Well said , unintentionally i would guess. He is a great story teller and nothing more. I can describe a reductionalist determinatistic mechanical universe like a computer simulation, and just assume Consciousnes is compatible with it. And later from my own assumptions self prove to me free will is not real. Instead of talking about emergent "complexity" and not even considering strong Emergence, which is taken very seriously in some physics branches, like condensed matter physics, superconductivity, vaccum energy, fundumental forces formation etc. while you may not find directly in scholars the words "strong emergene", "indeterminenism" etc, you can have a general understanding thry are implied. And aside that even if we completely ignore those legit scientific principles (causality is much more complicated) its immature to have such a claim (humans are meat robots) when humanity knows very little, and him personally Nothing about consciousness. And a bonus: all articles tell: a Stanford scientist,,,, after DECADES OF STUDY......... says we have no free will... Implying the studies somehow showed this. While he admitted that he had already formed this conclusion at his 14... Saying controversial things will make you over hyped, like most sites call Sam harris a neuroscientist, he is not, a PhD is not enough to take this title. But they do it to make his opinion "that much" scarier, no matter how ridiculously inaccurate it is . Hey, he is a genius, he cant be wrong, he has titles, therefore he is unfalsifiable..
I'm a first-year neuro student and I just finished reading Determined(about to start Behave). I just have to say it was phenomenal...there were a lot of jaw-dropping moments. Even for somebody who, more or less, already agreed with you( at least when it came to the neuroscience aspect since that's the research I was already aware of). Anybody who happens to see this and hasn't read the book needs to do so immediately. I'd already watched a ton of podcasts with Dr Sapolsky, but it's just not the same. Read it. I read both the hard copy and I listened to the audio version and my only complaint is that the audio version didn't have him reading. I know that's asking a lot though, but I just love his voice lol
I love these comversations. Thank you both for sharing your time. Dr. S - someone posted one of your old lectures thats not on the Stanford channel called "the biological underpinnings of religiosity." I can't express adequately how much your work and, well - your "you-ness" has meant to me. Peace to both of ya. 🖖
That's who the continued support is for, of course! Mr. Sapolsky is the beard, Safi must be Science! Both start with an 'S'. Coincidence? I think not 🤔 😆
That would be a waste of time. Safi is a dog, and it’s extremely unlikely that she can talk. Even if she can, you could just ask, no need for an aggressive campaign with a petition and so on.
@@Vscustomprinting Alright take it easy. Equating meat-eaters with sheep-fuckers is a bit of stretch. The fact that we are even talking about alternatives to killing animals for food shows we've come a long way and we're getting there.
@@Vscustomprinting Insane take. Animals eating animals is necessary for survival, bestiality is a pathological behavior that serves no function and has many risks.
The story of John Newton is fascinating and this reminds me of Scrooge from A Christmas Carol and how he didn't just suddenly choose to be good--he was only able to change for the better after being taken on a terrifying supernatural time travel journey. I suspect if everyone had ghosts that could guide us and show all the ways we're having a negative impact on people's lives we'd probably all change for the better at least a little bit.
As a Christian, I deeply appreciate Sapolsky's thoughts and brilliance on these topics 😀. The difference for me is that I do believe, even if I don't do the best job at it, in the things Atheist are valuing in terms of goodness and generosity. The frustrating thing is seeing such an inward or in-group focus in so many religious people 🙁
@@Bronco541 good question. my belief in god is a combination of a lot of things. But in relation to goodness, when I look at the life of Jesus his actions actually include a lot of what Sapolsky is talking about atheists prefering and often doesn't look so much like what a lot of religious people, especially American Westerners, prefer. I also believe in "common grace," which basically means that all people still have the image of god in them even if it is broken or marred, and are fully capable of doing good and beautiful things whether they believe in god or not.
You may be a first or at least a rare believer for positioning yourself as open to this search. Bravo. I've been try to neutralize any in-group tendencies I might have looking recently at the work of Jonathan Haidt for example. I've always been interested in the academic side of morality studies. I have a family member who is a believer and has drifted more tribal over the years (ex. open minded about global warming has become denying the science.) though Trump and a curious mind has reversed the trend a little. I think the polarity of both left and right at the extremes are very tribal. I've even found a glitch in what Mr Haidt posited a few years ago about the purpose of higher education. That being "seeking truth" rather than "seeking open inquiry". Congrats on an admirable trait of an active and open mind.
I'm a retired pastor. American Christianity has an edifice complex. The bigger your church, the more important you are. God always seems to 'call' clergy to bigger and more prestigious cures, seldom to a less prominent church. The vast majority of Church/Denomination budgets go to paying operating costs - clergy and staff salaries, building maintenance and upkeep, utilities, debt service.... Churches pay no property taxes, making them a drain on the local economy. Only a small percentage goes to outreach and most of that is used for 'growing' the church by adding new members to the flock. The percentage of outreach to the needy is miniscule compared to all the other self-centered expenditures and outreach. Sad
I just found the atheist shoe shop. In German it also means atheist. They are based in Berlin, which is the German version of Soddom and Gomorra. However, they state clearly on their website that they respect every religion and have quite a comprehensive explanation of their atheism. They also did a study on shipment discrimination.
Well there is a pull toward being more "spiritual" rather religious-a category I place myself in. Likely more heterogeneity! Moving away from dogma, "otherness" towards collective well-being, similar to values among atheists I assume. The atheists I have met have pondered long and hard about their category and I deeply respect and appreciate that.
For what it's worth, I too enjoyed thought the first question was especially well formed. I've tried to wrap my head around the emergence/deterministic/free will concept since I first saw Sapolsky's Stanford lecture series #s 21,22. The discussion of this is the most concise and lucid I've seen. That said, though I lean no free will, I'm not entirely convinced. Related to that would be the question: How are consciousness and agency related?
That was a good one . Was just watching the emergence chaos lectures thru the Stanford channel ! I kept thinking of entropy once the genie is out of the bottle ... it wouldn't really make sense that free will would just appear ? Anyways, it's choices not free will? Thank you so much Offspring for letting your Dad talk as much as he wants . 😂😂😂 its pretty great of you🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉
Interesting conversation. It is mentioned that the emergent properties can’t reach down and change the rudimentary building blocks. However, doesn’t conditioning do this somewhat? There is seemingly evidence that our thoughts do change our brain.
Your father - offspring series are so very informative and enjoyable. I did want to mention that it appears that the audio inputs seem to be reversed, left to right side. You may wish to check your audio settings, as the left-right inversion is a bit odd.
Causal determinism but epistemic indeterminism. Everything is connected and totality itself is never able to 100% predict itsself, is plenty mystery and freedom for me. I think y'all need more subs! 7.86k is not enough!
