Sam Harris is like the intellectual eminem. You know he's good, but just HOW good really shows when he's juxtaposed with others you previously thought were almost as good. Shapiro looked weak here. Frankly, I expected a better fight.
Mel, Shapiro is weak. I tried to give this guy the benefit of the doubt, but his arguments are tired and regurgitated, and worst of all he argues against himself half the time. From the guy who has pretty much inspired the 'feels vs reals' movement against SJWs and their use of emotion over logical argument, it is astonishing how often Shapiro does the same. Any time the debate moves into the arena of religion Shapiro suddenly becomes a critic of rationality and the materialistic view of the world, and tells us there is something else out there, which he defines and defends about as clearly as Deepak Chopra or any new age type. Likewise if the debate turns to any subject that the right by default has to argue against (or rather, that sellouts like Shapiro have to argue against because the core of their base don't believe it) such as global warming or an form of environmentalism, Shapiro suddenly sees conspiracy everywhere, and trots out old worn out and long debunked arguments of the sort one would expect to see on a creationist video. He is more of a Sophist than anything, a skilled talker, but not nearly as much depth as people credit him for, and nowhere near the level of principle.
PtolemyauletesXII I think sophist is an excellent way to describe Shapiro. As many times as he makes sense, he has been specious; and he often operates in the realm of provocateur.
I have been thinking about how crazy it is that I am thinking about whether or not I have free will and I don't even have the free will to decide whether or not to think about having free will.
@@connork319 Well i don't really know since i have no free will, but the illusory feeling that i have is that it's too much of a bother to be thinking about things you can't change. I would also think that if through my lack of free will i would realize that i have no free will and i would be sufficiently bothered by it, i would simply kill myself. You should take everything with a grain of salt since i'm not really sure there is a me who to really answer you truthfully.
It is hard to believe that someone out there feels joy on hearing Ben Shapiro's voice. I know that in the billions of people out there it is inevitable that there is at least one, but it still seems very unlikely.
I was just thinking the same thing! Haven't heard much of him but the few things I heard come out of his mouth is straight up nonsense!! So ignorant and arrogant at the same time! He said he doesn't understand free will with evolution! 🤣😂 he said that free will is proof of God!! So if we proof that there is no free will it means there is no God? LOL it should be the opposite 😅!! And he confuses free will with our consciousness!! The guy is an IDIOT!!
I agree there is no free will - Sam's points about reaction to influence and priors that initiate behavior all make sense. Where I disagree: The notion that we can "decide" upon a moral landscape based upon reduction of human suffering. Some of us will think that is correct, some of us will not. We never decide. Continued exposure to influential argument might "change" minds in the same way a strong prevailing wind changes the growth pattern on a tree's branches. I think Sam just needs to articulate this is what he means when using words like "try".
Sam views the moral landscape in the realm of science. It is objective. “Deciding” the details of the moral landscape is no different to “deciding” what theories best describe our physical universe. I disagree with Sam’s assessment here but there isn’t any internal inconsistency with the two positions.
@@tonybanks1035 harris graduated from philosophy at stanford he also wrote several books touching philosophical ideas. I dont know what it takes to be a philosopher in your view but Harris is clearly at a minimum more suited to that title than a moron like shapiro.
@@xsuploader Harris has a BA in philosophy from stanford. Hardly the necessary background to be called a philosopher by any stretch of the imagination. Shapiro neither. Both are on the same level. That's the realistic take for those who don't like do delude themselves. The "books" he wrote touching philosophical ideas have been ridiculed by actual philosophers. They are deemed "interesting" by people with no philosophical backgroung, and their success stems more from being thought-provoking than being actual academic standards in philosophy.
2:13 Hume’s classic question was, from whence does this “ought” arise in the first place, if all that exists in the universe are facts? As he put it, “the distinction of vice and virtue is not founded merely on the relations of objects, nor is perceived by reason.” So where can it come from? Even having perfect knowledge of every existing thing in the history of the universe would only give you more and more facts; it would not enable you to make the giant leap to concluding that anything “should” have been different. Even if you say “reason is a fact,” you still have to account for how it can perceive of anything that is not a fact. And if in the end your “ought” turns out to be just another fact in the universe, then it has no special status over any other fact, and so any moral command is as “good” or “bad” as any other.
Your question is a good one and doesn't lend itself to a short "sound-bite" answer. The late Ernest Becker's "Escape from Evil" is the best thing I've read on that question. In short, humans are the only animal who has a conception of possibilities and what things could be- these things can never be fully realized and Becker's main thesis is that humans' knowledge of our mortality is the primary component of our motivations. The idea of guilt developed when human cultures advanced to the point where surplus was possible. The introduction of monetary exchanges and private property further developed the idea that some had more than others and I could have more and why don't I? I would suggest getting the book- Becker is better at unpacking it than I am. He won the Pultizer Prize for "Denial of Death" (1974).
@@ravissary79 sam is bad at phrasing moral realism but essentially moral realists are trying to say there are methods of maximising utility which are themselves facts. Just like there are methods of minimising error in an experiment there are methods of pleasing minds. so essentially Morality is a collection of facts that mean something if you have a goal of maximising utility. If you dont then whatever.
Oughts come from facts. That's how every sane person makes decisions. If you're intellectually honest and pay attention to how you arrive at conclusions, you _know_ you do this yourself all the time. If they don't, they're infinitely more likely to be wrong/cause harm. I've read Hume and I took what he said as not _just_ doing a leap from one fact to a should without making the connection with arguments first and keeping it one-dimensional (i.e. humans in cars cause accidents - humans shouldn't be in cars). If you interpret it as "can never get an ought from an is" you essentially reject the core function of rationality and become a relativist about everything. That interpretation doesn't even make sense if you're a fan of Hume, because he derives oughts from facts in his own books, making the relativist interpretation unlikely. Ergo: The fact/value distinction is not about an impossibility to derive oughts from an is at all. It's about not doing the work required to justify a conclusion.
If the mind always defaults to its best interpreted logical choice for every single circumstance it's encountered, then every single one of us would constantly be in a state of the best version of ourselves. In other words, whenever we make a choice against our better judgement, then the better and more logical choice was not made.
@@negawatt9755 frankly speaking when i see your example i remember my toxic relationship and why i stayed in it. What we believe as 'i listened to my heart, and not my brain' is actually what we think to be the most reasonable choice at that time.
I was preprogrammed to click on this video and write this comment. My whole life has brought me to this very moment where I am making this very point. I hope Sam will understand that it's not really that we really don't agree with him but that we were just accidentally created and just made to not agree with him. It's nothing personal, really.
You are merely expressing what is in your heart of hearts. Your interdependence to outside influence is confessed. And why we would have to believe you are independent and choice-determining based on random quantum fluctuations is completely moot and unevidenced... so it does not need to be believed. Plus, I feel like you are wrong just like you feel you have "free will," if by any stretch my self-assurance is not stronger than yours.
I appreciate their method of debate, but I’m just nowhere near as impressed with the Weinstein brothers as everyone else is. I have no doubt they’re brilliant, they just don’t get across to an audience quite like ppl like Sam and Jordan Peterson do
Coming around to audiences is not all, espeically when i think jordon perterson and eric weinstein seem to have glaring holes in there arguments. Im sorry i wish them very well but there are likely falsehods and even damaging ones, but i guess there are also good things and the conversation being interessting is very important. So in combination with sam on free will i aktually think they very enrich the conversation and i love to hear there objections. Wish them very well, hope i was not snarky, i wish they had more "kinda friendly" conversations with poking questions like this 23 minute clip with people they disagree with that have some traction like sam or sapolski :)
Weinstein sets the bases for understanding the tension between the two perfectly with his layer of cake analogy. If you understand that, you will understand that the answer to the question is yes.
I was in agreement with Sam Harris' conception of the illusion of free will and the self until recently. It seems quite premature to conclude that the self is an illusion. Science is built upon objectivity, it tries to weed out subjectivity at every opportunity. The self is the epitome of subjectivity, and hence why it is so difficult to quantify or localize within the scientific method. Failure to account for the self in an objective sense does not imply its non-existence.
He claims in his book that the self is an illusion. Which implies that the self does not exist in any 'real' or objective sense. The self and consciousness are closely related, you cannot have one without the other. Have another skim through his book, his argument lacks strength here the most. Moreover, his idea of free will is in the absolute sense. Of course, there is no absolute freedom. However, is absolute freedom even desirable? What does it mean to be absolutely free? Since being comes with limitations, you'd have to be outside of the human body to experience absolute freedom, and therefore absolute freedom is unattainable for as long as you are a limited being. Further, this implies that absolute freedom is undesirable. And since undesirable it concludes that absolute freedom is not the 'freedom' we are after. Whatever feeling of freedom we get in exercising choices is the free-est we can get as conscious beings. The argument regarding the illusion of free will is a non-issue. No, absolute freedom does not exist, but it is not the freedom we want anyway.
Agreed. The failure to adequately account for a thing may be a shortcoming of science rather than of the thing in consideration. Not recognizing this turns science into dogma.
I would say you have no freedom. You are taken hostage of a combination of youre genes in youre brain and the enviroment that influence it. Responsibillity is what you need to take to fix things so you get a better life for youre self. Try to think of any choice that you have made that is not based on anything.
1nzi I only understood my "self" as being my body thus serving a basic biological utility. Seems like evolution at work to me. Sam seems to be so hell bent on arguing against dualism that he's resorted to reductio ad absurdum arguments and intellectual dishonesty.
1nzi, read Sam's "Waking Up" book. You say: "The self and consciousness are closely related, you cannot have one without the other." and the book is all about how consciouness is definitely a thing that exists but how the self is an illusion.
We are not aware. We are complex. Our perception of reality is an emergent property. Causality drives every interaction from the most basic to the most complex.
MentalFabritecht Take small bites..... www.google.com/url?q=ftp://ftp.cs.ucla.edu/pub/stat_ser/r416-reprint.pdf&sa=U&ved=0ahUKEwjQjZeP5tLaAhXF2VMKHfb9D_cQFggQMAA&usg=AOvVaw1zXt313VwLTxOkbc3hk0iF
Furrowed Brow thank you, luckily it wasn't too long. I guess you must be one of those robots with no sense of experience. Just because causality exists does not mean we cannot reflect or think about the actions we have taken. Yes, events in reality have the property that causes lead to effects, no argument there. But just because one event leads to another does not take away my ability to think about my actions, to reflect on those actions, to see how I feel about those actions, And to either change or continue acting the way I do. It is in this self reflective/analytical feedback mechanism in which I believe "free will" lies. The "illusory" self that permeates my body allows my experiential awareness to interact with this causal universe, and to act accordingly, And maybe even modify it within my limits or abilities to do so. If things were merely cause and effect, with no option to change or act differently, then yea i would believe everything to be deterministic and causal. Unfortunately (or fortunately, depends how you want to look at it) humans have come to bear the existential burden of responsibility for our actions and choices.
We are the result of a collective unconscious slowly awakening to the dreams that our ancestors brought forth to cast our the dreaded dangers of mortality, to say we are not aware is false - it is correct to say we are not aware of everything - we glimpse aspects of the nature of what is and what may be, we are starlight shining in the dark...
Best argument: 4 components to "free will" or "our personality" or "our conscious" mind: (1) Our personal choices. (2) Our genetics, somatic reality, brain chemistry, & architecture. (3) How we were taught, raised, abused & neglected by out parents, or lack of parents. (4) Our society, culture, the system, nation & laws we live under. Our free will, is thus diminished at the very least, it is mere component, no less important than the sum of our environment & the limit that we can control the impulses of our primitive brain impulses & instincts for survival.
The three questions one must answer -- with proof -- before believing free will is real: 1. Where did free will come from? 2. How did free will come to be? 3. Why are humans the only animals with free will?
@@TheClassicWorld No, you don't need to answer these to believe in free will. That's like saying you need to understand precisely how human action can be reduced to physics to believe in determinism. That's too high of a standard and it's impractical. You believe in free will - that you have the ability to make multiple choices - when you try to figure out your plans for your own future, or when you go shopping. You might say that this is just a working assumption that you can dispense with, but the fact that it's a working assumption is something not to be ignored. You have to believe you have that ability to be able to live in the world, granted not all the time you have to believe it but sometimes you do. You also need it to explain why you blame someone for wrong doing or why you uphold someone for right doing, that is why you can forthrightly assign moral responsibility to a person - so not only assign it, but be able to back up your position in speech.
@@TheClassicWorld The first two questions are a bit redundant, don't you think? The last question only counts if you believe we are animals. The fact that we stand apart from animals and there is no proven link that confirms we are animals renders the last question invalid. Lastly, if we could scientifically prove the origins of free will, we wouldn't be having this discussion. The shortcomings of science to prove or disprove free will's existence is not evidence it doesn't exist. Much like gravity didn't start existing when we "discovered" it, free will doesn't stop existing because we haven't discovered it yet (or found the linchpin to disprove it.)
Kings ( in the Old Testament account) are a good example, and what is said about their "free will" in I think the Proverbs is revealing: The Lord turns the heart of kings whithersoever He wills--paraphrase.
Ben is a smart man. When it comes to his field. His experience is with politics and social media. Theres no way in hell he would ever qualify for a discussion with sam harris on free will. Sam is an extremely experienced philosopher. This was his home turf... Ben stood no chance.
I mean I tend to agree but he seemed to Homs his own. My problem here is that Sam both endorses effort and discipline, and also says you have no control over ones effort expenditure. I understand the argument fine, but the coherent argument seems to end in a contradictory conclusion
Umm you made a mistake in the description. You said "in human psychology, there is at least agency." Which is just blatantly false, as Sam Harris can show you
@@infinityblablabla Your fears and your wants come from your understanding of a situation. It is not determined. Change your understanding and you will change your fears and your wants. What comes from understanding is never determined, it's motivated. When you close the switch of consciousness, than you become determined like an inanimate object. But open the switch of consciousness and you transform the chain of cause and effect into a chain of motivation to effect. And by the way, we do not live in a determined world. At best, it's a random world with some organising force fields. To have a determined world would require infinite precision. But we know there is no such thing. At the quantum level, there is always some degree of imprecision. If, on small number of interactions, things appears determined, on large number of interactions, randomness becomes more and more the law. You know the input but you can never know the output. Not on the small scale anyway. On large scale, you could make some statistical predictions. For example, take the white ball that hits the black ball. You know the black ball will go in the hole with a certain precision. But if the white ball hits the red ball, that hit the blue ball, that hit the yellow ball, that hits a billion of a billion of a billion balls before it hits the black ball, are you so sure that the black ball will go in the hole? So keep in mind that our world is not as determined as you think. It's more of a random nature with some organizing forces. That's why quantum mecanics is so good. It's describing the world in a statistical manner by associating a probability wave function to every particule. Read the conversation I had with Alan Collins down below. There is about 40 exchange between him and me, and near the end, I make a critic of Cosmic Skeptic position on free will. It will enlighten you on the subject. Also, read my comment on the chain of cause and effect. I think, it's the second comment from the top. And after all, why don't you read everything that I wrote in this comment list. You will than, better understand what is free will.
@@AL-vp7mh you've mistaken many things, - randomness by definition is random , it couldn't determined neither it is influenced by state of consciousness and free will, so you are not responsible for randomness in your mind at fundamental level, so it's like someone playing dice in your mind, or you playing dice and talking decision . - about determinism - you are saying because of uncertainty in fundamental partical we couldn't predict what one's mind will do beforehand , here you are also confused like electron can be two places or there is fundamental uncertainty in position of electron, doesn't mean that a table made of same fundamental particles will have uncertainty of its position so there is uncertainty in electrons positions but as group of particles we can study and predict them, so just see the weather prediction system it's very hard to predict weather after 2-3 weeks because its chaotic systems ( we will predict Greater degree of accuracy in time as we technologically progress) and you could say it's chaotic system ( like our mind) the uncertainty in fundamental particles will amplify the uncertainty in prediction over time, long term prediction will be impossible to determined whole future with 100% accuracy. so now you're confused between determinis and fatalism, offcourse no one can predict your whole life, if i predict your brain function what you are going to do next before you aware of it, then freewill be out of picture, so you see latest libbet experiment, in it, it predicts in lab before subject aware of that they take decisions even some cases even 5-10 sec before and they took dicision so decision (in libet experiment decision was to move a finger or not) already started before they(subjects) awareof it( google search 'libet experiment' to understand what I'm talking about if you don't know) , Further we see ai predicts what we next watch before we know what we watch even some psychologist can predict human behavior much more accuracy than someone randomly will predict it, So in summary let suppose no one could determine/predict you decision before you aware of with 100% accuracy (which is not the case clearly although several seconds/milisec before you aware can be predicted with current technology with almost certainity), if we remove our technological incapability or we couldn't handle waste amount variable and data, reason of indeterminism in long run will be fundamental randomness, and this randomness will give randomness not "FREE WILL".
"How can we be free as conscious agents, if everything we consciously intend was caused by events in our brain which we did not intend, and over which we had no control?" -Sam Harris
According to Sam Harris, consciousness is caused by events in our brain we do not intent or control and because of it we do not have free will. But to freely move an arm, I don't need to control every individual cell in my body or mind. I only need that they respond to my intent however that happen. Just like to freely use a computer I don't need to know the inner working of it. And a conscious state of the brain is not always caused by an unconscious state of the brain. Many times a conscious state of the brain is caused by another conscious state, the details of how it is done, we don't need to know to be free.
@Vlasko60 The mind is intelligent information running on the infrastructure of the brain. Face with a situation it can evaluate different possible responses based on who you are, what you believe, what you want, etc, and what the situation require. That's where the intent to move the arm comes from. It also explain which arm you would choose. You simply form a subgroup of your possible free will responses and pick one at random based on a weighted system. Why did I choose the example of the arm and computer? Simply because considering my historic of past experiences and decisions, those were the most probable exemples for me to choose from the subset of possible responses I could have gave. Read everything I wrote and you will better understand what is free will.
The argument against free will is not the most simple, but it also isn't especially complex, to the point I believe that any intellectual preaching free will is a victim of their ego's wishful thinking and the power of cognitive dissonance. The problem with free will is that the concept implies an origin of choice that is neither arbitrary nor predetermined, which is not logically possible. For example, if you say that your choice to go one way at a fork in the road was not arbitrary - which both free will believers and non-believers would agree on - then both sides immediately have the burden of coherently describing a non-arbitrary origin for that choice. For determinism, this is easy. Under determinism, we use our observations of the laws of physics to conclude that the universe essentially functions like a machine, predetermined to progress in only one way from the very beginning, which ultimately resulted in you choosing one particular direction at the fork in the road. For believers in free will, their burden is to describe a set of non-arbitrary but also non-deterministic rules. The problem here is that non-arbitrary and non-deterministic rules cannot simply have popped into existence, or else by their very nature they would be arbitrary. Thus, these rules must have a source. That source also cannot have simply popped into existence, since that would, again, be arbitrary. The search for a source that is neither arbitrary nor predetermined, yet also has no source, is an infinite regress. No such regress exists in determinism, which is why determinism is the better option. The concept of free will is not logically coherent, nor does free will need to exist for society to function. Free will only seems to be useful as a concept for people to think of themselves as independent and special.
You have it exactly backward...determinism is the constant search for the prior cause...free will depends on an uncaused prior cause GOD. This is the whole purpose of 100 years of materialist philosophy built on unproven assumptions...eliminate God...eliminate the consequences of all behaviours.
@@robertobrien4979 Maybe read some books on the topic...and it will be clearer...start with "The Science Delusion" by Rupert Sheldrake...then "Homosexuality and the Politics of Truth" (in the chapters that Dr. Jeffrey Satinover wrote on free will and also the pagan revival ).
@@markanthony3275 Listened to Sheldrake TED talk, and looked into psi stuff. Thanks....some interesting ideas, some straw men, some good some bizarre....
Except that this source is eternal and uncreated, thus comes the concept of God in the Islamic world view which provides a solid chain of answers coherently allowing for free will to exist without any contradiction. Therefore making the islamic belief the best option for one to exist properly and not having to LIE to children in order to help them conduct a healthy consistent life.
The biggest problem I have is the arrogance from the determinist side. How Sam Harris speaks as if he KNOWS, and not as if he BELIEVES. Make no mistake- It is on pure faith to claim there is no free will, just as it is faith to claim there is.
Jordan Peterson: *Well, it depends on what you mean by "free"...* 😊 But seriously, if you just subtract every limitation to human freedom of choice that we do indeed know of - intelligence, instincts, the five/six big personality factors etc. - how "free" would you call that what might possibly remain? How "free" would you call speech that has limitations put on it? "You can say (or do) anything you want, as long as it's X" is not freedom in my book 😉.
@@cosmicprison9819 The determinist claim has zero room for the concept of choice. No person who believes in free will thinks you can will yourself out of gravity, so to me the argument is not addressing the root of the disagreement. I'll put it this way, if "free" is limited to zero, will is too. If there is a .001% degree of freedom, free will exists, and determinism is not true.
Unquarked My minimal definition of freedom would be the choice between just two alternatives, and the ability to have chosen differently, but free of any constraints (including internal ones) to that small choice. Your definition of .001% would technically imply that if I put you in prison and chained you to a wall, but allowed you to move your fingers by one centimeter, you would still be "free" because you're not completely immobilized. Would you sign up for that? 😉 If you have such a small amount of autonomy, even though it may be entirely within your control, how much of a difference it actually makes in influencing your behaviour and the outside world would probably be negligible. Which is crucial for the application, like the question of how much responsibility you have for your own actions if everything except for .001% that you do is outside your control.
@@cosmicprison9819 Your example of the slave means they cannot choose what they do. Of course that's not free. If you believe people do make choices, you are arguing for free will and against determinism. As I have already stated, free will makes no claims about the freedom to will yourself out of gravity. Everyone on that side agrees people are somewhat constrained. It is part of the determinist claim that choices are not made. "Probably be negligible" is a faith-based claim. You have no idea what your constraints are.
@@ronaldp.vincent8226 I wouldn't call a "remaining autonomy" free in any sense of the word. Take the closest comparisons, "free speech" and "free market". People are very quick to judge these as "no longer free" when even just the smallest constraints are placed on them. Especially on speech. Then it's no longer free speech, it's licensed speech. In terms of constraints, just like you can name them for "free speech" (no defamation, no calls to violence etc.), it's also easy to name constraints to will that are not synonymous with physical constraints to your motor capabilities (like the example of being unable to fly, which you cited): One big constraint would obviously be intelligence. You can't choose to understand something that's too demanding for you, and you can't choose to make yourself less intelligent so that you have an easier time communicating with someone of lower intellect than you. Okay, maybe that's just a constraint of possibility, like being unable to fly? What about your personality? Personality traits are fairly stable across time, and also heritable. Can you choose to be more extraverted, so that you experience more positive emotions and develop better social skills, and find social interactions inherently more rewarding instead of draining? Can you choose to be more introverted so that you're less bored when alone (or in lockdown ^^)? Can you choose to be more conscientious if you think you're being lazy? Or is their a limit to the amount of "kicks in the butt" you can give to yourself? And if so, does that limit differ between people (spoiler: of course it does)? Then we can no longer hold people to the same standard in terms of what is "lazy" or not, because they differ in conscientiousness. You don't need to believe in full-on determinism to realize in how many ways your freedom of choice is restricted, by very specific factors that you can explicitly name. I'm now trying to understand these arguments on neuronal and quantum levels. If people can convince me of determinism completely, that wouldn't invalidate my experience nor statements that intelligence, personality factors etc. limit the ways in which we can act. On the contrary, it would imply that the limitation is even more extreme than we feel it is in our daily lives. That our will is also not free in those areas where we don't consciously notice it. (Whereas if some activity is too cognitively challenging or not fitting with someone's personality, they usually notice that limitation consciously.)
watsup chava. EGO, that's who we think we are. It gets scary when you actually start to shed the ego, when you realize how attached we are to the ego, it gets pretty uncomfortable trying to rid that attachment, whoa, let me tell ya.
@Particle Config. I was referring to we as each of our individual conciousness. As for a whole, I believe its possible that the "we" is all of our conciousness collected together...ima be honest, I only started gettin into conciousness after being completely lost inside my mind for some years. meditation has helped me realize that I was identityfying myself with every single negative thought that I would think. Meditation has also made me realize that we truly dont think of our thoughts, they do just arise into the mind/concious eventually without effort.
