Why Free Will Doesn't Exist
ฝัง
- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 30 มี.ค. 2018
- Free will does not exist. That's the claim I'm making, anyway. To me, it seems impossible even to imagine a world in which free will makes any sense. This video has been a long time coming.
@CosmicSkeptic
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Matt's original video: • Atheist Debates - Patr...
My book review of Harris' Free Will: cosmicskeptic.com/2017/06/19/...
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Alex O'Connor
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Apparently TH-cam doesn't always notify subscribers when people upload anymore. Please click the little bell to make sure you see when I do, or follow me on social media (@cosmicskeptic). Let me know what you think of all this.
CosmicSkeptic Love you 😘
I see CosmicSkeptic, I click. Freewill, notwithstanding.
Ok I mentioned this before in my other response, but I'll lay down another video to explain in full how free will is discussed and how it is necessary for you to have free will to do things like knowing truth, or knowing if what you say is true.
I actually foudn it a bit cheeky you glossed over the problem that it introduces of not have interllectual liberty my dude, nice try but I know very well the issue you have there.
Anyway I expect ya to address my points when I make the video. Overall, your points were good but the logic did not follow to it's conclusion, and there's a underlying self defeating idea in your entire argument.
I got notified without the bell. I will click it anyway.
The problem with your idea of free will is that you're starting with the ending. Deliberation exists before the desire that leads to the action. The longer the time In deliberation, the less certain the outcome. In addition, you haven't discussed the absence of desire as an alternative.
Imagine those books are actually on the floor, and they're just really, really big.
Fucking trippy
That’s so weird
Husky McFluff
I can’t unsee that now
I can't unsee it
Up
I was in a Subway's once and the girl asked my friend 'Do you want extra cheese?' to which he replied, 'I don't know' and for a brief moment the entire structure of the universe just stopped.
Kind of like how it takes time to process anything, even hand movement, the brain probably got a slow / unreachable receptor or something. Or maybe the brain decided "let them choose for me, as I trust their decision to be the best" + had an added fear of being wrong.
@@scottmcadam4509 I will make them our angels again.
Let's find out if I'm telling the truth. Won't we?
Take crack cocaine and meth much ? What has your comment got to do with anything ?
scott mcadam you can't just assume all women are shit at making decisions... What does your comment have to do with anything... They were talking about their friend at Subway. The friend was a HE.
Darwin replace Subway with "Dealers house " and Cheese with "Crack cocaine" then story makes perfect sense .
I think it's even more simple, yet deeper than that. Any action is preceded by a thought. If you want to choose between vanilla and chocolate, you think the decision before you physically make it. So, free will would then require that you choose your thoughts, which is paradoxical. How can you choose to think something, without already thinking about it?
This comment makes me suddenly very distrustful of the voice in my head. Where does it really come from if I can’t control it? Is it really me?
@@moss_yass My hypothesis is that that voice is indeed not "you". I'd say that "you" are merely the passive experience of having those thoughts. I think the thought "where does that voice in my head come from" is proof of that. Clearly, you see the voice already as something that you "have", instead of something that you "are". So, what are you?
I feel bad that my comment made you feel distrustful though. I sincerely hope that you can approach the dilemma with positive curiosity, instead of with distrust. In everyday life, that voice feels like it's "you", and that works totally fine.
I think before thinking that you want vanilla rather than chocolate you think and evaluate you options, and during this process you make your choice wich then becomes your desire, no?
@@mallvalim That process of evaluation is done with a heirarchy of relative 'wants' though.
A fly flew into my eye and I blinked without thinking. I always prefer chocolate to vanilla so when offered a choice I automatically choose chocolate without thinking about it. When faced with a variety of foods I consider what I prefer and choose accordingly. What I like caused my preference but did not determine me to make that choice--next time I might choose vanilla, say, to win a bet or out of boredom. Every effect has a case, but doesn't necessarily destine us.
“You can only do what you want” is oddly empowering
Not really when he also adds that you have no control over what you want.
@@rl7012 but why would you control what you want? Why would you decide to want to jump onto a train track?
@@rl7012We don't have any control to what we want because there's a reason behind why we want this why we want that as long as reason exists we can't have absolute true free will free from everything.
@@antoniofarina716 You can't control what you want, you can only control what you do about it.
@@betamass3803 Without reason how could life and the universe exist?
“Want” doesn’t seem like a real word anymore.
edit: guys i was making a joke about how many times Alex said “want”. Not trying to have a deep philosophical conversation about it.
Well maybe you should want for it to seem like a real word.
That would probably be due to semantic satiation.
Want seems like a desire. You still have desires without free will 🤷🏻♀️
@@rbst-dg8ji
Yes, but you can resist the desire therefore establishing a freedom of will over it.
@@JohnDoe-bt4ps why would you 'want' to resist desires?
"Man can do what he wills but he cannot will what he wills."
Schopenhauer
It makes sense now
Thank you for sharing that phrasing, Cap'n. Seems rather more clear to me now.
I reckon compatibilists believe in free will simply because "Man can do what he wills'" regardless of the fact that "he cannot will what he wills."
>imagine believing freewill is an illusion based on retarded antiquated physics and darwinian evolution which has basically been mathematically disproven.
I love how you speak Alex, yours so calm and easy to follow ❤
There's a "mathematical" argument that is much more difficult to refute. It goes like this:
1. The behavior of all systems is either deterministic or random.
2. A person is a system.
3. Therefore, a person's behavior is either deterministic or random.
4. Deterministic behavior means we don't have free will because our actions are determined even before we were born.
5. Random behavior doesn't allow for free will because random behavior is, well... random. Nothing influences it.
6. Therefore, free will must be an illusion.
The dichotomy of "deterministic or random" excludes the possibility of conscious free choice having any place in the universe, meaning it's arguably a false dichotomy.
A choice by design is not random and if it is predetermined it isn't a choice therefore a choice could be of free will.
All of you are forgetting the fact that "random" does not have to mean equal probabilities for all outcomes like flip of a coin, outcome can have 80:20 difference and still be random, or even 99.9999999 vs 0. however much
@@BennyOcean nobody can ever explain what this spooky third option means. Invoking the phrase “free will” like a magic spell does nothing. Everything is either determined or undetermined, law of the excluded middle. Undetermined IS random. Nothing determined it, whether it’s a will or a soul or a body.
@@bedro_0 yeah, random pretty much always means within some bounds.
I just finished watching hentai. This video told me I didn't watch it with free will.
I will now go back to watching hentai so that I can test this hypothesis.
For science.
And the people that illustrated that hentai did not do it of free will, either.
And you can...Out of NOT free will..share links so we can validate your research
I second this
This person deserves to go in the history books for this comment.
lloydagola I won't give you the link, but I can tell you I was watching Koi Maguwai.
My OCD already taught me long ago that I don't have free will
What do you mean by this, if you don't mind me asking? (No, I am not asking you to clarify OCD, I'm asking you to elaborate on what you mean by it making you realize you don't have free will.)
@@shinmoda I’m pretty sure they meant it as a joke, but Obsessive Compulsive disorder is based on the experience of compulsions, basically like your brain acting like an annoying younger siblings like “do it. You have to” to the extreme
@@pkextra2834 Again, I wasn't asking then to tell me what OCD was, I was asking them to clarify how they mean it taught them they didn't have free will, but I guess based on the compulsions it's like your own brain forcing you rather than others. I found, though, that as time gets going and it's been longer since my original diagnosis, I tend to fend off the sudden episodes with rational thought; but originally, I always felt like if I didn't do when I felt I needed to do them, then something will happen (negative). Or the flip side, sometimes I felt that if I do something then something will happen (positive). I still respond to these thoughts due to it making me feel satisfied but it's not as bad as it once was. It got tough when, being someone interested in spirituality, this realm of thought crossed into that realm. That's when stuff got tough.
Thank you! :)
true but you can also get help for it.
I have this voice I my head that sometimes tells me to do things that I may not want to and if I do not bad things happen is this normal?
You express things well Alex, and it is great that you have chosen this path to discuss so many philosophical ideas. I hope, and indeed, believe, that most of your videas will prompt serious thought and great discussions. I don't think you succeed in what you attempt on this one, but it was for sure a very big ask!
He might not have had the choice to make this video or not. Free will is in itself a choice.
Well.. that’s genius. You definitely convinced me. I always asked people what the definition of “free will” ment to them. Now after watching this video and actually understand what you mean, i have a whole different perspective on it. Thankyou so much for this beautiful video ❤
Whats ur instagram
I feel like the dangerous implication here is that, if there is no free will, criminals are innately evil, because they could have never chosen the right thing. Logically that creates a category of good people who are righteous and self-improving and evil people that are beyond help.
@@skeleton1765but that also brings into question whether or not we should hold criminals morally responsible to begin with. If they had no ability to do otherwise, why should we punish them for something out of their control? Of course the obvious question is what would we do instead and to be frank, I have no idea. It’s something I’ve been trying to grapple with
@@MoonlightMaggie Exactly, I do good because I want to do good, than I am part of the righteous class.
If I can’t help but be evil, or don’t want to do good, or prefer to do the evil thing than they are part of the deplorables. This is almost leading to a justification for genocide.
If it looks like free will, feels like free will, society and morals collapse without the assumption of free will, than why would it not be free will? How many senses/mechanisms have to positively support free will before we assume it’s true. Is it like a Schrödinger’s mechanic where we can observe what choice a person makes but only if we look at the decision matrix in their brain at a certain instance, or even after the decision has been made. Even if all the ‘decisions’ you made leading up to that one MAKE you ‘choose’ a certain outcome, does that disprove free will?
This seems like another instance of an atheist (I’m probably part of that category/agnostic) being infinitely and annoyingly reductive. If got so annoyed with myself doing this I had to stop. Clearly I have a low tolerance for this thing and was always destined to choose that choice as well. 🙄
@@MoonlightMaggie Yes but ask yourself, why does your reasoning stop there anyway? It's wrong to stop there and call it a day.
"Holding them accountable" or not doing so would be a "choice" i.e something you'd want (to want to..(etc recursively)) to do in itself, which in itself is already uninfluenceable, that line of reasoning goes on infinitely. It's not about "what would we do instead", it's that anything else we do instead, then that too, wasn't chosen or free will.
It's not about thinking of things in that macro/limited scale of people/society/the justice system etc, we're discussing the general concept of "free will" at its bare-bones, philosophical/logical root.
What I mean is, in your example about crime etc, it's not about just holding anyone accountable in that sense, it's about that if you do hold them accountable, then you were already always going to, same of the opposite. It's not "should" we or "can" we hold them accountable, because there is no choice there either, "choosing" to hold them accountable or not was inevitable.
Same with: If you jumped then you were already always going to jump, whether you "chose" to or not, if you were born then you were already always going to be born, etc etc etc, get what I mean? It doesn't even apply just to our experience of free will, but to causality itself.
The takeaway is pretty much that everything that happened so far was inevitable (and I don't mean in the woo-woo way "everything happens for a reason" because "God chose it"), and that "consequences"/the future/causality is as inevitable as the flow of time itself, you are stuck in your unique experience or "illusion" of the present, some will find great solace in that, some will find terrible distress. 😛 (Both are also inevitable, like everything else - and the illusion of a consequence/event being avoided arises from the fact that its avoidance was also inevitable, etc.)
So within the confines of this illusion you can "choose" to recognize that since this truth is inevitable, then there is no point worrying or thinking about it too much, because it doesn't change anything for you or your experience, whether it was "predetermined" or not.
It's just that if you do worry/not believe it,/do anything at all, then that too, was inevitable in its very nature 😅.. but just "choose" not to care, and for all practical purposes, live life the way you would have either way, even while knowing you didn't really choose. I know it feels like a paradox but they aren't mutually exclusive, because one of them is an illusion that arises from the other. The illusion of free will/choice arises from the fact itself there is no free will/choice, which personally doesn't bother me, it's just a logical fact, and a conclusion that you come to when you really think about it enough. I find this beautiful and awe-inspiring on its own.
