What a genius, " the world is born anew in the next moment" Sam Harris has transformed my life. I knew all this but needed this genius to articulate it. Sam's book "Free Will" should be compulsory reading.
The idea of the world born anew in the next moment is originally from Judaism, because God is the soul of the whole existence, and every moment we reveal a dimension of him. God leads the universe by his will and he gave us some amount of free will to join his project of making this world heaven. It's cannot be understandable in human capability how God is free to do what he wants and also we have free will. But it is the case, we feel that we can choose between right and wrong, good and bad. So with all the respect for philosophy and this podcast, if we still believe that we can choose so there isn't any reason why wasting time on this argument.
@@dungeon-wn4gw we have to face it that we as humans have threshold to our mind, this free will question is beyond our threshold just as how all the suffering has divinity justice. We have subjective perspective like a tiny cell in a huge body that can only see what is near it from it's self, as opposed to God who has the infinite ultimate perspective as he is able to see the whole body. Some humility won't hurt us, humans...
The book The Man Who Mistook His Wife For A Hat has made the best case against free will than anything I've read on the topic of free will itself. It shows how much the brain determines who we are and what we do
Sam is trying to explain repeatedly that there isn't free will and then the host saying something like - I love you but there is free will, because even though I didn't have free will when some thought came up, I DO have the free will to decide what I'm going to do about it. And then Sam saying - No, you don't have free will about counter thoughts either since you don't know where they come from either, you don't have free will since you can't think a thought before you think it, you are just witnessing thoughts and counter thoughts as they come up. And then the host looks nervous, like his life has just changed. This was great stuff, thanks Sam!
Right. Scott simply hasn't a clue - he's not had the fundamental insight that you can't control your thoughts (and therefore has not had time to really examine the implications of that insight). Without that he's just 100% stuck/lost and in the end rather annoying - I just wanted him to STFU and LISTEN! (in the end I stopped listening/watching because he just wasn't realising what Sam was on about - I have a short attention span for people who don't get who they're with and continue to think they are an equal in the conversation). Maybe he should take some LSD. Or some really strong pot. But even those don't always supply that insight. I think it just comes down to luck - you simply can't manufacture it.
It boggles my mind on how anyone would argue and disagree with Sam Harris on the topic of free will after listening to him explain how free will is nonsense.
He's just being obtuse here because to grant this proposition he believes his entire life would unravel or something. But he never had free will all along, and his confusion causes much harm because free will substantiates so much malice, judgement, spite, revenge, punishment-- so much harm is scaffolded by the lie of free will.
@@salsaonthebeach1873 maybe more than just on details. For instance, I'm not American, but if I was, I couldn't have brought myself to vote for Biden. That's by no means an endorsement of Trump, that's despite me agreeing with Sam Harris on almost everything he said about Trump.
why is that ? argument from authority? are you outsourcing your thinking to leave it up to him to make deliberate decisions? ()which he then denies he ever made!)
@@johnjacquard863 it seems this one went over your head. But to be concise: what we will is determined by nature and nurture, by our biology and socialization. You are not the author of your own thoughts. If you were, you would have to think what you think before you think it, which leads to an infinite regress. Or as Schopenhauer put it: "Man can do as he wills, but not will as he wills."
It's actually when he says things like this that I stop and have a bit of a hiccup. Admittedly, I recognized long ago that most of this type of naval gazing is well beyond my mental faculties. However, how can "if you will only let it be" and "you don't have free will" occupy the same space?
@@Kruppes_Mulewe don't know when the feeling of "let it be" a raise, but if it arise in your consciousness let it be, don't interrupt it. and lucky us, cos we can train it trough meditation
Sam brilliantly sums up this whole conversation in just one simply sentence at 1:55:46 where he says "The reason why it's not free will is because all of it is being pushed from behind causally either deterministically or randomly or both".
It's almost impossible to illustrate how a very specific definition of a term can be applied to a variety of situations without others reverting right back to their previous definition every time. No matter how skilled you are at communicating, you can't get most people to consider a refined definition as it's carried out. I salute your determination Sam.
You said it friend. I find this cringe to listen to because when you have two honest speakers, in the end it is just about word definitions. You have to break it down to smaller and smaller concepts to find the source of misalignment.
The way I first came onto the notion that there is no free will is trying to imagine putting myself in someone else's shoes. Not just "occupy their body", but truly and completely change places, including memories, way of thinking, etc. Then "I" would "repeat" the exact same errors that they made and I would be "sentenced" to behave the same way they behaved. Everyone would see how there's no free will there. The next step is to realize that it is the same without changing places.
It's an excellent thought experiment. Another way is to simply ask why one person can't stop eating junk food wheras another becomes a bodybuilder. Why does 1 person choose 1 thing while the other chooses another? Just keep the causal regression going until you realise that you played no role in becoming who you are.
@@jwscheuerman Their argument is that their "spirit" made that choice. That's where determinism comes into play to debunk the spirit. Nature + nurture = determinism. We are no different than a computer executing code except biological. We have a set operating structure, take inputs, calculate then output actions/thoughts. This can be proven as there are no true random events in the universe. B happens because A happened.
@@TheFinalsTV It doesn't matter if someone invokes a "spirit" or "soul". This invocation doesn't change the fundamental problem. Whether it's your brain or your "spirit" making the choices, the fundamental fact is that *you* didn't choose your brain, and *you* didn't choose your "spirit".
@Sargon Second is the feeling like you're a locus of attention or an "unchanging self" inside your head that is experiencing all the conscious experience. Like the feeling of being behind your eyes looking out at the world.
As a former smoker, I agree with Sam that my will played a minor but crucial role. Acceptance of the limits of my will was also a crucial incite that helped me transition to a non-smoker 25 years ago. I could argue that those who have the strongest sense of self will are the least likely to be successful in addressing addictions.
Shoutout to Scott for keep pushing back Sam’s argument of free will, allowing Sam to reveal every rebuttal. I now have a much more complete understanding of Sam’s argument and why free will, and even its illusion, doesn’t exist or is incoherent
Absolutely love this, thank you so much but in future is there any way you could make your and your guest's audio levels more similar? Sam is a lot quieter than you.
Sam is well balanced communicator. The real issue here is that even when Sam lose his patience he rarely raise his voice. All that he learned and all that he is is mirrored trough how he speaks. This is his argument about Trump that If you listen to Trump carefully you will notice that he is just a mess. Not pretending to be something he is not. Just people refuse to notice who Trump actually is.
The conversation is clearly happening on two different levels. It's really interesting to see the calm persistent repetition of a fact by Sam so that it sinks in. 3+ hours of this to underline that its a fact and not a hypothesis. The skill to abstract and think, whew. Sam is a genius in this. Such a clear abstraction in articulating his points for an argument. Brilliant! Thank you host for all the beautiful content!!!
in actuality, it wasn't fact though. The idea that we don't control our own thoughts is true to some degree, but I believe that could be a way for our mind to recycle old thoughts and randomly combine different ideas in a sort of "autopilot" mode, which helps us to conserve energy. If we had to actively choose to think about every single thought, I can't help but think of the increased energy requirement. Conversely, allowing our mind to "zone out" like we often do by default probably uses far less energy, so maybe we control some of our thoughts while others are semi-random. But listen, ALL of this, no matter what, without actual proof, can never be concluded to be true. A "theory", in science, is considered the same thing as truth, but Science is constantly building on itself and replacing obsolete ideas with new ones, and we should never call something a truth. It should always be a hypothesis. Even our understanding of how logic works could be flawed in and of itself, and we would have no way of knowing. What was the first human thought? What if that original thought was incorrect, but we didn't know any better, so every other thought that came after, which must in some way relate to that initial thought, has the possibility of being false as well. There is too much about the universe that we don't know, and nobody, no matter what degree they have or how well they can argue with logic, has the ability to "know" such absurdly complex truths with 100% certainty ...
@@nathanmantle377 Hi dude. Lots of thoughts in there so a bit lost on what to respond to but here goes. I'm saying this is fact based on the experiments done that clearly show how there is almost sometimes up to 5 seconds latency in a thought arising in the brain and you as a conscious entity becoming aware of it. That's why I think of free-will being an illusion as a fact and not just a hypothesis. I disagree with your idea about energy expense increasing. The default mode network of the brain isn't the most energy efficient configuration, at least there is no reason to think that way. It is just the behavior of our evolved complex brains. And anyway, a high dose psilocybin experience or a deep session of meditation can clearly let you observe how thoughts just arise in consciousness and the absence of even a subjective experience of freewill. And yea very true that science is ever evolving, but that's how it is designed to be. Bad or incorrect ideas will get weeded out eventually. But up until that happens, it is the fact. This is how I see it.
What Sam is saying about Pride and Shame is SO important. Parents who constantly act like their children could of (and should of) done otherwise are basically instilling a life long sense of shame into them. They are basically telling them they should BE otherwise. In other words they should be ashamed of who they are. Those children will spend the rest of their lives trying to make their parents proud and seeking confirmation that it is okay for them to exist.
Except he also said that it is important to feel shame initially. But you must also be able to overcome it at some point, and that's where bad parenting certainly can mess you up.
The problem with this is that when childhood ends and adulthood begins, those lofty notions evaporate. So it’s more about training children for adulthood more than trying to instill shame. When they charge a 16 year old as an adult for murder, at no point is this ‘free will’ debate even entering the discussion, let alone the court room
@@tbk2010 I think it's important to feel guilt. Shame is never necessary. Guilt is a sense that you did something bad. Shame is a sense that you are bad. You instill a healthy sense of guilt in children when you encourage them to do differently next time. You instill an unhealthy sense of shame in them when you insist that they should have done otherwise. There is a subtle but very important diffrence.
Dr. Scott~~ im so lucky and im unable to describe how happy i am to learn so much from this podcast, without you, i cannot get goosebumps from learning more about freewill
I discovered Sam about 6 years ago. He was the doorway that led me to all the people I follow today: too many to list. Jordan Peterson, the weinstein brothers, peter singer, Jonathan haidt, etc.
