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I really dont see why should i accept huemers definition of determinism (things happen only one way) Determinism usually means that there is a casual chain that is responsible for why things happen, including your own will , So lets say there is infinite diffirent ways things couldve play out, why does that disprove determinism? i can assert that there are infinite diffirent causes that resulted in a diffirent conclusion in each way, there is still a casual chain that explains why things played out the way it did Also i didnt see huemer proving free will, rather just kind of appealing to consquent , but how does it follow that it proves free will? suppose huemer is right and under determinism one cannot make moral judgements etc , how does it follow from that that free will exists? when we make a choice we either make it for a reason or not, on the latter is false on the former either with will or not , on the former either will happened for a reason or not, on the latter false on the former either that reason happened with the same will or not, on the former its false since its circular on the latter determinism is proven

Is it my free will to feel pity with Huemer? Is it my free will to adore Sapolsky?

Believing in free will is like Believing there's a little God within you.

❤❤❤

this micheal guy should ask himself why he giggles like a schoolgril in every other sentance? is that a conscious choice he makes? is it his will to do so? it literally determines his and others view of himself

lol Robert had no chance

ooof it seems like sapolsky is struggling with answering the questions which deeper examine the assumptions his beliefs come with

He says logic is based on intuition. Nah bro its based on a very small number of axioms, and yes they might have an aspect of intuition for acceptance but to call them "intuitions" is gross and misleading "Free will exists"? Really, how? "Muh Intuition"

Sapolsky's fallacy, which is a fallacy of them all actually but Sapolsky is the one who should know better, is that there is this guiding governing entity or group of elites that decide if there should, or should still be punishment or reward despite the will being unfree. How about this. Maybe there shouldn't be retribution (or praise) for obvious reasons but the same force that wills a man to commit an atrocious act wills another to desire retribution - and it's all part of the show like everything else. This is a world of events and those events include acts of passion. He's being normative in other words, which is fine but he's doing it like most liberals - implicitly with self certainty. There's a place for being normative and a place for discussion of state punishment in light of the no free will paradigm, because it does have a bearing on penology.. but all I'm saying is we don't have to have a moral panic about it. I'm sensitive to people having moral panics, ... especially about nothing-burgers.

18:00 it would make no sense to award anyone anything. Indeed nothing would make any sense. And yet things are so. Therefore awarding someone for an act is as valid as anything. Second guy's arguments are kind of weak- they're like arguments from incredulity and sentiment. Hehe that's a soft mind, like butter

Colloquial usages and human emotions are not evidence at all for free will. People are inconsistent and predictably irrational. Advice given is one of the antecedent causes that determine decision-making.

I don’t know how Sapolsky can be so patient with philosophical gobbledegook.

Deliberation doesn't suppose free will. If you feed data into a computer and then have that computer perform some complex analysis on that data (i.e., deliberation) that doesn't mean the computer has free will. This may sound harsh but I was embarrassed for Huemer when he couldn't operate simple video conferencing software. I became more embarrassed for him when he presented his swiss cheese argument. For a moment at the start of his argument, I thought he was going to define free will in a way that made his position tenable. Unfortunately, his subsequent argument became a string of odd reasoning that seemed more about superficial support for what he thinks makes for the reality he prefers rather than arguing for the reality that actually exists.

If you listen carefully, Robert believes that he is better than you and has naturally better programming than you, and you should let him rule the world because others cannot see the truth behind the determined forced "thought". When a man says: You have no free will and you don't know it but I do. Is a man that will also say: So thats why you need me to live a happy life where I control everything

Robert can only do baby example of choices which have no value in human life. Chocolate or vanilla, neither im on a diet, using my free will to value something other than sugar. How can my biology defeat sugar by an "illusionary" will?

Lol, it's intuitively obvious that we shouldn't base our beliefs on what appears intuitively obvious. Except for this belief. 😊

Ok let me just make one thing clear, determinism doesn't imply that there is only one option. It merely claims that we would only pick a certain option based on preexisting conditions. Were those conditions to change or be different, we would again pick a certain option. Maybe the same one, maybe a different one. Either way, determined by the preexisting conditions.

Lol true, you didn't choose your level of intelligence, therefore it makes no sense for me to criticize you for believing you have free will. It's determined that will be your belief. That doesn't mean everyone else falls into the same category. Many people have the intelligence to understand that free will doesn't exist, but, they lack the knowledge. The criticism is for their benefit . It's wasted on everyone else.

Lol seriously? His opening statement is that determism isn't true because it conflicts with our current beliefs? 😂😂😂 That's like arguing that the Earth isn't a globe because everyone believes it's flat! (just an example BTW, I'm not a flat earther). You can see the obvious error in this logic. If your belief that free will exists, is wrong, then determinism is true. Your beliefs don't determine what is true or not. First impression.

1:16:20 what does heumer mean here?

Thanks for making this video. I enjoyed it a lot. And I learned something as well today.

