Essentially, we don't choose our genetics. We don't choose the country we're born in. We don't choose the people who raise us or the culture/religion they program/indoctrinate us with. We don't choose to be influenced by all the countless people who randomly enter and exit lives - whether they be the kids we go to school with or the role models we come across. By the time we're fully grown adults, our brains are already primed to react in an incredibly complex but predictable way to any given stimuli at any given moment. We are self aware biological constructs constantly reacting to the completely random hands that we're dealt from birth to death. For example: If you're a highly ambitious person who desires to constantly 'control' every aspect of your life by means of wealth and power, you were already primed to be that way by your biology, or how you were raised, or a mix of both.
I’ve been thinking about determinism for a while, and I’ve come to the conclusion that the reason people are so against it is because they believe that if our actions aren’t free, it somehow undermines the value or function of those actions. I think this is entirely a matter of self-perception, which they try to extrapolate on the truth of determinism. By the way great video and as someone who has gotten fairly popular on tiktok, make videos you want and filter the noise of most people. 👍
It's mostly a separate discussion, but whether humans have free will or not is laregely irrelevant to how we should sentence criminals. If free will, as you described, doesn't exist, then we're going to do what we do regardless. In any case, although our criminal system isn't really good at it, we should be doing whatever has the best outcome for society, which I think is the same whether or not we have free will.
We don't choose what we have but we do choose what we do with it based on the limited information we have. Yes we are self aware and we are beings with free will. Influenced isn't the complete opposite of... what's the word again....?
I reckon that, should free will exist, it is not a boolean property (on or off). We may be in a "low free will" state most of the time, reacting as our neural net dictates, but during some situations free will might emerge from the sheer complexity of our neural net. Emergent properties in general are what I'm arguing for here. Neither Oxygen nor Hydrogen is wet, but toss them together and a new property emerges. Formational experiences come to mind, when gamma waves peak. Proposing to a partner, jumping out of an aircraft, saving a life. During such events, we qualitatively feel more "in control" so to speak. Perhaps this is free will peaking its head out from behind the proverbial curtain, driven by novelty to, well, make crucial choices! Why do I say this might be free will as opposed to just riding along with your neural net? Because these experiences are what SHAPE your neural net. Should it exist as an emergent property, then your choices during moments of increased free will dictate how you will behave when you're on autopilot. If this is the case, it makes having free will even more important, your autopilot behavior literally couldn't form without your direct input.
People say that we have the ability to make choices outside of external factors or our biology, then what is the 3rd factor? To answer that is to essentially come up with some kind of theological belief, like some kind of spirit that makes choices for us sometimes that have nothing to do with the greymatter in our heads & it's experiences. That entire idea of free will has no basis in reality. Our bodies, including our brains, are essentially extremely complex Rube Goldberg machines. Even if there's quantum fluctuations that randomly alter our brain in small, imperceptible ways, that's not something that we chose either. That's ultimately out of our control. The choices we make are entirely governed by laws &/or chaotic factors that are ultimately out of our control, and that we did not choose for ourselves Good video
I think it's really interesting that we pretty much accept the reality of randomness even though that idea is just as crazy and radical as free will. How do you explain randomness? In order to do so, you would have to employ some sort of theology or something. How can anything be random? That makes no sense. But we have no problem with that concept do we? It's when we go further and challenge our comfort zones that people really start to have a problem with it. I understand that ideas like nihilism and believing we are determined are nice ideas that we like because they are easy to make sense of, but that's probably false. Determinism isn't real, sorry. You are condemned to be free. It is what it is. The third factor you're looking for is consciousness by the way. I belive the same forces that bring indetermenancy give us consciousness and allow us to have free will. At least i think that's possible I don't know for sure. People who argue against free will always act like they know for sure though 100%.
@@hessylaguna5415 I don't think you understood what I said. The whole "well there may be quantum fluctuations thus meaning the universe isn't deterministic" thing is the excuse people give to say that free will exists, I'm not saying that it is an absolute thing; but that even in the event that this does influence our decisions, that randomness is not something we control. What you're saying has no evidence behind it
This assumes, like many others that say free will does not exist, that free will is an all or nothing concept. Either we make all the decisions pertaining to ourselves, or we have no control at all. Of course we dont choose our homeland, parents, attributes or genetics, but we do make choices every single day that affect our lives in various strengths. "Free will" is not a thing that can be taken away or given, its just a collection of sounds we use to explain the concept of decision making and why so many people have so many different answers to the same questions
I'd just like to say (before watching the video), that even IF free will is real, by whatever miracle of quantum mechanics or whatever; it plays such a small role in everything that it must be nearly negligible. The proof or our hormones, brain structure, the food that we eat, out gut microbiome, our genetics, our childhood and upbringing is so overwhelmingly preset, that if we had free will it would have little power to influence our lives and the world around us to the extent we like to believe it does!
@@comfortingabsurdity. You make a good point. I’m a mere human making a statement about the free will of life, not a very simple concept, and it’s not difficult to imagine that there are very complex things to consider that could lead to the conclusion of there being some free will somehow present in ourselves. But what we’re saying in this video and in your comment seems to be that the majority of what governs the decisions we make are due to things that our outside of our own discretion, outside of our “free will.”
Just because there is predestination doesn’t mean there is no free will. I might know that my friend in the cafeteria is going to choose ice cream, but that doesn’t mean it was any less their choice. It is precisely because of their personality (made of nature and nurture) that they will choose the ice cream. The choice is determinstic because we are deterministic creatures, we work on cause and effect, in order to have any control over your surroundings you have to, but that doesn’t mean we don’t have free will. If a hyper advanced Ai could process all the data in the universe it might be able to perfectly predict your actions. If it were to do so it would need to know the precise conditions of your past, of your birth, the positions and relative velocity of ever particle within a close enough proximity to your body that it could affect your choice. But anoung the many factors it would need to make this calculation it would also need to know you, the type of person you are, how you react to stimuli in a way no one else does, if that isn’t free will, I don’t know what is.
The idea that we’re just nature and nurture at bottom (determinism) definitely clashes with certain intuitions about free will. But do we really need to be absolutely self-authored to consider ourselves free? Freedom is a complex and often debated concept. In a civic context, for instance, people have wildly different ideas of what “true freedom” looks like. Some think it’s about being free from any external control-an anarchistic view. Others see true freedom as the result of strict rules and order, where the state eliminates chaos and harm. Most of us probably fall somewhere in between. Does a concept need to be absolute to be meaningful? Not really. Technically, no objects are solid if you zoom in enough to see the space between atoms. Yet, we still call things solid because it’s a useful and meaningful distinction. Is the human will “free”? Not in an absolute sense. But it has remarkable degrees of freedom. We can reason, weigh choices, reflect on our beliefs and values, and even change them if we’re inspired to. We can act on our intentions through executive functions. These capacities make our will meaningfully “free” in my view-and they justify moral responsibility.
