People seem sort of confused as to what Dr. Huemer's argument was, or whether it was even intended as an argument in the first place (in the sense of an attempt to justify the claim that free will actually exists) as opposed to a mere charge of hypocrisy. So, without necessarily endorsing them, here is my attempt to summarize what I think Huemer's main points were. Huemer's main line of argument seemed to me to constitute a positive argument (whether it is a successful one or not, I leave you to judge) in favor of the actual, real existence of free will. From what I gather, he was saying: *Premise 1)* Our intuitions support the existence of free will. (Note that Sapolsky didn't even dispute this premise. He agrees that at least by initial appearances it seems like free will exists.) (Eg., it seems like we choose among alternatives by way of self-control at least some of the time, and, at least by initial appearances, it seems like to say one ought to do something implies that one can do otherwise. Arguments are implicit ought statements/normative suggestions in favor of adopting certain beliefs given certain evidences, and punishment is in part justified by the sense that the perpetrator could have and should have done differently than they in fact did.) ((You might wonder, "why think that ought implies can?" Huemer's reason is that it seems intuitive and we lack a reason to doubt it. A) it seems like to say "I know you can't, but you should still anyway magically fly through the air like superman and shoot lasers out of your eyes in order to bring about world peace. You ought to do that, so why haven't you? What the heck is wrong with you, a*****e?" is linguistically counterintuitive.) *Premise 2)* In the absence of a defeater, we are justified in trusting our intuitions. (Huemer argued that ultimately Sapolsky's view commits him to accepting Premise 2 because scientific practice relies on beliefs which *ultimately* rely for their support on as-yet-undefeated appearances, such as certain theory confirmation assumptions like "simpler theories are more likely to be true" or "the laws of logic are reliable" or "the future will sometimes be like the past," or "the external world exists," etc. For example, famously as David Hume pointed out, it's hard to justify induction without circular reasoning if you reject intuitionism. For instance. I.e., why think the future will be like the past? Because it has always been like that? In order for that to be evidence for the claim, we would have to assume that the fact that something has been a certain way in the past is evidence that it will continue to be that way in the future, which is the very question under dispute. Hence, many philosophers have concluded that there is no non-circular justification for induction except a form of foundationalism which says that it seems true and we lack a reason for doubting it, and our seemings afford us with defeasible prima facia justification in the absence of defeaters. Huemer also has a more general argument that we should believe Premise 2 because any alternative principle which we preferred to it would ultimately be justified by the very principle it rejects, namely by the fact that it seems true and we lack a reason for doubting it.) *Premise 3)* There is no ultimately successful defeater against (all of) our intuitions in favor of free will. (Eg., Huemer replied to Sapolsky's inductive generalization argument against free will by saying "it doesn't follow that because our actions are often *influenced* by external events, they must be *entirely determined* by external events.") *Conclusion a)* Therefore, we are justified in trusting our intuitions that free will exists. Huemer also argued that Sapolsky was engaged in a self-defeating line of argument because 1) he appeared to cast blame on people for casting blame on people (i.e., he seemed to say that it's *wrong* to condemn anyone's behavior since no one is responsible for their behavior, but calling a behavior wrong is a form of condemnation), and 2) he advanced a series of arguments for thinking that free will doesn't exist, which if we are inclined to accept the "ought implies can" principle leave Sapolsky's implicit "you should believe this because of the evidence" claim hanging in midair. How can it be that we should do anything if "should" requires the option of doing otherwise and there is no option to do otherwise? (This is just my attempt to explain what I think Huemer's argument was and should not be interpreted as an invitation to "fight me." lol) Email exchange the panelists had after the debate: *Dr. Huemer wrote:* "My wife, Iskra, who does philosophy of psychology, said that the strongest point for Robert's side was that the scope of apparent responsibility has been shrinking over time as scientific knowledge progresses. We keep finding more things that people aren't responsible for. By induction, you might extrapolate to a future time when we will think people aren't responsible for anything. I didn't fully address that, but basically I think that's an overgeneralization; the reasonable conclusion is that humans have less responsibility than it appears, but not none whatsoever. There are many cases in which you get absurd results if you project a trend to the absolute furthest extent possible. E.g., if you project current population growth into the future, you conclude that in 2750 years, the Earth's entire mass will be converted into humans. For a less silly example, for a while, estimates of the age of the Earth kept rising (starting at the Bible-derived estimate of 6,000 years). If you extrapolated maximally, you'd have concluded that the Earth is literally eternal. But that's not right, and not what the evidence supported. Or, suppose you notice that most scientific theories that have ever been held were later shown to be wrong. If you extrapolate maximally, you'd conclude that all possible theories are wrong (including this one?). Iskra also says that freedom comes in degrees. We're never maximally free (if such a thing even makes sense), nor do we have zero freedom. But as we learn more about ourselves, including what previously-hidden motives we might have, we become freer. *This exchange is continued in a reply to this comment below.* ------------------------------------------------ Dr. Robert Sapolsky is the recent author of the magnificent Determined: A Science of Life Without Free Will. Dr. Michael Huemer is most recently the author of Understanding Knowledge, a terrific introduction to epistemology. Buy these books now!!! Amazon to Dr. Sapolsky’s book: www.amazon.com/Determined-Science-Life-without-Free/dp/0525560971?nodl=1&dplnkId=c55ef1a2-973e-4a7f-a4e1-dcfc003bf2de Amazon to Dr. Huemer’s book: www.amazon.com/Audible-Understanding-Knowledge/dp/B0C75N3JKR/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?crid=7XCYBE17D213&keywords=understanding+knowledge&qid=1697591002&sprefix=understanding+knowledge+%2Caps%2C195&sr=8-1
Free will is an illusion and here is the argumentation: From the lense of neuroscience:
Marcus Du Sautoy (Professor of Mathematics at the University of Oxford and the Simonyi Professorship for the Public Understanding of Science) participates in an experiment conducted by John-Dylan Haynes (Professor at the Bernstein Center for Computational Neuroscience Berlin) that attempts to find the neurological basis for decision making. Short summary: The experiment explores the relationship between free will, decision-making, and brain activity. Marcus Du Sautoy participates in an experiment in Berlin where they have to randomly decide to press either a left or right button. Brain scans and computer records track when the decision is made in the brain and when the button is physically pressed. The results reveal that up to six seconds before Marcus Du Sautoy consciously makes a decision, their brain has already made that choice. Specific patterns of brain activity can even predict which button will be pressed. This finding challenges the notion of free will, suggesting that unconscious brain activity significantly shapes our decisions before we become consciously aware of them. The experiment also delves into the nature of consciousness. It argues against dualism-the idea that the mind and brain are separate entities. Instead, it posits that consciousness is an aspect of brain activity. The unconscious brain activity is in harmony with a person's beliefs and desires, so it's not forcing you to do something against your will. Marcus Du Sautoy finds the results shocking, especially the idea that someone else can predict their decision six seconds before they are consciously aware of making it. The experiment raises profound questions about the nature of free will, consciousness, and the deterministic mechanisms that may govern our decisions. From the lense of pysics: In order to question the belief in free will, one can conduct experiments and contemplations. Take an action you are convinced you performed and reverse-engineer it until you realize you had no control over it. This leads to the conclusion that all actions in life are the same, and the notion of claiming ownership falls away, so free will is non-existent. By 'reverse-engineering an action,' I mean tracing back the steps that led you to make a specific decision. Upon close examination, you'll find that your choice was influenced by a series of past events and conditions over which you had no control, and that your choice didn't originate from a single point. One could argue that everything originates from the Big Bang, making us essentially biological robots. This realization may prompt you to reconsider how much 'free will' you actually possess, as your actions are shaped by factors beyond your control, both in the past and likely in the future as well. So you can summarize everything is a happening according to cosmic laws.
The email exchange continued: *Dr. Sapolsky replied:* Thanks for this followup. I totally agree that the history of thinking about these issues (and researching them) shows that the space free will can occupy keeps shrinking, and one might extrapolate that that space will eventually disappear. The issue of how wise it is to run with extrapolation, as I'm obviously heavily doing, is totally valid (like the idea that if it were possible to do computer modeling and urban planning back in the mid-19th century, extrapolation would have shown that cities would become unlivable by the mid-20th century, because of the overwhelming amounts of horse droppings in the streets, from the massive population increases in users of horse-drawn carriages). There's also some interesting studies showing how context-dependent extrapolation can be (for example, in one, they showed subjects a graph showing a straight line of points from a time series [i.e., graphing 5, 10, 15, 20, 25, 30, 35, and then 34]. Subjects would then be asked to put in the next point on the graph, and the question was whether people would view the 34 as just an aberration, and graph something like 40 or 45 as the point, resuming that pattern, or see it as an inflection point, and graph something like 29, 24...after that. And people were very likely to choose one pattern over the other depending on whether the scenario they were given in the story was taking place locally or on the other side of the planet [I've forgotten which direction it goes, and what hand-waving explanation was given, but the point was the really different outcomes depending on that seemingly irrelevant manipulation of what story was told]). So, yes, extrapolation has its dangers, and I'm probably resting too heavily on it when I talk about this. But that's in the context of my lunatic fringe stance that there is NO free will whatsoever -- yes, yes, the science isn't there to prove that yet, but at the rate things are going, come back X number of years from now and it will be irrefutable. And that stance is totally vulnerable to the ways that extrapolating can go off the rails. But that's concerning my very strongly felt but way out in left field stance about no free will. I would settle if what people take away from my song and dance is that we already know that we have vastly less free will than most people think, and that there is so much less so that the only intellectually and morally acceptable thing to do is majorly remake a lot of how things function (as in, say, "If we already know that for every increase in someone's Adverse Childhood Experience score, there is a ~35% increased likelihood of some awful behavior in adulthood [take your pick], we already know enough, we don't need more imagined findings in the future, to conclude that there is something desperately wrong with thinking about that adult behavior from a starting point of free will."). That sort of thing. Does this seem reasonable? All the best, Robert _____ *Dr. Huemer replied:* Hi Robert, Thanks very much for your thoughts. I'm copying Iskra in case she would like to comment on this. Regarding your last paragraph, I can certainly see how the knowledge about the Adverse Childhood Experience score would call into question the degree to which certain criminals are to blame for their actions. However, a) What about criminals who don't have a high ACE score? Surely they are still responsible? b) In the case of criminals who suffered from strong criminogenic influences: I'm not sure how you would propose to revise our practices. Should we not punish them? Perhaps you would propose some kind of psychiatric treatment? But is there in fact any effective treatment? Maybe we would keep punishing them anyway, because that reduces the bad behavior? I suspect that a good deal of the variation in bad behavior is explained by variation in people's experiences -- probably a lot more than people usually assume. I think we tend to over-ascribe evil motives. So I'm not maximally in disagreement with you. Example: I suspect that people who commit violent crimes might just be people who feel a lot more anger a lot more of the time than the rest of us, and the rest of us just don't know what that's like. Factors like this might diminish a person's responsibility, but I doubt that they entirely remove it. I.e., the person might merit a lower degree of blame than someone who doesn't have such influences, but still some blame. Relatedly, I think there are factors that make it difficult for a person to behave benevolently, without making it impossible. Yours, MH _____________________ *Dr. Iskra Fileva replied:* Thank you, everyone, for the stimulating and enjoyable discussion (not least to Jonah for organizing the event). Following up on Robert’s suggestion, I think there are at least two different questions here: (1) Are we generally as free as we think? (2) Do we have free will at all? It seems to me that there is no simple answer to the first question. We overestimate our freedom and that of others in some ways, as Robert argues, as when a person thinks she freely chose to support some cause when in fact, she was just conformist. Or when a child thinks her parents freely chose a style of psychological abuse, when in fact, they absorbed it from their parents unconsciously. On the other hand, sometimes, we deny we have freedom that we do, in fact, have, as when people say that there wasn’t anything else they could do given that an authority figure commanded them to act as they did. But on the whole, we probably make the first type of error more often. Regarding the second question, I think that if some actions are freer than others, then we have (some) freedom. But what would it mean for some actions to be freer than others? Well, I think for agents such as humans, free action basically means forming an intention to act on the basis of reasons you know you have and endorse, and then acting on that intention. The second piece is, I think, clearly in place - we can execute intentions we have. We even have the ability to persist for years in the face of obstacles in order to achieve a goal. That's what it means to have a will. But do we have a free will? This is where we come to the first piece of my formulation. After all, a person may show very strong will in pursuit of a goal, yet the goal itself may not be freely chosen. What I would say is that there is a difference between cases - some are closer, some are farther away from meeting the criteria I mentioned. Why think that? Here is a simple argument: We sometimes become aware of a bias in ourselves, perhaps with the help of other people. Once we do, our freedom increases by a little bit -- we are freer with respect to that particular bias. We may still have many other biases, but we are a little freer with regard to that one. That's all we need for the difference in degrees claim. If freedom sometimes increases, then it exists. So we have (some) freedom. There is, finally, a question about how free any given action would have to be in order for the person to be either morally or legally responsible for it. It could be that we have some freedom but not nearly enough for responsibility. That’s a thornier problem since one has to determine how much freedom is necessary for moral and/or legal responsibility. While I think the threshold is not so high as to be met rarely or never (I discuss this issue in a co-authored article "Will Retributivism Die and Will Neuroscience Kill It?"), I am sympathetic to the idea that we must, in general, guard against overattributing responsibility, especially overattributing it to others for bad behavior though also, perhaps, against underattributing it to ourselves, as when people insist a co-worker started the conflict while it fact, they did. (One may ask here too whether people shifting the blame for starting a conflict are, in turn, responsible for minimizing their own role in it given that there is a strong psychological tendency to absolve oneself of blame. And what I would say is that, going back to my earlier points, that's true, but there is also bad faith + knowing we have such a tendency increases our freedom with regard to it.) Thanks again, everyone. Also, I had not heard about the research on extrapolation Robert mentions. That's very interesting, and I will look up studies. With wishes, Iskra
@@PercyPrior1 Outstanding video- you have gotten the heavy hitters here for sure. For me, Dr. Huemer (along with folks like Dr. Richard Foley) has provided a strong defense of moral realism and free will, EVEN THOUGH I find myself more sympathetic to Dr. Sapolsky's materialism (well, I am an engineer). I wonder if Sapolsky wasn't too right when he said (around 39:00), here are two experts in such different fields in danger of talking past each other. My sense is that if you like metaethics, you may be more sympathetic toward free will, and likewise if you like a mechanistic, materialistic view of the world, you are more likely to be a biologist.
P1) Our intuitions support the existence of free will P2) In the absence of a defeater, we are justified in trusting our intuitions. P3) There is no ultimately successful defeater against (all of) our intuitions in favor of free will. C) Therefore, we are justified in trusting our intuitions that free will exists. Let me generalize the argument... P1) Our intuitions support the existence of X. P2) In the absence of a defeater, we are justified in trusting intuitions. P3) There is no ultimately successful defeater against our intuitions in favor of X. C) Therefore, we are justified in trusting our intuitions that X exists. The core issue is in ANY belief in X wherein X has not been shown to be an aspect of reality. Sapolsky made this point in his historical reviews wherein X was something that was believed to be an aspect of reality but was not the case. Thus, P1 is automatically rejectable when it is the case that X hasn't been shown to be an aspect of reality, since, it is the case that in EVERY instance wherein X hasn't been shown to be substantiated in the context of reality, the conclusions drawn on such were fallacious. Thus, we must SHOW that X is an aspect of reality, BEFORE such can be considered a proper target of intuition or anything else for that matter. If this isn't clear, then consider that any claim of X could be an imaginary psychological/sociological construct as opposed to being a reference to an aspect of reality such that we must make a distinction between what we can imagine to be the case versus what is the case. Sapolsky continually made reference to what has been shown whereas Huemer made reference not to reality, but intuitions which are a product of psychological/sociological tapestries as opposed to being facts about reality. Currently, within the context of what we know.... P1: Processes are tethered (NOT FREE). P2: We are processes at every level of review. C: We are not free. --- Huemer made the comment that reason supports free will, but that is a falsehood, since reason entails the use of knowledge to make an evaluation. An evaluation is a process regardless of whether such is a flawed process or not. The fact of reason being a process is why there is the expectation that we will be able to produce super intelligent AI systems (which is special kind of concern for another discussion). --- This video and the associated links would seem to be extremely relevant to the current debate/discussion. th-cam.com/video/24AsqE_eko0/w-d-xo.html (New discoveries about the brain) --- We are never free. However, the scope of our knowledge does determine the quality of our evaluations. --- I really enjoyed the debate/exchange.
It seemed to me that Dr. Sapolsky was talking about the rapids while Dr. Huemer was talking about the kayaker. If humans were someday able to account for absolutely every single variable (up to the entire universe, down to the subatomic particles within our atoms) around any given event, free will will be shown for what it is: a recreational illusion that emerged from our inability to fully comprehend reality with the purpose of making life interestingly enough to give conscious beings a desire to go through all the hardships and suffering necessary to continue living for no actual reward other than the belief in free will itself. Free will is the promise that we mice have the skills to find cheese in a labyrinth in which cheese doesn't even exist. A Czech man once explained it much, much better in this little fable: "Alas", said the mouse, "the whole world is growing smaller every day. At the beginning it was so big that I was afraid, I kept running and running, and I was glad when I saw walls far away to the right and left, but these long walls have narrowed so quickly that I am in the last chamber already, and there in the corner stands the trap that I am running into." "You only need to change your direction," said the cat, and ate it up. --Franz Kafka
I didn’t realize you could cut footage out after uploading and was worried I’d have to delete the video and start anew. Thanks for pointing this out to me!
I agree. I loved his Stanford lectures, and read "Behave", and loved it. I knew he was a hard determinist and anti-free-willer, and knew he was planning this book. I am definitely not a determinist and I believe in free will of sorts, but I really wanted to read his take. I still disagree with him but I am quite enjoying the book.
For me, the fundamental basis of determinism is this and this one thing is enough to establish determinism is this - there is no external "you" outside of your brain and experiences and memories and influences and if you till that point a few microseconds from making a decision is just an amalgamation of all that i said, what does it mean by you making a decision in isolation of all of that? There is no "isolated" you that is sitting outside your brain and mind and controlling your brain and mind like a driver. You are your mind and body and that mind and body are results of all things prior..
Exactly, nuff said. People think there is some magical will outside the universe that can separate itself from the universe to make some free decision.. there simply isn't.
@zulubeatsprince The only thing magical here is the idea that the self is an illusion and that the brain is the mind. Physicalism is dumb and doesn't do justice to the qualitative nature of first-person experience.
Definitely two people talking past each other. I'm sympathetic to Sapolsky's point of view, though I think he's failing to accurately describe the situation. I doubt I could do better. In my view, free will has been disproven already, and humans are simply clinging to a system or systems that have worked well enough since humans came to exist. I can't seem to get anyone to describe a mechanism that makes free will possible. It appears to be the case that what I think or feel at any given moment emerges from the state of the matter of which I am composed. In order to "make a decision", I need to be able to alter that state "willfully", but this creates a paradox. The only answer appears to be a sort of time fudgery whereby some supernatural element of myself can go back in time and set up my material state to produce a desired outcome in the present. Without that, there just isn't a way for anyone to "choose" in the sense that people believe they can. It appears to be the case that I am not a separate thing from the universe, I am the universe. All the behaviors of matter and energy (same thing really) and all the forces at play affect me just as they affect the gases on Jupiter, or photons traveling through the Andromeda galaxy, or some dust at the farthest edges of human observation. I think compatibilism is dodging the question as well. Nothing in compatibilism maps onto the naive belief in free will that most humans seem to hold.
Absolutely. Having thought about free will for only a decade, it is beyond me how it even is a thing anymore. Free will really is not even wrong, it's an entirely nonsensical concept.
I had an interesting conversation with a co worker who a compatibilist, the conversation led to us taking about someone doing their homework it went like this…. I asked ok why does someone not do their homework He replied, because of the paradigm of their circumstances, the “stuff” that happened to them to create that paradigm. Then I asked, ok why does someone do their homework He replied basically the same thing “because of the paradigm of their circumstances, the “stuff” that happened to them to create that paradigm. “ Finally I asked if that is true and what you think is either individual’s choice to do or not do their homework free? He completely stopped talking… A few moments later he said “if I could just find the words you would say aww I get it.” I tell this story in regard to this part of your statement. “I can't seem to get anyone to describe a mechanism that makes free will possible. It appears to be the case that what I think or feel.” Basically I’m saying I’ve had the utterly same experience.
I think the question should be 'can attribution of moral responsibility be rationally or empirically justified?" while bearing in mind Kant's distinction between pure and practical reason. So, for example, we may not have purely rational justification for attributing moral responsibility, but it might still be argued that we have practical rational justification for attributing moral responsibility.
I think we should distinguish types of responsibility. If someone has a tumor in the front of their brain and misbehaves as a result but goes back to normal once the tumor is removed, we could say they’re responsible in a certain sense for things they did but I doubt most ppl would consider them responsible in all the same ways someone who exhibited the same behavior but without a tumor. Sapolsky (rightly imo) argues that this distinction doesn’t actually make sense & we should instead treat everyone who does anything bad as unlucky and sick on some level if we take this idea seriously.
Yes, just to ask these kind of questions is to perform a rationality that presupposes a freedom.. that we can choose between alternate answers. Those hung up on these kinds of metaphysical questions have not understood the limits of pure reason that Kant outlined so forcefully, and the world went on to ignore.