So yes, continue to hold criminals accountable etc. not because they are "innately evil" (which is a conclusion you arrived to because you decided to stop there) etc.,
but because you don't justify "choosing" do something BECAUSE there is free will or not, it's just that it HAPPENS / HAPPENED / WILL HAPPEN *because* there is no free will, that doesn't mean you shouldn't still continue "choosing" just because it's an illusion when you look deep enough... for us it might as well not be an illusion because it's all we will ever experience, there is no need to "adjust" just because you learned this (it's just that if you did adjust, you didn't truly choose that either lol), it is logically and by nature impossible to truly choose, as it breaks all logic and the concept of time and causality itself.
It doesn't mean there is no beauty in that. To me there IS beauty in that this illusion of choice itself can be born from the fact that there is no choice, almost as an extension of it, and within it we can experience everything as if we all truly chose it, almost going full circle. There is no need to think of it as fake when it is a direct consequence of that initial truth.
Sir, this is a Wendys
Nice one, this cracked me up a little. Here, have a cookie 🍪
😂
Indeed, I laughed.. have this pizza 🍕 nigga
Lmao. Here's a baby 👶. Bon apetite.
@@brahimilyes681 Bro....
In a nutshell: “A man can do what he wants, but he cannot want what he wants.” Schopenhauer
Thanks for saving me time.
Is this using want like choose?
? A higher conciousness wants nothing though.. You are not your thoughts.. Why is it that no one is talking about levels of consciousness? This comment does not apply to all of the population.
devzkii I would not say that it is using want like choose. We want what we want. I want chocolate rather than vanilla. But did I choose to want vanilla? No. I just want vanilla, i can’t help wanting what I want. It just arises as such. And I can then have the vanilla, as I want. But I didn’t actually choose to want it.
surrender & survive I can relate to not wanting anything, what you call higher consciousness. There are moments of such utter peace and fulfillment that there is no wanting. If you’re sitting in bliss and don’t eventually want to eat you’ll die, however. We and the other animals have want built into our DNA. if we didn’t it would be the end of life. It seems evolutionary drive in life to want: to find warmth when you’re freezing, shade when you’re hot, food when hungry, and then there are those damn hormones that make us want to mate. All of it designed to sustain and perpetuate life.
Thank you very much for this video! Amazing explanation!
nice vid as always! This discussion always seems like it's balancing at the edge of what someone believes the universe to be. Materialists usually end up where you did (the universe is a clockwork), and the other view, simplified to that the universe is on some level conscious itself and is not bound to the future by the past (if I'm conscious of a want I can choose to not want it, and that "changes the future")
Ironically, when I think about how I really have no free will, it makes me feel free.
It explains all my failures in life
@@Siegfried5846 Yea, because then you wouldn’t be accountable for anything you’ve done right or wrong, though that isn’t how societies live. They live as if we are all accountable for our actions and that’s why there are ethics. And why do we tell people you shouldn’t have done that or that wasn’t right when the person had no free will to do so? And why do we correct someone by saying, “No, this is how you do this.”
If we believe there is no free will and want to be consistent, we cannot complain when someone violates our human rights.
@@trustthetruth2779no.
@@satellitecannon9463 I most certainly can be consistent because right and wrong are objective according to God’s character and not my opinion or yours or anyone else’s. I just follow what He says whether I agree or not. He made the universe, so I’m not going to tell Him I know better
@@trustthetruth2779 that isn't how it works.
You were predetermined to see this video and make the comment you made, because of all the things that happened to you before, and all that you ate and consumed, all that you were taught.
You couldn't help but make the choices you've made, but you still feel the suprise when someone appreciates your work, or you still feel the pain of bad choices.
You are the agent of change, but you had no other choice in the end as you look back on things that have happened.
Theists have this loophole that they pull out when the pain of bad decisions starts to haunt them, and they often just claim it was God's plan or God's Will, so you can forgive yourself and move on.
We live in a deterministic universe with an endless chain of causality, and there is a liberating freedom from excessive guilt, to some extent, but if someone murders another person in cold blood and they feel nothing, that isn't a normal person, and they go to prison no matter how they became broken.
We are still held accountable for actions, but even you have to admit you have an out, in regards to these problems of choice.
All normal people react to good and bad things and they make changes to remedy the situation, but sometimes it takes time and more input from the chain of causality, like friends telling someone they messed up.
I simply don't believe in a God that is supernatural and outside of the Universe, making things happen and intervening when he wants and letting you have your will, and then a little bit of his will, and then a bit more of your will, and a whopping amount of his will.
An omnipotent, omniscient and omnipresent God can't give you Freewill and also be all of those things.
Take a shot every time he says “want”
Anika Martinez I'd get alchohol poisoning. And i dont want that.
Im dead now thanks
Fuck
I have crippling depression and have killed myself after that challenge I am now a dead rabbit who cant do nothing but think and I have wifi somehow I think this is hell
Gabriel Marbordo Kosta well then
Brilliant video - best I've seen on this subject. Summed up succinctly 👌👍
I came to this conclusion many years ago but could not express it as well as you have here. Whenever I have this conversation I usually resort to asking the person to give me one example of a 'choice' they believe they made and unravel it with them to demonstrate that their 'choice' will have ALWAYS come from a 'reason' and that the 'reason' never originates with them or something they 'chose'!
The ability to rationalize through choices and decide which one isn’t always a result of desire. This video would also disprove things we know exist like consciousness, rationality, intelligence, etc.
The literal definition of consciousness is the ability to parse through desires and pick one independent of emotion. You may really really want something, but also know it’s bad for you. What decides what you do? You do. If both desires are equal, how is it that anything happens? The answer is that your ability to rationalize and make a decision INDEPENDENT of both desires is what makes the decision.
@@am.655. None of those change anything. For example you state "but also Know its bad for you". How did you arrive at the knowledge that it's bad for you? Also Consciousness, Rationality and Intelligence are capacities you were born with. In other words things you were given but didn't 'chose'. So does somebody born with a lesser intelligence, as per your example, have fewer 'choices'?
"The literal definition of consciousness is the ability to parse through desires and pick one independent of emotion" - all you are describing here is the lived experience of the 'program' running (what we call our consciousness) that, from our perspective makes is 'seem' like we are making a choice. Being 'aware' of the program running does not effect the output.
" If both desires are equal, how is it that anything happens?" -what you are describing here is like what happens to humans when faced with too many apparent 'options'. Many do find it impossible to 'chose' in such instances and the Operating System becomes distressed. For those that do there will ALWAYS be a reason why they 'chose' one above any of the others.
The closest it will 'feel' you can get to 'breaking' determinism is the use of a randomizer. i.e. Flipping a coin. Since you will have then removed 'yourself' from the decision making part. But I will leave you to consider "Whose 'Free Will' is being implemented here?"; "Is it Free Will" and "Does this really disprove determinism?" It really does help when considering this subject to think of ourselves like a computer program that is so complex that it does not only take direct inputs from its immediate environment (via the senses) but also uses 'data' gathered during its runtime (lived experiences). We are only doing what we were 'programmed' to do from birth.
Good explanation@@BlackWolf-uk2yb
@@am.655. The greatest desire wins. That's all it ever is. When are you ever making a choice that isn't of desire?
"You may really really want something, but also know it’s bad for you. " Your desire for being healthy was greater than your desire to want to do that thing.
I've never been so confused by understanding something in my entire life
Cus we don’t want to understand ☠️😂I’m just as confused 😮💨 but I want to understand
He's a perfect definition of a narcissist. When he said "we've already concluded.." blah blah blah, no, "we" haven't concluded anything. We are in control of our lives, period.
@@tyemaddog Do you know what the word narcissist means?
@@tyemaddog but we actually are not because what ever is going to happen or what ever ever happened...happened and there's no changing that ever....everything is technically predestined wether you believe it or not.
@@tyemaddog Point me to a single logical mistake in this video, please. Because as it stands, it just seems like you are stubbornly refusing to listen to what was said, not because you actually have any argument to make against the stance (which is, just by the way, utterly impossible, as the logic is completely obviously clear and sound).
It appears many individuals are misunderstanding the message. Changing your mind on something isn't changing what you want, but simply following a greater want that moves in a different direction. We are endlessly following wants and what we want changes based on the environment and past experiences.
Precisely
following a ''greater want that moves in a different direction'' is changing what you want ;-;
+Mr. King Kong I can't believe all these months later you're still this stupid.
But i'm changing what ME AS A PERSON want, choosing between your "greater want" and a "smaller want"..
*note*
I thoroughly believe I can make myself want something I despice, given enough time and thought..
In other words, choosing to want what i hate
ugseth2 but isn't changing that want, even if it's to something you hate, is satisfying your want to change ? no matter what you do, you want to do it, it's all a choice of wants evolves through time based on your experiences. :)
If there is no free will, there is no YOU
Why is that the case?
@@damiensisco6960 Because you like life is what YOU make!
You can't make your own body, you can't make a planet or all the things we depend on in it, all you can make is what you make with your will, and if you make nothing there then you are literally NOTHING.
@@damiensisco6960 Alex is a dumb ass lying hypocrite. He is claiming his actions are predetermined and that he has no free will, but he knows he is lying.
For who or what has predetermined his actions and behavior? Who has decided for him to be the way that he is?
He would not say God for he does not believe in God, but it can also not be society for then why would society make him to be one way and me and others to be another way? Besides if society has made Alex, then he should not have a youtube channel as he would have nothing to say other than what he was told by society. Then it is society who should speak not Alex.
It can also not be Alex's parents, scientists, brits or anyone else. So if you stand with no one who would predetermine Alex's claimed predetermined actions, then there is only one possibility left. And that is that Alex is a liar who just refused to take responsibility for his own actions and inability to control his body or need to be anything but a mindless animal claiming to have no free will.
But I will give Alex this, Alex is not as dumb as the idiots who follow, agree with and praise Alex.
But everyone else knows that the only one who can WILL what Alex wants is Alex himself! This should be pretty obvious when you look at the obvious evidence that NO ONE ELSE is like Alex! Alex is unique in his will, even if that will is to be dishonest and stupid!
@@damiensisco6960 If you were to possess requisite intelligence so-as-to, you would KNOW without having to ask.
Yh if you define _you_ in a bizarre way, I guess so
The issue with the initial premise is that it’s not necessary for free will. You don’t have to be in control of all the factors influencing your decisions to act differently. You just need to be aware of them, and not even all of them. Even a general degree of self-awareness of your personal psychology (not even a single factor) would be enough to reasonably conclude that one could have acted differently.
How can one act differently? We can never repeat the _identical_ situation, and if we could, we should expect either with or without freewill, unless the universe is random at the fundamental level, the same outcome. Repeating an experiment overtime is _not_ the identical situation. A person is older, the previous attempts are part of their memory, the angle of sunlight has changed. We all only act once in each moment, and it could not be any other way than the way it was, it doesn't physically make sense to suggest otherwise.
@@Rogstin Why doesn’t it physically make sense? We have a degree of self awareness, which can inform us on why we make the decisions we make, and I have no idea why that doesn’t suggest we can choose differently. It seems to contradict our inner experience.
Determinism hasn’t been able to explain 100% of our actions, so it’s absolutely an assumption that it would.
Rationalizing decisions does not equate to making them. The argument encapsulates your "awareness" of your inner workings. _Any_ conscious rationalization is based on your being. On nature and nurture. You don't _choose_ to "be aware" of your inner workings. You claim to be - and that contributes to the decisionmaking process. See, the awareness you claim to have _does not change anything._ it is merely your expression of one of the influences you feel your decisions are based on.
@@thomasw153 Your claim only works if we bisect awareness from being. All you’re actually saying is that there are mechanisms within our being driving our decisions that are inaccessible to consciousness. But that doesn’t mean it’s not *us* making the choices, it just means they’re made in a way that’s not immediately accessible to our conscious selves.
