Robert Sapolsky: “I Don’t Think We Have Any Free Will Whatsoever.” | People I (Mostly) Admire | 18
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- Robert Sapolsky is one of the world’s leading neuroscientists, with a focus on the physiological effects of stress. (For years, he spent his summers in Kenya, alone except for the baboons he was observing.) Steve asks Robert why we value human life over animals, why he’s lost faith in the criminal justice system, and how to look casual when you’re about to blow-dart a very large and potentially unhappy primate.
This episode was originally published March 5, 2021.
For a full transcript, resources, and more, visit: freak.ws/3WQAjmF
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00:00 Robert Sapolsky bio
01:37 Baboon research in Kenya
3:03 Baboon social rank and health
4:14 Blow-dart sedation challenges
7:40 Why human and animal stress are similar
11:09 Why Sapolsky only studied male baboons
12:42 Affiliation vs. rank in baboons
14:08 Tragic end of research with first baboon troop
17:38 Why humans prioritize human lives
19:25 How humans prioritize pets
19:47 Prioritization of tigers in India
21:00 Harambe the gorilla
22:19 Chronic stress research
25:08 Ways to respond to stress
26:00 Genetic influence on stress
26:45 ACE score to quantify stress
28:49 Addressing PTSD to reduce crime
29:35 Behave- Sapolsky book on violence
29:56 Free will and violence
30:35 Abolishment of criminal justice system
30:54 The frontal cortex and impulse control
31:31 Frontal cortex trauma in death row inmates
32:29 Purposes of punishment
32:46 Retribution
32:59 Incapacitation and deterrence
33:35 Quarantine model of punishment
34:10 “Biological luck” in blame and reward
34:51 Epilepsy, schizophrenia, and dyslexia misunderstood
37:06 How to be a better storyteller
Sapolsky's lectures on YT are some of the best lectures I've ever seen in my life.
I try my best to get as many people who have any interest in human behavior to watch his 25 part lecture series. I was so floored when I first went through it, I had to go back and listen to it again and again.
He has a great style where, apparently without referring to notes, he is practically telling stories about what he is teaching. And aside from the subject matter at hand he shows the students as things were learned along the way by researchers, as soon as it seems you nail something down, other evidence will show up showing you missed something.
Then sometimes the focus on the field might even reverse itself. And then shown that's not quite right either and while gathering all this information, it's time to go down another rabbit hole and learn something completely unexpected on the subject...
It's a way of not only learning how to learn but develop an awareness that there's something you have overlooked as a life lesson as well. Beyond only pursuing research, learning how to expect that life will throw you curve balls.
And to not stress about catching them but over time figuring that out, with the right attitude you can juggle those curve balls as well. And have some fun with the unexpected, and maybe you'll get some brilliant insights into your life as a bonus
Lecture after lecture.
They are indeed wonderful.
@@1eviledy Likewise! It's hands down the best 40 hours or so I've ever spent, and the most enjoyable. I really appreciate Stanford having those up. In an ideal world, I'd wish that everyone that pursues a degree in psychology (or medicine) would watch it. It's such a good primer on the different ways in which behavioral theory can be and has been approached, and the ways in which cognition is a biological process, not simply a matter of freely chosen thoughts. AND a reminder that psychology and mental health practice is still evolving, and should not be regarded as if it's got everything figured out.
Absolutely! What an amazing class. I loved how he would ‘sell’ an idea or perspective for the first half of the class and then tear it apart for the remainder. Excellent thinker, writer, researcher, and philoosopher. A true renaissance man.
Love any podcast or interview with Robert Sapolsky. We're lucky to have him alive & sharing his knowledge of Behavioral Biology.
His 25 lectures are better medicine than any pharmaceutical medicines made
Just praise? I question his silly notion of calling primates people. Typical empiricist failing recognize the significant difference between us and all existence. more than meets the eye to not just the human being…but all the natural world.
When I first heard Dr. Sapolsky I saw him as wearing a 3 piece suit, and I was so surprised to see him in reality.
I much enjoy learning from
his discoveries and stories in behavioral biology, but his ideas on philosophy, economics, history, and justice are fairly underdeveloped and i hope he doesn’t try to deviate too far from his academic expertise. The future will not look back kindly on Maoism either, which is something like what he suggests by doing away with a merit-based society.
Also, schizophrenia, epilepsy, and trauma to the prefrontal-cortex, are neurological disorders not intrinsically psychiatric / mental illness. They are born, or fell into these not by intent, and are nothing at all like sociopathy which is a controllable and curable state of mind. Rather convenient omission. Nevertheless a society that tried to filter for all of these in our criminal system, for not having an implicit sense of self control / agency / freewill, would be cost prohibitive for any modern society. We didn’t do so because it was ‘right’, but because it’s too costly to do what’s right, by having a tiered system of incarceration. And, it would likely be gamed and abused beyond recognition even if we did
"Luck" has nothing to do with it, weren't you listening?!? {lolol 😉}
its always nice when someones mindset is made less casually cruel by simply learning more
People will continue to deny this and continue to be "crueler". I'm not a scientist but I figured this free will out at age 12 because it's intuitive and always felt it ever since and challenged myself to see where it was wrong without doing any studies. Determinist factors of biology and environment just make sense. This is what makes religions extra-cruel.. they think man has free will. I call it something less imposing - free choice. But it means little as "free choice" is just a term to avoid bad arguments with crazy bible believers. There is no Free Will. You don't need to be a genius to know. I figured out that people all thought they were better than they actually were through self-illusion. I also knew that the importance of looks is downplayed age of 6. Intelligence is way more important in life than Niceness. It's a cruel world we live in from that perspective.
