Free Will

What is free will? Do you have free will? Do I have free will? Does anyone have free will? I find myself constantly trying to wrap my head around free will, this way and that, attempting to understand it, from this angle or that. From the determinists, that believe that we don’t have free will – the hard line determinists especially in this regard – that everything is cause and effect, and due to some of the various science experiments and studies done over the years that show our brains actually decide an action up towards 7 seconds before we consciously make the decision or know we are making the decision; so from this, they take the stance that everything is out of our hands, that there is no free will, that we make no decisions, and have no choices. That when you decide on ‘strawberry’ ice cream, instead of ‘chocolate’ ice cream, its due to factors outside of our own decision making. Then there are those who believe we do have free will, and that everything is choice, nothing is decision, etc. Or they walk it back a bit, based on various things (ie. brain tumors, or alcohol, or drugs, etc.).

Sam Harris takes the side of determinism, and states that we don’t have free will. Others in various medias and forums and debates, from eminent scholars, to scientists, to politicians, to philosophers, to theologians, have taken both sides as well.

Philosophy

As I’m sure many readers of the blog are well aware of now, philosophy is one of my (few? many?) joys and interests. Especially when it comes to reading. If you’ve checked out our Instagram page I’m sure you’ve seen my beer pics and hiking pics where there is a book in the background, and more likely than not, that’s a philosophy book. I am actually hoping to be launching a Podcast soon, where philosophy and books and literature will be a large staple of it. (As will beer of course, I mean, we are The Beer Thrillers, after all.) But, needless to say, philosophy is a strong / big interest here, as well as fun hobby for me. I enjoy reading, writing, dissecting, and thinking philosophically about many, many, many topics, and interests. (I love the union and crossing of pop culture and philosophy, the Pop Culture Philosophy books are a fun starting point for many people into the realm of philosophy.)

I have previously covered ‘What More Philosophers Think‘ here on the blog, and in due time, there will be plenty more philosophy books covered as well. From all walks of philosophy; as much as I want to say ‘no one school of thought’ will be the heavy favorite…. I would be lying, as I will most likely cover existentialism, philosophy of the mind, and ethics philosophy the most. These are my favorite topics and branches of the philosophy tree, with some of my favorite writers being Albert Camus, Jean Paul Sartre, Samuel Beckett, Baruch Spinoza, Frederich Nietzsche, Peter Singer, and many more. So buckle up, you will be seeing lots of their works covered here on the blog, as well, as hopefully, the podcast once I get that up and running.

Book Review

This is a relatively short treatise on Free Will. It seems to be honest that most free will treatises are just essays and are typically in the short essay form, and this falls in that category. A quick, easy, read (will help pad out your GoodReads 100 Book Challenge), but ultimately will give you lots to chew on and lots of questions, thoughts, and much more to ponder.

GoodReads has it listed as 96 pages, but that’s being a bit generous. My copy (which should be aligned with the one on GoodReads) has the final page as 83 (and this is including the index but not the ‘About the Author’ page). So its certainly a quick read, but there is definitely a fair bit too it. Sam Harris lays out his thoughts and opinions on determinism, how free will is a myth, and his thoughts in general about the subject rather succinctly and clearly and the prose is good and lively. Your mileage on his thoughts may vary, and your opinion of his thoughts and ideas might be different than another person, but his argument is well laid out, and he writes in a clear enough style, staying relatively clear of jargon. This is ‘academia made for laymen’ or as some call it ‘pop philosophy’ or various other terms. It’s an academic and thought out approach, but written for the general public, rather than twelve scholars and academics sitting in big leather chairs high up in some ivory tower probably covered in ivy.

Sam Harris immediately states that free will doesn’t exist, showcases his deterministic viewpoint on the matter, and then proceeds and moves on to why this shouldn’t change anything (or nothing really).

“We do not have the freedom we think we have… Either our wills are determined by prior causes and we are not responsible for them. Or they are the product of chance and we are not responsible for them.”