We are just as responsible as the rocks tumbling down a landslide. The rocks are falling, they did fall, but something lead to them falling. Something lead to the thing that lead to the thing that caused the rock to fall, and so on and so forth. The rock falls on your head, the rock fell on your head, thus it is responsible for falling on your head, and something is responsible for causing the rock to fall on your head. Everything that we are is causal. We cannot be judged in a vacuum, because we are not formed in a vacuum. We are not wholly responsible for the things we do and think, and what we become, because the things that we become are so because of things entirely outside of our control. I could take you, put you along a different life path where your brain interacts with the world through stimuli and develops you into an absolutely terrible person. I don't think you then deserve to be tortured because of some terrible misdeed you've done based on the life experiences you've had. You can say 'well I've had XYZ experiences and I could have been a bad person but I chose to be a good one!" and then you have to ask: "what lead to you choosing to be a good person instead?" "What lead to that thing that lead to you choosing to be a good person instead?" and then you arrive back at 0. Back at the beginning. Back before there was flesh computers that feel things. This whole thing is out of our control, and to acknowledge this would be to introduce more empathy with how we deal with things. The goal would then be to protect these feeling flesh computers from themselves rather than actuating retributive punishments against them. The idea of justice is a lie. The world is not just. Reality is not just. This causal thread we've been bound by is not fair. To recognize this would lead to a better world. To create a world where things aren't measured by judgements, but by how much we can reduce harm regardless of the situations that lead to people becoming what they are. The judge sitting in the chair could have just as easily been the criminal he's convicting, if his brain interacted with an entirely different set of stimuli. To judge people is to judge the circumstance that created them, and then to punish them for it
@ So, hot take: we are nothing like rocks. Rocks are determined and we are determined. That’s about where the similarities stop. You know the difference between a rock tumbling down a hill and a skier skiing down a hill? One is self controlled, and the other is not. A rock neither knows nor cares that it is falling down the hill. Responsibility does not mean we are the ultimate cosmic source of everything we do. Responsibility means we have a response ability. We have the ability to respond to moral desert in an appropriate way. If you do something that harms me, I have the right to morally chastise you because I need to be able to intervene on behalf of my own well being. It is rational for me to chastise you because you have the ability to understand that what you’re doing harms me, the ability to reflect on your own intentions to do so, and the control necessary to stop. A rock doesn’t have any of those response abilities. You might choose not to stop harming me because *insert complex metaphysical story here*, but that does not mean it is not both rationally and morally justified for me to hold you responsible for your actions. If justice is a lie, why are you worried about retribution? Why are you worried about empathy? Who cares? The world is an unjust place right? Justice is an indeed a social construct. That doesn’t mean it’s a lie. The world will be a worse place for everyone without justice and responsibility. If do not hold my son responsible when he misbehaves, he will grow up to be a pampered little shit that nobody wants to waste their time with, and he will resent me for my derelict attitude. I agree with you about retribution. Retribution is revenge disguised as justice. It views suffering as end unto itself. It doesn’t fix anything. But we can jettison retribution without with getting rid of punishment. Punishment should be about 1) Deterrence, 2) Restoration/Remedy, 3) Correction/Rehabilitation, and 4) Incapacitation. We don’t have to lie ourselves about metaphysics to justify responsibility. And we also don’t have to ignore material conditions that tend to lead people to lawless and immoral behavior.
Great video, but I don't think I understood it very well. I agree with your premise 1 and 2, as they are quite obvious. Our genetics and our experiences certainly have a great influence on our actions. However, I couldn't find a plausible justification in your argument that explains why these are the only factors influencing our decision-making process. You basically said the following: 1: Our genetics influence our decision-making process 2: Our experiences influence our decision-making process 3: These are the only factors influencing our decision-making process 3 and a half: We have no control over either of these two factors I feel that premise 3 was a logical leap without any solid foundation. To me, the question of free will revolves around whether the world is deterministic or not, and in premise 3, you are assuming it is, without explaining why very clearly.
@@pedroblandim3926 Your absolutely right. At a certain point I sacrificed clarity for entertainment. I’ll attempt to clarify my understanding here if your interested. My perspective is that everything we are is derived solely from genetics and experience. I have yet to find something that contributes to who I am that doesn’t fall under these categories. And before someone opposes by proposing the possibility of us having a metaphysical soul, I’ll oppose back by saying that we didn’t choose that soul and the traits it might give us so that isn’t some gateway to proving we have free will. Anyway, with these assumptions, which in philosophy there is of course no way to rigorously prove a statement so all we can make are educated assumptions, I say that the reasons for every made decision, which can be very very complex at times, are determined completely by these things outside of our control, our genetics and experiences.
The world can be completely random and non deterministic and still support the argument against free will. It's just like how people claim we have free will because of completely random quantum processes that might be occurring in our brains every once in a while. Like, okay? We don't have control over those quantum processes either. We're still just reacting to a world of randomness that ultimately shapes every aspect of who we are and guides every decision we make.
@@Soooooooooooonicable What is that "we" and what is actual randomness? Imagine a god would take decisions about particles, somehow, in ways we might not be able to comprehend at all, free from systematics, or any deterministics, yet decided, it would probably seem entirely random to us. ( just a thought experiment, im not religious) Also, if something is determined based on your authentic Self, and every property that belongs to your "self" , that would be a free decision, not free from you, but free from outside control, it would simply be in relation to outside events (which is not the same as controlled), now you would say "but i didnt chose my selfe" but ofc u didnt, u didnt exist before, u are the selfe that is created, from there on, your the decider, your not a blackbox that just reacts to ur enviroment, ur in an interdependency with it, for other people, you are their environemt. Why would a "free will" need to be free from who you are right now? Now, to get back to the thought experiment, all we can ever do is, understand how things happen, based on the properties and relations to other things they have, you dont know why electromagnetism works, you know how it works, which explains the "why´s" of other things, but only cause there is something to relate to and that basically goes for everything so you never know the last "why". Now if something happens at random in our world it just means it has no deterministic why, OR deterministic why´s that somehow have no relation to our currently observable world BUT theire outcome, it does not mean it has no why at all, for example, if some cause would at complete randomness, lead to 5 possible events, all of these events still would have a cause, yet be random.So there can be a why, what if that why is "the power to decide" even if we dont know how that works yet, that "power to decide" would create properties to relate to for other particles, that from there on create deterministic events again. Now i probably didnt write very well, im sry, im not a native speaker, im from germany. And im not saying these things are true or not true but i study philosophy and i just wanna say, its not that easy or simple to answer haha. I think at the end of the day, as it is the case for many topics that involve living beeings, subjects as such, it is to the subject to define certain terms, like how do u define for some one else what their "self" is (as long as he is in some room of reasonability) i could imagine a lot of different definitions of "self" that are all reasonable.