(Part 1/2) Hey, I love your channel! If you're going to do that, consider reading some of this email exchange that the speakers had the day after the debate: *Dr. Huemer wrote:* "My wife, Iskra, who does philosophy of psychology, said that the strongest point for Robert's side was that the scope of apparent responsibility has been shrinking over time as scientific knowledge progresses. We keep finding more things that people aren't responsible for. By induction, you might extrapolate to a future time when we will think people aren't responsible for anything. I didn't fully address that, but basically I think that's an overgeneralization; the reasonable conclusion is that humans have less responsibility than it appears, but not none whatsoever. There are many cases in which you get absurd results if you project a trend to the absolute furthest extent possible. E.g., if you project current population growth into the future, you conclude that in 2750 years, the Earth's entire mass will be converted into humans. For a less silly example, for a while, estimates of the age of the Earth kept rising (starting at the Bible-derived estimate of 6,000 years). If you extrapolated maximally, you'd have concluded that the Earth is literally eternal. But that's not right, and not what the evidence supported. Or, suppose you notice that most scientific theories that have ever been held were later shown to be wrong. If you extrapolate maximally, you'd conclude that all possible theories are wrong (including this one?). Iskra also says that freedom comes in degrees. We're never maximally free (if such a thing even makes sense), nor do we have zero freedom. But as we learn more about ourselves, including what previously-hidden motives we might have, we become freer. *Dr. Sapolsky replied:* Thanks for this followup. I totally agree that the history of thinking about these issues (and researching them) shows that the space free will can occupy keeps shrinking, and one might extrapolate that that space will eventually disappear. The issue of how wise it is to run with extrapolation, as I'm obviously heavily doing, is totally valid (like the idea that if it were possible to do computer modeling and urban planning back in the mid-19th century, extrapolation would have shown that cities would become unlivable by the mid-20th century, because of the overwhelming amounts of horse droppings in the streets, from the massive population increases in users of horse-drawn carriages). There's also some interesting studies showing how context-dependent extrapolation can be (for example, in one, they showed subjects a graph showing a straight line of points from a time series [i.e., graphing 5, 10, 15, 20, 25, 30, 35, and then 34]. Subjects would then be asked to put in the next point on the graph, and the question was whether people would view the 34 as just an aberration, and graph something like 40 or 45 as the point, resuming that pattern, or see it as an inflection point, and graph something like 29, 24...after that. And people were very likely to choose one pattern over the other depending on whether the scenario they were given in the story was taking place locally or on the other side of the planet [I've forgotten which direction it goes, and what hand-waving explanation was given, but the point was the really different outcomes depending on that seemingly irrelevant manipulation of what story was told]). So, yes, extrapolation has its dangers, and I'm probably resting too heavily on it when I talk about this. But that's in the context of my lunatic fringe stance that there is NO free will whatsoever -- yes, yes, the science isn't there to prove that yet, but at the rate things are going, come back X number of years from now and it will be irrefutable. And that stance is totally vulnerable to the ways that extrapolating can go off the rails. But that's concerning my very strongly felt but way out in left field stance about no free will. I would settle if what people take away from my song and dance is that we already know that we have vastly less free will than most people think, and that there is so much less so that the only intellectually and morally acceptable thing to do is majorly remake a lot of how things function (as in, say, "If we already know that for every increase in someone's Adverse Childhood Experience score, there is a ~35% increased likelihood of some awful behavior in adulthood [take your pick], we already know enough, we don't need more imagined findings in the future, to conclude that there is something desperately wrong with thinking about that adult behavior from a starting point of free will."). That sort of thing. Does this seem reasonable? All the best, Robert
(Part 2/2) Their exchange continued as follows: *Dr. Huemer replied:* Hi Robert, Thanks very much for your thoughts. I'm copying Iskra in case she would like to comment on this. Regarding your last paragraph, I can certainly see how the knowledge about the Adverse Childhood Experience score would call into question the degree to which certain criminals are to blame for their actions. However, a) What about criminals who don't have a high ACE score? Surely they are still responsible? b) In the case of criminals who suffered from strong criminogenic influences: I'm not sure how you would propose to revise our practices. Should we not punish them? Perhaps you would propose some kind of psychiatric treatment? But is there in fact any effective treatment? Maybe we would keep punishing them anyway, because that reduces the bad behavior? I suspect that a good deal of the variation in bad behavior is explained by variation in people's experiences -- probably a lot more than people usually assume. I think we tend to over-ascribe evil motives. So I'm not maximally in disagreement with you. Example: I suspect that people who commit violent crimes might just be people who feel a lot more anger a lot more of the time than the rest of us, and the rest of us just don't know what that's like. Factors like this might diminish a person's responsibility, but I doubt that they entirely remove it. I.e., the person might merit a lower degree of blame than someone who doesn't have such influences, but still some blame. Relatedly, I think there are factors that make it difficult for a person to behave benevolently, without making it impossible. Yours, MH *Dr. Iskra Fileva replied:* Thank you, everyone, for the stimulating and enjoyable discussion (not least to Jonah for organizing the event). Following up on Robert’s suggestion, I think there are at least two different questions here: (1) Are we generally as free as we think? (2) Do we have free will at all? It seems to me that there is no simple answer to the first question. We overestimate our freedom and that of others in some ways, as Robert argues, as when a person thinks she freely chose to support some cause when in fact, she was just conformist. Or when a child thinks her parents freely chose a style of psychological abuse, when in fact, they absorbed it from their parents unconsciously. On the other hand, sometimes, we deny we have freedom that we do, in fact, have, as when people say that there wasn’t anything else they could do given that an authority figure commanded them to act as they did. But on the whole, we probably make the first type of error more often. Regarding the second question, I think that if some actions are freer than others, then we have (some) freedom. But what would it mean for some actions to be freer than others? Well, I think for agents such as humans, free action basically means forming an intention to act on the basis of reasons you know you have and endorse, and then acting on that intention. The second piece is, I think, clearly in place - we can execute intentions we have. We even have the ability to persist for years in the face of obstacles in order to achieve a goal. That's what it means to have a will. But do we have a free will? This is where we come to the first piece of my formulation. After all, a person may show very strong will in pursuit of a goal, yet the goal itself may not be freely chosen. What I would say is that there is a difference between cases - some are closer, some are farther away from meeting the criteria I mentioned. Why think that? Here is a simple argument: We sometimes become aware of a bias in ourselves, perhaps with the help of other people. Once we do, our freedom increases by a little bit -- we are freer with respect to that particular bias. We may still have many other biases, but we are a little freer with regard to that one. That's all we need for the difference in degrees claim. If freedom sometimes increases, then it exists. So we have (some) freedom. There is, finally, a question about how free any given action would have to be in order for the person to be either morally or legally responsible for it. It could be that we have some freedom but not nearly enough for responsibility. That’s a thornier problem since one has to determine how much freedom is necessary for moral and/or legal responsibility. While I think the threshold is not so high as to be met rarely or never (I discuss this issue in a co-authored article "Will Retributivism Die and Will Neuroscience Kill It?"), I am sympathetic to the idea that we must, in general, guard against overattributing responsibility, especially overattributing it to others for bad behavior though also, perhaps, against underattributing it to ourselves, as when people insist a co-worker started the conflict while it fact, they did. (One may ask here too whether people shifting the blame for starting a conflict are, in turn, responsible for minimizing their own role in it given that there is a strong psychological tendency to absolve oneself of blame. And what I would say is that, going back to my earlier points, that's true, but there is also bad faith + knowing we have such a tendency increases our freedom with regard to it.) Thanks again, everyone. Also, I had not heard about the research on extrapolation Robert mentions. That's very interesting, and I will look up studies. With wishes, Iskra
Free will and 'the illusion of free will' are two totally different things. The illusion free free will is something we use as human beings in the day to day life together with the illusion of self. It is constructed by our brain for practical reasons. Without those illusions we cannot function properly. We would be totally passive or guided only by low level desires. But having the illusion of free will and self does not mean that free will actually exists on the biological level. These are just two totally different things.
I disagree I think (unless you’re defining free will very differently from how I do). I don’t feel like I have free will in normal day to day life but I still feel able to make decisions beyond low level desires.
Like the other commenter, I fully embrace the idea we have no free will. My day to day decisions are still beyond low level desires because I’m fully aware low level desires don’t give the right outcomes that will allow me to have a happy and fulfilling life. Everything is based on conditions
@@dooplisssyou do have free will your not reacting to stimuli or prompts your not a robot you make decisions on a daily basis that effect you for the long termS
There is a physics argument for determinism. And there are biological and sociological arguments for determinism. The biological and sociological arguments, on which Sapolsky is most expert, are about influence not inevitability. Usually the effect size is a percentage below 50. So yes, it’s important to structure society according to the fact that, say, a person formed in a stressed out womb who grows up exposed to lead etc, had much greater disadvantages than others. But that isn’t the whole story.
If the universe is deterministic everything is the effect of a cause, how do you get out of that_ you dont. we have the illusion of choice, but there is only one path. its pretty straightforward. the other variable causes are the rest of the story, every thing that you are and that happened to you and that is going to happen to you constitute the 100percent of what you are and will be and will do.
@@cihuacoatl1887 If you want to talk about determinism from the physics perspective, you will have to give up the notion of cause. Most theoretical physicists don't find "cause" to be a useful concept at all. On the other hand Sapolsky spends most of his time talking about bio-social effects. Oddly he talks as though they are 100 but as I've already said, they are at best in the 60%. A psychotropic drug that has a 40% effect is considered a treatment. What doesn't make sense, and I think Sapolsky is being a little lax in this department, is helping yourself to the physics certitude while actually talking about the biology and sociology realm.
Yeah it's not clear that biological or sociological arguments mean much at all. What I'm thinking with any physics argument, is that I doubt we understand consciousness, so how can we be sure of whatever rules are applying to consciousness?
Wow, this is really crazy! Huemer and Sapolsky also debated on a private platform for charity, unfortunately, I never got the chance to sign up to watch the debate and thought I would never see it! Did you get the idea to host this debate from that? Is this a re-broadcast of that original debate? Im utterly mystified and overjoyed! Thank you!
Awesome exchange. Dr. S has been making his rounds on podcasts without much pushback, so this was refreshing. I think Dr. H straightjacketed Dr S in a logical bind that he could get out of without contradicting himself.
But... history says people were mean. Wait, I mean to say that history says people were acting on incomplete scientific understandings. Wait, I mean to say that my interpretation... wait, I mean science as an agent... wait... history as an agent... you can... never mind.
When was the last time a philosophical discovery preceded the scientific one? What have the philosophers ever discovered, besides formulating a system of logic and devising the rules of critical reasoning? When it comes to scientific discovery, philosophy doesn't fair much better than religion, and, just like religion, it feels very comfortable running in circles, pretending to be marching forward. 😏
@@ezbody As opposed to scientists, whose theories can simultaneously explain the same evidence with different mathematical frameworks, philosophers' theories are definitionally exclusive. I can understand why people outside of philosophy feel that it makes no progress, as its scale is so large. However, all rational inquiries begin as applications of philosophy. Now, I don't mean here to defend the corpus of philosophical thought. It follows from my previous statements that most philosophy is fruitless, due to the definitional stringency of philosophical success. However, saying that philosophy discovers nothing is self-refuting, as knowledge is not something that science can claim without an attending epistemic theory. Ultimately, philosophy discovers better ways to argue for claims. If you don't believe that, then you don't believe in better ways to argue for claims, which is, again, self-refuting.
@@ezbody Aristotle, Galileo, Newton, Chomsky are philosophers with rich histories of scientific discoveries. You don't know what you're saying. Your position of ignorance would be easily exposed by Socrates. Philosophy always precedes scientific discovery, as it supplies the logical and critical framework for accepting, rejecting, or revising scientific claims. And you don't know science if you think that it's innocent of running in circles and pretending to march forward.
I wonder if an objection to Huemer's example of the scapegoat convict is that, while scapegoating him would act as a deterrent for the general population, it could actually create an incentive for the true perpetrator, who would know that, not only did he get away with the crime, but everyone has satiated their desire for justice and are, presumably, no longer at pains to find him.
Agreed. I've never heard a convincing defense of contra-causal free will. With compatibilists I can agree that we have the kind of (deterministic!) cognitive capacities they say we have. At that point it's just a matter of whether calling those capacities "free will" makes sense.
Do you choose to understand, or does understand simply occur to you? Do you choose to come up with an idea, or does the idea simply emerge in your consciousness? For me the obvious answer is you don't choose for both questions. Then comes the question for Huemer, where is free will in the process of emergence of ideas or the process of understanding?
That assumes everybody has the ability to understand everything and that coming up with an idea is somehow a choice, neither of which is true and has nothing to do with will.
I’ve heard the argument maybe from Daniel Dennett who says that with consciousness and the capacity to understand ethical matters there arises the autonomy which would be considered agency or free will.
The freedom of the will comes in the judgments we make about our thoughts and feelings, what we call our conscience. Unless these judgments and choices we make are simply illusory, and we actually don't make choices and decisions. THe determinist argument is that we only seem to be making choices and decisions. Ok, that is simply an intuition based on an inference about cause and effect being unavoidable. But it in no way proves that we lack freedom of the will to make judgments and choices because we can make the exact same argument from intuition the other way: our choices and judgments only seem illusory because we are all determined by cause and effect. There is no real logically coherent argument to be made either way unless we can somehow prove a) causation necessarily leads to determinism in *all* cases of human thought, feelings, and behavior, or b) causation does *not* lead to determinism in all cases of human thought, feelings, and behaviors.
I start with the idea that everything I think is imaginary until demonstrated otherwise. I think it’s a mistake to assume things are the way we think they are until demonstrated otherwise. Intuition is NOT a reliable path to the truth.
There are several different claims being made here. 1. Your starting assumption (attitude?) towards all propositions that your mind entertains is one of positive disbelief. 2. It's positively wrong - as in, violating some sort of epistemic norm, to believe any proposition your mind grasps based on seemings and/or appearances. 3. Even if something appears correct to you, and you have no defeaters for it, it is still positively wrong to believe it. In fact, according to you, you should literally positively disbelieve it. 4. Intuition is not a reliable truth directed process. 5. Implicitly, some form of strong internalist-foundationalist and evidentialist epistemology is being assumed. You're clearly trying to say that in order for a non basic belief to be warranted, there must be reasons given that confer evidential warrant which must also be accessible or known by the person in a direct way. However, Huemer is also a internalist-foundationalist. Huemer's thesis is about basic beliefs and how those are justified, which is called phenomenal conservatism. The major problem with the main objection here is that it's just question begging against phenomenal conservatism. I think, arguably, you're also confused about belief and justification more generally speaking. You're also confused about skepticism - confused in such a way that your epistemic standard is likely self-defeating and incapable of leading to justified belief, much less knowledge.
@@Jimmy-iy9pl very well put, I find myself frustrated with people as the commenter above, to clean up confusion of someone else is often difficult, especially if they are confused about the concept of doubt.
How can that which you think me imaginary? Imaginary is that what a conscipusness experiences when it is thinking about the real stuff it learned about in reality. Start in reality idiot
Robert Sapolsky is simply right on this. It's surprising how many smart people seem to not really grasp what obvious truth about causality and how it implies free will doesn't make sense is being communicated here. I would even argue free will doesn't even make sense in a non-causalic system (whatever that would be). I remember a lot of frustrating debates Sam Harris had about this topic about 7-8 years ago. Most of the people he talked to just didn't get it or at best used a totally different definition of free will.
He may or may not be "right", and although I agree with a lot of what he says and even enjoy his delivery (and sense of ethics) much more than Huemer, that doesn't definitely prove absence of free will. One could argue either side to the same effect: either you could say that those who believe in free will are somehow preconditioned to do so, or that those who believe in determinism have chosen to.
@@Doppe1ganger Can you elaborate what you mean? I would propose that free will is in fact necessary in order to account for any amount of determinism. We have the faculties of consciousness, whether inherited or emergent, which gives us the ability to extrapolate different frameworks of the environment we live in, as well as our internal experience
@@noritreacy3107 What i mean is literally what i said, there doesn't exist any method, imagined or real, that allows free will. Your proposal is just word salad, what do you mean that free will is necessary? So the deterministic nature of the universe depends on free will, because, why? Your abilities are determined, you can internalize them all you want, it doesn't change the physics of reality. Explain to me a method in which the concept of free will is even theoretically possible? It's as impossible as a perpetual motion machine. Everything we know about nature and physics is that everything is derivative, no matter how complex or unpredictable. Where does this free will supposedly exist? Within some metaphysical soul? And this soul defines you, yet you are free to shape it? So it's a soul within a soul, that allows you to shape your soul. Etc ad ridiculum. If free will exists, it's easily proven, show me a subject that can will itself to ignore or contradict physics. Free will has no theory, no experiments, because it's a complete fabrication of the human mind.
There exists no absolutism in science, especially in physics. You made the choice to use some negative language so boom, I make the choice that we're done here. BYE@@Doppe1ganger
I'm not clear what the difference is between a choice that is free, a choice that is random, and a choice that is unpredictable. You can say that your choice is free, but to the extent you can explain why you made it, it becomes more predictable and less random. Software engineers use something that's called a "random number generator." The sequence of numbers it produces, while 100% predictable if you know how it works, is indistinguishable from a random sequence if you don't. Free will is like that, except that the "random decision generator" is astronomically more complicated, having evolved for billions of years.
For me the most obvious question would be the most simple one that has been never asked here or elsewhere in dialogues or other videos, namely: if there is freewill than that will is free of what? Free of WHAT? And this is not just about grammar or semantic because if something is free that means it is not “related” anymore or at all to something right? So freewill is free (and when and how was freed?) of for example phisics or biology or chemistry or math or space or tendencies or trajectories or someone or past/present/future or life or language or brain or processes or causality etc etc or what?? Anyway in my opinion the opposite of free is not determined/predetermined but d e p e n d e n t / d e p e n d e d, so the better question is that is there (any) (completely) independent will or there is not? The answer is obvious. 😉
This question has been asked and answered. The distinction made here is liberty of spontaneity and liberty of indifference, the latter is what you're referring to and has been considered doubtful since it would eliminate causation from the principles and desires of the subject too.
I wish Sapolsky were more familiar with philosophy, as that would have allowed him to formulate much clearer propositions and greatly enhanced his arguments.
philosophy: the love of wisdom, normally encapsulated within a formal academic discipline. Wisdom is the soundness of an action or decision with regard to the application of experience, knowledge, insight, and good judgment. Wisdom may also be described as the body of knowledge and principles that develops within a specified society or period. E.g. “The wisdom of the Tibetan lamas.” Unfortunately, in most cases in which this term is used, particularly outside India, it tacitly or implicitly refers to ideas and ideologies that are quite far-removed from genuine wisdom. For instance, the typical academic philosopher, especially in the Western tradition, is not a lover of actual wisdom, but a believer in, or at least a practitioner of, adharma, which is the ANTITHESIS of genuine wisdom. Many Western academic (so-called) “philosophers” are notorious for using laborious sophistry, abstruse semantics, gobbledygook, and pseudo-intellectual word-play, in an attempt to justify their blatantly-immoral ideologies and practices, and in many cases, fooling the ignorant layman into accepting the most horrendous crimes as not only normal and natural, but holy and righteous! An ideal philosopher, on the other hand, is one who is sufficiently intelligent to understand that morality is, of necessity, based on the law of non-violence (“ahiṃsā”, in Sanskrit), and sufficiently wise to live his or her life in such a harmless manner. Cf. “dharma”. One of the greatest misconceptions of modern times is the belief that philosophers (and psychologists, especially) are, effectively, the substitutes for the priesthood of old. It is perhaps understandable that this misconception has taken place, because the typical priest/monk/rabbi/mullah seems to be an uneducated buffoon compared with those highly-educated gentlemen who have attained doctorates in philosophy, psychology and psychiatry. However, as mentioned in more than a few places in this book, it is imperative to understand that only an infinitesimal percentage of all those who claim to be spiritual teachers are ACTUAL “brāhmaṇa” (as defined in Chapter 20). Therefore, the wisest philosophers of the present age are still those exceptionally rare members of the Holy Priesthood! At the very moment these words of mine are being typed on my laptop computer, there are probably hundreds of essay papers, as well as books and articles, being composed by professional philosophers and theologians, both within and without academia. None of these papers, and almost none of the papers written in the past, will have any noticeable impact on human society, at least not in the realm of morals and ethics, which is obviously the most vital component of civilization. And, as mentioned in a previous paragraph, since such “lovers-of-wisdom” are almost exclusively adharmic (irreligious and corrupt) it is indeed FORTUITOUS that this is the case. The only (so-called) philosophers who seem to have any perceptible influence in the public arena are “pop” or “armchair” philosophers, such as Mrs. Alisa “Alice” O’Connor (known more popularly by her pen name, Ayn Rand), almost definitely due to the fact that they have published well-liked books and/or promulgate their ideas in the mass media, especially on the World Wide Web.
Sapolsky is going personal on Denett´s "unluck evens out on time, my ass" in Determined. I loved that spark of emotion in this deeply humanistic and wonderful Professor.
How hard is it to write a masters thesis in philosophy these days? I am just asking out of curiosity because I really dont have a career and therapy always crashes into the big questions which the therapist is not able to give sufficient answers for ... therapy seem to always end up in the same solution of "just get a job", but I am not able to find meaning in material pursuits. I allready have a few degrees and am crazily suicidal. I have been researching another option of moving to a vacant farm with no connection to roads to try and get a connection to the fight for survival. I know someone that bought such a place. Thankful for any kind of response.
I would have been better to define the terms being used and agree on them before the 'debate' began. This is all too often a topic where people talk past each other over and over again. Generally, I find that almost everyone will agree that it makes ethical/moral sense to believe we have authorship. The question for me has always been about the possibly of one be wrong over the other and the possible implications of them. I think Sapolsky is a Soft Determinist (as most people are).
Advice from others, alternative decisions, deliberation, argumentation, none of these are free will, all are just factors in what you decide. Responsibility for your actions is determined by moral imperatives not free will, you can be responsible for things you did by accident. The conscious mind does not make decisions, its job is to explain the decision the unconscious mind makes.
The problem with these arguments against Free Will is the misunderstanding of cause and effect treating the past as creating the future you'll get lost in this . Alan Watts does a great job of explaining this
You're mistaken. The past doesn't create the future. It creates the present. It's the present which creates the future. If you don't understand how, you're wasting your time watching these videos.
Is dr Huemer confusing determinism as a complex system of causes that lead to a specific event (that Sapolsky alludes to) with predeterminism and linear causation ? he seems to imply that we cannot avoid this or that fatal event because of determinism.. but that is not what Sapolsky's view contends. In simple everyday terms determinism and the non-existence of free will means that in a specific instance we could not have done otherwise because of the complexity of the causes that led up to this specific bevaviour/action.
I really hope at some point Robert interacts with Marshall Rosenbergs work because it is literally all based on the equation of subtracting out praise and blame
Huemer should say 'Like, I don't know' a little bit less if he wants to make a good impression. No one mentioned phenomenology which is crucial to the question of free will, and that is the so-called awakening of self-awareness. There are wild studies currently being done on psychedelic breakthroughs and deep meditation; it will change how we think about agency.
Agreed, the interesting matter that free-will advocates need to address is to identify the actual attribute that is the WE that can make decisions. What is the agent? How can someone be responsible for the agent? Even if we could prove a "soul" existed or some combinations of neurons could fire differently enough to cause a different choice, How do we get to the root of that and take control of it? And still, in this case, what is the self that can do this? It seems to me that no matter what you show about HOW we make decisions, the determinist argument still holds as long as we can't actually pinpoint how someone can alter the part of them that makes decisions.
