The dark side of free will | Gregg Caruso | TEDxChemungRiver
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 12 มิ.ย. 2024
- This talk was given at a local TEDx event, produced independently of the TED Conferences. What would happen if we all believed free will didn't exist? As a free will skeptic, Dr. Gregg Caruso contends our society would be better off believing there is no such thing as free will.
Dr. Gregg D. Caruso is Associate Professor of Philosophy at Corning Community College and Editor-in-Chief of the scholarly journal Science, Religion and Culture. He received his B.A. in Philosophy from William Paterson University and his M.Phil and Ph.D. in Philosophy from the City University of New York, Graduate Center. He is the author of “Free Will and Consciousness: A Determinist Account of the Illusion of Free Will (2012)” and the editor of “Exploring the Illusion of Free Will and Moral Responsibility (2013)” and “Science and Religion: 5 Questions (2014).” An active member of the local community and a believer in the power of idea, Dr. Caruso welcomed the opportunity of this TEDxChemungRiver 2014 to share his work on free will with the community he loves. In his free time he fancies himself an amateur paleontologist, collecting fossils with his daughter, Maya, and fossil hunting the Devonian rock of central New York state.
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I absolutely agree with Gregg. At first, I found the thought of not having free will very troubling. However, I then rationalize everything through and came with the conclusion that it's best not to believe in it. There is choice and there is will. However, those two things were influenced by our past or body chemistry in which we truly don't have control. Understanding this, in my opinion, creates compassion and understanding. After all, the only thing that is at risk is our irrational egos.....
It's not a matter of belief. Free will is when we decide for ourselves what we will do, when free of coercion or undue influence. These are matters of empirical fact.
He already said that choice isn't reason for free will.
As someone else said:
Choice does not prove free will. Choice just means there were options of almost equal merit that took more time for the brain to settle on one... All you did was exist and that stuff happens through you. Without any real free will
'Irrational egos' Yes! You are spot on.
@Harlem Rayden Really? I’ll have to try it out. Reply with DO IT and I’ll check it out. Come on, Bot.
@@Slam_24, what is this "EGO" of which you speak?
I liked the analogy of criminal behaviour being a disease and offenders being put in "quarantine".
One could also argue that since those with criminal behavior have no free will and are thus incapable of change, that we should execute them all and save ourselves massive amounts of resources.
@@Devin_Stromgren Not really. One is not morally justified in executing someone in quarantine if the infected person has an incurable disease. This, is one of the things that makes Caruso's quarantine model of punishment for criminal behavior superior to other consequentialist systems. It shuts the door on any extreme prescriptions of punishment by its very design. The only punishments that we would be morally justified in inflicting on a criminal are those that we would also inflict on a sick person in quarantine.
@@Devin_Stromgren you misunderstood what not having free will means....
"those with criminal behavior have no free will and are thus incapable of change"
It doesnt matter if it is someone with criminal behavior so lets skip that part you added.
You imply that having no free will means you are incapable of change?
No. No no no no no. So wrong and misunderstood you are.
Not having free will is the implication that all of your actions are a result of prior events.
A person changes as they grow up. A baby did not have the mind of a murderer when birthed.
It took time, events, interactions, etc to turn the baby's mind into that of a murderer.
And now, you argue that the murderer's brain is now permanently locked in place?
You do not believe in the experiments exhibited in the field of psychology?
Training animals is the very basic of experiments. Training animals is modifying their brains/behavior.
You think we can't modify human brains/behavior? (trick question cuz we already do modify people's behavior constantly)
@@Devin_Stromgren
That's a serious violation of human rights based on flawed judicial systems. I think people who think like you do should probably be locked up for everyone's safety. How's that for an extremely flawed proposal?
@@Devin_Stromgren
That does not mean incapable of change either. Society would be in ruin with your cynical and inhumane proposal.
Not a sentence too much or too little in this talk. Amazing.
Clear thinking. Great talk.
Excellent presentation!! Thank you for sharing and explaining the importance of the "free will" debate in everyday life.
Notes & Quotes:
2:18 “As an optimistic skeptic I maintain that life without free will may actually be good for our well-being and our relationships with others since it could tend to eradicate an often destructive moral anger, a kind of moral anger that’s corrosive to our relationships and to our social policies.