Now I understand that I can not understand anything because I am an illusion. But than who is it that can understand that it can not understand? Something somewhere must certainly understand something about that.
I was very annoyed at Ben Shapiro's objection of Sam's using "active verbs"... 1. I don't see how that's a logical objection... but even if there is some level of sound logic behind it that I'm just not grasping, yet... then there's still... 2. every time Sam was trying to eplain it, he (Ben) kept interrupting the explanation to reassert it... it's like he thought he had a grand slam argument against it, that he felt justified in not letting Sam speak... basically not even being open to listen to the explanation.
To have "Free Will" I must first be free. I certainly am not. I must first know myself, which I do not. I must first know what Will truly is, and what in me exerts it, which I do not either. So, my point of departure is: I don't actually know shit AND I am a long way from having free will, whatever that is...
10:50 "Yeah but they had other things going on" if that isn't the biggest get out of jail free card from Sam there, I don't know what is. If someone takes your ideas and says well they took those ideas and made something bad out of it, you can just pull that out of your ass whenever you want. That's a very convenient way to hide your ideas from any kind of criticism.
Shapiro's problem here is that, as a believer in God, and someone whose audience is composed of believers, he HAS to defend free will, as a belief in a judgmental God, which is what the Abrahamic God is, cannot make any sense without free will. But he has no argument for free will, because there isn't one, so he is reduced to making inane comments about action verbs. This being said there are better attempts to argue for free will. Shapiro comes across as either someone who has never done any reading in the matter, or someone who recognises that his audience already agrees with him, so only a token effort is needed. I suspect that most of Shapiro's audience are not in the intellectual range to even consider the bases of the problem. I could be wrong about this, as I am not overly familiar with Shapiro, but this is my suspicion.
To experience a thought or to be aware of a thought or to be thinking a thought is basically the same thing with some nuances. Thinking a thought has more a flavor of "'constructing" a thought or "examining" a thought, like looking at it on every angle to search for meaning. Experiencing a thought has more a flavor of "feeling" or "tasting" a thought. Like if a thought is going through some mental senses that allows you to know it intimatly. You experience it. And being aware of a thought is just knowing you have a thought. Or, in the case of a more complete awareness, it would also include knowing the meaning of the thought. So you can be aware of a thought before you think it thoroughly. In other words, you know you have a thought but you have not examine it completly, part of it being unconsious or incomplete. The act of thinking the thought brings it to complete consciouness or finishes constructing it. But I understand your question. Can you be aware of a thought that do not exist yet? A thought that you have not think or constructed yet. I would have to say yes, you can, to some extent. If you are conscious of what is already there, you can inverse that and be conscious of what's missing. You can not be aware of the inner details of the thought but you know how it must be at it's surface to interface with the existing thought. The rest can be constructed bit by bit or by proximity using conscious logic, randomness or some unconscious process with the help of limits conditions as already explain in a previous comment. Consciousness can not create a thought that it's not conscious of. You have to start with something. To create out of nothing has to be a random act. And with that germ you can go on. In other words, it's impossible to make a new painting without paint but if you have paint you can make as much painting you want. We create thought in reaction to other thoughts. We reflect back on previous thought to see what's the logical suite. We do not create a thought with nothing unless it's random. Or think it (examine it) before it even exist. We use a previous thought. And meaning can not be created by the subconcious because the subconcious would than be the conscious. The conscious is were the awareness is. And because of it you are free. As for the experiments you refer to, they are all very badly design. And the statement that it is possible to know a person's decision before it reaches their consciousness by monitoring their unconscious brain activity is a disputable extrapolation. I already wrote a comment on that, just read it. And read some critics of those experiments and you will see it's not as definitive as you make it seems. But it's a good start and we should continue investigating how it works.
I'm not siding with Harris on the free will question, but I think some are unaware of what Harris is basing, at least in part, his position on the topic. He explains it in the interview he did on the Joe Rogan podcast. If memory serves it was based on some data that showed the physiological machinations that take place prior to an action or decision we make. From that, Harris concluded that those electrical and chemical processes were beyond our control, and that these processes are making the choice, not free will. That's probably a very simplistic summation of what he said, but you can listen to the interview to hear what he actually says.
You summarized it well enough. I found him to simply be saying that because you can see and measure the machinations of your thought that lead to the physical manifestation, that somehow that meant you never chose it in the first place, which didn't seem like that impressive of an argument against free will.
So they found that something happens in the brain before the body executes the action. Well no shit. Not sure how that qualifies as sufficient evidence against free will.
michael, I agree. I began to awaken 10 years ago. About 5 years ago I learned of Benjamin Libet's discovery (a 1/3 second delay between when a decision is made, and when the conscious mind things "I did that!"), and later Dr. David Vago's similar discoveries that go about 1/2 second. For me, practicing mindfulness and being aware of the moment a thought enters the mind, choosing not to think about it right now (no judging, just observing and choosing), it becomes obvious that the 5% conscious mind _emerges_ from the 95% subconscious. Constantly! By being mindful/present/awake, we can "front run" ourselves (in a sense) and exercise a veto power. In that sense, there is free will. I can choose not to just blindly follow whatever emerges into my mind from the subconscious. Most people don't practie this. They follow their emergent sense of self/reality on autopilot. In that sense, they don't have free will. But, even with mindfulness/presence (exercising a veto power over what emerges as reality in our mind), it's "more free will." It's still not perfect free will because the choice not to think about something right now (or act upon some emotional impulse) itself emerges. It's more deliberative with the subconscious. Less autopilot. But, still emergent and beyond our control (besides after-the-fact reflection and veto power; not trusting what emerges). There's a circular loop happening when mindful/present where the subconscious is challenged by consciousness. A more "checked" emergent existence. That definitely feels like it's free will. Yet, it's still a product of emergent consciousness/existence. Another example of free will is Dr. David Vago. He has a Tedx presentation on youtube where he talks about a 1/2-second delay he's measured. He finds that people who are more observant/present, and who unwittingly spend more time in the sensory-input phase (the first 1/4 second) tend not do be "stuck" in the next 1/4-second's "evaluation" phase. I think that's the phase where we get stuck and ruminate, and get into patterns of living in the past/future. Simply by being mindful (I would say that's what he's describing being), people can discard noise, and be more present (not self-narrating compulsively). That's some level of free will. Yet, it's all happening beyond our conscious state. It's clearly happening before.
@@markfullerOnly a few years ago did I learn a new term as applies to God predetermine all things according to His good pleasure--"prevenient grace". It essentially means that God is secretly at work predisposing all things in bringing souls to salvation.
i do think harris runs into a bit of a wall when asked the question about raising a child. he talks about "effort" even though he does not believe we have the agency to control that.
The causes that determine the amount of effort we apply to any given task are out of our control. The same goes for the causes that determine our desires. Teaching our children the qualities they need to achieve their desires would likely become one of the many causes determining the level of effort they apply in the future.
We don't. Perhaps Sam talking about putting effort into raising a child is the influence needed for someone to start though. It's pretty annoying to think about but free will need not be a part of the equation
@@evanlofranco Neither is the choice to learn chinese in the first place, if you go in that line. Just stop using free will pertaining words if you don't believe in it.
@@TriVyteOfficial Not that you asked me, but if I may: Sam Harris to me is just too simplistic. He has not explicated on these issues to the level of Jung, but he seems to have arrived at his conclusion. We are not at the end of this road.
@@ronaldp.vincent8226 Harris is as set in his ways as the others. I could actually argue that Sam is the most open minded of them all.. (do you think Shapiro is open minded?) Sam doesn't get much time to talk, and is nowhere near the loudest.. he's a spiritual athiest, philosopher, PhD in neuroscience, and has said many times he has no problem with the core beliefs of religion.. again, I ask, can you point to something exact?
…”if we sum all the facts”…woah Sam is saying some “big boi” stuff. Sam is a lightweight. Hasn’t read half of the philosophical literature that he thinks he needs. FA Hayek debunks all of this nonsense but I’m sure Harris has never read anything from Hayek or any of the other critiques of this engineering approach to society
(Using Sam's logic and some common sense) You can't use reason to get to morality. Reason uses you. (as your thoughts are a consequence of deterministic processes.) Reason isn't a tool. You are the tool your deterministic thoughts use to reach their own ends. Call it whatever you want except morality, otherwise your position is irrational.
The first time one bungee jumps or jumps out of a plane, one can realize the relationship/coexistence of free will and determinism. It may not be either or. Bret's layer analogy is in that direction. Thinking outside the context of time can be challenging for many. Perhaps Sam has had experiences where the time component, temporary removed, fostered revelations that he is attempting to articulate. Difficult task with our limited language, particularly english.
If morality isn’t based on informed decisions about positive and negative changes in the experience of conscious creatures, then it can’t be based on anything and is an utterly meaningless word. So either morality is a matter of suffering and wellbeing in conscious beings; or the word has no meaning whatsoever and can be jettisoned from the English language. At which point we can ask ourselves: so there’s no morality but we have to choose between things that improve conscious experience or things that degrade it, which choice will we make? The answer is obvious. This is all Harris is saying. There’s nothing else morality could conceivably mean so if we’re going to use the word we have to use it to describe the choices that improve and degrade experience in conscious creatures.
@@motorhead48067 Wrong. "So there’s no morality but we have to choose between things that improve conscious experience or things that degrade it, which choice will we make?" This stands at odds w/ Sam's position because he doesn't believe in any sort of free will. He's a determinist. If you want to presuppose that we can make better or worse choices according to some degree of limited free will then fair enough you're in a position to talk about morality on the basis of wellbeing. If you believe all things are determined and that everything you do is inevitable, then you don't have morality but descriptions of subjective experience. And reason and thoughts are not something you possess but just another component of your deterministic brain; perhaps a method by which it organizes itself independent of any "free and responsible agent."
I disagree with both these guys which is strange because I like aspects of both their positions in general. The problem with the discussion about free will at this level is that it's irrelevant to our daily life view. When you ask someone if they have free will, they are hearing "does someone control your life or do you make the decisions?". It's not, "well my brain had a hicough so I turned the know left before I realized it was the wrong direction". Those types of decisions not being free are fine for phylosophical discussions, but are not meaningful in our daily macro decisions. That means where I'm going to eat tonight, do I study for my exam, will I pick up my kids from school. Those are not random acts of chaos the brain causes. Thus, we may not have "free will" at the microbiology level, but we sure do at the macro and no higher being or process dictates otherwise. I have never been hungry, decided to go great only to have my brain turn off my plan unless some outside force interrupts, like a disaster, phone call etc. But then we can also admit that we choose to answer the phone call or run out of the house during an earthquake rather than fix that ham sandwich. This discussion of free will at this level is just hot air, that shouldn't be given air time.
I disagree completely, the rejection of free will has implications that affect our day-to-day lives. My best friend has anxiety and depression and despite all of my courage and support to help him improve his life, he doesn't. Before I used to get extremely frustrated because he wasn't "choosing" to improve, now I know he can't freely choose, and I don't get frustrated. Instead I'm much more empathic and understanding of the causes behind his behaviour. I've stopped feeling hatred towards anyone, and I've lost the need to go over the distress they've caused me. How can I take it personally that they chose to hurt me, if they were a victim of biological, psychological and social factors? The same applies with vengeance, I no longer want revenge on the people that have seriously hurt me because I know what they did was no free choice of their own. I now have ultimate patience for those who are irrational or illogical, because instead of tearing my hair out going "this is so obvious, how are you not getting it, why are you deciding to be so stupid" I can realise that there is a cause for their irrationality which is out of their control. I'm pretty damn resistant to insults. When people feel the need to criticise me unfairly in the hopes that I'll take it personally, I'm not all that bothered. Before I would be insulted because I couldn't grasp the fact that they consciously and freely decided that it was worth their time to make me feel miserable, but now I know there's no such thing as a free choice, their insults don't hurt me. Any mistake I make, I never feel unnecessarily guilty for it. If you swapped places with me, atom for atom, you would make the same mistake, so there's no need to feel bad about it. I wasn't in control of the fact that I made a mistake. How many people do you know who beat themselves up thinking "I should have chose to do X... what was I thinking" - it's impossible to choose otherwise so there's no reason to blame yourself. I never feel stupid if I don't understand something that other people do. In school I used to ask "why am I stupid unlike everyone else, it's all my fault" yet now I know there are prerequisites to learning anything and you can be the unlucky person who didn't catch those prerequisites. I have a friend who is a genius at maths, yet they can't count backwards from 30 to 1. They spent years feeling guilty and stupid and blamed themselves, yet only stopped when they realised what they have is a rare problem that has a CAUSE that they are unaware of. At some point in their lives, they didn't acquire the prerequisites needed to count backwards. I've stopped feeling guilty for not being as successful as other people. Before I used to feel guilty I don't have as much discipline as a student who gets higher grades than me, now I know they grew up in completely different environmental conditions and inherited behaviours and thoughts that allow them to succeed. Rejecting free will and viewing life deterministically, instead of feeling guilty for not being as successful as certain people, I actually learn to imitate them instead by investigating the factors that lead them to success. I'm a psychologist, and rejecting free will has seriously boosted the skills needed to succeed in my career. As a psychologist, you have to learn the skill of empathy and understanding of other people's behaviour instead of judging, and... well... if you know there's no free will, and that every behaviour has a cause, instead of fixating on the behaviour you can focus on what caused it. Instead of judging a criminal for their horrendous crimes, you can usefully investigate the factors that lead to his actions, and work to preventing them from having effects on others. And if you're a psychologist you have to learn the skill of detachment, i.e. separating work from home life. You will come across a lot of people who are absolutely evil. When you stop thinking about how horrible they are and how they deserve to die, and blablabla how dare they do this and that, and REALISE that they were not in control of their behaviour, you can detach yourself from the emotions that may cloud your judgement when treating the person. So that's literally how rejecting free will has improved my daily life. It is completely relevant because it has implications for how we deal with other people's thoughts and behaviours, and that makes up nearly every waking day of our lives.
Richard McCabe . You're confusing free will (aka choice) with biology. We have free will to go to the movies, choose which dinner to order, what outfit to wear, decide where to live, which career to pursue. That has nothing to do with "choosing" to get better from an illness. As a medical professional, you should know better. You cannot "choose" not to get ill. Your points are phylosophical on how to treat and view people. Those ARE choices. You make the same mistake as many others - confusing free will with biological processes. The major point that people view as free will is the ability to make one's own choices about everyday things, and not being "controlled" in a pre-determined manner or by an outside force.
Kirk, you're actually wrong on the definition of free will. Free will isn't simply the ability to make choices, it's the ability to make FREE choices. You may say you prefer your definition, but the rest of society believes we are free to "choose otherwise". For example, if you want to lose weight, but you are confronted with chocolate ice cream, and you decide to eat it anyway, that was a choice. But it was not a free choice. That choice was preceded by biological, psychological and social factors that caused it. Society would say you had the ability to choose otherwise and resist the ice cream, but that's of course not true. What you're arguing about is going off-topic. You were originally trying to say discussing free will isn't really that important for our daily lives, and I was explaining how rejecting free will has helped me live my daily life better. It's made me less hateful, vengeful, guilty and stressed in my daily life.
Richard McCabe probably the same logic and reasoning behind cold blooded murderers who just can't help but kill people. Just because some people experience pathologies that may inhibit proper functionality of their cognitive/emotional abilities doesn't mean there is no ability to choose or decide. From my point of view, maybe there are people more capable of exercising their will than others, some call it mental toughness. Most people I believe, are not mentally tough. Did you not reach your conclusion and then decided to act accordingly, based on what you "learned?" Or was it just another deterministically driven experience that you would have had, no matter what. Even now as you discuss these topics which you have made your mind up on, is there not a chance that you may change your mind one day given enough evidence to prove otherwise?
@@richardmccabe2392 very interesting and I completely agree. But what would you say for the flipside, the more positive things? Instead of blame, praise and instead of hatred, love? Can pride and love exist with no free will? Can you love someone if they are not the ultimate author of their actions? This is something i’m really struggling with at the minute. I completely agree with everything you said but I can’t do it half-half, only for the bad and not the good. It’s made me question everything I knew about life and what I deem valuable.
Great discussion! I disagree with Sam, if you had knowledge of all that is, you would be in the best position to know what you ought to do, but if there is no moral prescription in all that is, then there would be no moral obligations. So an ought doesn't logically follow from an is. The prescription needs to be something that is. Of course, the problem then is that everything in nature seems to be descriptive so a prescription would likely need to be outside of nature. Also we can only be morally obligated to personal beings. This is why it is highly likely that a God exists if morality is objective. As for determinism, it may be possible for the human mind to be rational without free will. However, we would be unable to affirm any of our beliefs on rational grounds. If you believe that determinism is true, then you admit that you were determined to think so, and you cannot say that you believe it for rational reasons. Even if you think you do, you were determined to think that. See the problem? Given our strong experience of freely making decisions, I think free will far better corresponds with reality.
The incentive to do anything is to maximize your own well being. Maximizing societal well being is essential to that. If you want something, you “should” take measures to obtain it. The essence of the word “should” implies incentive. If we adopt a Christian morality where God is the author of what we should do, we “should” do those actions in order to avoid eternal torment or to gain eternal bliss. In other words, the only reason we “should” do anything is to avoid pain or to gain pleasure, so in the same way, we should seek to maximize our own personal well being. I don’t know how the existence of non-existence of free will impacts the validity of rationality. Rationality is a system that’s worked to produce consistent results throughout time. You can’t make assertions about reality without using rationality because rationality is the only system we know works.
Where does an "ought" come from?...if not an "is". Morals are nothing more than our evolutionary survival mechanism. Societal animals display the same characteristics. They have even bred social animals (with morals) from non-social animals (without morals). Morals emerge from brains, nothing more. If you start with the premise that there is an "ought" independent of minds/brains, then you are starting from an unsupported substrate. Even if there is a God (which I doubt) you have no reasonable justification for any attribute, let alone "morals". For all you know your "God" could be evil, by our standards. By any reasonable measure, this appears to be the case. If you begin, impartially, (which I doubt you can do, based on your comment) you would be able to quickly build a case for an evil (vs. benevolent) God. You have to do mental gymnastics (as many religious people do) to conclude that such a God has our (collective/human race) best interest at heart. The universe doesn't seem to agree.
@@rustyosgood5667 Subjective morality does not require an ought as there is no objective prescription, just the preferences of individuals. I would start with what better corresponds with reality - that things are objectively right and wrong, or that nothing is? If you are referring to the problem of evil, that has been adequately refuted at the scholarly level. There is no logic contradiction of an all loving God permitting humans to do evil. Most people argue on the basis of probability instead saying that it is unlikely. However, to do that, one would have to demonstrate that a world with less suffering would be objectively better. How could one possibly demonstrate that?
Sam is most likely correct but Ben is actually being more responsible as it relates to human well being over all. Meaning, Sam is right that we don't have free will, we ARE the result of hardware that we didn't choose being updated by inputs with didn't choose. But I get the strong sense that Ben realizes that, and is afraid of the extremely detrimental effects this knowledge will have on society. Sam acts as if, because HE is able to be more compassionate with this knowledge that society will be able to do the same....that is the huge fallacy. The problem is....Sam, with his hardware, is *not* an accurate representation of the world at large, which is the root of Ben's concerns. Sam's hardware enables him to navigate extremely intelligently in these new waters. But what about the average person, when they are told that if they commit crimes, even horrible, violent crimes against others, it is through no fault of their own. If they kill themselves, in the end it was inevitable. How is this gonna play out on a broad scale? Sam seems to completely ignore all possible negative consequences that this powerful, utterly life altering knowledge would have, and only uses himself as an example as if he is the average Joe, which is an enormous intellectual fallacy. So even though some people here comment that Ben is not being as "deep" as Harris (and I like Harris and respect his thoughts on the basics mechanics of the free will issue) that "depth" depends on what you weigh as more important overall. He is actually much more pragmatical on behalf of human well being, I would even say *crucially* so.
Very few people are capable of living with the perspective that we are essentially living a predetermined path as much as if our existence was the playback of a DVD. Logically I know that every decision I make was predetermined at the big bang, but my mind can't accept that, which was also predetermined...
The point of the philosophical debate of free will vs determinism is a matter of what is true. Whether you should try convincing ppl of one side or the other is a different idea.
The whole right-winger ideology hangs on this tiny little thread of believing in free will. So far they haven't really done a great job of defending the idea.
@@HebrewHammerJr1 They believe they open their door, while it's the underlings they keep beneath their feet that allow any and all occurrence to take place, they lay claim to the kingdom of God when they had but a small fraction of its making. They are scared of the sacred chaos, and I can't blame them, reality in it's totality is a terrifying enterprise to face.
Ben Shapiro gets MUTILATED with FACTS and LOGIC. Ben gets CONCENTRATION CAMPED by Sam and Eric's ARGUMENTS. No really though. Ben shouldve been at the kids table for this debate.
The major problem with Sam's argument came up when answering the audience member's question about how to use that knowledge to make change happen, and his answer was in the meta-language of free will; ie., you just have to pull yourself up by your bootstraps. To put it another way, from a deterministic POV, sitting around to see if you learn Chinese is exactly how you learn Chinese, whether you realize it or not.
Yes, Sam's answer is problematic. A person doesn't have a free will but have the capacity to learn and change, to understand and master biology. To do that, a person needs stimuli. So, to answer the mother asking the question, she could provide advice or help to her son so he would acquire necessary skills or mindset to act appropriately. To sum up, free will seems you act without stimuli. Without free will, you can still act but need stimuli to start the process.
Everything is about influence. If you tell people that they will learn Chinese by just sitting around, they will do it expecting to learn Chinese. If you tell them that they need to buy textbooks or move to China they will do that. Even though in both cases the behavior is determined and you are always just "sitting around" waiting for things to happen to you, when deciding what to tell people you should tell them the latter, not the former, because it will have a more positive influence on them.
No, it's not that, it's if you're sitting around to see if you're in an environment where Chinese is needed, second nature, cultural, or just business or intrest you're likely to learn it or attempt to as your instinct naturally pushes you towards it, subconsciously. Like the Chimpanzees need to grab the fruit, he is conditioned in a situation where food is scarce, it wasn't the choice of will, but the subconscious fear of death and his knowledge of life from prior experience, anxiety driven instincts, that lead to the neurological reaction from the subconscious to the conscious then to the rest of the bodily system, in doing so he receives dopamine and the consciousness rationalises the decision as to allow dopamine to slowly keep him feeling good.
Materialists make a few unprooven assumptions about reality that force them to conclude there is no free will. Here's a few of them: - Consciousness is an emergent property of the brain. - Consciousness can not survive the death of the body. - Consciousness can not act on matter. - Consciousness do not have will. - Consciousness only allows subjective perceptions. - The world is deterministic. - If there are spiritual worlds, they also have to be deterministic. - A cause create an infinitly precise effect. - Randomness do not exist. It's only a lack of informations. - God or universal consciousness do not exist or have nothing to do with the way the world is. - There is no ghost or homonculus in the machine. - And according to Sam Harris, free will require: * full consciousness * full control of your body * full control of your environment With those assumptions, no wonder they can not see how free will can map on their vision of the world. For them, the world is just a big machine. But there are other ways of looking at the world that can allow free will. Here are some assumptions one can make just as legitimatly: - Consciousness precede matter or if it is created by the brain, than it can function independently of it. - The brain only modulate consciousness. - Consciousness survive death. - Consciousness can act on matter in some specific conditions. - Consciousness have will. - Consciousness have subjective perception. - Meaning can be the link between events without determinism. - Absolute determinism do not exist. There is no direct link between a cause and an effect. It's a statistical link. - An effect created by a cause can not be infinitly precise. - Randomness exist. It's part of the very nature of reality. - God or universal consciousness may exist and may be at the root of reality and our consciousness. - There can be a ghost in the machine. - Free will do not require: * full consciousness * full control of your body * or full control of your environment Now free will seems possible. So it all depends on what you postulate as true. Until we know more about the nature of reality, I think it makes more sens to believe in free will. It is more empowering.