@@SolarxPvP Oh I definitely agree with you that he should not make any claims he doesn't believe or have evidence for. I didn't mean to agree with OP that he should make something up instead of admitting he doesn't know. My point is just that we run into an Occam's razor when it comes to postulating something beyond the material world having an impact on decisions, if that's where one is leaning. Since determinism simply argues that everything we actually understand about the world at this time suggests there is only the material, and that a convergence of chemical and physical factors seem to be all that ever makes anything happen, someone positing something extra-material (what OP is calling phenomenology) has an extra burden. I am not at all slagging anyone for believing there must be such an extra element. I totally get that. It's a personal belief. But to make the case for "free will" without having evidence for additional phenomenon is necessarily weaker than the case for determinism, which relies only on what we already observe. And as for a material explanation for free will, this would be very difficult -- it would almost have to be a part of the brain that is somehow fundamentally different than the rest of known physics and biology, providing agency in a way that is not determined by our makeup. Again, this is a postulation that goes beyond what determinism requires. I'm leaving wide open that things might not be as they seem, and there might be extra phenomenon at play. I just don't think it makes sense to believe that or make policy based on it.
@@BDnevernind We still don't fully understand our own brains though, let alone brains of many "lesser" beings on our planet. I think that alone leaves room for what you're describing near the end of requiring a part of the brain that's different from what we know. I'm not saying we're like the fiction shows where "we only use 10% of our brain, look what happens when you use 100%!" or anything like that. I think that there doesn't necessarily have to be phenomenon. But you're right though, that as far as we know up to this point in time, we can't really prove anything other than determinism very well. The burden of proof is more on the side of making the case for free will. One thing I always come back to though, which is again getting more into thought and less into the material, is that we often have a bit too much arrogance as humans in my opinion when it comes to ourselves. We just assume that we must know everything or close to everything about ourselves and everything around us, when there could very well still be so much that we don't know. Think of everything throughout the history of humans that we were just so certain about that turned out to be completely wrong.
Colloquial usages and human emotions are not evidence at all for free will. People are inconsistent and predictably irrational. Advice given is one of the antecedent causes that determine decision-making.
Excellent! This confused me about my position, which is good. I can't wait to read Sapolsky's book. I generally disagree with Huemer's positions but he had great points here. I think I'm still on the determinist side (I just can't help it ;) )
I wrote this elsewhere (with edits): To the compatibilists/determinists: It's a probabilistic universe if it's infinite. (It's not just classical mechanics.) You are trying to apply determinism/finiteness to a probabilistic/infinite universe. The problem with causality is that infinity (and quantum instantaneousness) breaks it, fundamentally, because you cannot go far back enough to determine all the initial conditions (that lead to you/your behavior) because there are none with infinity! Infinity breaks determinism. To add: The Uncertainty Principle suggests that you cannot say for certain that we have no free will. Sure, you have no control in some senses, like classical mechanics (upbringing, gravity, etc.), but not necessarily from a fundamental/quantum sense. The universe goes beyond classical mechanics. Think also of 'spooky action at a distance.' This doesn't appear causal, but, rather, instantaneous. If the universe created you, then so did infinity if the universe is infinite.
Dr Robert Sapolsky has an immense patience and it so brilliant and intellectually superior. Also why Mr Huemer keeps sort of laughing, is he so insecure?
Determinist cultism is something else. Lol illiterate people can't understand a self defeating position. Leave the politeness crap you are not cut out for philosophy
A good debate. What I understand by "free", if you ask me, "Free of or from what?", is being free of or from antecedent causal events or factors inside and outside our heads. For me, free will does not exist whether or not determinism is true. If our actions are caused, then our actions are determined and thus no one is free. If our actions are randomly generated, then our actions are not really in our control and thus no one is free. I also take British philosopher Galen Strawson’s ‘Basic argument’ to be correct. Strawson summarizes his argument as follows: “When one acts, one acts in the way one does because of the way one is. So to be truly morally responsible for one’s actions, one would have to be truly responsible for the way one is: one would have to be causa sui, or the cause of oneself, at least in certain crucial mental respects. But nothing can be causa sui - nothing can be the ultimate cause of itself in any respect. So nothing can be truly morally responsible.”
Well! Cause of the action is the agent who ultimately decides which action to perform. The agent is non reducible. And the prior condition may influence the agent but doesn’t completely determine the agents action
@@sndpgrThere's still no such thing as free will even if the agent themselves are the cause of the action, as the agent themselves are caused and didn't create themselves, including their beliefs and desires, which are the proximal causes of their actions. Only beings without history who created themselves and decided to exist in this world, can be free.
@@lukeatmyas as I said earlier an agent is not determined by its prior conditions(including past behaviors), may be influenced by it but not determined. The agent is not reducible to past behaviors, or its particles . What I am talking is agent causation.
@@sndpgrWhat you're saying is there are no other explanation but that agent A caused an event e to occur. There's no causal explanation for why A did what they did. The problem with your view, however, is that there are causal explanations for why agents do what they do.
Robert Sapolky has only argued that our choices are affected for good or bad by conditions and influences around us but not that we don't make choices at all. He has therefore not shown that we don't have free will.
@Aggyoko Which is false because: P(1): Not every external influence determines a particular action that a human takes. For example, the cost of a stethoscope can not possibly determine if a human falls in love since the cost of a stethoscope is not causally or explanatorily related to falling in love. P(2): Humans lose memory of events and experiences. P(3): Biological proclivities can be modified and even suppressed by social conditioning in humans. For example, humans are biologically predisposed to being sexually amorous, yet succeed in monogamous sexual relationships. P(4): By P(1), it is not obvious that the external influences at play in a human's life at any given time are the ones causally related to their action at the given time, and so capable of determining those actions. P(5): By P(1) and P(2), it is not obvious that the mental experiences at play in a human's life at any given time are causally related to their action at the given time so as to determine their actions at the material time in question. P(6): By P(3), it is not obvious that actions to which humans are genetically predisposed can not be modified or even suppressed by social conditioning. P(7): By P(6), it is not obvious that an action taken by a human at any given time is genetically determined. P(8): By P(4), P(5) and P(7), it does not follow that any action taken by a human at any given time is determined because external influences, mental experiences and genetics are at play in a human's life. C(1): Therefore there is no prove for material determinism. C(2) Therefore it is more likely than not that humans have free will.
For me the issue is that my intuition is strong that things that begin to exist have a cause. If an agent does A rather than B than there is a causal explanation for why they did A rather than B.
@@gowdplays7766 Like I said one needs a causal explanation for WHY one did A RATHER THAN B. Free will is the same explanation for A and B not making it much of an explanation in my view. It borders on irrational. One could fully be fully convicted of a course of action and yet can just free will themselves to do another course of action. It doesn't make much sense; it seems to be irrational rather than saving rationality.
It seems to me that they are not really discussing the same thing and are using one word. Why don't you start off with a discussion of what is Will? Or maybe even better what is will power.
Glad i found material on this topic, altough i am a bit sad that they mostly talked about implications of having or not having free will, instead of talking more about how it is either possible or impossible to actually have free will. Personally i think the implications will be very obvious once the problem at hand itself has been resolved. Sadly (from a discussion pov) i can not find any shred of truth in the arguments for free will, as most of the arguments are based on, what he refers to as intuition, or are trying to argue for the necessity of free will in a social way. Im also curious as to why Dr Huemer thinks the laws of logic are based on intuition? I know there are some debates ongoing to describe what "Logic" in itself actually means, but for them to align it with what we consider intuition seems entirely wrong and not based on anything in my eyes other than for the sake of having an argument. I hope theres something in his reasoning that i am missing, as else it would be very baseless. Thanks for the upload!
Huemer's main line of argument seemed to me to constitute a positive argument in favor of the existence of free will. From what I gather, he was saying: *Premise 1)* Our intuitions support the existence of free will. (Note that Sapolsky didn't even dispute this premise. He agrees that at least by initial appearances it seems like free will exists.) (Eg., it seems like we choose among alternatives by way of self-control at least some of the time, and, at least by initial appearances, it seems like to say one ought to do something implies that one can do otherwise. Arguments are implicit ought statements/normative suggestions in favor of adopting certain beliefs given certain evidences, and punishment is in part justified by the sense that the perpetrator could have and should have done differently than they in fact did.) ((You might wonder, "why think that ought implies can?" Huemer's reason is that it seems intuitive and we lack a reason to doubt it. A) it seems like to say "I know you can't, but you should still anyway magically fly through the air like superman and shoot lasers out of your eyes in order to bring about world peace. You ought to do that, so why haven't you? What the heck is wrong with you, a*****e?" is linguistically counterintuitive.) *Premise 2)* In the absence of a defeater, we are justified in trusting our intuitions. (Huemer argued that ultimately Sapolsky's view commits him to accepting Premise 2 because scientific practice relies on beliefs which *ultimately* rely for their support on as-yet-undefeated appearances, such as certain theory confirmation assumptions like "simpler theories are more likely to be true" or "the laws of logic are reliable" or "the future will sometimes be like the past," or "the external world exists," etc. For example, famously as David Hume pointed out, it's hard to justify induction without circular reasoning if you reject intuitionism. For instance. I.e., why think the future will be like the past? Because it has always been like that? In order for that to be evidence for the claim, we would have to assume that the fact that something has been a certain way in the past is evidence that it will continue to be that way in the future, which is the very question under dispute. Hence, many philosophers have concluded that there is no non-circular justification for induction except a form of foundationalism which says that it seems true and we lack a reason for doubting it. Huemer also has a more general argument that we should believe Premise 2 because any principle which we preferred to it would ultimately be justified by the principle it rejects, namely by the fact that it seems true and we lack a reason for doubting it.) *Premise 3)* There is no ultimately successful defeater against (all of) our intuitions in favor of free will. (Eg., Huemer replied to Sapolsky's inductive generalization argument against free will by saying "it doesn't follow that because our actions are often *influenced* by external events, they must be *entirely determined* by external events.") *Conclusion a)* Therefore, we are justified in trusting our intuitions that free will exists. Huemer also argued that Sapolsky was engaged in a self-defeating line of argument because 1) he appeared to cast blame on people for casting blame on people (i.e., he seemed to say that it's *wrong* to condemn anyone's behavior since no one is responsible for their behavior, but calling a behavior wrong is a form of condemnation), and 2) he advanced a series of arguments for thinking that free will doesn't exist, which if we are inclined to accept the "ought implies can" principle leave Sapolsky's implicit "you should believe this because of the evidence" claim hanging in midair. How can it be that we should do anything if "should" requires the option of doing otherwise and there is no option to do otherwise? (This is just my attempt to explain what I think Huemer's argument was and should not be interpreted as an invitation to "fight me." lol)
I wonder if we evolved consciousness you'd think that would have some utility. I don't see a use for consciousness if it is just to observe what already has been decided by our brain. From an evolutionary perspective the ability to be aware and to override certain decisions that are instinctive and to reason trough problems would give us advantages over other animals. I also think the brain scan research doesn't amount as ironclad evidence that there is no free will (yet), different interpretations are still possible. For an absolute statement there is no free will i would expect that more evidence is required as well as debates where there is pushback from others such as in this debate.
Is there any evidence that consciousness emerged during evolution? I would say it's very likely that consciousness preceded it, but I can't prove it and wouldn't want to. Moreover, just because we "have l" consciousness or awareness now, that does not imply that we necessarily use it to override instinct. It could be easily argued that we have instead used advanced reasoning to justify instinctual reactions, and/or that we have simply buried our instinctual reactions within a thicker layer of separation from our parent environment
@@noritreacy3107 During prehistoric times we started showing behaviors that would be strange from a purely utilitarian view such as burying people with flowers or painting the walls of caves, making flutes with a pentatonic scale. I would say that demonstrates a richer inner experience as well as a desire to shape that inner experience.
The thing is, the assertion that "the whole physical universe follows the laws of physics" requires some assumptions. First of all, we don't even know if there are laws of physics that govern *everything*. We have some pretty good guesses that progress day by day but there are usually some peculiar situations that then pop up and deny those seeming "laws" Let's use gravitation as an example Newton showed it to be one thing but then Einstein figured out that at the speed of light the seeming "laws" differ drastically and gravitation becomes this whole other thing. Then quantum mechanics rolls around and for very small particles gravity is also shown to be this completely other thing as well. Maybe the reason why these peculiar situations very usually pop up is that there are no laws, but there are seemingly true generalizations. Even if we can prove that there do exist laws of physics that govern everything, that's under the assumption that none of those laws can be a non-deterministic law. The counter example is that: what if there exists some law that sometimes produces outcome A based on input X and at other times produces outcome B based on input X. In order to show that that's not the case, we (under the assumption that everything is entirely governed by laws that do exist) need to find ALL of those laws because a law that we don't know could have the property that I mentioned above. So that's "what's hard to understand about the basic argument." It's that the assumptions required to make it are true But if all the assumptions required are true then you're absolutely right
@@FightFilms Every thing that makes up the “mind” is physical therefore the mind is physical. In my subjective opinion the “mind” is a property of complex matter.
I haven't watched the video yet so I don't have an opinion on who won the debate. But far more important than who wins a debate is which conclusion is right?
After hearing more, sorry to say that I don't agree. Huemer's arguments were really weak in my opinion. Any scientist who tried to support a claim with those types of arguments would be told to go back to the lab and collect some actual evidence.
@@mikel5582 While Sapolsky is a decorated scientist he should stick with what he knows like Gorillas. Nothing Sapolsky calims about determinism from the big bang is scientific, nor does any empirical evidence exist. Also, Sapolsky is not a philosopher so he lacks these tools.
@@jacobmack4772 Whether or not something exists is an exercise in objective reasoning; i e., within the domain of science. Subjective pontification on what that might mean for humans is the realm of the humanities.
It’s interesting how examples of intuition leading to making bad decisions is analyzed from the perspective of modern time and it’s assumed that even back then everybody knew what was “right” and what was “wrong” and they still did the “wrong” thing.
I feel like those who cling to free will don't understand what's actually being argued. Yes, we all go through the process of weighing our options and concluding what the best belief and/or course of action is. _We just don't control what seems best to us at the end of that process._ It just becomes apparent to us. Perhaps you conclude that you should cut off your nose, just to spite your face. The determinist argues that you can't have concluded otherwise because whatever led you to that conclusion, was true (to the best of your knowledge). To reach a different conclusion would require a different state of affairs, even if the only difference is your perception of the matter, such as your feelings about your face. 🤷♂
Listening to anyone trying to argue for free will is like listening to a toddler argue that what they say to Dora affects what happens next in the cartoon.
This is a disturbing session. Why would you set-up a distinguished guest with an opponent who labels the professor's views as insane, the very first thing? NEVER participate in ANY exchange where you and your ideas are portrayed - dishonestly - as mentally ill. In some legal systems this is considered professional slander. Is this kind of personal attack what is now rewarded in academic philosophy? This and the accompanying comments, except for 1 or 2, show the low level of You Tube knowledge, proprietary and interest in serious discussion.
You are completely right. Continuing a debate after a one-person opening that deems his opponent's primary standpoint (hard determinism) insane should be a cause for an immediate stop of the debate. Sapolsky is a far more patient and thickskinned person than 99 % of humanity who would either immediately quit or degrade the debate further with a tone similar to that of his opponent. It is still shameful that it was allowed to continue after Heumer's opening "presentation".
I agree that was a poor choice of words but this is a debate on a small TH-cam channel so a degree of glibness can be accepted and fortunately for Huemer, Sapolsky is a much wiser more worldly person with a sense of ...ehem ... Huemer. I didn't like the rest of the debate though because I think they were both unintentionally talking past each other.
sometimes when you tell the truth you are punished. sometimes when you lie you get out of it. but you get to choose which one and telling the truth is morally better. i think it shows that free will is real. that some actions lead to negative responses and you still choose them.
REVIEW 1. Overall: Robert Sapolsky presented his case by leaning on hard facts and drawing inevitable conclusions from them. Michael Huemer presented his case by drawing from experiential evidence and drawing logical conclusions from them. Both parties presented their case in a comprehensive, identifiable and accessible way. This allows one who pays attention to understand where and how both cases come into conflict with each other, or where the cases are on a different level altogether. I.e.: the experiential level vs. the factual level. 2. Content:
06:31 ~Robert~ " *Basically I think the world is entirely deterministic [...], I think it is deterministic enough that there's no free will* ." Robert mentions this in a very casual way: "it is deterministic enough". He doesn't emphasize on the importance of his choice of words. It is important because it shows the statistical nature of the case that he is defending. Free will has a very simple statistical model. The average experimental outcome we would expect would be 50/50 chances all over the place. Personally I would have argued that any consistent deviation from this 50/50 expectation would at least trigger our curiosity: what is going on here? Free will can not explain any such deviation because any reasonable explanation would make the case deterministic. It also points out that to Robert individual cases are meaningless and have no evident value. Individual cases can be flukes that are perfectly acceptable within the wider statistical view of things, but they don't prove anything on their own.
08:40 - 15:50 ~Robert~ sums up factors that influence decisions. 15:50 - 16:42 ~Robert~ presenting a critique on determinism. 16:42 - 17:44 ~Robert~ rebutting the critique on determinism. At this point Robert ran out of time and I had a feeling that he actually had more that he wanted to say but he was cut short. I think however that I got the gist of it so I'll try to divine what he was getting at there at the end of his opening statement. The critique that Robert is pointing at here does 2 things: 1. It argues that determinism can not account for all individual cases: determinism predicts that certain influences will result in such and such outcomes, and the free-willer brings an example to the debate of an individual case that shows the opposite. The free-willer fails to see that these individual cases are irrelevant to the discussion. 2. It treats all influences as static: the free-willer claims that influences cannot be influenced or overruled themselves but are rather absolute. Therefore if one can come up with even one example that contradicts the expected outcome, the influence is invalidated. I think Robert wanted to make clear that this is a misrepresentation: influences are dynamic, they can overrule each other and it is pointless to look at each influence individually. You have to regard all possible influences together a kind of complex system, the outcome of which is hard to predict, but very real indeed nonetheless.
20:36 - 21:19 ~Michael~ presents a clear definition of both cases. 21:19 ~Michael~ " *So I'm going to argue that hard determinism is insane and also it's self-defeating* ." It's interesting to note that Michael approaches the debate from a strategically different perspective. Where Robert was defending his case by showing evidence for it, Michael chooses not to produce any evidence for his case but instead try to disprove the opposite case. This approach is completely valid if you want to show your opponent wrong, but it doesn't prove your point either. 21:31 ~Michael~ " *It conflicts with the entire rest of your belief system and it conflicts with the practices of any normal person in everyday life* . " Here we see that Michael is determined - excuse the pun there - to present his case for free will from an experiential perspective, thereby ignoring the perspective of his opponent: factual and statistical. He A PRIORY assumes that our experience of free will (in our belief system, in our daily life) makes it real. Therefore, in Michael's universe, no amount of proof will ever be good enough to disprove free will. At the same time he also opens the door for any individual situation that contradicts the statistical outcome, to be regarded as evidence against determinism. But most problematic of all is the last part of that sentence: " *practices of any normal person in everyday life* ". You are always going to have a hard time refuting statistical models by using the average person going about his day. Because these are exactly the people that these stats represent. I think that what Michael is trying to convey here is that we all "feel" as if we have a choice and this "feeling" of freedom is a property that we all share. And I would agree that this feeling of freedom "conflicts" with determinism, but unfortunately this feeling of freedom does not prove that the freedom is real. At this point I would have accentuated the importance of freedom (real or not) on the efficacy of everyday life.
21:45 ~Michael~ " *The existence of alternative possibilities is conceptually tied to many other kinds of judgments that we make* ." What Michael is saying here is that the judgement can only make sense if there are alternate possibilities. What is conveniently left out here is that a judgement based upon only 1 possibility, is still still a judgement, even if it doesn't make sense. Michael says that there can only be a judgement if there were different possibilities to choose from in the first place. In this scenario each possible outcome would have it's own different judgement. And according to Michael each possible judgement is tied to the according possibility. That is the word that he used: "tied". So Michael says that there is a free choice of initial possibilities, but at the same time the judgments upon these possibilities are tied to them. Remember that Michael started out promising that he would argue that determinism is self-defeating. Well, without being aware of it, at this point he has shown that free will is self defeating. He himself has shown that the whole concept of judgment can only make sense if the judgment is inherently tied to rules. Another problem with this is that, from Michael's perspective, a judgment can only hold value if it is a judgement upon a free choice. This means that any good behavior that is influenced by a sincerely held conviction, is rendered worthless. If you would save someone's life, and you would attribute your behavior to your good upbringing, then according to Michael this would make your good deed meaningless. It would have been better for Michael not to drag concepts like judgment, award, punishment or responsibility into the conversation, because they are all governed by rules, agreements, understandings, etc... They are a terrible example to promote free will.
22:44 ~Michael~ " *My claim here is not that it's impossible to have these attitudes if hard determinism is true but that if hard determinism is true these attitudes would be inapt or they would involve you in making some kind of mistake* ." If you have seen the movie "The Matrix", well, this is the "red pill/blue pill" moment in the debate. The red pill represents an acceptance of a difficult and often unsettling truth, while the blue pill represents a choice to remain in comfortable ignorance. Michael chooses the blue pill. Michael says that if determinism is true, things like gratitude and responsibility are inapt, unsuitable, inappropriate. misguided and meaningless. He talks about some kind of mistake that the determinist makes when delivering any judgment because in his view the determinist should know better: his judgment doesn't hold any value, but he acts in a different way. So in his mind that leaves him with only 1 option (
I think the concept of free will is useful to say we are free from the control of fate or some mythical higher power. I think it is less useful in the context of saying we are not from from our physical makeup. Our perception of how we make a decision may differ from the actual electro-chemical process by which the decision was reached but the perception itself is as reliant on that process as the decision was.
Not really ,that perception is actually a post-facto justification (that seems concurring) ,for an analogy think about your dream-self (unless you are a lucid dreamer) ,it seemingly still makes decisions but there is no perception of making the decisions.
@@cristristam9054 So do we have free will over the content of the post-facto justification or does that come equally unbidden as the decision itself? Maybe the justification is a clue provided by the same subconscious mechanism.
@@pcrathke Actually I agree with your original post the perception is also fully-conditioned. Here is the best argument I heard against free will, it is from "Bernardo Kastrup" : Everyone wants to be happy (by definition) and if we had free will ,we would wish to be in the exact condition we find ourselves in. There would be no suffering if we had free will ,not even physical pain ,because we could just wish to be in said pain.
Ok let me just make one thing clear, determinism doesn't imply that there is only one option. It merely claims that we would only pick a certain option based on preexisting conditions. Were those conditions to change or be different, we would again pick a certain option. Maybe the same one, maybe a different one. Either way, determined by the preexisting conditions.
Sapolsky's presentation was well done, for sure. I am listening to his book, as I write this. But so far, I don't buy it. To me, free will is just as obvious as consciousness (and of course, they are closely linked). Of course, we can't deny consciousness but, through sleight-of-word, clever people can trick themselves into thinking we don't have free will. Nobody denies that genes, epigenetics, and the environment influence our behavior, but "You are more likely to ..." doesn't equal a lack of free will.
that mandelbrot set in your pfp leads me to believe there is still time for you to intuitively get that free will isn't even a part of conscious experience. Sam Harris has helped me immensely in that regard. There is a difference between voluntary and involuntary choices of course, but when you really become aware of how choices are made, there is a fundamental level of mystery that we are confronted with at every step of the way. Once it becomes obvious through meditation/mindfulness then it is realized that free will is not necessary for the way actions and words effortlessly stream out of you.