There’s also the fact that your argument doesn’t explain how or why human beings are able to reflect and deliberate on choices they haven’t yet made. We can consciously think through decisions, imagine alternatives, and make choices based on reasoning. This subjective experience undermines strict determinism, and requires scientific explanation, not elimination.
@@mottebailley4122 _This subjective experience undermines strict determinism_ How?
The fundamental problem is, _how_ is a choice made. Where can it be made? Voltage thresholds and chemical transmitters. It's all obeying the laws of physics. Free will as a perception, that exists, but as a reality, it doesn't make sense.
_and I have no idea why that doesn’t suggest we can choose differently._
How could you choose differently? You cannot replay the moment again. Every moment is new, and no experiment I can think of could distinguish between free will and determinism. So we have to ask about what free will even means.
Yes, I feel like I make choices, I just understand that's the result of an incredibly complex system of interactions.
_and make choices based on reasoning._ This is why free will fails even at a high level. There is always a reason, even if it isn't something we are aware of consciously. A chain of _Why? Because!_ until we can't explain it. Where is the choice? Not just the feeling of it when we discover what the outcome is, but the moment we pick _without_ external impetus. Free will doesn't make sense.
lol this is something i struggled with when i was 15 and i didn’t get why no one else cared about this!! the lack of choice to want something is so important and figuring this out has made me a much less judgemental and empathetic person tbh
That’s really interesting to know. Cause it has happened to me also. I’d say that the exact same effect it was caused on you was really caused on me as well. It has made me reflect a lot more than usual about life in general after I started gravitating towards this possibility.
@@jes8253 yeah i'd say i used to feel scared about it but now i think it's quite a freeing mindset. i study sociology now which has helped me explore how unhelpful this belief in free will really is to almost everyone - means we think we can judge other people even when we can't relate to their situation at all because we think 'well I would never do that' without having any context. empathy is a great skill and i think we need to remember what it actually means to put yourself in someone else's shoes - it doesn't mean put yourself in their particular situation, it means put yourself in their particular situation within the whole context of their life. rugged individualism has meant we think that's not important somehow and i think without a radical shift in perspective in the very near future the world is going to be totally irreperably fucked soon
@@Jemmainadilemma I couldn’t agree more with your words. It’s really fulfilling to get to know there’s still people in the world that has this sort of insight to reflect upon it the way you do. It’s quite funny cause I couldn’t ever imagine I would definitely bump into someone right here on TH-cam who shares the same concept as I do and also as accurate as my concept is about this idea. It’s really gratifying! I do think the same, moreover, I still sense that the world unfortunately is more likely to be fucked up as soon as we can’t expect because of individualism.
@@Jemmainadilemma What isn't it a free choice that "I want to prove a point by regaining my free will"? Didn't I freely choose to want one over the other?
@@CuriosityGuy well you want to do something to prove a point, but you don't choose to want that, you just want that. The source of the want is the point here - you can't choose to want something. you could explore why you want that but i don't think that would affect what you want
This is pretty close to how I felt leaving Christianity.
My family kept talking about my "choice" to stop believing in their God, but I never made any choice regarding that. It simply didn't make sense to me so I didn't believe it. The only "choice" I made was to stop suppressing my own doubtful thoughts which really were becoming extremely overwhelming and upsetting to keep down.
Same here. Very similar and I got to the point where my whole “faith” felt fake.
I feel the same, but the opposite way. I believe in god. I don’t know why, I can’t explain it. I just do. Was never bought up religiously or anything either.
You can't choose to believe something you don't actually believe.
@@celtictarotreadings333 You're the kind of religious person I like. I personally find myself wanting there to be a god who suits my preference for what I want god to be but I don't want to believe something without knowing it to be true. Since evidence is a matter of demonstrating something through immutable natural laws which produce the same result of the same causes under the same circumstances every time those causes are applied under the same circumstances and since the supernatural as a concept does not rely on immutable natural laws, I can only hope and can't believe since my belief of anything depends on knowing. Thus, I can't help not believing in a god and can't help hoping for a god I would like. I suppose a god could exist who I wouldn't like but I can't hope for that and I can't believe it either. This is why I can't hope for or believe in a god who would punish anyone for not believing in a god as believed by the kind of religious person I don't like... well, that might not be the best way to put it, I should call them the kind of religious person who's beliefs I don't like since their beliefs themselves cause them fear which forces them to believe the beliefs which cause the fear. Anyway, I'm always happy to come across someone like you who just believes in a god because they want to believe.
Ditto.
as soon as you defined free will at 2:09 or so i instantly knew a lot of what video was going to be (my line of thought was originally stimulated by a Pursuit of Wonder video about determinism) about and completely agreed LMAO (wrote this before finishing, posted after finishing to make sure i was right
I think the question depends on what timespan you're talking about. You can't influence your past, which in the end turns you into what you are. And maybe you can't influence this exact moment because every reactio in the unlimited actio-reactio chain is deterministic. Unless, and this is controversial, there are hidden variables that come from some undetectable dimension that in the end makes up your consciousness and is not influence by anything other than your will.
When free will is defined as "ability to have acted differently", then this is true. The reason most of us feel we have free will is because we subconsciously define free will as "ability to do what you want/desire". Most people are not that concerned that they don't have the ability to choose what they want, or your wants are beyond your control. As long as we can act on those wants we feel that we have free will.
Then I would say that the term is wrong and it's implications still equivocated. If your will is determined by your "wants" which you aren't in control of, then it's not free, why bother with reusing the term to say something completely different? Specially if we don't redefine it's implications, like moral responsability. If we aren't in control of the desires that motivate our actions, how can we hold people accountable? It would radically change the framework in which we base or social systems, which people seem not so eager to do, which I think is what makes them clinge so hard to using the same term.
What you're describing sounds like "will", not "free will".
what gives us a taste in music, did the universe choose my favorite color, if the universe can choose my favorite color than god can create a soul and if god can't create a soul than the universe can not choose my favorite color and im liberty to do as i wish to do constant battle with the universe
This sounds to be very true so although we don't have complete free will the will is still in our character/traits to (choose the things we want)
So i think in a given moment we definitely have will/free will (based on our character traits) I mean I didn't have to comment here though i did so based on an inner impulse to do so
Ohh yeah when I say choose the things we want I didn't mean we choose our wants but I meant we have the choice or decision to act on it
@@sensibleone3268 Before you had the impulse to write a comment,that was already set in motion.Then you had the thought I will write a comment.In reality the comment had to happen,you just claim authorship for doing so.There simply is no doer.
Well I'm terrified now, thank you Alex.
AlmostCanadian
It gets better with time
Lol
That fear only lasts for awhile. Once you get used to it, the bad occurances in life become quite alot easier to bear.
Why are you terrified? It is out of your control. You can either accept or reject it, but neither stance will affect the outcome in any predictable way. So why worry? if it's going to happen, it's going to happen.
This is also the same argument that renders faith pointless. Faith is belief without evidence, yet the only reason belief can be validated is if there is evidence. Thus, faith is a waste of time since without evidence, then it is equally likely that something will happen as it is that something will not happen. This is the problem of non-falsifiable claims. Either it _will_ or it will _not_. Belief nor faith can change this.
Dylan Wight Well that's completely off topic, but I agree. But just because something is true doesn't make it comforting. Just because something is out of my control doesn't stop me from finding it unsettling, no matter how much I would like to pretend it does
This was first watched when it was new. In '23 I realized now I think you're right. When I reacted differently to the same situation I had schooled my thinking into being prudent, a big change.
See, when I was about 22 I realised that boredom originated from an attachment to my specific sense of self. I would find myself staring at a ceiling fan thinking to myself "someone, somewhere, finds this view the most interesting thing in the world. Why am I in particular so bored by it? What version of myself would I have to be to be interested in this?" I realised that anything and everything had beauty within it, when approached from the right perspective. In so doing, I found that I could, I believe in contrast to the argument here, 'control' my wants by letting my ego shift and change in response to perceived beauty. (Perhaps it is the case that the ontology of beauty is such that it changes the composition of the predetermined ego). So I reject the premise that we cannot control our wants.
Of course one could say that I 'wanted' to find the thing interesting. This was not my end however; the end had to be beauty itself, which I think stands outside of the want-forced dichotomy. You can adopt an analytical stance that negates the effect of beauty, so it must be approached in an actively-receptive way. In so doing, your very sense of self changes to include the desire to engage with this object. It's like the totality of your past experiences, which drive you in a predetermined manner, reconfigures itself towards the beautiful. And insofar as you can maintain this view of life, you remain free.
That's how I think about free will.
Hm, I have also thought about that, every choice we make we change ourselves to fit it. I've tried to use that to my advantage and it has actually helped me! However that cannot be abused, you can only change yourself so much. For me at least trying to change my perspective all the time is definitely a trap that eventually leads to a lot of psychological pain and disassociation.
You can only do so much by yourself, you'll reach a point where you are forced to give up your wants and allow yourself to be forced to do something.
(Sorry if it didn't make a lot of sense hope you understand it)
+❤
"Of course we have free will, we have no other choice but to have it" C. Hitchens
Brilliant ~Lord Hitchens
Of course the exact opposite could be said, “Of course we don’t have free will. We have no choice but not to have it”
Jo-Ash Scott Official I had will. I’m not convinced it was “free”
@Jo-Ash Scott Official You have will- your free will was based on the question regarding free will, which was freely chose to respond- if he didn't respond, you could just as well have asked, did you have free will to not write that comment.
James Walker I think you are missing the irony and true point of the quote. By saying we have free will and we have no choice but to have it is purposely contradictory.
Whenever I see a video about free will, I have no choice but to watch it
Sorry you have that compulsion! 😂 When I see a video about free will, I have full range of choice. I watched about 4 minutes of this one, and then I quite watching! I'd heard enough of his nonsense! 🤣
@@rexlion4510
So your “want” wasn’t strong enough and you’ve made a choice based on you not wanting to continue - clearly proving the point of the video here! ^_^
I had no choice but to vote this comment up (and also make this reply.)
@@NousTrapper It might be the case the your reason for doing so is because determinism causes you discomfort, and so you act accordingly to minimise discomfort since we seem to be exclusively motivated to minimise suffering/maximise pleasure.
Even seeking pain is pretty much always done to minimise it or seek a future pleasure, such as in the experiment of people choose to shock themselves to relieve boredom (choosing a lesser pain to relieve a greater/worse pain)
Even seeking a meaningful life filled with meaningful experiences is only done to relieve the suffering of meaninglessness.
@@NousTrapper “Nature has placed mankind under two sovereign masters, pain and pleasure, it is for them alone to point out what we ought to do and well as determine what we shall do. On the one hand the standard of right and wrong and on the other the chain of cause and effect are fastened to their throne. They govern us in everything we do, everything we think, everything we say. Every attempt we make to throw off our subjection will serve but to *demonstrate and confirm* it.”
- My boy Jeremy Bentham spitting straight facts
So well said its basically all my thoughts put together in a video i was never able to explain to ppl why im forced to believe that there is no free choice
You would be forced to believe anything.
Man can do what he wills,but he can't will what he wills-arthur schopenheur
“I have noticed even people who claim everything is predestined, and that we can do nothing to change it, look before they cross the road.”
~Stephen Hawking
Wait, does that mean they don’t actually believe it is pre-Destin?
@@choco1199 they are contradicting themselfes. if they look before they cross the road they have basically reduced their chances of getting hit by a car to 0% meaning they chose their own destiny
@@robertjusic9097 or it's just survival instict doing it's work. It's just like animals that try to avoid pain/danger. It has nothing to do with choice.
Peter Griffin I’m not being facetious I promise, I’m just curious about the topic. But what about a suicidal person who has those same instincts to avoid pain but walk out in front of a truck. It was there choice no?
