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According to Sapolsky there is no free will what so ever. I am talking about Robert Sapolsky. I think he is an expert in this field and he has a lot of classes that have been uploaded on youtube.

Very interesting episode.

I listen to as much free will talk as I can find. As soon as Compatibilist say "seems like" or "intuition" in their defense of free will, I am just lost. I can't convince myself to rely on intuition to justify my beliefs. Just because my decisions seem different from other events does not convince me they actually are different.

You guys should invite some scholar of Bergson and or Sartre/Merleu-Ponty to the show! Phenomenology has been known to have quite a business with free will!

I think that there are (at least) two points of misunderstanding in the manipulation section. First, I think the question was trying to press on the thought that options could be THE key to moral responsibility given that we can describe cases wherein the manipulated individual has options (connected to some morally valences actions) they wouldn’t have had it not been for the manipulation. In those cases, there is a basic intuition that the person might not be morally responsible for the option they select in undertaking an action, though there were others available to them at the time leading up to its performance. If so, than the mere fact that the agent has options is somewhat orthogonal to the account of how the free will necessary for moral responsibility is possible in a deterministic universe. Second, I take it that part of the professor’s response is that-look, these are rechereche cases, and we haven’t explored the metaphysics of options and abilities enough to say much about what is moving our intuitions. Another issue, however, is this has nothing really to do with analyzing a basic notion. There can still be universally true statements-hopefully informative-about a basic notion like options. Given that, I just don’t see why we can’t say judge things about in a great many cases, including manipulation cases…

From an evolutionary point of view, emotions are a means for organisms to process information and make decisions about the future. Shame, guilt, etc are only explainable by considering how they impact survival in the future of the organism experiencing them. Praise and blame are no different. These are behaviors meant to impact the emotions of others as to get them to behave in your best interest in the future (blaming someone elicits guilt, the person is now less likely to harm you again). I don't think we have free will at all, but I think much of our thinking on morality, praise and blame still work at a functional level to promote prosocial behavior. This seems to weigh heavily for me in these conversations and I never hear anyone being it up.

The case of plum killing white because of the scientists as revealed at the end of the movie (around 38min mark), wouldn't it just be the case that plum isn't the correct moral agent to assign responsibility to? It's the scientists who, through no free will of their own, caused White to be murdered.

Mary and the mad scientist never had any free will to begin with. The scientists experiment was always going to play out as it did, and Mary was always going to lie to her friend. Nothing that happens within a deterministic or indeterministic universe could somehow function outside of those rules. Frankfurt cases don't seem to address free will at all to me, only some element of moral responsibility.

I have issue with the constant reference to the "problems" because it assumes a bias that having free will is the goal. Perhaps that is thr goal of almost everyone talking and writing about free will, but I think you need to be objective about what the arguments and science tells us. Also, I think framing it as if a logical proof would be the thing that gets rid of free will is just misrepresenting what logical truths are. They are describing something. If the logical argument presented here shows that subjects don't act freely, it is describing a fact about reality, not causing the fact in reality.

Okay, this wasn't the Justin Coates author I'd hoped it was. 😥😥😥

Philosophy is a scam to sell more books to people who are so interested in certain topics they have no choice but to buy them haha! 🤪

10:00

You guys should really bring some phenomenologist here! Perhaps some Scholar of Merleu-Ponty, of Bergson, of Sartre.

10:10 the more inescapable a problem is, the more 'solutions' will be launched at it (eg problem of evil)

5:22

One comment: even in the Enron case, these companies do view themselves as agent-like (they see themselves as a going concern, as having access to courts for redress, and so on). I think that there should be some care in distinguishing between not conceiving oneself as agent-like, and not representing oneself-in various contexts-as agent like. There is a somewhat similar situation when it comes to individual criminals, who plead guilty and even represent themselves as being such that defenses based on faultless lack of agency apply (anything to actus reus defenses for things like sleepwalking, to mens rea defenses for insanity, etc.). What I do wonder is how helpful it is to port (at least some) locutions we use for individuals to normative evaluations of the dynamics of a group. Not clear if is more occluding than illuminating, even though we talk this way in everyday life (but we also talk about our computers “thinking” and the like…loose talk is everywhere).