Robert has no choice but to say that free will is an illusion. After all, he could not and cannot do otherwise.
nice one!
and.....?
My brain compels me to agree.
Exactly. It’s a self defeating assertion.
Lol 😂
Can’t wait for his new book “Determined” 🔥
I'm a huge fan of Sapolsky. This podcast was a good one. Felt like I got to know Sapolsky personally a little better. Kudos to the interviewer.
"Abolish the Criminal Justice System" is complete nonsense. You would have to be an ugly bearded academic priest to believe that. Here we are the new priest class to tell you what is true.
People I absolutely adore..Robert Sapolsky ❤❤❤
I am so happy to have met you this incredible human being. I totally agree that we do not have freedom. We have to find our own freedom within our selves. So clear and true is his philosophy. I must read his books. At last I can relate someone who thinks like I do. Thank you. More talks please.
How can you do anything but what is determined for you."We should" "I should" nah if you (choose) to believe this it can only be "We must do" "I must do"
Were you forced to write this against your will.? What da heck?
By your own statement, you have no choice but to "agree" and you are not free to "find you freedom". Before you can be a philosopher you have to use concepts correctly, including the concepts that underlie them. There is no such thing as knowledge without choice, and there is no such thing as choice without free will.
@@wetwingnutDo define “free will”, then.
@@i.ehrenfest349 A legal term that has nothing to do with science, it has to do with morals. Something Saposlki and the new priests of the age have deemed "Old and Mistaken".
Best conversation on criminal justice, reward and punishment I've ever heard. Finally. A clear voice.
Agreed. The desire for retribution is a natural reaction when someone has suffered a terrible loss at the hands of another, but it's not an instinct that the criminal justice system should be endorsing, much less codifying. That's why the admonition against "cruel and unusual punishment" exists.
@@jimwilliams3816quite often, crime is retribution itself.
A fantastic example of mental gymnastics.... if we are pointless machines with no freewill... then no potential, no regrets, no responsibility, no crime.... it's like the problem of evil for the classical theist. No way around the obvious.
Yea! A recent interview of R.S. Thank you.
It is very appealing to have Dr. Sapolsky talk about his time with troops of Babboons when he was doing research!
Loved this lecture. Very interesting, I did feel him walking on eggshells for Christian/catholic religion, as he didn’t mention and or explain much as he did for other religions which I was a bit disappointed about but I get it because of the times. Also there is no fresh comments so if you’re here in 2023 drop down to say hi!
Ya I would like to hear him flesh that out a bit. He mentions morals but where do these morals come from if we are just biological organisms, just damn luck. If al we are is just matter in motion then there is no moral standard.
@@markxivlxii1390matter follows unwritten laws though... in another example: our cells don't attack each other because of chemical / physical barriers evolution has created for them to cooperate. In a single organism when these rules fail to be followed by the cells of the organism in which they have no control over, the organism would otherwise be considered to have some sort of autoimmune disease which will subsequently lead them to perish soon without medical intervention. This is just one example of how what our language defines as "morals" exists in other dimensions of our reality.
“I’m capable of intermittent bursts of presentability”
same Dr. Sapolsky, same.
In a book I wrote about 20 years ago, I titled a chapter, "The Illusion Of Free Will." Needless to say, I'm on board with Robert here.
It's not even a very good illusion. Who really feels that their decisions come from nowhere, rather than from a myriad causes that a little introspection reveals almost immediately.
Your comment is pointless.... No regrets though 😂
Tío, pa leer tu libro, por fa!
I feel like a mathematical fact of the universe. If everything that happened before me happened, then I will appear and happen too.. if I had free will I would not be here responding to a TH-cam post about free will. Free will would mean I could for go back in time infinite amounts of time and make decision differently every time to see which option is the best for me
So nicely organized program. Congratulations.
Great podcast! Lots of great insight. ❤
30:15 Starts answering question.
From baboons on PCP to the dissolvement of the criminal justice system, this interview was a wild ride!
Yeah, Abolish the criminal justice system is click bait BS. He should be ashamed, but I doubt he has those emotions, as he is so much better and smarter. I have heard enough from the new priests of our age.
@@yanapostolides601someone's amygdala is riding them ^^ 😂
My first contact with Sapolsky. Very insightful comparisons and analogies. Thank you.
Some would shy away from this kind of exposure. I have to give props to Dr. Sapolsky for deciding to do a podcast explaining to non-existence of free will. Kudos sir. Kudos.
Whatever we might mean by "free will", it has to be "compatible" with determinism We do make choices freely as long as no one is pointing a gun at our head, but all those choices are 100% determined by antecedent conditions; our needs, wants, perceptions, volition, education, preferences.. ad infinitem. Were the world to go back 1 second then our choices would be exactly the same. If they were not, in an effort to preserve a notion of free will, then choices would be random and capricious- useless. Decisions can only be of any use if they are perfectly deterministic.