Free Will (Sam Harris)

He makes sure to point out that regardless of our inability to actually have free will, that we are unable to determine our own thoughts, actions, or behaviors, that this does not give us moral latitude, or justification, or even immunity. That justice must still be done to criminals, that if you murder, regardless of your lack of free will, you still deserve to be punished based on the law. This is always an interesting point, and a ‘sticking point’ for many in the deterministic vs. free will debate. Justice, law, and theology – are typically the biggest battle lines in the debate. If you have no free will, how can you be punished? I you have no free will, how can God send you to heaven or hell? Does morality matter if you have no free will? Etc. Sam Harris is an atheist and a strong proponent of it, but he still states that regardless of your lack of free will, you don’t have moral freedom. Your actions still do matter, regardless if its YOU acting it out or if its YOU ACTING IT OUT BECAUSE ‘X’. That justice and morality still need to function, elsewise society would crumble. Now, Harris doesn’t go full doom and gloom and say that much, but thats the slippery slope argument to it all.

“The intention to do one thing and not another does not originate in consciousness. Rather it appears in consciousness. As does any thought or impulse that might impose it.”

Free Will (Sam Harris)

This is the main hard line for most determinists. And it starts from the studies done with the MRIs and fRMIs, etc, that Libet did, that showcases a person’s choice happens up towards 7 seconds before the person is fully aware of their choice. This is an oft cited study and experiment that the determinists love to use when discussing and having the free will debate. And many articles and essays will go back to this time and time again.

If you are into philosophy, if you enjoy Sam Harris’s writing style, approach, or thought, if you are curious or interested in free will and the debates therein, I would highly recommend this. It’ll be a quick read, a day’s worth, depending on your reading speed and how much you set aside to thinking and contemplating everything. Will it solve your own internal debate on the topic? Will it let you decide if you have free will or not? Is this the ultimate explanation and answer to the debate? — Obviously no. And you, and I, and we all know this going in (or should anyway). No book of philosophy will give you every answer, neither will any book of religion, or science, or any book in general. That’s not the goal or point, or absolute value of a book. But will it give you something to think about? Will it give you a new perspective? Or new insight? Or a new way to look at the argument? That it will, and that is what any good philosophy book should do.

Free will is a tricky subject. Its something we all ‘want’ to have, and also ‘don’t want to have’. Because, we all want to think we have free will – when it obviously benefits us. We want the credit for when we are talented and make an artistic masterpiece, we want credit when we do something right; but at the same time, we don’t want credit (ie. blame) for when we come up short; our failings, our imperfections or flaws, our addictions and vices, etc. Then we want determinism, and to wash our hands and clap and say ‘it was those faulty wires up there’.

Science and philosophy (primarily science) is helping us get closer to the target on this debate, and in the years ahead, it will be interesting to see what new headway and roads we make into this topic and discussion. I’m looking forward to it…. if I chose to or not.

My GoodReads Rating: ****
Average Global GoodReads Rating: 3.87 (as of 8.26.21)
My LibraryThing Rating: ****

Some Interesting Articles on Free Will

Below is a list of some interesting articles, essays, websites, and videos about the subject of free will. Including an hour long discussion by Sam Harris himself on the topic.

• Sam Harris: On Free Will (YouTube)
• Determinism vs. Free Will (Crash Course Philosophy) (YouTube)
• There’s No Such Thing as Free Will (The Atlantic)
• Free Will is Real (Scientific American)
• Free Will (Wikipedia)
• Free Will (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)
• Free Will (James Clear Book Review)

As always, thank you everyone for reading. Hope you found this informative and are enjoying our new book reviews on the blog. Be sure to check out more of them, as well as our hike reviews, our beer reviews, brewery reviews, travelogues, and much more. And soon – hopefully in the near future – be on the lookout for our podcasts, which will cover a very wide range of topics. (I just have too many hobbies I think!) Including beer, breweries, home brewing, hop growing, books, literature, philosophy, and pop culture.

-B. Kline

Thank you for visiting our blog. Please make sure to follow, bookmark, subscribe, and make sure to comment and leave feedback and like the blog posts you read. It will help us to better tailor the blog to you, the readers, likes and make this a better blog for everyone.

