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At about 10 minutes after noon yesterday, an ineluctable series of causal events that no doubt began before the dawn of humanity compelled me to sit for an hour in a Barnes and Noble reading this predetermined collection of words from someone whose parents had been programmed to name him Sam Harris. I regret that this is the way I ended up spending an hour, though of course it's useless to regret what one could not help but do, and, moreover, the "I" that I imagine I am is just along for the ride anyway. Being predetermined, I can't choose to say that one part of this collection of words was more worthwhile than any other (a sentiment with which Harris would agree, though "agreement" itself seems superfluous) but if free will were possible, I would choose footnote 15, on the next to last page of the book, in which biologist Jerry Coyne notes that no possible scientific experiment could test whether any action was free from compulsion by previous events or influences. I believe that to be correct and so believed before the predetermined hour I spent reading Harris's book, which seemed to add nothing to the question but inanity and confusion, both delivered with a rather self-congratulatory air--but then, as Harris pointed out near the end of the book, his choice to type or go drink a beer was all alike, and his book proved it. Why Harris didn't simply point out what was in footnote 15 at the outset and then leave the publisher to bind 80 blank pages together is mysterious to me until I remembered that he couldn't help himself. In his case, unknown influences had caused him to believe that even in the absence of free will, it is still useful, not only to talk about choice but to argue against fatalism because our choices have outcomes. This is trivially true in his framework of mental events, though what "choice" could signify in such a framework beyond a polite fiction, the vestige of the very illusion Harris thinks he is exploding, is not apparent. Other causal factors moved Harris to mention existentialism once, in which he found little use but which he was caused to congratulate for its emphasis on taking personal responsibility for creating meaning in one's life. It happens that I am predetermined to imagine that I am preferring existentialist thinking (or mental event processing) in this regard to Harris's own thoughts, which strike me as laughably facile. In my predetermined view, we do well to choose, and seek to live by, values that optimize our potential as humans. Such choices may be as simple as taking up walking for fitness and losing 35 pounds, or they may involve something more, such as learning chess or reading "The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire." I suppose Harris would not object to this (indeed, it is hard to see how he could "object" to anything at all, though he certainly does so) but would simply argue that one cannot take credit for such choices, however fortunate, or suffer blame for them, even if they are criminal. One reason that Harris seems to harp on this so much is that he is predetermined to fear that assigning moral "blame" leads to a largely punitive and inhumane society; specifically, he claims to be unable to find anything in a religious framework that enables the observer of a criminal act to reflect that he, too, might be capable of similar behavior. Actually, such a remedy exists and would have been discovered by Harris had he ever been predetermined to read the simple Christian reflection "There but for the grace of God, go I." In any case, Harris may be vindicated (if "vindication" even matters) by reflecting (or being caused to reflect) that even the act of reading this review may cause you either to avoid the book or to spend the same time reading it as I did.