@@pedestrian_0 I have read Sam Harris, and to say I am not convinced is an understatement. If you listen to people talk about consciousness, they talk about the same mystery. To the point that many throw up their hands and say "panpsychism" as if that solves anything. I don't know if I can succinctly offer my suspicion regarding free will, but here it goes. We know that, despite what determinists say, we live in an incredibly stochastic world. There isn't some magic that makes what we know from the quantum world just disappear in the macro world. Under most circumstances, statistics make this stochasticity invisible. But in some, far from equilibrium systems, it strongly affects the macro world. Of course, as most free-will denialists will point out, randomness doesn't get you to free-will. However, what randomness can give you, in some cases, is creativity. The best, most well-studied example is evolution. Most mutations are truly random (not just apparently random). Then natural selection takes that randomness and puts it to work. Evolution isn't a random process, but it wouldn't exist without randomness as a creative input. I believe that Free Will comes about in roughly the same way. There is no doubt that everything from genetics to development to long-term and short-term environmental influences affect our behavior, and sometimes (perhaps even most of the time), that is the sum total of our behavior. But along the way, we do make choices, we do have agency, and we are, most of the time, responsible for our actions.
@@pedestrian_0Sam Harris like many simply assumes determinism in order to conclude it, thus begging the question. Try listening closely to him on the topic when he discusses prior events influencing our actions and I think this is obvious. Also his analogy to not being able to directly choose our thoughts from an introspective pov can be analogized to extrospection and then is easily seen as not at all a disproof of free will or even any evidence at all against it. His point there amounts to the equivalent of saying that since when you open your eyes, you don’t have a choice about what you see in front of you, that that means you don’t have free will. That is how his introspective argument works. But that’s laughable. Even though I can’t choose what I see in my field of vision but can nevertheless direct my eyes to focus on this or that within it, so it goes with what arises within my mind during introspection.
@@francescaerreia8859 "Sam Harris like many simply assumes determinism in order to conclude it" To conclude what? Sam and Daniel Dennett are in alignment with regards to determinism being irrelevant to the type of free will that is important. In fact he makes it clear that even if the universe isn't deterministic, there is still no free will because you wouldn't know why you finally decided with the decision you ended up with. From a compatibilist perspective it's very easy to say "I do know why I chose what I chose, evolution has gifted me reasoning faculties shaped throughout the years so that I'm able to weigh options more precisely than other animals" to which Sam and I would respond that this is a bait and switch which replaces the first person point of view of free will (which we argue *is* the free will most people actually care and think about) with a trade-off for a third person account for how one ought to operate. "when you open your eyes, you don’t have a choice about what you see in front of you" Yes, you don't choose what is there when you open your eyes. He doesn't directly say "so this proves you don't have free will", he invites you to investigate more deeply how everything is simply appearing in its place. "Even though I can’t choose what I see in my field of vision but can nevertheless direct my eyes to focus on this or that within it" What's important and what separates me from being a compatibilist, aka a believer in free will, is the closer inspection of this 'I' that can direct focus.. To a typical compatibilist a lot of this flies over their head, but I think it's the inevitable future we're heading towards with science.
@@pedestrian_0 you’re right, I made a mistake. Sam doesn’t assume determinism in order to prove we don’t have free will (though many do), rather he assumes we don’t have free will as evidence that we don’t have free will. He just asserts that we can’t choose or invites us to try to see this ourselves. And compatibilism is such a joke it’s hard to grasp how anyone can believe in it in any form for a second. Free will is about the ability to do otherwise by choice. If we don’t have that, we are just automatons with the illusion of free will and our actions are no different than those of billiard balls being hit or dominos falling with the first ones struck trillions of years ago leading up to us now.
That's not a serious deterrence theory objection. People need to know the process was reliable to be deterred in the first place. Otherwise, it can happen regardless of deterrence, even with retributive theory.
I think Huemer's point was that under isolated circumstances in which framing the innocent man *would* truly maximize utility, we have the intuition that it's wrong to frame him. Ergo, maximizing utility cannot be the only relevant consideration for just punishment.
@@PercyPrior1 that's a reductum ad absurdum from a sentence with an iffy truth value. Have you done some courses in mathematics? Because outside of it it's generally a bad argument structure - it's just pointing out a contradiction. We all have conflicting moral intuitions, as Sapolsky rightly pointed out, it doesn't falsify detternce theory. The final call is this: why even give a stage to a political Libertarian (Google moral disposition and psycopathology of libertarians; they are the most horrible people, might give a stage to Nazis while you're at it) but worst of all, to a clueless individual on the topic, which only motivation is defending his political views. They need "free will" for their entire political project from "consent" to "just" desert to Ayn Rand like capitalism. I worked with them in my clinic, they tend to be horrible to-the-very-least sub-clinical psychopathic individuals. Do not let them spread their ideas without proper opposition.
@@Forkroute What are you even talking about? You're saying "It just shows a contradiction" as if it's not a big deal. If by contradiction you mean it contradicts anti-retribution intuitions - yes, yes it does. Saying that thought experiments aren't relevant to philosophy is like saying empirical experiments aren't relevant to science. Math isn't relevant. Jonah is a libertarian and so am I, so I suggest learning serious political psychology before throwing baseless accusations about our psychology. Libertarians are not like Nazis or psychopaths, and there is no evidence for this. We just think the state should be held to the same moral standards as individuals and that the state has no more right to tax than it would be for me to go around and tax people.
@@SolarxPvP A simple contradiction won't tell you which sentence is false. Empirical research on lack of free will shows people's retributive intuitions become much less stronger (see also, Scandinavian society). Thought experiments are intuition pumps. A review by a peer-reviewed magazine of a Thomas Sowell book, asked again and again why he ignores the literature. Decades of literature. Like you ignoring political philosophy on taxation (see Elizabeth Anderson on taxation). Google it. The Psychological dispositions of Libertarians and the paper In Search of Homo Economicus. I can suggest more empirical research, but all point to the bottom line: except for a small subset of psychopaths, no lives up to your libertarian fantasy. Most people are healthy, pro-social individuals. I treated many like you in the clinic, I suggest you attend therapy if you're a Libertarian. You probably had an absent/abusive parent. PTSD is related to pathologies of lower empathy and social issues. Treatment can help you personally and society at large.
@@Forkroute WHOAH, I was about to agree with you until you started slandering libertarians! I don't believe in free will, or objective morality, but I'm politically libertarian, along the lines of David Friedman. I don't believe that people "objectively have rights" to their property, but I'm *subjectively* very much in favor of leaving people alone, not confiscating their stuff, not imposing regulations, etc.
Over the past 4 days I've been immersing myself in these videos, and more generally videos that discuss the concept of free will. I do remain with questions on my hands even though I can understand easily that there is no such thing as an undetermined choice, and I hoped you could share your thoughts with me. So let's agree that following deterministic thinking: - you are a robot, spectator of your own life - you do not have choices - you are not free Besides this, we can agree that, as a human being, you are presented with options all the time, from which you pick (let's say, a menu at a restaurant as the most common example) There, you make determined choices, they are not free, but they are choices, you take decisions, determined decisions but you take decisions nonetheless, you think, and you act, you compare, and you choose We established that this is not free will, but how should we call that process? Could we call it an act of the self? On another note, let's say we can theoretically calculate the number of constraints someone is facing, leading up to an action from their part: if you add more constraints to a situation, you will get a different outcome (or maybe the intensity of the constraint rather than the number, how the constraint deviates us from our own personal interests) Let's consider two realities: one where someone wakes up and does whatever action they feel like doing at this moment (let's say they have a day off, and want to do things that make them happy), and one where that same person gets robbed inside of their home and is being held at gunpoint and told to do things. Couldn't we say that the person facing less constraints is more free than the one who is held at gunpoint? This is, I think, what Patricia Churchland would call self-control, this idea that we can quantify our freedom (for lack of a better word) and our ability to act. Though I would agree that the person who's not at gunpoint doesn't have a completely free choice, their actions are still predetermined and therefore have no real self-control, isn't there still a distinction to make between those two cases? How should we name that gap? I am happy to read the comments here and see that @PercyPrior1 is reporting a similar idea coming from Dr. Iskra Fileva: "If freedom sometimes increases, then it exists. So we have (some) freedom." Thank you for taking the time to read, and maybe to answer
This is a rough sketch as I try to make explicit my understanding of all the information concerning determinism and free will: 1) To communicate the deterministic interior state of one human to another requires language. 2) Interpersonal communication influences the behavior of individual humans 3) If 2 is true, and it is granted from the outset that hard determinism is true, then hard determinism requires interpersonal communication through language. 4) Language utilizes the semantics of action/free will. 5) Free will reigns over concept formation and word choice which determines what gets communicated interpersonally. 6) If 3 and 5 are true, then hard determinism requires free will. (Or hard determinism is less than it is made out to be) Or something to this effect. I expect some premises may need to be polished up/reworded or even replaced whole cloth. Front running one possible objection: Can free will exist outside a semantics of action? In other words, if we change our language to avoid the semantics of action (as proposed by Churchland), does it therefore follow that there is no free will if we can just stop talking in terms of free will? I don't know.
[4) Language utilizes the semantics of action/free will.] Rejected. Language utilizes the semantics of the individual (who are processes - deterministic). The issue being that at every level of review there are cause/effect linkages such that our will is tethered to these factors which precludes such of being free.
If nothing else, if EVERYONE consciously practised considering their OWN "moment before"(...as well as minutes, days, months, years, family dynamics/biology over generations BEFORE) we would live in a much more consciously AWARE world. If we ALL simply asked the question "What's going on...right now?"(in my own mind), we would likely make much better choices in our lives. Awareness fosters HUMILITY and that is always a good thing.
I’m surprised that the idea of self awareness was not talked about as a variable into our perception of our own free will. The perception of free will seems highly correlated with one’s own level of self awareness - the why you do what you do. The more you are aware of your behavioral triggers the less you are bound to them in a deterministic fashion. It would also explain the variability of outcomes when the inputs don’t change. For instance, when Sapolsky says “30%” of a groups behavior was predicted based on a set of inputs… what about the other 70%? A huge factor that seems to have been overlooked is self awareness
30 percent was "predicted". It would presumably require great technological advancement and greater neuro-scientific modelling to achieve more accurate results, because of the massive complex of factors/inputs.
Can you control your own thoughts? When you typed the above comment, why you choose one word over another or one way of wording your comment over another? Why did you, for example, start with the words 'I'm surprised' rather that 'It's surprising'? If you didn't consider the latter alternative, why not?
@@XiagraBallsI wasn't arguing for free will, at least in principle I do not disagree with Robert all all. But as I mentioned, I am very surprised that the effect that self-awareness has on one's *perception* of free will, isn't talked about at all. For instance, once you become aware that the smell of trash made you feel homophobic, that would no longer be the case the next time you smell trash. The more and more we become aware of our unconscious thoughts and triggers, the less and less that have control over us. I'm not saying that means we have free-will, just that we at least FEEL like we have more agency than we previously had.
The question is : if free will is an illusion, why does this illusion exists ? And why my determinisms is different than the rest of the people ? Why someone is determined to be beautiful while someone else ugly ?… reach vs poor, healthy vs week ?
I think Michael started strong when he had his pre-thought material available, but in this kind of live debate, one needs the experience to be able to phrase one's thought in a concise and clear manner, and also to repeat one's base principles and assumptions you are leaning onto in streams of thought that make sense and build up from one thought to the next. At times, it is like he is saying one thing, but he actually meant another, and I know he meant the other thing because he is just now phrasing it inconveniently for him from the conciseness standpoint, but just a moment ago he explained his bade principles differently. It's then as a whole perhaps not enough of a case to make Sapolsky see what he is trying to say, because Sapolsky is also processing his own arguments, and catching on to easy weak points in Michael's arguments in their presented form.
Michael Hueme's own Libertarianism proves Sapolsky's point: the psychological research on libertarians point at the roots of his rationalizing of his psychological makeup as a "political philosophy", mostly by factors he isn't even aware of, that are probably are deeply rooted in his childhood.
@@synchronium24 political Libertarians rely on notions like "free will", or worse, some metaphysical "individual" - - they contradict every piece of sceitific information we know about people - from psychology, social psychology, sociologists and social philosophy. I've been dealing with these people for seven years now. They are a dangerous group, and their ideology is used by every criminal - from the interviews with sociopaths to large corporate corruption - it is the most vile and dangerous ideology in our lifetime
I have just written something on this topic that might also be of interest to you. Here is my translated contribution on (psychological) free will: (nature/ conflicts of interest/ solution) I. In general, psychological functions are by no means "illusory", because that would mean that they are superfluous or even harmful. But the fact of determinacy is of merely "academic" significance for decision-making itself. The capacity for free will has developed evolutionarily because it helps to protect our range of options from potentially harmful influence and/or hindrance by other people. II. It is of course more rational to know whether we should be influenced in ways that are potentially harmful to us and how to avoid this in the future. In this respect, everyone actually wants to be (unfortunately also egocentrically) an "unmoved mover". III. People who could regularly choose what is most useful have more opportunities to provide value to a society (through trade or donations). In all decisions, one would also have to "keep an eye" on long-term effects on the framework conditions. Because it may be in the short-term interest of individuals to maximize their own freedom of will at the expense of others (e.g. through ideological communication), rights to (primarily) physical non-aggression (and secondarily to the pursuit of truth) should (like all others) be universally reciprocal. It should be possible to demand the principle (of reciprocity) from all institutions and citizens.
Now, that is an important debate. Everyone should be doing it. Sapolsky is excellent as always. Someone needs to cross and glue together the two extremes of this debate, as they're coming from very different disciplines, as Sapolsky himself stated.
Though I am warm to Sapolsky's argument (there is ample evidence to support some form of determinism, hard or soft), some conflicts of interest should be pointed out. We live in a landscape of centrally planned habit-training, and a large element of this is the "education" industry. Sapolsky is in the education industry. The entire purpose of that industry is to reliably adjust the habits and behaviors of childen and young adults in line with the desires of government masters. In many cases, this results in the predictable destruction of any form of autonomy or free will in these childer and young adults. Do the goverment masters themselves have free will? I don't claim to know that, but even if they did, their goal would be to manage and control the free will of their subjects out of existence. Sapolsky is clearly knowledgeable and appears an excellent teacher (I've audited his Stanford lectures with much pleasure), but perhaps he would re-visit his approach if he viewed himself in context, as a mouthpiece for the larger aims of his masters. Additionally, many of the studies and examples Sapolsky cites are clearly drawn from market research. What is the goal of market research? To remove sales resistance. To remove autonomy. Sales is one of the largest and most lucrative industries worldwide, and it would be best to understand that this industry *pre-supposes* at least some form of free will or autonomy in some people, and seeks to remove and destroy the same in other people. This point doesn't go to whether there is or isn't free will generally. But it does suggest that Sapolsky lacks understanding of where his information comes from... or else he had no choice in the selection of these examples in the first place;) I am also disappointed there was no discussion of proto-free will, meaning that observing and imagining seems to be able to direct actions. Before a plane flew, it had to be imagined and built. Are we not in a position to direct our focus toward imagining and building a better version of free will? If we intuit or detect even a primitive and limited type of free will, why can that not be developed into a more robust form? I think it can, and why not? Whether this point is right or wrong, the fact remains that Sapolsky's masters *believe* they have some version of free will, but their demonstrable aim is to *make sure his students do not*. To end ramble: not much to say on Huemer, as i don't think either "won" here, but it was an enjoyable discussion. Thanks PercyPrior!
I like your skepticism and it does raise questions. For example, look at Edward Bernays, “We are governed, our minds are molded, our tastes formed, our ideas suggested, largely by men we have never heard of.” Bernays didn’t keep it secret either, he wrote the book, propaganda. Also look at “The Prince” by Machiavelli and “48 Laws Of Power” by Robert Greene. If the information is out there, good people can gain knowledge against the Machiavellians of the world. Unfortunately we have a lot of catching up to do, because the elites of the world have known this for generations and generations. The world is messy and I don’t ever see that changing in my lifetime. I believe Sapolsky is correct. But I see a free will hack though. We can change via epigenetics. Knowing this, we can change our lives and are not shackled to our genetic prisons. But one has to have a thought before that happens. And we are not the thinker of thoughts, we are the observers. A thought comes from somewhere, we don’t decide to think a thought. It takes a cause to create a thought. We’re billiard balls getting knocked around and our paths change when we knock into each other and the billiard table. But I don’t think we can change magically out of free will. A cause has to happen, then that creates a desire. Call it epigenetics, call it free will, it’s semantics, but it is a nice life hack if I do say so myself.
He thinks examples of people doing different things given the same external stimuli means we have "absolutely no free will" and he called rudimentary science and superstition "intuition". For starters. He was absolutely painful to listen to.
Michael didn’t offer counter arguments …he basically said I feel here is free will…my intuitions tell me so…nothing about how we can think and act outside the chain of causality
Jeez. Huemer's arguments were just terrible. Well, if FW didn't exist, ppl wouldn't act the way they do. 🙄Yes, because society acts on the assumption that FW exists. That doesn't mean it isn't an illusion. Several qs I wanted him to be asked: does a person have more or less FW when they're sleepwalking or under the 'influence' of drugs or alcohol or does it depend upon the dose? What is they have a brain tumour? If every choice is entirely free, then why have any mitigation in criminal cases? Where does his FW reside? Does he control his own thoughts? What exactly is 'doing the choosing'? A part of his brain? A disembodied soul? Can he freely choose what he will be thinking in exactly an hour's time? Does he have an answer to Sam Harris' 'capital city' test? How you could you scientifically examine the operation of FW?
For starters. Every choice doesn't have to be entirely free to prove that there is free will, we just need one case of a free choice to defeat the claim that it doesn't exist at all. I don't even know what you mean by an illusion. How do we know it's an illusion? Through our intuition? Science? There's a gap in your reasoning.
![Does God Exist? William Lane Craig vs. Christopher Hitchens - Full Debate [HD]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/0tYm41hb48o/mqdefault.jpg)
People seem sort of confused as to what Dr. Huemer's argument was, or whether it was even intended as an argument in the first place (in the sense of an attempt to justify the claim that free will actually exists) as opposed to a mere charge of hypocrisy. So, without necessarily endorsing them, here is my attempt to summarize what I think Huemer's main points were.
Huemer's main line of argument seemed to me to constitute a positive argument (whether it is a successful one or not, I leave you to judge) in favor of the actual, real existence of free will. From what I gather, he was saying:
*Premise 1)* Our intuitions support the existence of free will. (Note that Sapolsky didn't even dispute this premise. He agrees that at least by initial appearances it seems like free will exists.) (Eg., it seems like we choose among alternatives by way of self-control at least some of the time, and, at least by initial appearances, it seems like to say one ought to do something implies that one can do otherwise. Arguments are implicit ought statements/normative suggestions in favor of adopting certain beliefs given certain evidences, and punishment is in part justified by the sense that the perpetrator could have and should have done differently than they in fact did.)
((You might wonder, "why think that ought implies can?" Huemer's reason is that it seems intuitive and we lack a reason to doubt it. A) it seems like to say "I know you can't, but you should still anyway magically fly through the air like superman and shoot lasers out of your eyes in order to bring about world peace. You ought to do that, so why haven't you? What the heck is wrong with you, a*****e?" is linguistically counterintuitive.)
*Premise 2)* In the absence of a defeater, we are justified in trusting our intuitions. (Huemer argued that ultimately Sapolsky's view commits him to accepting Premise 2 because scientific practice relies on beliefs which *ultimately* rely for their support on as-yet-undefeated appearances, such as certain theory confirmation assumptions like "simpler theories are more likely to be true" or "the laws of logic are reliable" or "the future will sometimes be like the past," or "the external world exists," etc. For example, famously as David Hume pointed out, it's hard to justify induction without circular reasoning if you reject intuitionism. For instance. I.e., why think the future will be like the past? Because it has always been like that? In order for that to be evidence for the claim, we would have to assume that the fact that something has been a certain way in the past is evidence that it will continue to be that way in the future, which is the very question under dispute. Hence, many philosophers have concluded that there is no non-circular justification for induction except a form of foundationalism which says that it seems true and we lack a reason for doubting it, and our seemings afford us with defeasible prima facia justification in the absence of defeaters. Huemer also has a more general argument that we should believe Premise 2 because any alternative principle which we preferred to it would ultimately be justified by the very principle it rejects, namely by the fact that it seems true and we lack a reason for doubting it.)
*Premise 3)* There is no ultimately successful defeater against (all of) our intuitions in favor of free will. (Eg., Huemer replied to Sapolsky's inductive generalization argument against free will by saying "it doesn't follow that because our actions are often *influenced* by external events, they must be *entirely determined* by external events.")
*Conclusion a)* Therefore, we are justified in trusting our intuitions that free will exists.
Huemer also argued that Sapolsky was engaged in a self-defeating line of argument because 1) he appeared to cast blame on people for casting blame on people (i.e., he seemed to say that it's *wrong* to condemn anyone's behavior since no one is responsible for their behavior, but calling a behavior wrong is a form of condemnation), and 2) he advanced a series of arguments for thinking that free will doesn't exist, which if we are inclined to accept the "ought implies can" principle leave Sapolsky's implicit "you should believe this because of the evidence" claim hanging in midair. How can it be that we should do anything if "should" requires the option of doing otherwise and there is no option to do otherwise?
(This is just my attempt to explain what I think Huemer's argument was and should not be interpreted as an invitation to "fight me." lol)
Email exchange the panelists had after the debate:
*Dr. Huemer wrote:*
"My wife, Iskra, who does philosophy of psychology, said that the strongest point for Robert's side was that the scope of apparent responsibility has been shrinking over time as scientific knowledge progresses. We keep finding more things that people aren't responsible for. By induction, you might extrapolate to a future time when we will think people aren't responsible for anything.
I didn't fully address that, but basically I think that's an overgeneralization; the reasonable conclusion is that humans have less responsibility than it appears, but not none whatsoever. There are many cases in which you get absurd results if you project a trend to the absolute furthest extent possible. E.g., if you project current population growth into the future, you conclude that in 2750 years, the Earth's entire mass will be converted into humans. For a less silly example, for a while, estimates of the age of the Earth kept rising (starting at the Bible-derived estimate of 6,000 years). If you extrapolated maximally, you'd have concluded that the Earth is literally eternal. But that's not right, and not what the evidence supported. Or, suppose you notice that most scientific theories that have ever been held were later shown to be wrong. If you extrapolate maximally, you'd conclude that all possible theories are wrong (including this one?).