Perfect said
Causality is the thing-action relation, not the prior event-later event relation. Wood burns because can burn. If wood could not burn, no prior event could cause it to burn. A thing acting is the properties of the thing acting.
Volitional Consciousness-N. Branden, in Psy Self-Esteem
There actually are very few current physicists who believe in determinism in the strict sense of the word. That doesn't mean we have free will, of course, but there might be a sense in which there really is an element of randomness in our decisions. Randomness has nohting to do with capriciousness or uselessness, though. A choice determined by strict causes can be capricious and useless. And if we had free will, that would not mean we would act randomly : that would mean we could be moved by maxims and principles (motives) rather than physical causes. Actually, in itself, an act determined by an exterior necessity seems quite "random" to me.
@@freyc1 Causality is the thing/action relation, not the action/reaction relation. Wood acts in a specific way because it is wood, not a frog. Ive never heard a tree croak, nor seen a frog w/leaves.
There are 3 types of stuff in the universe, each w/a specific type of action. Matter, life and mind. And action/reaction, purpose and free will. Free will is mans unique power to initiate an action within the mind. Specifically, its the power to focus or evade focus. Focusing is necessary to reasoning.
Evading focus is necessary to rationalizing.
This is known via common human experience, prior to and the context of science. A man who did not, somehow, experience the concrete, matterial universe and his mental power to initiate reasoning and control his reasoning about the universe could not be a scientist.
Volitional Consciousness-N. Branden, in _Psy. Of Self-Esteem_, online
the world is not proven to be deterministic as we cannot predict what a single particle will do next, only the likeliness. (And it certainly hasnt been rewound) Thats all you need though, the brain doesnt need exactness. Determinism is a non-issue
Free will is such a tricky topic. It's very easy (and understandable) to be triggered by someone telling you that you have no free will. I encourage everyone to deeply consider the nature of consciousness, I've been diving deep into the subject and it's liberating.
Let me ask you (free will believers) this: Did you choose to think the particular first thought you had when you woke up this morning?
Causal explanations cannot account for how humans reason. There is no causal explanation for causal explanations as such. Free will, or freedom, is the ability to reason. If free will does not exist, then truth is not possible. The pursuit of truth is a social activity of giving and asking for reasons. By giving reasons for the nonexistence of free will, you are exercising your own free will. It’s quite a paradox.
It stops being tricky once you realize that the only way for a rational human being to not have any free will is to be dead.
@@VanLifeIsAPsyOp I did not falsely define free will. Denying the existence of free will would be like slapping Frederick Douglass in the face. Coming from a tenured professor from a private university- that’s rich.
Well yes and no. Sometimes it's a continuation of what I was thinking in my dream prior to waking or a reflection on said dream. I've also been practicing mindfulness so I'm fortunate enough to have zero thoughts some mornings which does indeed make the first thought a conscious decision. Free will is basically just freedom of choice/decisiveness, the ability to say yes or no to one option when presented with multiple decisions and to be a willful individual with a strong ego.
The first thought I had this morning was about the billard ball universe of Newton that can be dumbed down to oversimplified mathematics... and then I extrapolated that idea to cover my entire day and this comment.... Tomorrow when I wake up I am going to consider how that thought was already embedded in the initial conditions of the big bang...
Thank you for eye opening info
Fascinating podcast ❤
Freewill is a function of consciousness and understanding, a non-thing that can effect real things, which is what "You" are.
Respectfully, I disagree. Consciousness is an emergent property of cells working together to create a complex system. It is not a non-thing but rather a purely material thing which explains why our consciousness is altered when drunk, high, tired, angry, injured, etc. also the “you”doesn’t make sense. In reality we are a collection of atoms, with trillions being added to our body as we speak and trillions being lost as we speak. Where do you draw the line? If I lose a carbon atom, have I lost a part of myself? Is that lost carbon atom still name? What if I was reduced down to a single carbon atom and the rest of my atoms where in seperate galaxies, where am I? No i argue that the “you” isn’t really a thing rather a concept that we perceive as being real due to biology, and instead is just an arbitrary collection of atoms concentrated into this life form for a small (galaxy wise) time period.
The only difference between fate and free will is the timing.
So probability?
Great interview! Sapolsky is fascinating.
Thanks for the video brother ❤️ love from sweden Stockholm
I read Dr Sapolsky in the 1990's when I was at College. I have heard him give presentations that are always fascinating. A question I would have loved you to ask him is about people on the Autism spectrum, what he thinks it is? Why does it manifest? Would he consider himself to be on it, and is this an issue?
Sapolsky doesn't cover autism as much as I would like in his Human Behavioral Biology lecture series (Stanford TH-cam channel), but certain sections gave me a lot of insight into myself. Molecular Genetics gets into the complexities of heritability and gene expression, the Limbic System is a great primer on the biology of an overactive amygdala and sympathetic nervous system. The whole series left me feeling much more grounded in the neurological underpinnings of who I am, which is handy when dealing with a society that tends to suppose that all behaviors are the result of freely made decisions.
@@jimwilliams3816 autism seemed very conspicuously absent in his lectures. Particularly when he discussed the symptoms of schizophrenia, some of which were identical to ASD.