Sounds like the toxic side of Harris wherein he makes all sorts of declarations about social issues for which he has little knowledge or expertise, if any.
@@countdebleauchamp He doesn't understand many social issues, but he thinks he thoroughly does, which is the problem. I wish he would just shut up where he has no expertise.
@@infinityand0 Agreed he may not be academically qualified as a sociologist or political scientist, but he is probably much better informed than the average member of the population. If you misunderstand him as an expert in those fields as opposed to a member of the public who simply holds an opinion, yes that may be an issue. But he still has the right to express that opinion.
@@countdebleauchamp I never implied he doesn't have the right to express his opinion. I just find his opinions on certain matters to be slanted and ignorant. He is also incapable of engaging with those that take issue with his views in any productive manner at all. He has not grown at all as a "public intellectual" IMHO.
😂😂 I think you cannot lying down on your bed all day. Actually, It’s hard to lying down on the bed all day.. So, you definitely you choose to some action. Not in the bed.
Scott, it's simple:) When you say that our conscious insight gives us that space in which we can use what we've learned to 'decide' - those lessons are also part of the whole plethora of causes in this thick soup of Causality! :) [By the way the chimps learn, too! :)] I laughed when Sam said 'almost no one understands it, D Dennett doesn't understand it' and I completely see his point:) But Scott, I love the smile on your face during this whole discussion:) I love when people smile so enthusiastically when disagreeing. Great discussion guys! :)
It's interesting to watch Sam try very hard to explain the illusory nature of free will, and the self, and have the interview just *not get* it. Sam Harris was definitely the first intellectual I heard talking about the self in such a way and I feel he explains it very well. Perhaps the interviewer here should learn to meditate. :)
The illusion is not the self, the illusion is what we think the self is. We associate the self with the ego but it's more than that. The self is not an illusion. The self is the only real thing we are. It's the I AM... It's our link to god, the universal consciousness.
@@alainlangdon You may have a point somewhere in there but it's constantly flipping around the semantics of "the self" so that you're confusing people who think their definition of the self, is the self, and this changes throughout your sentence. You should not use "the self" to mean some personal definition. "The self" is the feeling that one is the center of the universe, the main character, a person who freely thinks their thoughts, a person to whom reality's representation **is** reality, while being clueless to the fact that it is possible to observe this entire phenomenon independently, which proves that this entire above feeling, is illusory-- how can "you" be the thing that's observing the thing which you only "think/believe/feel" is you? This illusion shatters the moment you observe through years of training, or take certain drugs.
Whether the interviewer 'got it' or not......not important. What was great about the questions was that it brought out such interesting and provocative and enlightening explanations from Sam. I really enjoyed all four hours of this discussion and came away feeling that I really need to incorporate this wisdom into my life practice.
Ppl do not want to think our brains are biologically determined. The public will accept genetics in the physical like height an hair color but when it comes to the psychological and genetic determinism for our brains they will refuse to except any if the facts.
I don’t think it’s that strange. It’s evolution. It’s tied to blame and responsibility which were adaptive for our ancestors. So it’s a part of a suite of illusions gifted to us by evolution. Danny Kanhemans work on this stuff is good.
Love Sam's comments on pride, shame and hate! 1:58:10 Sam was really on a roll and you interrupted him just as it felt like he might make some breakthrough! Otherwise, great interview.
Dude I'm glad I had just put my dinner plate in the sink just before I heard you say that, because I would have had a major existential crisis if I'd heard you say it first!
"Dan Dennett doesn't understand this." I've been waiting years for Sam to utter these words. Never has a truer word been spoken. I wonder if determinism will play out to a point in time where Dennett does actually understand this???
Sam may be metaphysically correct. At the end of the day, however, we live our lives and are forced to make choices. We can call that something other than “free will,” but decisions will always confront us and we must choose among alternatives. Whether or not free will really exists, we as individuals have to act in the world in order to survive and flourish.
I think it was better that there was disagreement. It just made Sam go deeper into his points and more solid. I don't blame you though, the majority of people are resistant to the concept, I've found.
Sams 100% right. His insights about free will aren’t meant to motivate, or help someone accomplish their next goal. They are about the nature of mind. If you try to make it about anything else you will be confused. And recognizing this nature of mind does happen to alleviate a lot of suffering once felt. However, that does not mean it will help someone go write a book, or go on a run when they don’t want too. If you want help on those things, then there are many other sources for that.
His statement on ego/pride in relation to development is on point but his arguments on free will bring nothing useful to the table when his framing is completely tied to the folk version of the concept. I you want an articulate argument from that perspective look at Robert Sapolsky's work.
@@CHGLongStone what you’re not understanding is his arguments on free will aren’t meant to be “useful” or “bring anything to the table” in the traditional sense of those words. He is talking about the nature of mind. He is talking about felt experience. Idk what you have to do to see it, but I and many many other people have seen it many times throughout all of mankind. Lack of free will is an old Buddhist insight as well. I’ve felt it myself, and I feel it right now. Sam has spent a decade going on two month long meditation retreats. Once you do that, and sit and do nothing but pay attention to your own mind for 18 hrs a day, see if come back to me still 100% sure that you control all of your thoughts. then I might entertain your arguement. But I very highly doubt that if you did that you would have the same outlook on this topic. Yes, there obviously is still goal oriented action. No one is disputing that. But what you cannot control is why you decided to take that goal oriented action in the first place. You cannot “will” yourself into being moved by a piece of music, or art. It just happens to you. You cannot willfully chose weather or not to be motivated to do something, because whatever the reasons are that motivates you to do or don’t is outside of your understanding. You don’t know *why* some things appeal to you and others don’t, on a fundamental level.
@@TrustMyWhiteVan could you point to a reputable source for your claim that “lack of free will is an old Buddhist insight?” The principle goal of Buddhism is to step off the repeating cycle of birth and death by systemically freeing ourselves from all material and worldly attachments. It is assumed that without a sustained act of will, achieving that goal is not possible. How would you reconcile your claim about the Buddhist position on free will in light of that information?
Scott is a smart guy but he’s just not getting it. And Sam is right that most people don’t get it. Free will has never made sense to me. Even as a teenager the concept just didn’t make sense. But getting people to see it has always been an uphill battle. Usually smart people get it but there are people like Dan Dennet who for some reason don’t.
I"ve been talking to people for years about it and they endlessly argue for free will. I figured out that it's all pride and ego. They feel like they have no purpose if they don't have free will. It boggles the mind
In academic philosophy the main view is compatibilism, Sam's "libertarian free will" is mainly taught just as a historical note rather than a serious idea. So it's kind of the complete opposite of what you think.
@@SkyGodKing Compatibilism is the ultimate have your cake and eat it it seems to me. And as Sam points out repeatedly, they do this by just redefining free will. It's really annoying.
free will simply means being able to autonomously evaluate available choices! Deterministic in terms of the limitations of choices and tools and free in terms of the availability of alternatives. Unconsciousness and environmental variables are the stage of consciousness, of brain operations, and mindfulness means to train your brain to control impulsive and random thoughts to make better choices. Priming and thinking act interactively to constitute awareness and being you means to use familiar thoughts and mental images to decide on alternatives
Being consciously aware that your biological software sucks enables you to optimize for it. Consciousness is the spot light of our operating system/memory = thoughts/actions. If we focus consciousness on self optimization eg: creating loops of introspective consciousness observation, solves inefficiencies the same way our consciousness can solve our inefficiency of not going to the gym. By using your consciousness spotlight to introspectively self optimize, your spotlight will be much more effective on "wants" of going to the gym or becoming more productive. Basically the more your consciousness spotlight focuses introspectively "what am I doing right now, what am I thinking, why, what should I be doing, why aren't I doing it" etc. enables you to solve/optimize for the problems you realize.
Sam is really good at understanding the interviewer is limited in his capacity to hear and think through what he’s saying. And keeps trying to make him understand what he’s saying. I would have lost it so many times! 😂 I almost stopped listening when the guy said “ I can teach you to play the cello”, when the point was completely not that. 😂 Sam is right, accepting there’s no free will will be the hardest thing we humans will do. It’s completely transforming everything.
The truth is- each being lives in their own “designed” script. No joke- it’s absolute. And there are “Sign posts” in your own script. What’s called “Free Will” Is the latitude to choose between options, intentions, actions and circumstances of any and all choices (doors) you choose in the existence experience. The choices made between absolutes each open different options in the never ending story of consciousness. Each has their own frequency on all information presented to them. Remember, every doorway is both an exit and an entrance.
I feel like Scott had points he was just too polite to talk over Sam to make. I tend to agree with Sam, and he definitely won the argument, but I still wish he'd have backed off and listened a little. I'm already familiar with all of his points on the subject and hoped that argumentation might bring up some new ones but it was mostly 4 hours of rehashing, disappointing...
Its very critical of you to say that there is no new argument. Kind of stupid. Variety in content is what you're looking for ? Well you should watch whose line is it anyway or something like that then. And if someone is too polite to talk, its definitely a set back for any host of any show. Too of anything sucks. Just give it time and it will suck. But not the hosts choice anyway. He was born and developed this way.
In some sense it’s the ultimate free will to be free of will itself. The ultimate freedom and responsibility. You can now live your life by eating the best way you can, being the best version of yourself you can, and otherwise creating the best path to your happiness and others possible. But it’s more like a formula than an absolute certainty. Because of the chaotic and random nature of existence the best you can do is aim for the free will that is essentially another dream state that evaporates upon reflection, but is a worthy opponent.
= lots of memory/information gives you the most "free will" in terms of an actionable consciousness with the highest likelihood of success(your definition).