Iskra also says that freedom comes in degrees. We're never maximally free (if such a thing even makes sense), nor do we have zero freedom. But as we learn more about ourselves, including what previously-hidden motives we might have, we become freer.
*This exchange is continued in a reply to this comment below.*
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Dr. Robert Sapolsky is the recent author of the magnificent Determined: A Science of Life Without Free Will. Dr. Michael Huemer is most recently the author of Understanding Knowledge, a terrific introduction to epistemology. Buy these books now!!!
Amazon to Dr. Sapolsky’s book: www.amazon.com/Determined-Science-Life-without-Free/dp/0525560971?nodl=1&dplnkId=c55ef1a2-973e-4a7f-a4e1-dcfc003bf2de
Amazon to Dr. Huemer’s book: www.amazon.com/Audible-Understanding-Knowledge/dp/B0C75N3JKR/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?crid=7XCYBE17D213&keywords=understanding+knowledge&qid=1697591002&sprefix=understanding+knowledge+%2Caps%2C195&sr=8-1
Free will is an illusion and here is the argumentation:
From the lense of neuroscience:
Marcus Du Sautoy (Professor of Mathematics at the University of Oxford and the Simonyi Professorship for the Public Understanding of Science) participates in an experiment conducted by John-Dylan Haynes (Professor at the Bernstein Center for Computational Neuroscience Berlin) that attempts to find the neurological basis for decision making.
Short summary:
The experiment explores the relationship between free will, decision-making, and brain activity. Marcus Du Sautoy participates in an experiment in Berlin where they have to randomly decide to press either a left or right button. Brain scans and computer records track when the decision is made in the brain and when the button is physically pressed.
The results reveal that up to six seconds before Marcus Du Sautoy consciously makes a decision, their brain has already made that choice. Specific patterns of brain activity can even predict which button will be pressed. This finding challenges the notion of free will, suggesting that unconscious brain activity significantly shapes our decisions before we become consciously aware of them.
The experiment also delves into the nature of consciousness. It argues against dualism-the idea that the mind and brain are separate entities. Instead, it posits that consciousness is an aspect of brain activity. The unconscious brain activity is in harmony with a person's beliefs and desires, so it's not forcing you to do something against your will.
Marcus Du Sautoy finds the results shocking, especially the idea that someone else can predict their decision six seconds before they are consciously aware of making it. The experiment raises profound questions about the nature of free will, consciousness, and the deterministic mechanisms that may govern our decisions.
From the lense of pysics:
In order to question the belief in free will, one can conduct experiments and contemplations. Take an action you are convinced you performed and reverse-engineer it until you realize you had no control over it. This leads to the conclusion that all actions in life are the same, and the notion of claiming ownership falls away, so free will is non-existent.
By 'reverse-engineering an action,' I mean tracing back the steps that led you to make a specific decision. Upon close examination, you'll find that your choice was influenced by a series of past events and conditions over which you had no control, and that your choice didn't originate from a single point. One could argue that everything originates from the Big Bang, making us essentially biological robots. This realization may prompt you to reconsider how much 'free will' you actually possess, as your actions are shaped by factors beyond your control, both in the past and likely in the future as well.
So you can summarize everything is a happening according to cosmic laws.
The email exchange continued:
*Dr. Sapolsky replied:*
Thanks for this followup.
I totally agree that the history of thinking about these issues (and researching them) shows that the space free will can occupy keeps shrinking, and one might extrapolate that that space will eventually disappear.
The issue of how wise it is to run with extrapolation, as I'm obviously heavily doing, is totally valid (like the idea that if it were possible to do computer modeling and urban planning back in the mid-19th century, extrapolation would have shown that cities would become unlivable by the mid-20th century, because of the overwhelming amounts of horse droppings in the streets, from the massive population increases in users of horse-drawn carriages). There's also some interesting studies showing how context-dependent extrapolation can be (for example, in one, they showed subjects a graph showing a straight line of points from a time series [i.e., graphing 5, 10, 15, 20, 25, 30, 35, and then 34].
Subjects would then be asked to put in the next point on the graph, and the question was whether people would view the 34 as just an aberration, and graph something like 40 or 45 as the point, resuming that pattern, or see it as an inflection point, and graph something like 29, 24...after that. And people were very likely to choose one pattern over the other depending on whether the scenario they were given in the story was taking place locally or on the other side of the planet [I've forgotten which direction it goes, and what hand-waving explanation was given, but the point was the really different outcomes depending on that seemingly irrelevant manipulation of what story was told]).
So, yes, extrapolation has its dangers, and I'm probably resting too heavily on it when I talk about this. But that's in the context of my lunatic fringe stance that there is NO free will whatsoever -- yes, yes, the science isn't there to prove that yet, but at the rate things are going, come back X number of years from now and it will be irrefutable. And that stance is totally vulnerable to the ways that extrapolating can go off the rails.
But that's concerning my very strongly felt but way out in left field stance about no free will. I would settle if what people take away from my song and dance is that we already know that we have vastly less free will than most people think, and that there is so much less so that the only intellectually and morally acceptable thing to do is majorly remake a lot of how things function (as in, say, "If we already know that for every increase in someone's Adverse Childhood Experience score, there is a ~35% increased likelihood of some awful behavior in adulthood [take your pick], we already know enough, we don't need more imagined findings in the future, to conclude that there is something desperately wrong with thinking about that adult behavior from a starting point of free will."). That sort of thing.
Does this seem reasonable?
All the best,
Robert
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*Dr. Huemer replied:*
Hi Robert,
Thanks very much for your thoughts. I'm copying Iskra in case she would like to comment on this.
Regarding your last paragraph, I can certainly see how the knowledge about the Adverse Childhood Experience score would call into question the degree to which certain criminals are to blame for their actions. However,
a) What about criminals who don't have a high ACE score? Surely they are still responsible?
b) In the case of criminals who suffered from strong criminogenic influences: I'm not sure how you would propose to revise our practices. Should we not punish them? Perhaps you would propose some kind of psychiatric treatment? But is there in fact any effective treatment? Maybe we would keep punishing them anyway, because that reduces the bad behavior?
I suspect that a good deal of the variation in bad behavior is explained by variation in people's experiences -- probably a lot more than people usually assume. I think we tend to over-ascribe evil motives. So I'm not maximally in disagreement with you. Example: I suspect that people who commit violent crimes might just be people who feel a lot more anger a lot more of the time than the rest of us, and the rest of us just don't know what that's like. Factors like this might diminish a person's responsibility, but I doubt that they entirely remove it. I.e., the person might merit a lower degree of blame than someone who doesn't have such influences, but still some blame. Relatedly, I think there are factors that make it difficult for a person to behave benevolently, without making it impossible.
Yours,
MH
_____________________
*Dr. Iskra Fileva replied:*
Thank you, everyone, for the stimulating and enjoyable discussion (not least to Jonah for organizing the event). Following up on Robert’s suggestion, I think there are at least two different questions here:
(1) Are we generally as free as we think?
(2) Do we have free will at all?
It seems to me that there is no simple answer to the first question. We overestimate our freedom and that of others in some ways, as Robert argues, as when a person thinks she freely chose to support some cause when in fact, she was just conformist. Or when a child thinks her parents freely chose a style of psychological abuse, when in fact, they absorbed it from their parents unconsciously. On the other hand, sometimes, we deny we have freedom that we do, in fact, have, as when people say that there wasn’t anything else they could do given that an authority figure commanded them to act as they did.
But on the whole, we probably make the first type of error more often.
Regarding the second question, I think that if some actions are freer than others, then we have (some) freedom. But what would it mean for some actions to be freer than others? Well, I think for agents such as humans, free action basically means forming an intention to act on the basis of reasons you know you have and endorse, and then acting on that intention.
The second piece is, I think, clearly in place - we can execute intentions we have. We even have the ability to persist for years in the face of obstacles in order to achieve a goal. That's what it means to have a will. But do we have a free will? This is where we come to the first piece of my formulation. After all, a person may show very strong will in pursuit of a goal, yet the goal itself may not be freely chosen.
What I would say is that there is a difference between cases - some are closer, some are farther away from meeting the criteria I mentioned. Why think that? Here is a simple argument: We sometimes become aware of a bias in ourselves, perhaps with the help of other people. Once we do, our freedom increases by a little bit -- we are freer with respect to that particular bias. We may still have many other biases, but we are a little freer with regard to that one. That's all we need for the difference in degrees claim. If freedom sometimes increases, then it exists. So we have (some) freedom.
There is, finally, a question about how free any given action would have to be in order for the person to be either morally or legally responsible for it. It could be that we have some freedom but not nearly enough for responsibility.
That’s a thornier problem since one has to determine how much freedom is necessary for moral and/or legal responsibility. While I think the threshold is not so high as to be met rarely or never (I discuss this issue in a co-authored article "Will Retributivism Die and Will Neuroscience Kill It?"), I am sympathetic to the idea that we must, in general, guard against overattributing responsibility, especially overattributing it to others for bad behavior though also, perhaps, against underattributing it to ourselves, as when people insist a co-worker started the conflict while it fact, they did. (One may ask here too whether people shifting the blame for starting a conflict are, in turn, responsible for minimizing their own role in it given that there is a strong psychological tendency to absolve oneself of blame. And what I would say is that, going back to my earlier points, that's true, but there is also bad faith + knowing we have such a tendency increases our freedom with regard to it.)
Thanks again, everyone. Also, I had not heard about the research on extrapolation Robert mentions. That's very interesting, and I will look up studies.
With wishes,
Iskra
@@PercyPrior1 Outstanding video- you have gotten the heavy hitters here for sure. For me, Dr. Huemer (along with folks like Dr. Richard Foley) has provided a strong defense of moral realism and free will, EVEN THOUGH I find myself more sympathetic to Dr. Sapolsky's materialism (well, I am an engineer). I wonder if Sapolsky wasn't too right when he said (around 39:00), here are two experts in such different fields in danger of talking past each other. My sense is that if you like metaethics, you may be more sympathetic toward free will, and likewise if you like a mechanistic, materialistic view of the world, you are more likely to be a biologist.
P1) Our intuitions support the existence of free will
P2) In the absence of a defeater, we are justified in trusting our intuitions.
P3) There is no ultimately successful defeater against (all of) our intuitions in favor of free will.
C) Therefore, we are justified in trusting our intuitions that free will exists.
Let me generalize the argument...
P1) Our intuitions support the existence of X.
P2) In the absence of a defeater, we are justified in trusting intuitions.
P3) There is no ultimately successful defeater against our intuitions in favor of X.
C) Therefore, we are justified in trusting our intuitions that X exists.
The core issue is in ANY belief in X wherein X has not been shown to be an aspect of reality. Sapolsky made this point in his historical reviews wherein X was something that was believed to be an aspect of reality but was not the case. Thus, P1 is automatically rejectable when it is the case that X hasn't been shown to be an aspect of reality, since, it is the case that in EVERY instance wherein X hasn't been shown to be substantiated in the context of reality, the conclusions drawn on such were fallacious. Thus, we must SHOW that X is an aspect of reality, BEFORE such can be considered a proper target of intuition or anything else for that matter.
If this isn't clear, then consider that any claim of X could be an imaginary psychological/sociological construct as opposed to being a reference to an aspect of reality such that we must make a distinction between what we can imagine to be the case versus what is the case.
Sapolsky continually made reference to what has been shown whereas Huemer made reference not to reality, but intuitions which are a product of psychological/sociological tapestries as opposed to being facts about reality.
Currently, within the context of what we know....
P1: Processes are tethered (NOT FREE).
P2: We are processes at every level of review.
C: We are not free.
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Huemer made the comment that reason supports free will, but that is a falsehood, since reason entails the use of knowledge to make an evaluation. An evaluation is a process regardless of whether such is a flawed process or not. The fact of reason being a process is why there is the expectation that we will be able to produce super intelligent AI systems (which is special kind of concern for another discussion).
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This video and the associated links would seem to be extremely relevant to the current debate/discussion.
th-cam.com/video/24AsqE_eko0/w-d-xo.html (New discoveries about the brain)
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We are never free. However, the scope of our knowledge does determine the quality of our evaluations.
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I really enjoyed the debate/exchange.
It seemed to me that Dr. Sapolsky was talking about the rapids while Dr. Huemer was talking about the kayaker.
If humans were someday able to account for absolutely every single variable (up to the entire universe, down to the subatomic particles within our atoms) around any given event, free will will be shown for what it is: a recreational illusion that emerged from our inability to fully comprehend reality with the purpose of making life interestingly enough to give conscious beings a desire to go through all the hardships and suffering necessary to continue living for no actual reward other than the belief in free will itself.
Free will is the promise that we mice have the skills to find cheese in a labyrinth in which cheese doesn't even exist.
A Czech man once explained it much, much better in this little fable:
"Alas", said the mouse, "the whole world is growing smaller every day. At the beginning it was so big that I was afraid, I kept running and running, and I was glad when I saw walls far away to the right and left, but these long walls have narrowed so quickly that I am in the last chamber already, and there in the corner stands the trap that I am running into."
"You only need to change your direction," said the cat, and ate it up.
--Franz Kafka
Thanks for having Robert Sapolsky in the discussion. He's always great!
I'm a simple man. I see a channel that uploaded a philosophical debate, I subscribe.
Man the LOTR budget for s2 took a hit
Golden comment.
lol
Idgi
Crazy to get giants on a small channel like this, massive respect on both ends
I know, right?! How the Hell did he manage to get these guys on? Good for him. Great discussion.
Finally good to have someone question Sapolsky rather than encourage his tired old anecdotes... The tech glitch at the start was hilarious....
Two giants lol
A failed neuroscientists and a nobody
“Oh no, the dogs🙄” at 4:33 😂 I love Dr Sapolsky with a passion
Nice looking dog
Great work bringing these 2 together.
I suggest you use TH-cam's edit feature to cut the tech trouble bits.
I didn’t realize you could cut footage out after uploading and was worried I’d have to delete the video and start anew. Thanks for pointing this out to me!
@@PercyPrior1 It's a pain to use and doesn't give you much control but often it's better than reuploading
You're trying to alter his will
Always love listening to Dr. Sapolsky. The way he presents the information is very interesting but also relaxing.
Me too.
I agree. I loved his Stanford lectures, and read "Behave", and loved it. I knew he was a hard determinist and anti-free-willer, and knew he was planning this book. I am definitely not a determinist and I believe in free will of sorts, but I really wanted to read his take. I still disagree with him but I am quite enjoying the book.
except, he lost the debate
@@vegan-risingthat's absurd lol
@@susugam3004 how is that absurd LMAO.
For me, the fundamental basis of determinism is this and this one thing is enough to establish determinism is this - there is no external "you" outside of your brain and experiences and memories and influences and if you till that point a few microseconds from making a decision is just an amalgamation of all that i said, what does it mean by you making a decision in isolation of all of that? There is no "isolated" you that is sitting outside your brain and mind and controlling your brain and mind like a driver. You are your mind and body and that mind and body are results of all things prior..
Exactly, nuff said. People think there is some magical will outside the universe that can separate itself from the universe to make some free decision.. there simply isn't.
"there is no external "you" outside of your brain" - strawman of free will
"mind and body are results of all things prior.." - strawman of determinism
That's only an argument for determinism on the assumption that substance dualism and idealism are false. Not everyone buys into physicalism.
@zulubeatsprince The only thing magical here is the idea that the self is an illusion and that the brain is the mind. Physicalism is dumb and doesn't do justice to the qualitative nature of first-person experience.
Definitely two people talking past each other. I'm sympathetic to Sapolsky's point of view, though I think he's failing to accurately describe the situation. I doubt I could do better. In my view, free will has been disproven already, and humans are simply clinging to a system or systems that have worked well enough since humans came to exist.
I can't seem to get anyone to describe a mechanism that makes free will possible. It appears to be the case that what I think or feel at any given moment emerges from the state of the matter of which I am composed. In order to "make a decision", I need to be able to alter that state "willfully", but this creates a paradox. The only answer appears to be a sort of time fudgery whereby some supernatural element of myself can go back in time and set up my material state to produce a desired outcome in the present.
Without that, there just isn't a way for anyone to "choose" in the sense that people believe they can. It appears to be the case that I am not a separate thing from the universe, I am the universe. All the behaviors of matter and energy (same thing really) and all the forces at play affect me just as they affect the gases on Jupiter, or photons traveling through the Andromeda galaxy, or some dust at the farthest edges of human observation.
I think compatibilism is dodging the question as well. Nothing in compatibilism maps onto the naive belief in free will that most humans seem to hold.
Absolutely. Having thought about free will for only a decade, it is beyond me how it even is a thing anymore. Free will really is not even wrong, it's an entirely nonsensical concept.
I had an interesting conversation with a co worker who a compatibilist, the conversation led to us taking about someone doing their homework it went like this….
I asked ok why does someone not do their homework
He replied, because of the paradigm of their circumstances, the “stuff” that happened to them to create that paradigm.
Then I asked, ok why does someone do their homework
He replied basically the same thing
“because of the paradigm of their circumstances, the “stuff” that happened to them to create that paradigm. “
Finally I asked if that is true and what you think is either individual’s choice to do or not do their homework free?
He completely stopped talking… A few moments later he said
“if I could just find the words you would say aww I get it.”
I tell this story in regard to this part of your statement.
“I can't seem to get anyone to describe a mechanism that makes free will possible. It appears to be the case that what I think or feel.”
Basically I’m saying I’ve had the utterly same experience.
💯
Thanks for making this video. I enjoyed it a lot. And I learned something as well today.
I think the question should be 'can attribution of moral responsibility be rationally or empirically justified?" while bearing in mind Kant's distinction between pure and practical reason. So, for example, we may not have purely rational justification for attributing moral responsibility, but it might still be argued that we have practical rational justification for attributing moral responsibility.
Thank you for your eloquent reply. Salient sapien saturnalia succumbing
I think we should distinguish types of responsibility. If someone has a tumor in the front of their brain and misbehaves as a result but goes back to normal once the tumor is removed, we could say they’re responsible in a certain sense for things they did but I doubt most ppl would consider them responsible in all the same ways someone who exhibited the same behavior but without a tumor. Sapolsky (rightly imo) argues that this distinction doesn’t actually make sense & we should instead treat everyone who does anything bad as unlucky and sick on some level if we take this idea seriously.
Yes, just to ask these kind of questions is to perform a rationality that presupposes a freedom.. that we can choose between alternate answers. Those hung up on these kinds of metaphysical questions have not understood the limits of pure reason that Kant outlined so forcefully, and the world went on to ignore.
I agree that this is a much better question that moves past the semantic nature of the free will debate.
Do you have an example of a practical rational justification for moral responsibility?
"That's reasoning collapse!", "That's science!" - Seems like the beginning of a beautiful friendship :)
Keep the conversations like this keep coming.A like and subscribe for this and your site.
How has a channel with 520 subscribers managed to get these guys on?! Congratulations, fascinating stuff.
Determinism.
@@JB.zero.zero.1😂
Enjoyed this, thank you
Thank you for bringing 2 great minds together.
Thank you for watching!
Well done 🤩 @@PercyPrior1
Excellent discussion/debate! Really enjoyed it. I plan to get Taylor Cyr on my channel in January to discuss each participant’s opening statement😁
(Part 1/2) Hey, I love your channel! If you're going to do that, consider reading some of this email exchange that the speakers had the day after the debate:
*Dr. Huemer wrote:*
"My wife, Iskra, who does philosophy of psychology, said that the strongest point for Robert's side was that the scope of apparent responsibility has been shrinking over time as scientific knowledge progresses. We keep finding more things that people aren't responsible for. By induction, you might extrapolate to a future time when we will think people aren't responsible for anything.
I didn't fully address that, but basically I think that's an overgeneralization; the reasonable conclusion is that humans have less responsibility than it appears, but not none whatsoever. There are many cases in which you get absurd results if you project a trend to the absolute furthest extent possible. E.g., if you project current population growth into the future, you conclude that in 2750 years, the Earth's entire mass will be converted into humans. For a less silly example, for a while, estimates of the age of the Earth kept rising (starting at the Bible-derived estimate of 6,000 years). If you extrapolated maximally, you'd have concluded that the Earth is literally eternal. But that's not right, and not what the evidence supported. Or, suppose you notice that most scientific theories that have ever been held were later shown to be wrong. If you extrapolate maximally, you'd conclude that all possible theories are wrong (including this one?).
Iskra also says that freedom comes in degrees. We're never maximally free (if such a thing even makes sense), nor do we have zero freedom. But as we learn more about ourselves, including what previously-hidden motives we might have, we become freer.
*Dr. Sapolsky replied:*
Thanks for this followup.
I totally agree that the history of thinking about these issues (and researching them) shows that the space free will can occupy keeps shrinking, and one might extrapolate that that space will eventually disappear.
The issue of how wise it is to run with extrapolation, as I'm obviously heavily doing, is totally valid (like the idea that if it were possible to do computer modeling and urban planning back in the mid-19th century, extrapolation would have shown that cities would become unlivable by the mid-20th century, because of the overwhelming amounts of horse droppings in the streets, from the massive population increases in users of horse-drawn carriages). There's also some interesting studies showing how context-dependent extrapolation can be (for example, in one, they showed subjects a graph showing a straight line of points from a time series [i.e., graphing 5, 10, 15, 20, 25, 30, 35, and then 34].
Subjects would then be asked to put in the next point on the graph, and the question was whether people would view the 34 as just an aberration, and graph something like 40 or 45 as the point, resuming that pattern, or see it as an inflection point, and graph something like 29, 24...after that. And people were very likely to choose one pattern over the other depending on whether the scenario they were given in the story was taking place locally or on the other side of the planet [I've forgotten which direction it goes, and what hand-waving explanation was given, but the point was the really different outcomes depending on that seemingly irrelevant manipulation of what story was told]).
So, yes, extrapolation has its dangers, and I'm probably resting too heavily on it when I talk about this. But that's in the context of my lunatic fringe stance that there is NO free will whatsoever -- yes, yes, the science isn't there to prove that yet, but at the rate things are going, come back X number of years from now and it will be irrefutable. And that stance is totally vulnerable to the ways that extrapolating can go off the rails.
But that's concerning my very strongly felt but way out in left field stance about no free will. I would settle if what people take away from my song and dance is that we already know that we have vastly less free will than most people think, and that there is so much less so that the only intellectually and morally acceptable thing to do is majorly remake a lot of how things function (as in, say, "If we already know that for every increase in someone's Adverse Childhood Experience score, there is a ~35% increased likelihood of some awful behavior in adulthood [take your pick], we already know enough, we don't need more imagined findings in the future, to conclude that there is something desperately wrong with thinking about that adult behavior from a starting point of free will."). That sort of thing.