I loved his explanation of the problem of luck! I get so frustrated whenever people say that indeterminism just leads to randomness... Just because a decision is made based on subjective reasoning doesn't mean it's "random" in the sense in which people normally use that word

Do compatibilists define freewill in the same way that Alicia finch has defined it here? I haven’t listened to the whole video yet so I apologize if this is answered later. I guess I didn’t think there was a difference between compatibilism and logical fatalism. I thought I was a compatibilist but I also agree with what Alicia is saying so I don’t know anymore. This stuff is way over my head but I’m trying to keep up. Loving this channel!

I've been finding this channel very helpful. It must be a lot of work. I really appreciate it. I have a question that you might care to address at some future point. In reading and thinking about this subject over the past year, for a book about addiction I've been working on, I started placing particular philosophers on branches and sub-branches of the tree that starts with two branches: compatibilists and incompatibilists. This tree quickly became a messy shrub, with some philosophers appearing on more than one branch. I think of my diagram as a garden of forking philosophers. My question is what, if anything, can non-philosophers like me deduce about the nature of (the) free will (debate) from the simple observation that there seems to be no consensus at all? Unlike many non-philosophers, I think the answer matters, principally because our folk notions of responsibility, praise, blame and punishment seem to rely on intuitions that you philosophers think are pretty dubious.

I don’t believe in luck. The term “luck” implies some degree of randomness, and I know for a fact that NOTHING happens purely by chance. 😇

I'm very impressed with the analytical and articulation ability of John Stigall on this complex subject of free will, and the interviewers guide the discussion in a very intriguing and enlightening manner. This was an astounding interview and I wish more like these were done in more depth. Especially in comparing and contrasting the different schools of thought and the pros and cons and consequences of each. Keep up your great work all of you. Thanks a million!

this is by far the best content regarding free will on youtube. it's too bad this channel won't get the big views without silly faces on thumbnails and big clickbait titles

Robert Sapolsky be like: "Cutting-edge development in free will: we don't have a crack of space to shoehorn it in."

Hehehe I'm your 1000 subscriber 😁😁

On this analysis of Jones cuddling Smith, it seems like someone has been successfully cuddled*, but legally you would only have two people responsible for attempted cuddling? Or the neuroscientist is (legally) more responsible and could be convicted of the more serious charge of actual cuddling? *I'm changing my language here to see if it goes through this time.

Maybe free will is seen by many people in the law profession as irrelevant and dismissed as the obscure talk of philosophers in their ivory towers (which is the impression I got of Donelson's general attitude toward it), but I don't think it should be. In my view, even if we grant there is some degree of free will, I think arguments based on scientific facts like the ones Sapolsky laid out in his book Determined are enough to PROVE, for example, that giving a teen criminal who grew up in a harsh environment a life sentence is morally wrong. Over time, we learn more about the human condition, brain development, etc. and I think that is absolutely relevant to how we should run core parts of society like the criminal justice system. I think many aspects of the criminal "justice" system make how it operates and sentences almost as wrong as slavery. Insinuating the courts are basically neutral and philosophical views are irrelevant and shouldn't be taken into account seems like gibberish to me. Everything is based on underlying philosophical views, even the courts operate on a bunch of premises and are not totally objective or apolitical. I think if you care about fairness, it makes no sense to say that the topic of free will doesn't matter when it matters a great deal in many ways. Another example: IF judges being hungry biases them to give harsher sentences, we should work to improve our justice system to ensure judges are not starving before trials, etc. Things like the jury system already have ideas of fairness built into them. By the way, I think the basic concept of reparations isn't a problem. I don't know anything about the details of how it might be implemented. But the effects of historical injustices can still be felt by many today. It's just one more way people are punished by society for things out of their control, like the lack of privilege they're born into. I agree with John Rawls that, "A just society is one that if you knew everything about it, you'd be willing to enter it in a random place." I think the closer we get to that ideal the better, and the less someone's probability of flourishing is rigged against them by factors like race and wealth, etc., the better. I think reparations could have good impacts on many people and their children and grandchildren into the future, helping address the racial wealth gap.

On this analysis of the killing of Smith, it seems like someone has been successfully murdered, and yet you have two people that are only guilty of attempted murder? Or you could hold the neuroscientist more (legally) responsible in this situation and convict him of murder?