The more I've listened to Sapolsky talk about Free Will, the more I've come to recognize that he really hasn't thought about things very deeply. So shallow is his understanding that I don't think he can even define a version of Free Will such that it *could* exist. It's too bad that Dan Dennett has passed as Dennett's understanding of what Free Will is, what it means, and how it came into existence, was head and shoulders above Sapolsky.

Michael just claimed that we are in control of our beliefs and that arguments against that position are demonstrably false and have overwhelming conclusive evidence. If that is true, does Michael believe it is possible to make himself believe in the Greek pantheon of gods? Are the Greek pantheon of gods demonstrably false with overwhelming conclusive evidence?

LOL If determinism were good enough for mother nature, brains would never have evolved. Brains evolved precisely because autonomous decision making gave an animal a tremendous survival advantage.

After reading the comments I won't give it time especially when I read about the name calling garbage I respect Robert far too much to even listen to such childish degrading behavior

Does anybody know if Dr Sapolsky has debated a neuroscientist or anyone doing research on consciousness regarding freewill!?

The more I hear Sapolsky's arguments the more I find them most absurd. It appears there is no agency in a deterministic cosmos for him, everything is deducted to a simple rock that happens to move and blink. The only argument that could win him over is the proof of a "soul" or a "god" moving outside the physical realm, thus making "free" decisions independently of any conditions. Paradoxically he is in a theological quest and he is not aware of it.

Jack lost the argument. ECON average IQ = 132, Socio's avg IQ = 105. it is not even fair! How the hell Jack made 400K many years ago as an academic beats me. People in his field get paid 100K today! (AND IS 2X THAT OF BRYAN'S = 200K)

The paper Huemer uses at the star of his opening statements about the people smelling garbage was backed by terrible science so bad in fact the guy had to retract that paper along with a number of his other papers .

1:25:16 did sapolsky ask someone off camera what epistemic means? 😂😂😂

gender is a social construct in the secular study of history and ethnographic methods "woman" is specifically an English word the civilized and secular world does not actually pay much attention to occidental etymology or their abrahamic and reactionary insecurities. while they argue over the arbitrary definitions in their tainted language, the rest of us will continue to observe and record reality using sensible frameworks based in mathematics (such as differentiating sexual anatomy from gender), and will remain decades ahead in STEM and education 😂

To find out if free will exists or not, philosophy does not cut it. Devise an experiment to show if it does or does not. If you can't just say is not decidable. A real experiment !!!!

Correct, it may not make sense but it's true. Lol

The real social issue is whether one's income is earned producing goods and services of DERIVED on the basis of legal privileges under law that reward "rent-seeking" behavior that results in the redistribution of income and wealth from producers to non-producing rentier interests. The ideal source of revenue with which to pay for public goods and services is the monetary value of that portion of tangible wealth produced that comes from either natural or societally-created advantage. One professor of economics, Fred Foldvary, some years ago estimated that societally-created rent is as much as 30 to 50 percent of gross domestic product.

I have now ear-marked Huemer as a bit of an idiot. I suppose this video was at least useful for that.

Living is all about awareness. The deeper our awareness, the more choice we have. Obviously, if we take the analogy of buying a car, choice is always within constraints, but it is there nonetheless. So we look up reviews of various makes of car, we know the budget we have, we settle for a model and drive away happy. That is free will. To suggest that from the moment of birth, even prior to that, dictates our choice of car, etc, is plain nonsense. Yes, it is based on information, as we live in an information world. However, choice remains for those aware... and just as we can suddenly change direction when driving our new car, so too can we change our thoughts, our beliefs, etc. Thoughts are fleeting and not all powerful. Thought only becomes a power when concentrated, as with a belief... and so much of science is merely belief. Just look at the history of that "we are absolutely certain", and then comes along a new certainty which, if it gets established, becomes the only certainty until shoved off the shelf by yet another "new discovery". Data is open to interpretation, just as consciousness is fundamentally delusional, but when all the noise of words and images subside, there is awareness, untainted by memory.

Over the past 4 days I've been immersing myself in these videos, and more generally videos that discuss the concept of free will. I do remain with questions on my hands even though I can understand easily that there is no such thing as an undetermined choice, and I hoped you could share your thoughts with me. So let's agree that following deterministic thinking: - you are a robot, spectator of your own life - you do not have choices - you are not free Besides this, we can agree that, as a human being, you are presented with options all the time, from which you pick (let's say, a menu at a restaurant as the most common example) There, you make determined choices, they are not free, but they are choices, you take decisions, determined decisions but you take decisions nonetheless, you think, and you act, you compare, and you choose We established that this is not free will, but how should we call that process? Could we call it an act of the self? On another note, let's say we can theoretically calculate the number of constraints someone is facing, leading up to an action from their part: if you add more constraints to a situation, you will get a different outcome (or maybe the intensity of the constraint rather than the number, how the constraint deviates us from our own personal interests) Let's consider two realities: one where someone wakes up and does whatever action they feel like doing at this moment (let's say they have a day off, and want to do things that make them happy), and one where that same person gets robbed inside of their home and is being held at gunpoint and told to do things. Couldn't we say that the person facing less constraints is more free than the one who is held at gunpoint? This is, I think, what Patricia Churchland would call self-control, this idea that we can quantify our freedom (for lack of a better word) and our ability to act. Though I would agree that the person who's not at gunpoint doesn't have a completely free choice, their actions are still predetermined and therefore have no real self-control, isn't there still a distinction to make between those two cases? How should we name that gap? I am happy to read the comments here and see that @PercyPrior1 is reporting a similar idea coming from Dr. Iskra Fileva: "If freedom sometimes increases, then it exists. So we have (some) freedom." Thank you for taking the time to read, and maybe to answer

