Why YouTube videos about free will are wrong
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How can anyone have a sensible debate about "free will" when no one agrees what this "free will" is ? It looks like you (philosophers) should use different terms for different things/concepts to not confuse one another :-) and scientists for that matter. It's like if scientist were talking about for example atoms and you said "no no no, scientists are wrong about atoms, atoms are made from plastic and have different colors", while you are talking about legos and when confronted about it you say that legos are atoms for you :-)
Everyone has free wiil but only few have courage
Free will/democracy/free minds still not adopted/adapted from the west..
Only imported the material goodies
like colorfull volkswagens cars, denim jeans, adidas, colorfull tee shirts
compared to before Jelstin time...
Russia is still a dark place...
not prepared for to fight for their offspring future
to figh for benefits of democracy, free minds, free will...
But are prepared to conquer others...
All Slavic peoples are selfish low I.Q. people..
Lenin brought nothing.. couldn't...
if u see state of mind ordinary russians...
as described above.
The problem is that some philosphers (libertariaans) propose mechanisms by which free will operates which is incompatible with physics. Those models must be wrong and therefore libertarian free will cannot exist.
On the other hand compatibilists do not do this. So compatiblist free will is something that can exist.
@@Britishpersun Free will has nothing to do with the unpredictablity of the agent.
I think you need to define free will right out of the gate. The confusion starts with a lack of definition.
If you put 10 philosophers in a room, you'll end up with 11 definitions of free will. 🤓
@@zenbum2654 Very good. Surely that in and of itself suggests that free will exists on some level!
Yes it did bother me a little bit that this video did not provide any kind of definition for free will. I personally don't want to provide a definition here since I would prefer to first write a 10 to 50 page essay about it and then summarize its' contents (short paragraph) into a definition of free will.
Well.. the problem of free will is a problem of finding a definition that justifies the notion of moral responsibility. There is no such a definition yet.
@@DaveP-uv1ml sounds like a word salad
Robert Sapolsky is a legend. Looking forwardto read his new book on the world without free will.
I watched his fascinating lecture series on the "Biology of Human Behaviour" on the Stanford channel, although I don't entirely share his view point on free will. In the sentence "I have/don't have free will", neither the "I" nor the "free will" appear to exist at a fundamental level but both emerge from the behaviour of a complex system or at the very least are a convenient simplification.
@@DeclanMBrennan
@@DeclanMBrennan You made a great point. +1
Proud to be in the sub community. I'm sending wishes of better health, Vlad. 💙💛
Does Vlad have a dom community? Asking for a friend 🤫
Ricky is eating a blueberry muffin that also has chocolate chips in?
If Ricky has free will, he obviously can't be trusted with it if he's using it to choose such horrible combination. 😂
Seriously? Blueberries and chocolate chips? That's insane. One does not simply mix those two items into a single muffin. It's just Wrong.
I'd simply want to know what sort of 'structure' gave the Baker the 'agency' to make such a muffin.
it was free will on the bakers part
blueberry alone is enough for a muffin. Adding chocolate will only ruin the taste of blueberry, while mixing the taste of blueberry with chocolate's taste will not add anything to the taste of chocolate, only diminish it.
Therefore, if you want to have blueberry and chocolate in your muffin - you need to have two separate muffins: a blueberry muffin and a chocolate muffin. This is the optimal solution.
dude, exactly where I gave up listening.... in no universe, not even an infinite one, is that a viable combination.
I don't agree that science is compatible with our everyday concepts about action. People often have difficulty coming to terms with the fact that physiological and neurological disorders can impact our actions. My son, who has ADHD, is often identified as a troublemaker who intentionally or negligently messes with authority in the classroom. Even as his dad, it is hard to always keep my composure when he is not focusing. You, Vlad might have experienced similar treatment from people who believe you are not really sick and must rest, but is just physically lazy.
I see the same attitude from jurors dealing with disability. When the disability is not visible to the casual observer, most people think of the agent in terms of the folk psychological categories of beliefs and desires. They say, "this person is doing x because they want to do x."
And that's, sometimes, dead wrong. The mind is more than beliefs and desires.
Brilliantly put.
I suggest that your issue isn't with science, but, rather, with applied ethics. When it comes to agency and assigning responsibility, you're absolutely correct. Our moral valuations are crass and benighted and hinder social progress.
Even Robert Sapolsky, biologist who wrote a book where he says free will doesn't exist, most of the time is in a mode of thinking that doesn't really care about fact that his actions are not free...
Sorry to hear your son is having a hard time :(
As to the philosophical side of things: Coming from computer science and dabbling a tiny bit in philosophy, it baffles me how philosophers endlessly argue over concepts they haven't properly defined. Your son is a good example and I'll argue both sides here:
Unfree action: The part of our mind that form consciousness is but a tiny part of what our brain is doing. The ADHD-typical urge for action comes from the non-conscious part of the brain. Thus, when you ask your son why he acted in this way, he doesn't know and that's the truth. It makes sense to argue he isn't acting out of his own free will and it would be cruel to punish him.
Free action: Your son does what his brain tells him to, as do we all. It doesn't matter whether his consciousness is aware of it or not, his brain creates an urge and he acts upon it. We can interpret this is as intent; on some level he clearly wants to do this.
I would argue there is a massive problem with the second interpretation:
Everything humans do would be born out of free will. Blaming someone for having an epileptic seizure? Sure. Wait...your body belongs to you as well, doesn't it? Shame on you for getting cancer. Just stop growing those cells, they're bad for you...
It's basically a free ticket to blame and punish others. Patience and compassion open us to the realization that people act as they do because they can't help themselves. And that includes us.
Back to vague definitions: I don't think "free will" is a fundamental concept at all, but an extremely vague shorthand to describe a complex phenomenon: How an intricate and opaque information processing system comes up with a decision. It can be a human being, an animal, a computer, or something else. They don't differ fundamentally in that they all obey the laws of physics. Hence there is no conflict with what science tells us about the brain (or about computers).
@@WalterBurton as I read it, feylezofriza doesn't have an issue with science, but on the contrary, with our naive concepts that so often clash with science
This was very confusing for me. I extracted this much: You say, scientists shouldn't join the debate on free will, because it's outside their expertise. Instead we should let philosophers think and talk about it.
If this is what you wanted to express, then here's my response: Every thought and action is ultimately grounded in the natural universe. There are layers of abstraction on top of it, which we humans use to make sense of the world, but ultimately it comes down to natural reality being one way or the other. The naturalistic view on free will is that there can't be any. Actual free will requires a consciousness outside the natural universe. A "soul" if you will (and are capable of willing tihi). The natural foundation doesn't allow for free will, however the layers of abstraction in our mind very much allow (if not even require) free will for our psyche to function properly. I don't think it's actually possible for the human mind to do its job, if you don't feel or instinctively assume that you have agency. Even though this agency is ultimately an illusion. Therefore the perspective of a natural scientist is very important to include in this debate imo.
Mainly agree , but ''the natual universe'' or the ''foundation'' is not given... in fact, it is one of the most mysterious and open-ended puzzles in BOTH science and philosophy. Perhaps there is some ''utlimate natural reality'' but even if there is, it is closed to human understanding.. the best we can do is doodle our approximations in words and numbers. Which has proved very helpful ( and also harmful), I am by no means opposed to language-use or opposable thumbs! And I am not sure I could bear the thought that one day, the whole cosmic blueprint ( if there is one) might be spread out on a table for cackling primates to point at and jump up and down in triumph. :)
But is "free will" a valid scientific concept? One that one can build hypothesis on? Is it at all valid to say in the scientific sense that "there is no free will", that is, if this hypothesis is false and free will exists, then we should be able to demonstrate it experimentally at least conceivably? You can define and wield innumerable concepts which are scientifically completely meaningless, but they aren't meaningless to us in general. What next, a scientific "examination" of "fate" or "karma"?
He doesn't add any perspective. He just says: hard determinism, therefore no free will. Philosophers were discussing that thousands of years ago, and no scientific advancement since newton has impacted the discussion.
@@markdpricemusic1574If we disagree about the existence of the natural universe, then we simply don't have anything to talk about.
@@SianaGearz Interesting question. I think the discussion about "free will" is more in the realm of logical deduction within a naturalistic world view. Given nature and nurture and nothing else, we ultimately are a mere product of these two. If there is nothing supernatural, no soul, no independent consciousness, then we have to follow with the conclusion that free will is simply not possible.
Quite a polite and respectful response Vlad to (among others) Sabine Hosenfelder. And possibly also to a colleague of yours, Daniel C. Dennett ("Consciousness Explained"). I hope - health providing - you some time can do an exposé on your thoughts about determinism and voluntarism, free will and the lack thereof in certain situations. So hope your health problem at some point will be alleviated. Wish you all the best! Warm regards from the Netherlands.
This was highly amusing discourse for me as a scientist. Everything you had to say is so obviously true. It is strange to me how people get the findings of science confused for preconditions that must be met in order to decide whether to walk across the street. I suspect it is because they believe science says we live in a deterministic universe. It doesn't. And further that they hold that therefore our decisions and actions must be determined by previous events. Science doesn't say that either.