If people had freewill they would choose not to have depressive thoughts
@@TheRed7000totally misunderstood.
That is not completely true actually. Some people are so hurt, say Traumatized by their past & really that's all that they "feel" inside. Their brain has been stunted.
This is why you see so many domestic violence survivors stay with or example marry such abusive people.
Men & women; it goes both ways.
It's in a way, comfortable and familiar to them.
...But I get what you meant.
If only everyone chose to not put themselves through such hell.
It's bot a Concious & Subconscious decision simultaneously.
Free will is on a spectrum. Knowing you are separate from your mind is the first step in developing awareness that you have control, but you have to exercise free will just like a muscle. If you don't use it, you operate on base level primal impulses.
yep as we see now in the cult like rightwing movements globally, which resulted in the first genocidal war of choice in Europe since the worst calamity of all time, ww2. We must prevail against RU, the west MUST prevail!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!@@jonomehigan451
Some people do.
Fox P2. That is all. Robert Sapolsky is epic and my TH-cam feed, in its wisdom, keeps taking me back to his lectures. He's a wonderful teacher.
Very interesting. One thought that occurs is that courts in my country don’t see mentally ill people as suitable subjects for deterrence. We should perhaps scrap this distinction, or at least widen it to exclude those with some form of frontal lobe damage.
I don’t know who this concept is so hard for people to understand. Your heart beats without having to thin about it. You breath without having to think about it. Your body fighting infections. You body turns food into waste. So many things without you doing a thing. Yet we think we can actually make decisions independently? Everything we do is influenced by stimuli. Sight, sound, smell, touch, etc. All of that factors into what we do. We feel we have a choice which is enough. The consequences of this fact is that we probably should learn not to judge others too harshly. The kindest man and worst man are trying their best.
So, Hitler was trying his best? Should we not judge him too harshly?
@@RefinedQualia Indeed we shouldn't. Because the atoms of his body were just behaving according to the Schroedinger Equation. And so are mine and yours.
@@RefinedQualia The mouse does not consider the morality of infesting your home. That does not mean you should not let your cat hunt the mice. Just because an infectious bacterium does not have free will doesn't mean we shouldn't go easy on them.
@@RefinedQualia He had no choice, and neither did the people sentencing him. LOL
Said more accurately, whether trying or not trying, they cannot do otherwise at each microchoice.
My son has frontal lobe brain damage, it is what used to be called, mental retardation. Pray for him, his name is Ben. He is a loving sweet soul.
Sorry but what would prayer do?
@@houtbay9 not a thing if it means nothing to you. Prayer is a way of offering up healing to the Great Good.
@@peopleunite3605 I honestly did not mean to be disrespectful. But as far as I know there has not been a single recorded event where prayers to the deities resulted in healing. If that were to be the case then the hospitals would be empty. But if it offers help as a crutch to lean on in difficult times, then that's fine.
@@houtbay9positive intention if nothing else and that cant hurt
@houtbay9 wow you are really smart!!
To know how little control we have on our lives you need just look closely enough at those around you.
Many people choose to evade focusing their minds, thus they cant control themselves. Modern culture is basically a nihilist attack on values and their base, the mind.
You just need to look closely at yourself.
What a great interview!!
Fascinating stuff!
i just fell in love with science all over again. And it really is because Sapolsky uses a language that pretty much aligns with metaphysics the way I understand and interpret.
I think the closer one comes to a natural death, the less responsible they feel for anything. As they see friends and family, imagine, your spouse or longtime partner, come to an end, so much mortality staring you in the face, just how temporary things are, in a way making them unreal, even the self. If you are lucky you’ll get a grave stone. Perhaps even flowers for a generation or two. And then even the stone becomes unlegible. Not even a thought.
And then the church or the local council will sell the land you're buried in to a property developer, and your grave won't even exist anymore. Think on that, the next time you are feeling so self-important.
What a gem of a program
Whatever the reality of "free will"; I believe that willpower exists.
As I have exercised it many times.
Welcome to the grand stage everyone. It’s a written script, your whole life is already written and you get to be an actor in it. Oh, what’s that you say? You don’t want to be in this drama, comedy, action flick… too bad, you’re in it anyway. Relax knowing we are all from the same source and will return to it momentarily. How comforting knowing the self doesn’t exist at all, we are just expressions of whatever this energy is. We are all the same stupid thing experiencing itself through this reality. Beyond dumb and incredibly hilarious.
No, we are not the same. If you ever had the chance to grow up while still remembering your childhood self, then you will know that you are not the same person today that you were at age three, five, ten or fifteen. So why would a person who is not you be like you? Of course they are not.
But what if you don’t want to be in this script, and so you decide to opt out via self deletion, but wait, you can’t do that because you don’t have the free will to make that decision unless your preprogrammed life decides that is the direction you’ll take. Around and around we go.
@@schmetterling4477you were the same awareness at 3 as you are now. The only thing that’s changed is the body mind.
Stupid compared to what? That whole philosophy is weak-minded and anti-human. Human beings are magnificent creatures whose full potential hasn't even been reached yet in terms of what we can learn and achieve, materially and mentally speaking. To give up your "idea" of free is basically you saying "this world is too complex for me to understand, so I'll just pretend I'm a rock"
@@spinz7 So you are agreeing with me that I am not the same. :-)
Amazing human. I love him.