When most people say free will they really mean free choice. I certainly don't have the ability to change my anatomy to be able to breathe underwater, which would be absolute free will. But within the constraints of physics and self conception, freedom to choose your actions (based on your thoughts and desires) does exist.
yes, its about choice and sam basically argues it doesnt exist. i guess floyd didnt have a choice but to be a criminal and chauvin didnt have a choice but to suffocate him to death. nothing to see here folks
1:59:35 O: I really like this analogy of free will to the self it made what Sam Harris' point very clear for me. His later explanation of moving the hand as mysterious was cool too. I loved the ending of this 4 hour podcast very provoking
@@nyc1234100 be careful scott. I know you mentioned on Sam's podcast that you have schizotypy. However, if it is safe for you, you should definitely do it.
Can someone explain why wanting to want to play the cello is different from wanting to play the cello? How does that sort of want get us to free will? Why were you able to freely choose that want but not the first order want? How don't these wants come from the same place?
What people dont understand is that they think that because they willed it, that means their will is free. In reality, our wills control everything we do it compells us and we can never get behind our will and control it. That would require will.
You cannot choose to want to play the cello. If your action of practicing cello is a consequence of your want (to play cello), and you can’t choose the want, then you don’t have free will
I want to want to work. Not wanting to work makes me not work. You could say that I am doing what I actually want, but my wanting to want to work is not making me want to work. Where my free will? I seem to have misplaced it.
It’s so hard for his idea to just make intuitive sense. I’ve been struggling to just fully understand it and yet I know he’s right. There is no free will and I recognize that when I think about it.
Would love to add John Vervaeke as a third chair to this conversation, and add the meaning element to it. KInd of a merging the flavor of the Peterson / Harris debates. I think there is a relationship between meaning and this conversation. Especially when we start talking about preferences and desires.
1:34:37: Scott claims that it requires hubris to believe that infinite torture is bad. My god, Scott... come on! What happened? You're not made into a dictator by recognising that infinite torture is objectively bad!
17:07 You can not do what you don't want. But does it feel that way? Yes, it does. Two conflicting motives will feel like making a choice. Like Barrys dilemma between staying in bed or going to the gym. Getting up might feel like doing something he doesn't want, but then doing it anyway. Actually he wanted both things and working out just proved to be the stronger motive. Conflicting motives create the illusion of choosing between them, when actually the stronger one simply wins. That way it is not as mysterious as Sam claims. You might not know why exactly one motive is stronger than the other. But after the fact you know you did what you did because you followed the strongest motive and could not have done otherwise. Our human mind is simply an additional motive generator, additional to say basic physics. By having knowledge of tigers Barrys mind might make him run up a hill, while the stone beside him is rolling down, thinking like Barry it is by his own choice.
The exercise that Sam did in he past that worked for me was when he said to a crowd that he was going to ask them a question and he wanted the members of the crowd to to answer with the first thought that entered their mind. The the question. Name a country that begins with S. I chose Spain. Then he asked the crowd to think about why they chose the answer they did rather than a different answer another member of the audience did. I couldn’t answer that question. It was just the word that entered into my conscious mind.
18:23 No, you can't do it if you're unmotivated, if being unmotivated means you're entirely devoid of motivation to do it. If you have no motivation to do something, you will not, you _cannot,_ intentionally do it. You go to the gym, even though you "don't want to," because you _do_ want to. You have motivations to go, and motivations to not go; whether you go or not is entirely a matter of how those conflicting motivations are weighted to you
Here are some random thoughts evoked by this discussion: Sam Harris seems to define “free will” such that it could not exist. It could be defined in various ways, some of which could exist. For example, one might define free will as independent choice among options to satisfy desire or to avoid suffering. Sometimes I contemplate strict determinism, wherein every event (choice) is the result of preceding events and predictable from the early universe were there sufficient computational power. But then there is neutron decay, and other random processes. In the macro world, events can become scrambled and mingled to the point that they can have no further macro effect, this process being entropy. That seems to limit determinism. Subsequent choices would then be free of old influences.
Would your reflection on the past actions, that you have already acted on but were not in control of, be considered a part of the precursor state that leads to the next action... i.e. Without free will can you still chose a path of reflection on past actions that can change patterns of behavior for future actions, even if immediate decision making is subject to a subconscious bias of previous actions?
I'm puzzled why Sam doesn't qualify "free will" by calling it "CONSCIOUS free will." The difference is that Sam refers to consciousness when he says "you," whereas most people refer to thoughts/thinking apparatus when they say "you." I'm sure Sam will agree that one's "thinking machine" belongs to that identifiable person; he makes the (correct IMO) distinction that the real "me" is consciousness itself/attention/awareness. I agree with him that awareness doesn't author things; it's just "aware." Although what one is aware of surely then influences the "thinking machine."
Harris can't derive ought from is. As Scott says, "ought" is always relative to a goal - and goals vary hugely from agent to agent. Harris's "worst possible misery for everyone" scenario is contrived such that every single agent would agree on the project of "let's get out of here!". But so what? In no other situation (i.e. all of life as we know it) do agents have exactly the same goals. In fact, you might say that "the worst possible misery for everyone" - far from being the foundation of morality - is actually the one situation in which you wouldn't need morality. Because morality is the project of maintaining harmony in the face of competing interests. No one has got to tell you that you "should" leave the worst possible misery. Every single being would flinch from it involuntarily as sure as removing one's hand from a hot stove.
Your second paragraph is Harris’s entire point with the worst possible misery for everyone. Things can get so bad that it’s not a matter of moral philosophy whether it should be avoided. We will helplessly choose to avoid it. That’s how he argues he has overcome the is/ought divide. He argues we need not ever invoke oughts, and should just acknowledge that we are in a situation where we can navigate between needless misery and the most profound well-being, and that we obviously want to navigate towards well-being. Thus, we “ought” to do the things that produce well-being. Someone who comes in and says “well who’s to say we ought to avoid misery” just doesn’t remember what it’s like to have their hand on a hot stove.
@@motorhead48067 That's a good summary of Harris's point, but you're missing mine. Following one's own hedonic imperative isn't morality. Morality is social, it involves other people, and generally involves compromising on one's immediate gratification for the sake of others. Harris's thought experiment has nothing to do with morality, because it says nothing of such compromises. He's contrived the one situation in which all agents would agree on what to do, thereby bypassing the problem of what to do when needs conflict.
I finally get what Sam is talking about regarding free will. But his position relies upon a separation or distinction between thoughts randomly feeding into consciousness, vs soul, or being, for lack of a better way of putting it.
i have to say, before i see all of it, that your mind is not just what your brain is doing. i recently by some accident, transplanted some of my feces into my brother's microbiome, and very soon he became bipolar 2, just like me. he remarked that he now has sometimes mania and sometimes depression, but during mania his mind works on overdrive, but it does not think smart thoughts, just more of the same stupid ones. consider this drastic change happened in the span of a week, by the transfer of a tiny amount of microbiome from one person to another, and caused him from sleeping almost all day, to staying up for up to 30 hours straight regularly, something i do and he never before ever did. feelings, thoughts, the quantity of them at least, are directly linked to the gut microbiome. i fully expect to see a market for very capable and healthy peoples feces due to this in the next 10 years or so, as this is realized, as a form of supplements that do 10000x what current supplements do.
Great conversation! Fans of both of you. I take issue with Sam on the is ought problem, and tend to agree with Scott. Sam seems to take this fundamental 'ought', that conscious creatures should avoid suffering, as an 'is' statement, conscious creatures simply do the avoiding of suffering. But from an objective perspective, obviously these conscious creatures have a built in goal. Just because a goal is integral to our being and passed down through our biological coding and is inescapable in some sense doesn't mean it's not a goal. It's just a deeper goal that we don't have control over. Avoiding suffering is still a fundamental 'ought', without which morality claims are unfounded
@@e.b.1115 I think Sam’s point is exactly your last sentence. Avoiding the worse possible suffering for everyone is a fundamental ought proposition, but it is one we can all agree on as an axiom. That is similar to any other axiom in any logical (or, by extension, scientific) system. It is similar to the axiom “from a single point contained in any plane there can pass at least one line”, or to the axioms of empirical science (“let’s accept as false any hypotheses that are contrary to empirical observation”). There is no philosophical ground to stand upon in order to prove empiricism is correct: we could be living in a simulated universe where the information we perceive by our senses do not map on “absolute reality” or where tomorrow there will be a new datum showing the law of gravity is false. But, accepting the axioms of empiricism (and accepting proposed theories, such as the law of gravity, as being provisionally true when we have tested them and have been unable to produce any empirical evidence to the contrary) we have built a system that produces compelling results (by results I mean both concepts with a high degree of explanatory and predictive value, as well as powerful technological tools that prove their validity via their increasing our ability to manipulate our perceived environment). Sam’s contention, as I understand it, is that, as long as we agree on that axiomatic proposition (“we ought to avoid the worse possible suffering for everyone”), we have ground to stand upon in order to work towards constructing a rigorous, coherent and systematic system of values, or of assessing the relative merit of different values, using all the tools human reason has developed (including the principles of logic, and the principles of empirical science). I don’t think an effective rebuttal of that notion was offered in this discussion.
@@PetrosSyrak but how do you get from the fact that conscious creatures do avoid suffering to the value that conscious creatures should avoid suffering? Just because conscious creatures agree on that goal? It does not necessarily follow that conscious creatures should do something just because conscious creatures already do something. Now, I happen to agree that avoiding unnecessary suffering is worthwhile, but I'm already starting with that goal, and once we settle on the goal, science can go to work towards that goal to great effect. Modern medicine is a great example. But this does not get past the is-ought problem of getting an ought from an is statement. I am not rebutting sam's point that once we have an axiomatic goal we can do science towards that goal, in fact I completely agree. I am rebutting the claim that the is-ought problem is merely semantic. There clearly is a separation between the world of is statements and the world of ought statements, between facts and values
"Oh, there is a brain all right. It's just that the brain is made out of meat!" "So... what does the thinking?" "You're not understanding, are you? The brain does the thinking. The meat." "Thinking meat! You're asking me to believe in thinking meat!" "Yes, thinking meat! Conscious meat! Loving meat. Dreaming meat. The meat is the whole deal! Are you getting the picture?" "Omigod. You're serious then. They're made out of meat." -Terry Bisson
But on a serious note, this is the first episode I've watched of this podcast, and I think it's good, and as it grows, I hope you gain some more confidence, Scott, and I don't mean that as any sort of insult. You have some self-conscious comments in the video that only denote your imposter syndrome, but you're doing great stuff here, you shouldn't question yourself half as much as you do! However, Sam's right on free will. Man can do what he wills, but he cannot will what he wills.