Thank you for these wonderful videos. Interested to hear if you have any thoughts on Donald Hoffman and others theory, that consciousness may be fundamental?
I have been thinking about consciousness and at this time with the knowledge i have my best guess is it arises or is formed with the training or habituation of the brain to space during the infant years through the actuation of motor responses to object with in that space we live in a nut shell we are defined by our surroundings ,
i was watching "riders of justice" last night, the daughter in the movie is trying to make sense of her mother's death, they were in a train crash and the daughter traces back from the crash, she works out it started with her bike being stolen, so mum is going to take her by car, but the car won't start and mum gets a phone call at the same time that the father is going to be away for three more months, so instead of taking daughter to school they decide to go shopping to cheer themselves up. on the train a man gives up his seat so the mother can sit, and that results in her death in the train crash. so it's all because the daughter's bike was stolen. later in the film though the man who gave up his seat remarks, that the stolen bike wasn't the only factor, he had been fired, so he caught an earlier train than normal, and he was fired over a project that started a year earlier, - so in fact there are uncountable factors involved in the result of the death in the train wreck. and that is determinism, the bike is stolen, the car breaks down, someone is trying to bump off a criminal on the train, and more and more factors play out all the way back to the big bang - and even the physics of the particles involved - untold zillions of actions, weather, temperature, job losses - births marriages and deaths, there is no free will, the ball has been rolling forever.
"You can't pull yourself free of your history." Well isn;t that what psychoanalyis is all about? That bringing it up to the surface makes it tangible and engageable?
“I” would say… To psychoanalyze… Is to “Psychoanalysis is a type of treatment based on the theory that our present is shaped by our past. The unacknowledged meaning of personal experiences can influence our mood and behaviour, and contribute to problems with relationships, work and self-esteem.” What is it for. “Psychoanalysis focuses on identifying and releasing unconscious, repressed feelings, thoughts, memories, and desires that are negatively impacting your life. The goal is to make you aware of the root of psychological problems and help you resolve the issues in order to bring about positive change and growth.” Added these quotes to emphasize that it’s used to treat mental illness. Try to psychoanalyze, yourself. If you were opened minded enough to try. Why did you do it? Because you read this comment and happened to be open minded enough to attempt the thought experiment. Now ask can one truly psychoanalyze themself. The point of such a technique is to is to point out to an individual “flaws” in their thinking and/or behaviors. And/or get the individual to understand and/or accept “flaws” in thinking and/or behaviors. Last and/or I can think of - help an individual who is aware of said “flaws” cope, avoid, control said “flaws” in thinking and/or behaviors. So now the big question when an individual is being psychoanalyzed by an “health care professional”. Why does there have to be a “healthcare professional”? An outside force required for all stated in paragraph two. Lastly getting in to an expected/assumed argument. It’s the individual that chooses to work on and persevere through said “flaws”. My response, for some if in treatment and depending on severity of the issue. The treatment can take years to be effective (while potentially requiring medication). For some it’s effective early on. For some treatment isn’t effective at all and/or is barely effective. For some treatment is effective for years then suddenly stops.. on and on. (Whether medication or just psychotherapy or both are required) Still it’s the individual’s choice to persevere, right? Ponder everything I said above and consider that it costs, which treatment resistant mental illness is especially costly. “treatment resistance is the lack of a positive response by a client to the techniques being used and results in a rupture in the therapeutic alliance” Usually the illness itself heavily impacts financial stability. How did Illness form in the first place. “History” the everything that came before. From biology to psychology to start and current position in life to brain structure, chemistry and wiring to ancestral practices to genetics and epigenetic interaction with environment…. on and on. That’s what I assume Robert means by “"You can't pull yourself free of your history." Put emphasis on the argument of. “Well isn;t that what psychoanalysis is all about? That bringing it up to the surface makes it tangible and engageable?” How the discipline of psychoanalysis is applied to mental illness and/or distress. To conclude if being psychoanalyzed is effective in one’s treatment. That individual is in a sense lucky for that effectiveness.
There is a lot of scrutiny towards psychoanalysis from people who have never really engaged with the literature, or the work. There is a difference between “science” and “scientism.”
IMO, people who give without expectation of return, are far more generous than those who give without such expectations. To give to buy your way out of Hell is not giving, it’s attempted bribery.
I think it would be cool for you to have a public conversation with Dr. Miguel Nicolelis at some point, which has recently said in the Brazilian Portuguese podcast "Os Três Elementos" that he thinks, and I'm paraphrasing loosely, that you're very wrong in your views about free will and that he's certain that we do have it (which is a very, very bold claim that surprised me, though I'm not sure if he actually means the libertarian kind). He didn't elaborate much on the reasons, since it was something that came up quickly and went away just as much, but it was enough for him to mention you by name, so I think it could be very enlightening for you to have a back and forth about it. Maybe it'll be a nice change of pace from exchanges with philosophers to talk to a guy that also works so closely with brains.
To me it’s a problem of definition what free will is and agreeing first on that, to be able to argue if it’s exists or not. To me even Freedom is an illusion but a very important one. I believe we need the feeling of freedom wich is achieved, in my opinion, through possibilities. If you have less possibilities, the feeling of freedom is less.
EDIT: I Have since found TH-cam videos of ‘Alonzo Clemons’ - this is not the same man, just in case “Father Sapolsky & Offspring” considered otherwise. Thanks again, I submitted a question for you guys last Friday, and if Dr Sapolsky has any knowledge of ‘the accountant’, his impasse about being ‘free of your history’, is to be found there. Since the internet, I have not been able to find any information on The Accountant. His sculpting skills are supernatural, but explainable in secular terms. Ps ants speaking French, I’m sure that can be arranged: in cursive.
In and of itself, the uni-verse of 0-1-2-3-4 harmonically condensed materialisation is a re legion or crystallisation of nodal-vibrational emitter-receiver log-antilog interference positioning resonance bonding, unity-connection categorization. So Recursion to the Mean => inherent Agnostic neutrality maintained by pure-math logarithmic motion condensation modulation cause-effect mechanism, a magical-functional true-in-principle explanation of requirements for rigorous identification procedures, socially and technically, ie choose your own words if the University Courses are unsatisfactory.