Does this seem reasonable?
All the best,
Robert
(Part 2/2) Their exchange continued as follows:
*Dr. Huemer replied:*
Hi Robert,
Thanks very much for your thoughts. I'm copying Iskra in case she would like to comment on this.
Regarding your last paragraph, I can certainly see how the knowledge about the Adverse Childhood Experience score would call into question the degree to which certain criminals are to blame for their actions. However,
a) What about criminals who don't have a high ACE score? Surely they are still responsible?
b) In the case of criminals who suffered from strong criminogenic influences: I'm not sure how you would propose to revise our practices. Should we not punish them? Perhaps you would propose some kind of psychiatric treatment? But is there in fact any effective treatment? Maybe we would keep punishing them anyway, because that reduces the bad behavior?
I suspect that a good deal of the variation in bad behavior is explained by variation in people's experiences -- probably a lot more than people usually assume. I think we tend to over-ascribe evil motives. So I'm not maximally in disagreement with you. Example: I suspect that people who commit violent crimes might just be people who feel a lot more anger a lot more of the time than the rest of us, and the rest of us just don't know what that's like. Factors like this might diminish a person's responsibility, but I doubt that they entirely remove it. I.e., the person might merit a lower degree of blame than someone who doesn't have such influences, but still some blame. Relatedly, I think there are factors that make it difficult for a person to behave benevolently, without making it impossible.
Yours,
MH
*Dr. Iskra Fileva replied:*
Thank you, everyone, for the stimulating and enjoyable discussion (not least to Jonah for organizing the event). Following up on Robert’s suggestion, I think there are at least two different questions here:
(1) Are we generally as free as we think?
(2) Do we have free will at all?
It seems to me that there is no simple answer to the first question. We overestimate our freedom and that of others in some ways, as Robert argues, as when a person thinks she freely chose to support some cause when in fact, she was just conformist. Or when a child thinks her parents freely chose a style of psychological abuse, when in fact, they absorbed it from their parents unconsciously. On the other hand, sometimes, we deny we have freedom that we do, in fact, have, as when people say that there wasn’t anything else they could do given that an authority figure commanded them to act as they did.
But on the whole, we probably make the first type of error more often.
Regarding the second question, I think that if some actions are freer than others, then we have (some) freedom. But what would it mean for some actions to be freer than others? Well, I think for agents such as humans, free action basically means forming an intention to act on the basis of reasons you know you have and endorse, and then acting on that intention.
The second piece is, I think, clearly in place - we can execute intentions we have. We even have the ability to persist for years in the face of obstacles in order to achieve a goal. That's what it means to have a will. But do we have a free will? This is where we come to the first piece of my formulation. After all, a person may show very strong will in pursuit of a goal, yet the goal itself may not be freely chosen.
What I would say is that there is a difference between cases - some are closer, some are farther away from meeting the criteria I mentioned. Why think that? Here is a simple argument: We sometimes become aware of a bias in ourselves, perhaps with the help of other people. Once we do, our freedom increases by a little bit -- we are freer with respect to that particular bias. We may still have many other biases, but we are a little freer with regard to that one. That's all we need for the difference in degrees claim. If freedom sometimes increases, then it exists. So we have (some) freedom.
There is, finally, a question about how free any given action would have to be in order for the person to be either morally or legally responsible for it. It could be that we have some freedom but not nearly enough for responsibility.
That’s a thornier problem since one has to determine how much freedom is necessary for moral and/or legal responsibility. While I think the threshold is not so high as to be met rarely or never (I discuss this issue in a co-authored article "Will Retributivism Die and Will Neuroscience Kill It?"), I am sympathetic to the idea that we must, in general, guard against overattributing responsibility, especially overattributing it to others for bad behavior though also, perhaps, against underattributing it to ourselves, as when people insist a co-worker started the conflict while it fact, they did. (One may ask here too whether people shifting the blame for starting a conflict are, in turn, responsible for minimizing their own role in it given that there is a strong psychological tendency to absolve oneself of blame. And what I would say is that, going back to my earlier points, that's true, but there is also bad faith + knowing we have such a tendency increases our freedom with regard to it.)
Thanks again, everyone. Also, I had not heard about the research on extrapolation Robert mentions. That's very interesting, and I will look up studies.
With wishes,
Iskra
@@PercyPrior1 Did Dr. Sapolsky respond to these?
Free will and 'the illusion of free will' are two totally different things. The illusion free free will is something we use as human beings in the day to day life together with the illusion of self. It is constructed by our brain for practical reasons. Without those illusions we cannot function properly. We would be totally passive or guided only by low level desires. But having the illusion of free will and self does not mean that free will actually exists on the biological level. These are just two totally different things.
I disagree I think (unless you’re defining free will very differently from how I do). I don’t feel like I have free will in normal day to day life but I still feel able to make decisions beyond low level desires.
Like the other commenter, I fully embrace the idea we have no free will. My day to day decisions are still beyond low level desires because I’m fully aware low level desires don’t give the right outcomes that will allow me to have a happy and fulfilling life. Everything is based on conditions
The illusion of free will would imply that there is no free will?
@@dooplisssyou do have free will your not reacting to stimuli or prompts your not a robot you make decisions on a daily basis that effect you for the long termS
You provided no evidence of This illusion. made no argument.
There is a physics argument for determinism. And there are biological and sociological arguments for determinism. The biological and sociological arguments, on which Sapolsky is most expert, are about influence not inevitability. Usually the effect size is a percentage below 50. So yes, it’s important to structure society according to the fact that, say, a person formed in a stressed out womb who grows up exposed to lead etc, had much greater disadvantages than others. But that isn’t the whole story.
If the universe is deterministic everything is the effect of a cause, how do you get out of that_ you dont. we have the illusion of choice, but there is only one path. its pretty straightforward.
the other variable causes are the rest of the story, every thing that you are and that happened to you and that is going to happen to you constitute the 100percent of what you are and will be and will do.
@@cihuacoatl1887 If you want to talk about determinism from the physics perspective, you will have to give up the notion of cause. Most theoretical physicists don't find "cause" to be a useful concept at all. On the other hand Sapolsky spends most of his time talking about bio-social effects. Oddly he talks as though they are 100 but as I've already said, they are at best in the 60%. A psychotropic drug that has a 40% effect is considered a treatment. What doesn't make sense, and I think Sapolsky is being a little lax in this department, is helping yourself to the physics certitude while actually talking about the biology and sociology realm.
Yeah it's not clear that biological or sociological arguments mean much at all.
What I'm thinking with any physics argument, is that I doubt we understand consciousness, so how can we be sure of whatever rules are applying to consciousness?
@@cihuacoatl1887 bingo
"The universe is deterministic". LMAO!
Wow, this is really crazy! Huemer and Sapolsky also debated on a private platform for charity, unfortunately, I never got the chance to sign up to watch the debate and thought I would never see it! Did you get the idea to host this debate from that? Is this a re-broadcast of that original debate? Im utterly mystified and overjoyed! Thank you!
Awesome exchange. Dr. S has been making his rounds on podcasts without much pushback, so this was refreshing. I think Dr. H straightjacketed Dr S in a logical bind that he could get out of without contradicting himself.
Exactly. He is out of his depth. He is making philosophical arguments without having any philosophical training.
But... history says people were mean. Wait, I mean to say that history says people were acting on incomplete scientific understandings. Wait, I mean to say that my interpretation... wait, I mean science as an agent... wait... history as an agent... you can... never mind.
When was the last time a philosophical discovery preceded the scientific one? What have the philosophers ever discovered, besides formulating a system of logic and devising the rules of critical reasoning?
When it comes to scientific discovery, philosophy doesn't fair much better than religion, and, just like religion, it feels very comfortable running in circles, pretending to be marching forward. 😏
@@ezbody As opposed to scientists, whose theories can simultaneously explain the same evidence with different mathematical frameworks, philosophers' theories are definitionally exclusive.
I can understand why people outside of philosophy feel that it makes no progress, as its scale is so large. However, all rational inquiries begin as applications of philosophy.
Now, I don't mean here to defend the corpus of philosophical thought. It follows from my previous statements that most philosophy is fruitless, due to the definitional stringency of philosophical success. However, saying that philosophy discovers nothing is self-refuting, as knowledge is not something that science can claim without an attending epistemic theory. Ultimately, philosophy discovers better ways to argue for claims. If you don't believe that, then you don't believe in better ways to argue for claims, which is, again, self-refuting.
@@ezbody Aristotle, Galileo, Newton, Chomsky are philosophers with rich histories of scientific discoveries. You don't know what you're saying. Your position of ignorance would be easily exposed by Socrates. Philosophy always precedes scientific discovery, as it supplies the logical and critical framework for accepting, rejecting, or revising scientific claims. And you don't know science if you think that it's innocent of running in circles and pretending to march forward.
I wonder if an objection to Huemer's example of the scapegoat convict is that, while scapegoating him would act as a deterrent for the general population, it could actually create an incentive for the true perpetrator, who would know that, not only did he get away with the crime, but everyone has satiated their desire for justice and are, presumably, no longer at pains to find him.
I agree with this point. I feel like Sapolsky lost the thread a bit and didn't tackle it head on.
Sapolsky should have pressed Huemer for his account of free will - does it somehow escape causality of prior events?
Agreed. I've never heard a convincing defense of contra-causal free will. With compatibilists I can agree that we have the kind of (deterministic!) cognitive capacities they say we have. At that point it's just a matter of whether calling those capacities "free will" makes sense.
It doesn't escape causality, rather it is the inception of causality. It creates a new causal chain to come into existence.
Why would he need to show this? Causality doesn't get you to determinism.
@@FightFilms How doesn't causality get you determinism?
@@DavidVonRAint we special, huh? We humans and our magical ability to bend causality to our will. So cool!
Do you choose to understand, or does understand simply occur to you?
Do you choose to come up with an idea, or does the idea simply emerge in your consciousness?
For me the obvious answer is you don't choose for both questions. Then comes the question for Huemer, where is free will in the process of emergence of ideas or the process of understanding?
That assumes everybody has the ability to understand everything and that coming up with an idea is somehow a choice, neither of which is true and has nothing to do with will.
@FightFilms why does it asume that? If i don't understand i can't chose to understand or not.
I’ve heard the argument maybe from Daniel Dennett who says that with consciousness and the capacity to understand ethical matters there arises the autonomy which would be considered agency or free will.
The freedom of the will comes in the judgments we make about our thoughts and feelings, what we call our conscience. Unless these judgments and choices we make are simply illusory, and we actually don't make choices and decisions. THe determinist argument is that we only seem to be making choices and decisions. Ok, that is simply an intuition based on an inference about cause and effect being unavoidable. But it in no way proves that we lack freedom of the will to make judgments and choices because we can make the exact same argument from intuition the other way: our choices and judgments only seem illusory because we are all determined by cause and effect. There is no real logically coherent argument to be made either way unless we can somehow prove a) causation necessarily leads to determinism in *all* cases of human thought, feelings, and behavior, or b) causation does *not* lead to determinism in all cases of human thought, feelings, and behaviors.
I start with the idea that everything I think is imaginary until demonstrated otherwise. I think it’s a mistake to assume things are the way we think they are until demonstrated otherwise. Intuition is NOT a reliable path to the truth.
Tjump always says this. Agreed
There are several different claims being made here.
1. Your starting assumption (attitude?) towards all propositions that your mind entertains is one of positive disbelief.
2. It's positively wrong - as in, violating some sort of epistemic norm, to believe any proposition your mind grasps based on seemings and/or appearances.
3. Even if something appears correct to you, and you have no defeaters for it, it is still positively wrong to believe it. In fact, according to you, you should literally positively disbelieve it.
4. Intuition is not a reliable truth directed process.
5. Implicitly, some form of strong internalist-foundationalist and evidentialist epistemology is being assumed. You're clearly trying to say that in order for a non basic belief to be warranted, there must be reasons given that confer evidential warrant which must also be accessible or known by the person in a direct way. However, Huemer is also a internalist-foundationalist. Huemer's thesis is about basic beliefs and how those are justified, which is called phenomenal conservatism.
The major problem with the main objection here is that it's just question begging against phenomenal conservatism.
I think, arguably, you're also confused about belief and justification more generally speaking. You're also confused about skepticism - confused in such a way that your epistemic standard is likely self-defeating and incapable of leading to justified belief, much less knowledge.
@@Jimmy-iy9pl very well put, I find myself frustrated with people as the commenter above, to clean up confusion of someone else is often difficult, especially if they are confused about the concept of doubt.
@@nlf-xk6ox the commenters make a good case for why everyone should have to take an epistemology course in college before graduating.
How can that which you think me imaginary? Imaginary is that what a conscipusness experiences when it is thinking about the real stuff it learned about in reality. Start in reality idiot
Robert Sapolsky is simply right on this. It's surprising how many smart people seem to not really grasp what obvious truth about causality and how it implies free will doesn't make sense is being communicated here. I would even argue free will doesn't even make sense in a non-causalic system (whatever that would be). I remember a lot of frustrating debates Sam Harris had about this topic about 7-8 years ago. Most of the people he talked to just didn't get it or at best used a totally different definition of free will.
He may or may not be "right", and although I agree with a lot of what he says and even enjoy his delivery (and sense of ethics) much more than Huemer, that doesn't definitely prove absence of free will. One could argue either side to the same effect: either you could say that those who believe in free will are somehow preconditioned to do so, or that those who believe in determinism have chosen to.
@@noritreacy3107This is the "proof god doesn't exist" argument. There isn't a theory, explanation, mechanic, that allows for free will.
@@Doppe1ganger Can you elaborate what you mean? I would propose that free will is in fact necessary in order to account for any amount of determinism. We have the faculties of consciousness, whether inherited or emergent, which gives us the ability to extrapolate different frameworks of the environment we live in, as well as our internal experience
@@noritreacy3107 What i mean is literally what i said, there doesn't exist any method, imagined or real, that allows free will. Your proposal is just word salad, what do you mean that free will is necessary? So the deterministic nature of the universe depends on free will, because, why? Your abilities are determined, you can internalize them all you want, it doesn't change the physics of reality. Explain to me a method in which the concept of free will is even theoretically possible? It's as impossible as a perpetual motion machine. Everything we know about nature and physics is that everything is derivative, no matter how complex or unpredictable. Where does this free will supposedly exist? Within some metaphysical soul? And this soul defines you, yet you are free to shape it? So it's a soul within a soul, that allows you to shape your soul. Etc ad ridiculum. If free will exists, it's easily proven, show me a subject that can will itself to ignore or contradict physics. Free will has no theory, no experiments, because it's a complete fabrication of the human mind.
There exists no absolutism in science, especially in physics. You made the choice to use some negative language so boom, I make the choice that we're done here. BYE@@Doppe1ganger
I'm not clear what the difference is between a choice that is free, a choice that is random, and a choice that is unpredictable. You can say that your choice is free, but to the extent you can explain why you made it, it becomes more predictable and less random.
Software engineers use something that's called a "random number generator." The sequence of numbers it produces, while 100% predictable if you know how it works, is indistinguishable from a random sequence if you don't. Free will is like that, except that the "random decision generator" is astronomically more complicated, having evolved for billions of years.
For me the most obvious question would be the most simple one that has been never asked here or elsewhere in dialogues or other videos, namely: if there is freewill than that will is free of what? Free of WHAT? And this is not just about grammar or semantic because if something is free that means it is not “related” anymore or at all to something right? So freewill is free (and when and how was freed?) of for example phisics or biology or chemistry or math or space or tendencies or trajectories or someone or past/present/future or life or language or brain or processes or causality etc etc or what?? Anyway in my opinion the opposite of free is not determined/predetermined but
d e p e n d e n t / d e p e n d e d, so the better question is that is there (any) (completely) independent will or there is not? The answer is obvious. 😉
This question has been asked and answered. The distinction made here is liberty of spontaneity and liberty of indifference, the latter is what you're referring to and has been considered doubtful since it would eliminate causation from the principles and desires of the subject too.
I'm an extremely emotional, artistic and philosophical person and yet I agree with Robert Sapolsky 100%, the universe is entirely deterministic.
I wish Sapolsky were more familiar with philosophy, as that would have allowed him to formulate much clearer propositions and greatly enhanced his arguments.
The scientific community as a whole would benefit being more familiar with philosophy.
@@jmike2039lol
I thought his arguments were clear and based on scientific fact. Philosophy esoterica must take a backseat to science
philosophy:
the love of wisdom, normally encapsulated within a formal academic discipline. Wisdom is the soundness of an action or decision with regard to the application of experience, knowledge, insight, and good judgment. Wisdom may also be described as the body of knowledge and principles that develops within a specified society or period. E.g. “The wisdom of the Tibetan lamas.”
Unfortunately, in most cases in which this term is used, particularly outside India, it tacitly or implicitly refers to ideas and ideologies that are quite far-removed from genuine wisdom. For instance, the typical academic philosopher, especially in the Western tradition, is not a lover of actual wisdom, but a believer in, or at least a practitioner of, adharma, which is the ANTITHESIS of genuine wisdom. Many Western academic (so-called) “philosophers” are notorious for using laborious sophistry, abstruse semantics, gobbledygook, and pseudo-intellectual word-play, in an attempt to justify their blatantly-immoral ideologies and practices, and in many cases, fooling the ignorant layman into accepting the most horrendous crimes as not only normal and natural, but holy and righteous!
An ideal philosopher, on the other hand, is one who is sufficiently intelligent to understand that morality is, of necessity, based on the law of non-violence (“ahiṃsā”, in Sanskrit), and sufficiently wise to live his or her life in such a harmless manner. Cf. “dharma”.
One of the greatest misconceptions of modern times is the belief that philosophers (and psychologists, especially) are, effectively, the substitutes for the priesthood of old. It is perhaps understandable that this misconception has taken place, because the typical priest/monk/rabbi/mullah seems to be an uneducated buffoon compared with those highly-educated gentlemen who have attained doctorates in philosophy, psychology and psychiatry. However, as mentioned in more than a few places in this book, it is imperative to understand that only an infinitesimal percentage of all those who claim to be spiritual teachers are ACTUAL “brāhmaṇa” (as defined in Chapter 20). Therefore, the wisest philosophers of the present age are still those exceptionally rare members of the Holy Priesthood!
At the very moment these words of mine are being typed on my laptop computer, there are probably hundreds of essay papers, as well as books and articles, being composed by professional philosophers and theologians, both within and without academia. None of these papers, and almost none of the papers written in the past, will have any noticeable impact on human society, at least not in the realm of morals and ethics, which is obviously the most vital component of civilization. And, as mentioned in a previous paragraph, since such “lovers-of-wisdom” are almost exclusively adharmic (irreligious and corrupt) it is indeed FORTUITOUS that this is the case. The only (so-called) philosophers who seem to have any perceptible influence in the public arena are “pop” or “armchair” philosophers, such as Mrs. Alisa “Alice” O’Connor (known more popularly by her pen name, Ayn Rand), almost definitely due to the fact that they have published well-liked books and/or promulgate their ideas in the mass media, especially on the World Wide Web.
Science > Philosophy
Thanks bro for the video. See if you can create a conversation between Daniel Denet and Robert Sapolsky
Sapolsky is going personal on Denett´s "unluck evens out on time, my ass" in Determined. I loved that spark of emotion in this deeply humanistic and wonderful Professor.
Excellent presentation man cheers 🍻
How hard is it to write a masters thesis in philosophy these days? I am just asking out of curiosity because I really dont have a career and therapy always crashes into the big questions which the therapist is not able to give sufficient answers for ... therapy seem to always end up in the same solution of "just get a job", but I am not able to find meaning in material pursuits. I allready have a few degrees and am crazily suicidal. I have been researching another option of moving to a vacant farm with no connection to roads to try and get a connection to the fight for survival. I know someone that bought such a place. Thankful for any kind of response.
Why do you feel suicidal?
Don’t ask therapist the big questions. It’s like going to a dentist and say “why would I need teeth I die anyway”. Wrong target audience
I would have been better to define the terms being used and agree on them before the 'debate' began. This is all too often a topic where people talk past each other over and over again.
Generally, I find that almost everyone will agree that it makes ethical/moral sense to believe we have authorship. The question for me has always been about the possibly of one be wrong over the other and the possible implications of them. I think Sapolsky is a Soft Determinist (as most people are).
great content! 👏🏻👏🏻
I have been entirely on the fence about this topic for so long and Michael's arguments convinced me of free will.
I AM FREE.
Advice from others, alternative decisions, deliberation, argumentation, none of these are free will, all are just factors in what you decide. Responsibility for your actions is determined by moral imperatives not free will, you can be responsible for things you did by accident. The conscious mind does not make decisions, its job is to explain the decision the unconscious mind makes.
"You decide" implies free will
@@FightFilms Decision implies you would ever have made any other decision than the one you made, which Sapolsky argues against.
It would be wondeful to share a blunt with Sapolsky The conversation would be marvelous.
The problem with these arguments against Free Will is the misunderstanding of cause and effect treating the past as creating the future you'll get lost in this . Alan Watts does a great job of explaining this
You're mistaken. The past doesn't create the future. It creates the present. It's the present which creates the future. If you don't understand how, you're wasting your time watching these videos.
Is dr Huemer confusing determinism as a complex system of causes that lead to a specific event (that Sapolsky alludes to) with predeterminism and linear causation ? he seems to imply that we cannot avoid this or that fatal event because of determinism.. but that is not what Sapolsky's view contends. In simple everyday terms determinism and the non-existence of free will means that in a specific instance we could not have done otherwise because of the complexity of the causes that led up to this specific bevaviour/action.
I really enjoy listening to Robert Sapolsky
You must be sick or homosexual or both
I really hope at some point Robert interacts with Marshall Rosenbergs work because it is literally all based on the equation of subtracting out praise and blame
Huemer should say 'Like, I don't know' a little bit less if he wants to make a good impression.
No one mentioned phenomenology which is crucial to the question of free will, and that is the so-called awakening of self-awareness. There are wild studies currently being done on psychedelic breakthroughs and deep meditation; it will change how we think about agency.
Agreed, the interesting matter that free-will advocates need to address is to identify the actual attribute that is the WE that can make decisions. What is the agent? How can someone be responsible for the agent? Even if we could prove a "soul" existed or some combinations of neurons could fire differently enough to cause a different choice, How do we get to the root of that and take control of it? And still, in this case, what is the self that can do this? It seems to me that no matter what you show about HOW we make decisions, the determinist argument still holds as long as we can't actually pinpoint how someone can alter the part of them that makes decisions.
I disagree; I think he should admit that he doesn't know if he doesn't know so that we can have a more honest discussion.