If free will isn't real, then that lack of belief in free will is also predetermined by prior causes such as genetics or experiences, not logical reasoning, but if that's the case how can you claim that it's logical to believe that there is no free will? Your ability to reason already depends on the existence of free will; the ability to make choices independently of non-rational factors such as genetics or experiences and hence your "logic" denies the very thing that got you to believe what you believe, if you are to believe that your beliefs are rational.
Your argument makes the assumption that the self is something separate from your nurture and nature which isn't true. Everything in this world is made up of properties, essential and non essential ones. A non essential property is a property that can be removed from a thing without it becoming a new thing e.g you are still you even if you lose all your hair. An essential property is a property is a property that if removed from a thing it becomes a new thing e.g if you die you stop being you. Your nature and nurture are essential properties to the self. So all your actions being based on your nature and nurture doesn't mean you don't have free will as your nature and nurture are apart of what makes up you and thus you are still making decisions. Also the question of free will is questioning the free part not the will so even if a hypothetical murder didn't freely murder someone this murder still willingly murdered someone
Okay I like how you lay this out, but I feel like it misses a few key points. I’m finishing my masters in existential psychology currently, so that’s where I’m coming from with this- I’m biased toward an existential/humanistic approach. Someone mentioned in another comment something important, which is that this comes from an assumption that the universe is deterministic, as in that in physics, randomnesses is an illusion. Maybe that’s neither here nor there, because I guess the case could be made that even if neural activity is determined by non-deterministic means like quantum superposition or whatever, that doesn’t mean we have any more control over it than if it were deterministic. Possibly more important to the discussion is the distinction between “objective reality” and the lifeworld. I’m personally agnostic as to whether or not we have free will in the objective sort of way you’re discussing here. That being said, I can say with great certainty that making decisions in our lives is not an illusion. Practically speaking, we must always choose. Even not choosing is a choice, as Sartre put it. If we were to behave as if our choices were predetermined, we’d be absconding our responsibility to choose for ourselves. Whether there’s some greater cosmic order which has predetermined all our choices is of no significance to our lived worlds, because we must always act believing that our choices make a difference, because they tangibly do.
@@opalviolet3156 Thank you and I think it’s great your pursuing a masters in such an interesting topic. I’m planning on pursuing a masters in physics, most likely condensed matter experiment. In my original script of this video I took into account non-deterministic, deterministic, and metaphysical considerations, and none altered my perspective on not having free will, including your mention of the possibility of quantum processes somehow bubbling up to the size of neurons and interacting with them. In reality this kind of interaction has never been measured anyway, neurons are still very large compared to quantum systems. The deterministic explanation encaptured seemed to me to be the simplest to understand while still making the main points of my argument. Anyway, I’m more interested with your second half here. Absconding our responsibility to choose for ourselves… I think the idea of suddenly not choosing for oneself because they think with great certainty that they do not have free will is so absurd that most likely no one would do it. Thus by conventionally taught ideas of absurdity and straying from societal norms no person would do such a thing. I can’t deny that from our natural perspective, we think we make our own decisions. We, ourselves, our brains, do technically literally choose if I’m following your understanding correctly (something about ourself literally do make a choice), but unfortunately through your point my perspective still holds that any choice is made due to reasons, all of which derive from outside of our control. We should act as if our choices make a difference though I completely agree with that. I and everyone has thought that way most of their lives and it’s turned out fine, we still do the things we like and are with the people we love (even if we didn’t choose them 😄). These things are illusively of our own choice but for them to not be, the way i see it, cause and effect would need to be violated which is too absurd for me.
I love the video and am always interested in this topic. Let me offer some of my thoughts on why maybe we do have free will and it's not as obvious as you may think. First, do we accept and understand that there is such thing as quantum randomness aka "true randomness" that has been observed & proven to exist at least in a quantum level? Well I ask, how is that possible? How is something random? Someone explain this to me. Really small objects don't follow the current laws of causality, so it means that these laws aren't real and it's possible to go against cause and effect (basically, determinism is an illusion). What if that's what is going on in our brain? I mean, our brains and everything else is made out of these quantum objects. What if we have inherited the "non-causality" part of these quantum objects without inheriting the randomness of it? All of a sudden there is room for agent-causal events. I believe that consciousness may be us being aware of superposition and being able to chose from them as independent beings. I got a lot of these ideas from John searle btw, another pro free will guy.
Whether the universe is purely deterministic or influenced by entirely random fluctuations, these are both things ultimately outside of our control. Our minds being messed with by quantum fluctuations is in no way something that we choose for ourselves. That just means we have a dice roller in our heads, which is arguably more chaotic than a purely causal & deterministic world
@nessy3338 I know. That's not what I was saying though. I'm saying there is 3 types of causes in the universe: 1. Deterministic (cause and effect) 2. Random (no cause, just effect) 3. Agent-causal (you are the "agent" and the direct cause to the effect) The third is what happens in our brains. Bringing up the randomness thing was just to show that non-causality exists. And if non-causality exists that means that agent-causality is possible correct?
@@hessylaguna5415 If the world is purely deterministic, then we are entirely along a system of events that we ultimately did not choose for ourselves. If the world is influenced by quantum randomness, then we are entirely along a system of events that we ultimately did not choose for ourselves. We, aka our brains / flesh, did not choose the path (whether predetermined or random) that would lead to the creation of our personalities through biological factors & external stimuli. In a deterministic world, we are along a long string of unchangeable, predetermined cause and effect, like dominoes. In a world influenced by quantum randomness, our lives are on the rails of quantum dice rolls. Both are things that we do not choose. We only react to the world & situations around us, both of which are things that we did not choose for ourselves. You can take two identical fleshly brains and put them along different life paths, leading to them making different choices. One can develop into a good person based upon it's life experiences, the other can develop into a bad person based on it's life experiences
It was a bit difficult to catch the problem with your argument. And as much as it may be on me for failing to get what you mean, your second premise is potentially wrong because you don't bother to define what it would mean to choose. AI can choose. The ability to choose isn't contingent on any level of consciousness. And because we can choose, we choose our experiences. The natural consequence of the choices we make. It's that disconnect that I believe hurts your argument. You could suggest we are not meaningfully choosing, and even that our concious selves provably only react to our brains predetermined decisions. But you'd be left with proving our brain lacks free will. It's still free will if it does have it even though we are consciously unable to deviate from the choice.
