Appreciate the discussion and the opportunity to learn. Still a work in progress. Not sure about the concept we are all "machines". However, it depends on one's definitions. With AI coming on so strongly, I can only hope we can remain human. What good would it do to render humanity obsolete? Agree it's important to strive beyond the superficial. I can speak to Brent's challenge with those afternoon beers. Brief background on me: retired EMT, studied nursing, also some experience around the liquor business and from the "School of Life". I've played little gigs in college bars and local watering holes clear across the country and back. Also my dad was in the liquor business for a time. My mom had a little cafe for awhile as well where she served great food, beer and wine. Brent - between 5 and 7 pm after a long full day - you are hungry. You want to reach for a beer b/c you're hungry and tired. Your blood sugar's down if you've been busy and haven't eaten for awhile, and no doubt all the requisite neurochemical processes that go with it. I'm not knowledgable enough to know exactly what those would be. I had an instructor, a neuroscientist, who one day remarked that when we drink we are anesthetizing our frontal lobes. Maybe that helps dull the hunger. For sure a beer would alter your blood sugar. I've been told in Germany they call beer "liquid bread". Are you diabetic? At any rate, much moreso than wrestling with whether or not you lack will power (I'm sure you don't), you need to eat. The next time you have a craving for a beer like that, fix yourself a decent dinner and you should feel much better. Hope that helps -
14.40😢.Its feeling poor that is slowly gutting my children to pieces. I feel rich because my environment now provides not just access to material goods as compared to my younger years, but also from my age i have reaped the knowledge of how material wealth makes me a slave to life and that insight places me at an advantage. The challenge of change.
Great questions, the greatest answers, but Robert is “my personal pope” anyway, so good talk, good conversation and so much to learn - to everyone! Thanx! 👍👌👋 (Robert is so authentic I know max only 2-3 more such persons in the scientific-public world teaching/living with this kind of deep authenticity and relevant experience as him)
I think that its safe to say that there are aspects of the free will / agencey question that we do not understand, i have heard several discussions with Stephan Wolfram talking about patterns of informatiin propogation that follow simple rules, yet the unfolding of the system is undeterminable. The only way to see what happens is to "play it out,". To me, this way of understanding the future supports a belief that an individual can steer their own trajectory through current context and that those decisions and intentions affect/effect future situations. At least I like to think so.
Great talk... Love this subject matter. One thing that became clear is feeling poor. If people that look like you are held up as problem people in political debates and media reporting, while people that look like you are regularly being murdered by the police; I doubt mindfulness is going to help change your circumstances as much as people who look like you two and me.
If all we are is the "outcome of priors" (and thus, we have no free will), is there any way, through my actions, I can falsify this claim? What action can I perform that will either support or disprove this notion? Until I’m shown a way to falsify the claim that we have no free will, I will continue to presume, and live, as if *we do have free will* -despite how erudite Robert Sapolsky is. Not having the complete answer to the question: “How did I turn out to be the person I am, making a particular decision, at a particular moment in time?” (considering my brain one second prior, my hormones, my environment for decades, my fetal stressors, my genes, and the weather this morning), does not mean that the answer to the question: “What flavor of ice cream will I have today?”, is “God will make the decision” or “Someone in ancient Egypt having passed gas, after eating a bean burrito, will be the determining factor.” I have difficulty believing that the ice cream cone I was handed was not a consequence of any decision that I, myself, freely made-if by 'free', I mean I was able to make a different choice. If the claim is unfalsifiable, as I suspect it is, then I’m going to assume the correct answer is “I don’t know if I have free will or not”-at least until there is evidence presented one way or the other. And since the answer is “I don’t know”, I’m going to continue to live my life as if I, me, moi played a significant part in my enjoyment of a chocolate/swirl ice cream cone with my grandson, Daniel. Oh, and by the way, *Daniel chose strawberry with sprinkles* (I wasn't free, apparently, to pick sprinkles because my mother’s belly was scratched by our cat one evening when she was pregnant with me-I think it was during a waxing gibbous moon, but I don’t remember a lot except for the scratch and that it was very dark).
Incredible how this mindfulness is pushed and pushed and pushed front and center and people trying to pull it out of scientists' words, praying that, oh, yes, mindfulness is indeed working and is the key to everyhting and so on. I think Prof. Sapolsky is polite and doesn't want to rain on anyone's parade but his answer here is not at all partial to mindfulness per se. It's more about 'knowing yourself' and knowing how you work so you know how behavior happens (you know, CBT does work!!!), and know how environment and society work so you can have predictability and control over your environment and society. Please leave these New Age-isms and eastern terminology (mindfulness, meditation, etc.) when you interview a scientist. These are words - empty words. I'd say it's no mindfulness or meditation or any so called 'spiritual' stuff whatsoever. Instead, I think it's self-knowlegde, it's learning lots of things about you and your world, it's behavioral therapy, it's social contact - so... it's ultimately learning, learning, learning. It's GOOD OL' SCIENTIFIC WISDOMFULNESS, not cheap NewAge-ist mindfulness. Don't bore a scientist with your spiritual stuff when he has so much to say about his scientific stuff.