🐟 11. FREE-WILL Vs DETERMINISM: Just as the autonomous beating of one's heart is governed by one's genes (such as the presence of a congenital heart condition), and the present-life conditioning of the heart (such as myocardial infarction as a consequence of the consumption of excessive fats and oils, or heart palpitations due to severe emotional distress), each and EVERY thought and action is governed by our genes and environmental conditioning. This teaching is possibly the most difficult concept for humans to accept, because we refuse to believe that we are not the author of our thoughts and actions. From the appearance of the pseudo-ego (one’s inaccurate conception of oneself) at the age of approximately two and a half, we have been constantly conditioned by our parents, teachers, and society, to believe that we are solely responsible for our thoughts and deeds. This deeply-ingrained belief is EXCRUCIATINGLY difficult to abandon, which is possibly the main reason why there are very few persons extant who are spiritually-enlightened, or at least who are liberated from the five manifestations of mental suffering explained elsewhere in this “Final Instruction Sheet for Humanity”, since suffering (as opposed to pain) is predicated solely upon the erroneous belief in free-will. Free-will is usually defined as the ability for a person to make a conscious decision to do otherwise, that is to say, CHOOSE to have performed an action other than what one has already done, if one had been given the opportunity to do so. To make it perfectly clear, if one, for example, is handed a restaurant menu with several dishes listed, one could decide that one dish is equally-desirable as the next dish, and choose either option. If humans truly possessed freedom of will, then logically speaking, a person who adores cats and detests dogs, ought to be able to suddenly switch their preferences at any given point in time, or even voluntarily pause the beating of his or her own heart! So, in both of the aforementioned examples, there is a pre-existing preference (at a given point in time) for one particular dish or pet. Even if a person liked cats and dogs EQUALLY, and one was literally forced to choose one over the other, that choice isn’t made freely, but entirely based upon the person’s genetic code plus the individual's up-to-date conditioning. True equality is non-existent in the phenomenal sphere. The most common argument against determinism is that humans (unlike other animals) have the ability to choose what they can do, think or feel. First of all, many species of (higher) mammals also make choices. For instance, a cat can see two birds and choose which one to prey upon, or choose whether or not to play with a ball that is thrown its way, depending on its conditioning (e.g. its mood). That choices are made is indisputable, but those choices are dependent ENTIRELY upon one’s genes and conditioning. There is no third factor involved on the phenomenal plane. On the noumenal level, thoughts and deeds are in accordance with the preordained “Story of Life”. Read previous chapters of “F.I.S.H” to understand how life is merely a dream in the “mind of the Divine” and that human beings are, essentially, that Divinity in the form of dream characters. Chapter 08, specifically, explains how an action performed in the present is the result of a chain of causation, all the way back to the earliest-known event in our apparently-real universe (the so-called “Big Bang” singularity). At this point, it should be noted that according to reputable geneticists, it is possible for genes to mutate during the lifetime of any particular person. However, that phenomenon would be included under the “conditioning” aspect. The genes mutate according to whatever conditioning is imposed upon the human organism. It is simply IMPOSSIBLE for a person to use sheer force of will to change their own genetic code. Essentially, “conditioning” includes everything that acts upon a person from conception. University studies in recent years have demonstrated, by the use of hypnosis and complex experimentation, that CONSCIOUS volition is either unnecessary for a decision to be enacted upon or (in the case of hypnotic testing) that free-will choices are completely superfluous to actions. Because scientific research into free-will is a recent phenomenon, it is recommended that the reader search online for the latest findings. If any particular volitional act was not caused by the preceding thoughts and actions, then the only alternative explanation would be due to RANDOMNESS. Many quantum physicists claim that subatomic particles can randomly move in space, but true randomness cannot occur in a deterministic universe. Just as the typical person believes that two motor vehicles colliding together was the result of pure chance (therefore the term “accident”), quantum physicists are unable to see that the seeming randomness of quantum particles are, in fact, somehow determined by each and every preceding action which led-up to the act in question. It is a known scientific fact that a random number generator cannot exist, since no computational machine or software program is able to make the decision to generate a number at “random”. We did not choose which deoxyribonucleic acid our biological parents bequeathed to us, and most all the conditions to which we were exposed throughout our lives, yet we somehow believe that we are fully-autonomous beings, with the ability to feel, think and behave as we desire. The truth is, we cannot know for certain what even our next thought will be. Do we DECIDE to choose our thoughts and deeds? Not likely. Does an infant choose to learn how to walk or to begin speaking, or does it just happen automatically, according to nature? Obviously, the toddler begins to walk and to speak according to its genes (some children are far more intelligent and verbose, and more agile than others, depending on their genetic code) and according to all the conditions to which he or she has been exposed so far (some parents begin speaking to their kids even while they are in the womb, or expose their offspring to highly-intellectual dialogues whilst still in the cradle). Even those decisions/choices that we seem to make are entirely predicated upon our genes and conditioning, and cannot be free in any sense of the word. To claim that one is the ULTIMATE creator of one’s thoughts and actions is tantamount to believing that one created one’s very being. If a computer program or artificially-intelligent robot considered itself to be the cause of its activity, it would seem absurd to the average person. Yet, that is precisely what virtually every person who has ever lived mistakenly believes of their own thoughts and deeds. The IMPRESSION that we have free-will can be considered a “Gift of Life” or “God’s Grace”, otherwise, we may be resentful of our lack of free-will, since, unlike other creatures, we humans have the intelligence to comprehend our own existence. Even an enlightened sage, who has fully realized that he is not the author of his thoughts and actions, is not conscious of his lack of volition at every moment of his day. At best, he may recall his lack of freedom during those times where suffering (as opposed to mere pain) begins to creep-in to the mind or intellect. Many, if not most scientists, particularly academic philosophers and physicists, accept determinism to be the most logical and reasonable alternative to free-will, but it seems, at least anecdotally, that they rarely (if ever) live their lives conscious of the fact that their daily actions are fated. Cont...