I’m reasonably sure that consciousness is transmitted through a field that emanates from the sun and we receive it by existing within the field, like bumper cars brushing against an electric net
A good statistic to look at is the proportion of atheists in jail vs. believers, even with all the bias against atheists, numbers don't look good for religious there
What does God want? Does God want goodness or the choice of goodness? Is a man who chooses the bad perhaps in some ways better than a man who has the good imposed upon him? -A Clockwork Orange
I have questions Robert Sapolsky! How does your specific brain and behaviour work Robert? What is it that’s so different to our generally degraded human species that’s cultured in the direction of harm and extinction? Can you teach us how to rapidly evolve/emerge away from stupidity and abuse before we maim planet life? And how come you have such amazing retention and recall of so much knowledge, can glide beautifully and engagingly through vocabulary and communication, and hold authority without making fear or injury? Did you carry books to study into the gorilla jungle during your time there? Why is their good-natured and not? I don’t believe that gross behaviour is the “evil” taught by most religions, invoked by a devil or a bad spirit figure in the world. I don’t think you do either. To me it’s an immature, lazy and defeatist way to abrogate responsibility ensuring leaders and roll models are fit for the task. How come sociopaths and narcissistic types get to filter their way into global alpha positions totally displacing qualified people? Are the regular masses of generally good people simply mesmerized by religion, media, fighter jets and tall buildings and prone to cognative dissonance and gullibility that they buy-in? Are we doomed to the jungle that state and corporate leaders have us devouring? We have enough knowledge now that debunk old myths as literal truth. Perhaps a sea of rationality, courage, instinctive survival and insight will intervene and supplant absurdity and abuse.
Professor Richard Feynman type guessing thought experiment condensed into a practical system of unfooling one's self in Self-defining QM-TIME Completeness. No-thing-defined requires some precision observation and accuracy in labelling of perceived truth, like a basic principled Math-Physics.
Exactly, physical system = (sum of parts), the minds data analytics = (a fraction of the sum). It's never more than the sum. Also, downward causation (as you define it) is not what people think of it as. Just like you said, It's still the actions of the smaller parts, because that's (how) a distribution of smaller actions sum. The universe is a local calculation machine (for each position in the universe in parallel). There is no (instant reaching over distance), therefore actions don't come down, they move across smaller factors (for each position in the universe in parallel) making it seem like they "come down". And you will notice, when you use terms like (free will) or (downward causation) in their brain they haven't defined it in the way you did in the video as (sum of smaller physical action components) which is a problem with using that language (the pointer doesn't point to the correct computation), they don't think of it as a parallel distribution of local causal processes that sum, they think of it as instantaneous action at a distance or some shit. People think of downwards causation as (reaching from non-physical reality to change the universe), but that's not how this shit works. Also, just like free will, people think (the mind is temporally omni present, as if they could go back in time, they would have done differently, not realizing if you reverse the computation, you reverse the all the small parameters governing your minds decision making, because temporal locality is a real thing as well). When (most people) think of free will or downward causation, they are think (mind is disconnected from physics), therefore when you use the label (downward causation or free will) it doesn't point to the right computation in their mind that you think it does.
If you can't have free will, you can't have your own ideas but only have them put into you externaly. Recursively, if parts don't have free will, you can't form a collection with free will. So my question to Sapolsky is: "does a collection of 2 people have their own seperate ideas?" Emergence can certainly trickle down to the individual part: Einsteins math teacher didn't invent the relativity theory, and Einstein couldn't have without having beeing teached math. For me, own free will is the evolution of the brain to take shortcuts in modelling the world due to the overload of sensory information. So you make decisions on basis of your own imagination. Now you can tie the imagination to the brain, but also the submechanisms make shortcuts. Resulting in conflicting interests, from wich the referee mechanism has to choose from with his inperfect overall sensory information. In this definition there is free will before consciousness, because consciousness will place the idea of self in the modelling of the world. I agree with Sapolsky that the modelling of the world can be influenced by external factors, like if you wear glasses or not if you need them.
I think the show could use a snapier intro song, how about the Kinks Apeman? I think I'm so educated and I'm so civilized 'Cause I'm a strict vegetarian But with the over-population and inflation and starvation And the crazy politicians I don't feel safe in this world no more I don't want to die in a nuclear war I want to sail away to a distant shore and make like an apeman ...
Why is the main philosophical controversy about compatibility/incompatibility? I thought the main controversy is around the very definition of free will. For me, all that free will requires is that the subject exercising it does not know about the outcome of its own choice until that choice is made. Say I am torn between duty and fear, and after a sleepless night finally decide to sacrifice myself in the name of duty, or finally decide to surrender/desert/retreat/betray my fellows, or commit suicide, or go into hiding where nobody can find me, or whatever. Now suppose also that somebody qualitatively more informed than me knew from the beginning what I would do. Why on earth does this imply that I did not have free will when I made my decision?? There is always somebody qualitatively more informed than somebody else. If I am an ant or an amoeba then such somebody is some biochemist, say, maybe even not necessarily from not so distant future but even from yesterday. And in any case if there are time-transcending entities, then for them the whole past and future is there together and they don't even need to analyse me, they just see it happen. So what? And in fact, even more can be said. Even if absolutely everybody except myself knows for sure what I will do, if I myself do not know it, I do have free will. Because I, as a subject, make choice, and I, as a subject, do not know what I will do until I actually do it. Then there is also this thing. Suppose that before I make my choice, at some point during that sleepless night, you come to me, and manage to explain to me everything about my disposition, and manage to make me understand that I will in fact do this and that. Then, I can just for the sake of it go ahead and do the opposite. That is, increasing my informedness does influence my decision. OK you also know that, you know how providing me with additional information will change my decision. But then, giving me that extra information will again influence my decision further, and so on and so forth. This, as a minimum, shows that the question is highly nontrivial, no?
I agree that humans have no free will. But my printer does! It either eats the paper or it doesn't... Each moment in time it freely decides which path to take, to make my life maximally miserable...
I'm not a deeply religious person and don't consider myself a theist in any way. I've always considered myself a secular liberal. Interestingly though I've realized that over the decades I've had more conflicts with and judgement from non-religious people than from religious people. This is not simply the result of my social groups it is on balance from all of my social interactions including employers as well as coworkers. As a matter of fact some of the most selfish assholes I've experienced were very educated liberals. I work with and know many PhDs and people with Graduate degrees and it's sad but true that that demographic has shown more self-absored, selfishly driven people that lack interpersonal capacities than most of the religious people I've interacted with. I wish this wasn't the case but it is what it is.