To better understand the dark side of free will what I want to do is talk about some recent empirical work in moral and political science. And what this work has done is it has actually shown that there’s a number of interesting and potentially troubling correlations between the belief in free will and people’s other moral, religious, and political beliefs. In particular what they found is that free will beliefs are correlated with higher levels of religiosity, punitiveness, and a number of conservative beliefs and attitudes such as just world beliefs and right with authoritarianism.”
3:17 “So we take punitiveness for example. What this research has shown is that where belief in free will is strongest we see increased punitiveness. That is, people are more likely to call for harsher forms of punishment in a number of different scenarios. And this makes sense. If you think people possess free will then you believe they justly deserve to be praised and blamed for their actions.”
3:54 “Consider this on a macro level. Belief in free will is relatively strong in the United States. In fact, it’s built right into the mythology of the rugged individual, the self-made man, the causa sui, the person who can pull themselves up from the bootstraps and overcome all of their life circumstances. But because we are so committed to this belief we are also a relatively punitive society.
Consider this one simple fact. The United States makes up about 5% yet it incarcerates 25% of the world’s prisoners. I’ll say that again cause it’s a rather astonishing statistic. We make up a relatively small sliver of the world’s population, about 5%. But we house and imprison about 25% of the world’s prisoners.
I don’t think it’s controversial to say that our criminal justice system is broken. It’s not working. It’s not making us safer. It’s not reducing crime. It’s by no means achieving our desired social goals. And it is not reducing the rate of recidivism, that is repeat crime.
"
5:10 quarantine model
6:23 “If you’re someone like myself and you think it’s the causal circumstances that drive these behaviors in the first place, then free will skeptics will put their money, and their resources, and their focus on addressing the systemic causes that lead to criminality: wealth inequality, educational inequity. So instead of blaming people and punishing them on the tail end you would try and prevent the criminal behavior in the first place.
"
8:49 “I’m optimistic that if we could adopt a skeptical perspective we may be able to free ourselves from some of these beliefs and harmful tendencies. In fact, there was a recent study that came out in the Journal of Psychological Science that found that by reducing people’s beliefs in free will it actually made them less punitive. They called for less harsh forms of treatment in a number of hypothetical scenarios.
And this tells me two things. One, it reaffirms what I was saying earlier, that where belief in free will is strongest we see increased punitiveness. But it also provides hope to me that could perhaps relinquish ourselves of some of these more harmful beliefs and by doing so lose some of that moral anger that I’ve been discussing."
9:30 “Let’s give up the belief in free will and with it the pernicious belief in just desserts, that people justly deserve what they get. Let’s leave these antiquated notions behind, lose our moral anger, and stop blaming the victim. And instead let’s turn our attention to the difficult task of addressing the causes that lead to criminality, the causes that lead to wealth inequality, and the causes that lead to educational inequity. Once we relinquish the belief in free will this will allow us to look more clearly at the causes and more deeply systems that shape individuals and their behavior. And this will allow us to adopt more humane and more effective policies in education, and criminal justice, and social policy.”
~Dr. Gregg D. Caruso is Associate Professor of Philosophy at Corning Community College and Editor-in-Chief of the scholarly journal Science, Religion and Culture
Now folks, this is how to deliver a lecture, outstanding ! A grand intellectual dining experience.
amazing, thank you..
Excellent points.
Thank so much 👏👏👏💪
"Freedom is not letting you do whatever you wanna but teaching you not to do the things you don't wanna do." - Immanuel Kant
"Accept the things I can not change, change the things I can..."
Your decisions and situation can still change.. but it's a product of your subconscious that you don't have control over.
"Accept things I can not change, see if my subconscious brain will change things that my subconscious brain wants to change".
Wow, he covered a lot of ground on only 10 minutes! A really excellent talk!!!!!
But he's wrong. Free will exists in a perfectly deterministic universe. All that is required is to recognize ourselves and our choices as key parts in the overall scheme of causation. It is inevitable that we decide, of our own free will, to make the choice that we make. Thus, we cannot be arbitrarily removed from the chain of prior causes by the so-called "hard" determinists. Nor can we remove the purpose and reasons upon which we based our choice.
Wait, why do we make those choices or decisions again?
(A) When we make a decision for ourselves, according to our own purpose and our own reasons, then it is referred to as a "freely chosen will" or simply "free will".
(B) When we make a decision for ourselves, according to our own purpose and our own reasons, then it is reliably caused, and thus deterministic.
Both (A) and (B) are simultaneously true. Thus, determinism and free will are compatible.