the best content on free will on youtube despite being such a small channel

Makeshift example proposed for distinguishing between the freedom and the epistemic condition. You want to kill me. You intend to do it by poisoning my drink-say a glass of pop (soda). However, you have the strange and false belief that a few pinches of sodium chloride (i.e., table salt) can kill a grown man, and believe the shaker in front of you has the compound in it and so take the shaker and sprinkle some in my drink. I drink a few sips, seize, and die. Turns out some arsenic accidentally got into the shaker somewhere along the manufacturing process of either the shaker, or the bag of salt used to fill it up. You have no awareness of this accident, however. What to say about the case? One response is to say that you freely killed me but are not responsible for murder because you failed to have the requisite knowledge about the arsenic. There are other cases as well (friendly fire cases, family nighttime intruder cases, etc.). In all these cases you freely do x-kill, whatever-but you don’t have the knowledge such that you’re responsible for what you do-this is the stuff of reasonable mistakes (the first hypo above is a kind of unreasonable mistake!).

Only partially through, but puzzled by her explanation of forgiveness arising out of “contract-like” practices. On one analysis of “bi-lateral” contracts, they are treated as repeated sequential games between parties. The choose is either to perform or shirk/breach, but the parties are disciplined from doing so because of retaliation by the parties in further rounds. So the choice isn’t between performance and forgiveness, or not just between those…what’s more is that it was strange the way she talked about forgiveness in Hobbes, which (I’m unfamiliar with most of Hobbes) seems to work like shame or some such thing more than forgiveness. Maybe I missed the ball somewhere, but it would be helpful to have a bit more elaboration of the caricatured “how possibly” story.