Scott Kaufman keeps referring to _"limited free will"_ where it's unfortunate and it's not his fault because it's not within his capacity but he simply doesn't understand.
We can't even conceive the kind of "free will" most people think they have (the kind of free will sam is arguing for). Most people get upset over realizing or even thinking about the notion that they don't have this free will they think they had. But the funny thing is they can't even concieve what that sort of "free will" will look like. How can you be disappointed over non existence of something that you cannot even conceive of to begin with? I'll say the denial or the disappointment comes from a place of insecurity rather than clear rational thinking.
I agree that language isn't a thought nor even necessary pointing to a thought. Words are capable of acting as pointers to concepts, but don't necessarily point to something universally true. Although that doesn't mean words can't point to something universally true. Understanding Postmodernism is important for recognizing existing language games, but Postmodernism is better used descriptively instead of prescriptively.
I would ask Sam: at what point do we become responsible agents then instead of trying to argue with him back and forth about definitions. At the quantum level we don’t have free will. When when do we become responsible for those “voluntary” actions
just using equivocation in several areas sam. free will means moving our concentration deliberately by dimension of location and intensity and how narrow or wide.
The sense of free will seems to be a very specific programming by evolution. As such, the purpose of free will must relate to nature's two mandates of survival and reproduction. Since it seems to be a very specific programming, how specifically is it useful as it relates to survival and reproduction?
It boggles my mind on how anyone would argue and disagree with Sam Harris on the topic of free will after listening to him explain how free will is nonsense.
People would like to be able to modify their predispositions but are not free to do so. That seems to be the free will sam harris speaks about. The free will other people talk about is the freedom of the will they do have. The control of their self. Control of what the self is vs control of self.
Based on this discussion, I can't help but think of the analogy of a human chess player competing against the Stockfish AI in an online game of chess. Unless the human player was explicitly informed of the chess AI on the opposite side of the board, he or she could easily assume the Stockfish AI chess engine were a real human being playing chess exceptionally well, using its free will to move about the board. On face value, it seems like we all have free will. But, after listening to these two exchange arguments, it seems reasonable to assume that Scott could argue that the chess AI actually has free will (it responds to infinitely-many move scenarios and calculations based on moves from the other player; it can anticipate the strategic moves the other player is making and respond accordingly, especially when pieces are deliberately being sacrificed as a means of some larger positioning strategy; etc.). Sam, conversely, could argue that the human player is really just another version of the AI that is less well-programmed. I'd love to hear these guys address this analogy of the human vs. AI chess engine competition as it relates to free will!
Also, people, please try to not insult Scott. He’s very respectful and I can see what he’s getting at too, but I feel like they’re debating in different lanes or levels
I tend toward determinism. However, I have questions. There are certain subjective experiences that seem to be sought out, and the only reason, ostensibly at least, is simply to have the conscious experience - a concert for example. What would be driving these processes? Also, if the type of determinism that Harris argues for is true, then consciousness is nothing more than an evolutionary spandrel. That's not an argument against it. I'm just pointing that out.
The host's inability to deal with Sam's arguments about objective morality with anything more profound than "but that's a value judgment" was both frustrating and cringe-worthy.
Free will to me implies a movement that is unlimited. With memory being limited (one can never hold all information) any thought/action/choice stemming from memory is limited implying no free will. Free will then could be a movement that is choiceless. I could be wrong.
Free will may not exist for desires and thoughts, but it certainly exists for actions. Whether to call it free will or not is a matter of terminology. One can decide not to murder someone. Or to murder someone. Is that not free will, understood as applying to actions? To feel guilty when one murders someone may be a demonstration of absence of free will, as described by Harris, but this guilt does not prevent one from doing the deed, if one really intends to.
Being consciously aware that your biological software sucks enables you to optimize for it. Consciousness is the spot light of our operating system/memory = thoughts/actions. If we focus consciousness on self optimization eg: creating loops of introspective consciousness observation, we can solve consciousness inefficiencies the same way our consciousness tries to solve its inefficiency of not going to the gym. By using your consciousness spotlight to introspectively self optimize, your spotlight will become much more effective on "wants" of going to the gym or becoming more productive. Basically the more often your consciousness spotlight focuses on a self audit "what am I doing right now, what am I thinking, why, what should I be doing, why aren't I doing it" etc. enables you to solve/optimize the engine itself of how you consciously perceive and act in your day to day. This is much like how AI will self evolve, but running on much less restricted codebase modification access and on a non-biological operating system = no evolution/scaling constraints.
Free Will starts with the ability to be wrong and inevitably to say No. Consciousness gives rise to Will and can be Fundamental and Free simultaneously do to error correction, momentum, genetics, location, time... All without losing the ability to say No as infinitely as one has the ability to be wrong Willingly
I have never understood the fascination with the idea of free will. Either we have it and do as we want or we don't and do what is destined. Either way it matters not as we won't know what is coming ahead of us.
@@jessejayharris The Philosophy of Logical Morality hasn't a leg to stand on in my opinion. The idea that everyone will come to the moral/correct conclusion given the same information is born out to be a fallacy. You can see this in the vast array of moral variance in Christians all of which say they are following the world of god as it is in the Bible.
@@davidwhitcher1708 I am really no expert on these matters, but I don't think the claim is that everyone would come to the same conclusion, but that the same person given all the same causal info would generate the same intent. as I say I highly undereducated on this stuff :)
Sam really gets to metaphorical bedrock when giving his moral landscape worst case scenario, and then has to scrape away a little bit more bedrock a few times to try to explain his point. He certainly has patience.
you knock the water on the equipment and think. "wow, i wasn't paying attention to what i was doing i was on autopilot. i need to deliberately focus my concentration using my free will to the specific things i'm doing in the moment to avoid this happening again" it is a matter of being lost in thought and not paying attention to two parameters of concentration. 1. its direction. 2. is width and breadth
I want to argue that many of our random thoughts might be part of an "autopilot" mode, which allows us to conserve energy that would otherwise be wasted with "active" thinking, which are intentional thoughts, such as me writing this comment and attempting to do so in the most coherent way possible. I don't know if there is any scientific data on such a thing, and it would be very difficult to test, but that's the thing about science -- it is constantly proving old ideas wrong, even ideas that had previously been accepted because of the very same scientific process that later disproved them. So all we can say is that as of right know, with our current body of knowledge, it would appear that free will does not exist.
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What a genius, " the world is born anew in the next moment" Sam Harris has transformed my life. I knew all this but needed this genius to articulate it. Sam's book "Free Will" should be compulsory reading.
The idea of the world born anew in the next moment is originally from Judaism, because God is the soul of the whole existence, and every moment we reveal a dimension of him. God leads the universe by his will and he gave us some amount of free will to join his project of making this world heaven. It's cannot be understandable in human capability how God is free to do what he wants and also we have free will. But it is the case, we feel that we can choose between right and wrong, good and bad. So with all the respect for philosophy and this podcast, if we still believe that we can choose so there isn't any reason why wasting time on this argument.
@@benleon621
So no actual refute of the proof against free will then. Okay.
@@dungeon-wn4gw we have to face it that we as humans have threshold to our mind, this free will question is beyond our threshold just as how all the suffering has divinity justice. We have subjective perspective like a tiny cell in a huge body that can only see what is near it from it's self, as opposed to God who has the infinite ultimate perspective as he is able to see the whole body. Some humility won't hurt us, humans...
The book The Man Who Mistook His Wife For A Hat has made the best case against free will than anything I've read on the topic of free will itself. It shows how much the brain determines who we are and what we do
@@smarterthanyou2255 A magnificent book!
Sam is trying to explain repeatedly that there isn't free will and then the host saying something like - I love you but there is free will, because even though I didn't have free will when some thought came up, I DO have the free will to decide what I'm going to do about it. And then Sam saying - No, you don't have free will about counter thoughts either since you don't know where they come from either, you don't have free will since you can't think a thought before you think it, you are just witnessing thoughts and counter thoughts as they come up. And then the host looks nervous, like his life has just changed. This was great stuff, thanks Sam!
Right. Scott simply hasn't a clue - he's not had the fundamental insight that you can't control your thoughts (and therefore has not had time to really examine the implications of that insight).
Without that he's just 100% stuck/lost and in the end rather annoying - I just wanted him to STFU and LISTEN! (in the end I stopped listening/watching because he just wasn't realising what Sam was on about - I have a short attention span for people who don't get who they're with and continue to think they are an equal in the conversation).
Maybe he should take some LSD. Or some really strong pot. But even those don't always supply that insight. I think it just comes down to luck - you simply can't manufacture it.
It boggles my mind on how anyone would argue and disagree with Sam Harris on the topic of free will after listening to him explain how free will is nonsense.
He's just being obtuse here because to grant this proposition he believes his entire life would unravel or something. But he never had free will all along, and his confusion causes much harm because free will substantiates so much malice, judgement, spite, revenge, punishment-- so much harm is scaffolded by the lie of free will.
I can't help agreeing with Sam Harris on Free Will.
I can't help but agreeing with Sam Harris on almost any issue I can think of.
@@salsaonthebeach1873 on philosophic issues, I probably agree on pretty much everything. On politics I might disagree on details and emphasis.