I have just written something on this topic that might also be of interest to you. Here is my translated contribution on (psychological) free will: (nature/ conflicts of interest/ solution) I. In general, psychological functions are by no means "illusory", because that would mean that they are superfluous or even harmful. But the fact of determinacy is of merely "academic" significance for decision-making itself. The capacity for free will has developed evolutionarily because it helps to protect our range of options from potentially harmful influence and/or hindrance by other people. II. It is of course more rational to know whether we should be influenced in ways that are potentially harmful to us and how to avoid this in the future. In this respect, everyone actually wants to be (unfortunately also egocentrically) an "unmoved mover". III. People who could regularly choose what is most useful have more opportunities to provide value to a society (through trade or donations). In all decisions, one would also have to "keep an eye" on long-term effects on the framework conditions. Because it may be in the short-term interest of individuals to maximize their own freedom of will at the expense of others (e.g. through ideological communication), rights to (primarily) physical non-aggression (and secondarily to the pursuit of truth) should (like all others) be universally reciprocal. It should be possible to demand the principle (of reciprocity) from all institutions and citizens.

Look at that. Turns out naturalists are Calvinists 😂

Parmenides vs Heraclitus

I'm not clear what the difference is between a choice that is free, a choice that is random, and a choice that is unpredictable. You can say that your choice is free, but to the extent you can explain why you made it, it becomes more predictable and less random. Software engineers use something that's called a "random number generator." The sequence of numbers it produces, while 100% predictable if you know how it works, is indistinguishable from a random sequence if you don't. Free will is like that, except that the "random decision generator" is astronomically more complicated, having evolved for billions of years.

Yes, our intuition is that there is free will. However, that intuition is cultural, not innate. If we lived in a world in which culture had evolved with our current understanding of the behavior of the physical world, our intuitions would be completely different.

Are people not taught basic biology anymore? Have our societies stopped schooling anymore?

Am i stupid? This is so boring. Alex showed examples of 4 very different women. They're all women. And Gender is some other thing noone can agree on or define. It's simple, really.

49:35 "it's a social change" (...) 49:52: "lets put it this way Im not in favor of redistribution, Im in favor of changing the laws regarding the ACQUISITION AND DISPOSITION OF WEALTH" Yeah, let a bunch of bureaucrats decide how much can each one earn, therefore have. Work in whatever we approve, and you will get this meagre salary, no more, no less. Thats communism folks, thats why the soviet union colapsed.

Answer: Yes. Next question ...

Wonderful debate and I enjoyed listening to both speakers. MH seems to make the argument that he doesn’t like the consequences of not having free will, so it follows free will can’t exist. This is not an argument. It shows to me again that Philosophy is not the place to have this discussion. From a scientific point of view there is no evidence for free will at all. So the onus is on those that say it exists to explain how. I would also guess that many would agree the liver or pancreas etc does not have free will. What magic therefore does the brain have that allows it to defy the laws of physics? I just don’t think philosophy has anything to contribute to this.

This whole incident reveals the degenerate state of feminist philosophy--probably the weakest and least-philosophical area of philosophy. There's a lot of bad theology, too, for similar reasons: both areas are antecedently committed to absurd propositions, and they'll do anything to defend them. This is an open-and-shut case: women are adult, human females. The only people who think otherwise are people with personal, political, or professional stakes in muddying the waters. And that is all they really ever manage to do (all that Antony does here). If we consider this to still be an open question--despite the very strong arguments on one side and the almost laughably weak (and obviously politically-motivated) arguments on the other--then philosophy is in a sorry state indeed. And, since the political left has managed now to infect philosophy as it has the other humanities, we will find ourselves in this situation pretty often. Progress in philosophy might be possible under better conditions. But one has to wonder whether it is practically possible when there is a quasi-religious group with ulterior, non-philosophical motives arguing dogmatically for ridiculous positions in a widespread way...and when that group is not only taken seriously, but is virtually immune to criticism...

You need to get on bigger channels Brian, this is great stuff that more people NEED to hear.

sometimes when you tell the truth you are punished. sometimes when you lie you get out of it. but you get to choose which one and telling the truth is morally better. i think it shows that free will is real. that some actions lead to negative responses and you still choose them.