An original and very sensible viewpoint! (Says a staunch determinist).
A wonderful and a clear talk - amazing!
***** Um... Did you not get to the bit on correlation of belief in free will and punitive attitude? Take Shariff et al: "Convergent results across a correlational study and three experiments with diverse manipulations consistently demonstrated that shifting from a belief in free will toward a mechanistic view of human behavior reduces support for
retributive punishment. " www.wjh.harvard.edu/~jgreene/GreeneWJH/Shariff-FreeWill-Punishment-PsychSci14.pdf
Rather than angrily spout off, try to engage.
***** I am not quite sure what you are on about since it is not entirely relevant to what Gregg was saying. But in any case, there are literally hundreds of cases of genetics being used in law (and neurocriminology has resurfaced) such that the Nuffield Council of Bioethics had to make a statement about it. You can read my book on free will, or look in to, say cases like Bayout's ("Lighter sentence for murderer with 'bad genes'" - www.nature.com/news/2009/091030/full/news.2009.1050.html)
***** I'm with you now. OK, so you couldn't bbe more wrong. See the 2005 UK AI rape survey results (AI have changed their website and I don't know if they carry the results, but I have them in Word file direct from AI) which shows that the UK population, across all demographics, still largely victim blame in rape. For example if a woman is drunk 30% of people think that they are partially or wholly (morally) responsible for being raped. I helped write a paper on rape culture and rape myth, so if you want this conversation, let's go for it.
***** OK, 1) using such language and insult only reflects a lack of erudite and coherent response. Please don't. You wouldn't to my face. This is trollish behaviour.
2) Attitudinal surveys are hugely important. Why? Because juries are made up of the general public. As too are lawyers and policy-makers.
3) Pinker himself does not believe in contra-causal free will (fyi hardly any philosophers do, really only religious ones- see the philpapers results and correlations)
4) there is no coherent exposition of contra-causal free will. If you create done, you'd get the Nobel prize and do what 3000 years of thinkers couldn't. Compatibilism is fine if you want to redefine the term.
So essentially, your playground, immature rant did nothing to advance your case. Rape convictions appear lower to comparative violent criminal cases. Part of this can be explained in the difficulty of the cases, part in prevailing attitudes of the public and thus jurors.
FYI, I have 3 mates who have served on jury duty for rape cases. I could tell you a thing or two about the variance in victim blaming on those very cases.
***** I am a little confused by what you are trying to say. Look, what Gregg is saying here is a classic aspect of both compatibilism and determinism, namely praiseworthiness and blameworthiness. His reference to Pereboom and the quarantine approach to crime and punishment is spot on because moral responsibility, on this form of hard incompatibilism, is a tough sell. Retribution, and those sorts of blame scenarios, is incoherent on such approaches.
I am not sure what you are trying to say by those surveys etc. There is much to be said about probability analyses, and more to be said about media myths and influence on general public attitudes.
As for Pinker, he's great, and is even presently reading one of my books and he is "enjoying it a lot", so he's super in my opinion!!
Rehabilitation's goal is someone who can make better decisions on their own when released from prison. Counseling, education, skills training, and post-release follow-up are all designed to give the offender better options to choose from other than to commit a crime. We want the offender to behave better autonomously, of his own free will. Society has a duty, a moral responsibility, to address all of the causes leading to criminal behavior. These include social factors like the unequal treatment of minorities, failure to educate its children, lack of recreation facilities, unemployment, street gangs, drug culture, etc. Rehabilitation and social reform rest upon the concepts of free will and moral responsibility. You cannot get to rehabilitation and social reform by attacking these concepts. Or to put it in colloquial terms, "you can't have your cake and eat it too", Gregg.
Nicely put sir.
+Tab There's no cake to be had the other way either. Let's take someone who has killed. in your world they didn't kill of their own volition, yet did so because of their past, environment and genes. Why jail them at all then? Why not council them, fix their gene problem if possible, and fix them up in a better area (environment). They are after all not responsible consciously and willingly so these things should fix the problem right? We wouldn't have a jail problem would we? Is this not the rehabilitation best in your world view? rehabilitation and not punishment? I to believe in rehabilitation, and jail, oh and also freewill, so your point is.
***** Nice way to totally miss represent my comment. Did I say pill? I think I remember talking about genes, environment and the past; no pill though? But are these not the things out of our control; that determine our actions? And was my suggestion not aimed at fixing these "out of our control" elements? So why would this rehabilitation not work then?
