Why You Don't Have Free Will: Your Breakfast Food, Biology, and Culture | Robert Sapolsky
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 30 ก.ค. 2017
- Why You Don't Have Free Will: Your Breakfast Food, Biology, and Culture
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'Societal conditioning' might sound like either a grim Orwellian brainwashing technique or a fancy new way to wash your hair, depending on how warped your sense of humor is. But your surroundings-from the breakfast cereal you eat to the very design of the streets you live on-might have much more influence on how you think than most have ever given it credit for. Robert Sapolsky posits that "I picked this shirt today because the culture I come from has these values and my visual color receptors told me that this shirt matches with this." It might be far fetched to some, but consider this: if the street you'd grown up on was wide (say, a Texas highway) and at age 30 you moved to a tiny cobblestone street, you'd feel cramped in. Apply this to everything around you and you'll get a sense of what Sapolsky is talking about.
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ROBERT M. SAPOLSKY:
Robert M. Sapolsky holds degrees from Harvard and Rockefeller Universities and is currently a Professor of Biology and Neurology at Stanford University and a Research Associate with the Institute of Primate Research, National Museums of Kenya. His most recent book is Behave: The Biology of Humans at Our Best and Worst.
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TRANSCRIPT:
Robert Sapolsky: So somewhere in all of this studying the biology behavior, somewhere in there when you’re realizing activity levels in this part of the brain one second before this act: what you had for breakfast all the way back to like what culture your ancestors evolved to-All of these are influencing your behavior. Most of these variables we’re not even aware of. They’re subliminal. We never would have expected it. Inevitably somewhere in there you’ve got to sit down and start having the Free Will Discussion. So is there any free will in there?
And the polite thing that I’ve sort of said for decades is that “Well, if there is free will, it’s in all the boring places, and those places are getting more and more cramped.” If you want to insist that today you decided to floss your teeth starting on your upper teeth rather than your lower teeth, rather than the other way around, that that is an act of free will-Whatever, I’ll grant that one to you. That’s where the free will is.
In reality I don’t think there’s any free will at all. If you look at the things that come into account as to whether or not someone is going to do the right thing in the next two seconds amid a temptation to do otherwise, the variables in there reflect everything from whether they’re having gas pains that day because of something unpleasant they ate that morning-That makes us more selfish, more impulsive, et cetera-to what epigenetic effects occurred to them when they were a first trimester fetus.
When you look at the number of things we recognize now that are biological-organic-where 500 years ago or five years ago we would have had a harsh moral judgment about it. Instead we now know oh, that’s a biological phenomenon.
When we look at that, either we can say the last 500 years of realizing all of this biology is going to stop right here and there’s never going to be a new piece of knowledge in that area-Yeah, there’s areas of behavior we still can’t explain biologically. But if all you can do is see the logical direction we’re going with that is what we’re going to get to the point is recognizing yeah, we’re biological organisms.
This notion of free will, for want of a less provocative word, is nothing but a myth. What’s going to be really challenging though is to figure out how you structure a society that actually runs humanely built around the notion that we are merely biological organisms. And that one I haven’t a clue. If someone tells me, you know, “Oh, nice shirt you’re wearing today,” and I say “Oh gee, thanks!” I’ve just shown that on some fundamental level I have trouble accepting there’s no such thing as free will. No: actually I picked this shirt today because the culture I come from has these values and my visual, you know, color receptors told me that this shirt matches with this.
You know you still have a reflex to attribute some sort of free will and sort of tiny little domains. If that’s going to prove horrible and too difficult to overcome, that’s fine. Where we need to do the heavy lifting is when we’re making judgments about volition in areas where we harshly judge people. There we really have to do the hard work of thinking through that there’s not a lot of free will going on there.
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I have no choice but to like this video.
PRO SKUB fuck 30 second ads
PRO SKUB why did he do this video?
Free will doesn't necessarily relate to the ability to choose things, it's a matter concerning what's controlling choice.
PRO SKUB I have no choice but to like your comment
Muse Russell23 - OMG! I had no choice but to like your comment as well!
I remember crying the 1st time I heard him talk about this. I was not long outta the joint, questioning everything in my life and not very happy with myself or anything else and having him bring together so many things I already knew in a way that I'd never heard em before. It wasn't that I felt magically less responsible or like I wasn't the cause of a lot of unjustified suffering. It just helped me understand myself and my friends and family so much better and made me feel like less of a scumbag. Gave me some hope in a weird way. Maybe one of those "ya had to live the life" type situations 😂 idk ✌
I hear you man, But equally, it can be also be useful to ask our self: 'Can I take on the belief that I am literally responsible for everything in my life - EVERYTHING?'
Robert Sapolsky has that effect. Peace.
May the inner peace be with you. And don't forget society has no choice other than to remove those who harm others or take or damage their property.
I am so happy I came across this comment man. So positive and glad someone can find a nuanced perspective on the matter. I wish you the best of luck in your life endeavors.
I hope you find peace but don't let this Be your justification for doing anything harmful to yourself or anyone else. As the no free will advocates often do
*Fact of the matter is, you didn't choose your Prefrontal cortex*
Empathy Lessons but the brain named its self!
Did you ever wonder why the letter "W"(double u's) sounds like it has syllables ?
Me neither...
It is the cortex that chooses you, Mr. Lessons
thstroyur
Please, Mr. Lessons was my father. Call me Kek.
deltrontheory
Well the funny thing is that it's the prefrontal cortex that decides how you use the prefrontal cortex
+deltrontheory
Well the prefrontal cortex is in charge of "planning complex cognitive behavior, personality expression, decision making, and moderating social behavior" (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prefrontal_cortex#Function) (www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2784035/)
Put in another way, the Frontal lobe in general is in charge of inhibition (such as "hey, I wanna do drugs, but I have homework to do so I won't")
"How you use the prefrontal cortex" aka, how you control yourself, is determined by your prefrontal cortex.
So it's akin to saying your stomach decides how you use your stomach (digest). Not really an evidence based claim, rather it's observation that thing itself is the thing itself.
The first video I saw this guy in was the one about the 3 parts of the brain and now this. I gotta look at some longer lectures of his because he's easily one of the best people you've had on here.
You should watch some of his animal behaviour work on baboons. He has his whole family involved too. Seriously this guy is one of my idols so intelligent and so relatable.
His book BEHAVE.
you should check out his stanford lectures they are awesome
I like Hitchens response...."of course I have freewill, the boss says I have to have it!"
vacuous and lazy as ever - such an overrated intellect
@@JW-bs7xp Calling Hitchens who wrote more than 20 books, lazy is beyond Stupidity even for you.
@@patrickjane4027 Compulsive writers are a notoriously lazy bunch - look up Charles Bukowski - so I'm not sure what your point is you oaf
@@JW-bs7xp only idiots who don't understand how brilliant he was says that he was lazy, stupid and overrated. He managed to get on your nerves. More than you ever did to him
@@heavymeddle28 his beliefs and character have never bothered me, but his frequent concern with style over substance has made me consider him to be deeply overrated as a thinker; but this trait also gained him a great many subservient admirers such as yourself so perhaps it was worth it
I've always felt it was my good fortune to be basically an honest person...as at no point have I needed to challenge myself not to lie, steal, be stingy, etc..I felt compelled to do the right thing and it had nothing to do with free well.