No doubt determinational factors reveiled as explanatory versus a whole range of habitual behavior that otherwise makes for limited lifes may make way for improvements. Yet the seriously great need to adjust common presumptions versus free will despite, would it possibly be some point in keeping free will as a reality related consept and a phenomenon related to ideals rather opposing then supporting the many unfair arguments that are building on the no doubt false presumption that we all possess it, part of reality or not? Wouldn't that possibly better make way for some adequate adjustments of the sorts that could to some degree prevent the great problems with exaggerations opposed to truth as the common rute to follow, where "either lunetic or guilty as sin", for instance, serves to small amounts to improve the understanding of ill behavior? That causes are kept under carpets by cultural factors represents surely amounts of losses far above what any culture packed with condescension as part of the mean to cultivate a so called victorious identity is any time soon expected to deal with at large, but as to what's actually done against the matter, I fear that to eliminate an expression that bear amounts of relations to healthy among ideals could represent an unneccassarily sharp turn at the present, should even plain truth prove not at all to be opposed to the act. Will denied, after all, makes for freedom denied, and for other will preferred, not rarely of a lesser nature. Perhaps should free will be associated marily with will not denied, as opposed to serve to substantiate particularly large amounts of evil.
Could emergent systems, at the same time and without contradictions, behave according to the basic rules of their building blocks, and ALSO according to their own rules, (rules and patterns that emerge only at higher level of complexity... laws of biology, rules of conscious agency, rules of social behaviours)? If there are emergent rules and emergent laws (fully compatible with more fundamental laws, but still, something more, extra variable to consider) the emergent, higher level can result in behaviors that are impossible to explain and predict solely based on the building blocks themselves... thus producing both undetermined and unpredictable phenomena (not in an absolute sense, but in respect to underlying blocks rules and behaviours)
effects have causes. if this is true, then what would free will be? an uncaused effect? this would be a meaningless act. So at best it can be subject to outside causes, or else it's mere randomness.
For the believers... their benign 'father figure' has chosen for them to play a game. A game with the hordes of little ones, in 'the human herd' that supposedly 'look a bit like him'. That game is life ...and life is purely a test of your devotion. Get through the test ( three score and ten years ) and you can spend eternity, squatting in his awe-inspiring glow. That's it, there is no more to it. The whole of life is an illusion... there's no real pain or suffering. It was only a game. This is how the Abrahamic religions see the underlying nature of reality. As a God given test. Everything else is semantics. You either choose to accept this, or you won't. Generally, only a very small minority of the herd think this is all nonsense. The vast majority of the herd need it, they desperately need the conclusion it offers. The ability to be absolutely right about the true nature of reality and that life is eternal. Both of these dispel, or at least quell… the curse of human anxiety. This is what all humans instinctively and unanimously require, what they all crave. A complete release from the constant torment of 'mortal' anxiety. Atheists should understand this. They should readily comply. But like adolescents they fight it. As if they might fight a parent for overly protecting them. Yet they have to realise they are the outlier. They're out of touch with the 'majority', herd mentality. Whether they're devoid of normal herd-like levels of emphatic empathy, or just righteously belligerent iconoclasts.They must realise they're the noisy minority. And in many ways... both of these atheistic subgroups should consider themselves, psychologically atypical. For it is normal, it is even a prerequisite to be human. To believe in fanciful myths and stories of ever lasting life. To feel the wellspring of emotion form at the thought of a spiritual dimension to your life. It is and always will be, the default setting. It's what the herd implicitly needs, in order to function. Many elements of human society only persist, because they are 'tried and tested'. Because they're absolutely essential tools, for the mental well-being of the herd.
I find it funny and pertinent that the people committing crimes in the atheist shoe storie were both government employees and religious. Both of these associations are organizations dedicated to community and service. But the individuals happily stole and probably trashed people's property based on their religious opinions. How good are these people really?
Seems coherent and full of BS at the same time. Maybe I’m wrong. I do agree that there’s a whole lot less free will than we think, but why is a mystery to me. Biochemistry and genetics and epigeneticsand environments interacting therewith. Big words for “Hell if I know”
Offspring at 20X smarter age, Prof Sapolsky's maybe 10X than amateurs willing to learn by pseudo random error correction, ie unfooling one's self and learning from those who have already done the research. Teachers learn from their Students who experience learning by doing under regulation by a trained Observer, the example of mothers and babies is the inherent re-evolution repositioning of elemental nodal-vibrational holography-quantization relative-timing DNA type sync-duration con/di-vergent sequences of resonance bonding proportioning chemistry. Parallel coexistence QM-TIME Completeness.
I love your dog. My dog is dyslexic and also an atheist. Every time I say God, he hears dog and gets really excited.
Professor Sapolsky is a great storyteller. It is pleasure to hear him!
Well said , unintentionally i would guess. He is a great story teller and nothing more. I can describe a reductionalist determinatistic mechanical universe like a computer simulation, and just assume Consciousnes is compatible with it. And later from my own assumptions self prove to me free will is not real. Instead of talking about emergent "complexity" and not even considering strong Emergence, which is taken very seriously in some physics branches, like condensed matter physics, superconductivity, vaccum energy, fundumental forces formation etc. while you may not find directly in scholars the words "strong emergene", "indeterminenism" etc, you can have a general understanding thry are implied. And aside that even if we completely ignore those legit scientific principles (causality is much more complicated) its immature to have such a claim (humans are meat robots) when humanity knows very little, and him personally Nothing about consciousness.
And a bonus: all articles tell: a Stanford scientist,,,, after DECADES OF STUDY......... says we have no free will... Implying the studies somehow showed this. While he admitted that he had already formed this conclusion at his 14... Saying controversial things will make you over hyped, like most sites call Sam harris a neuroscientist, he is not, a PhD is not enough to take this title. But they do it to make his opinion "that much" scarier, no matter how ridiculously inaccurate it is . Hey, he is a genius, he cant be wrong, he has titles, therefore he is unfalsifiable..
I sincerely hope these never stop. Hell, I'll even sing amazing grace if be it.
I am honored to have my question answered. Thank you for taking the time.
I'm a first-year neuro student and I just finished reading Determined(about to start Behave). I just have to say it was phenomenal...there were a lot of jaw-dropping moments. Even for somebody who, more or less, already agreed with you( at least when it came to the neuroscience aspect since that's the research I was already aware of). Anybody who happens to see this and hasn't read the book needs to do so immediately. I'd already watched a ton of podcasts with Dr Sapolsky, but it's just not the same. Read it. I read both the hard copy and I listened to the audio version and my only complaint is that the audio version didn't have him reading. I know that's asking a lot though, but I just love his voice lol
Thank you.. i need to do this!!:)
📖 _Determined_ is an easy read and pretty accessible -- sit down in a chair at your local library if you have to
I love these comversations. Thank you both for sharing your time. Dr. S - someone posted one of your old lectures thats not on the Stanford channel called "the biological underpinnings of religiosity." I can't express adequately how much your work and, well - your "you-ness" has meant to me. Peace to both of ya. 🖖
I'm petitioning for an episode where Safi gets a mic, and we get to hear what the real brains behind these interviews has to say
@MichelleDavis-xk8rc Their golden retriever
Love Saffi
That's who the continued support is for, of course! Mr. Sapolsky is the beard, Safi must be Science! Both start with an 'S'. Coincidence? I think not 🤔 😆
That would be a waste of time. Safi is a dog, and it’s extremely unlikely that she can talk. Even if she can, you could just ask, no need for an aggressive campaign with a petition and so on.