Without wanting to sound rude, this is kind of the most basic arguement against free will, not really something new. I think u lack premises here, you need to first define what the "self" or "I" is, and what free will really is supposed to be. I dont really have the energy to go to deep right now (sry) but i think the question of free will is not about how are decisions arise, but what "I" and a "free will" is supposed to be. Free will, free from what? A will, free from what i define as my selfe, certainly wouldn't be very nice, that would just be a will without anything. To have free will determanism or indetermanism doesnt really matter since, as u said ur selfe, u are a part of the universe, not just something thrown in there. You arise of it and vanish, if the Universe, metaphoricly speaking, takes decisions then u do too, but ofc only those designated to the part you belong to, ur part of the universe and ur able to have a will, that means parts of the universe have a will. That will is derived by the context between your selfe and the world, not just by the world. Basically what im stating is a Compatibilism arguement, and i think they work very well. Sry, i kinda presented this arguement very lousy, i could have went much more in detail, which would have probably answered some counter arguements you are gonna think of now, but i seriously had a long day, yet still wanted to answer. I think looking at what you define as "the selfe" and understanding the relation between different objects/subjects of the universe and there properties is what is important to understand free will. Also if we ever know how to understand conscioussnes or beeing Sentient or the Qualia (these terms are getting mixed the fck up all the time anyways) it might bring some different new view points as well, who knows. Ofc at the end of the day thats just my opinion.
Nah unless you've insulted me in some way there's no rudeness here I'm glad you took the time to give your thoughts. I agree it is very basic and I figured I'd start basic for my first edited video. In conventional philosophy, my argument would definitely require more solid definitions and a little more explaining to better fill the leaps in logic from one premise to the next. Really I tried to skip these things by getting right to my point that the idea of free will doesn't make sense. There is no proper definition of it the way I see it because there is no life form that has such a thing. Free will is conventionally defined as the ability to make decisions of one's own discretion. There is no factor towards a made decision that is dependent only on oneself (one's own discretion), what oneself is is literally a result of only things derived from outside of their control. Anyway, I don't understand your idea here of the Universe having a will, but compatibilism is for sure an argument against my own. It's the idea that an agent can make a free decision within the constraints of their nature and nurture. That a person could've eaten an apple rather than a banana, but not toxic sludge. To oppose this I just say that there was a reason that a person chose to do one thing rather than another, in which that reason is derived from things outside of their control, as all chains of cause and effect (reason and decision) in a person eventually are.
I think you raise a really good point with the Geri analogy. Was Hitler destined to commite the Holocaust and were all the people that supported him always going to do the same? I recently heard an argument about the non omniscient God and i think it can be applied here as well. We probably don't have absolute free will as in every decision comes entirely from our chosing, but to large extend our biology and nurture, but we aren't void of agency. As another comment pointed out we have some control over our actions. Consider people who repelled for their sins and chose to change, was that destined from the start? I think we have the freedom to not always follow our impulses and even go against our nature. It might not be absolute as we're still subject of the environment, but we have a say in how we will live our lives. If a person is able to come to a different conclusion about how he's going to act contrary to previous ones, this for me constitutes an existence of at least partial free will.
There's no evidence for some kind of external mind going against what's inside of the brain, that's a process of the brain interacting with reality & it's own nature, thus coming to that conclusion in the same way that the brain decides to wake up and put on blue socks instead of purple. Every choice we make is due to a long string of experiences that came before. We don't defy our brains, we are our brains. To struggle with one's thoughts is the brain in turmoil with it's thoughts, not some spirit outside of it in turmoil with the brain. The brain ultimaitely cannot go against what the brain chooses to do because the struggle between the id, ego, and superego is just the brain. To go against one's instincts means that the brain is thus choosing something else in it's place, and that something either comes from the brain's logic and/or societal influence. We are extremely complex rube goldberg machines that are aware of our own existence. We do not have free will. We make choices, but our choices are entirely, completely, utterly on the rails of causality, hardcoded biological behavior, and externally influenced behavior. That is our entirety, and to say otherwise would be to say that something like as spirit with some kind of magical free will exists. Nothing we do is outside of external factors, unless we're born without access to any of our senses
Why would i accept that? You make a lot of presupposes. You just explain how things may be*, but you have to explain why things like that. Soooo, I recommend you to read some contemporary philosophy.
I definitely think it's fair to say that we are influenced by our nature and experiences, as you say in premises 1 & 2, but I don't agree with the leap you make in premise 3 where our decisions become determined by those factors. It's also kind of an unfalsifiable claim that some action is based solely on a person's nature/experience, rather than a decision they made freely. You say cat, and I say dog, you could argue that's due to societal conditioning of associating those two animals. You say cat, I say octopus, you could argue that my upbringing made me naturally rebellious and therefore not give the expected response. There's no way to conclusively prove either of those, so they kind of fall apart logically.
I’m a physics and math major at University so I deal with emperical evidence and proving statements. I agree with you. There’s no way to prove absolutely these statements and I hate that we’re so limited by our nature in this Universe from reaching such solid conclusions. So yeah my arguments here and in my future philosophical videos are just educated arguments. At the end of the day I can’t prove if I or you are right, but it’d be pretty fun to argue about it 😄
Essentially, we don't choose our genetics. We don't choose the country we're born in. We don't choose the people who raise us or the culture/religion they program/indoctrinate us with. We don't choose to be influenced by all the countless people who randomly enter and exit lives - whether they be the kids we go to school with or the role models we come across. By the time we're fully grown adults, our brains are already primed to react in an incredibly complex but predictable way to any given stimuli at any given moment. We are self aware biological constructs constantly reacting to the completely random hands that we're dealt from birth to death. For example: If you're a highly ambitious person who desires to constantly 'control' every aspect of your life by means of wealth and power, you were already primed to be that way by your biology, or how you were raised, or a mix of both.
great summary exactly.