Of all of the thoughts you have today, how many are either repetitive or reactive? And of your truly original thoughts, how did you make them appear?
I like this guy he is a deep thinker and backs it with state of the art science
It doesn't matter what you believe. Everyone will treat you like you really do have free will.
You're right. I grew up believing that there are good people and bad people so I ended up feeling guilty about so many things I did that went against my principles. Now I find it hard to forgive myself even though I want to believe that I did the best I could.
It does matter, it allows you to have a lot more empathy towards people you would otherwise hate.
As a child, did you choose your first thoughts when you first started to think? Where did they come from? And the thoughts that followed those?
surroundings
To say that determinism or free will is absolute and those are the only options doesn't seem to be right. Why can't we have both on varying degrees? The more developed/educated we are, the more free will we would have in theory and the less subjected to the enviroment and our own biologic natural inclinations we are.
The environment and the "default settings" as I like to call them. Such as the 4 F's. The drive to flee, fight, feed, and fuck. The default settings are easily overridden by experience though.
Very well put. Ultimately, no thoughts are chosen, despite how much it feels that they are. However, though I do quite enjoy the topics of determinism and free will, I don't think they're all that productive. Everyone deeply feels they have free will and no one knows what will happen tomorrow. In other words, even though literally everything - the entire known universe - has probably been completely and utterly determined already, it seems to have little value in our day to day lives.
You make a good point - that a child does not have free-will. However, (most) adults do.
What about self-awareness or mindfulness? Most of our behavior is habitual and determined by our past, but we have metacognition as well. Is self-awareness same as free will though?
I have a sense that I think self awareness and control are traits, something someone is lucky to have, some are not so lucky and some in the middle. I feel so many fall into the I and me. The what I would do in a given situation. It’s the…
person A should act and behave a certain way, simply because of the fact that person B acts a behaves a certain way.
To me that statement doesn’t make any sense, when there is so much evidence that proves, every brain’s anatomy functions either slightly or drastically different. There is no such thing as the ideal brain, just the most commonly similar (
But I was an Alcoholic, I now I am sober. I notice that the change of nutrients modify my perception of reality, and my behaviour. And I chosed it. No free will, no struggle to be sober.
If you can predict with a degree of accuracy what a person will do in a particular situation, then that person doesn't really have free will because he/she is already predisposition to behave in a certain way.
Free will, if it exists at all, can be seriously compromised by medical conditions, emotions, hunger, amount of sleep, etc.
"My thoughts follow my feelings, that is how I think
The sceptics are rarely convinced, their feelings are exempt
What is the point of thought if you can not control the result?
What is it worth? If anything at all
Where do we exist from? What do we exist for?
We were intelligently designed to be a resource
How can there be free will without the freedom to feel?
We pursue an illusion that isn't real"
- Canibus, Lunar Deluge (2010)
i will reply to your poem like this,
How can there be free will without the freedom to feel?
Is the question you asked from us,
And i say you have freedom to feel
This is how it goes,
Your feelings depends on your vision,
Your vision depends on your knowledge
YOur knowledge depends your intelligence
which can only be controlled by you!
Example,
you feel love on a girl,
Because according to your vision,that girl is special!
Your vision sees that special because of something you know,your logic like that
YOur logic can be controlled by you,if you find something before you will love on her that you don't like, your vision on her changes so you don't fall love with her, infact, even after fallen,if she does something that you do not like , your vision changes so you are free from the feelings of love with her
You see my point?
@@DarkLord-mf7oi Where do domestic violence perpetuating couples fit on this?
I think it makes a lot of sense. We think we are in control, but behind the choices that we make is a complex neurological system that's the result of our genes and the environment we grew up and live in. Either it is determined, or random, or perhaps a combination of both. But neither means it's because of 'free will'.
Precisely! My thoughts as well. Thank the universe I'm not alone in this maddening philosophical direction of thought...
@@inkonmyhandsGo even further in that path lol => Consciousness and the ”self” are a construct 😅
@@manee2412 I dont think that is too far fetched to conclude...
We can't have it both ways because if your "choices" you make don't exist in a deterministic world then there is no point in making a choice as there would be no expectant outcomes. What we call free will is change through time as we do things differently as we change and circumstances change. At any moment in time we do what we must do at the moment. The idea many people have of being able to do absolutely anything is randomness.
You can't have it both ways but I can because I'm better than you. Deal with it.
I very much like the metaphor given by Stephen Wolinsky, former psychologist and a devotee of the non dual tradition when he stated that we're all like droplets in the ocean and a huge wave arises to take us to wherever it's gonna take us. And as such, the indescribable "you" has no power to influence it, only to go with the flow.
Or resist the flow.
Except there have been individuals in history that stepped out of the wave or started a new one. So I don't suscribe to the videos hypothesis. e.g Genghis khan, Jesus(man or the myth), Napoleon, Hitler, etc. each have changed the direction of our civilization
@@robhallie It's luck, not free will. Hitler could have been executed for treason long before he came to power. If the judge was harsh, he was a dead man, that's not free will, just luck
@@robhallie the hypothesis here is that even that 'change' is pre-determined!
@@jp-jb1bw ok but then I don't find the argument well made enough to convince me. He needs to give the country arguments and then deconstruct then
In short. You don't have free will in terms of freedom from causation.
Which merely begs the question. Do complex systems have the ability to cause, or influence their own behavior? Yes, I think I do.
+ Don Jindra
Half right there, bro.
The complex system that is the universe has been following a path of causation in itself since the dawn of itself, and it was created by something that happened in the parent universe that created it. And so on.
What appears to be the system influencing itself is actually causation that is too complex for the human brain to understand.
So, it appears to us as free will, the same way that we create religions to explain things that we couldn't explain at the time the religion was created.
Science has disproven things in holy books since those religions were created. That would be a metaphor for us understanding the causation of the world better.
Henry Han I don't think that's the way complex systems work, they are a dynamic process not static as would be the case with freedom from causation, that is causation from outside the system.
There is downward causation from the emergent law of the system which is based on positive and negative feedback from components of the system.
An example would be influencing the gut bacteria within us by eating something. If we eat something that makes us sick, that doesn't count because we are still here and functioning, just not very well.
Now if a virus like Ebola moves in, this changes things because the system has to be stable enough to generate the emergent law (in this case, the person) and the virus destabilizes the system enough to cause death.
So I guess we could say we have free will in terms of how well the system works, but now how the system works.
Don Jindra Even the complex system has to have a causation from the beginning. Indeed complex system can influence internally. But each and every causation done by the complex system have their root from the beginning causation of the complex system.
Project Malus Then what value system are you using to judge the "wellness" of the system? Is this value system just came out of no where but your mind? Or is this value system passed on to you from the evolution of human? Let us remember that it is not "stuff" can somehow poison you; but you are not evolved to accept the "stuff". Some chemicals that s harmful to human may not be harmful to other beings.
His argument at the end about not being able to take a compliment in a society aware of no free will is silly. If the other person compliments your shirt, instead of them complementing your "free will" to pick the shirt they are complementing all the infinitely small variables and influences which caused you to pick the shirt, which is actually complementing you as a person rather than simply your meaningless decision. After typing that out it honestly does sound pretty utopian if you frame it that way.