Here's what believers in "no free will" don't understand. Determinism, or the chain of cause and effect, applies to the physical infrastructure, it do not applies to the software that runs on that infrastructure. That software, the intelligent information, obeys it's own rules that don't have to be deterministic. It is certainly conditioned by the limits of the machine it's running on, but it's not determined by it. The machine react to the cause and effect of the universe, but the mind react to it's own rules which is psychologic, sociologic, rational and spiritual. Exactly like a software that runs on a computer. The material part of the computer obeys physical laws, but the process that are active in the computer obeys the intelligence in the software. All that is required to have free will is consciousness and randomness otherwise, faced with two choices of equal value, we could not choose. Also, some think that the brain create the mind, but if this was true, we would have a mind right from birth. The mind is informations added to the brain. It is constructed by interactions with the environment, your parents, etc. And there is a lot of randomness involved. So, your particular software is not determined, yet it's not random. If a newborn was fed but was deprived of interactions with the environnement and other human beeings (keep in a dark room, for example), he would without a doubt become a total vegetable. So, the mind is not produced by the brain. It's acquired by interactions with the environnement. It's informations that runs on the infrastructure of the brain. The same way you can not see directly the software in the computer because it's encoded in transistor states, the same way you can not see directly the information in the brain because it's encoded in neuronal circuits. But the intelligence is there and it obeys it's own rules. It's like an AI that builts itself. What bootstrap the process is consciousness combined with the initial structure of the brain. It start by perceptions like hunger, pain, sensations, etc. Than it become: "I hunger", "I pain", "I sens". Than it differentiate into Me, You. And it grows from there. At first, you depend a lot on your environnement but as you develop, you control more and more your destiny. The matter you are made off is your determined aspect. The cells, your biology, your brain, is your conditioned aspect. The mind, the acquired and selfconstructed intelligent informations is your free aspect. It's the place where branching is possible. Information is immaterial, yet it exist. It's always present with a support of some sort but it's independant of the support. In the right conditions, it can transform the support but the support can not transform it. Only informations or self-interaction can transform the information. Matter by itself can not experience emotions or subjective perceptions, etc. But matter in interaction with informations can experience love in consciousness. So, what wraps it all and make you a person is the miracle of consciousness. The more you are conscious, the more you are free. Do you think something as precious as that information just disappear with death? The universe is wiser than you think! Nothing is lost, not one second, believe me. Read my other comments to know more.
@Vlasko60 If you don't think that subjective perceptions is a miracle than I would say you are a jaded man. And to this day, the universe has prooved wiser than anyone of us in the human history. And don't you know what personification means as a figure of style? Don't be afraid of spirituality. If you are intelligent, you won't loose your common sens for beeing a bit more intuitive. "Believe me", only means that's a conviction for me because of my personal history. You seem to be a person easily threatened by innocent words. Why are you so complexed? Relax man. And if you read other comments I wrote, you will see that I already adviced people to skip the metaphysic parts if it bothers them. I will not change for every lunatic that criticizes me. And lunatic don't apply to you. It's a generic way of talking.
@Vlasko60 I prefer to be more rational than logical. Logical people often lack judgment. They can follow a lead but they don't know what's important and what's not. That's one of the reasons they can't understand free will easily. Beeing rational allows you to measure things in proportion. It's a more intuitive approach but it's still very logical. It's foolish to think you can put every aspect of life in equation. That's a very reductive way of looking at things. Seeking knowledge when it's faisable is very noble. I'm a fan of science but I'm not a geek. To me saying God did it is not sufficient. What I prefer is to know how God did it. But I would not close my mind just because some people are afraid to consider spiritual realities. We all function on believe systems. Some don't believe in God and some believe in one. Some believe there's only matter and some believe there is something more. Some believe we survive death and some don't. But it's all believes from one side or the other. What's important is to stay rational in your believes system. It can not be anything. Otherwise it would than be magical thinking. I don't see any problem with having a global vision of life. How can you be so sure you are right? Don't you think your stance is arrogant? When it's time to be down to earth, I am. But when it's time to be spiritual, I am. I don't like the attitude of bigoted pseudo science people like you are showing. I find that just as repulsive as dogmatic religious people. I couldn't care less what you think about my spiritual life. To me you're an idiot on that subject. And you lack vision.
@Vlasko60 If you were changing with scientific evidence you would be more open minded than you are right now. You clearly choose which scientific evidences to believe, base on your prejudices. Science is made by human. It's full of bias. It's easy to understand why most scientist are more attracted by concrete easy to study subject with accessible data and measurements. The chances of finding something practical and easily formated into a conventional theory and beeing recognized by your peers and obtaining subventions is higher. You can always find some dogmatic scientific persons that are ready to reject what's possible because of the status of their believes. They have ALWAYS been prooved wrong. Beeing carefull with your measurements and theories doesn't mean beeing close minded. You are not better than anyone. You are just and arrogant close minded person not even capable of understanding how free will works even when you have it right under your nose. There is more to life than what we can see. The scientific approach is good but the spiritual approach is also good. Your problem is that you don't even allow yourself to evaluate how things could be if some ideas were true, for fear of loosing your pseudo objectivity. Your kinds are an obstacle to the advancement of humanity. A better way foward is a good balance of science and spirituality. But it's not a kind of maturity you understand or are capable of. That's a shame. Get out my way.
@Vlasko60 Spirituality has nothing to do with wishing. When I started to write comments on free will, I told myself I would try to not insult anyone because I tought it would not serve the subject. But some people really just deserve it. Yet, for this reason, I will refrain from giving you any more adjectives. All you are looking for is polemics. You have no interest in contributing to the clarification of the subject at hands, which is free will. People are not all stupid, they will see through your childish game. I have no more time to loose with you.
When someone says, “ all of ur success or failures has nothing to do you and your choices” , the question isn’t if that’s true or not. The question is, why would you openly say that to anyone? It’s a arrogant way of saying, “ once we know everything down to the quantum throughout space and time, everything will be fixed that’s broken.”
Obviously, Harris is mistaken. Or perhaps he is simply confused by the paradox. It is constructed as a bit of a Gordian Knot. The sword can be found here: marvinedwards.me/2019/03/08/free-will-whats-wrong-and-how-to-fix-it/
It seems that humans don’t have free will, we just have a spectrum of choices to make at any given time and what determines those choices are a number of variables/influences. A good analogy is similar to playing chess, there are more parameters and restrictions to your moves(ie you can’t move off the board, certain pieces can only move in certain directions) but the amount of moves that can be made are still huge and varied. Choice is a construct/operation of the brain. If humans did have free will - at what point does it kick in? 3/6/9 months after a fertilized egg in the womb, 2 years old? Does someone still have free will in a coma? Do humans have free will all the time, we just choose not to exercise it most of the time?
Yeah, but it's the choices themselves that show we have free will. How can you make any choice and not be cognizant and even predictive and reflective of that choice? Atheists are compelled to make absurd arguments like free will doesn't exist and that consciousness is an illusion because it's the only way they can maintain their materialistic worldview. They're forcibly shoe horning consciousness into their materialist philosophies which is disingenuous to say the least. And how, exactly, does our response to events show that we don't have freewill? Sam seems to think of human beings as being nothing more than paramecium responding to a light stimulus or being prodded by a dissection tool. It's ridiculous. Ultimately, his argument, if true, would only show it's the universe that makes choices and we're nothing more than puppets.
@@xsuploader It just depends on what kind of proximity we're talking about then, but yes, you're right. It's still misleading enough that self reflection->madness that it's akin to giving someone directions to Rhode Island from Maryland and not mentioning moving through New York. Perhaps there's a better analogy but it should get the point across. There's something quite significant between self-reflection and madness, and that is some degree of being in touch with reality. Weinstein does not strike me as a person that is deeply pre-occupied with self-reflection/awareness.
I think it is contraindicative the formulation of those two words Free - Will. You cannot have those two things cemented together There is nothing like free will because it is not free because there is a juxtapose consequence for every free will decision you make. But you have a will but it is not free. And I think Sam Harris is mixing these two things together and Eric and Sean are both correct. The assumption that at different strata of the human experience, we have the ability to express our ability to will and at some other level we almost because predetermined and determined even if we are not completely. And we cannot understand all of these from the materialistic point of view. Dr. Iain McGilChrist said - The people who tell you you don’t have free will are exercising their free will to tell you you don’t!
I don't understand why people feel Shapiro didn't belong here. He's clearly an incredibly intelligent person who has a rational and fact based outlook on life. He's the exact person to play devils advocate in this situation.
Agh, I hate seeing Sam take ridiculous things on board. He has so much to say that's useful and good, but then he boxes himself in with this "no free will" thing. Never mind the question of whether we have or don't have free will. Let's just give him that one momentarily and say we don't. At that point there is absolutely NO remaining basis for moral discussion. If you didn't choose your actions - if you had absolutely no real alternative to the behavior you exhibited, then you simply CANNOT be held *morally* accountable for it. To see someone, presumably very intelligent, try to have it both ways on that is just laughable. I get it. The concern is that if you concede free will it opens the door (potentially) to a "mysticism of mind." Then it becomes much harder to just slam the door on the religious argument hands down. But not impossible. Even if Sam conceded that our minds were in some way unexplainable / magical, that DOES NOT reduce the impact of his observations about the negative impacts religion has had on the world. Not one single bit. It's like he's got this card in his hand that he thinks is an unbeatable one, so he's not willing to give it up, while really it's not a powerful card at all.
Exactly this is so very true, its so strange to hear good helpful advise then to go down this weird argument that you actually can not prove in completion. No one can actually say what we are in full or where we came from or where we are going, to try and say we actually know for sure what we are or how the universe works is really just foolish
Stealing a quote from someone else here: 'There is awareness, and there are objects of consciousness, but the “self” is one of the objects; it’s not the awareness.' Actually though, there are no objects of consciousness either, but that's one paradigm shift away from the one I'm asking you to make here :)
@@anthonygumingo9840 I don't entertain stupid self refuting ideas like "We have no freewill " But you can, especially if you believe you have no choice in the matter. 😜
Pointless wordplay. As I understand it, you are saying that we have the independence of realizing that Free will is an illusion? Again, why were we not debating this earlier? It was only when the findings of Psychology, Neuroscience began to point in this direction were we forced to confront it.
If there is no free will, how does one decide that there is or is not free will? And suppose someone decides one way or the other. Do then not have the capacity to change their mind about the subject?
Free means "without cost" every choice or decision made, conscious or not, has a "cost" therefore we have will and choice, but it isn't free. "Free" is a con man's term to fool impressionable people
Marty Maiden No, you are conflating the idea of free will (which is the ability to male decisions without the constraint of necessity or fate) with freedom from cost. Despite them both having the word "free" in them, free will and free shit (as in commodities) are different concepts. Free will does not mean freedom from cost.
Sorry but you are wrong. With your description, there is no need to use the bullshit term "free". That is a term used by conmen philosophers to make people feel they are special. The term free means without cost. Monetary costs are not the only types of cost that exists. In fact, that is a less frequent example of the term as it applies to life in general. Drop the bullshit term "free". Its just will! I quit smoking cigs using my willpower and nothing about it was free. I made the decision based on potential "costs" to my longevity and quality of life
If I am 'reasoning', I CHOOSE which facts I'm going to use to determine the reasonableness of that which I am considering. I CHOOSE to consider some facts as pertinent to the issue under consideration and CHOOSE to disregard others. This choice denotes free will. We may not have absolute free will, but to say we have no free will is ridiculous.
When a single cause create a single effect dictated by a physical law, that's what we call determinism. It apply to inanimate object composed of many atoms. But with a single particule, it can be very different. A cause can have multiple potential effects. Only one will manifest when a measurement is made, usually the most probable one considering the environnement. But other less probable effects can also manifest. That's the quantum world, very strange to us. And we still don't know what role consciouness play in it. But what we know is that when we bind many particule together, the probability of the effect manifesting adds to become an inevitability, and the less probable options become insignificant. And what about the complexe conscious beeings? In this case, there are mutiple inputs and multiple potential outputs, of which only one or a few will actualised, giving the conscious being the sentiment that it could have choosen otherwise. And it's true, it could. Because the actual output, loop back in the input. So, if the output don't give the expected results, the neuronal circuits will detect it and change the output to better suit the wanted result. Up to here, it would be just like what a computer could do, but in the case of a conscious being, there is another feeback loop of consciouness on itself and that's something a computer can not do yet. The neuronal circuits create consciouness and meaning which feeback on the neuronale circuit that create consciousness and meaning. It's not an output, input thing. It's the internal circuits acting on themself. The loop don't go from outside to inside, it stay inside and loop on itself. For a computer to do this, it would take an instruction (for example: If condition then action) capable of reading itself and understanding it's own meaning and acting accordingly. It would take an instruction that knows it's an instruction and what it's doing. Exactly like what we are; Conscious beeing aware of our own thoughts and so capable of changing them at will, according to the meaning we perceive. So, that's why it's hard to understand free will for some people. They think with a single cause and a single effect with no feedback, and the outcome seems inevitable. And altough that's the way inanimate things work at a certain level, it's not the way microscopic or complex conscious beeing work. The chain of cause and effect end where consciousness begin because consciousness can act back according to meaning. So, contrary to inanimate things, we really have options that we can exercice at will. When acted upon, we can react in multiple potential ways and the way we choose will depends on the meaning it has for us. It do not depend on what just happened prior, in the past. The output is not forced or inevitable, it's understood and created by the meaning. The chain of cause and effect may create consciousness but than consciouness create the next effect base on the actual meaning, not on the past cause. And this new cause is now called a motivation which look exactly like an ordinary cause but is the result of a free will emanating from consciouness, and not the direct result of a previous physical cause which was originating from the big bang. Here, "free will" is the "will" associated to the meaning held in consciouness through awareness. It's free because it's the consequence of an understanding which can change with experience and the intention making it, ultimatly, a choice between good and bad, between the will of God or the will of the ego. And after that, the effect may continue as a chain of cause and effect, if no consciouness is involved. But it returns to a motivation and effect chain when consciouness is involved. Cause and effect when the switch is off. Motivation and effect when the switch is on. Things don't happen without causes. It's just that the causes are due to the meaning when consciouness is involve. For now, consciousness is a mystery and free will lies in that mystery.
A L Nice argument. My concern is that, as you admit, the conscious experience is at bottom caused by factors outside of our own control or experience, so it seems anything that follows is ultimately based on variables outside of our control. Also, you weigh heavily in the idea that our conscious experience and “meaning” is what essentially interrupts or injects itself j to the input/output equation, yet you’re simply describing brain function which manifests into internal dialogue/debate/decision making (all due to physical events in the brain caused still by the chain of events). So yes, in that regard we function differently than a computer, there’s a process involved in our decision making experience that a computer does not have, nevertheless its simply a manifestation of physical processes in the brain as the neurons pinball with each other.
@@tsemi9485 I don't think that consciousness comes from the physical brain only. I believe that we have a soul body and many other structures that connect us to a universal consciousness. As I said in another comment, I choose to incorporate in the expression BRAIN, anything that allows our mind to be. So, when I say brain, I mean brain plus soul body plus anything that makes consciousness possible. And in this particular comment, I just emphased the idea that there must be a loop of consciousness on itself going back to the ultimate nature of reality. It's still a mystery to me. And it may be a mystery for God himself, if God exist. In fact, for me God is that universal consciousness. It's primordial and it created everything just because it can. But maybe it doesn't know why it's conscious itself. And if God is not free, then nobody is... because we are God playing the game of life within its own consciousness. And technically, God is uncaused since there is nothing outside God. My explanation of free will is based on the mystery of consciousness. If consciousness was proven to be some sort of illusion, then you are right, there would be no free will. But is that a life I would want to live? Nobody knows for sure. But from what I understand, free will makes more sens. That's why I'm still alive and fighting to better myself.
Free will is the ability to choose according to your understanding. When you delibarate, you obey the rules of your "software". That "software" has it's own rules that are not necessarily deterministic. For one cause, you don't have only one possible effect. You can have many possible adequate response to a situation. Sometimes they all have the same value, sometimes not. If they don't all have the same value, you only have to put a weight on each of them before choosing at random. Because it's not just a question of what you prefer, it's also what's most likely to attend the goal. Weighting each response is the best thing to do when you don't know which one will do the trick. That way, you compromise and keep your options open at the same time. There is always a compromise between how you feel and what you should do. Then you monitor the result and decide if it was the right response to give to the situation according to your goal. It's not always easy to evaluate if we go in the right direction. It's an equation with many missing variables but we manage to appoximate what it means to us. And with each decision, we transform ourself, we become a new person, that will react differently to the next choice, in an unpredictable way, yet rational way at least for the person. We are always at the cross road. At every step, there are multiple possible branching. It's not determined, it's not random, it's understood. And consciousness is what wraps it up in a nice little package called the free agent. It's yourself, a human being: determined on some level (your physicality), conditioned on another level (your biology), and free, to some extent, where it counts (your mind, your "software", where the branching is possible). Don't you think that's the way we function? When face with a situation, don't you say : I could do this…, I could do that…, I’m not sure what I should do…, how do I feel?, what is the best for this situation?, for me?, for everybody? And instinctivly you weight the options according to who you are (your values, your believes, your inclinations and feelings, your rationality, etc.) and you choose at random. But it's not random because there's a rational before the final random choice, the free choice. That’s why you can always say : I could have done otherwise. And it's true. You could...
If God existed, I imagine He would be like Weinstein and give me incomprehensible answers to all my existential questions forcing me to just nod and mumble "oh, okay..."
If you mumble "oh, okay...", that's your action. Take responsibility. For Goodness' sake or are you going to argue, the UNIVERSE MADE YOU DO THAT? Where's even the border to religion exactly, in that statement? Whiny people... I suppose it's just as Sam reflected upon himself: _Jocko is his exact opposite._
How about free will is an illusion on the grounds that you would feel like you are making choices but what if those choices are already pre-determined. What if it’s your soul’s story book and you will always make the choices that bring you down the path regarding your life story?
Ben is just a presuppositionallist if you guys really want to understand bens position ,watch the debate that sye ten bruggencate and Matt Dillahunty had
In the beginning of this supposed debate the language that Ben is using like we're just sacks of meat , we're just floating through the universe it almost sounds like he's trying to say you cannot be rational you cannot trust what you think without acknowledging God and also you cannot have free will without acknowledging free will or you can't be rational without Free Will Etc that's what I meant
Jeff Markus In the beginning of this supposed debate the language that Ben is using like we're just sacks of meat , we're just floating through the universe it almost sounds like he's trying to say you cannot be rational you cannot trust what you think without acknowledging God and also you cannot have free will without acknowledging free will or you can't be rational without Free Will Etc that's what I meant
I am a physicist and I will provide solid arguments that prove that consciousness cannot be generated by the brain (in my youtube channel you can find a video with more detailed explanations). Many argue that consciousness is an emergent property of the brain, but it is possible to show that such hypothesis is inconsistent with our scientific knowledges. In fact, it is possible to show that all the examples of emergent properties consists of concepts used to describe how an external object appear to our conscious mind, and not how it is in itself, which means how the object is independently from our observation. In other words, emergent properties are ideas conceived to describe or classify, according to arbitrary criteria and from an arbitrary point of view, certain processes or systems. In summary, emergent properties are intrinsically subjective, since they are based on the arbitrary choice to focus on certain aspects of a system and neglet other aspects, such as microscopic structures and processes; emergent properties consist of ideas through which we describe how the external reality appears to our conscious mind: without a conscious mind, these ideas (= emergent properties) would not exist at all. Here comes my first argument: arbitrariness, subjectivity, classifications and approximate descriptions, imply the existence of a conscious mind, which can arbitrarily choose a specific point of view and focus on certain aspects while neglecting others. It is obvious that consciousness cannot be considered an emergent property of the physical reality, because consciousenss is a preliminary necessary condition for the existence of any emergent property. We have then a logical contradiction. Nothing which presupposes the existence of consciousness can be used to try to explain the existence of consciousness. Here comes my second argument: our scientific knowledge shows that brain processes consist of sequences of ordinary elementary physical processes; since consciousness is not a property of ordinary elementary physical processes, then a succession of such processes cannot have cosciousness as a property. In fact we can break down the process and analyze it step by step, and in every step consciousness would be absent, so there would never be any consciousness during the entire sequence of elementary processes. It must be also understood that considering a group of elementary processes together as a whole is an arbitrary choice. In fact, according to the laws of physics, any number of elementary processes is totally equivalent. We could consider a group of one hundred elementary processes or ten thousand elementary processes, or any other number; this choice is arbitrary and not reducible to the laws of physics. However, consciousness is a necessary preliminary condition for the existence of arbitrary choices; therefore consciousness cannot be a property of a sequence of elementary processes as a whole, because such sequence as a whole is only an arbitrary and abstract concept that cannot exist independently of a conscious mind. Here comes my third argument: It should also be considered that brain processes consist of billions of sequences of elementary processes that take place in different points of the brain; if we attributed to these processes the property of consciousness, we would have to associate with the brain billions of different consciousnesses, that is billions of minds and personalities, each with its own self-awareness and will; this contradicts our direct experience, that is, our awareness of being a single person who is able to control the voluntary movements of his own body with his own will. If cerebral processes are analyzed taking into account the laws of physics, these processes do not identify any unity; this missing unit is the necessarily non-physical element (precisely because it is missing in the brain), the element that interprets the brain processes and generates a unitary conscious state, that is the human mind. Here comes my forth argument: Consciousness is characterized by the fact that self-awareness is an immediate intuition that cannot be broken down or fragmented into simpler elements. This characteristic of consciousness of presenting itself as a unitary and non-decomposable state, not fragmented into billions of personalities, does not correspond to the quantum description of brain processes, which instead consist of billions of sequences of elementary incoherent quantum processes. When someone claims that consciousness is a property of the brain, they are implicitly considering the brain as a whole, an entity with its own specific properties, other than the properties of the components. From the physical point of view, the brain is not a whole, because its quantum state is not a coherent state, as in the case of entangled systems; the very fact of speaking of "brain" rather than many cells that have different quantum states, is an arbitrary choice. This is an important aspect, because, as I have said, consciousness is a necessary preliminary condition for the existence of arbitrariness. So, if a system can be considered decomposable and considering it as a whole is an arbitrary choice, then it is inconsistent to assume that such a system can have or generate consciousness, since consciousness is a necessary precondition for the existence of any arbitrary choice. In other words, to regard consciousness as a property ofthe brain, we must first define what the brain is, and to do so we must rely only on the laws of physics, without introducing arbitrary notions extraneous to them; if this cannot be done, then it means that every property we attribute to the brain is not reducible to the laws of physics, and therefore such property would be nonphysical. Since the interactions between the quantum particles that make up the brain are ordinary interactions, it is not actually possible to define the brain based solely on the laws of physics. The only way to define the brain is to arbitrarily establish that a certain number of particles belong to it and others do not belong to it, but such arbitrariness is not admissible. In fact, the brain is not physically separated from the other organs of the body, with which it interacts, nor is it physically isolated from the external environment, just as it is not isolated from other brains, since we can communicate with other people, and to do so we use physical means, for example acoustic waves or electromagnetic waves (light). This necessary arbitrariness in defining what the brain is, is sufficient to demonstrate that consciousness is not reducible to the laws of physics. Besides, since the brain is an arbitrary concept, and consciousness is the necessary preliminary condition for the existence of arbitrariness, consciousness cannot be a property of the brain. Based on these considerations, we can exclude that consciousness is generated by brain processes or is an emergent property of the brain. Marco Biagini
And so, is your conclusion, at least in part, that the brain as an organ is different than a mind with consciousness? And since we can make arbitrary distinctions, the precondition for a mind exists prior to a brain?
@@toddcote4904 First of all, the brain as an organ is an arbitrary concept, and therefore the mind is a precondition for the existence of the brain as an organ.
@@marcobiagini1878 I agree, as that was what I was postulating in my second question. So given that that is true, would you then conclude that an immaterial world exists apart from the natural world?
@@toddcote4904 It is worth considering that the current laws of physics explain with great accuracy all chemical and biological processes, including cerebral processes. Devolopments in physics are expected to refer to high energy processes or cosmology, but it is unreasonable to hypothesize that we will find new laws of physics that will change our descriptions of biological processes. The point is that we do not need new laws of physics to explain biological and cerebral processes, because such processes are perfectly reducible to the current laws of physics, while consciousness is not. Since consciousness is irreducible to cerebral processes and to the laws of physics, the only rational explanation for the existence of consciousness is that an immaterial/unphysical element exists in us and interacts with cerebral processes, and our mind is the result of such interaction. The nature of such non-physical element and of its interaction with the brain cannot be investigated through the scientific method, since it is not physical. Therefore, the problem to establish the nature of such non-physical element does not belong to the scientific domain, but to the metaphysical domain, and it is a matter of personal beliefs. In conclusion, an honest scientist must recognize that science has some intrinsic limits and that consciousness is certainly beyond such limits.