Where does science say we don’t live in a deterministic universe?
At a minimum, quantum mechanics has stochastic features. The best current equations are deterministic, but the theory as a whole is not.
@@josefk332 Science has no facts. Science has these things: hypothesis, and data. Data is always numeric. No number has any meaning independent of the exact method by which is was arrived at. Since science has no facts, and only probabilities, it can only make probabilistic statements about cause and effect. Determinism is outside the realm of science.
@@josefk332 It's impossible to prove we live in a deterministic universe. A machine will need to know the exact math and behavior of every subatomic particle (impossible because of the mysterious nature of electrons) in the universe and then make an accurate prediction. Plus the things science will know in a 100 years will change our understanding. You currently don't have enough data to support either claim.
The question of deterministic vs non-deterministic isn't necessarily relevant in arguments about free will. If all one's actions are the result of random events -- the rolling of a die, for example -- that's not what most people would think of as free will. Being a slave to randomness is no less demeaning than being a slave to determinism. To me, in fact, it seems like it would be worse.
Vlad says, "The question of free will is not a question for scientists to comment on. And scientists are no more qualified to comment on that question than pianists, etc."
The implication being that only someone with a PhD in Philosophy, like him, is qualified. What about someone with PhD's in both science and philosophy (of which there are quite a few)?
Vlad further suggests that the question of free will boils down to simply determining whether someone's beliefs are compatible with the laws of physics. But, so far as I know, Vlad doesn't have a PhD in Physics. So wouldn't it be fair for a physicist to maintain that Vlad isn't qualified to comment?
I'm surprised there's still so much hostility from people in the Humanities towards those in the Sciences. It seems childish.
At the risk of seeming childish myself, I can't help but wonder: What have philosophers actually accomplished in, let's say, the last 100 years? It seems to me all they ever do is argue back and forth and never reach any conclusions. If you put 10 philosophers in a room, the likely result from the participants will be unending vehement arguments about the 11 theories they espouse. Is there currently a consensus on any topic in philosophy? Anything? (Well, okay, I suppose most philosophers agree they're all much smarter and more sophisticated than any of those philistine scientists.)
Science might, in fact, be able to contribute significantly to the question of free will, depending on exactly how one defines it. If your notion of free will includes ideas akin to humans being independent conscious agents who initiate causal chains eventuating in choices and actions, then a growing body of scientific research strongly suggests that just ain't so. And those experimental results predictably upset people who want to retain traditional attitudes about blame, responsibility, and punishment. Which I suspect is why Vlad feels the need to take this particular cheap shot at scientists.
I've always had a lot of respect for Vlad. Now I'm not so sure about him.
As someone who's worked in research labs the past several years, you reminded me of a comment a physicist colleague made in a meeting discussing the need for hiring specialists: "Physicists think they can do anything, and that's true, but we do it badly" :))
grrrrr,,, you folks should realy do a few semesters in the humanities b4 you start fucking around whith shit that conserns us all. not at you spess, but keep that in mind next time you get a jobb offer mate...then again its not for everyone to be able to live as a luddite. sorry THECNOLUDDITE!!
😂
However, Theologians do it even worse :) while philosophers seek to find out what "better" means.
I assume by this comment that you aren't a physicist? I find this comment very odd and would say that physicists are humans too with all their faults and there will be physicists that are good at hiring the right people and physicists that are bad. If the research lab needs a person with a specialism in a certain area that they are lacking in them they need to hire someone, but as someone who hasn't worked in a research lab but has worked in IT, surely you get a recruitment consultant to gather a list of qualified people, working with those who know what is needed, and then those people get invited in for an interview to see them in person, see if they're the right fit for the job and for with those they will be working with, and then you his them.
Even then it might not work out, but that's the best you can do. I've met many people in many different types of roles in places I've worked who think they can do anything, so this isn't anything specifically unique to physicists, it's human nature to a certain type of human, based on their education and life experience. It may be that people who are well educated might think in this way, but then again I've worked with people who are very good at what they do, aren't highly educated, but think in this way as well. So I think this is a massive generalisation. I think anyone not trained in a certain area will find it a step learning curve if they do something they've never done before with no training in that area, and that goes for highly educated people as well as those who haven't been, and those that haven't been might be more adaptable to learning a new skill, but I think this varies from person to person.
@@mattpotter8725 Well that's quite a reply for a comment meant as just a humorous anecdote - but I'll give it some thought, because for a serious discussion the comment does deserve more context. First off, to your question it depends on your definitions - I in fact got a BS in physics and worked as a research assistant in astrophysics for a time, but would not call myself a physicist because I neither have the advanced degrees nor the experience. That could change (and in fact may well) but that's another story.
The fuller context here was that this was actually a meeting by the new facility director about the much broader topic of our current status and direction, in an open discussion format. We arrived at the topic - a controversial one for us - of human resources, and the fellow in question, a quite well respected physicist who switched gears and had been working as a full time FPGA and RF electronics designer for several years. Just for more context, each area is typically something one will study and end up working in their whole career, in this case he started working first out of necessity and then just keeping it through inertia and because his work was deemed "good enough". Thus his remark, he was trying to get across that the facility was taking him and others for granted, and there was a real need to hire more focused specialists.
So I guess to sum up, I agree that in ideal circumstances - including at this lab - the process you elaborate is followed, but in our case they were clearly just cheaping out, and reallocating generalists over hiring from the outside as a matter of policy, even though they clearly had the funds for new hires.
Thanks for your reply, and for reading all this :)
Complex topic and i thank you to add your voice into the public discussion about it! Lots of love 🌻
I think Nietzsche had the right idea on how to approach the concept of free will. It is a topic he remarked on quite a bit. For example: _Human, All Too Human_ #39: The Fable of Intelligible Freedom, several sections in _Beyond Good and Evil,_ and again quite extensively in _Twilight of Idols,_ the Four Great Errors.
To summarize his points crudely, 'we' (predominantly Westerners) use the concept of free will in order to justify our 'gut feeling' intuition that humans can be ultimately responsible for their actions. But neither our consciousness nor our intentions are driving our actions, instead they are a _justification after the fact,_ an explanation that our minds make up about why we performed our actions, even though we performed those actions *necessarily* and had no choice in the matter. Therefor, since our actions occurred necessarily, we can not ultimately be held morally responsible for our actions, in the same way that we do not hold 'nature' morally responsible for sending us thunderstorms.
We do not need to rely on science to deny the existence of free will. But the fact that modern science, physics, neurology and so on, for the most part supports the determinism hypothesis over the free will hypothesis, this fact *should* impact how we structure our societies and how we interpret our day-to-day experiences. We *should* assume that free will does not exist, and that people are not ultimately the root cause of their actions.
How to square this view with the fact that we _want_ to hold dictators, tyrants, and despots accountable for their actions? From a utilitarian point of view, it may bring the world a lot of pleasure to see horrible people punished for their actions, even if they ultimately did not have the ability to act otherwise. Also, punishing people for their actions can act as a deterrence for others. Even so, we 'should' not lay the full blame solely on the one person who committed the act. Instead, we should view them as products from their society and surroundings, and lay the blame on the circumstances which have led them into this position.
Antisemitism was not destroyed when Hitler died. Will the war in Ukraine end if Putin dies? Perhaps. But the war did not occur in a vacuum. The only way to have lasting peace is to observe and understand the root causes of the conflict, and tackle those. This is equally true in the Israel/Palestine conflict and everything else. This task is, of course, easier said than done. But if we keep assuming that everything everyone does is by their own hand, we can always just blame individuals for everything and leave systemic issues lingering. It is the belief in free will which is holding humanity back from approaching these topics rationally.
Lots of love, keep up the good work :)
"[N]either our consciousness nor our intentions are driving our actions, instead they are a justification after the fact, an explanation that our minds make up about why we performed our actions, even though we performed those actions necessarily and had no choice in the matter."
That's a very succinct summary of current neuroscientific evidence pertaining to this issue. Thank you.
I suppose the conclusion one reaches about the millenia-old debate over free will depends not only on how one defines free will, but also on how one defines "person". If a person is only the "res cogitans" of Descartes, the conscious mind or ego, then clearly modern neuroscience strongly suggests that we are not in fact agents who independently initiate causal chains which culminate in our choices and actions. Our almost universal "gut feeling" to the contrary is some sort of cognitive illusion (or delusion). If, on the other hand, one includes in the definition of "person" the entirety of the unconscious mind and brain, then maybe the issue is less clear. Or maybe the result is the same. I haven't thought that one through.
Perhaps some day in the far distant future, our descendants will see our obsession with moral blame as a naive waste of time. If you disapprove of someone's behavior then you should simply do whatever you can to deterministically change their behavior, including imprisonment (or execution) as a last resort. Our current insistence on viewing justice in terms of punishment only appeals to our base desires for vengeance. That mindset should be beneath us and we need to outgrow it.