BI0QUAKE but why twane pride in their compliments if u had no hand in becoming a good person n it just happened
+triigga s you're implying that you have a hand in any decision you make, which is the exact thing this video is trying to disprove.
What about a compliment to a person for being intelligent?
If there is no free will, then he did not pick that shirt, so there is no reason to compliment his choice. You shouldn't compliment someone for something they did not control.
+Frank Drebin bro stop circumventing my point. If free will exists then someone complimenting your shirt is as meaningless as your decision to wear that particular shirt on that particular day. If free will doesn't exist, someone complimenting your shirt is the equivalent of them complimenting you as a whole; your opinions, your outlook on life, your prior experiences in life, all of which played some small role in your "choice" to wear that shirt.
Should start by the definition of free will so everyone is within scope. Or maybe I missed a past video and therefor am a freewill loser.
116 downvotes were not downvoted freely
2:31 Yes trying to figure that out will be challenging, or impossible given there's no free will.
Judeo-Christian Society is designed on free will, rules built under ethics. By saying that people do not make free choices and are only the causal response of their nature and culture, the whole fabric of guilt and judgement no longer holds true which becomes very dangerous.
We do have some sense of what a society like that would be
For example like sapolsky said when someone has a seizure while driving a car and hit someone we dont judge them or put them in jail
I think people who say there is no free will are over thinking things. Just because there are outside influences that affect your decision doesn't mean that decision is not your own. Sure free will isn't as 'free' as we like to think it is, but lets not throw the whole thing out just because you can be influenced.
He did these class/lectures on the evolution of human behavior (it’s on TH-cam) and it was amazing! This guy is next level intelligent but able to communicate complex ideas in comprehensible ways. He’s awesome!
Even though he’s an atheist
What do you mean “even though he’s an atheist?” It’s the only intelligent position to take. Try Buddhism, it’s a religion with no god. No need for that.
He sounds like a pseudo intellectual giving a semantic argument to the nth degree.
"Even though"
In other words, it's what the mystics have been saying for ages... that Free Will depends on how 'conscious' we are of our own internal 'motivations', and that in the _absence_ of any 'self-reflection', we're basically just operating on 'auto-pilot' most of the time.
I think you just put into words the main critique I have of the idea of motivations meaning "NO" free will.
It's more like they are just getting better at describing natural motivations you have.
They seem to take the idea that we have influences on our behaviour, and extend that all the way to the idea of saying we never actually make a decision at all. which is a very infalsifiable premise to set. Because the moment someone consciously does something contrary to "preprogrammed" neural behaviour, then they just retort, "well there are just variables that we dont know about that caused them to do it.
It's a very brazen god of the gaps argument, that they somehow take as 100% empirically verifiable.
@@anthonypolonkay2681 It’s the free will’s proponent’s burden to prove free will and just for the fact that you don’t choose your thoughts before you think them means you have no free will.
@@q6terazvaleniqica you wish that's how it worked. Free will is something everyone universally experiences in life. If you are going to say that it's an illusory experience, that's on you to prove.
Speaking of which the whole notion of "you don't choose your thoughts" as a rebuttle to free will is ridiculous. It assumes it's own conclusion. The question being begged is whether, or not you are the source of your thoughts, or not. Saying that you have to choose those thoughts assumes they didn't come from you, which is like I said, assuming the conclusion.
And in most sense it's even besides the point. Because in the traditional libertarian view of free will whether you are the source of your thoughts, or not does not matter. What matters is if you are able to decide between two choices presented to you. If you are going to suggest that the very act of deciding is itself a thought that didn't source from you, then them you fall back into assuming the conclusion.
To prove free will is not real you have to prove that your decisions on a matter don't actually source from you. And that you are just a secondary observer of the effect.
Most experiments in this realm are wildly inconclusive, or support free will more than determinism. The only notable one that might have supported determinism is the early libet experiments, but even in those the 2nd half of the experiments contradicted the first half in favor or free will.
@@anthonypolonkay2681 "Free will is something everyone universally experiences" you forget that the human mind is excellent at tricking itself.
@@OmniversalInsect yeah and it's also good at figuring out objective truths like 2+2=4.
Simply stating that a possibility that free will might be a trick doesn't somehow give that hypothesis any wieght, you have to actually provide evidence for it that outweighs all the evidence for it being true. And so far no evidence for it being false has ever been demonstrated. Just ad hoc "just so" explainations to try to explain away the evidence fir it being real, such as.
"While true we all experience free will, it's probably just the mind tricking itself since we know that can happen In some cases"
that's not evidence in any capacity.
I really appreciate the well reasoned perspective.
Honestly wondering here, how are we supposed to "construct a society" when no one has the free will to decide how to construct it? I think I'm missing something here.
I think Sapolsky's view on free will is not that everything is predetermined and there are no other possibilities, change still exists it's just that we are not in control of it. There could be people who have the will and knowledge to construct such a society even though they did not choose to have this will.
If Free-Will is the ability to choose between various forms of behavior, increased self-awareness allows for more free will.
Cope
I think free will is still a useful construct. The mind is chaotic and has lots of positive feedback loops. We use a lot of these positive feedback loops when we thing reflectively rather than reflexively. This is akin to Kahneman's fast and slow thinking. Because this chaos renders our behavior unpredictable, I think is is very appropriate to call this free will, despite the fact that it is governed by physical laws. You ponder the possibility of creating a better society based on our better human nature, this to me is the ultimate act of free will, to evolve society in a humane direction. The ability for us to learn and apply that learning to problems using critical thinking is the epitome of a free mind and a free will.
The most important video ever... and I can't help but always look at how TINY his hands are.
The problem is we are unable to prove or disprove free will. The main reason is we can not set the stage to control a proper test because the universe keeps moving forward. Assuming that we do not have free will because this universe is deterministic. Ignoring quantum mechanics because it's still being discovered. Then if free will would exist with a deterministic universe it would have to live outside this universe and in a non deterministic universe linked to this universe. It would be similar to a programmer programming software. However, free will would be more complex and too complicated to understand because it's outside this universe.
Idk how something as obvious as free will should be, is so difficult to wrap my head around 😊🤔
what goes on
in the brain and body at a quantum particle level? any quantum entanglement? or spooky action going on.
Biology dude managed to study himself out of free will. GG.
Edit: Nah, jk, 6 seconds later; I get your point....
If free will is an illusion, then I am what the environment made me into. Some would argue that punishing people is wrong, to which we could argue, the environment forces us to punish other for the choices they are forced to make. In the end, it is an argument that gets us nowhere, except if you accept we have free will and convincing us we have no free will can influence how we act towards others.
If there’s no free will, should someone try and do the right thing? If yes, how would one do that? If no, how should one act? The best I can figure is to act like there’s free will at least since currently it’s not proven either way.
Free will is a feeling caused by thinking about ourselves. It is as real as other feelings.
After watching many hours of his lectures I love this guy! In this, Sapolsky concludes there is no free will. I’m sure he would tear my theory apart, mainly because I am a completely unsophisticated amateur here. I’ll try anyway.
I totally agree with him AND I think there may be a finer resolution that he is not pointing too.
Think of it this way; He is looking at the river. We, as particles in the river can minimally effect our movement as we head down stream.