@@marcobiagini1878 It's nice to see someone acknowledge that science is limited. You state that the laws of physics explain in great detail, biology. I find that interesting and perhaps unsatisfactory. Do mean macro evolution, random mutation through natural selection, as a viable mechanism, is supported by such laws of physics? Have you ever heard of Dr. James Tour or Dr. Stephen Myer?
Sam missed an opportunity to elaborate on how truth and its effect on reason is exactly why the ability to reason is the x factor that bridges his inability to express his argument better. Reasoning is the influencer of behavior. It is perhaps our one autonomous ability. The choice to reason.
If Sam expanded upon what he means by “effort,” I think he would stumble into the same territory as those who are arguing for free will. Nobody is disputing that we are open systems influenced by our biology and environment.. Those who argue for free will are simply saying that there is more to the equation, and by suggesting that you can arrive to a desired future through “effort,” I think Sam actually agrees.
If you are determined, than there is no choice! The very fact that there is a choice to be made, good or bad, is indicative that you are free to choose according to your understanding. Some properties that are only found in consciouness are self awareness, transcendantal understanding or grasping the meaning, will or free will I might add, subjective perception (color, taste, etc) and general consciouness. There is nothing of those in the subconscious so it can not create what it don't have. The conscious mind is using the unconscious mind not the other way around. Free will doesn't mean without a reason. That would be randomness. Free will mean caused by "will" coming from consciouness because of meaning. And determinism mean caused by something physical or by a known force field. You are more than just a powerless witness to your life. If I'm wrong and by some mysterious phenomena the unsconscious mind unwillingly created something that is conscious, than once it's establish it obey it's own rules that are base on meaning. And according to NDE this thing may even survive the extinction of the body at least for a while and I believe that this should be study more. It's like UFO, people used to say it's impossible, but you will see, it's going to be more and more common knowledge that those things are real. And if we can believe experiencer, at least some of them, it seems that those aliens communicate by telepathy. That's meaning acting outside the brain on another's neurones.
Actually if your choice was causally inevitable, then the fact that it would be you performing the choosing, and no other object in the physical universe, was also causally inevitable. Determinism changes nothing.
@@marvinedwards737 Your statement is not very strong in the sens that you do not address any of the hard problems, like if you don't even perceive that there are problems. First of all, it's not a simple cause that precipitate the choice, it's conscious intelligent informations, in other words, meaning. And this allows free will.
@@alainlangdon Right. Biological causation results in an object that behaves in a goal-directed (purposeful) manner to survive, thrive, and reproduce. Rational causation comes with an evolved neurology capable of imagination, evaluation, and choosing the best means of achieving the biological purpose. The mind (a process running upon the neural infrastructure) transforms sensory input into conceptual objects and events, creating meaning. And this is where free will makes its appearance in the universe.
It is cute, that you truly believe that. Judging by the way you're childishly making his reasoning seem superior: He's a hero for you, isn't he? Freeing the world from BRUTAL religion, isn't he? Well. We're gonna see (once again), what happens if people plead for atheism. Looks like the 20th century wasn't enough, just yet. How can people be so naïve? Even if Sam's mere scientific approach to the structure of the human mind, and disregard for religion within society, worked for him (which I'm not sure about after watching him talk of that recent Mushroom trip, where he's basically advertising individual religious belief, which actually unironically seems to be his most genius idea so far) --- how can anyone be sure that it would work for other people, and not drag them down a vicious nihilistic, or, to the other extreme favouring-of-tyranny, rabbit hole. The greatest thing to moral spanning a group of people, the greatest achievement we've ever had in this regard, is just one: Religion.
"There's no free will, but effort is extremely important." ????? That makes NO sense. How can anyone hear that and think this man has the right ideas going on?
I know right? Whats worse is people will defend him being right by over thinking the whole thing and going into a loop that still never actually makes sense
Why doesn't it make sense? I'll repeat mostly what I just said in another comment: What I get from his assertion is that knowing that free will doesn't exists is NOT an incentive to sit around doing nothing all day "because nothing matters" - the consequences of your actions are still around the corner and you will, inevitably, be acting with that in mind. So if you want to learn chinese, then you should know that it takes some effort. The same thing goes for most of the things you want in life - so there is still incentive for effort.
@@EvilMatheusBandicoot just to expand on this, as I understand it, if you are a person who is never going to learn Chinese then you will never learn it. There's a sliding scale of people who will learn Chinese badly, learn it fluently and everything in between. The fact that the person who learned it badly had the lack of determination, intellectual capacity or time doesn't mean that on some imaginary "second playthrough" they would buckle down and learn it because they would never get a second playthrough. Even if a person tried 100 times to learn Chinese and failed every time, but succeeded the 101st time, that's not evidence of free will, it's synapses and neurochemicals being influenced to succeed the 101st time. It's important to do things because you're capable but if you weren't capable you would never know the difference. I feel as though Sam sugar coats the more fatalistic elements of determinism but his assertion that knowing all of the is would give you the ought holds water I think. You aren't given a choice of how you interpret the imperial facts of the universe, so if you were forced to know everything you would know what to do to make sure all the robots have a nice time.
Out of all discussions I've come across on the internet about human free will, one with most substantial content definitely goes to Conway's free will theorem (FWT). Anyone seriously interested in some concrete content on this subject matter should have a look into FWT. Here's a link to the last of 6 public lectures Conway gave about FWT, on which he discusses some consequences of the result and argues (positively) for the human free will despite acknowledging the irrefutable consistency of the determinism: th-cam.com/video/IgvkhgE1Cps/w-d-xo.html In fact, Conway, as a proponent of the free will position, has contributed more substantial argument towards determinism in this lecture than any of the determinists preceding him, exhibiting his prowess as a first class mathematician and the depth of his thoughts on this subject matter.
@@Dababs8294 I wouldn't necessarily put it as an emotional bias. You could call it a belief, perhaps. But he does a better job at defending his position in his lecture than I can cover for him, so I would encourage you to watch the series. Quite entertaining if you have a sufficient background. One important point I would like to highlight is that, even if we completely disregard his free will position on faith, he still contributes more on this discussion on determinism vs free will. He proves that if humans have free will then so do elementary particles. If one accepts that humans do have free will, elementary particles necessarily have free will as well. On the other hand, if one accepts that the elementary particles cannot possibly have free will, then it will inevitably mean that humans don't have free will either. So, either side you are on, Conway gives you something constructive to say towards your position. He also concretely defines what it would mean to have free will; something no one has been able to do actually. According to his definition, to have free will means that the future behavior is not expressible as a function of the information about the past. He further gives a striking point: with this definition, randomness =/= free will. To have free will requires more than just being random. So, it is quite amusing to watch the guests here often equating randomness with free will.
@@neutralcriticism4017 conways arguments are all bullshit I watched the whole video. 1. if particles have freewill then moral responsibility can be equally placed on any system of particles like a rock. 2. if p implies q and q is a surprise.... Im not responding to this babble 3. incompleteness of quantum mechanics... doesnt matter. The incompleteness of a theory doesnt imply another fact unless you can establish the fact. This is as silly as saying the the theory of everything is found thus God. all of the arguments are like this. Thanks for wasting an hour of my life by implying conway had anything of substance.
Yes it's hard because you have to lie to yourself and submit so deeply to the thought of another (in this case Sam Harris) that you come to believe that lie.
@@alainlangdon Huh? Did you literally just type that assuming my position on the subject? Lol You sound like you’re struggling with this topic and feel threatened by Sam. I don’t even agree with everything Sam has to say but how is he a liar lol? Get help my friend 🤜🤛
@@AndrewJoshua11 You made a comment on a video where Sam Harris defend categorically that we have no free will and you write: "Is it really that hard to just say choice is an illusion?". Well, yes it's that hard because it's false. There is no link between a cause and an effect in consciousness. It's not that a choice is random, altough randomness is often involved, it's that there is absolutly nothing forcing a choice in a direction or another. A choice is not forced, it's understood. There are certainly reasons to act or choose but the impulsion is free. There is simply an understanding in consciousness that you have to decide at some point..., that you can not deliberate for ever..., so you stop when you feel you have exausted the options to your satisfaction or you stop at a random moment and opt for what appears to be your best option at that very moment, understanding that you could have stop at a moment sooner or later because it's random, and you could have set some criteria of decision differently because it's also random in large part, and you could have analysed the situation from another angle for the same reason, and finally you could have came to a different understanding and consequently, but not causally, had made another decision or choice. You did what you did but it could have been different. You understand your choice, but many aspects of your choice comes from randomness, and you know it. It can not be otherwise because we are not all knowing. We construct the story as we go... It's our will to advance not knowing everything we need but making our best guess about what the next move should be. It's our free will... Randomness is involved at many level but the choice and the analyses are not random because we are conscious... We can grab the meaning and that's a miracle! We are not robots. The story is not unfolding in a determined manner. The story is beeing written by us using 3 aspects of reality: regularity (causality or determinism), randomness and consciousness. Regularities allows for predictions, reasonning, logic, AI. Randomness allows for novelty, creation, and decoupling. And consciousness also allows for decoupling but most importantly it allows at every step for the experience of understanding and will. And keep in mind that consciousness is not the result of brain activities. It is conditionned or molded by brain activities but it's not determined by it. Consciousness is the result of ALL THAT IS, be it visible or not to us. The "I AM" is the same in all of us. It's our link to God or the universal consciousness. Only the point of view created by our different bodies differs from person to person. It's not the physical world and it's determinism that give rise to consciousness, it's consciousness that give rise to the material world through regularities. Matter IS the illusion… Everything we see and experience is an expression of consciousness. It's absurd to say that consciousness is determined by the matter of the brain when matter is already an expression of consciousness used to create points of view. Read all my comments if you want to know more and deepen your thoughts if you want to understand better. It's not as easy as saying : "choice is an illusion".
@@alainlangdon Man, you really find pleasure in assuming. All that speculation and unnecessary detail just to stimulate your fragile ego, hence the reason you took the time to negatively respond out of insecurity in the first place (this was apparent because you took my statement as a personal attack by identifying with your opinion). This is understandable behavior. My statement was actually a quick humorous way I summed up the semantics of portions of the debate. It was actually neutral and wasn’t in any way claiming a “belief”, but merely trying to jokingly summarize what Sam and the others were trying to say in regards to explaining the determinism aspect of free will (no choice/no free will), not “the illusion of choice is what the answer is” which is the way you make it out like I’m saying. You can tell this is a topic you care about to a degree and seem to be quite disturbed at the implications of the unknown. It’s okay, it can be an uncomfortably real topic. Either way though, you still don’t come off as someone with well thought out opinions, let alone impulsive responses, so it’s hard to take anything you claim as lies, facts, opinions, etc as something reasonable to consider. What’s absurd is to try and speak in absolutes as you do. You don’t actually seem to know about the science of consciousness, matter, implications of the observer on reality, or really anything on a educated level, but you do seem passionate. Now with all that said, hard determinism seems to be the most reasonable and conclusive evidence to suggest choice is merely an illusion. You’re not in control of your decisions. Evidence my friend, evidence 🤦♂️🤷♂️ Feel free to reply now with all that built up passion and make sure you really type a good novel. I won’t reply but I will read it; you deserve at least that respect loll Good luck 😬
@@AndrewJoshua11 About every sentence you wrote is either untrue, a projection or show a lack of understanding, shallow thinking. But I don't have the time to respond now because of work. I will respond in a few days.
Shapiro is weak on free will. Sam is also weak. Sam's argument amounts to an argument from ignorance. It's like saying that there is no free will in Chess because the rules are already defined. Choice doesn't have to be unrestrained to be choice. Even if there are only two options, there is free will to some degree.
I think it's the argument Eric was making. There is no free will at the quantum level, because it's restrained by quantum laws (as far as we know these "laws"). However at the level of abstraction we live, think, feel, suffer, and so on there is effective free will. Much like when you watch a fly zip around. There may be a law governing his movement, but since we aren't smart enough (yet?) and so can't discern the pattern of its flight, it is as if the fly has free will. I think we perceive other people like the fly in my analogy. There are so many variable and inquantifiable at the level of abstraction relevant to what is useful to us and how we should act that it is as though there is free will!
"Even if there are only two options, there is free will to some degree." -- That's true. But Sam's argument is that there are not two options. Every decision "you make" is actually just an illusion, predetermined by other factors.
But what makes you decide how to move those chess pieces ? Your vast knowledge of chess or lack of ? Why are you even playing chess in the first place ? Why are you deciding to engage in a game of chess? What made you even move the chess pieces?
@Particle Config. But what is the lighting up in the brain a sign of? Is it a thought or an action? The body has a lot of automatic mechanisms that enable us to live. If you choose to do something randomly is that evidence of lack of free will. Sam Harris bases a lot of his ideas on these brain imaging tests but he is having difficulty in putting his ideas into words. Admittedly he is fighting against most people's resistance to the idea we don't have free will.
Free will does exist on a certain level. It's just the ability to seemingly choose an outcome. As long as your not aware of this illusion, and let's face it no sane person is, it's not perceivable.
Right. It's just like, accepting the world with open arms. Which is _somehow_ what Sam is calling for towards the end. Taking in the influence of the world. Though listening to him, *it doesn't inspire me, but rather make me apathetic.* Speaking of reality. What's more real than an effect? I do wonder, what Sam went through to not realise this. Sometimes I'm curious about his upbringing... The point is, that you have a choice which path you take through determination. Hence there is free will. If you believe in potential, which means an individual path in human life, there is no way around acknowledging free will. I'm not _merely_ a puppet pulled by the strings of the universe. Strangely enough, this is one of Sam's primary messages in this discussion though, up to the end when the woman asks her question. What exactly is his point here? Being right? An appeal, to making yourself a slave to the present conditions in the universe, as they are? Why take any action at all thne? How is his fair thesis even relevant, if the vast majority of people can't follow this, people who might even live a less meaningful life as a consequence, stuck in such a worldview. Sam has to understand, that not all people can live in a fulfilled and thriving manner following his basic scientific approach, that in some sense comes to the same conclusions as religions after all. This is a waste of time isn't it? 'Provoking', but serious questions: Didn't Jesus teach us already to embrace the world with open arms? To focus on the day? To walk with God, instead of just serving him? Replace God with "universe", and you might have your eyes opened to the real point in religion.
Nietzsche tried in his thus spoke zarathustra to overcome his Faustian ( individual) will and will his cosmic will ( mother nature) but you saw where he ended up... insane, the illusion is crucial for our animal species to survive
Apples in Mono I feel like that is disingenuous. You can’t create your own definition of free will (or any subject for that matter) and then argue against that while also lumping in the objective definition of free will. Someone could say free will is just being able to always make sure that something turns out the way you want it. I am sure that is not the argument Sam is making but hear me out. Someone could argue against that very easily. If I have a blind spot here please get back to me.
Well well. We all have feelings and beliefs. Otherwise we'd be robots, people cease to realise. Ben tends to be too arrogant, in his repetitive nihilistic statement of "facts not caring about your feelings". You see the effects of ignorance biting back at him, even here in the comments. Karma? Feelings can't be disregarded as a whole. And even if at any point in the future, would that truly be a worthwhile goal? Are we so afraid of being hurt? That's not how the being, how the world, works. Ain't that simple folks.
In many ways, the problem with Sam Harris is NOT his brilliant skepticism (objectively) of other systems of thought.... it’s his astounding lack of self-skepticism to the religiosity of the dogmatic nature, bound into his OWN views...
May I ask in which way is he is dogmatic in his views? He clearly states in his writing on this topic that there is no one right way to live/achieve greater well-being. His whole public career has been spent arguing against the existence of dogma, so it would be more possible to achieve progressive discussion in order to evolve our understanding and ability to adapt and change.
Tom das because there is an inherent dogmatism in ones inability to recognize the value of faith-outside the codified ethics and teachings (which are brutal and backwards)...that of admitting its progressive evolutionary nature...***in first world countries...
@@eorobinson3 I disagree that placing no value on belief without sufficient evidence is inherently dogmatic in any way. in fact, I would argue that if it can be demonstrated that belief without evidence is beneficial to human kind in a clearly positive way in some capacity, I might change my mind. Though I highly doubt this would be the case due to faith being by definition mutually exclusive with the scientific method, which is all but entirely responsible for all knowledge and discovery that humankind has ever achieved.
Retro Workshop no, everyone attaches themselves to types, strains, and even thin strands of dogmatic thinking. That’s all. I’m sure I have dogmatic lines of thought as well. Ideology is inescapable. Lol, no one understood what I meant, obviously because I wasn’t clear, and as you say perhaps dogmatic in my thinking of his dogmatism. But this could go round forever. You obviously dogmatically saw my comments on Sam as simply dogmatic reasoning of his reasoning. See. K sooooo have a good day. Lol. P
Phenomenal debate. The ability to dissociate from self and observe inductive and deductive processes simultaneously, isn't that by definition quantum mechanics? Which when observed are instantiated at the classical level. What remains is a binary choice of chaos or order analogous to free will or determinism. Utter depravity or Holiness. Solipcism or Christian Theism. This is the theme of Paul's Epistle to the Romans. Paul answered Shapiro in chapter 2, solipcism leads to the inability to distinguish anything from the self and it's sensuality until the passions are so magnified and erroneously justified in axiomatically fulfilling desire as a thing in itself. In solipcism the sensuality is NECESSARY and the self is CONTINGENT; therefore it is the delusion of free will that kills the self and actualizes the automoton, or quasimoton screaming I'm not a robot, meat machine, animal, while at the same time dependent on the church. Option 2, claiming blissful ignorance in moderation which is still narcissistic personality disorder in taking pride in how much one does not know. Pascal's wager is thin ice as you congratulate yourself on the choice you made. A self made Christian? Huh? Is that really a choice you made? Is that the power of positive thinking, or are you manifesting a presumption that is ridiculous on it's face? Option 3, to witness all the information collected by senses, in historical observation, as well as your inductive and deductive processes, and seeing the REVELATION OF JESUS CHRIST, that HE chose you for GOOD works which he PREPARED for you to do before the foundation of the universe, which are accomplished in the light of the knowledge of God, in the face of Jesus Christ. Option
You know how I know I’m a moron? I am 8m23s into this and just now figured out this is a still photo...not a video
😂😂😂🐌🐌🐌🤪🤪🤪😷
Esko Huse holy shit...
Time to put the pipe down!
No it's a video. You've just got three really chilled out dudes here.
Or a really Vivid imagination
It’s hard to debate free will with Sam Harris, because he is right.
I’m pretty sure this is sarcasm but the fact that I initially didn’t read it that way is hilarious
Sam Harris is like the intellectual eminem. You know he's good, but just HOW good really shows when he's juxtaposed with others you previously thought were almost as good. Shapiro looked weak here. Frankly, I expected a better fight.
Mel, Shapiro is weak. I tried to give this guy the benefit of the doubt, but his arguments are tired and regurgitated, and worst of all he argues against himself half the time. From the guy who has pretty much inspired the 'feels vs reals' movement against SJWs and their use of emotion over logical argument, it is astonishing how often Shapiro does the same. Any time the debate moves into the arena of religion Shapiro suddenly becomes a critic of rationality and the materialistic view of the world, and tells us there is something else out there, which he defines and defends about as clearly as Deepak Chopra or any new age type. Likewise if the debate turns to any subject that the right by default has to argue against (or rather, that sellouts like Shapiro have to argue against because the core of their base don't believe it) such as global warming or an form of environmentalism, Shapiro suddenly sees conspiracy everywhere, and trots out old worn out and long debunked arguments of the sort one would expect to see on a creationist video. He is more of a Sophist than anything, a skilled talker, but not nearly as much depth as people credit him for, and nowhere near the level of principle.
PtolemyauletesXII I can't say I strongly disagree with you. He's clearly intelligent but only selectively rational and mostly just a fierce debater.
I thought his points made sense.
PtolemyauletesXII I think sophist is an excellent way to describe Shapiro. As many times as he makes sense, he has been specious; and he often operates in the realm of provocateur.
Daniel Mizuguchi ooo, trying to use your biggest words. I see you, nice :)
I have been thinking about how crazy it is that I am thinking about whether or not I have free will and I don't even have the free will to decide whether or not to think about having free will.
i have just started thinking about that without any free will of my own, and on that same note i would be curious to ask, did you go insane by now?
@@geraltofrivia2570 did u?
@@connork319 nah, i just got back to the illusion that i have free will
@@geraltofrivia2570 why is that
@@connork319 Well i don't really know since i have no free will, but the illusory feeling that i have is that it's too much of a bother to be thinking about things you can't change. I would also think that if through my lack of free will i would realize that i have no free will and i would be sufficiently bothered by it, i would simply kill myself. You should take everything with a grain of salt since i'm not really sure there is a me who to really answer you truthfully.
It is hard to believe that someone out there feels joy on hearing Ben Shapiro's voice. I know that in the billions of people out there it is inevitable that there is at least one, but it still seems very unlikely.
@@Gary_oldmans_left_nut bruh too deep
@@Gary_oldmans_left_nut Yeah… let my deterministic mind respond to that. You, your thoughts... 💩
😂😂😂😂😂
The blunt voice of reason?
I was just thinking the same thing! Haven't heard much of him but the few things I heard come out of his mouth is straight up nonsense!! So ignorant and arrogant at the same time! He said he doesn't understand free will with evolution! 🤣😂 he said that free will is proof of God!! So if we proof that there is no free will it means there is no God? LOL it should be the opposite 😅!! And he confuses free will with our consciousness!! The guy is an IDIOT!!
I agree there is no free will - Sam's points about reaction to influence and priors that initiate behavior all make sense. Where I disagree: The notion that we can "decide" upon a moral landscape based upon reduction of human suffering. Some of us will think that is correct, some of us will not. We never decide. Continued exposure to influential argument might "change" minds in the same way a strong prevailing wind changes the growth pattern on a tree's branches. I think Sam just needs to articulate this is what he means when using words like "try".
Agreed
Sam's points are almost always only philosophical. He likely doesn't think things will change...but try he must.
Sam Harris is a Athiest, athiest Philosophy is a direct twin if Calvinistic philosophy.. So of course, they go together..
You are nothing but gland squirts and muscle twitches
Sam views the moral landscape in the realm of science. It is objective. “Deciding” the details of the moral landscape is no different to “deciding” what theories best describe our physical universe. I disagree with Sam’s assessment here but there isn’t any internal inconsistency with the two positions.
When did Shapiro become a philosophical contender?
Samsgarden When did Harris become a philosophical contender?
tony banks Over two decades ago.
@Lucas Wang he's there to make up the numbers, also, it's so the other guys don't win hands down.
@@tonybanks1035 harris graduated from philosophy at stanford
he also wrote several books touching philosophical ideas. I dont know what it takes to be a philosopher in your view but Harris is clearly at a minimum more suited to that title than a moron like shapiro.
@@xsuploader Harris has a BA in philosophy from stanford. Hardly the necessary background to be called a philosopher by any stretch of the imagination. Shapiro neither. Both are on the same level. That's the realistic take for those who don't like do delude themselves.
The "books" he wrote touching philosophical ideas have been ridiculed by actual philosophers. They are deemed "interesting" by people with no philosophical backgroung, and their success stems more from being thought-provoking than being actual academic standards in philosophy.
Going to listen to the entire conversation on sam's podcast. 23 mins is nothing.
P.S.- Sam rejects ads.
I'd rather listen to 3 hours of adds than 17 minutes of sam trying to guilt me into paying him
@@isaacburrows8405 his will is not free...
Is the entire conversation about the free will argument, or is it just this clip?
Which podcast
@@isaacburrows8405 you know that ads are like a cancer in society right? No wait, you probably have never thought that deep my bad
No matter how smart you are, you won't notice the lack of free will if you don't want to. At that point intellectual honesty goes out the door.
Take enough THC
In Sam harris' world, you are already doing and can do all the things in your life, whatever the way you want, without having a free-will
Jamal Hussain whatever- life is full of choices and I make the choice!