@@carsonmcmanus9410 No. This completely ignores the fact that their "want" to walk in front of the truck overrides their "want" to do otherwise. Do you think a suicidal person would choose to want to be suicidal? This is actually a compelling case AGAINST free will.
Actually, the only reason you'll do anything is because you want to. Being forced to do something has a want of survival or the avoidance of punishment behind it, unless your hand is being moved by someone else physically.
But do you really "want" to in the sense that it's something you choose truly on your own behalf? For example, if you buy a soda or something at a store "because you want to", it could realistically be for a variety of factors. For one thing, you could be thirsty while also holding a disposition towards sweeter drinks. That would naturally cause you to gravitate towards the sugary drink. If you weren't thirsty, then it was probably a craving - something you don't necessarily choose to have that holds a significant amount of power over deciding what you buy. If you had a craving and instead got water since it was healthier, there were prior decisions already dictating that choice as well. Free will is essentially impossible to prove, in reality, since if you go back far enough and with enough detail, every single one of your actions could likely be telegraphed. Even without this consideration, the concept of free will in and of itself is so nebulous that it's genuinely hard for our brains to conceptualize. That's just my thought on it anyway
I was just thinking of this. You can’t be forced to do something unless whatever is forcing you has a consequence for you not doing it in which you do it because you want to avoid the consequence. I didn’t think of your hand being physically moved by something else though. Interesting point.
That's why I think there will be anarchy in a lawless society. Most people don't break the law simply because they don't want to be punished, not because they are well-intentioned and well-behaved citizens. Humans are not superior, civilised moral beings. We're worse than animals.
@@lepetitchat123 Would you murder someone if you couls?
@@Broctis If I could get away with it, yes. But perhaps I couldn't do it myself, I am too chicken. I will hire someone else to do it lol
I would argue, that to a certain degree we can control the degrees or intensity to which we desire what we “want” across multiple dimensions because we organize those “wants” into a hierarchy and inter connect them with one another. As we change different areas in our lives, we rearrange the hierarchy, and shift multiple items based on the initial change. For instance, the decision to go to the gym is not only a shift in want, it is a shift in value structure, and therefore you’ll shift multiple other “wants” within your hierarchy of wants in order to align yourself with the new value. I do agree that changes like this are rare and take conscious effort, but we are most definitely capable of shifting our wants. I think a better argument for free will would be that the future is already predetermined, and therefore we will always fall prey to the future.
I agree that you can change your "wants" by changing your cognitive value structure. But you will change this structure because you want to do it. And then you will try very hard and think about it and question it, because you want to do so. In the end you have changed your "wants" by using your wants or being forced to by a therapist or someone/something else. In no point you are free of your "wants". At least according to Alex ;)
This is what I am currently doing: diving deep into this topic and changing my wants and desires. My desire to sit on the couch or be on the computer is stronger than my desire to go to the gym. As soon as the thought of going to the gym arises in my mind, I ask myself why my desire to work out and improve my appearance and well-being is less compelling. Clearly, one option involves more effort but offers long-term benefits, while the other requires less effort and provides immediate gratification.
Without delving too deeply into our reward system, I aim to make my desire to work out stronger than my inclination to sit idle. The desire to desire something is potent, whether we believe in free will or not. This shift in priorities is the most powerful step I've taken to accomplish more.
This is *such* a fantastic mott and bailey. He claims he is going from the assumption that free will means "we could have acted differently" and then immediately defines it in an extremist form that no one supports: "We have free will if and only if we knew all the factors affecting us and were in complete control of them."
If you had partial knowledge of your influences, and partial control over them (for example, at least weighting some more than others), you still could have acted differently, and met his original definition of free will. Of course, since he cannot proof that we have no awareness and no influence, he immediately constructs a much more extreme and fragile argument.
Can you choose to want? Absolutely. People can and do change their desires. What you focus on shapes your desires. For example, smokers told to pay close attention to the sensory experience of smoking desire to smoke less than people not attending to it. So, if we can in fact change our desires based on what we attend to or focus on, we can change our desires and his entire argument fails.
Of course, he try to turn this into an infinite regress, saying that what we attend to is shaped by our wants. But that's an assumption on his part. It is just as likely, that our attention is, in fact, the location of our freed. And that is what we actually experience: that *sometimes* we choose where to put our focus, and that shapes both our outcomes and our desires. Now either could be true, one is clearly more supported by our experience, but Alex assumes the second without proof and bases his argument on it.
He offers a broken analogy: think of something you want, and try to not want it. That fails because it's patently not how the brain works. Try NOT thinking about a pink elephant, etc. However, you can absolutely intentionally focus on something else (or like the in the case of cigarettes, focus more on the thing itself and realize how unpleasant it is), and actually change your desire.
This is only an infinite regress for Alex because his thinking is a tautology. Things must be determined -> I have want -> therefore my wants must be determined -> therefore when I do what I want, I am not free. But if you remove the initial assumption: I have a want -> When a I do what I want I am -> ??? For example, in the case above, with focus / attention as the basis of a freedom, the reasoning is:
I have wants which are combination of external factors + my free attention -> I act on those factors -> my actions are partially free -> because there is freedom in my actions, I could have acted differently based on my attention -> because I could have acted differently is our definition of freedom, I am free.
Of course, you can choose which to assume at the beginning, determinism or freedom. But because one aligns so much more with our experience, and there's little to no evidence for the contrary (remember, all of Alex arguments rely on the assumption of determinism first)... I would say, go with the one that actually matches experience.
"What you focus on shapes your desires". Do we choose what we focus on? What we focus on is just what we want to focus on, and can we control our wants? You say yes, by deciding what to focus on, and we are now in a circular dilemma. What do you think of this?
@@AlejandroFernandez05 Funny observation: this is a conversation between Alec & Alejandro about Alex.
I think you missed the point of my statement above, so I will attempt to explain more clearly. The infinite regress (or what you call circular dilemma) is of your creation, because *you* are the one saying "we focus on what we want to focus on." I didn't say that, and so I don't have an infinite regress. In fact, I spent some time in the comment above highlight that Alex has this exact problem. He's creating an infinite regress because of his assumptions, but one does not have to accept his assumptions.
In my view, you can (and by default do) focus on what you want... but you are free to focus on anything you are aware of. So yes, you *can* behave in a a determined many, but you also can choose not to; much like how breathing can be reflexive or voluntary.
But, you ask, "What *determines* whether you focus on what you want or something else?" Because what you deliberately focus IS your free will (or at least, how you exercise it), this is as silly as asking "But what determines your free will?" Nothing determines whether you exercise your free will; it's free. That's the point. If I don't assume determinism, I don't have to have something to determine my free will.
===================
The arguments in detail
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Your argument boils down to 1) (Premise) everything must be determined and 2) (Premise) "want" means whatever we are internally motivated, therefore 3) (conclusion) our wants must be determined and cannot have behaved differently. #3 is logically correct based on your premises, but I would argue with both of your premises (#1 and #2)
Criticism of #1: Whether or not our wants are determined is actually part of what we're supposed to be proving, so we can't assume it.
Criticism of #2: Want is very poorly defined. According to you and Alex, want is whatever internally motivates you. This doesn't really reflect how the brain works, because the brain has multiple systems of motivation that behave in different ways as well as meta-processes that analyze or judge motivations. So "wanting" in this sense doesn't really refer to any biological or physical reality, it's just meant to describe the totality of what goes on in your head, which could be any number of processes free or determined, conscious or unconscious, etc. These processes do not have to be determined, unless you're assuming #1, but you can't assume number one because that's what you need to prove. That's why you're getting a circular dilemma when you try to examine free will while keeping your premises.
My argument is not circular:
1) (Premise) Desires (referring specifically to both short and long-term systems) and even thoughts can be determined in the sense that they are wholly "unfree, " or that all the influences upon them are completely beyond the reach of freedom. I don't assert that they are, and in fact there could easily also be randomness or freedom involved. But lets assume they are unfree for simplicity.
2) (Premise) Attention can operate either reflexively (outside our awareness and/or freedom) OR under free will. You can think of attention as a dual control system, like breathing. It can happen outside your awareness (and outside of your control), or it can be intentionally controlled. The deliberate movement of our attention not under our control; it *IS* our control. It is not our wants, it is operating on our wants. And it needs no cause beyond freedom
3) (Conclusion) The fact that we *can* exercise free will in our attentions means that, whether or not our behavior in a particular case was determined, it could have been partially free, so we always *could* have done something differently. Since that is Alex's definition of freedom (and I whole heartedly agree), we are free.
If you have difficulty with premise #2, it's because you're asking: "but what *determines* whether we intentionally shift our focus?" By using the word "determines," you are inserting your premise of determinism into my argument and creating an infinite regress / circular dilemma where there is none. You are basically asking: "But what determines free will?" It's a nonsense question. Things do not have to be determined in my argument. Because I don't assume determinism, I don't have to have a determinant for free will.
Perhaps underlying your assumption (your premise #1, everything must be determined), your full argument is more like: a) everything physical is be determined b) we are physical beings, therefore c) everything we do must be determined. Again, you can assume that for your argument, but I don't have to. Particularly with number #1, I don't have to assume that the physical universe is deterministic.
For example, does a rock fall when you drop it because the universe is determined or simply because it lacks the mechanisms of movement (the physical capability to do other wise, like wings) and awareness (the potential for freedom in choose what you focus on). Either could accurately describe why the rock always falls. So the universe could be determined or free.
Also helpful for my premise #2 is more of an Eastern / meditative view of the self. In the West, we strongly identify what we are with our thoughts and desires. But when you meditate, bringing awareness to your thoughts, you start to notice a few things. 1) Thoughts just pop up on their own, uncontrolled, and so what you think really isn't up to you 2) There is something observing those thoughts, so that "we" are more than the sum of our thoughts and desires 3) We can choose to focus on a thought or let it go. This is our freedom. You don't have to meditate to be free, but it is one of the purest experiences of freedom because we de-identify with our desires... but some amount of freedom could still be expressed while identifying with them.
I think you can actually combine "want to or have to" even further into just "want to"
Even if you have a gun to your head or you have a boss threatening to fire you, the pressure only works if you want to be alive or have whatever luxuries the job affords you more than you want to do whatever they're demanding.
Put someone suicidal or someone who has been on the fence about taking a vow of poverty into those situations and it's pretty obvious how those change the scales.
In effect "being forced to" is just adding one weight to one end of your scales deciding what to do, often an inordinately heavy one, but isn't necessarily a sole determinant.
This is fully correct, as far as I can tell
But In a physical matter, no.
@@actualwafflesenjoyer in judicial situations the distinction is never that clear-cut. E.g. self-defense and 'acting under duress' have to be proportionate in order to be legitimate. E.g. agreeing to kill a third party because someone threatens with releasing your naked baby pics hardly seems proportionate. It's up to a judge/jury to decide. But as long as questions of moral responsibility (which only exist on a societal-artificial level) are out of the way, both 'have to' and 'want to' seem to describe deliberate action under desires and constraints
I think "being forced to" would be more akin to someone physically forcing you, e.g. being pushed off a stage.
@@ashleystrout6651 I agree with Ashley, and I think the distinction is important for this reason. You did not "want to" be pushed off the stage (presumably), but you were. You did not "want to" shoot the man while you were sleeping, but someone moved your finger to the trigger of a gun they put in your hand.
It's simple really, i believe in free will because i don't have a choice.
That's a really good one! And speaks a lot of truth as well. To the best of my knowledge I could say that the belief in free will or not is predetermined. Gazzaniga I believe his name is backs this up, as well as other Neurosciency people.
Oxymoronic, though.
That's a contradiction, you are not freely believing in free will if you don't have a choice. But the thing is you do have a choice
@@benj766 Sure, you have a choice, but it's always determined in the past. A choice is never made of anything but thoughts you already had. Any thoughts you think that are brand new, any responses you can imagine, and all reactions to everything are always old once they happen like the choices they help to make. We live in time like the crest of a wave you cannot ever pin down even if you snap a picture of it because it required time to take making it a wave from the light traveling in the past to build up enough photons collapsing from the quantum light wavelength to capture in the camera. Your brainwaves must behave by quantum physics too.