@@salsaonthebeach1873 maybe more than just on details. For instance, I'm not American, but if I was, I couldn't have brought myself to vote for Biden. That's by no means an endorsement of Trump, that's despite me agreeing with Sam Harris on almost everything he said about Trump.
why is that ? argument from authority?
are you outsourcing your thinking to leave it up to him to make deliberate decisions?
()which he then denies he ever made!)
@@johnjacquard863 it seems this one went over your head.
But to be concise: what we will is determined by nature and nurture, by our biology and socialization. You are not the author of your own thoughts. If you were, you would have to think what you think before you think it, which leads to an infinite regress. Or as Schopenhauer put it: "Man can do as he wills, but not will as he wills."
"The world is truly born anew in the next moment if you will only let it be"
Loved that one
Honestly, those are great words to live by.
It's actually when he says things like this that I stop and have a bit of a hiccup. Admittedly, I recognized long ago that most of this type of naval gazing is well beyond my mental faculties. However, how can "if you will only let it be" and "you don't have free will" occupy the same space?
@@Kruppes_Mulewe don't know when the feeling of "let it be" a raise, but if it arise in your consciousness let it be, don't interrupt it. and lucky us, cos we can train it trough meditation
Sam at his best! Thank you YT algorithm for taking me on the tour!
Sam brilliantly sums up this whole conversation in just one simply sentence at 1:55:46 where he says "The reason why it's not free will is because all of it is being pushed from behind causally either deterministically or randomly or both".
It's almost impossible to illustrate how a very specific definition of a term can be applied to a variety of situations without others reverting right back to their previous definition every time. No matter how skilled you are at communicating, you can't get most people to consider a refined definition as it's carried out.
I salute your determination Sam.
You said it friend. I find this cringe to listen to because when you have two honest speakers, in the end it is just about word definitions. You have to break it down to smaller and smaller concepts to find the source of misalignment.
The way I first came onto the notion that there is no free will is trying to imagine putting myself in someone else's shoes.
Not just "occupy their body", but truly and completely change places, including memories, way of thinking, etc.
Then "I" would "repeat" the exact same errors that they made and I would be "sentenced" to behave the same way they behaved. Everyone would see how there's no free will there. The next step is to realize that it is the same without changing places.
It's an excellent thought experiment. Another way is to simply ask why one person can't stop eating junk food wheras another becomes a bodybuilder. Why does 1 person choose 1 thing while the other chooses another? Just keep the causal regression going until you realise that you played no role in becoming who you are.
@@jwscheuerman Their argument is that their "spirit" made that choice. That's where determinism comes into play to debunk the spirit. Nature + nurture = determinism. We are no different than a computer executing code except biological. We have a set operating structure, take inputs, calculate then output actions/thoughts. This can be proven as there are no true random events in the universe. B happens because A happened.
@@TheFinalsTV It doesn't matter if someone invokes a "spirit" or "soul". This invocation doesn't change the fundamental problem. Whether it's your brain or your "spirit" making the choices, the fundamental fact is that *you* didn't choose your brain, and *you* didn't choose your "spirit".
Sam's point of there being no subjective experience of freewill is remarkable. I think most miss this crucial point.
Hard agree.
@Sargon Second is the feeling like you're a locus of attention or an "unchanging self" inside your head that is experiencing all the conscious experience. Like the feeling of being behind your eyes looking out at the world.
its absolutely absurd !
HE may not be able to differentiate between
" Impulsivity" and "careful deliberate decision on purpose" but I certainly can!
@@johnjacquard863 No absurdity
All his examples are just to prove this one point!
Scott's whole view seems to boil down to - "you just can't be right about free will - cause I really want to have it"
आएआज आज
If only Sam Harris could transfer his beliefs on these topics into the minds of everyone in the world.
What a terrifying idea.
@@bofbob1 No, It’s a very touching idea.
@@Ryan-SeongJun Brainwashing as a "very touching idea"? Weird kink, but you do you.
@@bofbob1 I don't care if you think it's brainwashing, because I know you don't have free will to say that.
@@Ryan-SeongJun Yeah that gets us literally nowhere. Have fun with that. Toodles.
As a former smoker, I agree with Sam that my will played a minor but crucial role. Acceptance of the limits of my will was also a crucial incite that helped me transition to a non-smoker 25 years ago. I could argue that those who have the strongest sense of self will are the least likely to be successful in addressing addictions.
I’ve seen a lot of Sam’s videos and he’s rarely as animated as he is here. He almost never laughs and smiles as often he does here.
Shoutout to Scott for keep pushing back Sam’s argument of free will, allowing Sam to reveal every rebuttal. I now have a much more complete understanding of Sam’s argument and why free will, and even its illusion, doesn’t exist or is incoherent
Absolutely love this, thank you so much but in future is there any way you could make your and your guest's audio levels more similar? Sam is a lot quieter than you.
Sam is well balanced communicator. The real issue here is that even when Sam lose his patience he rarely raise his voice. All that he learned and all that he is is mirrored trough how he speaks. This is his argument about Trump that If you listen to Trump carefully you will notice that he is just a mess. Not pretending to be something he is not. Just people refuse to notice who Trump actually is.
The conversation is clearly happening on two different levels. It's really interesting to see the calm persistent repetition of a fact by Sam so that it sinks in. 3+ hours of this to underline that its a fact and not a hypothesis. The skill to abstract and think, whew. Sam is a genius in this. Such a clear abstraction in articulating his points for an argument. Brilliant!
Thank you host for all the beautiful content!!!
in actuality, it wasn't fact though. The idea that we don't control our own thoughts is true to some degree, but I believe that could be a way for our mind to recycle old thoughts and randomly combine different ideas in a sort of "autopilot" mode, which helps us to conserve energy. If we had to actively choose to think about every single thought, I can't help but think of the increased energy requirement. Conversely, allowing our mind to "zone out" like we often do by default probably uses far less energy, so maybe we control some of our thoughts while others are semi-random. But listen, ALL of this, no matter what, without actual proof, can never be concluded to be true. A "theory", in science, is considered the same thing as truth, but Science is constantly building on itself and replacing obsolete ideas with new ones, and we should never call something a truth. It should always be a hypothesis. Even our understanding of how logic works could be flawed in and of itself, and we would have no way of knowing. What was the first human thought? What if that original thought was incorrect, but we didn't know any better, so every other thought that came after, which must in some way relate to that initial thought, has the possibility of being false as well. There is too much about the universe that we don't know, and nobody, no matter what degree they have or how well they can argue with logic, has the ability to "know" such absurdly complex truths with 100% certainty ...
@@nathanmantle377 Hi dude. Lots of thoughts in there so a bit lost on what to respond to but here goes. I'm saying this is fact based on the experiments done that clearly show how there is almost sometimes up to 5 seconds latency in a thought arising in the brain and you as a conscious entity becoming aware of it. That's why I think of free-will being an illusion as a fact and not just a hypothesis. I disagree with your idea about energy expense increasing. The default mode network of the brain isn't the most energy efficient configuration, at least there is no reason to think that way. It is just the behavior of our evolved complex brains. And anyway, a high dose psilocybin experience or a deep session of meditation can clearly let you observe how thoughts just arise in consciousness and the absence of even a subjective experience of freewill. And yea very true that science is ever evolving, but that's how it is designed to be. Bad or incorrect ideas will get weeded out eventually. But up until that happens, it is the fact. This is how I see it.
I listen to your waking up meditation too, Sam it has been such a life changing experience for me. Thank you!
What Sam is saying about Pride and Shame is SO important. Parents who constantly act like their children could of (and should of) done otherwise are basically instilling a life long sense of shame into them. They are basically telling them they should BE otherwise. In other words they should be ashamed of who they are. Those children will spend the rest of their lives trying to make their parents proud and seeking confirmation that it is okay for them to exist.
Except he also said that it is important to feel shame initially. But you must also be able to overcome it at some point, and that's where bad parenting certainly can mess you up.
yes, this is So so insightful ... (as a parent of four children, and a survivor of cptsd, this is golden information)
The problem with this is that when childhood ends and adulthood begins, those lofty notions evaporate. So it’s more about training children for adulthood more than trying to instill shame. When they charge a 16 year old as an adult for murder, at no point is this ‘free will’ debate even entering the discussion, let alone the court room
@@tbk2010 I think it's important to feel guilt. Shame is never necessary. Guilt is a sense that you did something bad. Shame is a sense that you are bad. You instill a healthy sense of guilt in children when you encourage them to do differently next time. You instill an unhealthy sense of shame in them when you insist that they should have done otherwise. There is a subtle but very important diffrence.
Dr. Scott~~ im so lucky and im unable to describe how happy i am to learn so much from this podcast, without you, i cannot get goosebumps from learning more about freewill
I discovered Sam about 6 years ago. He was the doorway that led me to all the people I follow today: too many to list. Jordan Peterson, the weinstein brothers, peter singer, Jonathan haidt, etc.
Sounds like the toxic side of Harris wherein he makes all sorts of declarations about social issues for which he has little knowledge or expertise, if any.
@@infinityand0 He has knowledge. I don't always agree with him on social/political issues.
@@countdebleauchamp He doesn't understand many social issues, but he thinks he thoroughly does, which is the problem. I wish he would just shut up where he has no expertise.
@@infinityand0 Agreed he may not be academically qualified as a sociologist or political scientist, but he is probably much better informed than the average member of the population.
If you misunderstand him as an expert in those fields as opposed to a member of the public who simply holds an opinion, yes that may be an issue. But he still has the right to express that opinion.
@@countdebleauchamp I never implied he doesn't have the right to express his opinion. I just find his opinions on certain matters to be slanted and ignorant. He is also incapable of engaging with those that take issue with his views in any productive manner at all. He has not grown at all as a "public intellectual" IMHO.
Every time I hear Sam Harris cussing is a delight
Sam Harris - You don't have to get out of bed, i won't judge you
Me - Well, sir thank you. That's all i needed to hear to live the rest of my life
😂😂 I think you cannot lying down on your bed all day.