Jamal Hussain he definitely wants you to have the best hunan experience possible
But there is no You................... the You tht you are experiencing are ntg but just a biochemical algorithm....
In Sams world you are not the doer.Thinking you are the doer leads to the false sense of self.
thats literally not what he said you moron.
So dont tell your kid that they have free will but you treat them like they do?
yep
2:13 Hume’s classic question was, from whence does this “ought” arise in the first place, if all that exists in the universe are facts? As he put it, “the distinction of vice and virtue is not founded merely on the relations of objects, nor is perceived by reason.” So where can it come from? Even having perfect knowledge of every existing thing in the history of the universe would only give you more and more facts; it would not enable you to make the giant leap to concluding that anything “should” have been different. Even if you say “reason is a fact,” you still have to account for how it can perceive of anything that is not a fact. And if in the end your “ought” turns out to be just another fact in the universe, then it has no special status over any other fact, and so any moral command is as “good” or “bad” as any other.
Well fucking said sir.
Exactly. Sam keeps mudding this entirely.
Your question is a good one and doesn't lend itself to a short "sound-bite" answer. The late Ernest Becker's "Escape from Evil" is the best thing I've read on that question. In short, humans are the only animal who has a conception of possibilities and what things could be- these things can never be fully realized and Becker's main thesis is that humans' knowledge of our mortality is the primary component of our motivations.
The idea of guilt developed when human cultures advanced to the point where surplus was possible. The introduction of monetary exchanges and private property further developed the idea that some had more than others and I could have more and why don't I?
I would suggest getting the book- Becker is better at unpacking it than I am. He won the Pultizer Prize for "Denial of Death" (1974).
@@ravissary79 sam is bad at phrasing moral realism
but essentially moral realists are trying to say there are methods of maximising utility which are themselves facts. Just like there are methods of minimising error in an experiment there are methods of pleasing minds.
so essentially Morality is a collection of facts that mean something if you have a goal of maximising utility. If you dont then whatever.
Oughts come from facts. That's how every sane person makes decisions. If you're intellectually honest and pay attention to how you arrive at conclusions, you _know_ you do this yourself all the time. If they don't, they're infinitely more likely to be wrong/cause harm.
I've read Hume and I took what he said as not _just_ doing a leap from one fact to a should without making the connection with arguments first and keeping it one-dimensional (i.e. humans in cars cause accidents - humans shouldn't be in cars). If you interpret it as "can never get an ought from an is" you essentially reject the core function of rationality and become a relativist about everything.
That interpretation doesn't even make sense if you're a fan of Hume, because he derives oughts from facts in his own books, making the relativist interpretation unlikely.
Ergo: The fact/value distinction is not about an impossibility to derive oughts from an is at all. It's about not doing the work required to justify a conclusion.
If the mind always defaults to its best interpreted logical choice for every single circumstance it's encountered, then every single one of us would constantly be in a state of the best version of ourselves. In other words, whenever we make a choice against our better judgement, then the better and more logical choice was not made.
Purely logical choices are only perfect in a perfectly logical world which we do not live in
@@negawatt9755 frankly speaking when i see your example i remember my toxic relationship and why i stayed in it. What we believe as 'i listened to my heart, and not my brain' is actually what we think to be the most reasonable choice at that time.
I was preprogrammed to click on this video and write this comment. My whole life has brought me to this very moment where I am making this very point. I hope Sam will understand that it's not really that we really don't agree with him but that we were just accidentally created and just made to not agree with him. It's nothing personal, really.
Is that actually your synopsis of this debate? It seems your indoctrination since you were born, of your parents beliefs has slowed your mind.
I mean as sarcastic as you’re being you’re not entirely wrong...
You are merely expressing what is in your heart of hearts. Your interdependence to outside influence is confessed. And why we would have to believe you are independent and choice-determining based on random quantum fluctuations is completely moot and unevidenced... so it does not need to be believed. Plus, I feel like you are wrong just like you feel you have "free will," if by any stretch my self-assurance is not stronger than yours.
Sam would agree with you
You are actually making his point
Accidently created?
I appreciate their method of debate, but I’m just nowhere near as impressed with the Weinstein brothers as everyone else is. I have no doubt they’re brilliant, they just don’t get across to an audience quite like ppl like Sam and Jordan Peterson do
Coming around to audiences is not all, espeically when i think jordon perterson and eric weinstein seem to have glaring holes in there arguments. Im sorry i wish them very well but there are likely falsehods and even damaging ones, but i guess there are also good things and the conversation being interessting is very important. So in combination with sam on free will i aktually think they very enrich the conversation and i love to hear there objections. Wish them very well, hope i was not snarky, i wish they had more "kinda friendly" conversations with poking questions like this 23 minute clip with people they disagree with that have some traction like sam or sapolski :)
🤣🤣🤣
It seems Ben only got passionate when he thought Sam was coming for him!
When
Weinstein sets the bases for understanding the tension between the two perfectly with his layer of cake analogy. If you understand that, you will understand that the answer to the question is yes.
I don't, please explaine further more
When Shapiro laughs, I hear Tyler Durden in my head. On the airplane.
“You have a kind of sick desperation in your laugh.”
For some reason when he speaks, it feels like squirrel is talking.
When you hear someone, you immediately to the world of fiction to justify your bias. Interesting.
@@blackswanaudiostudios3947 Very insightful. You’re taking a basic course in psychology I presume?
I was in agreement with Sam Harris' conception of the illusion of free will and the self until recently. It seems quite premature to conclude that the self is an illusion. Science is built upon objectivity, it tries to weed out subjectivity at every opportunity. The self is the epitome of subjectivity, and hence why it is so difficult to quantify or localize within the scientific method. Failure to account for the self in an objective sense does not imply its non-existence.
He claims in his book that the self is an illusion. Which implies that the self does not exist in any 'real' or objective sense. The self and consciousness are closely related, you cannot have one without the other. Have another skim through his book, his argument lacks strength here the most.
Moreover, his idea of free will is in the absolute sense. Of course, there is no absolute freedom. However, is absolute freedom even desirable? What does it mean to be absolutely free? Since being comes with limitations, you'd have to be outside of the human body to experience absolute freedom, and therefore absolute freedom is unattainable for as long as you are a limited being. Further, this implies that absolute freedom is undesirable. And since undesirable it concludes that absolute freedom is not the 'freedom' we are after. Whatever feeling of freedom we get in exercising choices is the free-est we can get as conscious beings.
The argument regarding the illusion of free will is a non-issue. No, absolute freedom does not exist, but it is not the freedom we want anyway.
Agreed. The failure to adequately account for a thing may be a shortcoming of science rather than of the thing in consideration. Not recognizing this turns science into dogma.
I would say you have no freedom. You are taken hostage of a combination of youre genes in youre brain and the enviroment that influence it. Responsibillity is what you need to take to fix things so you get a better life for youre self. Try to think of any choice that you have made that is not based on anything.
1nzi I only understood my "self" as being my body thus serving a basic biological utility. Seems like evolution at work to me.
Sam seems to be so hell bent on arguing against dualism that he's resorted to reductio ad absurdum arguments and intellectual dishonesty.
1nzi, read Sam's "Waking Up" book.
You say: "The self and consciousness are closely related, you cannot have one without the other." and the book is all about how consciouness is definitely a thing that exists but how the self is an illusion.
Was this not filmed? Tried a few links and no video. Madness not to film this but still a great listen
We are not aware. We are complex.
Our perception of reality is an emergent property.
Causality drives every interaction from the most basic to the most complex.
Furrowed Brow can you provide the math for that?
MentalFabritecht
Take small bites.....
www.google.com/url?q=ftp://ftp.cs.ucla.edu/pub/stat_ser/r416-reprint.pdf&sa=U&ved=0ahUKEwjQjZeP5tLaAhXF2VMKHfb9D_cQFggQMAA&usg=AOvVaw1zXt313VwLTxOkbc3hk0iF
Furrowed Brow thank you, luckily it wasn't too long.
I guess you must be one of those robots with no sense of experience.
Just because causality exists does not mean we cannot reflect or think about the actions we have taken.
Yes, events in reality have the property that causes lead to effects, no argument there.
But just because one event leads to another does not take away my ability to think about my actions, to reflect on those actions, to see how I feel about those actions, And to either change or continue acting the way I do. It is in this self reflective/analytical feedback mechanism in which I believe "free will" lies.
The "illusory" self that permeates my body allows my experiential awareness to interact with this causal universe, and to act accordingly, And maybe even modify it within my limits or abilities to do so. If things were merely cause and effect, with no option to change or act differently, then yea i would believe everything to be deterministic and causal. Unfortunately (or fortunately, depends how you want to look at it) humans have come to bear the existential burden of responsibility for our actions and choices.
Emergent from what? Where do we go from non perception to perception.
We are the result of a collective unconscious slowly awakening to the dreams that our ancestors brought forth to cast our the dreaded dangers of mortality, to say we are not aware is false - it is correct to say we are not aware of everything - we glimpse aspects of the nature of what is and what may be, we are starlight shining in the dark...
Best argument: 4 components to "free will" or "our personality" or "our conscious" mind:
(1) Our personal choices.
(2) Our genetics, somatic reality, brain chemistry, & architecture.
(3) How we were taught, raised, abused & neglected by out parents, or lack of parents.
(4) Our society, culture, the system, nation & laws we live under.
Our free will, is thus diminished at the very least, it is mere component, no less important than the sum of our environment & the limit that we can control the impulses of our primitive brain impulses & instincts for survival.
The three questions one must answer -- with proof -- before believing free will is real:
1. Where did free will come from?
2. How did free will come to be?
3. Why are humans the only animals with free will?
@@TheClassicWorld No, you don't need to answer these to believe in free will. That's like saying you need to understand precisely how human action can be reduced to physics to believe in determinism. That's too high of a standard and it's impractical.
You believe in free will - that you have the ability to make multiple choices - when you try to figure out your plans for your own future, or when you go shopping. You might say that this is just a working assumption that you can dispense with, but the fact that it's a working assumption is something not to be ignored. You have to believe you have that ability to be able to live in the world, granted not all the time you have to believe it but sometimes you do. You also need it to explain why you blame someone for wrong doing or why you uphold someone for right doing, that is why you can forthrightly assign moral responsibility to a person - so not only assign it, but be able to back up your position in speech.
@@TheClassicWorld The first two questions are a bit redundant, don't you think?
The last question only counts if you believe we are animals. The fact that we stand apart from animals and there is no proven link that confirms we are animals renders the last question invalid.
Lastly, if we could scientifically prove the origins of free will, we wouldn't be having this discussion. The shortcomings of science to prove or disprove free will's existence is not evidence it doesn't exist.
Much like gravity didn't start existing when we "discovered" it, free will doesn't stop existing because we haven't discovered it yet (or found the linchpin to disprove it.)
@@TheClassicWorld number 3 is absurd. if humans have free will than so would other non human animals.
but of course, nothing has free will.
Kings ( in the Old Testament account) are a good example, and what is said about their "free will" in I think the Proverbs is revealing: The Lord turns the heart of kings whithersoever He wills--paraphrase.
Ben is a smart man. When it comes to his field. His experience is with politics and social media. Theres no way in hell he would ever qualify for a discussion with sam harris on free will. Sam is an extremely experienced philosopher. This was his home turf... Ben stood no chance.
I mean I tend to agree but he seemed to Homs his own. My problem here is that Sam both endorses effort and discipline, and also says you have no control over ones effort expenditure. I understand the argument fine, but the coherent argument seems to end in a contradictory conclusion
I love how Ben Shapiro just stayed quiet for most of this.
Below his pay grade
Umm you made a mistake in the description.
You said "in human psychology, there is at least agency."
Which is just blatantly false, as Sam Harris can show you
How does Harris show that humans don't have agency? What experiment is done?
Who thought it would be a good idea to have Ben Shapiro debate free will?
Mo Azim Yeah I know it was embarassing for Harris.
@@tonybanks1035 no...
I do not know if he is the only Jew of the three, but Jews do not believe like the bible teaches, that free will was forfeited in Adam--Rom. 8:20.
Unconscious things are determined, conscious things are motivated.
Deterministicaly motivated by already determined fears and wants.
@@infinityblablabla Your fears and your wants come from your understanding of a situation. It is not determined. Change your understanding and you will change your fears and your wants. What comes from understanding is never determined, it's motivated. When you close the switch of consciousness, than you become determined like an inanimate object. But open the switch of consciousness and you transform the chain of cause and effect into a chain of motivation to effect.
And by the way, we do not live in a determined world. At best, it's a random world with some organising force fields. To have a determined world would require infinite precision. But we know there is no such thing. At the quantum level, there is always some degree of imprecision. If, on small number of interactions, things appears determined, on large number of interactions, randomness becomes more and more the law. You know the input but you can never know the output. Not on the small scale anyway. On large scale, you could make some statistical predictions.
For example, take the white ball that hits the black ball. You know the black ball will go in the hole with a certain precision. But if the white ball hits the red ball, that hit the blue ball, that hit the yellow ball, that hits a billion of a billion of a billion balls before it hits the black ball, are you so sure that the black ball will go in the hole? So keep in mind that our world is not as determined as you think. It's more of a random nature with some organizing forces.
That's why quantum mecanics is so good. It's describing the world in a statistical manner by associating a probability wave function to every particule.
Read the conversation I had with Alan Collins down below. There is about 40 exchange between him and me, and near the end, I make a critic of Cosmic Skeptic position on free will. It will enlighten you on the subject. Also, read my comment on the chain of cause and effect. I think, it's the second comment from the top. And after all, why don't you read everything that I wrote in this comment list. You will than, better understand what is free will.
@@AL-vp7mh you've mistaken many things, - randomness by definition is random , it couldn't determined neither it is influenced by state of consciousness and free will, so you are not responsible for randomness in your mind at fundamental level, so it's like someone playing dice in your mind, or you playing dice and talking decision .
- about determinism - you are saying because of uncertainty in fundamental partical we couldn't predict what one's mind will do beforehand , here you are also confused like electron can be two places or there is fundamental uncertainty in position of electron, doesn't mean that a table made of same fundamental particles will have uncertainty of its position so there is uncertainty in electrons positions but as group of particles we can study and predict them, so just see the weather prediction system it's very hard to predict weather after 2-3 weeks because its chaotic systems ( we will predict Greater degree of accuracy in time as we technologically progress) and you could say it's chaotic system ( like our mind) the uncertainty in fundamental particles will amplify the uncertainty in prediction over time, long term prediction will be impossible to determined whole future with 100% accuracy. so now you're confused between determinis and fatalism, offcourse no one can predict your whole life, if i predict your brain function what you are going to do next before you aware of it, then freewill be out of picture, so you see latest libbet experiment, in it, it predicts in lab before subject aware of that they take decisions even some cases even 5-10 sec before and they took dicision so decision (in libet experiment decision was to move a finger or not) already started before they(subjects) awareof it( google search 'libet experiment' to understand what I'm talking about if you don't know) ,
Further we see ai predicts what we next watch before we know what we watch even some psychologist can predict human behavior much more accuracy than someone randomly will predict it,
So in summary let suppose no one could determine/predict you decision before you aware of with 100% accuracy (which is not the case clearly although several seconds/milisec before you aware can be predicted with current technology with almost certainity), if we remove our technological incapability or we couldn't handle waste amount variable and data, reason of indeterminism in long run will be fundamental randomness, and this randomness will give randomness not "FREE WILL".
@@Imnothere59 I was going to type out a big response to that guy but thankfully you save me the effort
@@medicinemandan thanks dude, I thought no-one gonna read this.
"How can we be free as conscious agents, if everything we consciously intend was caused by events in our brain which we did not intend, and over which we had no control?" -Sam Harris
Tom das you mean he has no control over himself?
@@jakecostanza802 Yes. He is himself and cant choose not to be.
According to Sam Harris, consciousness is caused by events in our brain we do not intent or control and because of it we do not have free will. But to freely move an arm, I don't need to control every individual cell in my body or mind. I only need that they respond to my intent however that happen. Just like to freely use a computer I don't need to know the inner working of it. And a conscious state of the brain is not always caused by an unconscious state of the brain. Many times a conscious state of the brain is caused by another conscious state, the details of how it is done, we don't need to know to be free.
IF
@Vlasko60 The mind is intelligent information running on the infrastructure of the brain.
Face with a situation it can evaluate different possible responses based on who you are, what you believe, what you want, etc, and what the situation require.
That's where the intent to move the arm comes from.
It also explain which arm you would choose.
You simply form a subgroup of your possible free will responses and pick one at random based on a weighted system.
Why did I choose the example of the arm and computer?
Simply because considering my historic of past experiences and decisions, those were the most probable exemples for me to choose from the subset of possible responses I could have gave.
Read everything I wrote and you will better understand what is free will.
The argument against free will is not the most simple, but it also isn't especially complex, to the point I believe that any intellectual preaching free will is a victim of their ego's wishful thinking and the power of cognitive dissonance. The problem with free will is that the concept implies an origin of choice that is neither arbitrary nor predetermined, which is not logically possible. For example, if you say that your choice to go one way at a fork in the road was not arbitrary - which both free will believers and non-believers would agree on - then both sides immediately have the burden of coherently describing a non-arbitrary origin for that choice. For determinism, this is easy. Under determinism, we use our observations of the laws of physics to conclude that the universe essentially functions like a machine, predetermined to progress in only one way from the very beginning, which ultimately resulted in you choosing one particular direction at the fork in the road. For believers in free will, their burden is to describe a set of non-arbitrary but also non-deterministic rules. The problem here is that non-arbitrary and non-deterministic rules cannot simply have popped into existence, or else by their very nature they would be arbitrary. Thus, these rules must have a source. That source also cannot have simply popped into existence, since that would, again, be arbitrary. The search for a source that is neither arbitrary nor predetermined, yet also has no source, is an infinite regress. No such regress exists in determinism, which is why determinism is the better option. The concept of free will is not logically coherent, nor does free will need to exist for society to function. Free will only seems to be useful as a concept for people to think of themselves as independent and special.
You have it exactly backward...determinism is the constant search for the prior cause...free will depends on an uncaused prior cause GOD. This is the whole purpose of 100 years of materialist philosophy built on unproven assumptions...eliminate God...eliminate the consequences of all behaviours.
@@markanthony3275 I am unclear what you are speaking of, seems terse and reductive---assertions without argumentation.
@@robertobrien4979 Maybe read some books on the topic...and it will be clearer...start with "The Science Delusion" by Rupert Sheldrake...then "Homosexuality and the Politics of Truth" (in the chapters that Dr. Jeffrey Satinover wrote on free will and also the pagan revival ).
@@markanthony3275 Listened to Sheldrake TED talk, and looked into psi stuff. Thanks....some interesting ideas, some straw men, some good some bizarre....
Except that this source is eternal and uncreated, thus comes the concept of God in the Islamic world view which provides a solid chain of answers coherently allowing for free will to exist without any contradiction. Therefore making the islamic belief the best option for one to exist properly and not having to LIE to children in order to help them conduct a healthy consistent life.
The biggest problem I have is the arrogance from the determinist side. How Sam Harris speaks as if he KNOWS, and not as if he BELIEVES.
Make no mistake- It is on pure faith to claim there is no free will, just as it is faith to claim there is.
Jordan Peterson: *Well, it depends on what you mean by "free"...* 😊
But seriously, if you just subtract every limitation to human freedom of choice that we do indeed know of - intelligence, instincts, the five/six big personality factors etc. - how "free" would you call that what might possibly remain? How "free" would you call speech that has limitations put on it? "You can say (or do) anything you want, as long as it's X" is not freedom in my book 😉.
@@cosmicprison9819 The determinist claim has zero room for the concept of choice. No person who believes in free will thinks you can will yourself out of gravity, so to me the argument is not addressing the root of the disagreement.
I'll put it this way, if "free" is limited to zero, will is too.
If there is a .001% degree of freedom, free will exists, and determinism is not true.
Unquarked My minimal definition of freedom would be the choice between just two alternatives, and the ability to have chosen differently, but free of any constraints (including internal ones) to that small choice. Your definition of .001% would technically imply that if I put you in prison and chained you to a wall, but allowed you to move your fingers by one centimeter, you would still be "free" because you're not completely immobilized. Would you sign up for that? 😉
If you have such a small amount of autonomy, even though it may be entirely within your control, how much of a difference it actually makes in influencing your behaviour and the outside world would probably be negligible. Which is crucial for the application, like the question of how much responsibility you have for your own actions if everything except for .001% that you do is outside your control.
@@cosmicprison9819 Your example of the slave means they cannot choose what they do. Of course that's not free.
If you believe people do make choices, you are arguing for free will and against determinism. As I have already stated, free will makes no claims about the freedom to will yourself out of gravity. Everyone on that side agrees people are somewhat constrained. It is part of the determinist claim that choices are not made.
"Probably be negligible" is a faith-based claim. You have no idea what your constraints are.
@@ronaldp.vincent8226 I wouldn't call a "remaining autonomy" free in any sense of the word. Take the closest comparisons, "free speech" and "free market". People are very quick to judge these as "no longer free" when even just the smallest constraints are placed on them. Especially on speech. Then it's no longer free speech, it's licensed speech. In terms of constraints, just like you can name them for "free speech" (no defamation, no calls to violence etc.), it's also easy to name constraints to will that are not synonymous with physical constraints to your motor capabilities (like the example of being unable to fly, which you cited):
One big constraint would obviously be intelligence. You can't choose to understand something that's too demanding for you, and you can't choose to make yourself less intelligent so that you have an easier time communicating with someone of lower intellect than you. Okay, maybe that's just a constraint of possibility, like being unable to fly?
What about your personality? Personality traits are fairly stable across time, and also heritable.
Can you choose to be more extraverted, so that you experience more positive emotions and develop better social skills, and find social interactions inherently more rewarding instead of draining? Can you choose to be more introverted so that you're less bored when alone (or in lockdown ^^)?
Can you choose to be more conscientious if you think you're being lazy? Or is their a limit to the amount of "kicks in the butt" you can give to yourself? And if so, does that limit differ between people (spoiler: of course it does)? Then we can no longer hold people to the same standard in terms of what is "lazy" or not, because they differ in conscientiousness.
You don't need to believe in full-on determinism to realize in how many ways your freedom of choice is restricted, by very specific factors that you can explicitly name. I'm now trying to understand these arguments on neuronal and quantum levels. If people can convince me of determinism completely, that wouldn't invalidate my experience nor statements that intelligence, personality factors etc. limit the ways in which we can act. On the contrary, it would imply that the limitation is even more extreme than we feel it is in our daily lives. That our will is also not free in those areas where we don't consciously notice it. (Whereas if some activity is too cognitively challenging or not fitting with someone's personality, they usually notice that limitation consciously.)
If the self is an Ilusion to who is it deluting?
watsup chava. EGO, that's who we think we are. It gets scary when you actually start to shed the ego, when you realize how attached we are to the ego, it gets pretty uncomfortable trying to rid that attachment, whoa, let me tell ya.
@Particle Config. I was referring to we as each of our individual conciousness. As for a whole, I believe its possible that the "we" is all of our conciousness collected together...ima be honest, I only started gettin into conciousness after being completely lost inside my mind for some years. meditation has helped me realize that I was identityfying myself with every single negative thought that I would think. Meditation has also made me realize that we truly dont think of our thoughts, they do just arise into the mind/concious eventually without effort.
@@patrickkissane4341 Meditation coming from India has led people both to deny a self and affirm a self.
watsup chava don’t make the atheist go into fits of incoherent screeching
Now I understand that I can not understand anything because I am an illusion. But than who is it that can understand that it can not understand? Something somewhere must certainly understand something about that.
I was very annoyed at Ben Shapiro's objection of Sam's using "active verbs"...
1. I don't see how that's a logical objection... but even if there is some level of sound logic behind it that I'm just not grasping, yet... then there's still...
2. every time Sam was trying to eplain it, he (Ben) kept interrupting the explanation to reassert it...
it's like he thought he had a grand slam argument against it, that he felt justified in not letting Sam speak... basically not even being open to listen to the explanation.
To have "Free Will" I must first be free. I certainly am not. I must first know myself, which I do not. I must first know what Will truly is, and what in me exerts it, which I do not either. So, my point of departure is: I don't actually know shit AND I am a long way from having free will, whatever that is...
the biggest thing is that you are conditioned according to the society,no one has some alien senses as people act like if they are from somewhere else
10:50 "Yeah but they had other things going on" if that isn't the biggest get out of jail free card from Sam there, I don't know what is. If someone takes your ideas and says well they took those ideas and made something bad out of it, you can just pull that out of your ass whenever you want. That's a very convenient way to hide your ideas from any kind of criticism.