Please be sure to follow us on our social media accounts – Facebook, Facebook Group, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, and Influence. Please be sure to also follow, like, subscribe to the blog here itself to keep updated. We love to hear from you guys, so be sure to leave a comment and let us know what you think!

So this wasn’t meant to become a beer review, but I figured I’d do it anyway. I might do a few of the others from Saturday night as well. There is some backstory to a couple of pieces to this blog post, so I’ll work through them all.

So starting off with some background on Spring House Brewing Company. Once I got kind of fully “into” craft beer, roughly 7-8 years or so ago…. or maybe its been 8-9 years ago…. or even possibly 10 years ago? Who knows, I’m getting old, and it was a while ago, I know that much. Outside of the Hershey/Harrisburg area, Spring House Brewing Company was one of the first breweries I visited/tried. Myself, my three daughters, and Sara, went and did the Turkey Hill Experience thing, and the parking garage was right near the brewery. I convinced her that if we did something for the kids, I needed something for me, and since it was dinner time and they offered food, we ‘might as well’ hit the brewery. She amazingly agreed, and this kind of set precedent for most of our trips with the girls (dinner/lunch would be at breweries, for the good food, and to help keep dad from going insane).

We went to their tap room on Hazel Street. The food was really good, all four of them were happy, and I got a flight, which came with something like 10-12 beers. And I enjoyed all of them. We had a good time, and I would say I would list Spring House pretty prominently and pretty high up.

A year or two later we went to their brewery off of King Street (I might be getting to the two locations backwards, and sadly Google Maps is deciding not to load anything for me at the moment, in fact, even the blog is being slow, so maybe my internet, or my laptop, or whatever is hating me). We went on St. Patty’s day as kind of a dinner date, and had a fantastic Shepherd’s Pie and got some of their bombers on a discount blowout. Again, had a great time.

Sadly though, since then, I’ve only been back to the taproom on Hazel St once, and it was quick, nearly an in-and-out with a friend while visiting the Lancaster area. And so over the years, the only chance I’ve really had at trying Spring House has been in bars, at a tap takeover or two, or rarely/occasionally a few cans I’ve picked up at places like Breski’s Beverage or Brass Rail Deli. Every fall I always have looked forward to Braaaaiiins and Big Gruesome. Both are two of my favorite fall time beers. Braaaaiiins is my possibly my favorite pumpkin beer, and Big Gruesome is a really good stout.

But overall throughout the years, I think I’ve fallen ‘out of love’ with Spring House. I still look forward to Braaaiiins and Big Gruesome, but not as much, and many of their one-offs, and other rotationals that I’ve had throughout the years have left me feeling rather ‘meh’.

So, this brings me to the backstory of Saturday then. Worked 11-7 Saturday, and went right down the road to my friend’s house. J.Scott or JDS or J.D.Scott or D.Scott, whatever he chooses to go with, might be helping out with writing some blog posts here as well. Likewise, we (him and I) will be hosting a podcast where we play some old school NES and SNES games and other related things (maybe old school Game Boy games on emulator or Sega, or what have you), while doing the podcast we will be drinking and talking and chatting about nerd culture (like we mostly do when just hanging out at The Warwick, or Boneshire Brewery, or Chick’s Tavern, or his house, or wherever). So be sure to be on the lookout for all of that (I’ll be posting links here in the blog to whenever we upload a new podcast).

So getting back to Saturday, we started off drinking several craft beers from a local distributor that Dan and D. Scott picked up. A Key Lime Pie from D9 (Confectioner: Key Lime Pie), a few from DuClaw, the Spundae from Spring House, and a Red Velvet Cake one from Spring House. I might get around to doing some beer reviews of these if I find the time/energy (I still have a ton of other blog posts/articles to do). But I really did like the D9: Confectioner: Key Lime Pie, so I might do a beer review on that one. We sat around outside for a while killing the craft beers, talking, trying to get a fire going, before going inside, and working on Naturdays and Natty Daddys (well, we had a few of them outside as well), and then we started watching Terror in Beverly Hill…. which, anytime you can watch a movie starring FRANK Stallone… you jump on that opportunity. Believe me. You won’t be disappointed.