I agree mostly, although I think the dichotomy free will/determinism is confusing because even without determinism (fundamental uncertainty) you get no free will. The concept of free will is flawed until it is defined as something weaker (compatibilism, relative autonomy). Concerning the moral part, I like to add that the there are already discussions about how to deal with taxes if there is no free will. Since nothing is fundamentally deserved, responsibility is not just about dictators and criminals but also about success and failure in life. We start to look at society as an ant colony, thinking in organisations and reward functions rather than responsibility and punishment. At this point the free will discussion expands into the discussion of freedom in general. Also the question of responsibility deepens. We start to see that force is everywhere. When you read this, I force these thoughts in your head. Old concepts of freedom and responsibility might need to be completely revised.
I did not yet read the whole essay you wrote. There is an interesting conflict with Aristotle's work here. Aristotle says that happiness comes from virtuous actions, and virtuous actions stems from excellent use of our faculties (our psyche combined with contemplation). To do good actions we need to be able to recognize what are good actions, and then we need to be compelled to do these good actions.
Now, I got the picture from what I read regarding Nietszche's thoughts, that we do not have free will, merely illusion of free will - we did whatever came forth from our subconscious, and then we use our reasoning to justify what we did after we have already done it - and we call this free will.
So I suppose the thing here is this: if you want to be a man of free will, you need to be in control of yourself. You need to be the one programming your actions, instead of your actions spawning from the nether of your subonconscious.
So to combine Nietzsche and Aristotle. Actions which are born out of reasoning, are more likely to be good actions, and therefore lead to results which bring forth happiness. While actions done randomly, at the whim of our subconscious desires (What Nietszche talks about) - lead to bad actions, bad results, and misery.
This fact destroys me every time I remember it, and I even remember it all the time. So I beg for help from anyone who reads this, as I cannot live knowing that I am less than nothing when it comes to controlling my life. So now the question is, how do you not die? After understanding that free will is already defeated on a fundamental scale, I realized that we have no control over anything on any scale, and that any feeling, duty, guilt, fear, morals, ethics, merit, responsibility, meaning, purpose, do not exist. It's just molecules, neurotransmitters and chaotic mapping of neural cells and nothing more.
I suffer from ''apathetic depression'' which consists of the absence of emotions, which can be induced by a series of irregular behaviors for a long time, a stressful routine, addictions and/or traumas. But the point is, I have no emotions, and I have ADHD, and I always found that no matter what I did I was never satisfied or never got to the end of something. I never felt free. When I looked for answers from science, philosophy and theology on how to hack my brain, I discovered that the self is an illusion, consciousness cannot be understood, free will does not exist and along with the concept of control, it is completely incompatible with the reality and no choice is mine and nothing that will happen can be changed by me. For someone who had already died on the inside, it made me want to die on the outside too, if you know what I mean...
It's been days since I've been able to work anymore, it feels like the world has stopped and is just waiting for me to end my life, because now that I know the truth, I have become incompatible with life.
I will never again be able to love someone without first remembering that love is just molecules and neural structures, and that those who love us only do so because it feels good. I will also never forget that all minds are isolated within themselves and in practice, we are all alone. And I will also never forget that no matter what life I lead, I and everyone else will cease to exist and our experiences will be erased. I can't stay alive being aware of this fact. So, as I wipe my tears while writing this text, I implore anyone reading this who can understand me, how can you be okay with this fact? Last week I avoided leaving the house because I really wanted to throw myself against a bus, so I ask again, how do you move forward even knowing that?
@@pietervoogt This fact destroys me every time I remember it, and I even remember it all the time. So I beg for help from anyone who reads this, as I cannot live knowing that I am less than nothing when it comes to controlling my life. So now the question is, how do you not die? After understanding that free will is already defeated on a fundamental scale, I realized that we have no control over anything on any scale, and that any feeling, duty, guilt, fear, morals, ethics, merit, responsibility, meaning, purpose, do not exist. It's just molecules, neurotransmitters and chaotic mapping of neural cells and nothing more.
I suffer from ''apathetic depression'' which consists of the absence of emotions, which can be induced by a series of irregular behaviors for a long time, a stressful routine, addictions and/or traumas. But the point is, I have no emotions, and I have ADHD, and I always found that no matter what I did I was never satisfied or never got to the end of something. I never felt free. When I looked for answers from science, philosophy and theology on how to hack my brain, I discovered that the self is an illusion, consciousness cannot be understood, free will does not exist and along with the concept of control, it is completely incompatible with the reality and no choice is mine and nothing that will happen can be changed by me. For someone who had already died on the inside, it made me want to die on the outside too, if you know what I mean...
It's been days since I've been able to work anymore, it feels like the world has stopped and is just waiting for me to end my life, because now that I know the truth, I have become incompatible with life.
I will never again be able to love someone without first remembering that love is just molecules and neural structures, and that those who love us only do so because it feels good. I will also never forget that all minds are isolated within themselves and in practice, we are all alone. And I will also never forget that no matter what life I lead, I and everyone else will cease to exist and our experiences will be erased. I can't stay alive being aware of this fact. So, as I wipe my tears while writing this text, I implore anyone reading this who can understand me, how can you be okay with this fact? Last week I avoided leaving the house because I really wanted to throw myself against a bus, so I ask again, how do you move forward even knowing that?
I am glad to see you posting a video on this channel. I hope your health is better.
We know that if we change chemicals in the brain we change decisionmaking. Thus, you are not in control. It's that simple.
I won't pretend I know anything about the "newest debate" on the concept of free will, as I decided long ago that the concept of determinism et al isn't fun at all. The question is: Is one of those scientist, that denies the existence of (their concept of) free will, able to write an inspiring science fiction story where all people are aware of this concept? Where it has an impact on the storyline? If not, I am not interested. This evening I will start to reread "the long way to a small angry planet", which features some very inspiring aliens.😊
@juliarichter6987 yes! 🧡
@@begr_wiedererkennungswert 💙
Write it? I thought we were fighting for men who could paint it...
(Thank you. I have had that damn song stuck in my head for months now! I'm choosing not to use my free will and tell you who wrote the song in that episode. Hey I'm saving you from an earworm!)
@@SlpBeauty333 I am sorry😏. I recommend "In the jungle, the mighty jungle" as an earworm killer. You will to have to learn the dance, too, I am afraid, but I assure you, it will help.
@@juliarichter6987 Hakuna Mata, I'm immune to it as an earworm! But Taylor's new version? Oh man, "Say Don't Go"? There's an artist in my zip code that I need to see ASAP. I'm relatively sure that touching any part of his work is a big no no but I'd risk it for him. We just missed each other by 133 years but it's almost Halloween and the museum does a members only hours... BRB practicing on my Ouija board.
I've never understood the argument against it, the whole thing is ridiculous. Will is experiential and qualitative, but still everyone's obsessed with scientific quantitative measurement.
I think that the point is in how we make a model of the world which accommodates both our qualitative experience of our will and a causal world. Of course our experience is real but the question is how do we interpret our subjective experience in a language used for describing objective reality. It seems to me that in many cases the problem of having free will or not seems rather a problem of how we define what free will is.
Scientific people can be dogmatic as well. They may form dogmatic ideas (such as free will doesn't exist) and attach to them like the most faithful Christians to the idea of God.
@@holyXWhat are "scientific people"? It seems a rather vague concept. A lot of people might seem "scientific" (however we define that term) but they're not all scientists.
Try telling Sapolsky, it might make him less depressed. Interestingly, he himself admits that he believed there was no such thing as free will as a teenager and THEN studied neuroscience. Best wishes from a fellow sufferer. X
Interesting topics, I would really like to understand it better - honestly I am very confused about it. I only have PhD in physics, not philosophy - so I try to sum up what physics says and what confuses me:
1) Laws of physics are deterministic. This is very confusing regarding the free will, because it would appear that if everything is fully determined (possibly during big bang), there is no free will. Ricky going to the bakery is compatible with physics. Known physics (as far as we can tell) says, that Ricky's journey to the bakery is in principle fully determined by the laws of physics. It is however so complicated to calculate it, that it is effectively impossible - and this effective impossibility to predict what Ricky will do we can call free will.
2) Quantum mechanics is (contrary to the popular belief) a deterministic theory too. The only non-deterministic element is the measurement. The result of measurement (according to the theory) is completely random and thus not a subject to free will.
3)This is another view, a bit messy: Even if Ricky is fully deterministic, he has to "act through" his role. Ricky can never simulate himself reliably (because his model would not fit into his brain). He can't predict himself, hence from his own perspective he has something we could call "free will". (I do not want to go deeper in this, but there are further nuances: Ricky might try to use a very fast powerful computer to predict how he will act - but once he would learn that, it would be necessary to predict the whole system of Ricky+computer, which again can't be modeled by Ricky+computer.)
3a) Funny enough, though Ricky has (kind of) the free will from his own perspective, he may be fully determined from the perspective of the outside observer. So it is a bit similar to quantum mechanics: You only can observe your own free will, but not somebody else's.
Great comment. If measuring is part of the world, and measuring is nondeterministic, then the world is nondeterministic, don't you agree? Your point 3 is just a version the halting problem I think.
The idea of deterministic laws of physics is not one which is universally agreed on. Some believe that laws of physics are just events that are very probable. E.g. the way a stream of particles will take is just the expectation value of that event and the variance will be very small. So most particles will go that way but some still will not follow that path but for us in the outside won't note the difference. In this world there is no true determinism just very probable events.