My two cents worth. I am reposting my post to a Closer to Truth episode on TH-cam with Peter van Inwagen and Robert Kuhn on "Free Will". th-cam.com/video/AgDt5I2uib8/w-d-xo.html In the "Sally" case, once a decision is made (via free will or otherwise), you cannot know if the other option could have been chosen. Now, the first decision may be changed to choose the second option, but you can never know if that was "freely" chosen. Here is "that mistake" he seeks: He did not characterize indeterminism correctly. It does not mean that there is no control. Indeterminism is not randomness. It means the future is not predetermined by antecedent causes. Nature is not strongly determined. There are laws of physics of course, but there are also other non-deterministic processes at work. What of evolution and "random" mutations? What of radioactive decay? What of non-linear, dynamical chaotic systems? What of emergence where unique behaviors and properties emerge from different lower-level behaviors and properties, where one cannot predict the emerging behaviors and properties from the lower-level behaviors and properties? All these things happen in nature. What of quantum effects in subatomic particles in the brain? Neurons, glia, and other cells contain smaller components such as microtubules, mitochondria, (and others), and they in turn consist of atoms, and they consist of electrons, protons, and neutrons. The protons and neutrons consist of quarks. There are neutrinos and Higgs particles. I say "particles," but the better word is "field." It is not known to what extent quantum effects have on brain activity. Perhaps it's negligible, but perhaps not. My view on "free will" is that we do have free will (the capacity to choose (decide) among options) within constraints. First define what "me" is, what "you" is. They are brain circuits that evolved and matured beginning with genetics, and via education, experience, and environment, plus subliminal biases (say due to advertising). At any "instant", we are the end effects of what our lives have been to that point, given our decisions and any forces and events beyond our control. Evolution of the brain/body complex, that is, the entire biological system that makes up "us," provided for innate decision-making for survival. Our past, along with "good or bad" genetics and "good" or "bad" mental health, or physical brain issues (e.g., any lesion we many not be aware of) affect our "free will" or ability to freely make decisions. You may not be affected much at all by these, and I may be affected a great deal; it varies from person to person. Finally, our so-called "self" or perception of self, our "free will" (decision-making capacity), sensory and motor apparatuses, memory, basic life-sustaining processes, etcetera, are all neural circuits. In my view, the so-called "free will" experiments (e.g, Libet, et al) are in their infancy and most are faulty - they do not indicate that our "brain" is acting autonomously when making decisions without "us" consciously being aware of it. "We" do initiate conscious decisions. There is a very slight latency within the CNS and PNS, but it's not discernable to us. When we decide to move our arm, that is conscious free will decision-making. Certain parts of our cortex may "light up" slightly prior to the actual movement, but that is not evidence that we did not freely decide to move our arm. And that applies to all conscious decisions. To be sure, our brain/body systems are doing millions of things of which we are not conscious, and that involves "decision-making" of sorts. Our biology monitors our temperature, our blood pressure, and all of our physiological processes to keep us alive and keep us balanced - that is, achieve homeostasis. Nature is not fully deterministic and humans have free will within constraints.

How do you assert free will when man is naturally inclined towards sin ? Romans 8:7 and why was there No scripture used in this podcast? Truth does matter. Scripture is the Truth that we base everything on. The absence of scripture in a discussion makes it purely opinion, which doesn’t count for much . Tingles the ears as James puts it

I felt morally obligated to write that this is episode 33. (And I don’t think I could have done otherwise)

By definition, if the Molinist God knows how a person will freely choose if placed in certain circumstances, *and THEN* plans, organizes, ordains, creates, decrees and predestines those exact certain circumstances; *THEN it is AXIOMATICALLY TRUE* that the Molinist God is exhaustively determining, EDD, i.e. fatalistically determining, the thoughts, beliefs and actions of people, no differently than the sovereign Calvinist potter God does!

It's Luis, not Louis. Hispanic version.

To God be the glory.

Did she imply that PATRIARCHY was immoral? 🤓

I would point out, that the retributive theory is very compatible with both rehabilitation, and also considering underlying social reasons that may contribute to crime. I think there is some truth to the idea that "poverty causes crime", but it's imo a very dangerous truth in the hands of so-called progressives. For sure we should look at things like poverty and opportunity which is a focus on the left-wing. We should also maybe be looking at the damage done by undermining the traditional family, which is a focus on the right-wing. Retribution has its theoretical issues, sure; but then if you get rid of the idea of deserved retributive punishment, and lock up people as a deterrent, that's basically punishing the innocent for social good. It's completely immoral in theory. Or you lock people up indefinitely to protect the wider society, and that's obviously got its own issues. As for restorative punishment, for more serious crimes, (1) there may be no way to even come close to "restoring" the damage done by sexual or violent crime, (2) the victim may want nothing to do with it, and be offended at the very suggestion, (3) the criminal may not be willing to participate. They have a moral duty to try to "restore", but you can’t punish them if they refuse? This is a recipe for people thinking that the social contract with the government has been broken, and they are now at liberty to "take the law into their own hands" and seek personal acts of revenge. And how is "restorative justice" going to handle that, when people don’t believe they have even done anything wrong for seeking revenge, and the "justice system" is actually an injustice against them? I think one of the biggest issues of too-much-focus on a social factor like poverty, is that it's kind of insulting to other people that grow up in a bad environment with limited opportunity, and don't go down a criminal path. Such people can get preyed upon by criminals and then progressives will make excuses for the criminals, when they themselves may be lucky enough to live in better circumstances, and don't have to deal with the consequences of their own political positions. So I see this, as very easily, middle class progressives patting themselves on the back for their "enlightened approach" while they make other people's lives even worse; allow them to be preyed upon by criminals or antisocial scumbags, and deny them justice and the chance of living in a safe environment.