I’ve been thinking about determinism for a while, and I’ve come to the conclusion that the reason people are so against it is because they believe that if our actions aren’t free, it somehow undermines the value or function of those actions. I think this is entirely a matter of self-perception, which they try to extrapolate on the truth of determinism.
By the way great video and as someone who has gotten fairly popular on tiktok, make videos you want and filter the noise of most people. 👍
@@maxtoasted Interesting perspective man I completely agree. And thank you I appreciate that.
What would make a mind free from basic causality?
Random quantum processes? That's just more "non-freedom".
All actions are reactions.
I think it’s fair to say that I just stumbled upon greatness in the making
bro learned to edit all of a sudden 😂
It's mostly a separate discussion, but whether humans have free will or not is laregely irrelevant to how we should sentence criminals. If free will, as you described, doesn't exist, then we're going to do what we do regardless. In any case, although our criminal system isn't really good at it, we should be doing whatever has the best outcome for society, which I think is the same whether or not we have free will.
We don't choose what we have but we do choose what we do with it based on the limited information we have. Yes we are self aware and we are beings with free will. Influenced isn't the complete opposite of... what's the word again....?
I reckon that, should free will exist, it is not a boolean property (on or off). We may be in a "low free will" state most of the time, reacting as our neural net dictates, but during some situations free will might emerge from the sheer complexity of our neural net. Emergent properties in general are what I'm arguing for here. Neither Oxygen nor Hydrogen is wet, but toss them together and a new property emerges.
Formational experiences come to mind, when gamma waves peak. Proposing to a partner, jumping out of an aircraft, saving a life. During such events, we qualitatively feel more "in control" so to speak. Perhaps this is free will peaking its head out from behind the proverbial curtain, driven by novelty to, well, make crucial choices!
Why do I say this might be free will as opposed to just riding along with your neural net? Because these experiences are what SHAPE your neural net. Should it exist as an emergent property, then your choices during moments of increased free will dictate how you will behave when you're on autopilot. If this is the case, it makes having free will even more important, your autopilot behavior literally couldn't form without your direct input.
Thank you for validating my pre-existing views.
What if you react in an opposite way to how you were natured?
People say that we have the ability to make choices outside of external factors or our biology, then what is the 3rd factor? To answer that is to essentially come up with some kind of theological belief, like some kind of spirit that makes choices for us sometimes that have nothing to do with the greymatter in our heads & it's experiences. That entire idea of free will has no basis in reality. Our bodies, including our brains, are essentially extremely complex Rube Goldberg machines. Even if there's quantum fluctuations that randomly alter our brain in small, imperceptible ways, that's not something that we chose either. That's ultimately out of our control. The choices we make are entirely governed by laws &/or chaotic factors that are ultimately out of our control, and that we did not choose for ourselves
Good video
I think it's really interesting that we pretty much accept the reality of randomness even though that idea is just as crazy and radical as free will. How do you explain randomness? In order to do so, you would have to employ some sort of theology or something. How can anything be random? That makes no sense. But we have no problem with that concept do we? It's when we go further and challenge our comfort zones that people really start to have a problem with it. I understand that ideas like nihilism and believing we are determined are nice ideas that we like because they are easy to make sense of, but that's probably false. Determinism isn't real, sorry. You are condemned to be free. It is what it is.
The third factor you're looking for is consciousness by the way. I belive the same forces that bring indetermenancy give us consciousness and allow us to have free will. At least i think that's possible I don't know for sure. People who argue against free will always act like they know for sure though 100%.
@@hessylaguna5415 I don't think you understood what I said. The whole "well there may be quantum fluctuations thus meaning the universe isn't deterministic" thing is the excuse people give to say that free will exists, I'm not saying that it is an absolute thing; but that even in the event that this does influence our decisions, that randomness is not something we control. What you're saying has no evidence behind it
This comment was left with no free will.
This assumes, like many others that say free will does not exist, that free will is an all or nothing concept. Either we make all the decisions pertaining to ourselves, or we have no control at all. Of course we dont choose our homeland, parents, attributes or genetics, but we do make choices every single day that affect our lives in various strengths. "Free will" is not a thing that can be taken away or given, its just a collection of sounds we use to explain the concept of decision making and why so many people have so many different answers to the same questions
I'd just like to say (before watching the video), that even IF free will is real, by whatever miracle of quantum mechanics or whatever; it plays such a small role in everything that it must be nearly negligible. The proof or our hormones, brain structure, the food that we eat, out gut microbiome, our genetics, our childhood and upbringing is so overwhelmingly preset, that if we had free will it would have little power to influence our lives and the world around us to the extent we like to believe it does!
@@comfortingabsurdity. You make a good point. I’m a mere human making a statement about the free will of life, not a very simple concept, and it’s not difficult to imagine that there are very complex things to consider that could lead to the conclusion of there being some free will somehow present in ourselves. But what we’re saying in this video and in your comment seems to be that the majority of what governs the decisions we make are due to things that our outside of our own discretion, outside of our “free will.”
@@quantusmathema Indeed. I've seen countless evidence that suggest our minds are from a very large part influenced by events outside of our control
Just because there is predestination doesn’t mean there is no free will.
I might know that my friend in the cafeteria is going to choose ice cream, but that doesn’t mean it was any less their choice.
It is precisely because of their personality (made of nature and nurture) that they will choose the ice cream. The choice is determinstic because we are deterministic creatures, we work on cause and effect, in order to have any control over your surroundings you have to, but that doesn’t mean we don’t have free will.
If a hyper advanced Ai could process all the data in the universe it might be able to perfectly predict your actions.
If it were to do so it would need to know the precise conditions of your past, of your birth, the positions and relative velocity of ever particle within a close enough proximity to your body that it could affect your choice. But anoung the many factors it would need to make this calculation it would also need to know you, the type of person you are, how you react to stimuli in a way no one else does, if that isn’t free will, I don’t know what is.
Thank you so much. It makes sense finally. Your talking speed is amazing❤
of course I’m glad you liked it
The idea that we’re just nature and nurture at bottom (determinism) definitely clashes with certain intuitions about free will. But do we really need to be absolutely self-authored to consider ourselves free?
Freedom is a complex and often debated concept. In a civic context, for instance, people have wildly different ideas of what “true freedom” looks like. Some think it’s about being free from any external control-an anarchistic view. Others see true freedom as the result of strict rules and order, where the state eliminates chaos and harm. Most of us probably fall somewhere in between.