@@thealchemist7131 What you describe sounds like a philosophical zombie argument (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophical_zombie) - frankly I don't understand usefulness of this argument, to me it looks unfalsifiable. I did not study it in detail, with my superficial understanding I am in Daniel Dennett's camp. But yes, it would apply if we could make a proof somehow...
@@thealchemist7131 I don't know what you're referring to
@@stefanreiterer6152 That could very well be, but that does not make the "free will" concept more clear - unless if we find a connection between the free will and randomness. If I understand it correctly, free will is not randomness almost per definition - that would be like saying that we make random decisions, we feel it as "free will" - yet we are somehow morally responsible for these random choices. But full disclaimer: I am thinking along the same direction.
I generally agree with your statement. As a biologist, I often find myself in discussions about the concept of free will. Many who invoke 'free will' rely on non-scientific ideas, suggesting that an undetermined state exists before an action is taken. They argue that this state can be influenced by a certain factor-let's call it 'X'-that is currently beyond our scientific understanding. However, in my view, and hopefully in alignment with the broader scientific consensus, the operation of a physical system in a wholly deterministic manner doesn't necessarily negate or undermine our scientific understanding of free will. Importantly, this doesn't absolve us from taking responsibility for our actions. Rather, it indicates that the debate should be shifted to the ethical or philosophical realm, rather than being framed as a scientific issue.
Also - I love your mind Vlad.
Thank you for this, I too have been deluged with recommendations in the latest round of 'neuroscientists declare that they have solved all problems of human cognition' Last time this came up I learnt that philosophy had accepted determinism long ago and now considered other aspects of what we call 'Free Will'. Your explanation was, as always, illuminating and thought-provoking. (also, my PhD was on simulation of materials at the atomic level. Obviously that requires a deterministic universe, but it did teach me that just knowing that doesn't magically mean we can figure out what's going on, just that we theoretically can)
Nothing as fancy as that, it was molecular mechanics simulation of adsorbed organic molecules. Run on a Silicon Graphics server probably less powerful than the laptop I'm typing this on. Much better simulations including quantum mechanical effects are possible today, but it's going to be a while before we can ab initio simulate a brain @@poozletekitoi
Let's say that free will doesn't matter and we conclude that we can't have any criticism of an authoritarian ruler: He was as free to choose as anyone else, *which is 0.*
Then free will becomes a non factor / common denomitator that doesn't matter, and we fall to a new common ground (where everybody is now) with 0 free will. We still can classify all agents by their «outcomes» and those creating repression and violence obviously deserve more criticism that those that no.
If you will, the actor goes from a *«free wil individual»* to a *«broken part»* in the clockwork that is society; and we still have a justifiction to give judge of value or criticism.
Vlad, just admit it: it was determined that you would make this video, since the start of the universe.
Inside infinity nothing is determined and everything is. It's all a big paradox. Enjoy the mystery instead of drawing limited conclusion based on your interpretations!
No, but there was a chance 😂
Aww, good for Ricky, I like that he gets to enjoy a muffin and some coffee at a caffe. He deserves to relax a bit, he's been having a tough time.
for health, whole food: beef, eggs, herring, cheese, sea salt, avocado. no seed oils, corn syrup, etc.; very little carbs/sugar; exercise daily; fast 2-4 days per month
I vividly remember being irked by young philosophy students crowing about determinism disproving the existence, and possibly even the possibility, of free will. As if a true expression of freedom could only possibly be quasi-mystical, spontaneous, and inexplicable - when in reality that would mean every choice being an entirely arbitrary one, making them have nothing to do with the will of the chooser (or making the will of the chooser have nothing to do with the chooser). It has always seemed obvious to me that, for the concept of free will to even be intelligible, we must first EXPECT that every choice stems from a complex interaction of factors that we can explain and understand.
The conversation about free will would be so much poorer if it was held by only one discipline.
(developmental-theory, clinical psychology, criminal law, the so-called’s, biology & neuroscience neurocomputerscience & artificial intelligence, philosophy, arts, theology,… so many interesting contributions.)
I addressed this on the "thinking for ourselves" video.
Start there.
The question of free will is entirely one that I believe science will have the last word on, as further studies will continue to show us more and more how all of our intentions and actions are directly influenced by what we eat in the morning, the smell in the room, how healthy our mother's diets were when pregnant, the culture we were raised in, and so much more that we're simply not conscious of. All of these factors are *ABSOLUTELY* important, yet you'd have me believe that simply prioritizing the sole deliberation of a healthy conscious person in the moment is the only thing that matters.
You offer the idea that it is better to approach free will from the third person point of view, "Ricky appears to be able to deliberate effectively and form his own opinions, Ricky's decision-making ability then seems compatible with how we understand the natural world." This is what's called Compatibilism, and I view this as a complete detour from what the majority of people value intimately with their everyday meaning of the term free will. The free will that *actually* matters to most people is the first-person point of view, the experience of what it's like to be genuinely making choices, "I went with chocolate flavored ice cream but I could've gone with vanilla.", "I could've gone with the movie Titanic but Alien interested me more." Whether intentionally or not, you sneakily encourage one to believe that what we ought to care about in regard to free will is the fact that a person is capable of deliberation, but this is an admission of simultaneously not being interested in the deeper inspection of how these choices came to be. By understanding the causes that directly influence decision-making, one can more easily understand how people aren't responsible for their choices, no matter how deliberative they may appear... This is when we begin to talk about the logic of hate and resentment, pride, etc.
Agree. How choices came to be. And also the information needed for those choices.
Compatibilists explain the idea of will really well, but I’m still puzzled by why they insist on calling it “free.”
Because you are at one with the 'decisions'.
Thanks, Vlad. In my observation, it’s often neuroscientists as well as physicists who don’t realise they’re overstepping the boundaries of their respective fields of expertise. Some do realise it, and they’re so much more wholesome to read!
No one defines what free will is before they discuss.
Thank you Vlad- I’ve been saying this for years
I have will, it comes and goes like hunger. It is not free, it is burdened and squished amongst the immeasurable variables that toss me about each day. Maybe on a fateful day it will come in clutch, i hope. Otherwise the little influence it has on occassion is good enough for me.
hmm, for the first time, listening to Vlad, I am utterly confused. Knowing well how Robert Sapolsky speaks about free will, it would seem as if Vlad is simply saying that if he were to enter a room with Robert, with spectators awaiting the two of them to discuss free will, Vlad would open the conversation with the sentence, " sorry, I didn't ask for your opinion, nor do I require it, ecause anything you bring to the table is compatible with my understanding of free will". Thus, leaving the spectators deprived. ? Am I understanding this correctly?
Can anything be brought to the table? Is there anything that's already off the table so to speak? Things we are collectively decided upon?
In considering "free will", I believe neuroscience is the more appropriate discipline than physics. To that end, I would recommend reading Robert Sapolsky's "Behave", then "Determined".
As a consulting engineer, If i cannot follow Vlad's videos all the way through, i dont start work that day.
I have noted, that even my cat Sooty, exhibits free will, he obviously decides whether or not to respond to my calls.
Because this is so brief/condensed I won't start an argument about magical thinking - but its in the air here !
Actually, I think it's being called out here, not just floating around randomly. The Israel/Hamas war has brought out the worst of people lately and the information environment needs tending to like an overgrown garden.
@@SlpBeauty333 The gardens being trampled in real time
@@PRAR1966 It's like that scene in "Aunty Mame" where she loses control of her horse at this point!
When Vlad posts a new video…. I MUST WATCH!!!
Free will does not exist.
Wonder what sparked this because I watched Robert Sapolsky whom I greatly respect, on the Origins podcast the other day...and it caught me a bit off guard because he had no idea what compatibilism means. He dismissed it as if compatibiliststs didn't essentially agree with him.
Same feeling here. I saw a different interview with Sapolsky promoting his book and I thought his explanaition of compatibilism was a bit off. I haven't read his book so I wasn't going to criticize him in case I misunderstood hit
Sapolsky and compatibulists have different definitions of free will. Compatibulists fail to accept the consequences of determinism as it applies to not being able to do other than what is done. Compatibulists define free will to accommodate an intuition of free will and how we behave rather than how we should behave.
@@sjoerd1239 No they don't. Only libertarians think you could've done otherwise. Compatibalists have the exact same scientific view on free will as Sapolsky does i.e. free will doesn't really exist, it is only an illusion and our intuition about it is de facto wrong. Then there are two different schools of thought within compatibilism; one, older one says the illusion is socially useful like many other illusions are (we don't see the world the way it really is anyhow), and the newer school of thought simply says the wrong intuition is unavoidable but not incompatible with hard determinism as long as we're aware of it...at least sometimes. That's exactly what Sapolsky says too, so technically he's a compatibalist without even realizing he's one.
I've never understood what the problem of free will even is. You are free to be who you are, but nothing else. How could it be differently and why would anyone want it to be?
I'm not certain that I agree with the take that scientists should just butt out of certain conversations. I'd rather they were better grounded on the history of certain topics before they weigh in on them but I think science has much to offer philisophical discourse and it's useful when they weigh in, even if they get things wrong.
