Exploring the Illusion of Free Will, Second Edition

Exploring the Illusion of Free Will, Second Edition

While free will is the most discussed topic in philosophy, few books unequivocally refuting the notion have been published. Dan Wegnerâ€™s 2002 The Illusion of Conscious Will a pioneering, powerfully documented exception, psychology has virtually ignored this exploration. That the topic is profoundly important is neither hyperbole nor put forth solely by author George Ortega. American philosopher John Searle, (who in 2010 was listed the 13th most cited post-1900 philosopher in the world) strongly concurs. According to Searle, for free will to be acknowledged an illusion would be â€œa bigger revolution in our thinking than Einstein, or Copernicus, or Newton, or Galileo, or Darwin â€“ it would alter our whole conception of our relation with the universe."

Since 1997, when Ortega authored a physics paper describing why the causality that refutes free will is a fundamental law of nature, he has worked to move the revelation that free will is illusory from academia to the public arena. His first success came in 2007 when he found an interested audience among the Internetâ€™s leading voice-chat website, Paltalk. Under the username Blisser, Ortega repeatedly brought up and refuted free will in atheist rooms, and in his own room completely dedicated to the topic. It was not, however, until early 2010 that Ortega succeeded in creating a major public buzz about free will being an illusion. On April 7th, he founded the Manhattan, NYC Meetup group â€œThe Predetermined Will Society â€“ Busting the Free Will Myth.â€ The message of this worldâ€™s first discussion group devoted to publicizing the refutation of free will reached innumerable Meetup members, who, together, (from among 22 million New York Metropolitan Area residents) encountered the groupâ€™s listing millions of times.

On January 6, 2011, Ortega premiered the first-ever cable TV series devoted to the topic, a weekly show called Exploring the Illusion of Free Will that continues to broadcast new material to Westchester County, New York, and to Manhattan, NYC on MNN. The promotions worked! Soon thereafter, with its April 16-22, 2011 article, â€œFree will; The illusion we canâ€™t live without,â€ New Scientist became the first magazine in history to refute free will as a cover story. In March of 2012, best-selling New York Times author Sam Harris published the free will-refuting book Free Will, and as its May/June, 2012 cover story, Scientific American Mind ran the piece "Who's in Control - How Physics and Neuroscience Dictate Your 'Free' Will."

Ortegaâ€™s unique passion for, and leadership in publicizing, this pioneering truth comes across throughout the bookâ€™s devastating, yet accessible, explanations of why free will is categorically impossible, and its descriptions of the harm free will belief causes within personal and global domains. What also sets Ortegaâ€™s work apart from refutations by other authors is his strong recognition that humanityâ€™s overcoming the belief in free will is an historic evolutionary leap in human consciousness. Comprising edited transcripts of the first 18 episodes of his revolutionary TV series, one of the bookâ€™s defining characteristics is the reiteration of free will refutations and of other salient material. Readers who lean toward free will belief are advised to not discount the utility, in fact the necessity, of such review. Emotional barriers to accepting that free will is impossible are powerful and pervasive, and do not readily yield to an unreviewed presentation of the evidence.

Ortega recognizes that, while it may take time to play out, unparalleled history has already been made as the millennia-long belief in free will has fallen to science, logic, and experience. In the epilogue, he hyper-links a virtually complete list of free will-refuting articles in major publications over the last decade, and especially the last several years. He has also compiled a hyper-linked list of 24 books devoted to refuting free will.
Country USA
Manufacturer A Happier World
Binding Kindle Edition
ReleaseDate 2013-06-20
Format Kindle eBook

Country	USA
Manufacturer	A Happier World
Binding	Kindle Edition
ReleaseDate	2013-06-20
Format	Kindle eBook

Exploring the Illusion of Free Will, Second Edition

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