_But can anyone get a chimp to tithe once a week, or pray five times a day?_ - j q t -
Two things:
1. Uncool: knowing of the term necro-bestiality.
2. Cool: hearing Sapolsky swear finally. Made my day. 😊
He's a fellow Brooklynite. Old school like me. We swore like sailors on leave.
@@Picasso_Picante92me too!
When you realize people who are eating animals arent fundamentally different than those commiting bestiality 😨
@@Vscustomprinting Alright take it easy. Equating meat-eaters with sheep-fuckers is a bit of stretch. The fact that we are even talking about alternatives to killing animals for food shows we've come a long way and we're getting there.
@@Vscustomprinting Insane take. Animals eating animals is necessary for survival, bestiality is a pathological behavior that serves no function and has many risks.
Thank you for your mini lectures…you’re making me more of a critical thinker.
OUTSTANDING!!!! Thank you so much for these lectures. Keep them coming!
The story of John Newton is fascinating and this reminds me of Scrooge from A Christmas Carol and how he didn't just suddenly choose to be good--he was only able to change for the better after being taken on a terrifying supernatural time travel journey. I suspect if everyone had ghosts that could guide us and show all the ways we're having a negative impact on people's lives we'd probably all change for the better at least a little bit.
As a Christian, I deeply appreciate Sapolsky's thoughts and brilliance on these topics 😀. The difference for me is that I do believe, even if I don't do the best job at it, in the things Atheist are valuing in terms of goodness and generosity. The frustrating thing is seeing such an inward or in-group focus in so many religious people 🙁
My question then, would be if you belive in goodness for the sake of goodness, why belive in god?
@@Bronco541 good question. my belief in god is a combination of a lot of things. But in relation to goodness, when I look at the life of Jesus his actions actually include a lot of what Sapolsky is talking about atheists prefering and often doesn't look so much like what a lot of religious people, especially American Westerners, prefer. I also believe in "common grace," which basically means that all people still have the image of god in them even if it is broken or marred, and are fully capable of doing good and beautiful things whether they believe in god or not.
You may be a first or at least a rare believer for positioning yourself as open to this search. Bravo. I've been try to neutralize any in-group tendencies I might have looking recently at the work of Jonathan Haidt for example. I've always been interested in the academic side of morality studies.
I have a family member who is a believer and has drifted more tribal over the years (ex. open minded about global warming has become denying the science.) though Trump and a curious mind has reversed the trend a little.
I think the polarity of both left and right at the extremes are very tribal. I've even found a glitch in what Mr Haidt posited a few years ago about the purpose of higher education. That being "seeking truth" rather than "seeking open inquiry".
Congrats on an admirable trait of an active and open mind.
I wish more Christians were like you. Even though I'm not religious, I have a lot of respect for what you just said.
I'm a retired pastor. American Christianity has an edifice complex. The bigger your church, the more important you are. God always seems to 'call' clergy to bigger and more prestigious cures, seldom to a less prominent church. The vast majority of Church/Denomination budgets go to paying operating costs - clergy and staff salaries, building maintenance and upkeep, utilities, debt service.... Churches pay no property
taxes, making them a drain on the local economy. Only a small percentage goes to outreach and most of that is used for 'growing' the church by adding new members to the flock. The percentage of outreach to the needy is miniscule compared to all the other self-centered expenditures and outreach. Sad
Keep giving me knowledge.. im
Listening:) thank you both so much.. this is my go to! Love the beard;)!
So glad my John Newton queston got answered, thank you very much! Such a fascinating story.
It was fascinating!
Behave is one of my favorite books so thanks for asking!
Those are some good closed captions. I know how much work that can be. tyvm.
I just found the atheist shoe shop. In German it also means atheist. They are based in Berlin, which is the German version of Soddom and Gomorra. However, they state clearly on their website that they respect every religion and have quite a comprehensive explanation of their atheism. They also did a study on shipment discrimination.
I assume they don't sell sandals.
I’m sure that’s the study he was referencing, as they would be the ones most concerned with getting to the bottom of it.
Hilarious s
Thanks you two! I very much look forward to these episodes!
Love it. Please keep up the fantastic work.
Well there is a pull toward being more "spiritual" rather religious-a category I place myself in. Likely more heterogeneity! Moving away from dogma, "otherness" towards collective well-being, similar to values among atheists I assume. The atheists I have met have pondered long and hard about their category and I deeply respect and appreciate that.
For what it's worth, I too enjoyed thought the first question was especially well formed. I've tried to wrap my head around the emergence/deterministic/free will concept since I first saw Sapolsky's Stanford lecture series #s 21,22. The discussion of this is the most concise and lucid I've seen. That said, though I lean no free will, I'm not entirely convinced.
Related to that would be the question: How are consciousness and agency related?
That was a good one . Was just watching the emergence chaos lectures thru the Stanford channel ! I kept thinking of entropy once the genie is out of the bottle ... it wouldn't really make sense that free will would just appear ? Anyways, it's choices not free will? Thank you so much Offspring for letting your Dad talk as much as he wants . 😂😂😂 its pretty great of you🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉
Hello, thank you very much for the note about the captions. 😊
I truly value this channel. Always looking forward to more.
Interesting conversation. It is mentioned that the emergent properties can’t reach down and change the rudimentary building blocks. However, doesn’t conditioning do this somewhat? There is seemingly evidence that our thoughts do change our brain.
This is the best episode so far.
Well done!!!
Holy shit. These videos are phenomenal. Keep it up.
Robert is on fire in this one!
Please keep these coming!!! So good!!
This is so insightful! Thank you so much!
Your father - offspring series are so very informative and enjoyable. I did want to mention that it appears that the audio inputs seem to be reversed, left to right side. You may wish to check your audio settings, as the left-right inversion is a bit odd.
Time to take this show on the road baby!
Interesting story.
Wow. Thanks for this channel. 👍
The best content!
Swami Medhananda has a good talk on Determinism and talks a lot about Sapolsky and pretty much agrees 100%
I enjoyed the argument on freewill thanks
Great answer about free will!
Good morning
Sir sapolsky
This feels like listening to the wise old man in the village passing knowledge to the next generation before the written word.
Love those podcasts. Thank you! I’m wondering if the sound could be improved by setting the Yeti to cardioid mode instead of stereo mode. 🎙️🤔
Love it
Safi's having a day off ❤
Causal determinism but epistemic indeterminism. Everything is connected and totality itself is never able to 100% predict itsself, is plenty mystery and freedom for me. I think y'all need more subs! 7.86k is not enough!