I think he would grant that our thoughts are one contributing part of our experience. The question is, do we have any free will over our thoughts. Sure our emotions, like those of other animals, are just a series of chemical reactions etc. but our thoughts are different. There are at least 2 ways we humans have free will through our thoughts: Fundamentally, we have the ability to create and share stories which shifts our trajectory. We also have the ability to meditate, or witness our thoughts and emotions. With this ability, intention allows us to shift our thoughts and thus our trajectory.
True this issentially what differentiates us from other mammals our ability to reason and make an intelligent choice. Sure u could be swayed by ur emotions of irritation from gas pains by eating smthing bad at breakfast but it’s YOU. Who is in control of ur decisions u can let. Ur emotions control u or u can control your emotions
Yeah, but the thoughts are the products of biological factors, as well. Your thoughts are the product of physiological processes shaped by natural selection and by your life history.
The learned professor it seems has concluded not only that there is no God, but oddly enough, that there are no scientists.
@@trevorcaruso9622 well said! Our current understanding (and the chances of it being wrong are extremely low) is that we don't have free will (our brain acts like a large mathematical function with trillions of parameters represented by the connections between our neurons, so when we see something for example, that information gets passed through that function which "gives" an output, also it is important to note that there is also some randomness involved - for example if it is cold outside, one of your neurons might not fire, so the output of the mathematical function changes, but this randomness is not the same thing as free will). So our decisions are hardcoded but there is still some randomness involved so we don't have fate either.
Our thoughts are also results of chemical reactions, otherwise there would be no brain activity when we think, dream, etc. So sadly even that isnt of ur own accord lol
I don't believe in the absolute absence of free will since I don't believe in the absolutely predetermined fate.
The problem now is: how do we shape a society that takes into account that there is no free will, and still motivate people in doing good things in life? If I'm predetermined to do something in that predetermined way and only in that way, how do I motivate myself and others without falling into nihilism? If I am supposed to be "good" or "bad", how do we "force" people to do "good" things if there is not ultimate difference between "good" and "bad" choices? How do I explain to a child that he/she is not really having a choice in behaving in a good or in a bad way? That's the new "Hard Problem".
People who haven't spent 10 minutes thinking about this topic are the first ones to spout off their defensive visceral response. The truth stings. It flips your entire world view which you've constructed your ego upon.
Eric yea it really makes you reevaluate the whole ego thing.
For the better in my opinion.
Eric, And your crystal ball tells you I haven't spent 10 minutes thinking about this issue? It's malfunctioning. Your ad hominem attack won't help you.
An argument from a ten minute youtube video does not constitute concrete evidence of proof. I'm preeety sure there's room for reasonable discourse. And that's funny, you're being defensive and egotistical while chastizing others for being egotistical and defensive. Pure comedy.
That's pretty arrogant my guy.
It is pretty arrogant, but that happens a lot on the internet!
I think the important part of his statement was the thing about having your ego flipped. Realising that we have no free will makes a person realise that our ego is the part of us that works against the natural order of life (the accumulation of consequences, or fate).
The ego does this because it wants us to feel like we have control in this world. Your ego can't be in control if there is no free will. And there's nothing that egos love more than feeling in control and important!
After all, arrogance on the internet is a consequence of our ego and the fact that there is a place where it can vent all it's hatred, fear, self-promotion or any of its other less good qualities, without fear of being punched in the face.
Scientifically speaking, there are lots of counter arguments to the thesis of non-existence of free will such as quantum physics. Philosophically, I can readily talk about the clear distinction between our conscious mind and the artifical consciousness which is also called artificial intelligence. Your only trait that differs you from a machine is that you are aware of yourself. You know that you exists even if it may be in the context of a hollogram or matrix. However, a robot designed to be capable of the physical and mental activities you can do can never be conscious of itself in intuitive sense. It can't be no matter how great the algoritms loaded in itself are. Yes, it can analiticaly resolve what it is by following the necessary instructions in a logical order but it will never be like the awareness of ourself. You can see me as a crazy person but that is the only thing that helps me to truly feel close to god! In my humble opinion, freewill exists if consciousness exists. Of course that's my current opinion. It might change in the future. Or, maybe, you are right, just because quantum physicists mention certain particles randomly being in specific regions doesn't mean there is such thing as a "probability". These seemingly random routes the particles take indeed may not be that random. Probability... Since we use this word for things we have no enough information about, it is just a mathematical concept. You can't find probability in nature but you can use this mathematical concept to foresee weather conditions of weeks after. It is not exact,certain yet a way of predicting the future in most efficient manner. From god's perspective(or whatever that bigger consciousness is), there is no such thing as unknown variable. It is not unknown or ambiguous. We just don't know it. Who knows, maybe the uncertainity quantum physics revolve around is just something science still couldn't grasp. Perhaps, some regular systematic patterns/trajectories we have yet to find through which electrons travel exist. Science is a never ending discipline. It will always come up with better patterns explaining the reality or hologram(whatever we live in)
Another example of confusing free will with free choice. What happens to us is destiny. How we choose to react to it is free choice. We can't choose what happens but we can choose how to perceive it. The same thing can happen to two people yet their reactions are polar opposites.
Missed the point.
It's like they say: "No matter where you go, there you are."
When I was still a soul, God asked me which genes, environment, parents, ancestors, ecology etc. I wanted to have. Then he did a binary search through all universes where that exact match occured, and injected my soul essence into that zygote. And there I was..
Sounds about right...
You lost me at capitalised god.
@@student702 so if it wasn't capitalised, you'd be good?
Why a binary search? As a programmer, I'm too lazy to learn other search algorithms, but isn't lineage more like a tree?
Random and unpredictability exist at the quantum level, the electron orbits are unpredictable. And is our brain is made of atoms, how can it be predictable?
Predictable and deterministic are NOT the same thing. Also, see mathworld.wolfram.com/Rule30.html
Wang Enterprises Predictability and determinism aren't the same shit.
it doesn't mean you fucking control it
"Random and unpredictability exist at the quantum level" not proven
Many years ago Avecina instructed to fasten some determinists to a tree and beat the shit out od them, on the excuse that he has to beat them, that there is no free will and he is determined to do so. They simply had to agree.
I find it funny that we have no idea how the brain works, how consciousness, thoughts and feelings emerge but claim that there is no free will... Even if it sounds logical that something is either determined or random, we act if we know everything.
At the end claiming anything without proof is a belief.
Yes, because those are the two choices: determined or random. Unless you introduce something supernatural, you can't have free will, which is why many religions believe that we have a soul or something like similiar.
"I have trouble accepting..." but there's no free will.
Love you Sir! Thank you! Your lectures have enriched my life.
What readings do you recommend me?
idk that compliments about shirt choices and the like are something attributed to free will as much as it feels nice to receive approval/positivity from a fellow human, thus increasing our sense of belonging
I'm not really concerned about whether I really do have free will or whether I only think I do. What I want is freedom and I think that's a different thing altogether. I sometimes don't feel I have freedom and wish I had more. But I fully understand that whether I have freedom or not probably wouldn't make that much difference to what I actually do. But I still want freedom. I notice the second sentence in the introduction talked about what breakfast cereal we ate and what streets we live on have a lot of influence on us (paraphrasing). Firstly, I don't eat breakfast at all. People keep telling me that I really should eat breakfast and I still don't. Did my environment influence me not to have breakfast in spite of what people around me telling me I should, or does this just say that I'm stubborn and an environment that's telling me I should eat breakfast is the reason I don't? Secondly, I live in the middle of nowhere, so I don't really have a street. But I chose to move to the countryside after seriously considering moving to a nearby town instead, so is my environment influencing me or am I influencing my environment which in turn is influencing me? Isn't this a chicken and egg scenario?