Anyone know where I can find the rest of this discussion?
th-cam.com/video/klf7d8WHVzw/w-d-xo.html
We are the puppets of causality.
And yet we retain all things important, like character, integrity and personality.
Ben Shaprio can seem quite dim sometimes.
Judd Johnson most times if his rapid fire responses don't throw you off.
He is smart but Harris is a different caliber.
all times
Shapiro's problem here is that, as a believer in God, and someone whose audience is composed of believers, he HAS to defend free will, as a belief in a judgmental God, which is what the Abrahamic God is, cannot make any sense without free will. But he has no argument for free will, because there isn't one, so he is reduced to making inane comments about action verbs. This being said there are better attempts to argue for free will. Shapiro comes across as either someone who has never done any reading in the matter, or someone who recognises that his audience already agrees with him, so only a token effort is needed. I suspect that most of Shapiro's audience are not in the intellectual range to even consider the bases of the problem. I could be wrong about this, as I am not overly familiar with Shapiro, but this is my suspicion.
Stedman Frye bingo.
To experience a thought or to be aware of a thought or to be thinking a thought is basically the same thing with some nuances. Thinking a thought has more a flavor of "'constructing" a thought or "examining" a thought, like looking at it on every angle to search for meaning. Experiencing a thought has more a flavor of "feeling" or "tasting" a thought. Like if a thought is going through some mental senses that allows you to know it intimatly. You experience it. And being aware of a thought is just knowing you have a thought. Or, in the case of a more complete awareness, it would also include knowing the meaning of the thought. So you can be aware of a thought before you think it thoroughly. In other words, you know you have a thought but you have not examine it completly, part of it being unconsious or incomplete. The act of thinking the thought brings it to complete consciouness or finishes constructing it. But I understand your question. Can you be aware of a thought that do not exist yet? A thought that you have not think or constructed yet. I would have to say yes, you can, to some extent. If you are conscious of what is already there, you can inverse that and be conscious of what's missing. You can not be aware of the inner details of the thought but you know how it must be at it's surface to interface with the existing thought. The rest can be constructed bit by bit or by proximity using conscious logic, randomness or some unconscious process with the help of limits conditions as already explain in a previous comment. Consciousness can not create a thought that it's not conscious of. You have to start with something. To create out of nothing has to be a random act. And with that germ you can go on. In other words, it's impossible to make a new painting without paint but if you have paint you can make as much painting you want. We create thought in reaction to other thoughts. We reflect back on previous thought to see what's the logical suite. We do not create a thought with nothing unless it's random. Or think it (examine it) before it even exist. We use a previous thought. And meaning can not be created by the subconcious because the subconcious would than be the conscious. The conscious is were the awareness is. And because of it you are free. As for the experiments you refer to, they are all very badly design. And the statement that it is possible to know a person's decision before it reaches their consciousness by monitoring their unconscious brain activity is a disputable extrapolation. I already wrote a comment on that, just read it. And read some critics of those experiments and you will see it's not as definitive as you make it seems. But it's a good start and we should continue investigating how it works.
Where is the full video to this or podcast, I mean does anyone know what episode of his podcast this is?
Never mind I found it . It's episode 112 The Intellectual Dark Web - in case anyone is interested.
I'm not siding with Harris on the free will question, but I think some are unaware of what Harris is basing, at least in part, his position on the topic. He explains it in the interview he did on the Joe Rogan podcast. If memory serves it was based on some data that showed the physiological machinations that take place prior to an action or decision we make. From that, Harris concluded that those electrical and chemical processes were beyond our control, and that these processes are making the choice, not free will. That's probably a very simplistic summation of what he said, but you can listen to the interview to hear what he actually says.
You summarized it well enough. I found him to simply be saying that because you can see and measure the machinations of your thought that lead to the physical manifestation, that somehow that meant you never chose it in the first place, which didn't seem like that impressive of an argument against free will.
So they found that something happens in the brain before the body executes the action. Well no shit. Not sure how that qualifies as sufficient evidence against free will.
michael, I agree. I began to awaken 10 years ago. About 5 years ago I learned of Benjamin Libet's discovery (a 1/3 second delay between when a decision is made, and when the conscious mind things "I did that!"), and later Dr. David Vago's similar discoveries that go about 1/2 second.
For me, practicing mindfulness and being aware of the moment a thought enters the mind, choosing not to think about it right now (no judging, just observing and choosing), it becomes obvious that the 5% conscious mind _emerges_ from the 95% subconscious. Constantly! By being mindful/present/awake, we can "front run" ourselves (in a sense) and exercise a veto power. In that sense, there is free will. I can choose not to just blindly follow whatever emerges into my mind from the subconscious. Most people don't practie this. They follow their emergent sense of self/reality on autopilot. In that sense, they don't have free will.
But, even with mindfulness/presence (exercising a veto power over what emerges as reality in our mind), it's "more free will." It's still not perfect free will because the choice not to think about something right now (or act upon some emotional impulse) itself emerges. It's more deliberative with the subconscious. Less autopilot. But, still emergent and beyond our control (besides after-the-fact reflection and veto power; not trusting what emerges). There's a circular loop happening when mindful/present where the subconscious is challenged by consciousness. A more "checked" emergent existence. That definitely feels like it's free will. Yet, it's still a product of emergent consciousness/existence.
Another example of free will is Dr. David Vago. He has a Tedx presentation on youtube where he talks about a 1/2-second delay he's measured. He finds that people who are more observant/present, and who unwittingly spend more time in the sensory-input phase (the first 1/4 second) tend not do be "stuck" in the next 1/4-second's "evaluation" phase. I think that's the phase where we get stuck and ruminate, and get into patterns of living in the past/future. Simply by being mindful (I would say that's what he's describing being), people can discard noise, and be more present (not self-narrating compulsively). That's some level of free will. Yet, it's all happening beyond our conscious state. It's clearly happening before.
When we come to the end of our life of sin and get converted, we learn that human free will does not work.
@@markfullerOnly a few years ago did I learn a new term as applies to God predetermine all things according to His good pleasure--"prevenient grace". It essentially means that God is secretly at work predisposing all things in bringing souls to salvation.
I never get tired of listening to Sam Harris debate in chess and Shapiro getting frustrated because he is still arguing in checkers.
Good one
Three blind men examining an elephant.
L. Ron Gardner that's all science is, until breakthrough happens.
Beethoven was deaf
That doesn't exist
There are a few other senses.
And someone knows it was an elephant.
i do think harris runs into a bit of a wall when asked the question about raising a child. he talks about "effort" even though he does not believe we have the agency to control that.
The causes that determine the amount of effort we apply to any given task are out of our control.
The same goes for the causes that determine our desires.
Teaching our children the qualities they need to achieve their desires would likely become one of the many causes determining the level of effort they apply in the future.
Effort is an option.It is not under ones control.However it can create the option leading to the determined outcome.
correct
We don't. Perhaps Sam talking about putting effort into raising a child is the influence needed for someone to start though. It's pretty annoying to think about but free will need not be a part of the equation
@@whuh8873 how can you decide to put effort in if that effort is not subject to free will?
So you have to make a choice to learn Chinese, but there is no choice to learn Chinese.. Makes sense
the choice to make the choice to learn Chinese isn't a choice you can make
@@evanlofranco Neither is the choice to learn chinese in the first place, if you go in that line. Just stop using free will pertaining words if you don't believe in it.
@@alainlangdon why
@@evanlofranco It will help you understand how incoherent the free will deniers position is.
@@alainlangdon what free will denier? what don't I understand?
Shapiro's nagging voice wears on me.
Harris's bullshit is even more wearing.
@@markmooroolbark252 lol I never understand why people are so angry at Sam. He always seems to be the most logical, on point person.
@@markmooroolbark252 Sam is always the most reasonable person.. what exactly did you have issues with?
@@TriVyteOfficial Not that you asked me, but if I may: Sam Harris to me is just too simplistic. He has not explicated on these issues to the level of Jung, but he seems to have arrived at his conclusion. We are not at the end of this road.
@@ronaldp.vincent8226 Harris is as set in his ways as the others. I could actually argue that Sam is the most open minded of them all.. (do you think Shapiro is open minded?) Sam doesn't get much time to talk, and is nowhere near the loudest.. he's a spiritual athiest, philosopher, PhD in neuroscience, and has said many times he has no problem with the core beliefs of religion.. again, I ask, can you point to something exact?
I love how been shapiro basically sat at the side once Sam broke out the big boi philosophy
…”if we sum all the facts”…woah Sam is saying some “big boi” stuff. Sam is a lightweight. Hasn’t read half of the philosophical literature that he thinks he needs. FA Hayek debunks all of this nonsense but I’m sure Harris has never read anything from Hayek or any of the other critiques of this engineering approach to society
(Using Sam's logic and some common sense) You can't use reason to get to morality. Reason uses you. (as your thoughts are a consequence of deterministic processes.) Reason isn't a tool. You are the tool your deterministic thoughts use to reach their own ends. Call it whatever you want except morality, otherwise your position is irrational.
The first time one bungee jumps or jumps out of a plane, one can realize the relationship/coexistence of free will and determinism. It may not be either or. Bret's layer analogy is in that direction. Thinking outside the context of time can be challenging for many. Perhaps Sam has had experiences where the time component, temporary removed, fostered revelations that he is attempting to articulate. Difficult task with our limited language, particularly english.
If morality isn’t based on informed decisions about positive and negative changes in the experience of conscious creatures, then it can’t be based on anything and is an utterly meaningless word. So either morality is a matter of suffering and wellbeing in conscious beings; or the word has no meaning whatsoever and can be jettisoned from the English language. At which point we can ask ourselves: so there’s no morality but we have to choose between things that improve conscious experience or things that degrade it, which choice will we make? The answer is obvious. This is all Harris is saying. There’s nothing else morality could conceivably mean so if we’re going to use the word we have to use it to describe the choices that improve and degrade experience in conscious creatures.
@@motorhead48067 Wrong.
"So there’s no morality but we have to choose between things that improve conscious experience or things that degrade it, which choice will we make?"
This stands at odds w/ Sam's position because he doesn't believe in any sort of free will. He's a determinist. If you want to presuppose that we can make better or worse choices according to some degree of limited free will then fair enough you're in a position to talk about morality on the basis of wellbeing. If you believe all things are determined and that everything you do is inevitable, then you don't have morality but descriptions of subjective experience. And reason and thoughts are not something you possess but just another component of your deterministic brain; perhaps a method by which it organizes itself independent of any "free and responsible agent."
I disagree with both these guys which is strange because I like aspects of both their positions in general. The problem with the discussion about free will at this level is that it's irrelevant to our daily life view. When you ask someone if they have free will, they are hearing "does someone control your life or do you make the decisions?". It's not, "well my brain had a hicough so I turned the know left before I realized it was the wrong direction". Those types of decisions not being free are fine for phylosophical discussions, but are not meaningful in our daily macro decisions. That means where I'm going to eat tonight, do I study for my exam, will I pick up my kids from school. Those are not random acts of chaos the brain causes.
Thus, we may not have "free will" at the microbiology level, but we sure do at the macro and no higher being or process dictates otherwise. I have never been hungry, decided to go great only to have my brain turn off my plan unless some outside force interrupts, like a disaster, phone call etc. But then we can also admit that we choose to answer the phone call or run out of the house during an earthquake rather than fix that ham sandwich.
This discussion of free will at this level is just hot air, that shouldn't be given air time.
I disagree completely, the rejection of free will has implications that affect our day-to-day lives.
My best friend has anxiety and depression and despite all of my courage and support to help him improve his life, he doesn't. Before I used to get extremely frustrated because he wasn't "choosing" to improve, now I know he can't freely choose, and I don't get frustrated. Instead I'm much more empathic and understanding of the causes behind his behaviour.
I've stopped feeling hatred towards anyone, and I've lost the need to go over the distress they've caused me. How can I take it personally that they chose to hurt me, if they were a victim of biological, psychological and social factors? The same applies with vengeance, I no longer want revenge on the people that have seriously hurt me because I know what they did was no free choice of their own.
I now have ultimate patience for those who are irrational or illogical, because instead of tearing my hair out going "this is so obvious, how are you not getting it, why are you deciding to be so stupid" I can realise that there is a cause for their irrationality which is out of their control.
I'm pretty damn resistant to insults. When people feel the need to criticise me unfairly in the hopes that I'll take it personally, I'm not all that bothered. Before I would be insulted because I couldn't grasp the fact that they consciously and freely decided that it was worth their time to make me feel miserable, but now I know there's no such thing as a free choice, their insults don't hurt me.
Any mistake I make, I never feel unnecessarily guilty for it. If you swapped places with me, atom for atom, you would make the same mistake, so there's no need to feel bad about it. I wasn't in control of the fact that I made a mistake. How many people do you know who beat themselves up thinking "I should have chose to do X... what was I thinking" - it's impossible to choose otherwise so there's no reason to blame yourself.
I never feel stupid if I don't understand something that other people do. In school I used to ask "why am I stupid unlike everyone else, it's all my fault" yet now I know there are prerequisites to learning anything and you can be the unlucky person who didn't catch those prerequisites. I have a friend who is a genius at maths, yet they can't count backwards from 30 to 1. They spent years feeling guilty and stupid and blamed themselves, yet only stopped when they realised what they have is a rare problem that has a CAUSE that they are unaware of. At some point in their lives, they didn't acquire the prerequisites needed to count backwards.
I've stopped feeling guilty for not being as successful as other people. Before I used to feel guilty I don't have as much discipline as a student who gets higher grades than me, now I know they grew up in completely different environmental conditions and inherited behaviours and thoughts that allow them to succeed. Rejecting free will and viewing life deterministically, instead of feeling guilty for not being as successful as certain people, I actually learn to imitate them instead by investigating the factors that lead them to success.
I'm a psychologist, and rejecting free will has seriously boosted the skills needed to succeed in my career. As a psychologist, you have to learn the skill of empathy and understanding of other people's behaviour instead of judging, and... well... if you know there's no free will, and that every behaviour has a cause, instead of fixating on the behaviour you can focus on what caused it. Instead of judging a criminal for their horrendous crimes, you can usefully investigate the factors that lead to his actions, and work to preventing them from having effects on others. And if you're a psychologist you have to learn the skill of detachment, i.e. separating work from home life. You will come across a lot of people who are absolutely evil. When you stop thinking about how horrible they are and how they deserve to die, and blablabla how dare they do this and that, and REALISE that they were not in control of their behaviour, you can detach yourself from the emotions that may cloud your judgement when treating the person.
So that's literally how rejecting free will has improved my daily life. It is completely relevant because it has implications for how we deal with other people's thoughts and behaviours, and that makes up nearly every waking day of our lives.
Richard McCabe . You're confusing free will (aka choice) with biology. We have free will to go to the movies, choose which dinner to order, what outfit to wear, decide where to live, which career to pursue. That has nothing to do with "choosing" to get better from an illness. As a medical professional, you should know better. You cannot "choose" not to get ill.
Your points are phylosophical on how to treat and view people. Those ARE choices. You make the same mistake as many others - confusing free will with biological processes. The major point that people view as free will is the ability to make one's own choices about everyday things, and not being "controlled" in a pre-determined manner or by an outside force.
Kirk, you're actually wrong on the definition of free will. Free will isn't simply the ability to make choices, it's the ability to make FREE choices. You may say you prefer your definition, but the rest of society believes we are free to "choose otherwise".
For example, if you want to lose weight, but you are confronted with chocolate ice cream, and you decide to eat it anyway, that was a choice. But it was not a free choice. That choice was preceded by biological, psychological and social factors that caused it.
Society would say you had the ability to choose otherwise and resist the ice cream, but that's of course not true.
What you're arguing about is going off-topic. You were originally trying to say discussing free will isn't really that important for our daily lives, and I was explaining how rejecting free will has helped me live my daily life better. It's made me less hateful, vengeful, guilty and stressed in my daily life.
Richard McCabe probably the same logic and reasoning behind cold blooded murderers who just can't help but kill people. Just because some people experience pathologies that may inhibit proper functionality of their cognitive/emotional abilities doesn't mean there is no ability to choose or decide. From my point of view, maybe there are people more capable of exercising their will than others, some call it mental toughness. Most people I believe, are not mentally tough. Did you not reach your conclusion and then decided to act accordingly, based on what you "learned?" Or was it just another deterministically driven experience that you would have had, no matter what. Even now as you discuss these topics which you have made your mind up on, is there not a chance that you may change your mind one day given enough evidence to prove otherwise?
@@richardmccabe2392 very interesting and I completely agree. But what would you say for the flipside, the more positive things? Instead of blame, praise and instead of hatred, love? Can pride and love exist with no free will? Can you love someone if they are not the ultimate author of their actions? This is something i’m really struggling with at the minute. I completely agree with everything you said but I can’t do it half-half, only for the bad and not the good. It’s made me question everything I knew about life and what I deem valuable.
I was waiting for a "long story short" moment
I wish fewer people had the free will to post TH-cam comments. Goodness gracious there are some moronic posts in here.
Wow you must be a genius to notice that.
Why is your comment just as useless in comparison?
Great discussion! I disagree with Sam, if you had knowledge of all that is, you would be in the best position to know what you ought to do, but if there is no moral prescription in all that is, then there would be no moral obligations. So an ought doesn't logically follow from an is. The prescription needs to be something that is. Of course, the problem then is that everything in nature seems to be descriptive so a prescription would likely need to be outside of nature. Also we can only be morally obligated to personal beings. This is why it is highly likely that a God exists if morality is objective.
As for determinism, it may be possible for the human mind to be rational without free will. However, we would be unable to affirm any of our beliefs on rational grounds. If you believe that determinism is true, then you admit that you were determined to think so, and you cannot say that you believe it for rational reasons. Even if you think you do, you were determined to think that. See the problem? Given our strong experience of freely making decisions, I think free will far better corresponds with reality.
The incentive to do anything is to maximize your own well being. Maximizing societal well being is essential to that. If you want something, you “should” take measures to obtain it. The essence of the word “should” implies incentive. If we adopt a Christian morality where God is the author of what we should do, we “should” do those actions in order to avoid eternal torment or to gain eternal bliss. In other words, the only reason we “should” do anything is to avoid pain or to gain pleasure, so in the same way, we should seek to maximize our own personal well being.
I don’t know how the existence of non-existence of free will impacts the validity of rationality. Rationality is a system that’s worked to produce consistent results throughout time. You can’t make assertions about reality without using rationality because rationality is the only system we know works.
Morality comes from knowledge.
@@keithohanlon6191 who told you😂😂
Where does an "ought" come from?...if not an "is". Morals are nothing more than our evolutionary survival mechanism. Societal animals display the same characteristics. They have even bred social animals (with morals) from non-social animals (without morals). Morals emerge from brains, nothing more. If you start with the premise that there is an "ought" independent of minds/brains, then you are starting from an unsupported substrate. Even if there is a God (which I doubt) you have no reasonable justification for any attribute, let alone "morals". For all you know your "God" could be evil, by our standards. By any reasonable measure, this appears to be the case. If you begin, impartially, (which I doubt you can do, based on your comment) you would be able to quickly build a case for an evil (vs. benevolent) God. You have to do mental gymnastics (as many religious people do) to conclude that such a God has our (collective/human race) best interest at heart. The universe doesn't seem to agree.
@@rustyosgood5667 Subjective morality does not require an ought as there is no objective prescription, just the preferences of individuals.
I would start with what better corresponds with reality - that things are objectively right and wrong, or that nothing is?
If you are referring to the problem of evil, that has been adequately refuted at the scholarly level. There is no logic contradiction of an all loving God permitting humans to do evil. Most people argue on the basis of probability instead saying that it is unlikely. However, to do that, one would have to demonstrate that a world with less suffering would be objectively better. How could one possibly demonstrate that?
Sam is most likely correct but Ben is actually being more responsible as it relates to human well being over all. Meaning, Sam is right that we don't have free will, we ARE the result of hardware that we didn't choose being updated by inputs with didn't choose. But I get the strong sense that Ben realizes that, and is afraid of the extremely detrimental effects this knowledge will have on society. Sam acts as if, because HE is able to be more compassionate with this knowledge that society will be able to do the same....that is the huge fallacy.
The problem is....Sam, with his hardware, is *not* an accurate representation of the world at large, which is the root of Ben's concerns.
Sam's hardware enables him to navigate extremely intelligently in these new waters. But what about the average person, when they are told that if they commit crimes, even horrible, violent crimes against others, it is through no fault of their own. If they kill themselves, in the end it was inevitable. How is this gonna play out on a broad scale? Sam seems to completely ignore all possible negative consequences that this powerful, utterly life altering knowledge would have, and only uses himself as an example as if he is the average Joe, which is an enormous intellectual fallacy.
So even though some people here comment that Ben is not being as "deep" as Harris (and I like Harris and respect his thoughts on the basics mechanics of the free will issue) that "depth" depends on what you weigh as more important overall. He is actually much more pragmatical on behalf of human well being, I would even say *crucially* so.
Very few people are capable of living with the perspective that we are essentially living a predetermined path as much as if our existence was the playback of a DVD. Logically I know that every decision I make was predetermined at the big bang, but my mind can't accept that, which was also predetermined...
The point of the philosophical debate of free will vs determinism is a matter of what is true.
Whether you should try convincing ppl of one side or the other is a different idea.
@@Gary_oldmans_left_nut If free will is an illusion, then there is no choice to accept or reject it. All has been predetermined.
The whole right-winger ideology hangs on this tiny little thread of believing in free will. So far they haven't really done a great job of defending the idea.
Biniyam Interesting. Say more. How does it hinge on that idea?
@@HebrewHammerJr1
They believe they open their door, while it's the underlings they keep beneath their feet that allow any and all occurrence to take place, they lay claim to the kingdom of God when they had but a small fraction of its making. They are scared of the sacred chaos, and I can't blame them, reality in it's totality is a terrifying enterprise to face.
J D M well put, sir
Ben Shapiro gets MUTILATED with FACTS and LOGIC. Ben gets CONCENTRATION CAMPED by Sam and Eric's ARGUMENTS.
No really though. Ben shouldve been at the kids table for this debate.
Is Eric making the case that we cannot know that facts are facts because we never know if we have all of the information?
The major problem with Sam's argument came up when answering the audience member's question about how to use that knowledge to make change happen, and his answer was in the meta-language of free will; ie., you just have to pull yourself up by your bootstraps. To put it another way, from a deterministic POV, sitting around to see if you learn Chinese is exactly how you learn Chinese, whether you realize it or not.
Yes, Sam's answer is problematic. A person doesn't have a free will but have the capacity to learn and change, to understand and master biology. To do that, a person needs stimuli. So, to answer the mother asking the question, she could provide advice or help to her son so he would acquire necessary skills or mindset to act appropriately. To sum up, free will seems you act without stimuli. Without free will, you can still act but need stimuli to start the process.
Everything is about influence. If you tell people that they will learn Chinese by just sitting around, they will do it expecting to learn Chinese. If you tell them that they need to buy textbooks or move to China they will do that. Even though in both cases the behavior is determined and you are always just "sitting around" waiting for things to happen to you, when deciding what to tell people you should tell them the latter, not the former, because it will have a more positive influence on them.
No, it's not that, it's if you're sitting around to see if you're in an environment where Chinese is needed, second nature, cultural, or just business or intrest you're likely to learn it or attempt to as your instinct naturally pushes you towards it, subconsciously.
Like the Chimpanzees need to grab the fruit, he is conditioned in a situation where food is scarce, it wasn't the choice of will, but the subconscious fear of death and his knowledge of life from prior experience, anxiety driven instincts, that lead to the neurological reaction from the subconscious to the conscious then to the rest of the bodily system, in doing so he receives dopamine and the consciousness rationalises the decision as to allow dopamine to slowly keep him feeling good.
@@PeterXiao1 What you're describing is just "will" not free will. There's a difference
Materialists make a few unprooven assumptions about reality that force them to conclude there is no free will. Here's a few of them:
- Consciousness is an emergent property of the brain.
- Consciousness can not survive the death of the body.