@@SolarxPvP True for a scientific debate but a true philosopher should be able to, like, philosophize, and like, say something constructive :-)
@@SolarxPvP Oh I definitely agree with you that he should not make any claims he doesn't believe or have evidence for. I didn't mean to agree with OP that he should make something up instead of admitting he doesn't know. My point is just that we run into an Occam's razor when it comes to postulating something beyond the material world having an impact on decisions, if that's where one is leaning. Since determinism simply argues that everything we actually understand about the world at this time suggests there is only the material, and that a convergence of chemical and physical factors seem to be all that ever makes anything happen, someone positing something extra-material (what OP is calling phenomenology) has an extra burden. I am not at all slagging anyone for believing there must be such an extra element. I totally get that. It's a personal belief. But to make the case for "free will" without having evidence for additional phenomenon is necessarily weaker than the case for determinism, which relies only on what we already observe. And as for a material explanation for free will, this would be very difficult -- it would almost have to be a part of the brain that is somehow fundamentally different than the rest of known physics and biology, providing agency in a way that is not determined by our makeup. Again, this is a postulation that goes beyond what determinism requires. I'm leaving wide open that things might not be as they seem, and there might be extra phenomenon at play. I just don't think it makes sense to believe that or make policy based on it.
@@BDnevernind We still don't fully understand our own brains though, let alone brains of many "lesser" beings on our planet. I think that alone leaves room for what you're describing near the end of requiring a part of the brain that's different from what we know. I'm not saying we're like the fiction shows where "we only use 10% of our brain, look what happens when you use 100%!" or anything like that. I think that there doesn't necessarily have to be phenomenon.
But you're right though, that as far as we know up to this point in time, we can't really prove anything other than determinism very well. The burden of proof is more on the side of making the case for free will. One thing I always come back to though, which is again getting more into thought and less into the material, is that we often have a bit too much arrogance as humans in my opinion when it comes to ourselves. We just assume that we must know everything or close to everything about ourselves and everything around us, when there could very well still be so much that we don't know. Think of everything throughout the history of humans that we were just so certain about that turned out to be completely wrong.
Colloquial usages and human emotions are not evidence at all for free will. People are inconsistent and predictably irrational. Advice given is one of the antecedent causes that determine decision-making.
Excellent! This confused me about my position, which is good. I can't wait to read Sapolsky's book. I generally disagree with Huemer's positions but he had great points here. I think I'm still on the determinist side (I just can't help it ;) )
I wrote this elsewhere (with edits):
To the compatibilists/determinists: It's a probabilistic universe if it's infinite. (It's not just classical mechanics.)
You are trying to apply determinism/finiteness to a probabilistic/infinite universe.
The problem with causality is that infinity (and quantum instantaneousness) breaks it, fundamentally, because you cannot go far back enough to determine all the initial conditions (that lead to you/your behavior) because there are none with infinity!
Infinity breaks determinism.
To add: The Uncertainty Principle suggests that you cannot say for certain that we have no free will.
Sure, you have no control in some senses, like classical mechanics (upbringing, gravity, etc.), but not necessarily from a fundamental/quantum sense. The universe goes beyond classical mechanics. Think also of 'spooky action at a distance.' This doesn't appear causal, but, rather, instantaneous.
If the universe created you, then so did infinity if the universe is infinite.
Dr Robert Sapolsky has an immense patience and it so brilliant and intellectually superior. Also why Mr Huemer keeps sort of laughing, is he so insecure?
the annoying laughter is not nerves. he does it for the same reason he uses a slide show in a debate, he's a pedant
Determinist cultism is something else. Lol illiterate people can't understand a self defeating position. Leave the politeness crap you are not cut out for philosophy
Words are to limited to express appreciation.
Song and dance.
You rocked your opening statement
A good debate. What I understand by "free", if you ask me, "Free of or from what?", is being free of or from antecedent causal events or factors inside and outside our heads.
For me, free will does not exist whether or not determinism is true. If our actions are caused, then our actions are determined and thus no one is free. If our actions are randomly generated, then our actions are not really in our control and thus no one is free. I also take British philosopher Galen Strawson’s ‘Basic argument’ to be correct. Strawson summarizes his argument as follows:
“When one acts, one acts in the way one does because of the way one is. So to be truly morally responsible for one’s actions, one would have to be truly responsible for the way one is: one would have to be causa sui, or the cause of oneself, at least in certain crucial mental respects. But nothing can be causa sui - nothing can be the ultimate cause of itself in any respect. So nothing can be truly morally responsible.”
Well! Cause of the action is the agent who ultimately decides which action to perform. The agent is non reducible. And the prior condition may influence the agent but doesn’t completely determine the agents action
@@sndpgrThere's still no such thing as free will even if the agent themselves are the cause of the action, as the agent themselves are caused and didn't create themselves, including their beliefs and desires, which are the proximal causes of their actions. Only beings without history who created themselves and decided to exist in this world, can be free.
@@lukeatmyas as I said earlier an agent is not determined by its prior conditions(including past behaviors), may be influenced by it but not determined. The agent is not reducible to past behaviors, or its particles . What I am talking is agent causation.
@@sndpgrWhat you're saying is there are no other explanation but that agent A caused an event e to occur. There's no causal explanation for why A did what they did. The problem with your view, however, is that there are causal explanations for why agents do what they do.
Robert Sapolky has only argued that our choices are affected for good or bad by conditions and influences around us but not that we don't make choices at all. He has therefore not shown that we don't have free will.
I don't think he knows what free will is.
I don’t think you’re using the same definition of free will as he is
@@FightFilmsor maybe you don’t know what free will is. All he’s saying is that at any point in time, any choice you make is determined
@Aggyoko Which is false because:
P(1): Not every external influence determines a particular action that a human takes. For example, the cost of a stethoscope can not possibly determine if a human falls in love since the cost of a stethoscope is not causally or explanatorily related to falling in love.
P(2): Humans lose memory of events and experiences.
P(3): Biological proclivities can be modified and even suppressed by social conditioning in humans. For example, humans are biologically predisposed to being sexually amorous, yet succeed in monogamous sexual relationships.
P(4): By P(1), it is not obvious that the external influences at play in a human's life at any given time are the ones causally related to their action at the given time, and so capable of determining those actions.
P(5): By P(1) and P(2), it is not obvious that the mental experiences at play in a human's life at any given time are causally related to their action at the given time so as to determine their actions at the material time in question.
P(6): By P(3), it is not obvious that actions to which humans are genetically predisposed can not be modified or even suppressed by social conditioning.
P(7): By P(6), it is not obvious that an action taken by a human at any given time is genetically determined.
P(8): By P(4), P(5) and P(7), it does not follow that any action taken by a human at any given time is determined because external influences, mental experiences and genetics are at play in a human's life.
C(1): Therefore there is no prove for material determinism.
C(2) Therefore it is more likely than not that humans have free will.
@@mathewsamuel1386 I appreciate your breakdown. This video expresses my thoughts: th-cam.com/video/vCGtkDzELAI/w-d-xo.htmlsi=F0ufH493PceYgjjX.
For me the issue is that my intuition is strong that things that begin to exist have a cause. If an agent does A rather than B than there is a causal explanation for why they did A rather than B.
Free will
@@gowdplays7766 Like I said one needs a causal explanation for WHY one did A RATHER THAN B. Free will is the same explanation for A and B not making it much of an explanation in my view. It borders on irrational. One could fully be fully convicted of a course of action and yet can just free will themselves to do another course of action. It doesn't make much sense; it seems to be irrational rather than saving rationality.
Breaking news: Sapolsky debunks intuitionism with groundbreaking "sometimes science yields surprising results" argument; nation's leading rationalist philosophers in shambles
It seems to me that they are not really discussing the same thing and are using one word. Why don't you start off with a discussion of what is Will? Or maybe even better what is will power.
will power is just a biological phenomena like will itself.
Glad i found material on this topic, altough i am a bit sad that they mostly talked about implications of having or not having free will, instead of talking more about how it is either possible or impossible to actually have free will. Personally i think the implications will be very obvious once the problem at hand itself has been resolved. Sadly (from a discussion pov) i can not find any shred of truth in the arguments for free will, as most of the arguments are based on, what he refers to as intuition, or are trying to argue for the necessity of free will in a social way. Im also curious as to why Dr Huemer thinks the laws of logic are based on intuition? I know there are some debates ongoing to describe what "Logic" in itself actually means, but for them to align it with what we consider intuition seems entirely wrong and not based on anything in my eyes other than for the sake of having an argument. I hope theres something in his reasoning that i am missing, as else it would be very baseless.
Thanks for the upload!
Huemer's main line of argument seemed to me to constitute a positive argument in favor of the existence of free will. From what I gather, he was saying:
*Premise 1)* Our intuitions support the existence of free will. (Note that Sapolsky didn't even dispute this premise. He agrees that at least by initial appearances it seems like free will exists.) (Eg., it seems like we choose among alternatives by way of self-control at least some of the time, and, at least by initial appearances, it seems like to say one ought to do something implies that one can do otherwise. Arguments are implicit ought statements/normative suggestions in favor of adopting certain beliefs given certain evidences, and punishment is in part justified by the sense that the perpetrator could have and should have done differently than they in fact did.)
((You might wonder, "why think that ought implies can?" Huemer's reason is that it seems intuitive and we lack a reason to doubt it. A) it seems like to say "I know you can't, but you should still anyway magically fly through the air like superman and shoot lasers out of your eyes in order to bring about world peace. You ought to do that, so why haven't you? What the heck is wrong with you, a*****e?" is linguistically counterintuitive.)
*Premise 2)* In the absence of a defeater, we are justified in trusting our intuitions. (Huemer argued that ultimately Sapolsky's view commits him to accepting Premise 2 because scientific practice relies on beliefs which *ultimately* rely for their support on as-yet-undefeated appearances, such as certain theory confirmation assumptions like "simpler theories are more likely to be true" or "the laws of logic are reliable" or "the future will sometimes be like the past," or "the external world exists," etc. For example, famously as David Hume pointed out, it's hard to justify induction without circular reasoning if you reject intuitionism. For instance. I.e., why think the future will be like the past? Because it has always been like that? In order for that to be evidence for the claim, we would have to assume that the fact that something has been a certain way in the past is evidence that it will continue to be that way in the future, which is the very question under dispute. Hence, many philosophers have concluded that there is no non-circular justification for induction except a form of foundationalism which says that it seems true and we lack a reason for doubting it. Huemer also has a more general argument that we should believe Premise 2 because any principle which we preferred to it would ultimately be justified by the principle it rejects, namely by the fact that it seems true and we lack a reason for doubting it.)
*Premise 3)* There is no ultimately successful defeater against (all of) our intuitions in favor of free will. (Eg., Huemer replied to Sapolsky's inductive generalization argument against free will by saying "it doesn't follow that because our actions are often *influenced* by external events, they must be *entirely determined* by external events.")
*Conclusion a)* Therefore, we are justified in trusting our intuitions that free will exists.
Huemer also argued that Sapolsky was engaged in a self-defeating line of argument because 1) he appeared to cast blame on people for casting blame on people (i.e., he seemed to say that it's *wrong* to condemn anyone's behavior since no one is responsible for their behavior, but calling a behavior wrong is a form of condemnation), and 2) he advanced a series of arguments for thinking that free will doesn't exist, which if we are inclined to accept the "ought implies can" principle leave Sapolsky's implicit "you should believe this because of the evidence" claim hanging in midair. How can it be that we should do anything if "should" requires the option of doing otherwise and there is no option to do otherwise?
(This is just my attempt to explain what I think Huemer's argument was and should not be interpreted as an invitation to "fight me." lol)
I wonder if we evolved consciousness you'd think that would have some utility. I don't see a use for consciousness if it is just to observe what already has been decided by our brain. From an evolutionary perspective the ability to be aware and to override certain decisions that are instinctive and to reason trough problems would give us advantages over other animals. I also think the brain scan research doesn't amount as ironclad evidence that there is no free will (yet), different interpretations are still possible. For an absolute statement there is no free will i would expect that more evidence is required as well as debates where there is pushback from others such as in this debate.
Is there any evidence that consciousness emerged during evolution? I would say it's very likely that consciousness preceded it, but I can't prove it and wouldn't want to. Moreover, just because we "have l" consciousness or awareness now, that does not imply that we necessarily use it to override instinct. It could be easily argued that we have instead used advanced reasoning to justify instinctual reactions, and/or that we have simply buried our instinctual reactions within a thicker layer of separation from our parent environment
@@PercyPrior1 thank you for hosting and for this explanation. Do you have a similar summary of Sapolsky's premises?
@@noritreacy3107 During prehistoric times we started showing behaviors that would be strange from a purely utilitarian view such as burying people with flowers or painting the walls of caves, making flutes with a pentatonic scale. I would say that demonstrates a richer inner experience as well as a desire to shape that inner experience.
16:55 that laugh was great 🤣🤣🤣
The whole physical universe follows the laws of physics and therefore is totally deterministic. What's hard about understanding this basic argument?
The thing is, the assertion that "the whole physical universe follows the laws of physics" requires some assumptions.
First of all, we don't even know if there are laws of physics that govern *everything*. We have some pretty good guesses that progress day by day but there are usually some peculiar situations that then pop up and deny those seeming "laws" Let's use gravitation as an example Newton showed it to be one thing but then Einstein figured out that at the speed of light the seeming "laws" differ drastically and gravitation becomes this whole other thing. Then quantum mechanics rolls around and for very small particles gravity is also shown to be this completely other thing as well. Maybe the reason why these peculiar situations very usually pop up is that there are no laws, but there are seemingly true generalizations.
Even if we can prove that there do exist laws of physics that govern everything, that's under the assumption that none of those laws can be a non-deterministic law. The counter example is that: what if there exists some law that sometimes produces outcome A based on input X and at other times produces outcome B based on input X. In order to show that that's not the case, we (under the assumption that everything is entirely governed by laws that do exist) need to find ALL of those laws because a law that we don't know could have the property that I mentioned above.
So that's "what's hard to understand about the basic argument." It's that the assumptions required to make it are true
But if all the assumptions required are true then you're absolutely right
You just assumed materialism like it's gospel. Takes great faith to do so, especially since your mind is not physical.
@FightFilms
You strike me as someone who hasn’t thought very deeply about this subject.
You need to understand Hume and Popper. Causality is not something very solid at all...
@@FightFilms Every thing that makes up the “mind” is physical therefore the mind is physical. In my subjective opinion the “mind” is a property of complex matter.
I also believe they are conflating the concepts of instinct, impulse and intuition
Around 40:00 what a brilliant point ❤
Is Mike Huemer Bob from Twin Peaks?
Both are geniuses and I read/follow them both, but Michael Huemer won this debate.
No he didn't. And I definitely don't think he genius, lol
I haven't watched the video yet so I don't have an opinion on who won the debate. But far more important than who wins a debate is which conclusion is right?
After hearing more, sorry to say that I don't agree. Huemer's arguments were really weak in my opinion. Any scientist who tried to support a claim with those types of arguments would be told to go back to the lab and collect some actual evidence.
@@mikel5582 While Sapolsky is a decorated scientist he should stick with what he knows like Gorillas. Nothing Sapolsky calims about determinism from the big bang is scientific, nor does any empirical evidence exist. Also, Sapolsky is not a philosopher so he lacks these tools.
@@jacobmack4772 Whether or not something exists is an exercise in objective reasoning; i e., within the domain of science. Subjective pontification on what that might mean for humans is the realm of the humanities.
A Sapolsky debate? That's awesome!
It’s interesting how examples of intuition leading to making bad decisions is analyzed from the perspective of modern time and it’s assumed that even back then everybody knew what was “right” and what was “wrong” and they still did the “wrong” thing.
I like, "Sure, we've disproven most of our basic intuitions over the years, so the all ones we haven't disproven are obviously true!" 🤦♂
I feel like those who cling to free will don't understand what's actually being argued. Yes, we all go through the process of weighing our options and concluding what the best belief and/or course of action is. _We just don't control what seems best to us at the end of that process._ It just becomes apparent to us. Perhaps you conclude that you should cut off your nose, just to spite your face. The determinist argues that you can't have concluded otherwise because whatever led you to that conclusion, was true (to the best of your knowledge). To reach a different conclusion would require a different state of affairs, even if the only difference is your perception of the matter, such as your feelings about your face. 🤷♂
Listening to anyone trying to argue for free will is like listening to a toddler argue that what they say to Dora affects what happens next in the cartoon.
No, but you're an idiot though. ❤
1:16:20 what does heumer mean here?
This is a disturbing session. Why would you set-up a distinguished guest with an opponent who labels the professor's views as insane, the very first thing? NEVER participate in ANY exchange where you and your ideas are portrayed - dishonestly - as mentally ill. In some legal systems this is considered professional slander.
Is this kind of personal attack what is now rewarded in academic philosophy?
This and the accompanying comments, except for 1 or 2, show the low level of You Tube knowledge, proprietary and interest in serious discussion.
You seem to have taken Heumer’s point completely wrong at the beginning.
You are completely right. Continuing a debate after a one-person opening that deems his opponent's primary standpoint (hard determinism) insane should be a cause for an immediate stop of the debate. Sapolsky is a far more patient and thickskinned person than 99 % of humanity who would either immediately quit or degrade the debate further with a tone similar to that of his opponent. It is still shameful that it was allowed to continue after Heumer's opening "presentation".
I agree that was a poor choice of words but this is a debate on a small TH-cam channel so a degree of glibness can be accepted and fortunately for Huemer, Sapolsky is a much wiser more worldly person with a sense of ...ehem ... Huemer.
I didn't like the rest of the debate though because I think they were both unintentionally talking past each other.
sometimes when you tell the truth you are punished. sometimes when you lie you get out of it. but you get to choose which one and telling the truth is morally better. i think it shows that free will is real. that some actions lead to negative responses and you still choose them.
How did you become the kind of person who would make such a choice?
Doesn't feeling good about yourself count as a positive consequence (to a truthful action that had some negative consequences)?
REVIEW
1. Overall:
Robert Sapolsky presented his case by leaning on hard facts and drawing inevitable conclusions from them. Michael Huemer presented his case by drawing from experiential evidence and drawing logical conclusions from them.
Both parties presented their case in a comprehensive, identifiable and accessible way. This allows one who pays attention to understand where and how both cases come into conflict with each other, or where the cases are on a different level altogether. I.e.: the experiential level vs. the factual level.
2. Content:
06:31 ~Robert~ " *Basically I think the world is entirely deterministic [...], I think it is deterministic enough that there's no free will* ."
Robert mentions this in a very casual way: "it is deterministic enough". He doesn't emphasize on the importance of his choice of words. It is important because it shows the statistical nature of the case that he is defending.
Free will has a very simple statistical model. The average experimental outcome we would expect would be 50/50 chances all over the place. Personally I would have argued that any consistent deviation from this 50/50 expectation would at least trigger our curiosity: what is going on here? Free will can not explain any such deviation because any reasonable explanation would make the case deterministic.
It also points out that to Robert individual cases are meaningless and have no evident value. Individual cases can be flukes that are perfectly acceptable within the wider statistical view of things, but they don't prove anything on their own.
08:40 - 15:50 ~Robert~ sums up factors that influence decisions.
15:50 - 16:42 ~Robert~ presenting a critique on determinism.
16:42 - 17:44 ~Robert~ rebutting the critique on determinism.
At this point Robert ran out of time and I had a feeling that he actually had more that he wanted to say but he was cut short. I think however that I got the gist of it so I'll try to divine what he was getting at there at the end of his opening statement.
The critique that Robert is pointing at here does 2 things:
1. It argues that determinism can not account for all individual cases: determinism predicts that certain influences will result in such and such outcomes, and the free-willer brings an example to the debate of an individual case that shows the opposite. The free-willer fails to see that these individual cases are irrelevant to the discussion.
2. It treats all influences as static: the free-willer claims that influences cannot be influenced or overruled themselves but are rather absolute. Therefore if one can come up with even one example that contradicts the expected outcome, the influence is invalidated. I think Robert wanted to make clear that this is a misrepresentation: influences are dynamic, they can overrule each other and it is pointless to look at each influence individually. You have to regard all possible influences together a kind of complex system, the outcome of which is hard to predict, but very real indeed nonetheless.
20:36 - 21:19 ~Michael~ presents a clear definition of both cases.
21:19 ~Michael~ " *So I'm going to argue that hard determinism is insane and also it's self-defeating* ."
It's interesting to note that Michael approaches the debate from a strategically different perspective. Where Robert was defending his case by showing evidence for it, Michael chooses not to produce any evidence for his case but instead try to disprove the opposite case.
This approach is completely valid if you want to show your opponent wrong, but it doesn't prove your point either.
21:31 ~Michael~ " *It conflicts with the entire rest of your belief system and it conflicts with the practices of any normal person in everyday life* . "
Here we see that Michael is determined - excuse the pun there - to present his case for free will from an experiential perspective, thereby ignoring the perspective of his opponent: factual and statistical. He A PRIORY assumes that our experience of free will (in our belief system, in our daily life) makes it real. Therefore, in Michael's universe, no amount of proof will ever be good enough to disprove free will.
At the same time he also opens the door for any individual situation that contradicts the statistical outcome, to be regarded as evidence against determinism.
But most problematic of all is the last part of that sentence: " *practices of any normal person in everyday life* ". You are always going to have a hard time refuting statistical models by using the average person going about his day. Because these are exactly the people that these stats represent. I think that what Michael is trying to convey here is that we all "feel" as if we have a choice and this "feeling" of freedom is a property that we all share. And I would agree that this feeling of freedom "conflicts" with determinism, but unfortunately this feeling of freedom does not prove that the freedom is real.
At this point I would have accentuated the importance of freedom (real or not) on the efficacy of everyday life.
21:45 ~Michael~ " *The existence of alternative possibilities is conceptually tied to many other kinds of judgments that we make* ."
What Michael is saying here is that the judgement can only make sense if there are alternate possibilities. What is conveniently left out here is that a judgement based upon only 1 possibility, is still still a judgement, even if it doesn't make sense.
Michael says that there can only be a judgement if there were different possibilities to choose from in the first place. In this scenario each possible outcome would have it's own different judgement. And according to Michael each possible judgement is tied to the according possibility. That is the word that he used: "tied".
So Michael says that there is a free choice of initial possibilities, but at the same time the judgments upon these possibilities are tied to them. Remember that Michael started out promising that he would argue that determinism is self-defeating. Well, without being aware of it, at this point he has shown that free will is self defeating. He himself has shown that the whole concept of judgment can only make sense if the judgment is inherently tied to rules.
Another problem with this is that, from Michael's perspective, a judgment can only hold value if it is a judgement upon a free choice. This means that any good behavior that is influenced by a sincerely held conviction, is rendered worthless. If you would save someone's life, and you would attribute your behavior to your good upbringing, then according to Michael this would make your good deed meaningless.