I've not had the chance to read Sapolsky's book (I have no doubt that that was the impetus for this video) so I can't comment too much on his views, but I've heard him argue before that he believes that treating people as if we are all simply products of our environments and not responsible for our actions; that we should consider criminals 'sick' as opposed to 'bad' would be a major social improvement. I'm not certain I agree with him on that, but I think there is space for that sort of view and it's a useful methodology to take in some circumstances.
People often go down the determinism rabbit hole and rain along the lines "if the universe is deterministic then you couldn't have chosen any other action so how can you be accountable for anything". Not a particularly original answer but it's worth repeating, it doesn't matter if the universe is deterministic, it doesn't matter if making a different choice is physically possible, what matters is the options you consider and reject, how well you can anticipate the consequences of those options and (sometimes) if you recklessly blunder into doing something without enough consideration of alternatives at all. Daniel Dennett explains this much more clearly than I can.
I'd be interested in your analysis of which ethical concepts are compatible with our best naturalistic explanation of ourselves and which ones are incompatible.
Ancient philosophers held beliefs in different capacities of various groups for free will. Plato argued for the equality of men and women but he was a minority and today a minority argues against his position. Boethius argued against predetermination but has been rejected by many who want a God who is all powerful and all knowing while still holding people accountable for what they do. Which is a contradiction.
So many definitions of free will, so many aspects. Billions of past events shape the present and everything in the present, including all the complexities of being an individual, a family member, a member of a community, awareness, knowledge, and so on. We muddle through as best we can.
Let's forget about all labels like philosophy, science etc. for a moment.
For me the interesting question in this case is: Are there any practical impilications of this apparent clash between the way we think about about people as acting, as making decisions, as having free will, and what science has arrived at as the most fruitful way to describe what happens?
And my answer to this is a resounding yes. Thinking about the world in these terms we are inclined to by our nature makes us borderline crazy, and contributes a lot to what makes it so hard for people to get on with each other. Every progress I have made in the past, how ever slow, in replacing thoughts like "A did x" by thoughts like "we interacted, and the result was x", every time I managed to replace finding justifications for the negative feelings I was feeling about another person's actions by trying to understand why they acted the way they did (to the degree this is possible in a highly complex world), felt like it immediately translated into a big pay-off in how I live my life, hand how I interact with other people. This would be for others to judge, but subjectively I am convinced this has made me markedly less neurotic and judgemental. No more blame game, no more resentment. Dropping the thing that makes ethics so toxic, namely postulating rules for what other people, or all people, should or shouldn't do, by thinking about this strictly in first person singular, "this is how I work at the moment, this is where it clashes with something I want to do or who I want to be, is there a way for me to turn myself into someone who is a little more in tune with who he wants to be and what he wants to do?".
There is a reason why stoicism and similar schools were so influential for so many centuries. Because they provided practical and interesting implications for how I live my life.
Just as there is a reason why contemporary academic philosophy has the reputation as being l'art pour l'art it has, and has massively lost relevance to youtube channels that pick up this tradition on actually providing interesting and relevant implications for how we live our life.
I realize that this is not something that you claim to be providing. But then what exactly are you providing, Vlad? Explaining what so many videos on free will get wrong? Then why watch them in the first place? How about telling us about a video you watched, or sharing an insight you yourself had, that helped you improve your understanding of free will?
Also, to end Cato the Elder style:
"If they got a phd in philosophy then maybe we can talk." Really, Vlad? How about we replace this by simply looking at who has something intelligent, novel and relevant to say. Entertaining as it may be sometimes be to talk about what others get wrong (by specifically spending time on listening to people who get things wrong), I believe there is a lot to be gained from moving away from pointing out what other people get wrong to sharing what helped ourselves to get things less wrong.
In other, less kind words: I wish I could have more of the goofing around Vlad, and less of you being a stuffy pontificating intellectual would-be-snob.
Then again, you do you, maybe assuming that your audience knows less than you has an important function for you.
Before watching, if this video challenges my compatibilist mindset, Imma be upset 😄
After watching, I wonder what TH-cam videos Vlad's been watching 😄
I have always thought the answer to the question of human free will entirely depends on the answer to the question “what exactly do you mean by free will.” If you mean “given all the same initial circumstances, it is possible you could have chosen to do otherwise,” then no. If you mean “you are capable of executing a competent deliberative process,” then yes. The question about human free will entirely collapses into the question “what is the correct definition of ‘free will’.”
Quantum physics has implied the universe to be probabalistic, not deterministic. We do use quantum functions in our body, in our DNA, sense of smell, and now evidence in the brain
We can choose different outcomes, thus have free will
@@phil3751 Probabilistic does not allow for free will. Free will requires defiance of the probabilities.
That is not the right question, but unfortunately it is common to deny an argument by claiming that the definiton is wrong. The point is that a definition is made and adhered to in discussion. It is unhelpful if the definition has little to do with the meaning of its contituent words. It is unhelpful to define a term to mean something different from its common usage. Definitions are useful in restricting a term with broad meaning to a specific meaning for the purposes of discussion.
I suggest that your first definiton is in line with what is generally understood. I suggest that your second definition has a constrained outcome and so lacks the idea of being free.
@@sjoerd1239 I'm playing a card game, and I only got 6 cards at an given moment. The cards are out of my control, determined. But I can choose how to use those cards anyway I want. I still have free will
@@sjoerd1239 my argument is how Steven Hawking defined free will so I'm inclined to agree
"Decision theory" is basically what neuroscientists have been describing with numerous experiments (still at a quite basic level) that show how decisions are made seconds before conscious awareness and in some cases, can even be modified by direct intervention before the person even knew they were going to choose a different option. The limits around what is and is not possible in decision making is most certainly going to be better defined by scientists than by philosophers in the coming decades.
This fact destroys me every time I remember it, and I even remember it all the time. So I beg for help from anyone who reads this, as I cannot live knowing that I am less than nothing when it comes to controlling my life. So now the question is, how do you not die? After understanding that free will is already defeated on a fundamental scale, I realized that we have no control over anything on any scale, and that any feeling, duty, guilt, fear, morals, ethics, merit, responsibility, meaning, purpose, do not exist. It's just molecules, neurotransmitters and chaotic mapping of neural cells and nothing more.
I suffer from ''apathetic depression'' which consists of the absence of emotions, which can be induced by a series of irregular behaviors for a long time, a stressful routine, addictions and/or traumas. But the point is, I have no emotions, and I have ADHD, and I always found that no matter what I did I was never satisfied or never got to the end of something. I never felt free. When I looked for answers from science, philosophy and theology on how to hack my brain, I discovered that the self is an illusion, consciousness cannot be understood, free will does not exist and along with the concept of control, it is completely incompatible with the reality and no choice is mine and nothing that will happen can be changed by me. For someone who had already died on the inside, it made me want to die on the outside too, if you know what I mean...
It's been days since I've been able to work anymore, it feels like the world has stopped and is just waiting for me to end my life, because now that I know the truth, I have become incompatible with life.
I will never again be able to love someone without first remembering that love is just molecules and neural structures, and that those who love us only do so because it feels good. I will also never forget that all minds are isolated within themselves and in practice, we are all alone. And I will also never forget that no matter what life I lead, I and everyone else will cease to exist and our experiences will be erased. I can't stay alive being aware of this fact. So, as I wipe my tears while writing this text, I implore anyone reading this who can understand me, how can you be okay with this fact? Last week I avoided leaving the house because I really wanted to throw myself against a bus, so I ask again, how do you move forward even knowing that?
@@Asafe_f I'm so sorry you're going through such hell and have been for a long time it seems. I really do know what it's like and was there myself for much of my youth and young adult years.
I wish there was something easy and immediately effective I could tell you. It's easy to say, but it really can and it does get better. Just because there probably isn't free will like we thought there was, doesn't mean that life can't have meaning or that life can't be enjoyable. Change happens. Learning is a thing. Even if at the neuron level we didnt truly freely choose to change or learn something, doesn't mean it can't change us and the world for the better. And the experiences we have are real, as I'm sure you know in terms of the bad ones, but the good ones are just as real and worth it.
In terms of mental health, there are definitely things that can change the way you're interacting with and reacting to the world that can make life much more worth living. In terms of what those approaches are, they're better left up to you and mental health professionals. But as a general rule, the end goal and real benefit of a lot of these changes is to improve the reationships with the people in your life and to help to develop healthy, mature and rewarding relationships. It's not easy, but it really is worth it to help navigate this strange world with some trusted souls by your side. (And they don't all need to share your philosophical beliefs to be a friend, lover, etc.)
I grew up in a pretty dysfunctional family and the patterns of unhealthy relationship habits run deep. But they definitely can be changed and worked with.