Why amazing?
Had to speed it up just a tad. 👍 good stuff
I'm glad to hear this. No matter what I do now, I just couldn't help it.
Free will is not an illusion . Choices are real.
But how free are those choices? What drives them? Can you control your random thoughts? Can you control your emotions? All of those drive your choices.
We have as much free will as a dog in a kennel. Some dogs have bigger nicer kennels and others less, thus is our astrology chart and our free will scope
This guy is so well-spoken to common man like me but explains the high concepts with detail. Amazing
So true! Clear as a bell but so hard to turn into policy! We must try though.
Fascinating stuff to think about. Not sure if it changes anything fundamentally about how we live. Absolute free will may well turn out to be an illusion - but is it a useful and perhaps, even essential illusion we all agree to accept as at least functionally true? Significantly, criminal law is based on the assumption that individuals have free will, with exceptions made for the seriously mentally ill. Very interesting topic.
Sapolskys broken car brake metaphor is perfect. He admits they need to be off the road, but not hated, possibly repaired. Perfect.
If free will doesn’t exist, those who hate also have no choice in the matter. This guy’s argument is incredibly biased and inconsistent on the most basic logical basis.
@@rolisreefranch they shouldn't be hated but the ones that did hate them didn't have any choice in hating them at that moment in time and space. It is in fact logical. This doesn't imply that they can't learn to not hate them and do differently the next time( after absorbing more info about the big picture).
In Christianity there is also the saying that you shouldn't judge anyone. This also implies that you shouldn't judge the one that is judging, and not judge the one that is judging the one that is judging and on and on..... this is a mess
@@rolisreefranch what is your beef ? ?? ? - it seems he is biased toward truth as opposed to falsehood - bro
@@henrychoy2764 his argument is illogical
TY.
always good to hear robert sapolsy, such an interesting person
wow, willingness to learn about crime and punishment is truly beautiful, thank you
He "believes" we don't have free will. Im off to make a cheese sandwich😁because i can.
Sapolsky is completely right and I can prove it to you.
Think of yourself at your most inner core. All the stuff you know about yourself that no one else does….
And ask yourself, could you be any other way?
The answer is a resounding no
Proof that there is no free will !
Agree...had many ppl disagree with me on that. I guess it's hard to swallow for most of us...we NEED to be in control of our lives. Fallacy!
That message is the greatest news to murderers, thiefs, rapists, etc. etc.
Also to politics crooked as cops fbi atf ss nazis you got that right my friend capitilism a love story. 😂😂😂 ftw
Humans are not the only ones who have affections toward pets. There have been many, be it exceptional, of non-human animals having affection toward animals other species.
Sapolsky is such a wise teacher, the truth about free will is so important and fundamental
Ummmmm. No it means nothing... neither does your comment or anything at all... You are a pointless machine.
We have an extremely convincing illusion of free will which is for all intents and purposes the same thing.
It's a fun topic to discuss, but it ultimately shouldn't change who you are imo
Absolutely interesting talk, just like Robert himself! Besides this interview, I also watched and did a video based on his TED Talk "The Biology of Our Best and Worst Selves", which is just as amazing as this interview
Maybe he knows more about us than I do, but I also think free will is over rated and never supported with evidence when people make fantastic claims about it.
I see in my own life that I have choices within a limited range of possibilities, at any juncture in my life. I've also come to understand that as I age, the nuances and focal points that I choose affect greatly any desired outcomes I may have or want.
Religionists often claim that a deity "gave us free will" but the argument doesn't stand up and is usually claimed without evidence. To say that our decision making capacity was "given" by any thing or anyone, is an insult to our dignity as a species, because we evolved to be more competitive, i.e., to survive to reproductive age, and that does not fit with a deity-driven paternalistic model where characteristics are "given". We have traits that helped our ancestors survive, among them our many cognitive biases, that very few people realize they have.
This was a fascinating video. Thank you for posting! 🌄
Your second paragraph contradicts your first. Free will is immediate, a context of proof. Proof is an action of the free will.
Finally someone who thinks like I do
It's nice to hear a scientist put the fork into obsolete concepts like free will.
Remember your analogy next time you ponder whether to put your fork into either the beef steak or the potatoes. Choose one, then change your choice, then change it again, and then close your eyes so the choice is random. And then tell me that what you just ate was neurologically determined.
Thank you for having Robert Sapolsky on your podcast. Robert Sapolsky’s insight that we do not have free will and that we are determined is provocative and true. Question for Robert, have you read, studied, and understood Spinoza’s Ethics? I too understand that free will is an illusion. I have studied Spinoza’s philosophy communicated in his Ethics for over 50 years. Spinoza wrote his Ethics during the 17th century; however, his books were banned due to contrary religious beliefs. Spinoza understood that free will is an illusion and that we are determined by the laws of nature. Spinoza’s God is Nature, a non-anthropomorphic being.
Sapolsky is such an amazing thinker and speaker, when I hear him talk about a topic I already I have a specific opinion about, I like to hear what he has to say about it and give him the benefit of the doubt.. he is clearly way more intelligent than I am and it helps me be more open to other ideas! That seems like a good thing
"The criminal justice system should be abolished." OK, but that would imply an act of will by use of the word "should." If there is no free will, there is no "should" either. If I can't choose, of what use is "should"?