***** You are just doing a Harris here, giving examples which have no relevance in the real world. Some people do bad/terrible/wrong things for all sorts of reasons, some out of necessity, some out of stupidity and some because they like it. Our justice system is nowhere near perfect (I stay in Britain) and there's more that can be done to help all who "stray" whatever their reason, and in the way that best benefits them based on the crime etc, which we already do to an extent. But the simple real world fact is, there are dangerous people that like doing what they do, and should be locked up. Should they be given every help to help themselves, absolutely, but make no mistake that some need to be locked up because they are a genuine threat to others, and they know very well what they do. Prison is not punishment by retribution. You have been listening to Harris for to long that things are not clear to you.
We don't seem to be disagreeing at all about rehabilitation but let's replace the word punishment for accountable. People that commit crimes should be held accountable, it's as simple as that. I think where we are going astray is on a moral perspective. I agree with you that putting people in jail without adequate rehabilitation is wrong. But that still does not discount the fact that they still have to be held accountable, and then through rehabilitation be shown where and why they are accountable, and what can be done to try and help them fix it. The only difference between your view and mine is that I place the blame where it usually is, with the person, and you don't.
Unfortunately, I was just born to believe in free will. Nothing can be done about it. (only semi-serious)
the free will point is interesting because it is embodying exactly how the person would feel about themselves; in the case where they are "reducing blame" because they believe there is no free will; it's actually nothing to do with the free will, and everything to do with themselves realizing they should not be blamed either in that case; but in the case of having free will, they would then blame themselves for the immorality or what have you... or if it's a self-empathizing person they would not.
Guilt and regret are bookmark feelings. They remind us we did something wrong in order that we might correct the harm we did or at least learn to do better next time. Once we have corrected the harm and learned our lesson, we no longer need the bookmark.
Without free will we has humans would never know the true value of love
Love is actually not dependant on a belief in free will.
This vein of thought has been around for at least a thousand years. If free will did not exist neither would most emotions and motivations. Greed is a result of free will, but so is love and empathy. You could argue that greed, love and empathy are merely a result of environment or sociological programming, but that argument is defeated with any exception. This leads to moral relativism, where nothing is wrong or right because nobody really made a decision, they were simply lead to their wrong or right action through a series of circumstances.
Everything in the world is due to a causal chain of events, so why would every decision we're making not be causal as well? That is, if you don't believe in some sort of pure randomness, but that doesn't really increase what actually is meant by free will. In any case, the brain is just a super complex system which, as seen from the outside, might be free but if one takes into account everything that happens in the brain, just is as causal as a chain of dominos, only more complex.
I don't think this means that you can expect everyone to go crazy because they're freeing themselves from moral responsibility... how people act can still have consequences. If someone acts like an asshole, why still be around that person? Even though he fundamentally doesn't have free will, why would that change anything? So then these preventive measures which we have against bad behavior obviously will change how people act toward each other, because in our brains we have functions that weigh in such consequences.
rwoz People would justify their actions and excuse away their behavior, so would society because it's paramount that actions be excused due to the lack of free will.
besides, even if you think that people will behave badly from abandoning the idea of free will, does that mean that you don't care about the truth anymore? It sounds pretty dogmatic when you put it that way, a bit like a christian who try to convince people of gods existence because the absence of it would lead to moral decay.
rwoz There's no such thing as truth, there is only a series of random events that lead to actions in what we call the "present".
HyperOpinionated It doesn't matter if you excuse it over and over again, people will get tired of it which will force you to act accordingly, if you care about your relationship you have with people.
Interesting. I must also say that if you are correct then a great number of things are also correct.
1. You had to make that speech.
2. I (Everyone) that listened to the speech had too listen to it.
3. I had to currently reject it.
4. Those that accepted it had to accept it.
5. Destiny has decided all that ever was, what is, and everything that will ever be. I must play my part.
6. I hope i have some more ice cream.
+J Matt the basis of culture is information! this guy is part of the important flow of information. he's doing a brilliant job at transforming this savage society into a sane and harmonious one. i don't believe i have free will, but i believe i have a fair capacity to think through new information, evidence, causal logic, in such way that reading your wry set of propositions i decide that they are worthless in content. on the other hand i praise this ted talk for having valid arguments; i don't have to worry about nothing else.
"Had to" is true in a way.. but it's more like.. your subconscious decided to do these things, and you are along for the ride of what your subconscious wants to do, which is in turn determined by other factors outside of your control.