@@benj766 Some will argue that stating that there is a point where it supposed to be is pointless.
This is one of, if not the most, influential videos I've ever seen
Sometimes there are a myriad of things I want equally and I then have to make a decision on what to do. I agree with a lot of what you are saying and I think we have less free will than how it seems and what many imagine. So, we both do and do not have free will. "The truth appeareth paradox." - Lao Tzu
Personally, I think we only have free will if we choose to.
I had to write an essay in high school about free will in the form of destiny. And my answer was basically "we can act like we have free will because we can't know the future so it doesn't matter."
Here's a brain twist. The decision after learning about free will not existing, and then deciding to make an expository video about it, is actually in itself an act of free will.
@@davidt8087 no because he wanted to. He doesn’t control his wants.
@@celtictarotreadings333you are your want so you always do what you want if we remove aĺl the wants are you still here?
It does tho, had you made the choices to set yourself up for success later. That’s free will
@@celtictarotreadings333 that’s free will lol. Because he wanted to, he could have chose not to even if wanting to
This reminds me of a weird thought that's popped into my head a couple times...
"It couldn't have turned out any differently, because if it could've it would've."
I'm no expert but I think it has nothing to do with free will but you're speaking of possibility of different outcomes (my expression, not a real term).
Let's take the ideas that pop up in your head be called made up ideas, as in comparison to reading that water is liquid and thinking of water as liquid (constructed, extracted by communication E.C., non-genuine) ideas.
I THINK we're speaking of EC ideas, the ones we, allegedly, consciously construct, not the made up ones, which I have no explanation for.
It really could’ve though. Due to the randomness of particles’ behavior, if the universe was rewinded to the beginning to play again, we’d get a vastly different result. Though there are likely some structures that are inevitable.
@@TheNightWatcher1385 I think, not authorized tho,
1- deep in the most minute scale, if there is a randomness in the process then the possibility of a different outcome than what we have now is definitely present. What I mean includes if particles popping behaviour in and out of nowhere is literally random, then that could very well indicate a random outcomes if the uni were to rewind again.
2- if the laws and contants (gravity, forces, electro, maybe even matter if there were other particles similar to electrons and protons) have behaved differently then we would have different outcomes.
Otherwise, I think, had the uni been rewinded and if the laws have been identical and the randomness is non-existent (which is something hard to prove by experimenting on every place, planet and black hole to test the validity of matter/space/fiber-stuff determinism and predicting every single instance with the properties of space, time and mass -excuse the metaphor- of the presence of matter there) until then, wait
I might sound religious there but objectively speaking, we couldn't yet prove the non-existence of consciousness, everything we know is based on the likely possibility of dependence on neural networks. Such inductive argument might not be true as, as far as I know, we know nothing about consciousness. All we know is brain activity.
I'm not saying there is a soul because consciouness is so mysterious that we can't explain yet. All I'm saying is we have no idea and we could base assumptions on this possibility.
I don't say I believe in free will certainly, what I'm saying is the arguments of free will non-existence are still not 100% conclusive.
I'm not sure if there is a part of us (allegedly that we are a distinct part of the world) that is not dependent entirely on the material interactions. I mean there is no reason for us to do good to each other and yet we do! We could be killing eachother over territories yet we feel the deep urge of loving each other.
I wanna hug every other person. I don't want to think of them as junk space-time-matter that magically surfs the space-time continuum. I wanna shake hands with aliens. I wanna see the last bit of conscious being enjoying his/her/whatever gender "they" call themselves to the last moment they live it. I wanna preach the morality of no-suffering to every conflicting conscious being. Because the other possibility of only material world (speaking of conscious beings, not dieties) is utterly terrifying. A sadistic authority could rise one day and have a grip over the whole humanity and in his thinking, there is no difference between life and death at all!
Reda Ali Personally, I believe the brain and the mind (consciousness) are related, but distinct things. I believe the brain is largely automated and runs our day to day lives on auto pilot, but the mind is the “quality control” of a decision, if that makes sense.
So the brain is like an automated assembly line. It does its thing when left to do so, but a line manager (the mind) can stop the process momentarily to check for quality and give their stamp of approval.
I think consciousness is present in the brain, but that it doesn’t rely on the brain to actually exist, I feel there’s more to it than that. To me, consciousness is more likely to be a quantum event and not necessarily a physical one (unless you consider quantum events to be physical phenomena).
We forget that our brain isn’t our entire nervous system. It runs around our whole body. It’s curious that sometimes when someone receives an organ donation, that recipient begins to show personality traits that were present in the donor, such as food preferences or general personality.
@@TheNightWatcher1385 you're right.
I share your opinion of modes of operation of 'mind' as auto-pilot and active decision making. I heard many arguments about controlling someone's arbitrary decision like moving a hand or pressing a button. While scientests have done some experiments of predicting when someone would do such arbitrary action, and also the presence of consciousness on actions, aka hypnosis, while still having the same brain activity, and the similar subconscious acts are very variant like preferring a food or flavor over the other. While genetics could, and very likely do, play a huge rule in dictating how sensitive I am towards anxiety and what category of games I enjoy, (which are once again subconscious; I don't choose to like a food. I have been pre-programmed to like this taste and would be, I expect, very difficult to change the physical part of me that changes my taste. I want to remind you of the 'subconscious' part of our actions that we are all aware of) that still doesn't explain how I find the urge (automatic response) of wanting to laugh when I hear a joke that I understand while still holding myself (2 wants. Which one do you prefer more?). Like I find the two wants, forces, speaking in Greek style, are present both at the same time, albeit that whichever weighed more to you, you would choose. And let me be clear about this: a conscious being could either have a reason to do so or not, and in either case it's a lost case due to 'you want to'.
The part where daily life free will means when you allegedly intentionally attempt to strike a pedestrian with your car instead of applying the brakes. Let's ignore the moral part while holding into the social aspect of it.
Assume you have 2 wants: to kill the pedestrian, and to steal him.
And you have 2 wants-not: social demeaning, and law prosecution. Assume also you have no moral restrictions as killing him is of no psychological downsides, only social ones.
Coincidentally, the wants on one side and the wants-not are on another; there could be option A with 2 wants and one want-not, option B with 3 wants ..., but atill the wants-not are inherently want by definition (want not to).
So, where my alleged free will comes into the picture is when I *evaluate* the options, in this case, only two options, run him over, or apply brakes. There could be a situation where I could talk with someone and have A) talk gently, B) use some offensive language, C) agitate a friend with a statement to catch their support into my argument, D) punch him in the face... So it's not like only black and white choice that I "could" choose. These options have the high likelihood of resulting the mentioned outcomes (2 wants for A and 2 wants-not for B). But remember that these outcomes are in many cases exclusive: you are unlikely to kill him, steal him while still escaping the police and social demeaning unless you're that Dostoevsky's novel character to get it all. So you are highly unlikely, let's assume the impossibility hence, of gathering different options' outcomes, aka options' outcomes' exclusivity.
The situation at hand is you could either choose A, B, C, ... or N. What do you do then? You simply *evaluate* the outcomes' (both benefits and downsides. And for simplicity let's assume the certainty of these outcomes benefits and downsides to eliminate the probablistic aspect of uncertainty). The question now becomes: do you value X and Y more than P and Q? These are your wants, true, but it comes down to what values weigh to you more than others. Money, knowledge, morality, social class, civil prosperity? I think here it could need some compromises regarding your wants against public good where we should draw the line between the want and freedom to take a decision. You could sacrifice you wants and leave them for something else, like future reward. Even though you don't want to leave this choice, you did have the capability to choose or not choose it (you could value the outcomes more than your wants and sacrifice your wants for unwanted outcomes). It could reach to a moral or public good standard where someone would only sacrifice their wants for others' benefits. The difference here is in the future case, the benefit would still reach you afterall; while in public good it would highly unlikely benefit you, at least in the short term, to leave your parking lot for someone else that needs to park closer. I'm not speaking about morality in specific, rather how we would sacrifice our benefits for others even when we know that the odds of benefitting are not on our favor. True, generally, we are acting for a better life of us all, stemming from a beneficiary prospective, but still based on basis of what you want more than the other. And if the better good requires sacrificing one for the whole then so be it. Evolutionarily or not, that gives my life its meaning. Is it free will? Yes because there are other wants. Unless someone considers any want to be decisive to one's decision then even choosing not to follow it stems from that. It's a lost cause anyway!
I can almost remember no argument regarding the 'conscious' (carefully using the non-scientific term of conscious as I 'm still not sure of my opinion) part but many arguments on the auto-pilot part. An aspect that is highly exploited by psychological biases and subsoncious manipulation in advertisements and giving people the imoression that "I feel I'm winning in the casino just because everything is suggesting that even tho I rationally know the odds are totally not in my favor and it's totally randomly-base rather than skill-based. Don't get me wrong, we don't need to embrace some facts as certainty of death or the possibility of my partner cheating on me but these tendancies should be given and informed to the agent rather than exploiting them against him/her.
Using the icecream scenario since that's what the video had -
What if one were to chose between two bowls of vanilla ice cream that had the exact same amount of icecream in it, in the exact same bowls, kept side by side.
Would that constitute free will since there isnt a 'want' of either one of it in particular?
But there is. For example, if you’re right-handed, that might make you more likely to grab the bowl on the right. This is an example of a puppet not seeing its strings and falsely concluding that the strings don’t exist.
Of course we have free will. We’ve no choice on the matter
No freewill. You don't choose your wants. It's that simple.
Alan Lloyd I was quoting hitchens. Don’t think he believed in it, but he did make a very apt way of debunking it.
I see what you unwilligly did there
William Esping: Absolutely William; we have no choice in possessing free will as a created member of the human race; the choice that we have is whether and when we will use it or not. God bless you.
Mario DiBlasio 🤣
*I had no choice but to like this video :)*
same
That's a very good point, despite the joke, because you didn't yourself decide what you like. Your genes and experiences did. You only decided to express that feeling of liking. And why am I writing this? The point is that we are incredibly advanced "machines", and whatever we think we decide is always within the framework of our genetic programming. Thus, free will only exists within certain limits. Another argument against free will is that people understanding the consequences make stupid or "wrong" choices that severely harm them. If they truly had complete free will, that wouldn't happen. One example is me writing this, despite being better off in health and freshness tomorrow if I were sleeping now.
Only stones and rocks and inanimate matter have no choice. You had the choice to not like this video but you have already been convinced that whatever Alex says is intelligent so let me like this video blindly without using your 10 brain cells to contemplate on what he says.
babbisp1 o h s h it
babbisp: Or, you chose to like it :) God bless you.
Love the content. I do think it would've been good for you to explain compatiblism after referencing matt bc that's what he's referring to here. He does understand libertarian free will. I'm sure you already know that, but wanted to put it out there. Thanks again for all your content.
You made a great video here explaining how people cannot control their 'wants'.
I wrote an essay on the Free Will v Determinism debate when I was an undergrad. I came to a conclusion which you may find interesting.
You see I wasn't happy for the religious lobby to go off and still claim just for themselves the slogan of "Freedom".
Leave aside that my experience of organised religion didn't give me the impression that religious people were keen on me being free, but freedom is such an attractive concept to 99% of people.
We all want to be free to walk down the street, free to choose the videos we watch etc.
The conclusion I came to was that the juxtaposition between freedom and determinism is completely false.
The answer to whether I have free will when I choose vanilla over chocolate is, yes. And the answer to whether my choice was determined is also, yes.
Like you may say, at the moment it seems I prefer or WANT vanilla over chocolate.
The point is that the 'determinant' factors are within me. They are part of what makes me at the current moment.
You could say that I determined my choice of vanilla.
To express this in the general case, the causal links in any chain of events that result in someone taking an action are/are within/are part of that person.