Yep. It’s like people who say that haven’t thought through the entire ramification of what they are suggesting.
As much use as there is to say we _should_ imprison humans.
I think he is saying that if we are to be logically consistent it should be abolished, if we truly care about fairness it should be abolished.
@@Zanuka Perhaps, but it’s just not practical. It sounds better than it really is. Imagine allowing a serial killer to run loose and doing whatever he wants but isn’t arrested just so we can be logically consistent. It wouldn’t be fair to the victims, right?
@@josephbrown9685 I don't think he's advocating to abolish prisons, etc, but the concept of justice. You still prevent harm and death if you can, even knowing the cause of said harm/death was inevitable. One could also argue it makes logical sense to prevent said harm and death if viable (i.e. despite our inevitable ignorance). New 'justice' is about protecting (as much as possible) those who have done no harm, caused no death and about (if possible) the rehabilitation of those criminals so they wont harm or kill in the future. The true notion of justice is ultimately based on free will, which determinists don't believe in.
Thanks so much.
We plan our lives as Eternal Souls before we come to Earth in a body..the veil is drawn and we live it out as our experience Here on Earth. 😊❤
I love Dr. Sapolsky.
I've thought about the free will question, and I've reached the conclusion that we have limited free will, and different people may have different amounts and types of it. Yes, you are a product of your genetics and experience. This give you some behavior options to choose from and some limitations in different situations. Neither total lack of free will nor total freedom, but probably less free will than we believe particularly in the important choices.
In this region where there is this free will (the portion of choice that is free that you say is limited), according to what information and/or with what capacities/computational abilities do you do this deciding? If in a given moment you are free from your circumstantial fabrication (indoctrinations and up from there into the stratosphere of uber complexity, of the constantly recursive interplay of information, DNA, physiological events and cognitive experiences), then what is this separate being acting for - what does it believe, what "side" is it on, and why? By why, what I mean is, how did it get the way it got? If this is where freedom resides, then this entity must be free of prior setting, by the universe or deity, of proclivity, of (for the theists and those who are surreptitiously entranced by their work across the ages) good or evil. And then comes the differentiation - that which provides for free will its only place for employment - the existence of right and wrong choice.
When you are there, feeling free from your "banal" or "mere" natural self, about to make an important decision, you say you are free from it, but yet the decision you're about to make does not - CANNOT - come from a void. There is stuff there. Stuff has to come from somewhere. Variability of stuff is how we explain both physical and cognitive differentiation in creatures, and so a non-free will version of the world is completely plausible, but for our feeling. But how do we explain variability in that which is said to be free of divine or cosmic interference (so that it can be called free)? When you try to come up with a way in which a thing once free of differentiation arrives at differentiation, nothing but circular logic, infante regressions and outright violations of freedom are available to explain it. There is zero free will.
The setting of the free will cannot come from:
1) "You." By you we mean either the non-free will self or the free will self. The former cannot be, because this would make the qualities, proclivities, opinions and information of the free will the handi-work of the non-free will, thereby violating the free part. The latter cannot be because this is circular - a good free will making free will makes a good free will, and a bad free will making free will makes a bad free will. This grounds on an inherent state, and thereby violates free will.
2) A God. This violates freedom.
3) The universe. This violates freedom.
4) A third entity that makes free wills. This leads to an infinite regression, because a good free will making free will maker makes a good free will, and so in order to escape a potential inherency, we need a fourth entity, and on and on and on.
The assertion that free will is not an entity, unique for each person and attached to each person, but capable of vetoing the natural self to which it is bound, but merely a property of the universe, does not work, because said property would be equally available to all people, making it background noise in the equations of all human choices, which in turn are made by the only thing we have to posit such a capacity (having put free will off to being a mere property of the universe) which is the naturally caused person. Entity versus property of the universe is the primary shell-game we play to swap back and forth between so as to protect what we feel to be the case (that we have free will) from logical destruction.
In the history of our personal making are indeed choices that we made - to study something, to dedicate to something - but these are themselves the products of the aforementioned recursive soup and prior choices, which in turn are the products of the same, and the chain keeps going back, and never is a choice not a product of what came before, until we arrive back at the first choice, which itself has only causation without consciousness to have spelled it.
I have not seen or met a neuroscientist or a neurobiologist or a biologist who has not said that we are not all equal and that there is individual performance, every one of those guys says 'free will does not exist'. Don't let the biologists mislead you, of course there is free will. It would be wiser if they said that free will is useless.
@@usacut6968 We meet again. When you say "of course free will exists," based on the rest of your comment I don't think I need to go too deep into the matter and can skip to suggesting that instead of reforming to "free will is useless" change "of course we have free will" to "of course we have freedom (to choose, where we in fact do)" because free will does not simply refer to the freedom to choose, but refers instead specifically to that which exploits this freedom - is THAT thing subject to a creation of type - of proclivity, opinion, bias, as well as agility of discernment - that itself comes from anywhere but prior causation?