Actually, It’s hard to lying down on the bed all day..
So, you definitely you choose to some action. Not in the bed.
Scott, it's simple:) When you say that our conscious insight gives us that space in which we can use what we've learned to 'decide' - those lessons are also part of the whole plethora of causes in this thick soup of Causality! :) [By the way the chimps learn, too! :)] I laughed when Sam said 'almost no one understands it, D Dennett doesn't understand it' and I completely see his point:) But Scott, I love the smile on your face during this whole discussion:) I love when people smile so enthusiastically when disagreeing. Great discussion guys! :)
It's interesting to watch Sam try very hard to explain the illusory nature of free will, and the self, and have the interview just *not get* it. Sam Harris was definitely the first intellectual I heard talking about the self in such a way and I feel he explains it very well. Perhaps the interviewer here should learn to meditate. :)
The illusion is not the self, the illusion is what we think the self is. We associate the self with the ego but it's more than that. The self is not an illusion. The self is the only real thing we are. It's the I AM... It's our link to god, the universal consciousness.
@@alainlangdon You may have a point somewhere in there but it's constantly flipping around the semantics of "the self" so that you're confusing people who think their definition of the self, is the self, and this changes throughout your sentence. You should not use "the self" to mean some personal definition. "The self" is the feeling that one is the center of the universe, the main character, a person who freely thinks their thoughts, a person to whom reality's representation **is** reality, while being clueless to the fact that it is possible to observe this entire phenomenon independently, which proves that this entire above feeling, is illusory-- how can "you" be the thing that's observing the thing which you only "think/believe/feel" is you? This illusion shatters the moment you observe through years of training, or take certain drugs.
Even Brett Weinstein can’t grasp it 🤷🏻♂️
@@chrisw7347 You didn't explain that very well. Would be difficult to grasp for those new to the concept.
Whether the interviewer 'got it' or not......not important. What was great about the questions was that it brought out such interesting and provocative and enlightening explanations from Sam. I really enjoyed all four hours of this discussion and came away feeling that
I really need to incorporate this wisdom into my life practice.
I agree with Sam 100%. It is strange how people seem to cling to the idea of free will.
Ppl do not want to think our brains are biologically determined. The public will accept genetics in the physical like height an hair color but when it comes to the psychological and genetic determinism for our brains they will refuse to except any if the facts.
I don’t think it’s that strange. It’s evolution. It’s tied to blame and responsibility which were adaptive for our ancestors. So it’s a part of a suite of illusions gifted to us by evolution. Danny Kanhemans work on this stuff is good.
People are naive realists. They experience decisions and told about free will and it becomes hard to decouple without a lot of work.
Beautiful guys. Barry, I've subscribed.
Thanks, Mark's List.
Love Sam's comments on pride, shame and hate!
1:58:10 Sam was really on a roll and you interrupted him just as it felt like he might make some breakthrough!
Otherwise, great interview.
Dude I'm glad I had just put my dinner plate in the sink just before I heard you say that, because I would have had a major existential crisis if I'd heard you say it first!
Dear lord, the patience on display here.
"Dan Dennett doesn't understand this." I've been waiting years for Sam to utter these words. Never has a truer word been spoken. I wonder if determinism will play out to a point in time where Dennett does actually understand this???
not unless he has some massive seizure or similar physical effect that fundamentally changes who he is at his core
dont act like u understand this either,lol
Unless Dan takes psychedelics, i don't see that happening. His mind is mostly conceptual. He cannot get behind concepts..at all.
Don't be silly. Dan seems pretty convinced of his own arguments. And he's really a swell guy.
"They're havin' a fine ol' time. In their BDSM dungeon" --Sam Harris
At least they are wearing masks
I have a feeling that quote needs some context. Lol
Sam may be metaphysically correct. At the end of the day, however, we live our lives and are forced to make choices. We can call that something other than “free will,” but decisions will always confront us and we must choose among alternatives. Whether or not free will really exists, we as individuals have to act in the world in order to survive and flourish.
I think it was better that there was disagreement. It just made Sam go deeper into his points and more solid.
I don't blame you though, the majority of people are resistant to the concept, I've found.
Sams 100% right. His insights about free will aren’t meant to motivate, or help someone accomplish their next goal. They are about the nature of mind. If you try to make it about anything else you will be confused. And recognizing this nature of mind does happen to alleviate a lot of suffering once felt. However, that does not mean it will help someone go write a book, or go on a run when they don’t want too. If you want help on those things, then there are many other sources for that.
It's just juvenile strategies to avoid suffering, calm down.
His statement on ego/pride in relation to development is on point but his arguments on free will bring nothing useful to the table when his framing is completely tied to the folk version of the concept. I you want an articulate argument from that perspective look at Robert Sapolsky's work.
@@Inverified wrong.
@@CHGLongStone what you’re not understanding is his arguments on free will aren’t meant to be “useful” or “bring anything to the table” in the traditional sense of those words. He is talking about the nature of mind. He is talking about felt experience. Idk what you have to do to see it, but I and many many other people have seen it many times throughout all of mankind. Lack of free will is an old Buddhist insight as well. I’ve felt it myself, and I feel it right now. Sam has spent a decade going on two month long meditation retreats. Once you do that, and sit and do nothing but pay attention to your own mind for 18 hrs a day, see if come back to me still 100% sure that you control all of your thoughts. then I might entertain your arguement. But I very highly doubt that if you did that you would have the same outlook on this topic.
Yes, there obviously is still goal oriented action. No one is disputing that. But what you cannot control is why you decided to take that goal oriented action in the first place. You cannot “will” yourself into being moved by a piece of music, or art. It just happens to you. You cannot willfully chose weather or not to be motivated to do something, because whatever the reasons are that motivates you to do or don’t is outside of your understanding. You don’t know *why* some things appeal to you and others don’t, on a fundamental level.
@@TrustMyWhiteVan could you point to a reputable source for your claim that “lack of free will is an old Buddhist insight?”
The principle goal of Buddhism is to step off the repeating cycle of birth and death by systemically freeing ourselves from all material and worldly attachments. It is assumed that without a sustained act of will, achieving that goal is not possible.
How would you reconcile your claim about the Buddhist position on free will in light of that information?
Scott is a smart guy but he’s just not getting it. And Sam is right that most people don’t get it. Free will has never made sense to me. Even as a teenager the concept just didn’t make sense. But getting people to see it has always been an uphill battle. Usually smart people get it but there are people like Dan Dennet who for some reason don’t.
I am not that smart but I get it and it’s so liberating. I find I am way more “effective” and compassionate with this mindset.
I"ve been talking to people for years about it and they endlessly argue for free will. I figured out that it's all pride and ego. They feel like they have no purpose if they don't have free will. It boggles the mind
I kind of equate it somehow with the Just world fallacy, and it is fairly simple to comprehend that way ;)
In academic philosophy the main view is compatibilism, Sam's "libertarian free will" is mainly taught just as a historical note rather than a serious idea. So it's kind of the complete opposite of what you think.
@@SkyGodKing Compatibilism is the ultimate have your cake and eat it it seems to me. And as Sam points out repeatedly, they do this by just redefining free will. It's really annoying.
free will simply means being able to autonomously evaluate available choices! Deterministic in terms of the limitations of choices and tools and free in terms of the availability of alternatives. Unconsciousness and environmental variables are the stage of consciousness, of brain operations, and mindfulness means to train your brain to control impulsive and random thoughts to make better choices. Priming and thinking act interactively to constitute awareness and being you means to use familiar thoughts and mental images to decide on alternatives
Being consciously aware that your biological software sucks enables you to optimize for it. Consciousness is the spot light of our operating system/memory = thoughts/actions. If we focus consciousness on self optimization eg: creating loops of introspective consciousness observation, solves inefficiencies the same way our consciousness can solve our inefficiency of not going to the gym. By using your consciousness spotlight to introspectively self optimize, your spotlight will be much more effective on "wants" of going to the gym or becoming more productive.
Basically the more your consciousness spotlight focuses introspectively "what am I doing right now, what am I thinking, why, what should I be doing, why aren't I doing it" etc. enables you to solve/optimize for the problems you realize.
A very intelligent conversation.
Sam is really good at understanding the interviewer is limited in his capacity to hear and think through what he’s saying. And keeps trying to make him understand what he’s saying. I would have lost it so many times! 😂 I almost stopped listening when the guy said “ I can teach you to play the cello”, when the point was completely not that. 😂 Sam is right, accepting there’s no free will will be the hardest thing we humans will do. It’s completely transforming everything.
The truth is- each being lives in their own “designed” script. No joke- it’s absolute. And there are “Sign posts” in your own script. What’s called “Free Will”
Is the latitude to choose between options, intentions, actions and circumstances of any and all choices (doors) you choose in the existence experience. The choices made between absolutes each open different options in the never ending story of consciousness. Each has their own frequency on all information presented to them. Remember, every doorway is both an exit and an entrance.
Thanks for the interview. Gained from it.
I feel like Scott had points he was just too polite to talk over Sam to make. I tend to agree with Sam, and he definitely won the argument, but I still wish he'd have backed off and listened a little. I'm already familiar with all of his points on the subject and hoped that argumentation might bring up some new ones but it was mostly 4 hours of rehashing, disappointing...
Felt the same way, though I actually think the question is pretty simple and more or less solved on the side of no free will
This content exists for our entertainment, after all. When will these guys think up something *new*? So *bored* over here... am I riiiiight?
Its very critical of you to say that there is no new argument. Kind of stupid. Variety in content is what you're looking for ? Well you should watch whose line is it anyway or something like that then. And if someone is too polite to talk, its definitely a set back for any host of any show. Too of anything sucks. Just give it time and it will suck. But not the hosts choice anyway. He was born and developed this way.
The host had nothing. He was way off the mark.