Does a concept need to be absolute to be meaningful? Not really. Technically, no objects are solid if you zoom in enough to see the space between atoms. Yet, we still call things solid because it’s a useful and meaningful distinction.
Is the human will “free”? Not in an absolute sense. But it has remarkable degrees of freedom. We can reason, weigh choices, reflect on our beliefs and values, and even change them if we’re inspired to. We can act on our intentions through executive functions. These capacities make our will meaningfully “free” in my view-and they justify moral responsibility.
We are just as responsible as the rocks tumbling down a landslide. The rocks are falling, they did fall, but something lead to them falling. Something lead to the thing that lead to the thing that caused the rock to fall, and so on and so forth. The rock falls on your head, the rock fell on your head, thus it is responsible for falling on your head, and something is responsible for causing the rock to fall on your head. Everything that we are is causal. We cannot be judged in a vacuum, because we are not formed in a vacuum. We are not wholly responsible for the things we do and think, and what we become, because the things that we become are so because of things entirely outside of our control. I could take you, put you along a different life path where your brain interacts with the world through stimuli and develops you into an absolutely terrible person. I don't think you then deserve to be tortured because of some terrible misdeed you've done based on the life experiences you've had. You can say 'well I've had XYZ experiences and I could have been a bad person but I chose to be a good one!" and then you have to ask: "what lead to you choosing to be a good person instead?" "What lead to that thing that lead to you choosing to be a good person instead?" and then you arrive back at 0. Back at the beginning. Back before there was flesh computers that feel things. This whole thing is out of our control, and to acknowledge this would be to introduce more empathy with how we deal with things. The goal would then be to protect these feeling flesh computers from themselves rather than actuating retributive punishments against them. The idea of justice is a lie. The world is not just. Reality is not just. This causal thread we've been bound by is not fair. To recognize this would lead to a better world. To create a world where things aren't measured by judgements, but by how much we can reduce harm regardless of the situations that lead to people becoming what they are. The judge sitting in the chair could have just as easily been the criminal he's convicting, if his brain interacted with an entirely different set of stimuli. To judge people is to judge the circumstance that created them, and then to punish them for it
@ So, hot take: we are nothing like rocks. Rocks are determined and we are determined. That’s about where the similarities stop. You know the difference between a rock tumbling down a hill and a skier skiing down a hill? One is self controlled, and the other is not. A rock neither knows nor cares that it is falling down the hill. Responsibility does not mean we are the ultimate cosmic source of everything we do. Responsibility means we have a response ability. We have the ability to respond to moral desert in an appropriate way. If you do something that harms me, I have the right to morally chastise you because I need to be able to intervene on behalf of my own well being. It is rational for me to chastise you because you have the ability to understand that what you’re doing harms me, the ability to reflect on your own intentions to do so, and the control necessary to stop. A rock doesn’t have any of those response abilities. You might choose not to stop harming me because *insert complex metaphysical story here*, but that does not mean it is not both rationally and morally justified for me to hold you responsible for your actions.
If justice is a lie, why are you worried about retribution? Why are you worried about empathy? Who cares? The world is an unjust place right? Justice is an indeed a social construct. That doesn’t mean it’s a lie. The world will be a worse place for everyone without justice and responsibility. If do not hold my son responsible when he misbehaves, he will grow up to be a pampered little shit that nobody wants to waste their time with, and he will resent me for my derelict attitude.
I agree with you about retribution. Retribution is revenge disguised as justice. It views suffering as end unto itself. It doesn’t fix anything. But we can jettison retribution without with getting rid of punishment. Punishment should be about 1) Deterrence, 2) Restoration/Remedy, 3) Correction/Rehabilitation, and 4) Incapacitation. We don’t have to lie ourselves about metaphysics to justify responsibility. And we also don’t have to ignore material conditions that tend to lead people to lawless and immoral behavior.
Great video, but I don't think I understood it very well.
I agree with your premise 1 and 2, as they are quite obvious. Our genetics and our experiences certainly have a great influence on our actions. However, I couldn't find a plausible justification in your argument that explains why these are the only factors influencing our decision-making process. You basically said the following:
1: Our genetics influence our decision-making process
2: Our experiences influence our decision-making process
3: These are the only factors influencing our decision-making process
3 and a half: We have no control over either of these two factors
I feel that premise 3 was a logical leap without any solid foundation.
To me, the question of free will revolves around whether the world is deterministic or not, and in premise 3, you are assuming it is, without explaining why very clearly.
@@pedroblandim3926 Your absolutely right. At a certain point I sacrificed clarity for entertainment. I’ll attempt to clarify my understanding here if your interested. My perspective is that everything we are is derived solely from genetics and experience. I have yet to find something that contributes to who I am that doesn’t fall under these categories. And before someone opposes by proposing the possibility of us having a metaphysical soul, I’ll oppose back by saying that we didn’t choose that soul and the traits it might give us so that isn’t some gateway to proving we have free will. Anyway, with these assumptions, which in philosophy there is of course no way to rigorously prove a statement so all we can make are educated assumptions, I say that the reasons for every made decision, which can be very very complex at times, are determined completely by these things outside of our control, our genetics and experiences.
The world can be completely random and non deterministic and still support the argument against free will. It's just like how people claim we have free will because of completely random quantum processes that might be occurring in our brains every once in a while. Like, okay? We don't have control over those quantum processes either. We're still just reacting to a world of randomness that ultimately shapes every aspect of who we are and guides every decision we make.
@@Soooooooooooonicable What is that "we" and what is actual randomness? Imagine a god would take decisions about particles, somehow, in ways we might not be able to comprehend at all, free from systematics, or any deterministics, yet decided, it would probably seem entirely random to us. ( just a thought experiment, im not religious) Also, if something is determined based on your authentic Self, and every property that belongs to your "self" , that would be a free decision, not free from you, but free from outside control, it would simply be in relation to outside events (which is not the same as controlled), now you would say "but i didnt chose my selfe" but ofc u didnt, u didnt exist before, u are the selfe that is created, from there on, your the decider, your not a blackbox that just reacts to ur enviroment, ur in an interdependency with it, for other people, you are their environemt. Why would a "free will" need to be free from who you are right now? Now, to get back to the thought experiment, all we can ever do is, understand how things happen, based on the properties and relations to other things they have, you dont know why electromagnetism works, you know how it works, which explains the "why´s" of other things, but only cause there is something to relate to and that basically goes for everything so you never know the last "why". Now if something happens at random in our world it just means it has no deterministic why, OR deterministic why´s that somehow have no relation to our currently observable world BUT theire outcome, it does not mean it has no why at all, for example, if some cause would at complete randomness, lead to 5 possible events, all of these events still would have a cause, yet be random.So there can be a why, what if that why is "the power to decide" even if we dont know how that works yet, that "power to decide" would create properties to relate to for other particles, that from there on create deterministic events again.