Think of yourself in that moment where you feel yourself to be free, perhaps in a decision dilemma of some importance, and you've felt to have stood back and taken a view of what has been pulling on your psychology. Because you did this modicum of self-analysis, you feel like you are existing as a person outside of the causation - you are aloof and detached. Some in the no-free will crowd will try to use certain scientific diagnostical studies, or interactive thought games, to illustrate that there's no free will, but there's a more slam dunk way to do it. Simply look at that detached self and ask, Does it have a perspective - a point of view and a personality - proclivities, opinions, beliefs, a partisanship unto the good or the evil? If it does, then these things qualify as "stuff" - attributes that do not qualify as the emptiness and/or equality across peoples that's implied by free will. This entity is free, but free to do as it is designed to do, or, as it wants to do. The question then is: Are we free to change this? Or, alternatively put, where do changes to this come from, ultimately?
When you try to come up with a way in which a thing once free of differentiation arrives at differentiation, nothing but circular logic, infinite regressions and outright violations of freedom are available to explain it. There is zero free will.
The setting of the free will cannot come from:
1) "You." By you we mean either the non-free will self or the free will self. The former cannot be, because this would make the qualities, proclivities, opinions and information of the free will the handi-work - and only the handi-work - of the non-free will, thereby violating the free part. The latter cannot be because this is circular - a good free will making free will makes a good free will, and a bad free will making free will makes a bad free will. This grounds on an inherent state, and thereby violates free will.
2) A God. This violates freedom.
3) The universe. This violates freedom.
4) A third entity that makes free wills. This leads to an infinite regression, because a good free will making free will maker makes a good free will, and so in order to escape a potential inherency, we need a fourth entity, and on and on and on.
The assertion that free will is not an entity, unique for each person and attached to each person, but capable of vetoing the natural self to which it is bound, but is instead merely a property of the universe, does not work, because said property would be equally available to all people, making it background noise in the equations of all human choices, which in turn are made by the only thing we have to posit such a capacity (having put free will off to being a mere property of the universe) which is the naturally caused person.
Entity versus property of the universe is the primary shell-game we play to swap back and forth between so as to protect what we feel to be the case (that we have free will) from logical destruction.
In the history of our personal making are indeed choices that we made - to study something, to dedicate to something - but these are themselves the products of the aforementioned recursive soup and prior choices, which in turn are the products of the same, and the chain keeps going back, and never is a choice not a product of what came before, until we arrive back at the first choice, which itself has only causation without consciousness to have spelled it. Now run the chain forward from there, and witness that there is no place for a pure and featureless entity to make its mark, and if it could, what would it even do, being featureless?
Well, having no free will is essentially saying choice is an illusion because a person will always default to their best choice. This is not true anytime someone makes a choice that goes against their better judgment.
@@chase_modugno It didn't go against their "better judgement" in the moment, but only in retrospect, even if it's valid to say that, given slightly different circumstances, they had some things on-board according to which they may have chosen "rightly." Circumstances being what they were, with countervailing desires being what they were, and with powers of rationalization being what they were, they chose "their best choice." The phenomenon of regret, and recognition that one was not so clearly predetermined to behave regretfully, does not substantiate free will. The devil is in the details of "not so clearly," the sum of which lay contrary to the assumed net motivation, proclivity or status on the evil/good spectrum. Alternatively, if one chooses "wrongly" and was fully aware of doing so at the moment, then they have an on-board sum of motivations to not do so that is insufficient to culminate in them subsuming the desire to do wrongly.
Even if we don't have free will the decisions we think we are making is originating outside the causality loop which we will never understand.
From the godhead I suppose
Working through the installed memeworld constituting my mind, I appreciate this.
I agree that one can argue an excellent case that free will an illusion, which I think will be very important in the future. However, the next step will be realising that the distinction between free will and determinism is an illusion too
Robert is largely wrong. His theories are untested. It's amazing what a Harvard education will do.
I loved this, thank you. You should have a million subscribers and more views. This interview was telling, we are more male baboon than I thought, the females sound wonderful however, which I wish human females would emulate more, but sadly we love attacking each other much too often.
Observe the females in a troop of baboons for a day or two and you will for sure change your mind about that..
Oooo...such a sad experience for you 😢. At 62 I know my women friends / family are my most joyous, empowering, loving cheerleaders I've ever experienced .
Sadly my mother shared your view, thus creating her own reality of same 😢
Perhaps look for lovelier women friends ?
P.S. and Yes I've been happily married to my MALE husband for 43 years ! ❤
Deluded Bot obviously. Darwinian dumb on steroids.
Like the analogy of a brakeless car to the mind and body evolution individually lands us with.
Amazing podcast!!! I need to listen to Soapolsky more and go the Reddit rabbit holes wayyyy less. lol
I have not seen or met a neuroscientist or a neurobiologist or a biologist who has not said that we are not all equal and that there is individual performance, every one of those guys says 'free will does not exist'. Don't let the biologists mislead you, of course there is free will. It would be wiser if they said that free will is useless.
The best comment!
We may not have free will but we have Free Willy!
Well that's a relief.
No free will, no choice, I don't see anything I don't hear anything, as a matter of fact there is no "I". But seeing happens, hearing happens and all the rest of it happens within the consciousness as I-AM Being-Consciousness-Existence. I-AM the totality of the universe.
Will is very much real ,in my early young age I decided to clean shave all my adult life and with the power of my will I still stand on my words۔ You see you can do anything with the power of your will.