I don't understand why determinists get so defensive at the idea of free will? What nerve does that idea tick deep down?
TheReccher
It's called the "fantastical delusion for comfort" nerve. It not only gets a "tick" talking about the concept of "free will", but also religious ideologies. They are the nerves that get triggered when people don't want to, or refuse to, learn about, and acknowledge, reality and existence, in general, but instead hold onto old, traditionalist, "spiritual", egoist ideologies.
The nerves get triggered when someone rejects evolutionary theory and climate change, by rationalizing creationism, or being dishonest about global warming.
Those nerves tend to get "tick"ed when science and logic are abandoned for personal comfort.
Poisoning the well, affirming the consequent.
Projection.
I wish free will existed. Unfortunately, I don't believe that to be so.
Its funny how misunderstood the concept of free will is and how aggressively people will defend that it does exist. If you are interested in learning more about it, search Sam Harris Free Will.
exactly.
Don't judge them too harshly. It's not like they had a choice in their dumb reactions : )
Check out Sam Harris Free Will Lecture in my recent uploads, if interested. Thanks.
right....or dare I say ....Tom Campbell
If you're interested in a lame perspective on free will, listen to Sam Harris.
He chose that shirt because it matched his eyes. And his wife complimented him on his blue shirt one day and because he had to look like professional scientist for his "Free Will Ain't Nothing But a Myth" Big Think video that day he rolled with it. And many people rejoiced,
Free will is really only applicable among all the other circumstances and rules we have on us, each of us in their own culture, society, work environment, family, subculture and so on...
Who needs free will anyway?
Free Willy! 🐳
Danny Vasquez But not in public!
B ST Well if you are weak and you do nothing about it, its simply because you like to be weak.
B ST Why on Earth do you need a reason to live? Isn't the simple fact that you'd rather be alive than dead enough (or in some cases even slightly rather to have the life part over with but don't want to have to experience dying in order to get to the being dead part).
Also what about the relationship between your subconscious and conscious ever made you feel like you were the one in control. Our conscious minds are only for processing "high priority" information but even what information it is that we're processing is all given to us by our brains behind the scenes. Just because your Id isn't your Ego doesn't mean it's not part of who you are. So basically you're only concerned about how you pull your own strings. Your id isn't separate from you, it's a muscle, not another person. You are also in control of it in the same way you are in control of your other muscles. You don't learn the piano by just deciding to sit down and play, you gotta practice. If you practice connecting certain thoughts with others, or noticing and letting go of unhelpful thoughts then your brain will form pathways so that your subconscious starts responding the way you want it to. But actually doing the practicing is always the hard part about everything.
B ST understanding this is more liberating from it than not
i mean does it really matter that there is no free will if the illusion of free will is so strong and compelling as it is
ryan cyr Exactly. That's why I have no problem with the notion that there is no free will. It's not like I had it and lost it. LOL
yes it does matter.
come to think of it . our entire justice system is built upon freewill.
read up on the concept of Responsibility (Culpability).
It has serious ethical and theological implications. Ethical in terms can we punish someone for an act if a person couldn't have chosen to act any other way, theological - religions like christianity, islam are false if there is no free will.
whoever is arguing predestination as a Christian either is a troll or is just plain stupid.
that been said, Christianity becomes false by implication.
the major idea in Christianity is Sin and without freewill out the window goes the concept of transgression.
+Juch Star
I am not a religious person but I cannot forget "Jesus's words": "Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing."
+ryan cyr
It matters a lot. Society which understood that there is no free will will behave more logically and compassionately. Believing in existence of free will comes with meaningless and futile punishment and retribution. Believing in free will makes us less human, more violent and primitive. Those who harm others should be stopped not mutilated or killed as we do today.
Don’t listen to any philosopher, talking about free will, Freewill as they define, It is an impossible concept anyway. Instead:
1) there are lots of things you could do, think about the one that gets the best returns for the least cost for the most people.
2) if you say you’re going to punish people for doing something, it affects their decision process. Keep doing it.
Simply put: Our will is "free enough to satisfy us".
What interest me even more than if there's free will or not, is the people commenting in in a bit of a condescending way giving the impression that they're superior knowing the absolute "truth" that there's no such thing as free will sort of joking at the people who do think free will is real.
I find it fascinating that our brains think we're 100% right about things, even if it's literally about the most complex thing we know of in existence: the brain itself. We are still damn sure we know it all (even if we aren't scientist and just read a few online articles). This rigid thinking can be quite destructive and ineffective. Your emotional state makes these kind of choices more than actual rational thinking (in most cases).
The biggest 'issue' is how people define 'free will'. The fact that we are subconsciously/consciously influenced when making choices, that's fundamentally necessary in order to make a choice in the first place. You can't make any choice with 0 input.
Amazingly well put thank you sir
It's because there are many implications of determinism and the blank slate theory that you may have not considered. Many consider understanding and applying determinism as an AI becoming self-aware. Because of determinism itself, people's inability to take the pill always stem from something. It absolutely does separate the unaware AI from the self-aware AI.
Also, the biggest takeaway is not about whether or not choices require influence. It's that all thoughts and responses can be predicted and no other would have been made even if the simulation were reran 1,000,000 times.
This professor is 100% correct
I was diagnosed with Schizophrenia age 18.
Not my choice lol
Once I realised free will is garbage my life changed
My willpower is what I exercise daily 👍
Sir nirvana can you share your experiences with schizophrenia? I'm suspecting from myself
But you weren't freely making that comment....
These things are not for everything to digest easily. You have to be very logical and cold hearted.
This is one of those debates that seems impenetrable. It seems particularly so once the waiter asks "what would you like?"
The answer is always, whatever tastes good. In this case, it's whatever is true. And at the very least, it's I don't know what a proper sentence consists of. No, it's that humans are biological entities.
Damn! Not the first again.. What are u people
Wow, if i knew free will could've been dismissed with a three minutes video I would've never bothered with existentialism.
Thank you, really convincing...
Existentialism is not science, it's a bunch of assertions, ahem...
Well, perhaps you shouldn't of bothered with existentialism, and should have studied neuroscience. After all, the study of neuroscience is at least tangible. You fucking donut.
Thank you for granting me free will. :D
"I See people who claim everything is determined and that you can do nothing about it look across when they cross ahead." - Stephen Hawking.
Because they just can't not look ahead. Even if they believe everything is determined they are being forced by habit/humanity/instinct to look ahead. Isn't it a perfect example of a lack of free will?
Is willpower and freewill the same? Because willpower *does* exist and you can boost it with habits like meditation and a healthy diet.
Under this view, you have willpower, but how you exercise willpower is constrained by biological/physical factors.
No, they are not the same. Boosting your willpower is little more than manipulating your conditions in an attempt to reprogram your brain.
But if you don't have the freewill to choose your habits, your willpower just becomes a definition of a group of traits you never had control over to begin with.