So to suggest that the scientifically identifiable causes for someone's choices means those people lack free will is completely wrong.
As you say, we really experience feelings of freedom when we are not constrained by external factors.
There is simply no greater freedom available ... least of all from religious 'authorities' who try to dictate on our thoughts and actions.
Keep up the great work 👍💪
This reminds me of Eastern religious philosophy, specifically the concept of being enslaved by one's desires(wants) and the idea that true freedom comes from not having desires(wants). The Mahabharata depicts many ascetics living lifestyles free from desire. The desire to not desire is a desire itself. It is extremely difficult to achieve a desireless state of existence.
It's not difficult to achieve a desire-less state , it's called death.
@@dionysusnow based
@@dionysusnow This is likely why religions like Jainism have elaborate death rituals connected directly to shedding yourself of your connections to the material (and social) world.
Doesn't that simply mean that those ascetics are simply ruled by their desire to not want desires? Or maybe that's the ultimate state, where they've eliminated so much of their worldly desire, that the only desire left is to maintain the desire to not want any other desires.
Also Schopenhauer talks about this.
I was talking to my friends about we not having free will, i was immediatly in the 'evil person' category haha.
He was thinking freely to say what he said I just disprove and freewill still stands no way out of it
It’s not evil to be easily confused
Your friends do not believe their god is omnipotent.
Looks like inherent optimism bias and terror management theory always helps regardless of ideologies such as antinatalism based on consent.
Free will is in the realm of quantum mechanics so the Cosmic Skeptic is wrong. Since if you had no free will and were just an observer in your head and had no control of the rest of your brain, your brain is then like a computer doing things. And it is like you are just watching a movie play out. Your brain apparently gives you notification on how to feel, like when you want something. So why is this computer asking about free will ? It has no consciousness so would not ask this question. Therefore there must be free will and you and your brain are connected and you are conscious. A mechanical computer would not ask questions about free will and consciousness. So since we are really very complicated mechanical computers and we are asking about free will and consciousness, must mean these things are real. Somehow in quantum physics this happens. There are fields, electron, proton, light, everything has a field , even human beings.
Hey Alex, I know I'm five years late to this conversation, but in the off chance that you see this... I have a (not strong) counterargument and would love your input. I am a very indecisive person. Sometimes, I have to choose between two things that I want equally, but I still reach a decision. Sometimes, I choose to think about it before reaching a decision. Other times, I try and decide randomly, or I spin a wheel/flip a coin. Does choosing between two or more equal desires constitute potential support of free will, from your perspective? Thanks, and loved the video!
I'm not Alex, but I don't think choosing between equal desires supports free will. If you flip a coin to pick between to equal wants, what's really happening is just your want to not have to choose is stronger thean your want for either individual choice. Example: I want ice cream and I don't care which flavor it is, so I flip a coin. My want for any ambiguous flavor of ice cream (or my want to not have to choose for myself, since I'm indecisive) is stronger than both my want for chocolate ice cream and my want for vanilla ice cream.
You may not be aware of why you picked one over the other, but if you had perfect knowledge, you would. Perfect knowledge meaning, _all_ the inputs from the environment, and _all_ the ways in which your brain will process that to produce an output. We are highly complex biofeedback machines, freewill choices help us navigate the world, even if they are an illusion.
I just got to "Because you're forced To." I hope you understand that being forced to is the exact same thing as wanting to. You want the pain to end, you want to keep living, you want to do it for a reason. While it may be forced, the fact is, you still want to do it. The alternative may be torture or death, but you want to do it.
i agree. it's like multiple choice. you might not like any of the choices but what you choose is what you wanted out of those choices.
I always thought of free will as the ability to interrupt myself from impulsive action
Because you wanted to interrupt impulsive actions. And there are reasons why you wanted to. Character traits I guess.
I thank my attention deficit disorder for helping me to enunciate my lack of free will when I threw that rock hitting my bullying physical education teacher square between the eyes for teasing me about not being eligible to try out to be a baseball pitcher on that fateful day of 1990.
The principal didn't buy it, but I remembered ever after the truth that I have no free will, nor do any other of my fellow humans.
More precisely, free will is about the ability to interrupt from COMPULSIVE action. if you are aware, you can do it, free will goes together with awareness.
That definition of free will is literally the reason for living, even if its not truly free.
After this video “want” doesn’t sound like a word anymore
sans I have the same issue with the verbs „believe“ and „hope“. Completely unnecessary in my world.🤗
Wϖt
jamais vu
Haha
My confusion is with Faith
Thank you for bringing this so clearly
People don't choose their wants ,but do choose to act on them.
Not really, you have to want to act on them and that isn’t up to you
As Alex said, if you look hard enough, there is always a hidden "want" behind it. You have to "want" to not act on another "want" to not act on it, ergo you're still doing what you want, one "want" is just greater than another.
Example: If I want to kill somebody, and choose not too, there is another reason for that: maybe it's because I don't want to go to prison, or because I don't want to live with the guilt of it, or because I'm aware the feelings that make me want to kill that person are temporary and don't want to act rashly based on temporary emotions, etc. In this scenario, there is always some greater want that makes you choose not to.
@@evadecaptcha, Yes, but that's because Alex is defining "want" to be deterministic and the only possible cause of a decision, which is not how those who believe in free will define or use the term (which he claimed he would do at the beginning).
For example, you might read that "will power" is a limited resource to override our "wants" or cravings. In this sense, "want" is just one factor in our decisions. Alternatively, we can define "want" itself as having a free will component.
In either case, Alex is excluding free will by definition, not by empirical evidence or any actual logical contradiction.
A better approach is to consider the ubiquitous moral that you are only responsible for what you could have chosen to do differently. A bullet is not morally culpable because it is purely deterministic and could not have chosen differently. Instead, we trace culpability through deterministic mechanisms to the human who could have chosen differently. If humans were deterministic and could not choose differently, then why stop tracing culpability at humans?
In other words, free will is the foundation of all law and ethics -- their premise is that people actually can choose to follow a rule.
Did you watch the whole thing? It seems like you're still confused. At this point if you don't think that free will doesn't exist, it's because you WANT to believe it does.
@@justinflor6997well, free will is a useful moral construct regardless of whether it exists or not, which is why people believe in it. The idea that "you could have acted differently" is the foundation for moral responsibility in law and ethics which instruct how we should act.
In fact, it is not possible to prove free will or determinism without accounting for all inputs, so Alex is just speciously assuming his conclusion that there is no free will component when he asserts that any decision can be framed as either a deterministic want or force.
Alex's and Stephen's challenges to free-will's moral framework also make no meaningful difference. It's the typical sophistry of philosophers.
I think the best statement would be " we Dont control what we want, "
Sam's Studio But there are ways to control what we want(think we want).
@@optionsstrategies7511 yes... Think we want? When we think we want something we actually want that thing..but.we cant control what we want...we cant control our choice of want.
Sam's Studio Certainly there are things in your life that you have wanted and no longer want. Or there are things you thought you wanted, but then decided you did not want. What is the force controlling this desire and these changes?
@@optionsstrategies7511 my thinking,my circumstances, my upbringing,and my genetics.
Sam's Studio So all of these factors are out of your control, but they control what you want?
So 'Free Will' should really be termed 'Linear Choice', then?
Not necessarily since as he mentioned it is indeed possible for you to make different choices, but ultimately what lead to those choices isn't really in your control
So what would be a more appropriate term then?
@@brandonbaza1639 Maybe "influenced (by known and unknown factors) choice"
Veggies for Thought not really choice either. More like “Influenced Doing/Happening”
I agree that humans have labeled what IS happening with an insufficient term.
“Your honor, I had no control over my wants. Can’t you see I don’t have free will? Since I didn’t have control over my wants, let me out of prison for this thing I did. Or at least, have some sympathy. Here, watch this Alex O’Connor video. It will explain everything.” Oh brother, the intellectual jumping jacks atheists have to do to lack discipline and accountability is innumerable.
The justice system does operate on the assumption that we have free will but there are some exceptions. For example, diminished responsibility. Diminished responsibility is a legal concept that acknowledges that certain individuals may have reduced mental capacity or impaired decision-making abilities at the time they committed a crime. It is often invoked in cases where mental illness, developmental disorders, or other psychological conditions affect an individual's ability to understand the nature and consequences of their actions or to control their behavior. Mitigating factors such as environmental or genetic influences are also taken into account which can lead to reduced sentences or alternative forms or punishment.
The fact that one can superimpose a scenario of infinite regress upon any action proves only that language is characterized by this infinitely recursive quality. It doesn't necessarily follow that language itself is a perfect mirror of the structure of reality from which we can deduce ultimate truth.
The Buddhist teaching of "two truths" is probably a more practical approach to this question. There's the "truth" of our everyday experience, and "ultimate truth" which transcends human senses and reason. This accommodates both the admission of ignorance AND the acknowledgement of the choices before us on THIS plane of existence as free choices that result in either suffering or wellbeing for ourselves and the world around us. The appearance of free choices freely made accords with our deepest intuitions, and allows us to experience accountability, learning, personal transformation and social progress.
When I hear you say something along the lines of "you are completely controlled by your wants", it doesn't make sense to me. It seems to imply that "I" am somehow a separate entity from my desires, when in fact my desires are actually a large part of what I would define as "myself". What is a person if not a set of changing desires motivated by memories? I don't feel like a slave to my desires because I literally am my desires.
Yes, agreed, scrolled down to say this. If we confine the definition of self and the definition of free will to just the conscious component, as was discussed in the video, then the video is logically correct. However, that definition is a bit narrow. It may make more sense to redefine the argument presented above as "you don't have fully conscious free will." Part of us - our desires - are subconscious and driven by various environmental, historical, and genetic factors. That does not mean that those factors exclusively define what we are - and vice-versa, we cannot separate our conscious decisions from those factors. We are the sum of our consciousness and the above-mentioned factors.
To put it another way, CS could have two competing desires - the desire for chocolate or vanilla. Which one he selects is up to his conscious mind, based on various factors, including other desires, memory, knowledge, etc. If he went back in time and told himself that chocolate ice cream is bad, he could and likely would select vanilla, based on the updated knowledge.
@@elimgarak1617 I do stuff all of the time without even thinking about it at a conscious level. I'm pretty sure everyone does.
Exactly
Without desires we will be same as a dead thing than alive
We will be fucking stones without it
Oh my God, I've been thinking about this for almost my entire life and he summed up how I feel in a video!
THIS IS THE END TIMES🔥🔥🔥.ENOUGH WITH ATHEISM FOOLISHNESS. YOU ARE ALL STUCK IN PLATO'S CAVE AND SATAN 'S MATRIX OF LIES. THE SPIRITUAL REALM IS REAL. REPENT OF YOUR SINS AND TRUST THE GOSPEL OF JESUS CHRIST. YOU WILL BE SAVED FROM HELL 🔥
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Your soul is on the line. Jesus is coming soooon. Jesus loves you❤
Your free will and god's free will are awaiting clarification.
@@loocypher150 ooh! Burnnn. 🤣🤣🤣.
@@loocypher150🤣😅.But it's not certain yet. Heaven and Hell is like a quantum phenomenon in which 0 and 1 can coexist at the same time but your consciousness gets to decide/observe. We live in a quantum reality. Example the double slit experiment. The electrons are estimated to be moving in on the two paths simultaneously until the final observation is made. That's what heaven and Hell is like. If you are saved by Jesus, heaven is a certainty. But if you are not yet saved it's not yet certain where you are going. Until you finally take that jump. And since you are not allowed to see the end Until you reach the end. God sees your end. But it's you who is accountably walking towards that end.
Have you watched TeNeT? "What has happened happened" but until you see the end you will never know. But For us who are saved we certainly know.
The offer of forgiveness from God is offered to you NOW.
2 Corinthians 6:2
..Today is the day of salvation
Albert Einstein proved that time is a relative illusion in his theory of general relativity. The only time that truly exists is the NOW.