What are Sam's thoughts on trauma, addiction and the effects on the brain? What about neuroplasticity?
In some sense it’s the ultimate free will to be free of will itself. The ultimate freedom and responsibility. You can now live your life by eating the best way you can, being the best version of yourself you can, and otherwise creating the best path to your happiness and others possible. But it’s more like a formula than an absolute certainty. Because of the chaotic and random nature of existence the best you can do is aim for the free will that is essentially another dream state that evaporates upon reflection, but is a worthy opponent.
= lots of memory/information gives you the most "free will" in terms of an actionable consciousness with the highest likelihood of success(your definition).
When most people say free will they really mean free choice. I certainly don't have the ability to change my anatomy to be able to breathe underwater, which would be absolute free will. But within the constraints of physics and self conception, freedom to choose your actions (based on your thoughts and desires) does exist.
yes, its about choice and sam basically argues it doesnt exist. i guess floyd didnt have a choice but to be a criminal and chauvin didnt have a choice but to suffocate him to death. nothing to see here folks
1:59:35 O: I really like this analogy of free will to the self it made what Sam Harris' point very clear for me. His later explanation of moving the hand as mysterious was cool too. I loved the ending of this 4 hour podcast very provoking
Brilliant!have a question;what is the "YOU",perhaps what you think is you is in fact not in control of "YOU"
gold. People get lost on this topic, short and sweet is key
I think Scott needs to try some plant medicines👽
Agreed :)
@@nyc1234100 be careful scott. I know you mentioned on Sam's podcast that you have schizotypy. However, if it is safe for you, you should definitely do it.
Can someone explain why wanting to want to play the cello is different from wanting to play the cello? How does that sort of want get us to free will? Why were you able to freely choose that want but not the first order want? How don't these wants come from the same place?
Bingo
What people dont understand is that they think that because they willed it, that means their will is free. In reality, our wills control everything we do it compells us and we can never get behind our will and control it. That would require will.
You cannot choose to want to play the cello. If your action of practicing cello is a consequence of your want (to play cello), and you can’t choose the want, then you don’t have free will
@@eldorian91 this is sharp! Did you come up with this?
@@thejokesonlife3745
Arthur Shoppenhower
I want to want to work. Not wanting to work makes me not work. You could say that I am doing what I actually want, but my wanting to want to work is not making me want to work. Where my free will? I seem to have misplaced it.
Everybody knows at some level that Sam is right. It's just that it's actually a big paradigm shift and people are scared to go there.
*If they understand what Sam is saying*, I'm not sure they CAN argue his logic.
It’s so hard for his idea to just make intuitive sense. I’ve been struggling to just fully understand it and yet I know he’s right. There is no free will and I recognize that when I think about it.
Sam is a real guru!!
Thank you, Sam Harris!
Google and Facebook understands this idea very well.
Would love to add John Vervaeke as a third chair to this conversation, and add the meaning element to it. KInd of a merging the flavor of the Peterson / Harris debates. I think there is a relationship between meaning and this conversation. Especially when we start talking about preferences and desires.
1:34:37: Scott claims that it requires hubris to believe that infinite torture is bad. My god, Scott... come on! What happened? You're not made into a dictator by recognising that infinite torture is objectively bad!
I agree and experience what Sam is talking about. How does it not point to dualism though?
Their disagreement is just as much about what "I" am as what free will is. I think Scott understands this, but he didn't press the issue.
17:07 You can not do what you don't want. But does it feel that way? Yes, it does. Two conflicting motives will feel like making a choice. Like Barrys dilemma between staying in bed or going to the gym. Getting up might feel like doing something he doesn't want, but then doing it anyway. Actually he wanted both things and working out just proved to be the stronger motive. Conflicting motives create the illusion of choosing between them, when actually the stronger one simply wins. That way it is not as mysterious as Sam claims. You might not know why exactly one motive is stronger than the other. But after the fact you know you did what you did because you followed the strongest motive and could not have done otherwise. Our human mind is simply an additional motive generator, additional to say basic physics. By having knowledge of tigers Barrys mind might make him run up a hill, while the stone beside him is rolling down, thinking like Barry it is by his own choice.
Sam I totally agree with the mysterious origins of thoughts etc.
The exercise that Sam did in he past that worked for me was when he said to a crowd that he was going to ask them a question and he wanted the members of the crowd to to answer with the first thought that entered their mind. The the question. Name a country that begins with S. I chose Spain. Then he asked the crowd to think about why they chose the answer they did rather than a different answer another member of the audience did. I couldn’t answer that question. It was just the word that entered into my conscious mind.
Somalia
Saudi Arabia
Sam is amazing. I understand that I don’t understand
18:23 No, you can't do it if you're unmotivated, if being unmotivated means you're entirely devoid of motivation to do it. If you have no motivation to do something, you will not, you _cannot,_ intentionally do it.
You go to the gym, even though you "don't want to," because you _do_ want to. You have motivations to go, and motivations to not go; whether you go or not is entirely a matter of how those conflicting motivations are weighted to you
Here are some random thoughts evoked by this discussion: Sam Harris seems to define “free will” such that it could not exist. It could be defined in various ways, some of which could exist. For example, one might define free will as independent choice among options to satisfy desire or to avoid suffering. Sometimes I contemplate strict determinism, wherein every event (choice) is the result of preceding events and predictable from the early universe were there sufficient computational power. But then there is neutron decay, and other random processes. In the macro world, events can become scrambled and mingled to the point that they can have no further macro effect, this process being entropy. That seems to limit determinism. Subsequent choices would then be free of old influences.
Would your reflection on the past actions, that you have already acted on but were not in control of, be considered a part of the precursor state that leads to the next action... i.e. Without free will can you still chose a path of reflection on past actions that can change patterns of behavior for future actions, even if immediate decision making is subject to a subconscious bias of previous actions?
If not, then your own reflection of your actions is a reflection of your previous actions and nothing matters...... or everything matters. lol
I'm puzzled why Sam doesn't qualify "free will" by calling it "CONSCIOUS free will." The difference is that Sam refers to consciousness when he says "you," whereas most people refer to thoughts/thinking apparatus when they say "you." I'm sure Sam will agree that one's "thinking machine" belongs to that identifiable person; he makes the (correct IMO) distinction that the real "me" is consciousness itself/attention/awareness. I agree with him that awareness doesn't author things; it's just "aware." Although what one is aware of surely then influences the "thinking machine."
Harris can't derive ought from is. As Scott says, "ought" is always relative to a goal - and goals vary hugely from agent to agent. Harris's "worst possible misery for everyone" scenario is contrived such that every single agent would agree on the project of "let's get out of here!". But so what? In no other situation (i.e. all of life as we know it) do agents have exactly the same goals.
In fact, you might say that "the worst possible misery for everyone" - far from being the foundation of morality - is actually the one situation in which you wouldn't need morality. Because morality is the project of maintaining harmony in the face of competing interests. No one has got to tell you that you "should" leave the worst possible misery. Every single being would flinch from it involuntarily as sure as removing one's hand from a hot stove.
Your second paragraph is Harris’s entire point with the worst possible misery for everyone. Things can get so bad that it’s not a matter of moral philosophy whether it should be avoided. We will helplessly choose to avoid it. That’s how he argues he has overcome the is/ought divide. He argues we need not ever invoke oughts, and should just acknowledge that we are in a situation where we can navigate between needless misery and the most profound well-being, and that we obviously want to navigate towards well-being. Thus, we “ought” to do the things that produce well-being. Someone who comes in and says “well who’s to say we ought to avoid misery” just doesn’t remember what it’s like to have their hand on a hot stove.
@@motorhead48067 That's a good summary of Harris's point, but you're missing mine. Following one's own hedonic imperative isn't morality. Morality is social, it involves other people, and generally involves compromising on one's immediate gratification for the sake of others. Harris's thought experiment has nothing to do with morality, because it says nothing of such compromises. He's contrived the one situation in which all agents would agree on what to do, thereby bypassing the problem of what to do when needs conflict.
I finally get what Sam is talking about regarding free will.
But his position relies upon a separation or distinction between thoughts randomly feeding into consciousness, vs soul, or being, for lack of a better way of putting it.
i have to say, before i see all of it, that your mind is not just what your brain is doing. i recently by some accident, transplanted some of my feces into my brother's microbiome, and very soon he became bipolar 2, just like me. he remarked that he now has sometimes mania and sometimes depression, but during mania his mind works on overdrive, but it does not think smart thoughts, just more of the same stupid ones.
consider this drastic change happened in the span of a week, by the transfer of a tiny amount of microbiome from one person to another, and caused him from sleeping almost all day, to staying up for up to 30 hours straight regularly, something i do and he never before ever did. feelings, thoughts, the quantity of them at least, are directly linked to the gut microbiome. i fully expect to see a market for very capable and healthy peoples feces due to this in the next 10 years or so, as this is realized, as a form of supplements that do 10000x what current supplements do.
Great conversation!
Thanks Leon, we're so glad you enjoyed it!
Great conversation! Fans of both of you.
I take issue with Sam on the is ought problem, and tend to agree with Scott.
Sam seems to take this fundamental 'ought', that conscious creatures should avoid suffering, as an 'is' statement, conscious creatures simply do the avoiding of suffering.
But from an objective perspective, obviously these conscious creatures have a built in goal.
Just because a goal is integral to our being and passed down through our biological coding and is inescapable in some sense doesn't mean it's not a goal. It's just a deeper goal that we don't have control over.
Avoiding suffering is still a fundamental 'ought', without which morality claims are unfounded
@@e.b.1115 You get it!
@@e.b.1115 I think Sam’s point is exactly your last sentence.
Avoiding the worse possible suffering for everyone is a fundamental ought proposition, but it is one we can all agree on as an axiom.