I agree there are a lot of presumptions about mindfulness in the public sphere, and a different term entirely would be better to convey the message specifically with those who are likely to carry that stigma. But then we would have more of the phenomenon where people are agreeing with each other but don't realize it while they argue. 😂
The competition between science and spirituality as a modes of observation is redundant so much semantics to forage. Many ways to skin a cat is a reality of nature, who is really in a position to judge? All we have to look at are outcomes, time may tell, but do we have the time in one lifetime anyway?
Robert Sapolsky, no question, you are a highly educated scientist, and you see man as a biological animal with an intelligent potential. However, man is more than a physical thing. You are so right in thinking about man doesn’t have free will. Spinoza, a 17th century philosopher, explains in his Ethics the nature of man, the mind, freedom from emotional bondage, and his relationship with Nature. Spinoza understood that all animals are governed, influenced, and are determined by laws. The law of necessity, the law of self-preservation, the law of inertial, and the law of cause and effect. Lastly, the brain is not the mind. The brain is a physical thing that is the storehouse of information such as memory, and which helps regulate all the systems of the body. The mind is a non-tangible thinking thing. Its nature or essential nature is knowledge comprised of clear and confused ideas. Spinoza explains that when our thinking is clear and true, that God constitutes the essence of our mind. We are not separate from the whole of Nature or God. Spinoza’s God is Nature, a non-anthropomorphic being.
![ปฏิเสธไม่ไหว (Crush on you) - LIPTA feat. No One Else [Official MV]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/NBw1jF342vw/mqdefault.jpg)
How then people and societies change ? I wish to know more from Prof. R S.
Appreciate the discussion and the opportunity to learn. Still a work in progress. Not sure about the concept we are all "machines". However, it depends on one's definitions. With AI coming on so strongly, I can only hope we can remain human. What good would it do to render humanity obsolete? Agree it's important to strive beyond the superficial.
I can speak to Brent's challenge with those afternoon beers. Brief background on me: retired EMT, studied nursing, also some experience around the liquor business and from the "School of Life". I've played little gigs in college bars and local watering holes clear across the country and back. Also my dad was in the liquor business for a time. My mom had a little cafe for awhile as well where she served great food, beer and wine.
Brent - between 5 and 7 pm after a long full day - you are hungry. You want to reach for a beer b/c you're hungry and tired. Your blood sugar's down if you've been busy and haven't eaten for awhile, and no doubt all the requisite neurochemical processes that go with it. I'm not knowledgable enough to know exactly what those would be. I had an instructor, a neuroscientist, who one day remarked that when we drink we are anesthetizing our frontal lobes. Maybe that helps dull the hunger. For sure a beer would alter your blood sugar. I've been told in Germany they call beer "liquid bread".
Are you diabetic? At any rate, much moreso than wrestling with whether or not you lack will power (I'm sure you don't), you need to eat. The next time you have a craving for a beer like that, fix yourself a decent dinner and you should feel much better.
Hope that helps -
14.40😢.Its feeling poor that is slowly gutting my children to pieces. I feel rich because my environment now provides not just access to material goods as compared to my younger years, but also from my age i have reaped the knowledge of how material wealth makes me a slave to life and that insight places me at an advantage. The challenge of change.
Great questions, the greatest answers, but Robert is “my personal pope” anyway, so good talk, good conversation and so much to learn - to everyone! Thanx! 👍👌👋 (Robert is so authentic I know max only 2-3 more such persons in the scientific-public world teaching/living with this kind of deep authenticity and relevant experience as him)
I think that its safe to say that there are aspects of the free will / agencey question that we do not understand, i have heard several discussions with Stephan Wolfram talking about patterns of informatiin propogation that follow simple rules, yet the unfolding of the system is undeterminable. The only way to see what happens is to "play it out,". To me, this way of understanding the future supports a belief that an individual can steer their own trajectory through current context and that those decisions and intentions affect/effect future situations. At least I like to think so.
Great talk... Love this subject matter. One thing that became clear is feeling poor. If people that look like you are held up as problem people in political debates and media reporting, while people that look like you are regularly being murdered by the police; I doubt mindfulness is going to help change your circumstances as much as people who look like you two and me.