You can use it with your God given free will to reject or accept God's forgiveness. To reject or accept God's love. Heaven or Hell. The choice is ultimately your's..
@@keyboardevangelist8956 you can’t just put quantum in front of a word to sound smart when it doesn’t make any sense
I wanted to know what you had to say about free will, so I exercised my free will to continue to watch your video.
Clean the bathroom or the kitchen - I don't want to do either.
Choose a head or a tail for no reason - I don't want either.
Dear Alex, Free will is an overcomplicated concept because of all the religious and societal baggage that word got saddled with. The problem at its core is the ability to decide between, say, two choices A or B, and whether the choice made is predictable or not.
Let’s look at all constituents of that situation.
1. Input data.
2. A brain, that makes the decision.
3. Output choice: A or B.
Let’s start with the brain first. Our brains are probability calculating engines. The Brain is programmed from the very beginning of the formation of the first neural cell, until the brain’s death. The brain also comes with preprogrammed models to drive various functions and emotions, obtained through evolution and environment.
The brain contains a model of the world that is influenced by every input it receives through its various sensors. This model is shaped and reshaped throughout its life as the input data is received by the brain. Input data could take many forms
- From touch, vision, sound, taste, smell, etc.
- To chemicals such as hormones, whether from your own body, or your mother’s body during pregnancy, or environment, etc.
- There are also meta Input Data that could influence the model such as language, emotions, the experience of others, past experience, observations, learning, etc.
- Input Also could take the form of societal norms, rules and/or regulations, shame, love, hate, etc.
Let us assume that we have a system of Input data and a brain model such as:
- We can provide a very precise and perfectly known input data set.
- Also, we can provide a very precise and perfectly known brain and brain model starting point.
- Let’s also assume that system, if provided a choice between A or B, that A would have a higher probability to be selected by that system, hence that system will choose A.
Now, the people who would say that we have free will, argue that even though the system is predisposed to choosing A, that system could choose B instead.
People who would say that we don’t have free will, argue that the system will choose A no matter what. And we don’t have a choice.
For that system to choose B instead of A, would mean that there is an input data condition that we did not account for, hence the input data set is not perfect or complete, which violate the assumption. Hence, we don’t have free will.
In my opinion, the reason people get confused about this illusion of free will is that the probability calculating engine (our brains) is constantly and recursively being updated by the experiences we have on a second by second basis. Also, the set of input data into the brain is large and complex, not to mention the combinatorial factor of how all that data is processed in our brains. This is, as referred to it by Data Science as an AI-complete problem.
The decision tree is vast, but not infinite. If we have a big enough computer (let’s go crazy, the size of the sun) with “perfect” input data set and “perfect” model of that brain at that point, we can predict the outcome and choice.
So, if that is the case, then anyone who will commit a crime, could claim that she has no choice and it was predestined, yes?
No! one of the inputs in the input data set is societal norms, rules, regulation, etc. this is another variable that could shape our world model in the brain. So, if this probability calculating engine decided on B instead of A (where B happened to be illegal) they will suffer the consequences.
But more importantly for this discussion, there is an input condition in this brain’s life that made it set low priority or low weight to the legal and societal rules, and for that, it needs to be corrected. Having rule enforcement in our society ought to help shape the model for these probability calculating engines, toward the betterment of society.
The other aspect of this, is if the brain itself was deficient or broken in some way to allow it to choose B instead of A, No matter what the input data set is (training, or rules, regulation, or experience) then you can say this person is not responsible for their crime (choosing B) and should be treated differently (send to a mental institute, instead of jail).
I wish the atheist community stop using the “free will” terminology because it is awash with imprecision and theological baggage that misses representing reality. Whenever we try to explain it, we always get wrapped around the axel. The model above is derived directly from Neural Science and AI research.
Thank you for all your great work.
dude this comment was epic
......amazing
Solid mate but dont ever get it confused no matter what you are never truly responsible for your action, only held accountable.
I don't disagree with your comment, but you are ironically part of the problem why concept of free will (its nonexistence) is harder to grasp than it needs to be. You make it way too complicated. The fundamental mistake I think is to argue (firstly) from the point of brain science to debunk free will, when we have the logical killshot under our noses.
Choice is either:
1. predetermined
2. random
You could even have full reign over the universe and laws that govern it, but you wouldn't be able to make it as such, where you would escape choice being random or predetermined.
@@25hvghfgetr6 which is exactly why we are also in a simulation, acting out our roles. No universe can escape predictability, so reality means absolutely nothing anywhere.
This video made “want” stop sounding like a word.
Then you should try saying ''ought'' after watching his video on objective morality. ;-p
He is wrong , I have written the explanations elsewhere in the comments. If you analyze any word to death , it loses meaning and we live in a quantum world. He is stuck in the classical world. Quantum physics has observers and measurement and quantum states that are completely unknowable and uncontrollable.
@@jeffbguarino expand please
for some reason, when i was just a kid, i realised i didn't believe in free will, and it's never brought me unease. it's always brought relief and ease. freedom from regret largely, i suppose. i guess my experience has been one of wanting less responsibility rather than more control. i still take responsibility for my choices, though, and try to improve when i make mistakes. i guess because i still want to have positive impacts with my actions, and i can't control that want. i just have the freedom from a lot of the guilt and regret and rumination that I'm prone to when making mistakes.
Feels like a lot of overthinking. Unless some other mind posesses your mind and forces an action you have freedom of consideration and action for whatever. I don't think after that there is anything to consider.
@CraigScottFrost then yhered be no point to life but to dance for a sick fuck. For me, I am no typical theist but I will say all that truly matters is we improve ourselves from whatever broke us and we approach life with Paul's list of fruits of the spirit. No matter your faith or position. If we all do that and God hates it then he's no God of love and unworthy of us.
The Bible is just as ugly as it is beautiful bc it is a mirror of us. Because we wrote it.
A higher power acting as a puppet master is not necessary for determinism. Ever since the big bang, particles that make up the universe have been reacting to the past actions of other particles. Our bodies and brains are still just a collection of particles reacting to the past actions of other particles. No action can be separated from an outside influence, therefore no free will cannot exist.
Drinking game: Take a shot every time he says 'want'.
Ded
I don't want to.
Whatdoyoo meaaan i turned out fiine! Nahtdruunk
Sounds more like a pass out party. 😏
You copy pasted a popular comment
Good luck on your exams! Amazing video like always!
11:51 -- "Yes, you can do whatever you want. You just can't choose what it is THAT you want. And where's the freedom in that?" Alex O'connor
Too True!!!!
I thought about exercising my free will by subscribing but then I remembered I don’t want to and so I didn’t.
Perhaps you’re right.
"You can't control the strengths or objects of your desire"
Buddhists: ARE YOU SURE ABOUT THAT?!
@Everstruggling If we give buddhists the merit of the doubt, they claim to be able to completely eradicate any form of desiring from the mind.
@@wezzuh2482 Why would they do that? Because they want to.
Everstruggling You are right that Buddhists don’t believe a human can fully rid themselves of any desire. They do however believe you can curb and temper those desires (The Middle Way). Therefore, a Buddhist would agree that our desires/wants have strong influence over our minds and our decisions and that there is no way to totally eradicate them. However, they would disagree (with the guy in this video) that it is impossible to want something and then decide not to want it. The more you practice not wanting something the more you don’t want it, and therefore, you choose what you want. It’s a long process that takes a crazy amount of willpower and focus, but it can be done. Once you curb one desire, another may pop up as you go through life and circumstances change, and you’ll have to start the process all over again. There’s really no difference from this belief and behavioral psychology. If you believe you can retrain your brain and change habits, then you should believe that we have control over our wants. They go hand in hand. But I can understand peoples’ confusion because westernized culture teaches us to do the opposite and blindly satisfy our desires from the time we’re born.
One could argue, following this video's logic, that the desire to curb your desire is in itself a want, and therefore, that desire must have been stronger (due to pre-determined circumstances) than the desire not to change one's behavior. But anyone that has suffered from any kind of addiction can tell you that they can be so chemically dependent on their object of desire that they seem to crave it with every fiber of their being. And yet, one will at some point face that inevitable and pivotal choice: whether to give in to their desire for temporary pleasure or fight back against it in order to reclaim their freedom. To me, this is evidence of another aspect of our brain that moves past our simple wants/desires. It's some kind of willpower/force science and classic logic fails to explain. Some may call this one's spirit or soul. And this goes back to the age old debate over whether man's mind is distinct from one's soul and vice versa. So, I guess you could say this video is only true if you don't believe in the existence of the soul. And neuroscience just hasn't gone far enough yet to be able to rule it out. And therefore, how can we say every choice is a product of our desire if we are yet to fully understand where that desire stems from?
As of yet, I'm not convinced one way or another that free will exists or doesn't exist. But if it doesn't exist, I don't think it's because of the reasons in this video. If anything, I find it more likely that our lives are already laid out before us due to forces beyond our comprehension. Whether that means we're just pawns in a simulation and our choices are a complete illusion; or our understanding of time is skewed and everything that will happen has already happened and will always be; or both; or something else entirely. Either way, humans always gravitate toward black and white answers. But the truth is rarely simple. My personal belief is that it's a little of both (a combination of fate/free will): that we are destined for some experiences and have choices over others. And this goes back to the Buddhist idea of the soul and reincarnation and the choice to either take the opportunity to temper our desires and free our spirit or let it pass us by and be born again...
@@greasergirl6987 People will gravitate towards black & white because it's comforting to feel they've resolved one of life's many questions.
Everstruggling You don’t need to want to become a monk to want to be a better person. I’m sorry if that is a difficult concept for you to grasp. And i find it funny you think I helped prove your point, because I feel like you helped prove mine with your question. I’ve never met one person that doesn’t want to be successful or grow as a person in some way, unless they have some kind of psychosis. The main thing that differentiates people who want to get better with those who choose complacency, is that the former takes responsibility for their actions. Really think about why the idea of there being no free will comforts you so much. It’s appealing for a reason. Also, people these days are always angry if you use “too many words.” God forbid they put effort and brainpower into understanding anything more complex than what can be depicted in a meme. And psychology is a lot more complicated than a simple saying. I’ve read countless books and taken courses and gone to psychologists myself, so I know plenty. Anyway, knowledge and what’s written in the textbooks isn’t everything. People can memorize every fact in the world and still know nothing. Just like everything else, the field of psychology relies a lot on one’s intuition since there is actually very little proven about the human brain. Until we understand more, I don’t see it as appropriate for some TH-camr (credentials unknown) to make blanket claims - in the name of “philosophizing” about free will and our desires - with no real evidence to support it. We don’t yet understand where our wants stem from, and therefore, I don’t see how anyone could make a statement like that with absolute certainty.
I sat there staring at the bonfire trying to imagine how differently it would've behaved if I had lit it from the opposite side.
@Gods Servant That means nothing. The initial choice was not dependent on the outcome. Temporally, it couldn't be.
Is this a line of your own creation? I find it profoundly beautiful
Love this. Not only am I the only person I've ever known that doesn't believe free will exists, I did not expect this to come up on your channel after really enjoying your other videos on a different subject after recently finding your channel. Hardly anyone wants to acknowledge this as even a possibility. Thank you for sharing. I just want to add that from what I know, Einstein himself did not believe in free will, and that scientific studies have shown that the brain makes decisions before we've even had the chance to consciously process them.
He says free will doesn't exist because the desire part "controls you." But the fact that I still have two or more options to choose from means I have the free will to choose any of the ladder. Whether I want to work out or take a rest that day, the both options are still there. You could argue because I'm sore, my own body is the controlling mechanism but I still have the option to do either whether I'm sore or not. Sometimes working out sore has net positive outcomes when it comes to learning.
@@SuspiciousFrog69thats some false logic id say. The fact that there are options does in no way mean that you are free to chose any of them. It is the choice itself that you cant control, since you dont control what you want.