Now i probably didnt write very well, im sry, im not a native speaker, im from germany. And im not saying these things are true or not true but i study philosophy and i just wanna say, its not that easy or simple to answer haha. I think at the end of the day, as it is the case for many topics that involve living beeings, subjects as such, it is to the subject to define certain terms, like how do u define for some one else what their "self" is (as long as he is in some room of reasonability) i could imagine a lot of different definitions of "self" that are all reasonable.
If free will isn't real, then that lack of belief in free will is also predetermined by prior causes such as genetics or experiences, not logical reasoning, but if that's the case how can you claim that it's logical to believe that there is no free will?
Your ability to reason already depends on the existence of free will; the ability to make choices independently of non-rational factors such as genetics or experiences and hence your "logic" denies the very thing that got you to believe what you believe, if you are to believe that your beliefs are rational.
I'm not joking when I say that I have your exact same opinion on free will. Grat video! I hope you achieve great things in the future!
thank you man i’m glad you liked it
Your argument makes the assumption that the self is something separate from your nurture and nature which isn't true.
Everything in this world is made up of properties, essential and non essential ones. A non essential property is a property that can be removed from a thing without it becoming a new thing e.g you are still you even if you lose all your hair. An essential property is a property is a property that if removed from a thing it becomes a new thing e.g if you die you stop being you.
Your nature and nurture are essential properties to the self. So all your actions being based on your nature and nurture doesn't mean you don't have free will as your nature and nurture are apart of what makes up you and thus you are still making decisions.
Also the question of free will is questioning the free part not the will so even if a hypothetical murder didn't freely murder someone this murder still willingly murdered someone
Okay I like how you lay this out, but I feel like it misses a few key points. I’m finishing my masters in existential psychology currently, so that’s where I’m coming from with this- I’m biased toward an existential/humanistic approach. Someone mentioned in another comment something important, which is that this comes from an assumption that the universe is deterministic, as in that in physics, randomnesses is an illusion. Maybe that’s neither here nor there, because I guess the case could be made that even if neural activity is determined by non-deterministic means like quantum superposition or whatever, that doesn’t mean we have any more control over it than if it were deterministic. Possibly more important to the discussion is the distinction between “objective reality” and the lifeworld. I’m personally agnostic as to whether or not we have free will in the objective sort of way you’re discussing here. That being said, I can say with great certainty that making decisions in our lives is not an illusion. Practically speaking, we must always choose. Even not choosing is a choice, as Sartre put it. If we were to behave as if our choices were predetermined, we’d be absconding our responsibility to choose for ourselves. Whether there’s some greater cosmic order which has predetermined all our choices is of no significance to our lived worlds, because we must always act believing that our choices make a difference, because they tangibly do.
@@opalviolet3156 Thank you and I think it’s great your pursuing a masters in such an interesting topic. I’m planning on pursuing a masters in physics, most likely condensed matter experiment. In my original script of this video I took into account non-deterministic, deterministic, and metaphysical considerations, and none altered my perspective on not having free will, including your mention of the possibility of quantum processes somehow bubbling up to the size of neurons and interacting with them. In reality this kind of interaction has never been measured anyway, neurons are still very large compared to quantum systems. The deterministic explanation encaptured seemed to me to be the simplest to understand while still making the main points of my argument. Anyway, I’m more interested with your second half here. Absconding our responsibility to choose for ourselves… I think the idea of suddenly not choosing for oneself because they think with great certainty that they do not have free will is so absurd that most likely no one would do it. Thus by conventionally taught ideas of absurdity and straying from societal norms no person would do such a thing. I can’t deny that from our natural perspective, we think we make our own decisions. We, ourselves, our brains, do technically literally choose if I’m following your understanding correctly (something about ourself literally do make a choice), but unfortunately through your point my perspective still holds that any choice is made due to reasons, all of which derive from outside of our control.
We should act as if our choices make a difference though I completely agree with that. I and everyone has thought that way most of their lives and it’s turned out fine, we still do the things we like and are with the people we love (even if we didn’t choose them 😄). These things are illusively of our own choice but for them to not be, the way i see it, cause and effect would need to be violated which is too absurd for me.
@@quantusmathema well said
Dunkrug
Dislike for the Rick and Morty, to I do agree
@@happyfullfridge ha i’m glad you agree but cmon rick and morty’s the best
I love the video and am always interested in this topic. Let me offer some of my thoughts on why maybe we do have free will and it's not as obvious as you may think.
First, do we accept and understand that there is such thing as quantum randomness aka "true randomness" that has been observed & proven to exist at least in a quantum level? Well I ask, how is that possible? How is something random? Someone explain this to me. Really small objects don't follow the current laws of causality, so it means that these laws aren't real and it's possible to go against cause and effect (basically, determinism is an illusion). What if that's what is going on in our brain? I mean, our brains and everything else is made out of these quantum objects. What if we have inherited the "non-causality" part of these quantum objects without inheriting the randomness of it? All of a sudden there is room for agent-causal events. I believe that consciousness may be us being aware of superposition and being able to chose from them as independent beings. I got a lot of these ideas from John searle btw, another pro free will guy.
Whether the universe is purely deterministic or influenced by entirely random fluctuations, these are both things ultimately outside of our control. Our minds being messed with by quantum fluctuations is in no way something that we choose for ourselves. That just means we have a dice roller in our heads, which is arguably more chaotic than a purely causal & deterministic world
@nessy3338 I know. That's not what I was saying though. I'm saying there is 3 types of causes in the universe:
1. Deterministic (cause and effect)
2. Random (no cause, just effect)
3. Agent-causal (you are the "agent" and the direct cause to the effect)
The third is what happens in our brains. Bringing up the randomness thing was just to show that non-causality exists. And if non-causality exists that means that agent-causality is possible correct?