In God's sovereignty He gave us free will, i never understood free will denying sovereignty.

FIRST! 🎉

There should have been more pushback here for the purposes of forcing Saul to think through/talk through some of the claims a bit more. For example: the claim that “crossing the moral line” renders over punishment less bad than punishment of the innocent needs a lot more fleshing out-and without the help of complicity examples. Compare three folks, A B and C. A has committed no offense. B has committed a very minor offense. C has committed a truly heinous offense. Both B and C’s crimes are uncovered, and their punishments determined accordingly (make all the assumptions you want about this). However, through a series of subsequent mishaps, the criminal justice system identifies A as the criminal who committed the minor offense (B’s offense) and is unfairly handed a very mild punishment (suitable for B’s offense); B is identified as the one who committed the heinous offense and receives a very severe punishment (for C’s offense). C, the serious offender, gets off Scot free, being mixed up (for whatever reason) with A. The professor should have an answer for those who think the injustice against B is worse then A’s. It has to do more than reference an “all things being equal” reply since, by hypothesis, the cases are not equal-an innocent person is receives a very mild, unfair punishment and a minor offender receives the worst punishment the system in question has. One way to go is to note that B is actually being punished for a crime she is innocent of-thus denying the genuineness of the counterexample. But that needn’t be the case: other parallel cases without that feature can be constructed with just A and B, where B receives a far harsher punishment then she was supposed to-perhaps due to serious miscalculation of sentencing guidelines, etc. In any case, that’s just one example: from the discussion, there are many semi-concrete normative claims that are made here that I have no sense of how the professor would go about responding to them. I like this podcast and understand the orientation of these episodes might not be entirely consistent with this. I wonder, however, if you might invite the guests back for follow-up visits where you probe them on how they respond to some of the biggest worries that have been raised about their work-or that you independently feel are concerning. It would be a good bookend to these episodes where a useful overview of some area of the interviewees’ work is given.

FIRST! 🎉

Thanks, guys!

Self Determinists imaginary autonomous "free" will is eternally incompatible with Theistic Determinism. Until the Theo Determines to bring the imaginary autonomous free will to its end, yea, literally buries it along with its Adamic nature, it remains falsely believing its "logic" is the Logos.

FIRST! 🎉

There's also loaded terminology being used by the guest here, in his aggrandizing of the concept of purposefulness. It seems a more elegant way of framing purpose is just that of seeing humans, or other biological agents, as complex collections of matter and energy, which seek to attain that to which they are attracted. In this way, a human is only a more complex system of attraction and repulsion, such as magnetism, or any other force. I don't see any substantive and compelling reason to view purpose as a distinct kind of thing than this.

Interesting that he recommends for other philosophers to not use such loaded terms, when he describes a notion as being a threat to free will, as though free will should be considered something to worry about threat for. The implication of his loaded terminology is something he might want to reflect upon himself, given the standards challenge he recommends to others.

If you are not identical to the things you are composed of, then what are you? It's one thing to assert that you are not identical to what you are, but how can it be substantiated that you or anything other than the things that comprise who you are? What definition of the self are we working with here? This is a question I had earlier in the season, and I still have not heard this foundational concept, which is critically important to the subject of free will, yet discussed and established.

"Agents with reflective self-control." But what informs and drives that reflection and process of assumed control? I still don't see how the agent gets to the generation level of these processes. And if you can't claim responsibility for the onset and process of these things, what is the meaningfulness of this concept of free self-control? It seems like a lot of wordplay to not address the fundamental properties and concerns here.