- Consciousness can not act on matter.
- Consciousness do not have will.
- Consciousness only allows subjective perceptions.
- The world is deterministic.
- If there are spiritual worlds, they also have to be deterministic.
- A cause create an infinitly precise effect.
- Randomness do not exist. It's only a lack of informations.
- God or universal consciousness do not exist or have nothing to do with the way the world is.
- There is no ghost or homonculus in the machine.
- And according to Sam Harris, free will require:
* full consciousness
* full control of your body
* full control of your environment
With those assumptions, no wonder they can not see how free will can map on their vision of the world. For them, the world is just a big machine.
But there are other ways of looking at the world that can allow free will. Here are some assumptions one can make just as legitimatly:
- Consciousness precede matter or if it is created by the brain, than it can function independently of it.
- The brain only modulate consciousness.
- Consciousness survive death.
- Consciousness can act on matter in some specific conditions.
- Consciousness have will.
- Consciousness have subjective perception.
- Meaning can be the link between events without determinism.
- Absolute determinism do not exist. There is no direct link between a cause and an effect. It's a statistical link.
- An effect created by a cause can not be infinitly precise.
- Randomness exist. It's part of the very nature of reality.
- God or universal consciousness may exist and may be at the root of reality and our consciousness.
- There can be a ghost in the machine.
- Free will do not require:
* full consciousness
* full control of your body
* or full control of your environment
Now free will seems possible. So it all depends on what you postulate as true. Until we know more about the nature of reality, I think it makes more sens to believe in free will. It is more empowering.
Sam Harris is very funny!
Here's what believers in "no free will" don't understand.
Determinism, or the chain of cause and effect, applies to the physical infrastructure, it do not applies to the software that runs on that infrastructure.
That software, the intelligent information, obeys it's own rules that don't have to be deterministic. It is certainly conditioned by the limits of the machine it's running on, but it's not determined by it.
The machine react to the cause and effect of the universe, but the mind react to it's own rules which is psychologic, sociologic, rational and spiritual.
Exactly like a software that runs on a computer. The material part of the computer obeys physical laws, but the process that are active in the computer obeys the intelligence in the software.
All that is required to have free will is consciousness and randomness otherwise, faced with two choices of equal value, we could not choose.
Also, some think that the brain create the mind, but if this was true, we would have a mind right from birth.
The mind is informations added to the brain. It is constructed by interactions with the environment, your parents, etc. And there is a lot of randomness involved. So, your particular software is not determined, yet it's not random.
If a newborn was fed but was deprived of interactions with the environnement and other human beeings (keep in a dark room, for example), he would without a doubt become a total vegetable.
So, the mind is not produced by the brain. It's acquired by interactions with the environnement. It's informations that runs on the infrastructure of the brain.
The same way you can not see directly the software in the computer because it's encoded in transistor states, the same way you can not see directly the information in the brain because it's encoded in neuronal circuits.
But the intelligence is there and it obeys it's own rules.
It's like an AI that builts itself. What bootstrap the process is consciousness combined with the initial structure of the brain. It start by perceptions like hunger, pain, sensations, etc. Than it become: "I hunger", "I pain", "I sens". Than it differentiate into Me, You. And it grows from there.
At first, you depend a lot on your environnement but as you develop, you control more and more your destiny.
The matter you are made off is your determined aspect. The cells, your biology, your brain, is your conditioned aspect. The mind, the acquired and selfconstructed intelligent informations is your free aspect. It's the place where branching is possible.
Information is immaterial, yet it exist. It's always present with a support of some sort but it's independant of the support. In the right conditions, it can transform the support but the support can not transform it. Only informations or self-interaction can transform the information.
Matter by itself can not experience emotions or subjective perceptions, etc. But matter in interaction with informations can experience love in consciousness. So, what wraps it all and make you a person is the miracle of consciousness. The more you are conscious, the more you are free.
Do you think something as precious as that information just disappear with death? The universe is wiser than you think! Nothing is lost, not one second, believe me.
Read my other comments to know more.
@Vlasko60 If you don't think that subjective perceptions is a miracle than I would say you are a jaded man.
And to this day, the universe has prooved wiser than anyone of us in the human history. And don't you know what personification means as a figure of style?
Don't be afraid of spirituality. If you are intelligent, you won't loose your common sens for beeing a bit more intuitive.
"Believe me", only means that's a conviction for me because of my personal history.
You seem to be a person easily threatened by innocent words.
Why are you so complexed?
Relax man.
And if you read other comments I wrote, you will see that I already adviced people to skip the metaphysic parts if it bothers them.
I will not change for every lunatic that criticizes me. And lunatic don't apply to you. It's a generic way of talking.
@Vlasko60 I prefer to be more rational than logical. Logical people often lack judgment. They can follow a lead but they don't know what's important and what's not. That's one of the reasons they can't understand free will easily. Beeing rational allows you to measure things in proportion. It's a more intuitive approach but it's still very logical. It's foolish to think you can put every aspect of life in equation. That's a very reductive way of looking at things. Seeking knowledge when it's faisable is very noble. I'm a fan of science but I'm not a geek. To me saying God did it is not sufficient. What I prefer is to know how God did it. But I would not close my mind just because some people are afraid to consider spiritual realities. We all function on believe systems. Some don't believe in God and some believe in one. Some believe there's only matter and some believe there is something more. Some believe we survive death and some don't. But it's all believes from one side or the other. What's important is to stay rational in your believes system. It can not be anything. Otherwise it would than be magical thinking. I don't see any problem with having a global vision of life. How can you be so sure you are right? Don't you think your stance is arrogant? When it's time to be down to earth, I am. But when it's time to be spiritual, I am. I don't like the attitude of bigoted pseudo science people like you are showing. I find that just as repulsive as dogmatic religious people. I couldn't care less what you think about my spiritual life. To me you're an idiot on that subject. And you lack vision.
@Vlasko60 If you were changing with scientific evidence you would be more open minded than you are right now. You clearly choose which scientific evidences to believe, base on your prejudices. Science is made by human. It's full of bias. It's easy to understand why most scientist are more attracted by concrete easy to study subject with accessible data and measurements. The chances of finding something practical and easily formated into a conventional theory and beeing recognized by your peers and obtaining subventions is higher. You can always find some dogmatic scientific persons that are ready to reject what's possible because of the status of their believes. They have ALWAYS been prooved wrong. Beeing carefull with your measurements and theories doesn't mean beeing close minded. You are not better than anyone. You are just and arrogant close minded person not even capable of understanding how free will works even when you have it right under your nose. There is more to life than what we can see. The scientific approach is good but the spiritual approach is also good. Your problem is that you don't even allow yourself to evaluate how things could be if some ideas were true, for fear of loosing your pseudo objectivity. Your kinds are an obstacle to the advancement of humanity. A better way foward is a good balance of science and spirituality. But it's not a kind of maturity you understand or are capable of. That's a shame. Get out my way.
@Vlasko60 Spirituality has nothing to do with wishing.
When I started to write comments on free will, I told myself I would try to not insult anyone because I tought it would not serve the subject. But some people really just deserve it. Yet, for this reason, I will refrain from giving you any more adjectives.
All you are looking for is polemics. You have no interest in contributing to the clarification of the subject at hands, which is free will. People are not all stupid, they will see through your childish game.
I have no more time to loose with you.
When someone says, “ all of ur success or failures has nothing to do you and your choices” , the question isn’t if that’s true or not. The question is, why would you openly say that to anyone? It’s a arrogant way of saying, “ once we know everything down to the quantum throughout space and time, everything will be fixed that’s broken.”
"I hope to convince you that free will is an illusion." ---- Sam Harris, determinist
Obviously, Harris is mistaken. Or perhaps he is simply confused by the paradox. It is constructed as a bit of a Gordian Knot. The sword can be found here: marvinedwards.me/2019/03/08/free-will-whats-wrong-and-how-to-fix-it/
Saying that isn't incompatible with a lack of belief in free will
It seems that humans don’t have free will, we just have a spectrum of choices to make at any given time and what determines those choices are a number of variables/influences. A good analogy is similar to playing chess, there are more parameters and restrictions to your moves(ie you can’t move off the board, certain pieces can only move in certain directions) but the amount of moves that can be made are still huge and varied. Choice is a construct/operation of the brain. If humans did have free will - at what point does it kick in? 3/6/9 months after a fertilized egg in the womb, 2 years old? Does someone still have free will in a coma? Do humans have free will all the time, we just choose not to exercise it most of the time?
Yeah, but it's the choices themselves that show we have free will. How can you make any choice and not be cognizant and even predictive and reflective of that choice? Atheists are compelled to make absurd arguments like free will doesn't exist and that consciousness is an illusion because it's the only way they can maintain their materialistic worldview. They're forcibly shoe horning consciousness into their materialist philosophies which is disingenuous to say the least. And how, exactly, does our response to events show that we don't have freewill? Sam seems to think of human beings as being nothing more than paramecium responding to a light stimulus or being prodded by a dissection tool. It's ridiculous. Ultimately, his argument, if true, would only show it's the universe that makes choices and we're nothing more than puppets.
You have will to change your circumstances. If you believe in God this all makes sense
Eric thinking bubble..... "why"
Eric Weinstein was wrong about one thing. Self reflection doesn't lead to madness. Self reflection leads to sanity. *Sanity*, leads to madness.
if a implies b and b implies c then a implies c.
@@xsuploader It just depends on what kind of proximity we're talking about then, but yes, you're right. It's still misleading enough that self reflection->madness that it's akin to giving someone directions to Rhode Island from Maryland and not mentioning moving through New York. Perhaps there's a better analogy but it should get the point across. There's something quite significant between self-reflection and madness, and that is some degree of being in touch with reality. Weinstein does not strike me as a person that is deeply pre-occupied with self-reflection/awareness.
I think it is contraindicative the formulation of those two words Free - Will. You cannot have those two things cemented together There is nothing like free will because it is not free because there is a juxtapose consequence for every free will decision you make. But you have a will but it is not free. And I think Sam Harris is mixing these two things together and Eric and Sean are both correct. The assumption that at different strata of the human experience, we have the ability to express our ability to will and at some other level we almost because predetermined and determined even if we are not completely. And we cannot understand all of these from the materialistic point of view. Dr. Iain McGilChrist said - The people who tell you you don’t have free will are exercising their free will to tell you you don’t!
Christian freedom (of will) is not their own by human nature, but it is by inheritance from Jesus Christ who is that free will Spirit.
I don't understand why people feel Shapiro didn't belong here. He's clearly an incredibly intelligent person who has a rational and fact based outlook on life. He's the exact person to play devils advocate in this situation.
He added nothing
Top Ranked He added an opposing point of view, its not a debate if everyone is just agreeing with each other.
No
He didn't seem to understand the claim at all. Sam was talking about libertarian free will
@@DrippyPiece no...he added nothing
Agh, I hate seeing Sam take ridiculous things on board. He has so much to say that's useful and good, but then he boxes himself in with this "no free will" thing. Never mind the question of whether we have or don't have free will. Let's just give him that one momentarily and say we don't. At that point there is absolutely NO remaining basis for moral discussion. If you didn't choose your actions - if you had absolutely no real alternative to the behavior you exhibited, then you simply CANNOT be held *morally* accountable for it. To see someone, presumably very intelligent, try to have it both ways on that is just laughable.
I get it. The concern is that if you concede free will it opens the door (potentially) to a "mysticism of mind." Then it becomes much harder to just slam the door on the religious argument hands down. But not impossible. Even if Sam conceded that our minds were in some way unexplainable / magical, that DOES NOT reduce the impact of his observations about the negative impacts religion has had on the world. Not one single bit.
It's like he's got this card in his hand that he thinks is an unbeatable one, so he's not willing to give it up, while really it's not a powerful card at all.
Exactly this is so very true, its so strange to hear good helpful advise then to go down this weird argument that you actually can not prove in completion. No one can actually say what we are in full or where we came from or where we are going, to try and say we actually know for sure what we are or how the universe works is really just foolish
I agree.
Can an illusion realised that it is an illusion?
Exactly these guys are full of crap. Not even worth debating. That alone assumes freewill.
Stealing a quote from someone else here: 'There is awareness, and there are objects of consciousness, but the “self” is one of the objects; it’s not the awareness.'
Actually though, there are no objects of consciousness either, but that's one paradigm shift away from the one I'm asking you to make here :)
@@j2mfp78 Yeah they should have just had you on the panel
@@anthonygumingo9840 I don't entertain stupid self refuting ideas like "We have no freewill " But you can, especially if you believe you have no choice in the matter. 😜
Pointless wordplay. As I understand it, you are saying that we have the independence of realizing that Free will is an illusion? Again, why were we not debating this earlier? It was only when the findings of Psychology, Neuroscience began to point in this direction were we forced to confront it.
If there is no free will, how does one decide that there is or is not free will? And suppose someone decides one way or the other. Do then not have the capacity to change their mind about the subject?
Pragmatic Entertainment True, all matter is subject to the laws of physics, but determinists make no distinction between living and nonliving matter.
Free means "without cost" every choice or decision made, conscious or not, has a "cost" therefore we have will and choice, but it isn't free. "Free" is a con man's term to fool impressionable people
Marty Maiden No, you are conflating the idea of free will (which is the ability to male decisions without the constraint of necessity or fate) with freedom from cost. Despite them both having the word "free" in them, free will and free shit (as in commodities) are different concepts. Free will does not mean freedom from cost.
Sorry but you are wrong. With your description, there is no need to use the bullshit term "free". That is a term used by conmen philosophers to make people feel they are special. The term free means without cost. Monetary costs are not the only types of cost that exists. In fact, that is a less frequent example of the term as it applies to life in general. Drop the bullshit term "free". Its just will! I quit smoking cigs using my willpower and nothing about it was free. I made the decision based on potential "costs" to my longevity and quality of life
Marty Maiden So do you believe that freedom is a bullshit term? Should it just be dom without the free?
If I am 'reasoning', I CHOOSE which facts I'm going to use to determine the reasonableness of that which I am considering. I CHOOSE to consider some facts as pertinent to the issue under consideration and CHOOSE to disregard others. This choice denotes free will.
We may not have absolute free will, but to say we have no free will is ridiculous.
you just don't get it. None of teh points you make conflict with what Sam is saying. If you don't realize that you must not understand it.
When a single cause create a single effect dictated by a physical law, that's what we call determinism. It apply to inanimate object composed of many atoms. But with a single particule, it can be very different. A cause can have multiple potential effects. Only one will manifest when a measurement is made, usually the most probable one considering the environnement. But other less probable effects can also manifest. That's the quantum world, very strange to us. And we still don't know what role consciouness play in it. But what we know is that when we bind many particule together, the probability of the effect manifesting adds to become an inevitability, and the less probable options become insignificant. And what about the complexe conscious beeings? In this case, there are mutiple inputs and multiple potential outputs, of which only one or a few will actualised, giving the conscious being the sentiment that it could have choosen otherwise. And it's true, it could. Because the actual output, loop back in the input. So, if the output don't give the expected results, the neuronal circuits will detect it and change the output to better suit the wanted result. Up to here, it would be just like what a computer could do, but in the case of a conscious being, there is another feeback loop of consciouness on itself and that's something a computer can not do yet. The neuronal circuits create consciouness and meaning which feeback on the neuronale circuit that create consciousness and meaning. It's not an output, input thing. It's the internal circuits acting on themself. The loop don't go from outside to inside, it stay inside and loop on itself. For a computer to do this, it would take an instruction (for example: If condition then action) capable of reading itself and understanding it's own meaning and acting accordingly. It would take an instruction that knows it's an instruction and what it's doing. Exactly like what we are; Conscious beeing aware of our own thoughts and so capable of changing them at will, according to the meaning we perceive. So, that's why it's hard to understand free will for some people. They think with a single cause and a single effect with no feedback, and the outcome seems inevitable. And altough that's the way inanimate things work at a certain level, it's not the way microscopic or complex conscious beeing work. The chain of cause and effect end where consciousness begin because consciousness can act back according to meaning. So, contrary to inanimate things, we really have options that we can exercice at will. When acted upon, we can react in multiple potential ways and the way we choose will depends on the meaning it has for us. It do not depend on what just happened prior, in the past. The output is not forced or inevitable, it's understood and created by the meaning. The chain of cause and effect may create consciousness but than consciouness create the next effect base on the actual meaning, not on the past cause. And this new cause is now called a motivation which look exactly like an ordinary cause but is the result of a free will emanating from consciouness, and not the direct result of a previous physical cause which was originating from the big bang. Here, "free will" is the "will" associated to the meaning held in consciouness through awareness. It's free because it's the consequence of an understanding which can change with experience and the intention making it, ultimatly, a choice between good and bad, between the will of God or the will of the ego. And after that, the effect may continue as a chain of cause and effect, if no consciouness is involved. But it returns to a motivation and effect chain when consciouness is involved. Cause and effect when the switch is off. Motivation and effect when the switch is on. Things don't happen without causes. It's just that the causes are due to the meaning when consciouness is involve. For now, consciousness is a mystery and free will lies in that mystery.
A L Nice argument. My concern is that, as you admit, the conscious experience is at bottom caused by factors outside of our own control or experience, so it seems anything that follows is ultimately based on variables outside of our control. Also, you weigh heavily in the idea that our conscious experience and “meaning” is what essentially interrupts or injects itself j to the input/output equation, yet you’re simply describing brain function which manifests into internal dialogue/debate/decision making (all due to physical events in the brain caused still by the chain of events). So yes, in that regard we function differently than a computer, there’s a process involved in our decision making experience that a computer does not have, nevertheless its simply a manifestation of physical processes in the brain as the neurons pinball with each other.
@@tsemi9485 I don't think that consciousness comes from the physical brain only.
I believe that we have a soul body and many other structures that connect us to a universal consciousness.
As I said in another comment, I choose to incorporate in the expression BRAIN, anything that allows our mind to be. So, when I say brain, I mean brain plus soul body plus anything that makes consciousness possible. And in this particular comment, I just emphased the idea that there must be a loop of consciousness on itself going back to the ultimate nature of reality.
It's still a mystery to me. And it may be a mystery for God himself, if God exist. In fact, for me God is that universal consciousness. It's primordial and it created everything just because it can. But maybe it doesn't know why it's conscious itself.
And if God is not free, then nobody is... because we are God playing the game of life within its own consciousness. And technically, God is uncaused since there is nothing outside God.
My explanation of free will is based on the mystery of consciousness. If consciousness was proven to be some sort of illusion, then you are right, there would be no free will.
But is that a life I would want to live?
Nobody knows for sure. But from what I understand, free will makes more sens.
That's why I'm still alive and fighting to better myself.
@@alainlangdon very good explanation
@@alainlangdon consciousness is an illusion its not an inherently real thing
Free will is the ability to choose according to your understanding.
When you delibarate, you obey the rules of your "software". That "software" has it's own rules that are not necessarily deterministic.
For one cause, you don't have only one possible effect. You can have many possible adequate response to a situation. Sometimes they all have the same value, sometimes not. If they don't all have the same value, you only have to put a weight on each of them before choosing at random.
Because it's not just a question of what you prefer, it's also what's most likely to attend the goal. Weighting each response is the best thing to do when you don't know which one will do the trick. That way, you compromise and keep your options open at the same time. There is always a compromise between how you feel and what you should do. Then you monitor the result and decide if it was the right response to give to the situation according to your goal.
It's not always easy to evaluate if we go in the right direction. It's an equation with many missing variables but we manage to appoximate what it means to us. And with each decision, we transform ourself, we become a new person, that will react differently to the next choice, in an unpredictable way, yet rational way at least for the person.
We are always at the cross road. At every step, there are multiple possible branching. It's not determined, it's not random, it's understood.
And consciousness is what wraps it up in a nice little package called the free agent. It's yourself, a human being: determined on some level (your physicality), conditioned on another level (your biology), and free, to some extent, where it counts (your mind, your "software", where the branching is possible).
Don't you think that's the way we function?
When face with a situation, don't you say : I could do this…, I could do that…, I’m not sure what I should do…, how do I feel?, what is the best for this situation?, for me?, for everybody? And instinctivly you weight the options according to who you are (your values, your believes, your inclinations and feelings, your rationality, etc.) and you choose at random. But it's not random because there's a rational before the final random choice, the free choice. That’s why you can always say : I could have done otherwise. And it's true. You could...
What makes people think that human free will is so important to preserve in the next life when all things human will have been dissolved?
If God existed, I imagine He would be like Weinstein and give me incomprehensible answers to all my existential questions forcing me to just nod and mumble "oh, okay..."
You don't want to know, that's the reason!
I actually think he was great here and made a lot of sense
He actually added clarity.
If you mumble "oh, okay...", that's your action.
Take responsibility.
For Goodness' sake or are you going to argue, the UNIVERSE MADE YOU DO THAT? Where's even the border to religion exactly, in that statement?
Whiny people... I suppose it's just as Sam reflected upon himself:
_Jocko is his exact opposite._
We can’t even know a particles position and velocity at the same time Sam
What does that have to do with anything
How about free will is an illusion on the grounds that you would feel like you are making choices but what if those choices are already pre-determined.
What if it’s your soul’s story book and you will always make the choices that bring you down the path regarding your life story?
Ben is just a presuppositionallist if you guys really want to understand bens position ,watch the debate that sye ten bruggencate and Matt Dillahunty had
Pragmatic Entertainment its difficult for me explain but u should watch that debate
'I'm not sure but you should google it', would of been a better saying.
Ben is not a presuppositionalist. That position holds a compatibilist view of freewill whereas Ben's position is that of libertarian freewill.
In the beginning of this supposed debate the language that Ben is using like we're just sacks of meat , we're just floating through the universe it almost sounds like he's trying to say you cannot be rational you cannot trust what you think without acknowledging God and also you cannot have free will without acknowledging free will or you can't be rational without Free Will Etc that's what I meant
Jeff Markus In the beginning of this supposed debate the language that Ben is using like we're just sacks of meat , we're just floating through the universe it almost sounds like he's trying to say you cannot be rational you cannot trust what you think without acknowledging God and also you cannot have free will without acknowledging free will or you can't be rational without Free Will Etc that's what I meant
thank you for uploading!!
Thought Ben had good questions, that went unanswered. Both of these men are 20+ years older then Ben, he will continue to refine with experience.
I am a physicist and I will provide solid arguments that prove that consciousness cannot be generated by the brain (in my youtube channel you can find a video with more detailed explanations). Many argue that consciousness is an emergent property of the brain, but it is possible to show that such hypothesis is inconsistent with our scientific knowledges. In fact, it is possible to show that all the examples of emergent properties consists of concepts used to describe how an external object appear to our conscious mind, and not how it is in itself, which means how the object is independently from our observation. In other words, emergent properties are ideas conceived to describe or classify, according to arbitrary criteria and from an arbitrary point of view, certain processes or systems. In summary, emergent properties are intrinsically subjective, since they are based on the arbitrary choice to focus on certain aspects of a system and neglet other aspects, such as microscopic structures and processes; emergent properties consist of ideas through which we describe how the external reality appears to our conscious mind: without a conscious mind, these ideas (= emergent properties) would not exist at all.
Here comes my first argument: arbitrariness, subjectivity, classifications and approximate descriptions, imply the existence of a conscious mind, which can arbitrarily choose a specific point of view and focus on certain aspects while neglecting others. It is obvious that consciousness cannot be considered an emergent property of the physical reality, because consciousenss is a preliminary necessary condition for the existence of any emergent property. We have then a logical contradiction. Nothing which presupposes the existence of consciousness can be used to try to explain the existence of consciousness.
Here comes my second argument: our scientific knowledge shows that brain processes consist of sequences of ordinary elementary physical processes; since consciousness is not a property of ordinary elementary physical processes, then a succession of such processes cannot have cosciousness as a property. In fact we can break down the process and analyze it step by step, and in every step consciousness would be absent, so there would never be any consciousness during the entire sequence of elementary processes. It must be also understood that considering a group of elementary processes together as a whole is an arbitrary choice. In fact, according to the laws of physics, any number of elementary processes is totally equivalent. We could consider a group of one hundred elementary processes or ten thousand elementary processes, or any other number; this choice is arbitrary and not reducible to the laws of physics. However, consciousness is a necessary preliminary condition for the existence of arbitrary choices; therefore consciousness cannot be a property of a sequence of elementary processes as a whole, because such sequence as a whole is only an arbitrary and abstract concept that cannot exist independently of a conscious mind.