Wishing you all the best with the challenges. Big human hugs
@@cameronmclennan942 I truly appreciate the words you gave me. I'm just paralyzed because, as I have ADHD and depression that doesn't allow me to feel emotions and an advanced addiction to pornography, it's been a long time since I felt free. I couldn't finish something, no matter how much I wanted to. I couldn't feel something no matter how much I wanted to, and I couldn't overcome the addiction no matter how hard I tried for 3 years. So, in order not to suffer, I remember starting to ''rationalize'' the bad emotions in order to discredit them, but when I realized that this would work with the bad emotions, I unconsciously started to act like this with the good emotions until I couldn't. felt nothing else. After that, all my mind thought was that every feeling is selfish no matter how selfless it seems to be, because we only do it because it's good for us. I did the same for love, saying that it was the result of chemical reactions and a complex neural mapping with the aim of leading to reproduction and maintaining a good feeling, that is, selfishness and not platonic love. Little by little I began to feel that all logical emotions were not so logical and that the summary of society was selfishness and hypocrisy, and I was only able to see this, because as I felt nothing, I was not connected to anything, therefore mentally , I was free. But then, tired of thinking like a psychopath, I told myself that I would get out of this situation and that I would return to my dreams that I had in high school, when I was 15 years old. Now I'm 18. And when I started to take off, things started to fall, motivation was lost and in the midst of a crisis of guilt generated by my low performance in my only job thanks to ADHD I had a burnout. And I was left with no money, and I have bills to pay and I owe a lot of people. And I didn't understand what was wrong, that's when I understood that to change I would need therapy and medication, and at that moment I felt that to change I would need to be remodeled, and that is not free will. So I searched everything I had to search for about free will and after discovering that it isn't real, I just broke down. I can't walk anymore, I can't work, and if before I didn't feel anything, now I feel sadness, frustration and agony, along with a fear of what I might end up doing to myself when this situation gets worse. And I just can't work, I can no longer sit in the chair, pick up the mouse and start editing videos for my clients and companies. I've already lost 2 this week. And nothing motivates me to go back, because like I said, ADHD and depression, they don't allow me to have impulses. With no money for therapy and no one to support me, I feel like I'm screaming into the void with no one to listen to me. And you know, now that I know about free will and the neuroscience behind it, and how I've also rationalized the feelings, I can't believe them anymore. It just doesn't work anymore. I just wish I had the money to buy some hard drug that would give me a partial aneurysm, general amnesia or make me so sick that I couldn't even remember who I am, for long enough so that I could forget these dark facts, because I'm no longer better able to overcome them on my own, because my circuits are broken, because in the end it seems like that's all I've ever been... a broken machine.
@@Asafe_f Again, I'm really sorry for your situation and desperation and hopelessness you've been going through. It really f'ing sucks.
I noticed a couple of things in your writing. You said "I understood that to change I would need therapy and medication, and at that moment I felt that to change I would need to be remodeled, and that is not free will."
I'm not sure I completely understand what you meant, but it seems there's an underlying assumption that if it's not free will that causes the 'remodeling', then it's maybe not possible, or maybe not legitimate, or not worth it.
I'd say that there seems to be some inconsistency with your understandable reaction to learning that free will doesn't exist. And thinking and feeling like that means that everything is hopeless and meaningless. That couldn't be further from the truth. Change and remodeling are still possible and desireable, regardless of whether it comes from free will or not. You are not lesser or worthless because free will doesn't exist and neither is anybody else. People change and develop and evolve over a lifetime. It's not quick or easy, but it definitely is a thing that is real in this 'unfree' world.
The acceptance of the world as it is and of yourself as you are right now is one of the most difficult things to do. It's ok that it feels really sh*t and grieving and getting stuck is a completely normal reaction to these realisations and experiences and feelings. Particularly when you don't have many or any people to support you.
You also said, "I'm no longer better able to overcome them on my own." That is a completely normal thing as well and important to be able to recognize. There is literally almost no one that can manage multiple mental illnesses by themselves in a healthy way. I'm guessing that you're a guy (if not, apologies), and that culturally as a guy, it's just not really a thing that is modelled - to ask for help. Or to know who to ask for help from and how. It's not something that's modelled to most boys growing up. Therefore, it's a minefield out there on the internet looking for men to offer advice for these types of dilemmas. Trying to 'remodel' yourself when many of the models visible are pretty toxic is another hurdle to jump over.
It is ultimately about finding ways to reconnect with other people that will allow you to start to feel normal sized feelings again. Genuine relationships are as necessary to us as food (as much as I didn't want to believe it for most of my life and figured that I was fine being emotionally disconnected from everyone). They really do allow us develop more healthy relationships with ourselves. Which in turn allow us to develop healthier relationships with others. Which allows us to develop healthier relationships with ourselves... Classic virtuous cycle. May you find some virtue within your universe
Of course we don't have free will, but the way reality is, we are forced to live with the illusion of free will in order to act.
You’re using the term free will in what Vlad called one of its most radical ‘could have done otherwise’ senses. Libertarian fee will. Vlad said something along the lines of us having the free will we need, or freedom to act, which is similar to what Daniel Dennett says.
I agree. Vlad does not have a clue.
@@sigmundsilber2210 He's not even tipping his hand as to a firm opinion, he's accurately laying out the philosophical landscape. Libertarian free will is not the only conception of free will, or freedom of action. If you are assuming only one specific meaning of the term, you're projecting a specific opinion on to the scope of the conversation. That's limiting in a way he's arguing against. Not the specific idea, but the attempt to shape discourse in a limiting way.
I feel that a discussion about free will is more a discussion about what we understand free will to mean than if it exists or not. One could start from the experience of taking decisions and trying to understand the nature of the subjective experience. As a subjective experience it does exist. Now, one could start for example to try to find a definition that is in accordance with the subjective experience and also is integrated with our general view of the world. While the process of reflecting on our experience might transform the process of the way we experience our decision making and we might conclude or not that we were in some sense confused in our previous experience ( or it might change the perspective on how we view the world) we will still have a subjective experience on how we make our decisions so a definition that is not illusion is still required.
Ever heard of the Dunning-Kruger effect? You have no way of knowing if free will is real or not. You can lean towards one or the other, but you will never truly know. Accept your LIMITED understanding of existence and enjoy the mystery, there will be more dignity in it.
Ah this will be a lovely topic to listen to.
I know I have free will. My knowledge of this is immediate and without doubt.
I don't see how the question of whether we have "Free Will" or not can be an ethics question. The existence of free will is determined by physics and how the brain works: Is the world fully deterministic or not? If so, there can be no free will.
I also think there are many concepts of actions that are not compatible with science. If I have the concept of manipulating your thoughts through telepathy, no amount of philosophising on the ethics of such an action will change the fact that the entire concept is not compatible with science. Are you using a different meaning for "concept of action"?
I would say that a major problem with much philosophy is that it is not based on an understanding of science (or came before our current understanding) which gives you the classic problem of garbage in, garbage out. Your example of the ancient Greeks solidifies this: A basic lack of understanding of the world gave nonsensical ideas. That was not due to philosophy or ethics, but rather due to a lack of understanding of the world, a lack of scientific knowledge.
So, it seems to me that the question of free will really is a science question and not a philosophy question, certainly not an ethics question. It starts with physical determinism, if not, quantum probability (which doesn't apply at the macro scale we function at but anyway), then neuroscience, cognitive sciences etc. Ethics only comes much later once we have determined whether we have free will or not, and if so, in what sense and what degree. So by the time philosophy gets involved, the science needs to already have determined the question of the existence of free will itself.
It depends what the actual question is I think.
There's a question of the existence of free will. That is something that could have an answer. It doesn't necessarily mean we could answer it of course, it could well be something that is inevitably stymied by our physical limitations as the brains who are trying to think about the limitations of how brains think. Even if we learn ever more things, it could well be a kind of a "god of the gaps" type scenario.
Then there's another completely separate question which isn't about knowing whether free will exists but about about the usefulness of knowing whether or not free will exists. This second question seems much more of an ethics question.
I agree that there Science and Ethics are almost entirely compatible, there was one scientific theory that I found to conflict a bit with my own conception of Free Will. The scientific idea of "Biological Determinism" bothered me as an incompatibility between Science and Ethics. Is there a resolution between determinism and free will that I am unaware of? I have a deep seated, probably emotional, objection to determinism so it would be probably be good to consider that position if Vlad or anyone else has anything to offer. Thank you beautiful community.
I feel like a lot of this stuff is semantics, personally. Speaking for myself, I've always had an intuitive understanding that people are completely shaped by forces outside their control and that they have agency, I know this sounds contradictory but I know it to be true. I guess that makes me a compatibalist, although haven't found any philosophical accounts of free will or lack thereof particularly compelling, I'm not sure that the complexities of this are fully able to be expressed in language.
First, the most arguments that are fashionable today against free will are absolute: we live in completely deterministic universe. From that follows that even "biological determinism" is consequence of quantum determinism. Now if we think free will not in absolute yes/no terms but as a slider, many seem to be on the far no end. I'm on the slightly off from the "no" end: we do have a small, tiny bit of free will. Just a tiny, tiny bit.
Now I argue why believing in free will is the only rational choice one can ever make:
If one does not believe in free will and there is no free will, it was never a choice to begin with. There is no real responsibility since it requires ability to choose.
If one does not believe in free will and there is any free will at all, its not a rational choice. It also is dangerous one since one does not believe to be truly responsible for ones actions.