"Free will" also exists but there's nothing free about it. Its a sense like any other that helps organisms discern inside and outside events.
Willpower is just a word used to describe a predilection to a certain sort of behavior. So it doesn't exist any more than a map to a place exists. If it takes you to a place it serves a purpose. If it's a map to a fictional place or a place that has been changed that you are trying to read and follow then it's useless. Meditation and diet will change your behavior but do they change willpower? If it makes you feel good to say so then why not. You don't change your habits or diet and just try to use this willpower alone and it doesn't work? If it makes you feel bad to say that you have no willpower then why bother with it. It's a nonsensical concept when you think about it.
How can we choose to no longer harshly judge people? Isn't judgement just another unavoidable biological imperative, according to this interpretation of consciousness?
The idea is that developing greater knowledge of how human behavior works will give us the necessary information to more productively manage individuals who commit acts like murder. Once the science behind a lack of free will is proven, it will be enough to push us towards a more nuanced approach to crime management.
+Champstamp83
Once you understand that you cannot have free will, deep, destructive and passionate judgement of others will decrease. Level of this decrease is proportional to the level and depth of your own understanding of your own limitations.
Once you learn that different languages exist and there is a language called German and that a person in front of you does not speak English you, if you are cognitively not beyond a point of no return, will stop yelling at him. He doesn't understand just like you do not understand Chinese.
+Jacob Lee
I find this harshly judgmental reply quite interesting. Do you think you chose to be rude to a stranger on the internet or is it just your societal conditioning?
1+1=2
Can you choose to believe or not believe that "1+1=2" is true?
Once you are convinced of the premises, you are helplessly convinced of the conclusion if and only if you are being a rational actor. Whether or not you are a rational actor is contingent upon antecedent causes, only a tiny part of which any of us can be aware.
Contracausal (incoherent) "free will" delusions are built into our language and abstractions. This is part of why it's so difficult to see.
I don't know if I should Like or Dislike. On one hand, he's a smart guy who is mostly right. On the other, his ultimate conclusion is wrong and overthought. Big Foot's a myth, free will is just extraordinarily rare.
You can choose a ready guide in some celestial voice. If you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice. You can choose from phantom fears and kindness that can kill. I will choose a path that's clear, I will choose free will.
Sapolsky fails to see the logical problem in denying free will. If I am seriously saying that all my thoughts could not have been other than they are, and are ultinately determined by the mindless forces of the mateeial universe, then I cannot know any of my thoughts to be true or false, since I could not have thought otherwise. This means I cannot know my denial of free will to be true or false either. Those who deny free will are always really making a tacit exception for the thought that says: "I do not have free will." The underlying problem, of course, is the assumption Sapolsky makes of the standard orthodoxy of reductive materialism, since it is this that leads to free will denial. Free will is essential for reason and logic, and this means we have to reconsider our implicit commitment to materialism.
free will is not necessary for a machine that can compute truth and falsehood
He thought he was super clever with that C. S Lewis argument though.
There is an error in your code: 'Free will is essential for reason and logic' does not match any existing requirements of reality. Reason and Logic can be a result of the brain like anything else you donut.
Your "conscious" decisions aren't free either, because those are also biological, just a form of biology that generates feelings of urgency. If I suddenly decide to make an unusual decision because I want to assert some form of "free will", that decision is, itself, not a free one.
Correct, but keep in mind that it is more psychological than biological. People have these delusions and responses because they were conditioned so by thousands of experiences since the time of birth. We know that experience greatly overrides biological "default settings"
Freewill or predestination only make sense if we assume there is a permanent ego or self.But the self is already changing therefore the idea of freewill/predestination don't apply
Define free will: 'Free of influence?" Okay, I get it. But I make important, life-changing, left of right decisions every day. My choice. I realize my choices are influenced, but often I choose to go against my own "will" and do things that better me, like it of not. My choice. I play in 4 bands. My choice.
if you can write it, it must be true.
i am early need to think of a joke.. free will
If your want to prove to me that free will doesn't exist, you are trying to make me realize that I'm wrong and that I should choose(?) to agree with you.
Since there is no free will, I'm sorry but your effort is futile since I will come to the conclusion at the moment it happens.
... it can go deeper.
Changing someones opinion can happen without there being free will.
I see where you're coming from, but I think this is a common misunderstanding, a conflation of fatalism with determinism.
You say that if there's no free will then one's effort to communicate and potentiate a change in someone else cannot exist, as (if I understand you correctly) whether or not you adopt something within yourself will happen irrespective of whether someone communicates with you or not. This is fatalism, the whole story of Oedipus, which is not determinism.
I bring this up because it may be the very fact that we had a discussion about something that was the catalyst for you to change your mind. You changing may have been entirely dependent upon the determined conversation. Simply because something is determined doesn't mean a change cannot occur, heh, of course it must, as that is all there is (quantum probability in vacuums is irrelevant when discussing determinism).
"...I should choose(?) to agree with you."
These are the subtleties of language that creep in and make discussing the illusion of free will more tedious. Just replace "choose to agree" with "find myself agreeing" and read Douglas Hofstadter's "I Am a Strange Loop" and you'll be set, heh. It's not about trying to make someone look like an idiot or anything. There are no points in the game of life. I just feel coming to the conclusion that I've come to on the determinism of human behavior (and everything else of practical consequence, for that matter) allow me to have a wider appreciation for the human condition and, thus, far more empathy than I'd otherwise be able to have. Those who believe in free will believe in "good" and "evil" people and because of that believe in certain forms of empty praise and punishment that, in reality, do the bigger picture a disservice. I also recommend reading B.F. Skinner's "Beyond Freedom and Dignity".
Peace.
@roothik But it is not you that is changing their opinion, so it'll happen if it has to happen.
I choose to believe in free will, because if I don't have free will it doesn't matter what I choose because I don't choose, however, if there is free will, thinking that I indeed have a choice encourages me to act properly and have a feeling of pride over my own accomplishments/good actions. So either "I win"/"I'm right" or it doesn't matter because you have no control over your own state of being right, it just happens that your current opinion was right not by your own effort.
People often resort to "in what degree" it matters after I bring the previous arguments. This is not a really good line of reasoning neither, let me illustrate, I'll assume that we both agree that free will exists now, you want to negotiate up to what degree, my answer is, if there is X% of free will but you don't utilize that full X% you are effectively losing potential over your hypothetical percentage of free will, so this isn't a debate of percentage neither, the optimal stance is assuming that you have free will, ignoring possible doubts over the limited potential of free will in order to maximize whatever the potential that happens to be.
I'm sorry if it looks pedantic, I just meant to be precise since it's a complex topic, I'll welcome any critic.
"But it is not you that is changing their opinion, so it'll happen if it has to happen."
Well, the whole concept of identity "I/you" is an interesting issue as well (again, I'll bring up Hofstadter's book here as I mentioned above), but I'll try to leave this out other than saying that even if someone's mind is changed because someone else simply acted as a passive catalyst through which the forces of the universe worked (was, essentially, not doing so out of their own divine freedom), then that is the case; it is not "them" doing it freely, but who cares? Why a need to keep score on what individuals change the minds of whom? What matters is the actual means by which the change occurred. Was it the logic of the communication? Was it the firm handshake? Was it the smell of the cologne? Whatever it was, it was...something. That thing exists in some form or another, and that is really what should interest us, not the "whom" through which it took shape.