@@kloklowewe4874 you do control what you want. You are choosing wether to continue this conversation or not, are you not?
@@SuspiciousFrog69 I am choosing wether to continue the conversation, that is correct, but that doesn't necessarily mean that I can control what I choose.
@@kloklowewe4874 so not having control of oneself is the mechanism that disproves free will?
Control- the power to influence or direct people's behavior or the course of events.
By that, the attempt to influence your stance of the existence of free will proves free will, no?
Alex's circular reasoning here is off the charts. 'You only do things because you want to or are forced to' is entire circular reasoning. No matter what you say back he can claim it falls into one of those two camps. But you equally say you only do things because it helps your survival or the species survival' and again everything could be bunged into those two camps. The 'want to or are forced to' is entire circular reasoning. As is the survival of the fittest. That has to be the most circular reasoning argument ever.
how is it circular? I dont think you understand what circular reasoning is.
@@zak2659 It is you who doesn't understand what circular reasoning is.
mhhhhm... icecream
You want that ice cream hah? But does that ice cream want you too?
nobody wants me ;__;
Want doesn't even sound like a word anymore
Very interesting take! If you still hold this position, Alex, I'd be happy if you consider the following point.
You argue, that you can't choose to prefer vanilla over chocolate, so it's not a free act, but a result of desire. And even if you choose vanilla anyway, it's because your want to go against your preference is stronger than this preference itself, it just is. So every change in action depends on a new want which replaces all others but is not chosen itself.
However, I think this argument makes an implicit assumption on the relationship of acts and wants. The assumption is, that every act/choice absolutely and unilaterally depends on a reason/want and is nothing more than the realisation of its cause (reason/want). In fact, in this perspective the concepts of act and want collapse into the want: the act is nothing more than the result of the (unfree) want. This framing isn't necessary however if you consider a relationship of interdependence between them and not of causality, which is possible if you analyse them logically/conceptually and not in the way of a physical cause-effect-relationship. For example: not only does the act depend on the want, the want also depends on the act; only the act causes the want to be true. The freedom of the act confirms a specific chosen want. The dependence of the act on the want is only possibly because the act is free, not in opposition to its freedom ("freedom is the recognition of necessity", to put it out of context). So you have to replace the dualistic attribution of want to necessity and act to freedom by a dialectical union.
Another argument in this line: The want is not before or hidden behind the act but at the same time or after it, it is retroactively determined by meaning making. This makes sense if you consider that the cause of the act does not necessarily lie only in the want but in the social, ie in the giving and taking of reasons for actions/choices. The reasons however are overdetermined, open to interpretation and can change retroactively. Of course, a formal want, a placeholder so to speak, always has to be assumed in discourse for an action. But in this perspetive, considering act and want as logically interdependent and not unilaterally determined, we can imagine acts as freely posited, open to be reasoned for.
I'd be curious for your thoughts on that!
The way I’ve thought about it is how the universe seems to be wholly mathematical. Our brains are calculators with bodies to execute commands. We intake inputs and output responses based solely on those inputs. So if you made a choice, and were sent back in time to where you were, with no changes and no awareness of the future in which you made the choice to come back, you would again make that choice everytime without fail. This applies to everyone and everything, everywhere. Because this applies to everything always, every decision that has ever or will ever be made is already decided based on the formula. Of course there’s no way to see this, and it’s purely philosophical and unprovable, yet to me completely understandable.
you are assuming that our universe is deterministic, which it isnt
@@hypnogri5457, it is
Actually when your “forced to do something” you aren’t. Even if severe punishment will follow not doing something you still “want” to not deal with punishment rather than doing the task. Only exception being prison where no matter what u will be physically forced in there
Agree. Other exceptions: blinking, breathing, and anything that you do automatically and unconsciously. You are "forced" to do this by your brain, then...
Was about to comment this. Very true. Now there truly is only 1 reason you ever do anything.
@@soybean3423 I would contest those. You blink because your eyes get dry, and you implicitly "want" to make it stop. It may be automatic, but there is still a choice to continue.
I was looking for an example of being forced to do something. It seems to me that all of those would still come down to a want. I'm not sure that even your example of being forced in prison works. You could fight the correctional officers & they might have to kill you. If they succeeded in transporting you to prison without killing you, I'm still not sure that it works. Once in prison, you could refuse to do whatever they told you, no matter what the consequences were. You still wouldn't be forced to do anything, at least not that I can think of. Being forced into a location seems different than doing something.
@@SpikeShroom @soybean blinking, breathing, those are involuntary actions. If you want to argue that you could not blink until you go blind, or hold your breath til death, consider your heartbeat, you cant choose for it to stop right now. These are involuntary processes. Alex carefully chose his free will definition because we do have voluntary choices, it's just that once they're made, they never would have been different.
Free will and gods punishment was something I always struggled to believe too. What convinced me was imagining that I was a scientist who had the ability to create life and who could also see into the future. I can create a being and hardwire every single desire and thought process of this being. Not only that, but based on precisely where I raised this being and the exact people this being grew up around, I would know exactly their desires, beliefs, and life path. Now, this is even less than what god can do. My thought was, how can a god, who made me with the specific desires and thought processes that I have, and put me specifically in a home and surrounded by people where he knew exactly how they would affect me (i.e. god is in control of both nature and nurture), how could a god like this fault me for any of the decisions I 'choose' to make?
My thought is this:
if god is all knowing, he knows what i'm going to do before i do it
Well Christians will say God only created the first two humans. Other humans came through reproduction. Still God should not held us responsible. He knew it will happen and should have stop it. Then again if someone thought a wrong thought, that doesn’t excuse them to commit it.
@@polandball999
Right. That doesn’t mean he cause it, but allowing it is just as bad. Before you say God created us. He didn’t. Only the first two people who were said to be prefect until they are the fruit. Besides having a bad thought doesn’t mean you should act on it. Unless you was raise wrongly, you could have rebuke those thoughts.
@@Bunni504 but god made me uncapable of not getting the proof, he changes environmental facts, and hardwire my thought process, he knew i would do that, i can choose to not do it, but that is just an illusion since god created me knowing i wouldnt get the apple
this reminds me of what I used to think in the childhood. when ever an ant was passing, I'd think that if I kill the ant right now, that's the death the god has decided for the ant and if I don't do that but kill it after five minutes then that's also decided and if I don't do anything of them and just let it go then that is also decided by the god. I used to be very confused because of that.
I don't want to pause the video... so I won't.
Splendid presentation: if I am forced to do something, it does not affect my desires. We would like to feel that our feelings are free, because we would like to be autonomous beings.
But it is impossible to feel something, which we do not feel.
Hi Alex! Glad to have you back! Always lovely to explore topics with you and related videos. Good luck with school!
I'm gonna have lots of sleepless nights now thinking about this. Thanks bro
Don't worry, a completely different person will wake up tomorrow with your memories.
It seems to me that I want many things, material and immaterial. My freedom of choice comes into play when I am deciding what to pursue in regard to all the wants in my life, as well as how to pursue those wants. All of those choices are filtered through at least three categories like personality, my environment, and my genetics. The fact that I have limited choices, as in I can only want what I want doesn't take away the option I have to pursue them. If one want has a stronger appeal to me for whatever reason, I still must make a series of decisions to make those wants materialize and forgo other wants in the process. My free will is my ability to exercise my options in a way that suits my values that have been developed over time. I think differently now than I did when I was 18 and I make certain choices now, I hope, to get me closer to my goals. Your definition could be adjusted to the idea that a person has agency in the world, and the exercising of that agency is free will. At least that is closer to how I see it.
I'm not necessarily convinced. Though this concept seems universally applicable, I believe we, as concious humans can change our wants - not just for the sake of "wanting" to prove we can, but rather genuinely be convince to go with the opposition. That's what a self induced motivational mindset does. I think of the mundane example between chocolate icecream and vanilla icecream, something that I have a general preference for, but yet still something I could convince my self to truly want the alternative. Maybe our extreme wants condemned us to a lack of free will (eg. I "want" to breathe or eat more than I want to die), and that I suppose would be considered as us being influenced by our biology. However, in cases where we can fundamentally change our wants simply by convincing ourself proves free will (Eg. For decisions where both preferences are so unvaluable that choice is derived by mindset).
What is your motivation for convincing yourself? It's because you value the idea of having free will more than getting your favourite ice cream. It doesn't mean you actually prefer that ice cream now (assuming you had a real preference in the first place)
When I was a little kid, I didn't have the illusion of free will. It seemed kind of unfair that my parents would punish me for something, when I didn't feel I had any control over whether I did it or not. It was when I was about 6 or 7 that I started to think I had control over my choices.
Well after all there's a distinction between 'free will' and 'free action'
Free will isn’t an illusion lol. You always have a choice to do things you don’t want to do
@@kennypowers1945 that's free action, not free will
It would seem that punishments/consequences for your childhood actions were designed to create a want strong enough to act against your current wants. Building up your Id, ego and superego in the design of your parents.
Why would you know it’s unfair if you don’t have free will😂
Brilliant video. Got me scared as shit when you said "You can do what you want, but not control what you want" bec that rings true (we do say "ugly truth" or "sad but true"). I always tell people "Our preferences will be as they are, they don't have make sense to other people just make sense to us. But even if they don't make sense to us they will still be our choice, our bias, our inexplicable preference." Thanks for the video.
Not only can I stop wanting something (by always pushing away the thoughts about it and by thinking of something better instead), I can also choose to not act upon my wants. Both are acts of free will.
@Rexlion You not acting on your wants is a thing you are doing not out of your own free will. You are only not doing what you want, because you want to
dude saying there is no free will then he DECIDE to make a whole video about the non existence of free will
Hi Alex, a piece of advice, do not add any undecided statement ( such as « rewind the clock) in your case, because it is a flaw in the method. I suggest you to use the contrapositive reasoning for hypothetical proposition , if you want to reach a serious audience. Knowledgeable people won’t listen your case till the end when there is a flaw in the reasoning method.
I think there may be a fine distinction between 'free will' as in: the ability to choose, and autonomy as in: the ability to choose free of influence.
BTW I love your videos, your ability to think critically and logically is incredible and something I strive to achieve as well.
ALL actions are influenced by something though, so I can’t even grant your definition of autonomy as something that actually exists.
We are the sum of our senses, the society we live in, our culture, and the people around us. It is impossible to have free will (free of influence). Just take a look at how hormones control what we think and do.
Free will would require that decisions are made consciously. But decisions are made at a subconscious level, well before we are even aware of them.
Are you saying you are aware of, and exert conscious control of the cascade of electrical and chemical reactions that happen in your brain continuously?
Unique.
@@TesterAnimal1 I am not saying that, we are not in control of the chemical reactions in our brain. I'm basically saying that the chemicals and hormones in our brain control us.
There's a saying "If you believe there is free will, do what you want and go where you please" , If you don't believe you have free will "Do what you want and go where you please" In the end, it makes absolutely no difference.
Thank you for posting this. I've thought about this for as long as I can remember but since almost everyone in my life is religious or at least spiritual, the idea of not having free will is terrifying to them. I don't understand how to believe in free will. I see it this way, every choice or mistake you make is based on your past experiences and your environment (edit: and your innate instinct). You aren't able to think outside the box, well you can, but only to the extent of what you have subconsciously or consciously observed in your life. There is only one path in your life that you will take, not many different roads ahead of you. Because everything you will decide today has already been decided by what you have learnt. Woah this is heavy stuff to think about.
I would actually say that the reasons we do anything is actually singular - it is because we want to. Even if we are forced to do something at gunpoint, we still do it because we want something - that something is to survive and continue living.
I wouldn’t agree with that premise. Imagine you were very sick or broke your legs or had a mental illness and you were bound to your bed temporarily. You would want to get up and be productive more than you wanted to be in bed but you physically couldn’t get out of bed no matter how bad you wanted to because you are forced to be there.