Sapolskys stanford course on behavioral bio changed my life for the better
Time to switch from caffeine to calming tea ☕
I enjoy this show.
Thank you for these wonderful videos. Interested to hear if you have any thoughts on Donald Hoffman and others theory, that consciousness may be fundamental?
I have been thinking about consciousness and at this time with the knowledge i have my best guess is it arises or is formed with the training or habituation of the brain to space during the infant years through the actuation of motor responses to object with in that space we live in a nut shell we are defined by our surroundings ,
Does Determinism apply to nations as it does to individuals?
i was watching "riders of justice" last night, the daughter in the movie is trying to make sense of her mother's death, they
were in a train crash and the daughter traces back from the crash, she works out it started with her bike being stolen, so
mum is going to take her by car, but the car won't start and mum gets a phone call at the same time that the father is going
to be away for three more months, so instead of taking daughter to school they decide to go shopping to cheer themselves up.
on the train a man gives up his seat so the mother can sit, and that results in her death in the train crash.
so it's all because the daughter's bike was stolen.
later in the film though the man who gave up his seat remarks, that the stolen bike wasn't the only factor, he had been fired, so he
caught an earlier train than normal, and he was fired over a project that started a year earlier, - so in fact there are uncountable
factors involved in the result of the death in the train wreck. and that is determinism, the bike is stolen, the car breaks down,
someone is trying to bump off a criminal on the train, and more and more factors play out all the way back to the big bang - and even
the physics of the particles involved - untold zillions of actions, weather, temperature, job losses - births marriages and deaths,
there is no free will, the ball has been rolling forever.
"Religions people are kinder and more honest" --this has NOT been my experience
"You can't pull yourself free of your history." Well isn;t that what psychoanalyis is all about?
That bringing it up to the surface makes it tangible and engageable?
“I” would say…
To psychoanalyze…
Is to “Psychoanalysis is a type of treatment based on the theory that our present is shaped by our past. The unacknowledged meaning of personal experiences can influence our mood and behaviour, and contribute to problems with relationships, work and self-esteem.”
What is it for.
“Psychoanalysis focuses on identifying and releasing unconscious, repressed feelings, thoughts, memories, and desires that are negatively impacting your life. The goal is to make you aware of the root of psychological problems and help you resolve the issues in order to bring about positive change and growth.”
Added these quotes to emphasize that it’s used to treat mental illness.
Try to psychoanalyze, yourself. If you were opened minded enough to try. Why did you do it? Because you read this comment and happened to be open minded enough to attempt the thought experiment.
Now ask can one truly psychoanalyze themself. The point of such a technique is to is to point out to an individual “flaws” in their thinking and/or behaviors. And/or get the individual to understand and/or accept “flaws” in thinking and/or behaviors. Last and/or I can think of - help an individual who is aware of said “flaws” cope, avoid, control said “flaws” in thinking and/or behaviors.
So now the big question when an individual is being psychoanalyzed by an “health care professional”. Why does there have to be a “healthcare professional”? An outside force required for all stated in paragraph two.
Lastly getting in to an expected/assumed argument. It’s the individual that chooses to work on and persevere through said “flaws”.
My response, for some if in treatment and depending on severity of the issue. The treatment can take years to be effective (while potentially requiring medication). For some it’s effective early on. For some treatment isn’t effective at all and/or is barely effective. For some treatment is effective for years then suddenly stops.. on and on. (Whether medication or just psychotherapy or both are required)
Still it’s the individual’s choice to persevere, right? Ponder everything I said above and consider that it costs, which treatment resistant mental illness is especially costly.
“treatment resistance is the lack of a positive response by a client to the techniques being used and results in a rupture in the therapeutic alliance”
Usually the illness itself heavily impacts financial stability. How did Illness form in the first place. “History” the everything that came before. From biology to psychology to start and current position in life to brain structure, chemistry and wiring to ancestral practices to genetics and epigenetic interaction with environment…. on and on.
That’s what I assume Robert means by
“"You can't pull yourself free of your history."
Put emphasis on the argument of.
“Well isn;t that what psychoanalysis is all about? That bringing it up to the surface makes it tangible and engageable?”
How the discipline of psychoanalysis is applied to mental illness and/or distress.
To conclude if being psychoanalyzed is effective in one’s treatment. That individual is in a sense lucky for that effectiveness.
There is a lot of scrutiny towards psychoanalysis from people who have never really engaged with the literature, or the work. There is a difference between “science” and “scientism.”
@@-Llama_95 of course I have no right to comment , merely being a literature graduate
@@-Llama_95 To add to what you said, one cannot psychoanalyze “themselves” so to be psychoanalyzed is outside causal factors.
I love the My Lai heroes story
IMO, people who give without expectation of return, are far more generous than those who give without such expectations. To give to buy your way out of Hell is not giving, it’s attempted bribery.
I think it would be cool for you to have a public conversation with Dr. Miguel Nicolelis at some point, which has recently said in the Brazilian Portuguese podcast "Os Três Elementos" that he thinks, and I'm paraphrasing loosely, that you're very wrong in your views about free will and that he's certain that we do have it (which is a very, very bold claim that surprised me, though I'm not sure if he actually means the libertarian kind).
He didn't elaborate much on the reasons, since it was something that came up quickly and went away just as much, but it was enough for him to mention you by name, so I think it could be very enlightening for you to have a back and forth about it. Maybe it'll be a nice change of pace from exchanges with philosophers to talk to a guy that also works so closely with brains.
YAAAAAAAY!!!!!
So I guess Sapolsky prefers the terms conscious/autonomic rather than voluntary/involuntary?
Спасибо из России! Жду каждого выпуска!
Is Free Will itself just a bad description of human habits?
I don't believe in God or the Devil but I definitely believe in free will.
probably the most trustworthy scientist if you ask me.
I'd like to see the evidence that people behave as though they have free will
To me it’s a problem of definition what free will is and agreeing first on that, to be able to argue if it’s exists or not.
To me even Freedom is an illusion but a very important one. I believe we need the feeling of freedom wich is achieved, in my opinion, through possibilities. If you have less possibilities, the feeling of freedom is less.
The other thing about religion and pro-sociality is that sometimes there's a issue about how religious people treat people of other religions.
Is that some investment in podcast upgrades??!
Loving it ❤❤❤
EDIT: I Have since found TH-cam videos of ‘Alonzo Clemons’ - this is not the same man, just in case “Father Sapolsky & Offspring” considered otherwise.
Thanks again, I submitted a question for you guys last Friday, and if Dr Sapolsky has any knowledge of ‘the accountant’, his impasse about being ‘free of your history’, is to be found there.