"So either 'I win'/'I'm right' or it doesn't matter because you have no control over your own state of being right, it just happens that your current opinion was right not by your own effort."
What's so wrong with the latter? Again, I bring up Skinner's book. When one takes up thew position that free will is an illusion, yes, one must take both praise and blame and reformulate how they work in society. They no longer mean the same thing. It's like beating a one-month-old at chess--are you really going to praise yourself? And if you were just a passive catalyst through which the universe spoke and you climbed Mount Everest are you going to praise yourself? No, not if one is honest (if they don't believe in free will). However, what they may attribute to the success of climbing the mountain may come in handy, but to pat themselves on the back and praise themselves, this is empty ritual of no real meaning or worth.
As for your last paragraph, I have little clue what you're actually talking about here. You'd need to rephrase it for me to probably understand it. There is no "percentage" of free will, heh--there is categorically none (or at least, so far in our collective scientific endeavors, no definitive proof that there is any). I simply don't think that one needs to have the belief in free will to utilize one's body and mind in a maximal way. There is no practical difference between the determinist and the believer-in-free-will in the means by which one wears and uses one's body and mind, rather, there is one a difference in the ways they make sense of the movements of bodies and minds.
What about sentiment and feelings? Could they be purely inside our "self" from the beginning and also not determined by outer parameters?
In classical theology, will and freedom are two distinct phenomena.
Complete denial of the concept of free will suggests an inclination toward what is philosophically known as "hard determinism".
Sapolsky in essence, is a "hard determinist" - positing that genes entirely determine the behavior of an organism. I agree that in some respects (as most scientists would) that genes do affect behavior to a certain extent, but to go as far as saying that all behavior can be explained in biological terms is plain ludicrous.
Fact: Behavior is variable.
plain evidence of this is seen through psychotherapeutic methods where with the help of a therapist, patients challenge themselves to *change*. Behavior modification is real and documented, unattribuatble to biology.
The logical out-working of what Sapolsky espouses is bleak - ethics completely go out the window. There is no moral accountability for actions that are truly reprehensible. The mass murderer or serial rapist, ..."oh that's a biological phenomenon..."
There's no such thing as hard determinism. You either believe in determinism or don't.
If you watch his opening lecture in stanford univ channel he said the opposite of what you just assumed of him
Societal values change with the times. The Japanese used mass rape as mitary strategy in Nanking. the US had used it Nam.
have you ever paid to watch an action movie with violence in it and laughed when the bad guy died?
Behavior modification involves outside influences that pressure an individual to behave differently. We collectively have agreed that murder and rape are undesirable and remove individuals who do those things. These facts do not detract from the validity of hard determinism.
@@nodriveknowitall702 How we collectively have agreed that murder and rape are undesirable if none of us have free will ???
If so why is this guy trying to convince me of this point of view, the very fact that he is means that he must think I should consider his point of view, to consider is an act of free will which he must think I have or he wouldn't be blathering about such an ill-considered premise. Second his opinion even if it is as he says it is would be a statement based on prior conditioning and not objectively true. He is just an preprogrammed automaton blathering what is conditioned in his brain from prior experiences and genetic conditioning, and my response to it also, so what the hell it the purpose of this. None. Fortunately, I don't. Tweedy professor types that supposedly talk with "authority" should pick up a basic philosophy book and begin to think what they are saying.
um... how is God's plan working? He knows how it will end. He created both the light and darkness, fortune and calamity. For He is the lord omniscient. If He knew ahead of time to make a childish war for good vs evil. why make people fight? it reminds me of playing G.I. Joes.
Genetics don't determine our behavior unless you have a genetic disease like huntingtons disease or you are more susceptible to addiction or depression in certain gene-environment situations. typically due diet. or stressors.
"You can choose a steady guide in some celestial voice,
If you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice.
You can choose from phantom fears and kindness that can kill,
I will choose a purpose here. I will choose free will." Rush.
Author and artificial intelligence researcher Douglas Hofstadter referred to the process as "free won't". Rather than choosing what we will do, he postulated, we choose what we won't do.
Which makes sense to me. This very morning, I decided I wouldn't stay home, despite tropical storm warnings. The road beckoned.:)
I think this way and practically almost everyone (except a couple) I talked to about it likes to contradict the idea every time. I think it's because it's denying something that they're proud of, their achievements and the like... that makes them feel superior to other people. Some people are proud of just simply not committing crimes (me too btw), but I think there's factors beyond our control that makes us not have committed crimes... some sort of nature + nurture mixture with some more luck elements like not being forced into a situation to do it, etc.
The air quotes really broke the camel's back for me. Dislike. There are many things that influence behavior, but the choices you make regarding what behaviors you express are free will. Your genetics, society, upbringing, etc., are not who you are; these are just the foundation you build on. This man sounds like he subscribes to Eugenics Theory.
You are absolutely delusional.
How so? Because I don't subscribe to the idea of determinism? Because I don't agree that all behaviors, especially major ones, are immutable? Because the lack of evidence provided in this video along with the presenter's nihilistic approach steer me away from his conclusion?
All behaviors, from what the presenter proposes, are direct results of when: the lot of us agree to hold off on negative behaviors that have been deemed as taboo by society, exhibit behaviors that allow us to fit better into said society, our individual upbringing, our experiences, and by instinctive urges passed on to us through our genetics. My argument to the contrary is that these are factors that influence our behavior, with differing weights associated to each, and that the options presented to us based on situations may also be initially generated by these factors; but that they do not absolutely determine our choices. Were this the case, there would be absolutely no escaping hierarchical class systems in all cultures; there would be absolutely no movement between classes and those classes would remain as a stable percentage of the population. As history shows, and I will not document every example here, this is not so.
To reply to your first comment, how can you draw the conclusion that he subscribes to Eugenics theory? That's just a dumb thing to say.
You describe the presenter as having a nihilistic approach and that steers you away. Let empirical knowledge guide you, not feelings.
I do agree that the format of these Big Think videos is less than ideal for conveying such a polarizing opinion on such a complex topic. Robert Sapolsky has lectures that can be found on youtube. He even has a book which circles around this very topic. I'd encourage you to research more.
Your argument about class mobility makes absolutely zero sense. Your thinking is too rigid. Whether we live in a deterministic universe or a universe comprised of free will, it makes no difference. Everything will behave the same either way. But acknowledging the true causalities will allow us to think differently in a society where people are currently rewarded and punished purely on merits which we believe to have full control over.
TheOneZenith You make choices with your brain which is moulded by genetics and environment, none of which you have control over. You said he sounds nihilistic. You are clearly having an emotional response. I'm afraid your emotions do not affect reality. Are you looking at the world with cold, rational analysis? Or are you seeking the truth that keeps you deluded?
Avfcphil1313: I am evaluating his argument based on the facts, or lack thereof, presented in just this video along with the way it was presented. Robert Sapolsky's presentation was not persuasive, nor was it a cold and rational analysis; it was given with contempt. This is the same pseudointellectual contempt and rigid thinking that those who have a high IQ but poor social skills frequently display. This is why I'm reminded of Eugenics in his argument, though I personally hadn't even thought about Eugenics in decades. Whether that was his intent or if he actually embodies any of those traits, I don't know. I've never personally met the man.