Point 5. That is not exactly knownnn...
That's talking about determinism vs indeterminism.
Which one of those positions is actually true, depends on quantum mechanics at the moment, and if it's possible for uncaused things to happen within quantum mechanics. Which is unknown right now.
But either way, free will still doesn't exist, regardless. Even if some things are uncaused.. free will still doesn't exist. And that's the main point here.
So.. maybe everything is on a set determined path... and maybe not. Doesn't matter as far as free will goes.
I also hope you have some more ice cream!
no free will is a passive world view that no one should be truly responsible for what they do.
+Damar Anki not at all! because a normal individual can represent his reasons for doing things, and he can also predict the consequences of his actions. all normal people who know they don't have free will are doing things they always do ( careful driving, helping strangers, cleaning dishes, etc); on the other hand the only ones that are doing "bad" stuff can only be those that can't refrain from doing harm, of anarchy, and those that don't have the ability to represent in advance the consequences that might arise from their behaviour. hence you (if you are a sane human being, living in 21 century, and not some savage moralist that secretly wants to burn and torture people to feel good inside) are obligated to deal in a smart, healthy manner to those that are mentally incapacitated by trying scientifically to help them overcome their need for destructive behaviour, and if that doesn't work... prison. BUT not appalling detention conditions like we have now, because you CAN ONLY MAKE THEM MORE AGGRESSIVE ANIMALS.
anywherein12seconds
I don't think that others do anything differently than what they can be seen doing. But I believe they have free will, that is they chose to do what they do. At the very least they feel like it was the action they chose. Words are also programming, so we definitely have free will. Even if we didn't it wouldn't matter to me, I would consider that an indicator that this reality isn't really real, and that it was designed.
Damar Angki how can you say free will, when not even the most important thing of all... "who you are", you didn't get to choose!? if you take identical twins and give one to a gypsy family and the other to raise in the saxe-coburg-gothe family, then, 20 years later the one raised in high nobility will sip tea at 150 degrees precisely, and say that poor people are meant to be poor, while investing in some company that cuts half of the equatorial forests to make MORE money, and the other one will beat his wife, make lots of children and try to swindle folks around; BOTH ABSOLUTELY "KNOWING" WHO THEY ARE AND WHY THY DO WHAT THEY DO :)))) people are as naive and unconscious as can be..
anywherein12seconds
You can know something without thinking words. That is you can know something you know when you know it in time, without thinking you know it. Words are programming to, who made up words and numbers? Life is like a conspiracy theory. We have free will to choose, even if the consequences of our choice wouldn't happen any differently than they do.
Damar Angki i will go no further than to say that we have about 150 years about serious thought on the matters of the brain and about 100 years of endless brain science, billion $ spent, the greatest minds involved.... and you insist that i must trust the calculation contained in your very skull, or what cristian apologetics say!? scientists slowly trickle their message to the masses, but it's so fucking hard because we are indoctrinated in such way that the TRUTH is threatening our mental equilibrium. every social structure in history wanted it's ants to be as stupid as they can be! the king, the noble, the pope, the oligarch, the tycoon, the bishop, the tzar, the big business, the congress, the president..... they all want their subjects as stupid and ignorant as they can be, so they can still do some useful work to sustain the social pyramid, BUT without making important thinking for their own.... no to get smart ideas the little fellows :)) the average individual in today's society is the most redundant ignorant cow, if you compare him to the level of what the whole of humanity discovered with the aid of science. science is our most successful endeavour, full stop! it's the reason we don't die from tooth infection at the age of 20, the reason we thelepatically communicate with our phones, we see images live from the other side of the world! the science method works because IT IGNORES BIASES, PRECONCEPTIONS, STEREOTYPES, THE PSYCHOLOGICAL COMFORT OF PEOPLE! when you say free will, your thinking is hijacked by all sorts of parasites, too many to discuss, but there is a major one - you'r ego's well being and psychological comfort. so when i have the terrible conundrum of choosing a side, between the likes of cristoff koch, steven pinker, sam harris, daniel denet, galen strawson.... and a naive folk that "knows" that free will... i rather stay with main science, like those who made brain surgery, internet, cars, airplanes, landing on mars, and other such things possible. naive folk from today are the EXACT same folks that "knew" earth is flat, sun rises, man is totally different from everything else and all animals were made for his personal enjoyment, etc etc. all over again they will die in their small minded, precise "knowledge".