So needless to say the night wasn’t mean to be spent as part of a way to do a blog post, but since I had a beer, and I have some time to write it up, and took some thoughts of it on my phone, and remember my discussions with Dan and D.Scott about it, I’ll give it a review. (Yay to more content right?)

Ok, onto the actual beer review (which is presumably why your here):

Beer: Spundae
Brewery: Spring House Brewing Company
Style: IPA – Milkshake
ABV: 6.8%
IBU: None
Untappd Write-Up: Introducing Spundae, our newest milkshake IPA to hit our lineup. Its brewed with real cherry puree, set on vanilla beans, and double dry hopped with potent citra leaves. Get this limited release draft while it lasts, dessert doesnt hang around forever.

….Well….. this is an interesting beer. Obviously my pic isn’t the best, and was mostly just a quick Untappd pic rather than a full on meant to happen for beer reviewing purposes “beer photography” picture. You can see the coloring in the glass that D.Scott was drinking out of. (Gave a taster’s worth for Dan and D.Scott, while I drank out of the can.)

Let’s break this one down….

Aroma is a mixture of all kinds of things. Firstly, its very cherry smelling. Like cough syrup cherry. Maraschino cherry. Overly tart, overly sweet, overly everything cherry. The “not good cherry”. There is a bit of a hop smell but its so diluted by the cherry. There is some kind of other flavors that could be vanilla beans, could be the hops, could be the “cherry puree”, which I’m not really sure what that is. I’m thinking its just straight maraschino cherry syrup they use for ice cream. I don’t know what exactly puree would entail in this instance, and I’d rather it be the actual cherry than puree I think, given how this tastes.

Appearance is very pink hue. As you can see in the picture, it kind of resembles the Crimson Pistil IPA that Troegs did, the hibiscus IPA. The coloring is a little off-putting, especially given the aroma before hand. So already I am kind of anticipating a cherry bomb on this. There’s even a bit of floaters in it and some sediment , at that was with a pour. Firstly, when I even poured just a small sample for both Dan and D.Scott, doing a correct pour, both of their pint glasses foamed way up with a massive amount of head, especially in contrast to how much I poured.

The taste was pretty much what I anticipated, given aroma and appearance, and both Dan and D.Scott agreed immediately on this. Its sour, tart, and not at all like a milkshake IPA. No smoothness. No vanilla. No sugary taste to it. Just a very heavy, tart/sour cheap cherry taste. Like cough syrup gone sour.

Its not a complete waste or drain pour, and its not completely horrible. It is cloying, it is heavy on the mouthfeel, and it doesn’t exactly fit the description. Its not the best or the worst though either. Maybe unpleasant is the best way to describe it? “Not preferable ?” I’ve certainly had far worse in my life, and the Natty Daddy’s later on weren’t much better, but then again, I knew that going in with those. This had at least some expectation to it, and a single was 4.99$ D.Scott told me, so only 2$ cheaper than the entire six-pack of Natty Daddy’s. So it should be obviously a lot better, especially given what it was, who made it, etc. This was more of a disappointment than it was anything, and I think a bit of an indictment about where Spring House has gone in recent year(s)/month(s). As I’ve heard numerous complaints and issues and arguments surrounding their beers in recent times. Which is very sad and disheartening.

My Untappd Rating: ***.25
Global Untappd Rating: 3.19 (as of 9.16.19)

(And sadly, I feel like I might be a bit generous with the 3.25 and it might really deserve a 3-***).

In blog news, we’ve been selected and added to the Top 100 Beer Blogs on the internet. Though we’re not exactly in the Top 100, (we are listed at #120), it is an honor, especially since I only started this blog in late May (so just a bit under 4 months). For comparison’s sake Breweries in PA is ranked #37. So given the “youth” of this blog, I think we’re doing pretty good.

You can check out the listing here: Top 100 Best Beer Blogs.

Certainly check it out, and spread the word about our blog, would love to crack the Top 100 soon!

Be sure to like, subscribe, follow, and comment on our posts. Share and tell your friends as well. We greatly appreciate it here at The Beer Thrillers!

Until next time, bottoms up!

-B. Kline