You made those decisions based purely on all the conditioning that lead to that moment. This is where the ego defends itself vigorously, thinking that just because it did something that others may judge as unpredictable that it must have been made out of free will
Your example is not about "free will" (independence). Your example is really about "will-power" (persistence).
Using your example, one can show that you did not make an independent (your own) decision. Your decision was governed by others (and by philosophical extension, by the laws of physics - by determinism). If you decided to be "clean shaven", why did you focus on hair? Because in your social world, hair/beard is "a topic" -- you weren't born with this topic in your mind on the day of your birth. You learned the idea of "clean shaven or not" from society.
Second: If you decided to be "clean shaven", is that really your decision? How about hair elsewhere on your body? Did you decide to eliminate (shave) hair from every part of your body? Likely not. Do you continue to shave your entire body, every day? You most likely do not. For example, do you shave your arms and knuckles -- which have very small (harder to see) hair? Likely you do not. The reason you do not is because your society does not consider it "good" or "bad" to shave your knuckles -- your society is neutral on this, and so you are also neutral. Your idea of _which parts of your body to shave, and how frequently_ -- this came into you from your society. You do or disobey your society/others, based on your desire to either be within or be antithetical to your society. You did not make your own decision. Your decision to ONLY shave a few parts came from the body-parts that your society finds "important".
If it was truly your own independent decision, you'd be shaving areas that your society doesn't care about.
Another way to see this: did you decide to pierce your toes? In most societies, it's common for people (mostly women) to pierce their earlobes. But I know of no society where it's common to pierce one's own toe (on your foot). So if you had made a decision that was irrelevant to your society, then you'd be making that decision independent of your society. If someone pierces their earlobes, it's because their society finds that "important" behavior. No society finds it important to pierce your own toe (or thumb, or knee, etc.). These decisions "come" into us, from our society (from the things our society finds "important" -- the things it finds acceptable or unacceptable).
@@keep-ukraine-free528You could have stopped earlier in your own response. You started just fine distinguishing the difference but then went on to confuse them yourself. In fact, there are 3 effects at play: Will, free will and basic willingness.
Free will is imagined. 💞
Great talk , both of you .Pity about the frequent music interruptions , why ????
I adore Robert Sapolsky also. His humor is divine.
Only free will can explain that ridiculous beard and haircut
Wow, the man from Brazzaville Beach in person! Fascinating.
This interview was, in a word, brilliant.
There is nothing brilliant about an incredibly outdated notion of reality. QM is not deterministic.
We need reward and punishment because society needs to identify the value of each individual and place them at the optimal point in the hierarchy that enables the whole thing to operate.
This is only unfair to people born into adverse conditions. Let's improve their conditions. Destroying the notion of hierarchy doesn't help anyone: not society, not the individual.
From my understanding, it's not punishment and reward that need to disappear from our society but rather the context in which they are being used at the moment. What Sapolsky is saying is that we shouldn't punish people because "they deserve it", but rather because punishment is a useful tool in reshaping somebody's behaviour. He thinks we should focus on rehabilitation rather than revenge.
@@ubird-ch8vxso true
“We” is a tricky subject.
We need to get rid of the criminal justice system which focuses on punishment and has no room for redemption, but before we let the criminals out of the jails, we better make sure we understand what we are doing, and we don’t.
Leftism is the product of an unfocused mind, no more rational than traditional religion. Mans life requires punishing the haters of mans life. Redemption is an evil man trying to be good after he has been punished.
@@VanLifeIsAPsyOp So Vladimir Putin deserves only rehabilitation for launching a catastrophic blood bath on eastern europe?
I can feel the ignorance slipping away when i listen to Doc S.
We can operate on them, they can not operate on us. The TB story shows us the unity in diversity.
If only more folks would love knowledge the way these two do. The world would much more quickly approach a golden age. Thanks. Thumbs up to me for recognizing good stuff when i hear it.
Dream on. People are not born good.
They have no free will to love knowledge this way, right? Their brains just aren’t wired that way.
Reductionists are never ending source of amusement.
Here is someone who is 100x smarter than all of us. on free will: In 1931, Einstein, in response to questions about belief in free will, responded with the following comparison of the will of the moon:
“If the moon, in the act of completing its eternal way around the earth, were gifted with self-consciousness, it would feel thoroughly convinced that it was traveling its way of its own accord…. So would a being, endowed with higher insight and more perfect intelligence, watching man and his doings, smile about man’s illusion that he was acting according to his own free will.”
Projectionists are a never-ending source of deflection & denial…😢
If you don't have free Will , Then you don't have freedom to chose !!!
Instead of pointing out that people do not possess what most people proudly imagine having and are hesitant to give up (meaning: free will), it might be more effective to point out the widely accepted fact that our decisions and actions are never entirely free from the influences of our past. One reaches more people that way. Baby steps.
What an amazing scientist and human being is Robert Sapolsky!
Yes but this is not the lecture I would choose to describe his brilliance this is the one that I would use to describe his irrational ignorance
Well, for me it wasn't an Illusion. Why because I left The Jehovahs Wotness Sect. I chose to Walk Away and no hold bars 🎉I'm free move along to my choosing...❤
Circumstances and life events led to that outcome. It felt like free will, but it’s an illusion