*Thanks so much for the great conversation. Can u plz tell me how can I contact with Robert Sapolsky to do a podcast with him? An Email or sth?*
He uses his Stanford email .
Was that a real person popping up behind Dr. Sapolsky's shoulder at around 3.00minutes?
Wondering if it could be one of the background screen things!?
If all we are is the "outcome of priors" (and thus, we have no free will), is there any way, through my actions, I can falsify this claim? What action can I perform that will either support or disprove this notion? Until I’m shown a way to falsify the claim that we have no free will, I will continue to presume, and live, as if *we do have free will* -despite how erudite Robert Sapolsky is. Not having the complete answer to the question: “How did I turn out to be the person I am, making a particular decision, at a particular moment in time?” (considering my brain one second prior, my hormones, my environment for decades, my fetal stressors, my genes, and the weather this morning), does not mean that the answer to the question: “What flavor of ice cream will I have today?”, is “God will make the decision” or “Someone in ancient Egypt having passed gas, after eating a bean burrito, will be the determining factor.” I have difficulty believing that the ice cream cone I was handed was not a consequence of any decision that I, myself, freely made-if by 'free', I mean I was able to make a different choice. If the claim is unfalsifiable, as I suspect it is, then I’m going to assume the correct answer is “I don’t know if I have free will or not”-at least until there is evidence presented one way or the other. And since the answer is “I don’t know”, I’m going to continue to live my life as if I, me, moi played a significant part in my enjoyment of a chocolate/swirl ice cream cone with my grandson, Daniel. Oh, and by the way, *Daniel chose strawberry with sprinkles* (I wasn't free, apparently, to pick sprinkles because my mother’s belly was scratched by our cat one evening when she was pregnant with me-I think it was during a waxing gibbous moon, but I don’t remember a lot except for the scratch and that it was very dark).
Would humans act differently if they did have free will? If so, how?
23:55 shock experiment example
❤
I wonder if baboons are better off because they don't do politics or religion?😊
Incredible how this mindfulness is pushed and pushed and pushed front and center and people trying to pull it out of scientists' words, praying that, oh, yes, mindfulness is indeed working and is the key to everyhting and so on. I think Prof. Sapolsky is polite and doesn't want to rain on anyone's parade but his answer here is not at all partial to mindfulness per se. It's more about 'knowing yourself' and knowing how you work so you know how behavior happens (you know, CBT does work!!!), and know how environment and society work so you can have predictability and control over your environment and society. Please leave these New Age-isms and eastern terminology (mindfulness, meditation, etc.) when you interview a scientist. These are words - empty words. I'd say it's no mindfulness or meditation or any so called 'spiritual' stuff whatsoever. Instead, I think it's self-knowlegde, it's learning lots of things about you and your world, it's behavioral therapy, it's social contact - so... it's ultimately learning, learning, learning. It's GOOD OL' SCIENTIFIC WISDOMFULNESS, not cheap NewAge-ist mindfulness. Don't bore a scientist with your spiritual stuff when he has so much to say about his scientific stuff.
There are plenty of scientific studies that have defined and measured both mindfulness and meditation.
I agree there are a lot of presumptions about mindfulness in the public sphere, and a different term entirely would be better to convey the message specifically with those who are likely to carry that stigma. But then we would have more of the phenomenon where people are agreeing with each other but don't realize it while they argue. 😂
Somehow, I've formed a belief that mindfuless and CBT where substantially overlapping behaviors.
The competition between science and spirituality as a modes of observation is redundant so much semantics to forage. Many ways to skin a cat is a reality of nature, who is really in a position to judge? All we have to look at are outcomes, time may tell, but do we have the time in one lifetime anyway?
Words ….Language games … Wittgenstein 😅
Robert Sapolsky, no question, you are a highly educated scientist, and you see man as a biological animal with an intelligent potential. However, man is more than a physical thing. You are so right in thinking about man doesn’t have free will. Spinoza, a 17th century philosopher, explains in his Ethics the nature of man, the mind, freedom from emotional bondage, and his relationship with Nature. Spinoza understood that all animals are governed, influenced, and are determined by laws. The law of necessity, the law of self-preservation, the law of inertial, and the law of cause and effect. Lastly, the brain is not the mind. The brain is a physical thing that is the storehouse of information such as memory, and which helps regulate all the systems of the body. The mind is a non-tangible thinking thing. Its nature or essential nature is knowledge comprised of clear and confused ideas. Spinoza explains that when our thinking is clear and true, that God constitutes the essence of our mind. We are not separate from the whole of Nature or God. Spinoza’s God is Nature, a non-anthropomorphic being.