenty. Most will not even entertain the notion of us having much less free will than we have been taught we have because they think that would mean we should not punish others for their actions (and they really should forgive others).

In a way it does mean we should not punish people for their actions but it does not mean we should not impose consequences for their actions. The consequences would just be much better tailored to actually changing their behavior to make them a safe and responsible person to have in society rather than punishing them, and if consequences could not make them safe for society they might still need to have some sort of humane sequestering.

At this point we should be honest and admit wherever we draw lines between safety and liberty the line is arbitrary and favors one or the other. And we should always error on the side of liberty because only the side of liberty leads individually and collectively to progress and a sense of well-being.