It would have been better for Michael not to drag concepts like judgment, award, punishment or responsibility into the conversation, because they are all governed by rules, agreements, understandings, etc... They are a terrible example to promote free will.
22:44 ~Michael~ " *My claim here is not that it's impossible to have these attitudes if hard determinism is true but that if hard determinism is true these attitudes would be inapt or they would involve you in making some kind of mistake* ."
If you have seen the movie "The Matrix", well, this is the "red pill/blue pill" moment in the debate. The red pill represents an acceptance of a difficult and often unsettling truth, while the blue pill represents a choice to remain in comfortable ignorance. Michael chooses the blue pill.
Michael says that if determinism is true, things like gratitude and responsibility are inapt, unsuitable, inappropriate. misguided and meaningless. He talks about some kind of mistake that the determinist makes when delivering any judgment because in his view the determinist should know better: his judgment doesn't hold any value, but he acts in a different way.
So in his mind that leaves him with only 1 option (
This is over my head, have to admit. But I like listening to very intelligent people. Why dont we have them running the country?????
I think the concept of free will is useful to say we are free from the control of fate or some mythical higher power. I think it is less useful in the context of saying we are not from from our physical makeup. Our perception of how we make a decision may differ from the actual electro-chemical process by which the decision was reached but the perception itself is as reliant on that process as the decision was.
Not really ,that perception is actually a post-facto justification (that seems concurring) ,for an analogy think about your dream-self (unless you are a lucid dreamer) ,it seemingly still makes decisions but there is no perception of making the decisions.
@@cristristam9054 So do we have free will over the content of the post-facto justification or does that come equally unbidden as the decision itself? Maybe the justification is a clue provided by the same subconscious mechanism.
@@pcrathke Actually I agree with your original post the perception is also fully-conditioned. Here is the best argument I heard against free will, it is from "Bernardo Kastrup" : Everyone wants to be happy (by definition) and if we had free will ,we would wish to be in the exact condition we find ourselves in. There would be no suffering if we had free will ,not even physical pain ,because we could just wish to be in said pain.
@@cristristam9054well your conditioned to perceive something one way yet if the same scenario was replayed you might have chosen to do otherwise.
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?
Good content. Keep it up!
How do I explain personally
The moderator was terrific 🤙
Ok let me just make one thing clear, determinism doesn't imply that there is only one option. It merely claims that we would only pick a certain option based on preexisting conditions. Were those conditions to change or be different, we would again pick a certain option. Maybe the same one, maybe a different one. Either way, determined by the preexisting conditions.
Sapolsky's presentation was well done, for sure. I am listening to his book, as I write this. But so far, I don't buy it. To me, free will is just as obvious as consciousness (and of course, they are closely linked). Of course, we can't deny consciousness but, through sleight-of-word, clever people can trick themselves into thinking we don't have free will. Nobody denies that genes, epigenetics, and the environment influence our behavior, but "You are more likely to ..." doesn't equal a lack of free will.
that mandelbrot set in your pfp leads me to believe there is still time for you to intuitively get that free will isn't even a part of conscious experience. Sam Harris has helped me immensely in that regard. There is a difference between voluntary and involuntary choices of course, but when you really become aware of how choices are made, there is a fundamental level of mystery that we are confronted with at every step of the way. Once it becomes obvious through meditation/mindfulness then it is realized that free will is not necessary for the way actions and words effortlessly stream out of you.
@@pedestrian_0 I have read Sam Harris, and to say I am not convinced is an understatement. If you listen to people talk about consciousness, they talk about the same mystery. To the point that many throw up their hands and say "panpsychism" as if that solves anything.
I don't know if I can succinctly offer my suspicion regarding free will, but here it goes.
We know that, despite what determinists say, we live in an incredibly stochastic world. There isn't some magic that makes what we know from the quantum world just disappear in the macro world. Under most circumstances, statistics make this stochasticity invisible. But in some, far from equilibrium systems, it strongly affects the macro world.
Of course, as most free-will denialists will point out, randomness doesn't get you to free-will. However, what randomness can give you, in some cases, is creativity. The best, most well-studied example is evolution. Most mutations are truly random (not just apparently random). Then natural selection takes that randomness and puts it to work. Evolution isn't a random process, but it wouldn't exist without randomness as a creative input.
I believe that Free Will comes about in roughly the same way. There is no doubt that everything from genetics to development to long-term and short-term environmental influences affect our behavior, and sometimes (perhaps even most of the time), that is the sum total of our behavior. But along the way, we do make choices, we do have agency, and we are, most of the time, responsible for our actions.
@@pedestrian_0Sam Harris like many simply assumes determinism in order to conclude it, thus begging the question. Try listening closely to him on the topic when he discusses prior events influencing our actions and I think this is obvious.
Also his analogy to not being able to directly choose our thoughts from an introspective pov can be analogized to extrospection and then is easily seen as not at all a disproof of free will or even any evidence at all against it. His point there amounts to the equivalent of saying that since when you open your eyes, you don’t have a choice about what you see in front of you, that that means you don’t have free will. That is how his introspective argument works. But that’s laughable. Even though I can’t choose what I see in my field of vision but can nevertheless direct my eyes to focus on this or that within it, so it goes with what arises within my mind during introspection.
@@francescaerreia8859 "Sam Harris like many simply assumes determinism in order to conclude it" To conclude what? Sam and Daniel Dennett are in alignment with regards to determinism being irrelevant to the type of free will that is important. In fact he makes it clear that even if the universe isn't deterministic, there is still no free will because you wouldn't know why you finally decided with the decision you ended up with. From a compatibilist perspective it's very easy to say "I do know why I chose what I chose, evolution has gifted me reasoning faculties shaped throughout the years so that I'm able to weigh options more precisely than other animals" to which Sam and I would respond that this is a bait and switch which replaces the first person point of view of free will (which we argue *is* the free will most people actually care and think about) with a trade-off for a third person account for how one ought to operate.
"when you open your eyes, you don’t have a choice about what you see in front of you" Yes, you don't choose what is there when you open your eyes. He doesn't directly say "so this proves you don't have free will", he invites you to investigate more deeply how everything is simply appearing in its place. "Even though I can’t choose what I see in my field of vision but can nevertheless direct my eyes to focus on this or that within it" What's important and what separates me from being a compatibilist, aka a believer in free will, is the closer inspection of this 'I' that can direct focus.. To a typical compatibilist a lot of this flies over their head, but I think it's the inevitable future we're heading towards with science.
@@pedestrian_0 you’re right, I made a mistake. Sam doesn’t assume determinism in order to prove we don’t have free will (though many do), rather he assumes we don’t have free will as evidence that we don’t have free will. He just asserts that we can’t choose or invites us to try to see this ourselves.
And compatibilism is such a joke it’s hard to grasp how anyone can believe in it in any form for a second. Free will is about the ability to do otherwise by choice. If we don’t have that, we are just automatons with the illusion of free will and our actions are no different than those of billiard balls being hit or dominos falling with the first ones struck trillions of years ago leading up to us now.
Good discussion, gents. 👍
That's not a serious deterrence theory objection. People need to know the process was reliable to be deterred in the first place. Otherwise, it can happen regardless of deterrence, even with retributive theory.
I think Huemer's point was that under isolated circumstances in which framing the innocent man *would* truly maximize utility, we have the intuition that it's wrong to frame him. Ergo, maximizing utility cannot be the only relevant consideration for just punishment.
@@PercyPrior1 that's a reductum ad absurdum from a sentence with an iffy truth value. Have you done some courses in mathematics? Because outside of it it's generally a bad argument structure - it's just pointing out a contradiction. We all have conflicting moral intuitions, as Sapolsky rightly pointed out, it doesn't falsify detternce theory. The final call is this: why even give a stage to a political Libertarian (Google moral disposition and psycopathology of libertarians; they are the most horrible people, might give a stage to Nazis while you're at it) but worst of all, to a clueless individual on the topic, which only motivation is defending his political views. They need "free will" for their entire political project from "consent" to "just" desert to Ayn Rand like capitalism. I worked with them in my clinic, they tend to be horrible to-the-very-least sub-clinical psychopathic individuals. Do not let them spread their ideas without proper opposition.
@@Forkroute What are you even talking about? You're saying "It just shows a contradiction" as if it's not a big deal. If by contradiction you mean it contradicts anti-retribution intuitions - yes, yes it does. Saying that thought experiments aren't relevant to philosophy is like saying empirical experiments aren't relevant to science. Math isn't relevant.
Jonah is a libertarian and so am I, so I suggest learning serious political psychology before throwing baseless accusations about our psychology. Libertarians are not like Nazis or psychopaths, and there is no evidence for this. We just think the state should be held to the same moral standards as individuals and that the state has no more right to tax than it would be for me to go around and tax people.
@@SolarxPvP A simple contradiction won't tell you which sentence is false. Empirical research on lack of free will shows people's retributive intuitions become much less stronger (see also, Scandinavian society). Thought experiments are intuition pumps. A review by a peer-reviewed magazine of a Thomas Sowell book, asked again and again why he ignores the literature. Decades of literature. Like you ignoring political philosophy on taxation (see Elizabeth Anderson on taxation).
Google it. The Psychological dispositions of Libertarians and the paper In Search of Homo Economicus. I can suggest more empirical research, but all point to the bottom line: except for a small subset of psychopaths, no lives up to your libertarian fantasy. Most people are healthy, pro-social individuals.
I treated many like you in the clinic, I suggest you attend therapy if you're a Libertarian. You probably had an absent/abusive parent. PTSD is related to pathologies of lower empathy and social issues. Treatment can help you personally and society at large.
@@Forkroute WHOAH, I was about to agree with you until you started slandering libertarians! I don't believe in free will, or objective morality, but I'm politically libertarian, along the lines of David Friedman. I don't believe that people "objectively have rights" to their property, but I'm *subjectively* very much in favor of leaving people alone, not confiscating their stuff, not imposing regulations, etc.
Over the past 4 days I've been immersing myself in these videos, and more generally videos that discuss the concept of free will.
I do remain with questions on my hands even though I can understand easily that there is no such thing as an undetermined choice, and I hoped you could share your thoughts with me.
So let's agree that following deterministic thinking:
- you are a robot, spectator of your own life
- you do not have choices
- you are not free
Besides this, we can agree that, as a human being, you are presented with options all the time, from which you pick (let's say, a menu at a restaurant as the most common example)
There, you make determined choices, they are not free, but they are choices, you take decisions, determined decisions but you take decisions nonetheless, you think, and you act, you compare, and you choose
We established that this is not free will, but how should we call that process?
Could we call it an act of the self?
On another note, let's say we can theoretically calculate the number of constraints someone is facing, leading up to an action from their part: if you add more constraints to a situation, you will get a different outcome (or maybe the intensity of the constraint rather than the number, how the constraint deviates us from our own personal interests)
Let's consider two realities: one where someone wakes up and does whatever action they feel like doing at this moment (let's say they have a day off, and want to do things that make them happy), and one where that same person gets robbed inside of their home and is being held at gunpoint and told to do things. Couldn't we say that the person facing less constraints is more free than the one who is held at gunpoint? This is, I think, what Patricia Churchland would call self-control, this idea that we can quantify our freedom (for lack of a better word) and our ability to act.
Though I would agree that the person who's not at gunpoint doesn't have a completely free choice, their actions are still predetermined and therefore have no real self-control, isn't there still a distinction to make between those two cases? How should we name that gap?
I am happy to read the comments here and see that @PercyPrior1 is reporting a similar idea coming from Dr. Iskra Fileva: "If freedom sometimes increases, then it exists. So we have (some) freedom."
Thank you for taking the time to read, and maybe to answer
free will : the ability to choose things you would never choose.
Everyone would stay married lol
😂😂😂
To quote Kinky Friedman, I'm not anti death penalty, but I AM anti killing the wrong guy.
This is a rough sketch as I try to make explicit my understanding of all the information concerning determinism and free will:
1) To communicate the deterministic interior state of one human to another requires language.
2) Interpersonal communication influences the behavior of individual humans
3) If 2 is true, and it is granted from the outset that hard determinism is true, then hard determinism requires interpersonal communication through language.
4) Language utilizes the semantics of action/free will.
5) Free will reigns over concept formation and word choice which determines what gets communicated interpersonally.
6) If 3 and 5 are true, then hard determinism requires free will. (Or hard determinism is less than it is made out to be)
Or something to this effect. I expect some premises may need to be polished up/reworded or even replaced whole cloth.
Front running one possible objection:
Can free will exist outside a semantics of action? In other words, if we change our language to avoid the semantics of action (as proposed by Churchland), does it therefore follow that there is no free will if we can just stop talking in terms of free will? I don't know.
[4) Language utilizes the semantics of action/free will.]
Rejected. Language utilizes the semantics of the individual (who are processes - deterministic).
The issue being that at every level of review there are cause/effect linkages such that our will is tethered to these factors which precludes such of being free.
I don't understand 5. Does it mean that concept formation and word choice are freely willed processes?
If nothing else, if EVERYONE consciously practised considering their OWN "moment before"(...as well as minutes, days, months, years, family dynamics/biology over generations BEFORE) we would live in a much more consciously AWARE world. If we ALL simply asked the question "What's going on...right now?"(in my own mind), we would likely make much better choices in our lives. Awareness fosters HUMILITY and that is always a good thing.
I’m surprised that the idea of self awareness was not talked about as a variable into our perception of our own free will. The perception of free will seems highly correlated with one’s own level of self awareness - the why you do what you do. The more you are aware of your behavioral triggers the less you are bound to them in a deterministic fashion.
It would also explain the variability of outcomes when the inputs don’t change. For instance, when Sapolsky says “30%” of a groups behavior was predicted based on a set of inputs… what about the other 70%? A huge factor that seems to have been overlooked is self awareness
30 percent was "predicted". It would presumably require great technological advancement and greater neuro-scientific modelling to achieve more accurate results, because of the massive complex of factors/inputs.
Can you control your own thoughts? When you typed the above comment, why you choose one word over another or one way of wording your comment over another? Why did you, for example, start with the words 'I'm surprised' rather that 'It's surprising'? If you didn't consider the latter alternative, why not?
@@XiagraBallsI wasn't arguing for free will, at least in principle I do not disagree with Robert all all. But as I mentioned, I am very surprised that the effect that self-awareness has on one's *perception* of free will, isn't talked about at all. For instance, once you become aware that the smell of trash made you feel homophobic, that would no longer be the case the next time you smell trash. The more and more we become aware of our unconscious thoughts and triggers, the less and less that have control over us. I'm not saying that means we have free-will, just that we at least FEEL like we have more agency than we previously had.
@@loganlowe3731 there was a TV show about that recently (can't remember the name) it was dystopian, so I am not looking forward to that future lol
The answer to this great disparity in percent is the subconscious. You can never know what your subconscious knows.
The question is : if free will is an illusion, why does this illusion exists ? And why my determinisms is different than the rest of the people ?
Why someone is determined to be beautiful while someone else ugly ?… reach vs poor, healthy vs week ?
I think Michael started strong when he had his pre-thought material available, but in this kind of live debate, one needs the experience to be able to phrase one's thought in a concise and clear manner, and also to repeat one's base principles and assumptions you are leaning onto in streams of thought that make sense and build up from one thought to the next. At times, it is like he is saying one thing, but he actually meant another, and I know he meant the other thing because he is just now phrasing it inconveniently for him from the conciseness standpoint, but just a moment ago he explained his bade principles differently. It's then as a whole perhaps not enough of a case to make Sapolsky see what he is trying to say, because Sapolsky is also processing his own arguments, and catching on to easy weak points in Michael's arguments in their presented form.
Huemer echoes my early intuitions regarding determinism like no other. Most of what we do is rendered incoherent or false by determinism.
Another view, determinism provides clarity.
Michael Hueme's own Libertarianism proves Sapolsky's point: the psychological research on libertarians point at the roots of his rationalizing of his psychological makeup as a "political philosophy", mostly by factors he isn't even aware of, that are probably are deeply rooted in his childhood.
Your own comment proves sapolskys point: this comment is not actually a criticism, but a rationalization of your psychological makeup.
@@crab6084 indeed. An explanation is not a refutation (genetic fallacy). Still fascinating and enlightening.
Are you referring to political libertarianism or the position toward free will? My assumption in this context would be the latter.
@@synchronium24 political Libertarians rely on notions like "free will", or worse, some metaphysical "individual" - - they contradict every piece of sceitific information we know about people - from psychology, social psychology, sociologists and social philosophy. I've been dealing with these people for seven years now. They are a dangerous group, and their ideology is used by every criminal - from the interviews with sociopaths to large corporate corruption - it is the most vile and dangerous ideology in our lifetime
Which psychological research?..
Anyone else unable to access Dr. H's website? Shall we assume the dour determiners are dossing him?
I'm not in Professor Sapolsky's level of intelligence but I do appreciate him
Who is
I have just written something on this topic that might also be of interest to you.
Here is my translated contribution on (psychological) free will:
(nature/ conflicts of interest/ solution)
I.
In general, psychological functions are by no means "illusory", because that would mean that they are superfluous or even harmful.
But the fact of determinacy is of merely "academic" significance for decision-making itself.
The capacity for free will has developed evolutionarily because it helps to protect our range of options from potentially harmful influence and/or hindrance by other people.
II.
It is of course more rational to know whether we should be influenced in ways that are potentially harmful to us and how to avoid this in the future.
In this respect, everyone actually wants to be (unfortunately also egocentrically) an "unmoved mover".
III.
People who could regularly choose what is most useful have more opportunities to provide value to a society (through trade or donations).
In all decisions, one would also have to "keep an eye" on long-term effects on the framework conditions.
Because it may be in the short-term interest of individuals to maximize their own freedom of will at the expense of others (e.g. through ideological communication), rights to (primarily) physical non-aggression (and secondarily to the pursuit of truth) should (like all others) be universally reciprocal.
It should be possible to demand the principle (of reciprocity) from all institutions and citizens.
Now, that is an important debate. Everyone should be doing it. Sapolsky is excellent as always. Someone needs to cross and glue together the two extremes of this debate, as they're coming from very different disciplines, as Sapolsky himself stated.
He got crushed, wtf?
@@FightFilms i'm struggling with these replies too
Binging Sapolsky the whole weekend ❤
Insanely fun debate! Thanks for sharing this!
Though I am warm to Sapolsky's argument (there is ample evidence to support some form of determinism, hard or soft), some conflicts of interest should be pointed out.
We live in a landscape of centrally planned habit-training, and a large element of this is the "education" industry. Sapolsky is in the education industry. The entire purpose of that industry is to reliably adjust the habits and behaviors of childen and young adults in line with the desires of government masters. In many cases, this results in the predictable destruction of any form of autonomy or free will in these childer and young adults. Do the goverment masters themselves have free will? I don't claim to know that, but even if they did, their goal would be to manage and control the free will of their subjects out of existence. Sapolsky is clearly knowledgeable and appears an excellent teacher (I've audited his Stanford lectures with much pleasure), but perhaps he would re-visit his approach if he viewed himself in context, as a mouthpiece for the larger aims of his masters.
Additionally, many of the studies and examples Sapolsky cites are clearly drawn from market research. What is the goal of market research? To remove sales resistance. To remove autonomy. Sales is one of the largest and most lucrative industries worldwide, and it would be best to understand that this industry *pre-supposes* at least some form of free will or autonomy in some people, and seeks to remove and destroy the same in other people. This point doesn't go to whether there is or isn't free will generally. But it does suggest that Sapolsky lacks understanding of where his information comes from... or else he had no choice in the selection of these examples in the first place;)
I am also disappointed there was no discussion of proto-free will, meaning that observing and imagining seems to be able to direct actions. Before a plane flew, it had to be imagined and built. Are we not in a position to direct our focus toward imagining and building a better version of free will? If we intuit or detect even a primitive and limited type of free will, why can that not be developed into a more robust form? I think it can, and why not? Whether this point is right or wrong, the fact remains that Sapolsky's masters *believe* they have some version of free will, but their demonstrable aim is to *make sure his students do not*.
To end ramble: not much to say on Huemer, as i don't think either "won" here, but it was an enjoyable discussion. Thanks PercyPrior!
I like your skepticism and it does raise questions. For example, look at Edward Bernays, “We are governed, our minds are molded, our tastes formed, our ideas suggested, largely by men we have never heard of.” Bernays didn’t keep it secret either, he wrote the book, propaganda. Also look at “The Prince” by Machiavelli and “48 Laws Of Power” by Robert Greene. If the information is out there, good people can gain knowledge against the Machiavellians of the world. Unfortunately we have a lot of catching up to do, because the elites of the world have known this for generations and generations. The world is messy and I don’t ever see that changing in my lifetime. I believe Sapolsky is correct. But I see a free will hack though. We can change via epigenetics. Knowing this, we can change our lives and are not shackled to our genetic prisons. But one has to have a thought before that happens. And we are not the thinker of thoughts, we are the observers. A thought comes from somewhere, we don’t decide to think a thought. It takes a cause to create a thought. We’re billiard balls getting knocked around and our paths change when we knock into each other and the billiard table. But I don’t think we can change magically out of free will. A cause has to happen, then that creates a desire. Call it epigenetics, call it free will, it’s semantics, but it is a nice life hack if I do say so myself.
Excellent, the debaters showed themselves - each in their own way - to be quite competent, clear, productive and even good-humored
Sapolsky proved to be completely illogical. What debate did you watch?
He thinks examples of people doing different things given the same external stimuli means we have "absolutely no free will" and he called rudimentary science and superstition "intuition". For starters. He was absolutely painful to listen to.
Michael didn’t offer counter arguments …he basically said I feel here is free will…my intuitions tell me so…nothing about how we can think and act outside the chain of causality
He made a ton of arguments. Stop coping.
@@FightFilms yeah, Michael did a great job here.
Jeez. Huemer's arguments were just terrible. Well, if FW didn't exist, ppl wouldn't act the way they do. 🙄Yes, because society acts on the assumption that FW exists. That doesn't mean it isn't an illusion.
Several qs I wanted him to be asked: does a person have more or less FW when they're sleepwalking or under the 'influence' of drugs or alcohol or does it depend upon the dose? What is they have a brain tumour? If every choice is entirely free, then why have any mitigation in criminal cases? Where does his FW reside? Does he control his own thoughts? What exactly is 'doing the choosing'? A part of his brain? A disembodied soul? Can he freely choose what he will be thinking in exactly an hour's time? Does he have an answer to Sam Harris' 'capital city' test? How you could you scientifically examine the operation of FW?
Great questions!👍
Massive cope.
For starters. Every choice doesn't have to be entirely free to prove that there is free will, we just need one case of a free choice to defeat the claim that it doesn't exist at all. I don't even know what you mean by an illusion. How do we know it's an illusion? Through our intuition? Science? There's a gap in your reasoning.