Since the internet, I have not been able to find any information on The Accountant.
His sculpting skills are supernatural, but explainable in secular terms.
Ps ants speaking French, I’m sure that can be arranged: in cursive.
In and of itself, the uni-verse of 0-1-2-3-4 harmonically condensed materialisation is a re legion or crystallisation of nodal-vibrational emitter-receiver log-antilog interference positioning resonance bonding, unity-connection categorization.
So Recursion to the Mean => inherent Agnostic neutrality maintained by pure-math logarithmic motion condensation modulation cause-effect mechanism, a magical-functional true-in-principle explanation of requirements for rigorous identification procedures, socially and technically, ie choose your own words if the University Courses are unsatisfactory.
I’m reasonably sure that consciousness is transmitted through a field that emanates from the sun and we receive it by existing within the field, like bumper cars brushing against an electric net
Reasonably?
@@carlosandres7006 I heard it from a very reliable source
im reasonably sure clouds are made of cotton candy
@@jonah-b7k they’re made from the brains of the primordial giant Ymir, but that’s pretty close to cotton candy
It all boiled down to when do you call some behavior 'free will.'
A good statistic to look at is the proportion of atheists in jail vs. believers, even with all the bias against atheists, numbers don't look good for religious there
What does God want? Does God want goodness or the choice of goodness? Is a man who chooses the bad perhaps in some ways better than a man who has the good imposed upon him?
-A Clockwork Orange
I have questions Robert Sapolsky!
How does your specific brain and behaviour work Robert? What is it that’s so different to our generally degraded human species that’s cultured in the direction of harm and extinction?
Can you teach us how to rapidly evolve/emerge away from stupidity and abuse before we maim planet life?
And how come you have such amazing retention and recall of so much knowledge, can glide beautifully and engagingly through vocabulary and communication, and hold authority without making fear or injury?
Did you carry books to study into the gorilla jungle during your time there?
Why is their good-natured and not?
I don’t believe that gross behaviour is the “evil” taught by most religions, invoked by a devil or a bad spirit figure in the world. I don’t think you do either. To me it’s an immature, lazy and defeatist way to abrogate responsibility ensuring leaders and roll models are fit for the task.
How come sociopaths and narcissistic types get to filter their way into global alpha positions totally displacing qualified people? Are the regular masses of generally good people simply mesmerized by religion, media, fighter jets and tall buildings and prone to cognative dissonance and gullibility that they buy-in?
Are we doomed to the jungle that state and corporate leaders have us devouring?
We have enough knowledge now that debunk old myths as literal truth. Perhaps a sea of rationality, courage, instinctive survival and insight will intervene and supplant absurdity and abuse.
I’m only 2 minutes in, but I had to search “do ants milk aphids”? 😂 A: yes, it’s a thing.
Professor Richard Feynman type guessing thought experiment condensed into a practical system of unfooling one's self in Self-defining QM-TIME Completeness. No-thing-defined requires some precision observation and accuracy in labelling of perceived truth, like a basic principled Math-Physics.
Exactly, physical system = (sum of parts), the minds data analytics = (a fraction of the sum). It's never more than the sum. Also, downward causation (as you define it) is not what people think of it as. Just like you said, It's still the actions of the smaller parts, because that's (how) a distribution of smaller actions sum. The universe is a local calculation machine (for each position in the universe in parallel). There is no (instant reaching over distance), therefore actions don't come down, they move across smaller factors (for each position in the universe in parallel) making it seem like they "come down". And you will notice, when you use terms like (free will) or (downward causation) in their brain they haven't defined it in the way you did in the video as (sum of smaller physical action components) which is a problem with using that language (the pointer doesn't point to the correct computation), they don't think of it as a parallel distribution of local causal processes that sum, they think of it as instantaneous action at a distance or some shit. People think of downwards causation as (reaching from non-physical reality to change the universe), but that's not how this shit works. Also, just like free will, people think (the mind is temporally omni present, as if they could go back in time, they would have done differently, not realizing if you reverse the computation, you reverse the all the small parameters governing your minds decision making, because temporal locality is a real thing as well). When (most people) think of free will or downward causation, they are think (mind is disconnected from physics), therefore when you use the label (downward causation or free will) it doesn't point to the right computation in their mind that you think it does.
Now that I've been calmed by reason, what's in the preview bar next? Hmmm.... Nothing. but madness.
I get the idea that compatiblists play semantic games to mind-fuck freewill into reality.
If you can't have free will, you can't have your own ideas but only have them put into you externaly. Recursively, if parts don't have free will, you can't form a collection with free will. So my question to Sapolsky is: "does a collection of 2 people have their own seperate ideas?" Emergence can certainly trickle down to the individual part: Einsteins math teacher didn't invent the relativity theory, and Einstein couldn't have without having beeing teached math. For me, own free will is the evolution of the brain to take shortcuts in modelling the world due to the overload of sensory information. So you make decisions on basis of your own imagination. Now you can tie the imagination to the brain, but also the submechanisms make shortcuts. Resulting in conflicting interests, from wich the referee mechanism has to choose from with his inperfect overall sensory information. In this definition there is free will before consciousness, because consciousness will place the idea of self in the modelling of the world. I agree with Sapolsky that the modelling of the world can be influenced by external factors, like if you wear glasses or not if you need them.
I think the show could use a snapier intro song, how about the Kinks Apeman?
I think I'm so educated and I'm so civilized
'Cause I'm a strict vegetarian
But with the over-population and inflation and starvation
And the crazy politicians
I don't feel safe in this world no more
I don't want to die in a nuclear war
I want to sail away to a distant shore and make like an apeman ...
Why is the main philosophical controversy about compatibility/incompatibility? I thought the main controversy is around the very definition of free will. For me, all that free will requires is that the subject exercising it does not know about the outcome of its own choice until that choice is made.
Say I am torn between duty and fear, and after a sleepless night finally decide to sacrifice myself in the name of duty, or finally decide to surrender/desert/retreat/betray my fellows, or commit suicide, or go into hiding where nobody can find me, or whatever. Now suppose also that somebody qualitatively more informed than me knew from the beginning what I would do. Why on earth does this imply that I did not have free will when I made my decision?? There is always somebody qualitatively more informed than somebody else. If I am an ant or an amoeba then such somebody is some biochemist, say, maybe even not necessarily from not so distant future but even from yesterday. And in any case if there are time-transcending entities, then for them the whole past and future is there together and they don't even need to analyse me, they just see it happen. So what? And in fact, even more can be said. Even if absolutely everybody except myself knows for sure what I will do, if I myself do not know it, I do have free will. Because I, as a subject, make choice, and I, as a subject, do not know what I will do until I actually do it.