Here comes my third argument: It should also be considered that brain processes consist of billions of sequences of elementary processes that take place in different points of the brain; if we attributed to these processes the property of consciousness, we would have to associate with the brain billions of different consciousnesses, that is billions of minds and personalities, each with its own self-awareness and will; this contradicts our direct experience, that is, our awareness of being a single person who is able to control the voluntary movements of his own body with his own will. If cerebral processes are analyzed taking into account the laws of physics, these processes do not identify any unity; this missing unit is the necessarily non-physical element (precisely because it is missing in the brain), the element that interprets the brain processes and generates a unitary conscious state, that is the human mind.
Here comes my forth argument: Consciousness is characterized by the fact that self-awareness is an immediate intuition that cannot be broken down or fragmented into simpler elements. This characteristic of consciousness of presenting itself as a unitary and non-decomposable state, not fragmented into billions of personalities, does not correspond to the quantum description of brain processes, which instead consist of billions of sequences of elementary incoherent quantum processes. When someone claims that consciousness is a property of the brain, they are implicitly considering the brain as a whole, an entity with its own specific properties, other than the properties of the components. From the physical point of view, the brain is not a whole, because its quantum state is not a coherent state, as in the case of entangled systems; the very fact of speaking of "brain" rather than many cells that have different quantum states, is an arbitrary choice. This is an important aspect, because, as I have said, consciousness is a necessary preliminary condition for the existence of arbitrariness. So, if a system can be considered decomposable and considering it as a whole is an arbitrary choice, then it is inconsistent to assume that such a system can have or generate consciousness, since consciousness is a necessary precondition for the existence of any arbitrary choice. In other words, to regard consciousness as a property ofthe brain, we must first define what the brain is, and to do so we must rely only on the laws of physics, without introducing arbitrary notions extraneous to them; if this cannot be done, then it means that every property we attribute to the brain is not reducible to the laws of physics, and therefore such property would be nonphysical. Since the interactions between the quantum particles that make up the brain are ordinary interactions, it is not actually possible to define the brain based solely on the laws of physics. The only way to define the brain is to arbitrarily establish that a certain number of particles belong to it and others do not belong to it, but such arbitrariness is not admissible. In fact, the brain is not physically separated from the other organs of the body, with which it interacts, nor is it physically isolated from the external environment, just as it is not isolated from other brains, since we can communicate with other people, and to do so we use physical means, for example acoustic waves or electromagnetic waves (light). This necessary arbitrariness in defining what the brain is, is sufficient to demonstrate that consciousness is not reducible to the laws of physics. Besides, since the brain is an arbitrary concept, and consciousness is the necessary preliminary condition for the existence of arbitrariness, consciousness cannot be a property of the brain.
Based on these considerations, we can exclude that consciousness is generated by brain processes or is an emergent property of the brain. Marco Biagini
And so, is your conclusion, at least in part, that the brain as an organ is different than a mind with consciousness?
And since we can make arbitrary distinctions, the precondition for a mind exists prior to a brain?
@@toddcote4904 First of all, the brain as an organ is an arbitrary concept, and therefore the mind is a precondition for the existence of the brain as an organ.
@@marcobiagini1878
I agree, as that was what I was postulating in my second question.
So given that that is true, would you then conclude that an immaterial world exists apart from the natural world?
@@toddcote4904 It is worth considering that the current laws of physics explain with great accuracy all chemical and biological processes, including cerebral processes. Devolopments in physics are expected to refer to high energy processes or cosmology, but it is unreasonable to hypothesize that we will find new laws of physics that will change our descriptions of biological processes. The point is that we do not need new laws of physics to explain biological and cerebral processes, because such processes are perfectly reducible to the current laws of physics, while consciousness is not. Since consciousness is irreducible to cerebral processes and to the laws of physics, the only rational explanation for the existence of consciousness is that an immaterial/unphysical element exists in us and interacts with cerebral processes, and our mind is the result of such interaction.
The nature of such non-physical element and of its interaction with the brain cannot be investigated through the scientific method, since it is not physical. Therefore, the problem to establish the nature of such non-physical element does not belong to the scientific domain, but to the metaphysical domain, and it is a matter of personal beliefs. In conclusion, an honest scientist must recognize that science has some intrinsic limits and that consciousness is certainly beyond such limits.
@@marcobiagini1878
It's nice to see someone acknowledge that science is limited.
You state that the laws of physics explain in great detail, biology. I find that interesting and perhaps unsatisfactory. Do mean macro evolution, random mutation through natural selection, as a viable mechanism, is supported by such laws of physics?
Have you ever heard of Dr. James Tour or Dr. Stephen Myer?
Sam missed an opportunity to elaborate on how truth and its effect on reason is exactly why the ability to reason is the x factor that bridges his inability to express his argument better. Reasoning is the influencer of behavior. It is perhaps our one autonomous ability. The choice to reason.
I agree, he should've broken down the illusion of free will to its more basic form which is in the process of thought itself
can you elaborate on a practical example? I try to understand it but still don't really grasp it
If Sam expanded upon what he means by “effort,” I think he would stumble into the same territory as those who are arguing for free will. Nobody is disputing that we are open systems influenced by our biology and environment.. Those who argue for free will are simply saying that there is more to the equation, and by suggesting that you can arrive to a desired future through “effort,” I think Sam actually agrees.
The effort itself is a result of prior causes you numpty
If you are determined, than there is no choice! The very fact that there is a choice to be made, good or bad, is indicative that you are free to choose according to your understanding. Some properties that are only found in consciouness are self awareness, transcendantal understanding or grasping the meaning, will or free will I might add, subjective perception (color, taste, etc) and general consciouness. There is nothing of those in the subconscious so it can not create what it don't have. The conscious mind is using the unconscious mind not the other way around. Free will doesn't mean without a reason. That would be randomness. Free will mean caused by "will" coming from consciouness because of meaning. And determinism mean caused by something physical or by a known force field. You are more than just a powerless witness to your life. If I'm wrong and by some mysterious phenomena the unsconscious mind unwillingly created something that is conscious, than once it's establish it obey it's own rules that are base on meaning. And according to NDE this thing may even survive the extinction of the body at least for a while and I believe that this should be study more. It's like UFO, people used to say it's impossible, but you will see, it's going to be more and more common knowledge that those things are real. And if we can believe experiencer, at least some of them, it seems that those aliens communicate by telepathy. That's meaning acting outside the brain on another's neurones.
I didn't see this when I posted the questions in a new thread. Feel free to ignore it, I'll read what you have said.
Actually if your choice was causally inevitable, then the fact that it would be you performing the choosing, and no other object in the physical universe, was also causally inevitable. Determinism changes nothing.
@@marvinedwards737 Your statement is not very strong in the sens that you do not address any of the hard problems, like if you don't even perceive that there are problems. First of all, it's not a simple cause that precipitate the choice, it's conscious intelligent informations, in other words, meaning. And this allows free will.
@@alainlangdon Right. Biological causation results in an object that behaves in a goal-directed (purposeful) manner to survive, thrive, and reproduce. Rational causation comes with an evolved neurology capable of imagination, evaluation, and choosing the best means of achieving the biological purpose. The mind (a process running upon the neural infrastructure) transforms sensory input into conceptual objects and events, creating meaning. And this is where free will makes its appearance in the universe.
@@marvinedwards737 Now you said it better than I can. Thank you.
These guys can’t keep up w/ Sam
dude, just peed my pants. Was Seinfeld your teacher?
It is cute, that you truly believe that.
Judging by the way you're childishly making his reasoning seem superior:
He's a hero for you, isn't he? Freeing the world from BRUTAL religion, isn't he?
Well. We're gonna see (once again), what happens if people plead for atheism.
Looks like the 20th century wasn't enough, just yet.
How can people be so naïve? Even if Sam's mere scientific approach to the structure of the human mind, and disregard for religion within society, worked for him (which I'm not sure about after watching him talk of that recent Mushroom trip, where he's basically advertising individual religious belief, which actually unironically seems to be his most genius idea so far) --- how can anyone be sure that it would work for other people, and not drag them down a vicious nihilistic, or, to the other extreme favouring-of-tyranny, rabbit hole.
The greatest thing to moral spanning a group of people, the greatest achievement we've ever had in this regard, is just one:
Religion.
@19:47 … what does she mean.
does anyone have the video of this?
"There's no free will, but effort is extremely important."
????? That makes NO sense. How can anyone hear that and think this man has the right ideas going on?
I know right? Whats worse is people will defend him being right by over thinking the whole thing and going into a loop that still never actually makes sense
Why doesn't it make sense?
I'll repeat mostly what I just said in another comment: What I get from his assertion is that knowing that free will doesn't exists is NOT an incentive to sit around doing nothing all day "because nothing matters" - the consequences of your actions are still around the corner and you will, inevitably, be acting with that in mind.
So if you want to learn chinese, then you should know that it takes some effort. The same thing goes for most of the things you want in life - so there is still incentive for effort.
@@EvilMatheusBandicoot just to expand on this, as I understand it, if you are a person who is never going to learn Chinese then you will never learn it.
There's a sliding scale of people who will learn Chinese badly, learn it fluently and everything in between. The fact that the person who learned it badly had the lack of determination, intellectual capacity or time doesn't mean that on some imaginary "second playthrough" they would buckle down and learn it because they would never get a second playthrough.
Even if a person tried 100 times to learn Chinese and failed every time, but succeeded the 101st time, that's not evidence of free will, it's synapses and neurochemicals being influenced to succeed the 101st time.
It's important to do things because you're capable but if you weren't capable you would never know the difference.
I feel as though Sam sugar coats the more fatalistic elements of determinism but his assertion that knowing all of the is would give you the ought holds water I think. You aren't given a choice of how you interpret the imperial facts of the universe, so if you were forced to know everything you would know what to do to make sure all the robots have a nice time.
Out of all discussions I've come across on the internet about human free will, one with most substantial content definitely goes to Conway's free will theorem (FWT). Anyone seriously interested in some concrete content on this subject matter should have a look into FWT. Here's a link to the last of 6 public lectures Conway gave about FWT, on which he discusses some consequences of the result and argues (positively) for the human free will despite acknowledging the irrefutable consistency of the determinism:
th-cam.com/video/IgvkhgE1Cps/w-d-xo.html
In fact, Conway, as a proponent of the free will position, has contributed more substantial argument towards determinism in this lecture than any of the determinists preceding him, exhibiting his prowess as a first class mathematician and the depth of his thoughts on this subject matter.
Isn't it easy to point out the emotional bias if he agrees that DT is irrefutable consistent?
@@Dababs8294 I wouldn't necessarily put it as an emotional bias. You could call it a belief, perhaps. But he does a better job at defending his position in his lecture than I can cover for him, so I would encourage you to watch the series. Quite entertaining if you have a sufficient background.
One important point I would like to highlight is that, even if we completely disregard his free will position on faith, he still contributes more on this discussion on determinism vs free will.
He proves that if humans have free will then so do elementary particles. If one accepts that humans do have free will, elementary particles necessarily have free will as well. On the other hand, if one accepts that the elementary particles cannot possibly have free will, then it will inevitably mean that humans don't have free will either. So, either side you are on, Conway gives you something constructive to say towards your position.
He also concretely defines what it would mean to have free will; something no one has been able to do actually. According to his definition, to have free will means that the future behavior is not expressible as a function of the information about the past. He further gives a striking point: with this definition, randomness =/= free will. To have free will requires more than just being random. So, it is quite amusing to watch the guests here often equating randomness with free will.
@@neutralcriticism4017 conways arguments are all bullshit
I watched the whole video.
1. if particles have freewill then moral responsibility can be equally placed on any system of particles like a rock.
2. if p implies q and q is a surprise.... Im not responding to this babble
3. incompleteness of quantum mechanics... doesnt matter. The incompleteness of a theory doesnt imply another fact unless you can establish the fact. This is as silly as saying the the theory of everything is found thus God.
all of the arguments are like this. Thanks for wasting an hour of my life by implying conway had anything of substance.
Is it really that hard to just say, “choice is an illusion”....?
🤷♂️
Yes it's hard because you have to lie to yourself and submit so deeply to the thought of another (in this case Sam Harris) that you come to believe that lie.
@@alainlangdon
Huh?
Did you literally just type that assuming my position on the subject? Lol You sound like you’re struggling with this topic and feel threatened by Sam. I don’t even agree with everything Sam has to say but how is he a liar lol?
Get help my friend 🤜🤛
@@AndrewJoshua11 You made a comment on a video where Sam Harris defend categorically that we have no free will and you write: "Is it really that hard to just say choice is an illusion?".
Well, yes it's that hard because it's false.
There is no link between a cause and an effect in consciousness. It's not that a choice is random, altough randomness is often involved, it's that there is absolutly nothing forcing a choice in a direction or another. A choice is not forced, it's understood.
There are certainly reasons to act or choose but the impulsion is free. There is simply an understanding in consciousness that you have to decide at some point..., that you can not deliberate for ever..., so you stop when you feel you have exausted the options to your satisfaction or you stop at a random moment and opt for what appears to be your best option at that very moment, understanding that you could have stop at a moment sooner or later because it's random, and you could have set some criteria of decision differently because it's also random in large part, and you could have analysed the situation from another angle for the same reason, and finally you could have came to a different understanding and consequently, but not causally, had made another decision or choice.
You did what you did but it could have been different. You understand your choice, but many aspects of your choice comes from randomness, and you know it. It can not be otherwise because we are not all knowing. We construct the story as we go... It's our will to advance not knowing everything we need but making our best guess about what the next move should be. It's our free will...
Randomness is involved at many level but the choice and the analyses are not random because we are conscious... We can grab the meaning and that's a miracle! We are not robots.
The story is not unfolding in a determined manner. The story is beeing written by us using 3 aspects of reality: regularity (causality or determinism), randomness and consciousness. Regularities allows for predictions, reasonning, logic, AI. Randomness allows for novelty, creation, and decoupling. And consciousness also allows for decoupling but most importantly it allows at every step for the experience of understanding and will.
And keep in mind that consciousness is not the result of brain activities. It is conditionned or molded by brain activities but it's not determined by it.
Consciousness is the result of ALL THAT IS, be it visible or not to us. The "I AM" is the same in all of us. It's our link to God or the universal consciousness. Only the point of view created by our different bodies differs from person to person.
It's not the physical world and it's determinism that give rise to consciousness, it's consciousness that give rise to the material world through regularities. Matter IS the illusion… Everything we see and experience is an expression of consciousness.
It's absurd to say that consciousness is determined by the matter of the brain when matter is already an expression of consciousness used to create points of view.
Read all my comments if you want to know more and deepen your thoughts if you want to understand better. It's not as easy as saying : "choice is an illusion".
@@alainlangdon Man, you really find pleasure in assuming. All that speculation and unnecessary detail just to stimulate your fragile ego, hence the reason you took the time to negatively respond out of insecurity in the first place (this was apparent because you took my statement as a personal attack by identifying with your opinion). This is understandable behavior.
My statement was actually a quick humorous way I summed up the semantics of portions of the debate. It was actually neutral and wasn’t in any way claiming a “belief”, but merely trying to jokingly summarize what Sam and the others were trying to say in regards to explaining the determinism aspect of free will (no choice/no free will), not “the illusion of choice is what the answer is” which is the way you make it out like I’m saying.
You can tell this is a topic you care about to a degree and seem to be quite disturbed at the implications of the unknown. It’s okay, it can be an uncomfortably real topic. Either way though, you still don’t come off as someone with well thought out opinions, let alone impulsive responses, so it’s hard to take anything you claim as lies, facts, opinions, etc as something reasonable to consider.
What’s absurd is to try and speak in absolutes as you do. You don’t actually seem to know about the science of consciousness, matter, implications of the observer on reality, or really anything on a educated level, but you do seem passionate.
Now with all that said, hard determinism seems to be the most reasonable and conclusive evidence to suggest choice is merely an illusion. You’re not in control of your decisions. Evidence my friend, evidence 🤦♂️🤷♂️
Feel free to reply now with all that built up passion and make sure you really type a good novel. I won’t reply but I will read it; you deserve at least that respect loll
Good luck 😬
@@AndrewJoshua11 About every sentence you wrote is either untrue, a projection or show a lack of understanding, shallow thinking. But I don't have the time to respond now because of work. I will respond in a few days.
Freewill is not universal cognitive self-control.
Freewill is liberty to apply will power, it is agency towards self-efficacy.
Two-Edged Sword lookikikkkkkk
Shapiro trying to understand no free will is like a 3rd grader trying to understand calculus; it's just too far outside of his wheelhouse.
Shapiro is an idiot.
Shapiro is weak on free will. Sam is also weak. Sam's argument amounts to an argument from ignorance. It's like saying that there is no free will in Chess because the rules are already defined. Choice doesn't have to be unrestrained to be choice. Even if there are only two options, there is free will to some degree.
I think it's the argument Eric was making. There is no free will at the quantum level, because it's restrained by quantum laws (as far as we know these "laws"). However at the level of abstraction we live, think, feel, suffer, and so on there is effective free will.
Much like when you watch a fly zip around. There may be a law governing his movement, but since we aren't smart enough (yet?) and so can't discern the pattern of its flight, it is as if the fly has free will.
I think we perceive other people like the fly in my analogy. There are so many variable and inquantifiable at the level of abstraction relevant to what is useful to us and how we should act that it is as though there is free will!
Furthermore, this "illusion" of free will is quite useful socially!
"Even if there are only two options, there is free will to some degree." -- That's true. But Sam's argument is that there are not two options. Every decision "you make" is actually just an illusion, predetermined by other factors.
But what makes you decide how to move those chess pieces ? Your vast knowledge of chess or lack of ? Why are you even playing chess in the first place ? Why are you deciding to engage in a game of chess? What made you even move the chess pieces?
@Particle Config.
But what is the lighting up in the brain a sign of? Is it a thought or an action? The body has a lot of automatic mechanisms that enable us to live. If you choose to do something randomly is that evidence of lack of free will. Sam Harris bases a lot of his ideas on these brain imaging tests but he is having difficulty in putting his ideas into words. Admittedly he is fighting against most people's resistance to the idea we don't have free will.
Free will does exist on a certain level. It's just the ability to seemingly choose an outcome. As long as your not aware of this illusion, and let's face it no sane person is, it's not perceivable.
Right. It's just like, accepting the world with open arms.
Which is _somehow_ what Sam is calling for towards the end. Taking in the influence of the world. Though listening to him, *it doesn't inspire me, but rather make me apathetic.*
Speaking of reality. What's more real than an effect?
I do wonder, what Sam went through to not realise this. Sometimes I'm curious about his upbringing...
The point is, that you have a choice which path you take through determination. Hence there is free will. If you believe in potential, which means an individual path in human life, there is no way around acknowledging free will.
I'm not _merely_ a puppet pulled by the strings of the universe. Strangely enough, this is one of Sam's primary messages in this discussion though, up to the end when the woman asks her question.
What exactly is his point here? Being right? An appeal, to making yourself a slave to the present conditions in the universe, as they are? Why take any action at all thne?
How is his fair thesis even relevant, if the vast majority of people can't follow this, people who might even live a less meaningful life as a consequence, stuck in such a worldview.
Sam has to understand, that not all people can live in a fulfilled and thriving manner following his basic scientific approach, that in some sense comes to the same conclusions as religions after all. This is a waste of time isn't it?
'Provoking', but serious questions:
Didn't Jesus teach us already to embrace the world with open arms?
To focus on the day?
To walk with God, instead of just serving him?
Replace God with "universe", and you might have your eyes opened to the real point in religion.
Nietzsche tried in his thus spoke zarathustra to overcome his Faustian ( individual) will and will his cosmic will ( mother nature) but you saw where he ended up... insane, the illusion is crucial for our animal species to survive
What evidence do you have that it is an illusion?
I’m trying to find a way to agree with Sam, but he’s struggling here. And the hard part is watching him while he has no idea he’s struggling.
He isn't. You are. He's talking about libertarian free will, not compatiblist free will or legal free will
Apples in Mono I feel like that is disingenuous. You can’t create your own definition of free will (or any subject for that matter) and then argue against that while also lumping in the objective definition of free will. Someone could say free will is just being able to always make sure that something turns out the way you want it. I am sure that is not the argument Sam is making but hear me out. Someone could argue against that very easily. If I have a blind spot here please get back to me.
Every conscious thought is already merely a rationalization.
Why have you got that distracting shit going across the screen? If you are trying to read subtitles it gets on your nerves.
Lol
I love how Sam Harris clearly upsets Ben Shapiro.
Well well.
We all have feelings and beliefs. Otherwise we'd be robots, people cease to realise.
Ben tends to be too arrogant, in his repetitive nihilistic statement of "facts not caring about your feelings". You see the effects of ignorance biting back at him, even here in the comments. Karma?
Feelings can't be disregarded as a whole. And even if at any point in the future, would that truly be a worthwhile goal? Are we so afraid of being hurt?
That's not how the being, how the world, works.
Ain't that simple folks.
With all this, Harris has 17 years on Shapiro. I imagine that Shapiro will be more polished in quick fire questions and reflections in 17 years.
no, he's a zealot jew, he has no free thought
In many ways, the problem with Sam Harris is NOT his brilliant skepticism (objectively) of other systems of thought.... it’s his astounding lack of self-skepticism to the religiosity of the dogmatic nature, bound into his OWN views...
May I ask in which way is he is dogmatic in his views? He clearly states in his writing on this topic that there is no one right way to live/achieve greater well-being. His whole public career has been spent arguing against the existence of dogma, so it would be more possible to achieve progressive discussion in order to evolve our understanding and ability to adapt and change.
Tom das because there is an inherent dogmatism in ones inability to recognize the value of faith-outside the codified ethics and teachings (which are brutal and backwards)...that of admitting its progressive evolutionary nature...***in first world countries...
@@eorobinson3 I disagree that placing no value on belief without sufficient evidence is inherently dogmatic in any way. in fact, I would argue that if it can be demonstrated that belief without evidence is beneficial to human kind in a clearly positive way in some capacity, I might change my mind. Though I highly doubt this would be the case due to faith being by definition mutually exclusive with the scientific method, which is all but entirely responsible for all knowledge and discovery that humankind has ever achieved.
@@eorobinson3 So, your wonderfully dogmatic argument is this:
'Sam is dogmatic because Sam disagrees with my own dogma [faith].'
Retro Workshop no, everyone attaches themselves to types, strains, and even thin strands of dogmatic thinking. That’s all. I’m sure I have dogmatic lines of thought as well. Ideology is inescapable. Lol, no one understood what I meant, obviously because I wasn’t clear, and as you say perhaps dogmatic in my thinking of his dogmatism. But this could go round forever. You obviously dogmatically saw my comments on Sam as simply dogmatic reasoning of his reasoning. See. K sooooo have a good day. Lol. P
Harris’ position is hilariously incoherent for a supposed “intellectual”.
Phenomenal debate. The ability to dissociate from self and observe inductive and deductive processes simultaneously, isn't that by definition quantum mechanics? Which when observed are instantiated at the classical level. What remains is a binary choice of chaos or order analogous to free will or determinism. Utter depravity or Holiness. Solipcism or Christian Theism.
This is the theme of Paul's Epistle to the Romans.
Paul answered Shapiro in chapter 2, solipcism leads to the inability to distinguish anything from the self and it's sensuality until the passions are so magnified and erroneously justified in axiomatically fulfilling desire as a thing in itself. In solipcism the sensuality is NECESSARY and the self is CONTINGENT; therefore it is the delusion of free will that kills the self and actualizes the automoton, or quasimoton screaming I'm not a robot, meat machine, animal, while at the same time dependent on the church.
Option 2, claiming blissful ignorance in moderation which is still narcissistic personality disorder in taking pride in how much one does not know. Pascal's wager is thin ice as you congratulate yourself on the choice you made. A self made Christian? Huh? Is that really a choice you made? Is that the power of positive thinking, or are you manifesting a presumption that is ridiculous on it's face?
Option 3, to witness all the information collected by senses, in historical observation, as well as your inductive and deductive processes, and seeing the REVELATION OF JESUS CHRIST, that HE chose you for GOOD works which he PREPARED for you to do before the foundation of the universe, which are accomplished in the light of the knowledge of God, in the face of Jesus Christ.
Option