@@hessylaguna5415 If the world is purely deterministic, then we are entirely along a system of events that we ultimately did not choose for ourselves. If the world is influenced by quantum randomness, then we are entirely along a system of events that we ultimately did not choose for ourselves. We, aka our brains / flesh, did not choose the path (whether predetermined or random) that would lead to the creation of our personalities through biological factors & external stimuli. In a deterministic world, we are along a long string of unchangeable, predetermined cause and effect, like dominoes. In a world influenced by quantum randomness, our lives are on the rails of quantum dice rolls. Both are things that we do not choose. We only react to the world & situations around us, both of which are things that we did not choose for ourselves. You can take two identical fleshly brains and put them along different life paths, leading to them making different choices. One can develop into a good person based upon it's life experiences, the other can develop into a bad person based on it's life experiences
It was a bit difficult to catch the problem with your argument. And as much as it may be on me for failing to get what you mean, your second premise is potentially wrong because you don't bother to define what it would mean to choose.
AI can choose. The ability to choose isn't contingent on any level of consciousness. And because we can choose, we choose our experiences. The natural consequence of the choices we make.
It's that disconnect that I believe hurts your argument. You could suggest we are not meaningfully choosing, and even that our concious selves provably only react to our brains predetermined decisions. But you'd be left with proving our brain lacks free will. It's still free will if it does have it even though we are consciously unable to deviate from the choice.
Without wanting to sound rude, this is kind of the most basic arguement against free will, not really something new. I think u lack premises here, you need to first define what the "self" or "I" is, and what free will really is supposed to be. I dont really have the energy to go to deep right now (sry) but i think the question of free will is not about how are decisions arise, but what "I" and a "free will" is supposed to be. Free will, free from what? A will, free from what i define as my selfe, certainly wouldn't be very nice, that would just be a will without anything. To have free will determanism or indetermanism doesnt really matter since, as u said ur selfe, u are a part of the universe, not just something thrown in there. You arise of it and vanish, if the Universe, metaphoricly speaking, takes decisions then u do too, but ofc only those designated to the part you belong to, ur part of the universe and ur able to have a will, that means parts of the universe have a will. That will is derived by the context between your selfe and the world, not just by the world.
Basically what im stating is a Compatibilism arguement, and i think they work very well. Sry, i kinda presented this arguement very lousy, i could have went much more in detail, which would have probably answered some counter arguements you are gonna think of now, but i seriously had a long day, yet still wanted to answer. I think looking at what you define as "the selfe" and understanding the relation between different objects/subjects of the universe and there properties is what is important to understand free will. Also if we ever know how to understand conscioussnes or beeing Sentient or the Qualia (these terms are getting mixed the fck up all the time anyways) it might bring some different new view points as well, who knows. Ofc at the end of the day thats just my opinion.
Nah unless you've insulted me in some way there's no rudeness here I'm glad you took the time to give your thoughts. I agree it is very basic and I figured I'd start basic for my first edited video. In conventional philosophy, my argument would definitely require more solid definitions and a little more explaining to better fill the leaps in logic from one premise to the next. Really I tried to skip these things by getting right to my point that the idea of free will doesn't make sense. There is no proper definition of it the way I see it because there is no life form that has such a thing. Free will is conventionally defined as the ability to make decisions of one's own discretion. There is no factor towards a made decision that is dependent only on oneself (one's own discretion), what oneself is is literally a result of only things derived from outside of their control. Anyway, I don't understand your idea here of the Universe having a will, but compatibilism is for sure an argument against my own. It's the idea that an agent can make a free decision within the constraints of their nature and nurture. That a person could've eaten an apple rather than a banana, but not toxic sludge. To oppose this I just say that there was a reason that a person chose to do one thing rather than another, in which that reason is derived from things outside of their control, as all chains of cause and effect (reason and decision) in a person eventually are.
Fair argument, but you fail to mention outliers who go against the grain. Free will probably isn't totally free.
I was thinking about free will recently, and yes, I think there is none
I think you raise a really good point with the Geri analogy. Was Hitler destined to commite the Holocaust and were all the people that supported him always going to do the same?
I recently heard an argument about the non omniscient God and i think it can be applied here as well. We probably don't have absolute free will as in every decision comes entirely from our chosing, but to large extend our biology and nurture, but we aren't void of agency. As another comment pointed out we have some control over our actions.
Consider people who repelled for their sins and chose to change, was that destined from the start? I think we have the freedom to not always follow our impulses and even go against our nature. It might not be absolute as we're still subject of the environment, but we have a say in how we will live our lives. If a person is able to come to a different conclusion about how he's going to act contrary to previous ones, this for me constitutes an existence of at least partial free will.
There's no evidence for some kind of external mind going against what's inside of the brain, that's a process of the brain interacting with reality & it's own nature, thus coming to that conclusion in the same way that the brain decides to wake up and put on blue socks instead of purple. Every choice we make is due to a long string of experiences that came before. We don't defy our brains, we are our brains. To struggle with one's thoughts is the brain in turmoil with it's thoughts, not some spirit outside of it in turmoil with the brain. The brain ultimaitely cannot go against what the brain chooses to do because the struggle between the id, ego, and superego is just the brain. To go against one's instincts means that the brain is thus choosing something else in it's place, and that something either comes from the brain's logic and/or societal influence. We are extremely complex rube goldberg machines that are aware of our own existence. We do not have free will. We make choices, but our choices are entirely, completely, utterly on the rails of causality, hardcoded biological behavior, and externally influenced behavior. That is our entirety, and to say otherwise would be to say that something like as spirit with some kind of magical free will exists. Nothing we do is outside of external factors, unless we're born without access to any of our senses
Why would i accept that? You make a lot of presupposes. You just explain how things may be*, but you have to explain why things like that. Soooo, I recommend you to read some contemporary philosophy.
Free will exists but most people never acess it or use it. And i would argue most people aren't truly conscious through out most of their lives
I definitely think it's fair to say that we are influenced by our nature and experiences, as you say in premises 1 & 2, but I don't agree with the leap you make in premise 3 where our decisions become determined by those factors. It's also kind of an unfalsifiable claim that some action is based solely on a person's nature/experience, rather than a decision they made freely.
You say cat, and I say dog, you could argue that's due to societal conditioning of associating those two animals.
You say cat, I say octopus, you could argue that my upbringing made me naturally rebellious and therefore not give the expected response.
There's no way to conclusively prove either of those, so they kind of fall apart logically.
I’m a physics and math major at University so I deal with emperical evidence and proving statements. I agree with you. There’s no way to prove absolutely these statements and I hate that we’re so limited by our nature in this Universe from reaching such solid conclusions. So yeah my arguments here and in my future philosophical videos are just educated arguments. At the end of the day I can’t prove if I or you are right, but it’d be pretty fun to argue about it 😄