If one believes in free will and there is no free will, it was never a choice to begin with. Its just an illusion and not irrational choice for it was not a choice.
Thus believing in free will is the only responsible and rational choice, even if it wrong one.
All this said, I'd really like to hear what Vlad even means by free will. I do like most of his content but when it comes to philosophy, I see some insecurities that manifest themselves with elitism: only people with certain group approval may have an opinion worth hearing: academic achievements on phd or above level.
There is a problem is that titles work only in a probabilistic manner: someone with a certain background is more likely to know their stuff. World is full examples of experts getting it wrong and amateurs getting it right. All institutions, titles and degrees are human made. There is no above all authority to assure that these are flawless. Not even Vlad ^^ I'm saying this with love and respect.
What do you mean with quantum determinism? I did some quantum physics as an undergraduate and it is all about probabilities. It is not determined that the particle will pop up there, there is a chance it will pop up there.
@@mielivalta Sounds a little like Pascal’s wager about belief in God.
I guess I fall in the camp of sometimes humans have free will but defer to neurophysiologists about action pathways being activated before motor neurons even when consciously moving to get up from a chair, eg.
Also, I’m unsure to what extent we have moral/ethical free will when our personalities are to some extent genetically determined. Again, must defer to neurophysiologists.
Free will is nonsense, which is easy to prove without any science. Let's start with the self-evident assumption that my freely willed act must be intentional. Which means that it must be determined by my intention to perform the act. But where does my intention come from? If I don't create the intention with free will then my act is determined by something (the intention) that I didn't create with free will, therefore my act is not freely willed. If I do create my intention with free will then my act of creating the intention must be intentional, which means determined by my intention to create the intention. But then, where does my intention to create the intention come from? So we either have an infinite regress, where I must create an infinite chain of intentions in order to perform a single act, or, more likely, an intention just pops into my head without my free will and subsequently determines my supposedly freely willed act.
@user-zl1yq7qo1d To freely decide to act on an intention, you need an intention to act on the intention. So again, any freely willed act must be determined by the intention to do the act.
@user-zl1yq7qo1d Still, I don't choose my values. I just have them and they push me on.
I'm an uneducated layman, could someone perhaps summarise Vlad's main point here? I think i understand but i think i'm missing something. Is he broadly advocating for Compatibilism? Or is he making a deeper point? Or am i way off?
Counterpoint: Consider also that those with specific expertise in certain fields can be so close to the problem that they lack the broader perspective to notice obvious solutions. My point being that "staying within your lane" can isolate us from the truth, which no one has a monopoly on.
I have seen this in action when discussing software design problems with my wife, whose specialty is microbiology.
There's no real problem with getting out of your lane if you are honest about your ignorance, and your confidence. If you have the notoriety of expertise, this is doubly important because many lay people will not properly understand the bounds of your expertise. The big problem we have is not with people having conscientious personal discussions outside their lane, it's with people using their large public platforms to espouse confident opinions on matters in which they are not that well informed.
Everyone has free wiil but only few have courage
"James claimed that it was only when he was under the influence of nitrous oxide that he was able to understand Hegel." ~From the William James Wikipedia entry
This is a time, infinity, and jelly donuts discussion dear Horatio.
Concept of free will is fully compatible with physics. I'm more interested in why we have the need for free will to exist and why it tickles a certain itch for some people beyond just "is the person responsible for their actions?" and similar. To me, sense of guiltiness or some concept of "true justice" is often less of an actual reason to create a justice system and I am rather interested in the positive effects of assigning guilt. I view guilt and shame as useful tools for correction of behavior, but it needs to be within a democratic liberal society (which is good for it's own reason if our goal is the continuation of prosperity, tackle climate change and society to continue to develop) which forces a "true justice" to appear. But again, not because I view it as important in itself to assign "true justice" to someone from a free will and guilt point of view but as a result of liberal democracy that I value highly. Agency is very relevant when it comes to correct sentencing for example.
In the end, I can only know that "I", whatever "I" is, experience. On top of that I build my views of truth and necessity. I call them capital letter T Truths and low case t truths that build upon the capital letter T truth ("I experience and want to continue to experience good things"). A lower case truth, that follow on the capital letter Truth, is that I have to accept that certain things appear correct so that I don't lose my mind (unknown) or starve (that is, >experience< starving) - there seems to be a physical reality and it appears to govern what I experience.
I like the observation "we have about as much freedom of action as a violin does of movement in its case". Attributable to G.I. Gurdjieff or P.D. Ouspensky - I've forgotten which...
I'm not entirely convinced by Vlad's argument. To be fair that is probably more to do with me not understanding it than disagreeing with it. I don't think that theories of free-will belong entirely within the scientific domain but I can't really imagine a valid theory that leaves out causality. Causality is very much in the scientific domain, so I would say that gives scientists at least a head start on the topic when compared to bakers, decorators and chartered accountants.
Weill, Vlad, I have to say this one was a bit too general for me... I really think in order to even begin to approach this, we have to come up with some working definitions... I, frankly, have no idea what you are actually getting at with this one.
But, I will say this: scientists, IMO, absolutely have a role in grappling with this question. Obviously that isn't the only approach, but I believe one can't move forward without some physiological understanding of why we are moved to act.
One persons freewill may lead to another persons enslavement..
I think that it should also be pointed out that determinism isn't something that the physical sciences could discover
I never quite know what to make of the claim that our folk conceptions of human agency and action will *never* conflict with the findings of science. What is the proper scope of these folk conceptions? What are their functions? Prediction of behavior can't be one of them, for science has already encroached on that domain. I would argue similarly for explanation, though I know this is a squishier, more contested concept and that some philosophers believe predictive value or reducibility have no bearing on the "goodness" of an explanation.
Some notion of organism-level agency is arguably ineliminable to certain deontological systems of ethics, but not to certain consequentialist systems, and so not to ethics globally (absent a convincing argument that these deontological systems are the only real games in town).
So I'm left wondering: What exactly are the success conditions for these folk concepts? What is it we want them to do for us and how can we know whether they're earning their keep? What is so unique about their intended functions that we can claim with such confidence that they are immune *indefinitely* to any revision in light of scientific discovery?
There is something that is pure science/math that demonstrates something about free will - in fact, it is called the “Strong Free Will Theorem”.
The theorem proves mathematically, based on “non controversial” statements about quantum physics, that in a certain experiment, either (1) experimenters are mysteriously unable to choose to make certain measurements, or (2) even with total knowledge of the entire history of the universe up to the moment of measurement, it is impossible to predict the outcome of the measurement.
Thus if we want to say that the scientist is free to press any one of the 12 buttons on their apparatus, then we are forced to accept that even an omniscient being would be surprised by the result of pressing the button.
I think you address the question ''do ethics serve a purpose'' rather than ''do people have free will''? There is a really great debate with Robert Sapolsky on The Origins Podcast about this issue.
The premise is that people are born with certain genes they have no control over and grow up in an environment they have no control over. Both are a given. This interaction between nature and environment wires the brain and thought processes. The prospects of a person's outcome in life are as such determined.
Sapolsky also accentuates that it's not the genes that are deterministic but rather the environment under which genes are switched on or off. It means miserable circumstance is not a person's fault just as success is not due to a person's merit. Rather, they follow from the circumstances given to them.
Where neuro science makes the difference compared to philosophy is providing imaging evidence that people already made a decision before becoming consciously aware of the decision they are about to make. With these advances philosophy is low hanging fruit which would just say something along the lines of ''free will is the slave of passion''.
My intuition tells me physicists have overstepped. Free will necessary to life.
The first question to ask is whether or not the universe is real or exists only in our minds. The philosophy that says it's only in our minds is called existentialism. This is the philosophy of Sartre and Camus. We have no way to find the answer to this. If it exists only in our minds it's pointless to study science because our minds can change reality capriciously.
If it is real is it rational? If it is rational all matter and energy behave according to universal and eternal consistencies we call scientific laws even if we don't know what they are. This theory is called determinism which is what science assumes to be true. The behavior if every particle in the universe conforms to these laws. There is no place for randomness or probability in the rational universe. They are human inventions becsuse we can not distinguish one particle from another of the same type. This is a bitter pill to swallow because it precludes free will and moralality. It's an idea we don't like.
If the universe is not rational then it is pointless to study it as though it was a science because the laws can change capriciously so what's true in one time and place may be untrue in another time and place. This is where religion and other philosophies come in.
I disagree that scientists can not contribute to philosophy. Quite the opposite, scientists are a subclass of philosophers. They develop theories of reality just as other philosophers do. They grapple regularly with truth. The fact that they ultimately test their theories through experimentation is really just an extension and additional support of their work as philosophers. Excluding people from contributing to philosophical discourse because they do not have a PhD. is a step too far. Many of the great philosophers never attended a university at all or were self-taught. What matters is the quality of thought that is brought to the work and the rigour with which that thought is applied.
As a non duelist from "my" understanding free will doesn't exist' all is ONE and the ONE does all' therefore all that is done was always to be done.
I’m not sure what the wider context is here with respect to free will? - what’s being discussed in social media? What’s the/your definition of free will?