Then there is also this thing. Suppose that before I make my choice, at some point during that sleepless night, you come to me, and manage to explain to me everything about my disposition, and manage to make me understand that I will in fact do this and that. Then, I can just for the sake of it go ahead and do the opposite. That is, increasing my informedness does influence my decision. OK you also know that, you know how providing me with additional information will change my decision. But then, giving me that extra information will again influence my decision further, and so on and so forth. This, as a minimum, shows that the question is highly nontrivial, no?
I agree that humans have no free will.
But my printer does!
It either eats the paper or it doesn't... Each moment in time it freely decides which path to take, to make my life maximally miserable...
Damn that made my brain hurt.
I'm not a deeply religious person and don't consider myself a theist in any way. I've always considered myself a secular liberal. Interestingly though I've realized that over the decades I've had more conflicts with and judgement from non-religious people than from religious people. This is not simply the result of my social groups it is on balance from all of my social interactions including employers as well as coworkers. As a matter of fact some of the most selfish assholes I've experienced were very educated liberals. I work with and know many PhDs and people with Graduate degrees and it's sad but true that that demographic has shown more self-absored, selfishly driven people that lack interpersonal capacities than most of the religious people I've interacted with. I wish this wasn't the case but it is what it is.
Presumably, those postal workers who were so offended by the “Atheist” sneakers that they didn’t deliver them were religious.
No doubt determinational factors reveiled as explanatory versus a whole range of habitual behavior that otherwise makes for limited lifes may make way for improvements. Yet the seriously great need to adjust common presumptions versus free will despite, would it possibly be some point in keeping free will as a reality related consept and a phenomenon related to ideals rather opposing then supporting the many unfair arguments that are building on the no doubt false presumption that we all possess it, part of reality or not? Wouldn't that possibly better make way for some adequate adjustments of the sorts that could to some degree prevent the great problems with exaggerations opposed to truth as the common rute to follow, where "either lunetic or guilty as sin", for instance, serves to small amounts to improve the understanding of ill behavior? That causes are kept under carpets by cultural factors represents surely amounts of losses far above what any culture packed with condescension as part of the mean to cultivate a so called victorious identity is any time soon expected to deal with at large, but as to what's actually done against the matter, I fear that to eliminate an expression that bear amounts of relations to healthy among ideals could represent an unneccassarily sharp turn at the present, should even plain truth prove not at all to be opposed to the act. Will denied, after all, makes for freedom denied, and for other will preferred, not rarely of a lesser nature. Perhaps should free will be associated marily with will not denied, as opposed to serve to substantiate particularly large amounts of evil.
Could emergent systems, at the same time and without contradictions, behave according to the basic rules of their building blocks, and ALSO according to their own rules, (rules and patterns that emerge only at higher level of complexity... laws of biology, rules of conscious agency, rules of social behaviours)? If there are emergent rules and emergent laws (fully compatible with more fundamental laws, but still, something more, extra variable to consider) the emergent, higher level can result in behaviors that are impossible to explain and predict solely based on the building blocks themselves... thus producing both undetermined and unpredictable phenomena (not in an absolute sense, but in respect to underlying blocks rules and behaviours)
effects have causes. if this is true, then what would free will be? an uncaused effect? this would be a meaningless act. So at best it can be subject to outside causes, or else it's mere randomness.
For the believers... their benign 'father figure' has chosen for them to play a game.
A game with the hordes of little ones, in 'the human herd' that supposedly 'look a bit like him'.
That game is life ...and life is purely a test of your devotion.
Get through the test ( three score and ten years ) and you can spend eternity,
squatting in his awe-inspiring glow. That's it, there is no more to it.
The whole of life is an illusion... there's no real pain or suffering. It was only a game.
This is how the Abrahamic religions see the underlying nature of reality.
As a God given test. Everything else is semantics. You either choose to accept this,
or you won't. Generally, only a very small minority of the herd think this is all nonsense.
The vast majority of the herd need it, they desperately need the conclusion it offers.
The ability to be absolutely right about the true nature of reality and that life is eternal.
Both of these dispel, or at least quell… the curse of human anxiety.
This is what all humans instinctively and unanimously require, what they all crave.
A complete release from the constant torment of 'mortal' anxiety.
Atheists should understand this. They should readily comply.
But like adolescents they fight it. As if they might fight a parent for overly protecting them.
Yet they have to realise they are the outlier. They're out of touch with the 'majority',
herd mentality. Whether they're devoid of normal herd-like levels of emphatic empathy,
or just righteously belligerent iconoclasts.They must realise they're the noisy minority.
And in many ways... both of these atheistic subgroups should consider themselves,
psychologically atypical. For it is normal, it is even a prerequisite to be human.
To believe in fanciful myths and stories of ever lasting life.
To feel the wellspring of emotion form at the thought of a spiritual dimension to your life.
It is and always will be, the default setting. It's what the herd implicitly needs,
in order to function. Many elements of human society only persist,
because they are 'tried and tested'. Because they're absolutely essential tools,
for the mental well-being of the herd.
I find it funny and pertinent that the people committing crimes in the atheist shoe storie were both government employees and religious. Both of these associations are organizations dedicated to community and service. But the individuals happily stole and probably trashed people's property based on their religious opinions. How good are these people really?
Offspring has the same hair color as Safi. Interesting coincidence I think.
I’ve been carefully honing it for years to match the color ✨
@@rachel.s-s ❤️
Question… why is the emergent property of a group of people so evil? See George Carlin “It’s Bad for Ya”
It’s not possible to even meaningfully define “free will.”
Seems coherent and full of BS at the same time. Maybe I’m wrong. I do agree that there’s a whole lot less free will than we think, but why is a mystery to me. Biochemistry and genetics and epigeneticsand environments interacting therewith. Big words for “Hell if I know”
But wait, there's something missing, there's got to be more to a human being than that. Maybe not!
The Berlin "Atheist" shoe brand seems to have been started as a joke to show that, yes, athiests have soles.
Offspring at 20X smarter age, Prof Sapolsky's maybe 10X than amateurs willing to learn by pseudo random error correction, ie unfooling one's self and learning from those who have already done the research.
Teachers learn from their Students who experience learning by doing under regulation by a trained Observer, the example of mothers and babies is the inherent re-evolution repositioning of elemental nodal-vibrational holography-quantization relative-timing DNA type sync-duration con/di-vergent sequences of resonance bonding proportioning chemistry. Parallel coexistence QM-TIME Completeness.
Faith is fundamentally dishonest.
I am pretty sure that my free will increases if I win the lottery tomorrow.
How are you going to argue against that ROBERT 🤦♂
Woooooosh!