That is similar to any other axiom in any logical (or, by extension, scientific) system. It is similar to the axiom “from a single point contained in any plane there can pass at least one line”, or to the axioms of empirical science (“let’s accept as false any hypotheses that are contrary to empirical observation”). There is no philosophical ground to stand upon in order to prove empiricism is correct: we could be living in a simulated universe where the information we perceive by our senses do not map on “absolute reality” or where tomorrow there will be a new datum showing the law of gravity is false. But, accepting the axioms of empiricism (and accepting proposed theories, such as the law of gravity, as being provisionally true when we have tested them and have been unable to produce any empirical evidence to the contrary) we have built a system that produces compelling results (by results I mean both concepts with a high degree of explanatory and predictive value, as well as powerful technological tools that prove their validity via their increasing our ability to manipulate our perceived environment).
Sam’s contention, as I understand it, is that, as long as we agree on that axiomatic proposition (“we ought to avoid the worse possible suffering for everyone”), we have ground to stand upon in order to work towards constructing a rigorous, coherent and systematic system of values, or of assessing the relative merit of different values, using all the tools human reason has developed (including the principles of logic, and the principles of empirical science).
I don’t think an effective rebuttal of that notion was offered in this discussion.
@@PetrosSyrak but how do you get from the fact that conscious creatures do avoid suffering to the value that conscious creatures should avoid suffering? Just because conscious creatures agree on that goal? It does not necessarily follow that conscious creatures should do something just because conscious creatures already do something.
Now, I happen to agree that avoiding unnecessary suffering is worthwhile, but I'm already starting with that goal, and once we settle on the goal, science can go to work towards that goal to great effect. Modern medicine is a great example.
But this does not get past the is-ought problem of getting an ought from an is statement.
I am not rebutting sam's point that once we have an axiomatic goal we can do science towards that goal, in fact I completely agree. I am rebutting the claim that the is-ought problem is merely semantic. There clearly is a separation between the world of is statements and the world of ought statements, between facts and values
"Oh, there is a brain all right. It's just that the brain is made out of meat!"
"So... what does the thinking?"
"You're not understanding, are you? The brain does the thinking. The meat."
"Thinking meat! You're asking me to believe in thinking meat!"
"Yes, thinking meat! Conscious meat! Loving meat. Dreaming meat. The meat is the whole deal! Are you getting the picture?"
"Omigod. You're serious then. They're made out of meat."
-Terry Bisson
How about flesh instead of meat?
But on a serious note, this is the first episode I've watched of this podcast, and I think it's good, and as it grows, I hope you gain some more confidence, Scott, and I don't mean that as any sort of insult. You have some self-conscious comments in the video that only denote your imposter syndrome, but you're doing great stuff here, you shouldn't question yourself half as much as you do!
However, Sam's right on free will. Man can do what he wills, but he cannot will what he wills.
Scott Kaufman keeps referring to _"limited free will"_ where it's unfortunate and it's not his fault because it's not within his capacity but he simply doesn't understand.
We can't even conceive the kind of "free will" most people think they have (the kind of free will sam is arguing for). Most people get upset over realizing or even thinking about the notion that they don't have this free will they think they had. But the funny thing is they can't even concieve what that sort of "free will" will look like. How can you be disappointed over non existence of something that you cannot even conceive of to begin with? I'll say the denial or the disappointment comes from a place of insecurity rather than clear rational thinking.
When he mentioned the golfer missing a short putt, all I could think of was the dude from Happy Gilmore: "You will not make this putt, ya jackass!"
Are you to good for your home!!!
I'm laughing so hard at the ad in the beginning. The fact that a psychologist needs a therapist for help is hilarious.
Host seems to be a big fan of calling a variety of mental phenomena such as behavioral complexity free will. Just confuses the issue by redefining.
Great conversation, count me a new sub.
Thanks, Kent.
I agree that language isn't a thought nor even necessary pointing to a thought.
Words are capable of acting as pointers to concepts, but don't necessarily point to something universally true.
Although that doesn't mean words can't point to something universally true.
Understanding Postmodernism is important for recognizing existing language games, but Postmodernism is better used descriptively instead of prescriptively.
I would ask Sam: at what point do we become responsible agents then instead of trying to argue with him back and forth about definitions. At the quantum level we don’t have free will. When when do we become responsible for those “voluntary” actions
just using equivocation in several areas sam.
free will means moving our concentration deliberately by dimension of location and intensity and how narrow or wide.
The sense of free will seems to be a very specific programming by evolution. As such, the purpose of free will must relate to nature's two mandates of survival and reproduction. Since it seems to be a very specific programming, how specifically is it useful as it relates to survival and reproduction?
It boggles my mind on how anyone would argue and disagree with Sam Harris on the topic of free will after listening to him explain how free will is nonsense.
Because people can come to different conclusions with the same facts.
People would like to be able to modify their predispositions but are not free to do so. That seems to be the free will sam harris speaks about.
The free will other people talk about is the freedom of the will they do have. The control of their self.
Control of what the self is vs control of self.
Based on this discussion, I can't help but think of the analogy of a human chess player competing against the Stockfish AI in an online game of chess.
Unless the human player was explicitly informed of the chess AI on the opposite side of the board, he or she could easily assume the Stockfish AI chess engine were a real human being playing chess exceptionally well, using its free will to move about the board.
On face value, it seems like we all have free will. But, after listening to these two exchange arguments, it seems reasonable to assume that Scott could argue that the chess AI actually has free will (it responds to infinitely-many move scenarios and calculations based on moves from the other player; it can anticipate the strategic moves the other player is making and respond accordingly, especially when pieces are deliberately being sacrificed as a means of some larger positioning strategy; etc.). Sam, conversely, could argue that the human player is really just another version of the AI that is less well-programmed. I'd love to hear these guys address this analogy of the human vs. AI chess engine competition as it relates to free will!
Also, people, please try to not insult Scott. He’s very respectful and I can see what he’s getting at too, but I feel like they’re debating in different lanes or levels
I tend toward determinism. However, I have questions. There are certain subjective experiences that seem to be sought out, and the only reason, ostensibly at least, is simply to have the conscious experience - a concert for example. What would be driving these processes? Also, if the type of determinism that Harris argues for is true, then consciousness is nothing more than an evolutionary spandrel. That's not an argument against it. I'm just pointing that out.
The host's inability to deal with Sam's arguments about objective morality with anything more profound than "but that's a value judgment" was both frustrating and cringe-worthy.
Great interview!
“that is a million putts missed in a row”
“Not even in a row...all at once!”
LOL
Sam Harris stumbles into a cello career
Free will to me implies a movement that is unlimited. With memory being limited (one can never hold all information) any thought/action/choice stemming from memory is limited implying no free will. Free will then could be a movement that is choiceless. I could be wrong.
Thanks Scott and Sam for this!
Thanks for listening!
Free will may not exist for desires and thoughts, but it certainly exists for actions. Whether to call it free will or not is a matter of terminology. One can decide not to murder someone. Or to murder someone. Is that not free will, understood as applying to actions? To feel guilty when one murders someone may be a demonstration of absence of free will, as described by Harris, but this guilt does not prevent one from doing the deed, if one really intends to.
Being consciously aware that your biological software sucks enables you to optimize for it. Consciousness is the spot light of our operating system/memory = thoughts/actions. If we focus consciousness on self optimization eg: creating loops of introspective consciousness observation, we can solve consciousness inefficiencies the same way our consciousness tries to solve its inefficiency of not going to the gym. By using your consciousness spotlight to introspectively self optimize, your spotlight will become much more effective on "wants" of going to the gym or becoming more productive.
Basically the more often your consciousness spotlight focuses on a self audit "what am I doing right now, what am I thinking, why, what should I be doing, why aren't I doing it" etc. enables you to solve/optimize the engine itself of how you consciously perceive and act in your day to day.
This is much like how AI will self evolve, but running on much less restricted codebase modification access and on a non-biological operating system = no evolution/scaling constraints.
Free Will starts with the ability to be wrong and inevitably to say No. Consciousness gives rise to Will and can be Fundamental and Free simultaneously do to error correction, momentum, genetics, location, time... All without losing the ability to say No as infinitely as one has the ability to be wrong Willingly
I have never understood the fascination with the idea of free will. Either we have it and do as we want or we don't and do what is destined. Either way it matters not as we won't know what is coming ahead of us.
it virtually eliminates the rational basis for hate, i would say that matters.
@@jessejayharris Can you elaborate? Which view eliminates the rational basis for hate, determinism or free will?
@@davidwhitcher1708 i was responding to your post, so free will.
@@jessejayharris The Philosophy of Logical Morality hasn't a leg to stand on in my opinion. The idea that everyone will come to the moral/correct conclusion given the same information is born out to be a fallacy. You can see this in the vast array of moral variance in Christians all of which say they are following the world of god as it is in the Bible.
@@davidwhitcher1708 I am really no expert on these matters, but I don't think the claim is that everyone would come to the same conclusion, but that the same person given all the same causal info would generate the same intent. as I say I highly undereducated on this stuff :)
Sam really gets to metaphorical bedrock when giving his moral landscape worst case scenario, and then has to scrape away a little bit more bedrock a few times to try to explain his point. He certainly has patience.
you knock the water on the equipment and think.
"wow, i wasn't paying attention to what i was doing i was on autopilot. i need to deliberately focus my concentration using my free will to the specific things i'm doing in the moment to avoid this happening again"
it is a matter of being lost in thought and not paying attention to two parameters of concentration.
1. its direction.
2. is width and breadth
I want to argue that many of our random thoughts might be part of an "autopilot" mode, which allows us to conserve energy that would otherwise be wasted with "active" thinking, which are intentional thoughts, such as me writing this comment and attempting to do so in the most coherent way possible. I don't know if there is any scientific data on such a thing, and it would be very difficult to test, but that's the thing about science -- it is constantly proving old ideas wrong, even ideas that had previously been accepted because of the very same scientific process that later disproved them. So all we can say is that as of right know, with our current body of knowledge, it would appear that free will does not exist.
excellent free will smack down