Eric: It isn't dumb at all to suggest Eugenics when the speaker presents the idea of determinism based on genetics. That's the very core of Eugenics, and Robert Sapolsky's presentation here leans heavily on genetic factors predetermining behavior.
The nature of the universe in your comment is a Red Herring. We live in a Probablistic Universe, not one based on either Free Will or Determinism. Those things with the higher likelihood of occurring in the universe are the ones represented. This is a far cry from stating that human behavior is deterministic, as not only does probability factor in but individual choices which may or may not have any logical motivations that can be ascertained.
My argument about class mobility makes perfect sense. Under a deterministic system, one where free will is an illusion based on a misunderstanding of the variables that influence human behavior, class mobility should be easily predicted on a macro scale. There would be no large movement among classes and the populations in each would correspond directly to those born into such classes due to genetic and social influences.
What we find when we study history is that classes, unless maintained by religious or governmental institutions, are highly mobile and based on individual choices and probability rather than genetic or social influences. Those choices are free will, the spark in the dark of the human mind that evaluates all options presented and chooses one or none of them, and probability which has that investment of choice reap varying amounts of success or failure. Merit only gets you so far in this world, as many a skilled failure lies in the grave.
If human behavior was deterministic, people would be little more than programmable fleshbots. The patterns of behavior in people would be glaringly obvious and easy to predict. This is not so, as people are extremely complex individually and difficult to predict with certainty. You can weigh a probability of a behavior, but not the certainty.
If there is no Free Will, why they try to convince others ?
If Free Will is an illusion, who is illuded ?
Determinism is false, read about quantum mechanics please.
whatever illude means
Read about quantum decoherence please.
No it doesn't. Heissenberg just says that you can't precompute it. We just don't know (and can't know) the trajectories/positions/velocities of the particles of our universe. It still can be determinist at its core.
Quantum mechanics doesn't save "free will" either, read this article:www.humantruth.info/
Quantum Mechanics can never be determined at single events, it works statistically, a single event out of the prediction will have drastic outcome over time, which is the butterfly effect.
Besides, you are focusing only on the quantum mechanics argument, please ponder over:
If there is no Free Will, why they try to convince others ?
If Free Will is an illusion, who is illuded ?
I'm loving the abundance of contradicting videos on Big Think, but it isn't a bad thing.
This is all a matter of perspective.
You can claim all the different predetermined variables are those that decide how we'll act, but in practice you're going "hey look, told you he's gonna do that". You can use the variables to make predictions but since we don't actually know all the variables, for now we're simply judging events in hindsight and saying they were bound to happen.
Even if there was a way to determine exactly how each variable influences behavior to the point where we can predict everything, it is not applicable in our own lives, since our perception is forever subjective, we can't force out the very thing that creates our subjective experience of the world and replacing it with our objective knowledge of all variables.
As Soren Kierkegaard said "Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards", the fact that everything in the universe is deterministic and we can point that out, is irrelevant to how we should live our lives, exactly because we must live it forwards.
For that we need the illusion of free will to keep existing and guiding our choices for the future, mostly because we can't live life any other way.
If our environment and it's ideas are a variable to consider in what makes us act deterministically, then the idea that we don't have any choice in how our life is going to be- is a variable we should eliminate, in order to end up with a world in which people act morally and "do the right thing" because they have the variable of "morality" having a stronger effect on their actions and choices.
I think it is quantifiable. There really aren't so many variables or players in our existence, but the overall effect or gestalt does seem quite mysterious, so on one hand we can't take apart the system and hope to understand the whole from examining each part closely but we can understand how each part influences the whole. We can't do this with our present computing power but we can do it intuitively with our brains.
There's the matter of scale too, little systems can influence big systems for instance humans affecting the climate. I think that our diet will be recognized as a major player in the human world (how could it not be?) with the consequences of poverty and violence being a sign that the system isn't working that well.
This is a bit of a mind blow that just by changing our diets we can get to the root cause of greed and violence. We may not have a choice when it comes to being human or not but we can sure change the current morality. The coolest part of this is that it's completely down to the individual.
This guy spent 3 minutes talking and didn't prove anything. What exactly was the point of this video? Give me 3 minutes of my life back
seriously I feel dumber now after watching it
Check out this guy on the joe rogan pod cast.
LB G you didnt have the free will to choose to watched it. you had to watch it. it was written lol
there is your prove :)
It went over your head. That's all.
So yet another socialistic individual who does not want to take responsibility for their own behaviors because "there is no free will"?
I'm sorry but reality rejects your premise.
Fatman in Paradise He never stated that he doesn't want to take responsibilities because it is out of his control. For example, if I state that there is no democracy, doesn't mean I am running away from the fact that I might just be incapable or unfit for the position I seek in society, I just state the injustice occuring. It also occurs in philosophy believe it or not, you assume the situation of the topic itself, not your personal state regarding to that situation.
Lovely knee-jerk response.
I long ago arrived at the conclusion that free will doesn't exist. For me it was a pretty simple thought experiment that helped me arrive at this conclusion. Basically, the better you know someone, the more accurately you can predict their response to any given situation. It is a short logical leap to assume that if you knew everything about them and what was affecting them, you could predict their actions perfectly. If that is true, then there is no room for free will. That also happens to stem from an argument fired at theists spouting on about omniscience in my youth. I also arrived at the solution that seems to elude Mr. Sapolsky for some reason about how to "structure a functioning society" with this knowledge. The answer is to simply act as though free will does exist (what we've been doing anyway). I agree with him that we need to reign in excessive punishment and focus on correction.
there's a lot of evidence for free will just look up sir roger penrose
I'll do so, thanks
What tf is discipline if I don't have free will? Can I just say, "oh, everything is pre-determined, anyway..." and feed my inclination to procrastinate when I genuinely have several exams in a couple weeks. How do I apply this all? What about extreme accountability, like Jocko Willink axplained?
I'm sorry if I came out aggressively, but can someone really answer my question? Why does this even matter to our day to day lives?
Piece of advice, Bob: don't worry whether you worry too much or too little on this matter - you're always worrying the exact ammount ;)
Great. I believe the same, but you say it better...haha. In all seriousness, I think this takes the pressure off, and at the very least, makes us better at the things we do...
Why we don't start by defining free will? What we mean by this expression largely determines whether we have it or not. If nothing else, it is a concept that needs a lot of clarification that has been going on over centuries and biology is not the only source of answering the question. It is also interesting how the headline is provocative and trashy but the content worth those 3 minutes I gave it.
"Sorry officer, I know I went 30 MPH over the speed limit. But I don't have free will."
With my own free will I tap on this video to watch it and wrote a comment.
I’ve been thinking about fate vs free will for a while now. Still unsure if we really have free will. If we do it’s likely very narrow and those who are more aware have more free will than those living on auto pilot.
Honestly I think this is pretty much it. You never have total free will, but the more awareness you have, the more agency you have, so we gotta focus on cultivating knowledge, agency, and positive forward trajectory. It’s all we can do
I also agree but skipped breakfast 🥞 and 🤔 I'll never do that again. I should have known I was gonna say that.
I love the way this guy talks sooo much 💜