I was confused, too. It seems I've missed all the physicists speculating on free will. Sabine Hossenfelder is the only one I'd noticed.
A lot of conversation taking place denying the existence of free will. Sam Harris, Lawrence Krauss (whom I both admire and respect, but don't necessarily agree with on this topic) argue that you really have no choice to think how you think or decide what you decide, based upon cumulative data that you've encountered and absorbed. That's a dramatic oversimplification, but at least contextual.
@@howtoappearincompletely9739 I don’t understand what a ‘naturalistic understanding of ourselves’ could possibly mean. And so didn’t understand pretty much anything after that point. Since discovered that Robert Sapolsky is releasing his book ‘Determined’ and has had several YT interviews on it, so not sure if that’s contributing to the general noise.
I have a hard time squaring the notion of free will with the universal law of causality. Is the human mind the one thing genuinely unshackled to cause-and-effect? Or is our will only partially free (if even that much)?
If we are going to determine whether or not free will exists according to scientific principles we first have to clearly define what free will is. These definitions will inevitably vary widely according to peoples subjects of expertise, personal prejudices, etc. Therefore for some people free will exists and for others it does not.
To presume that one's own expertise heralds the final word on a subject of discussion is hubristic and naïve, whether that word is from a physicist or a philosopher.
Many physicists suuopr idea of free will based on reductionism ad absurdia.
Talk to Sapolsky... He talked to the Carefree Wandering guy, who seemed to love his position. It would be interesting to hear you guys talk. But I just heard you say you can't talk to scientist if they don't have a PHD in philosophy. That seems a shame.
Making sweeping generalizations about science on the internet as at all representative of serious views on this topic is lazy and misleading. Read “Determined: A Science of Life Without Free Will” and perhaps listen to the podcast with the author, neuroendocrinology researcher Robert Sapolsky, and the physicist Lawrence Krauss. They both clearly illustrate that science has made significant advances on this topic, far beyond what has been achieved by a philosophical approach. The very reason we do not have freewill, but instead the illusion of free will, is due to our evolutionary history. No magic required, just an understanding of science.
Thanks for content for philosophy channel in particular!
I only did a small foray into philosophy before going on to study other things, but i did read some texts on free will. What finally settled the debate in my mind was reading Daniel Dennett's book Freedom Evolves. There, he argues that free will has traditionally been poorly defined, because the subject (or actor or person) has been poorly defined - in a way that can be summed up by Schopenhauer's "you can do what you will, but you can't will what you will" (something to that effect, what Schopey exactly wrote, I can't remember), where the will is excluded from the subject that wills. Dennett doesn't talk about Schopenhauer and the subject, as far as I recall, but about the cartesian trap of imagining ourselves as something separate from the physical world without extension in time and space (it's just me who thinks the Schopenhauer quote or paraphrase is apt). This leads to a concept of free will that's very... physical. Where free will is something that you can have more or less of in certain situations with regards to certain things, not something that's either/or.
I don't know, but I think that what you are saying about how we define 'action' is somewhat the same as what I talk about with how we define the subject. If I'm mistaken here, please correct me. But I have been frustrated with just about every video on the subject of free will that I have seen here on youtube ever since I read Dennett's book more than 10 years ago.
If dennett is going to say that something imagined is non existent, does he make a useful account for what he means by non existence? Dennett was an accolyte of Gilbert Ryle (concept of mind is a dip into a trivial mind attempting to scale the foothills of a much greater one). Any so called denier of the existence of something such as we have formulated needs to at least answer to where this concept is being banished? As far as Ryle goes, I side with the opinion of Terence Malick over that of Dennett.
@@WeekdayProductions After rereading my comment, I can see that I'm not very clear, so I'll try to be a little clearer here: Dennett affirms that we do have free will, and he argues against those who say that we do not. However, he does this by arguing that when people are denying that we have free will, they most often do this from a conception of free will that is fundamentally muddled; and that - if we can mean anything by 'free will' - then we do have free will. But that free will is not a transcendental quality of some kind, but a characteristic of the kind of system that a human being is.
@@strangebird5974 interesting. Thanks for clarifying that. I’m not across all of Dennett’s work in the same detail as I am with Ryle but the formulation is recognisable from Ryle. Does he really think that he can make a sufficient account of the system that a human being represents to him? That’s a step which a rational approach would surely preclude? There’s a considerable step of belief, nay faith, to say that human functioning respects the description of ‘system’ as it is proffered here? Surely any idea which has its basis in faith is inadmissible in such a world view?
@@WeekdayProductions Ok, so I think I have to preface this with the fact that I'm representing the account of free will that I came away with after having read Dennett, and that Dennett himself might take issue with how I would word or understand things; and I did make a mistake by implying that we necessarily have the free will that Dennett describes; we have it potentially, and arguably in actuality.
As far as I remember, Dennett uses a metaphor of a tree and a man coming with an axe to cut down the tree. Does the tree have the free will to choose to get out of the way so as to not get cut down? No - it does not perceive the man, and even if it did (in whatever way that would make sense), it does not have the power to uproot itself. Humans and other animals, however, do have the ability to sense their environment and make corrections to their actions accordingly. It is this ability to perceive and to use perception to do something different than what one would otherwise have done that to Dennett (in my understanding) constitutes free will.
The word 'system' is mine, though I think Dennett might be down with it. I don't think Dennett proposes to be able to make account for the human being as a biological system in detail, and I don't think that his account of free will requires it, either.
The crux of the argument - against those who would claim that a deterministic nature precludes free will - is that they have conceived of free will poorly; since no free will, in any universe, would satisfy them; since, as Schopenhauer put it "you can do what you will, but not will what you will"; since they have excluded the physical systems that constitutes free will from their conception of free will, such that any action will always be bound, whether in a deterministic or random universe. If you conceive of yourself as a point, inhabiting your body, you are a slave to your body; if you conceive of yourself as your body, freedom becomes a possibility.
@@strangebird5974 great job. That’s really clear. I’m sufficiently intrigued to seek out the book. 👍
I don't understand. If I say (for example) "human concepts of action are compatible with what science tells us today", what position am I taking on free will?
That as far as human concepts of action are concerned, free will isn’t a problem, or we have as much free will as we need. Then questions will remain about our ethical concepts.
Is free will a thin philosophical concept in philosophy and reification of deliberation outside of philosophy?
Seems about as useful as the “we are in a simulation” discussion. I keep thinking, so what?
Sabine Hossfelder did terrible video about this and as a physicist, a technical materialst this question seem to be best answered by non materialist
To me, the question of free will has changed through history since the question was first posed because we believe our progress in other fields informs us about this question. But it has always been kind of a square circle of a question when you think of it. The question itself is not ever clearly defined. It always depends on how you view free in connotation with will. If free simply means your actions align with your will then it is obvious some people have more free will than others. Still we can't shoot lasers from our eyes even if we wanted to, so the degree of freedom is not unlimited. This is kind of redundant and obvious. But it is important to start there, because to understand what people are talking about, we first need to establish where the will comes from. If your will is you then your nature determines your will and you can't choose otherwise. If your will comes out of nowhere then you have no control of what you want. Hardly what anyone would call free will. Will seems to have to come from an elaborate contemplation (computation) to be making good decisions from what is us. Uncaused interferences would problematise the control of our actions. When you grasp this you will be amazed why people argue we don't have free will because determinism. There can only be free will if your will is caused by what happens in the world and what you are as a person and how you choose to weigh decisions. In the end you want all those things to determine your choise. Otherwise someone is effing with the system and it isn't your choise. If determinism doesn't provide free will, then the concept itself is just a grand hallucination we just can't unsee kind of like the visual hallucinations of pictures. We need to recognize this question is like those hallucinations and stop wasting time on this question.
I always wonder: what really is free will? Why do we need that concept? Sometimes I almost think that it is the by-product of religions where free will is necessary to be able to make a "good" or "bad" decision (and be judged after our capability to make these decisions)???
However, I believe that for morality the free will is not necessary (?)
I think I might lack some basic knowledge and I would like to know more - I would be really happy for some references or explanations.
I think it is an categorical problem, an ontological problem to be more precise. Free will may have its basis in what IS, but it points to what SHOULD be, therefore it cannot be fully understood nor described in scientific (aka empirical) terms.
We must strive for peace until violence has met its end.
Ricky went to he bakery because his gut bacteria made him go, of course!
Have I truly decided to watch this video?
Brilliant Vlad!
Big Vlad at his best. More like this please.
Just wanted to pass on some wholesome energetic goodness to you, Vlad. Thanks, as always, for soldiering through the rough days and times to keep that enlightenment shining in our ears and eyes.
Seems like you found your messiah, huh
@@EnnoMaffen Eeewwww.
Thank you 😊
I don't really see how this video establishes that science has nothing valid to say about free will. I don't even see that it established that science must fail to conflict with philosophical notions of free will. Science may one day reach and evidence-based consensus on the question, yet there are philosophies that come down for and against free will. One of them is wrong, after all.
200+ likes in an hour on a 13K channel. I see 1M+ channels that take a day+ to get to 1K. You have some dedicated followers :) - me included