I'm going to state an unfamiliar position in this whole freewill vs determinism debate. Robert Pirsig (author and philosopher) came to the conclusion that we had made a rather arbitrary distinction by dividing the world into the subjective and the objective, relegating the subjective to the status of unreal, or less important. Subsequently he developed an entire Metaphysics he called the Metaphysics of Quality based on a more natural division, and greatly expanded on it in his second book, the upshot of this is that it became apparent that what we call causality isn't a real thing (as has also been thought before), but rather a convenient way of talking. To summarise (rather badly), the logic that leads to determinism is flawed and creates an erroneous conclusion that free will doesn't, or can't exist.
Pirsig weighed in on this, he said that to the extent that you embrace dynamic quality you have free will, to the extent that you embrace static quality you don't. (These are special terms that would take too much to explain here but I recommend anyone to seek out his two brilliant books!) Interestingly I've never before heard anyone discuss the possibility that you might personally be able to have, or lose your free will depending on how you conduct yourself.
The problem with splitting things into subjective and objective is that objectivity relies entirely upon the subjective to exist. If we didn't have our senses to observe what we consider objective, we wouldn't know it exists.
@@stoopidapples1596 Agreed, there are definitely some problems, the only way you can tell if you are being objective is to evaluate your behaviour subjectively.
I'm not familiar with Pirsig himself but "you might personally be able to have, or lose your free will depending on how you conduct yourself" sounds similar to some of Daniel Dennett's positions on free will. He describes his C-Free-Will as "the free-will worth having."
@@stoopidapples1596, yet those senses are OBJECTS of perception. :p
@@Jester123ish:
🐟 11. FREE-WILL Vs DETERMINISM:
Just as the autonomous beating of one's heart is governed by one's genes (such as the presence of a congenital heart condition), and the present-life conditioning of the heart (such as myocardial infarction as a consequence of the consumption of excessive fats and oils, or heart palpitations due to severe emotional distress), each and EVERY thought and action is governed by our genes and environmental conditioning.
This teaching is possibly the most difficult concept for humans to accept, because we refuse to believe that we are not the author of our thoughts and actions. From the appearance of the pseudo-ego (one’s inaccurate conception of oneself) at the age of approximately two and a half, we have been constantly conditioned by our parents, teachers, and society, to believe that we are solely responsible for our thoughts and deeds. This deeply-ingrained belief is EXCRUCIATINGLY difficult to abandon, which is possibly the main reason why there are very few persons extant who are spiritually-enlightened, or at least who are liberated from the five manifestations of mental suffering explained elsewhere in this “Final Instruction Sheet for Humanity”, since suffering (as opposed to pain) is predicated solely upon the erroneous belief in free-will.
Free-will is usually defined as the ability for a person to make a conscious decision to do otherwise, that is to say, CHOOSE to have performed an action other than what one has already done, if one had been given the opportunity to do so. To make it perfectly clear, if one, for example, is handed a restaurant menu with several dishes listed, one could decide that one dish is equally-desirable as the next dish, and choose either option. If humans truly possessed freedom of will, then logically speaking, a person who adores cats and detests dogs, ought to be able to suddenly switch their preferences at any given point in time, or even voluntarily pause the beating of his or her own heart!
So, in both of the aforementioned examples, there is a pre-existing preference (at a given point in time) for one particular dish or pet. Even if a person liked cats and dogs EQUALLY, and one was literally forced to choose one over the other, that choice isn’t made freely, but entirely based upon the person’s genetic code plus the individual's up-to-date conditioning. True equality is non-existent in the phenomenal sphere.
The most common argument against determinism is that humans (unlike other animals) have the ability to choose what they can do, think or feel. First of all, many species of (higher) mammals also make choices. For instance, a cat can see two birds and choose which one to prey upon, or choose whether or not to play with a ball that is thrown its way, depending on its conditioning (e.g. its mood). That choices are made is indisputable, but those choices are dependent ENTIRELY upon one’s genes and conditioning. There is no third factor involved on the phenomenal plane. On the noumenal level, thoughts and deeds are in accordance with the preordained “Story of Life”.
Read previous chapters of “F.I.S.H” to understand how life is merely a dream in the “mind of the Divine” and that human beings are, essentially, that Divinity in the form of dream characters. Chapter 08, specifically, explains how an action performed in the present is the result of a chain of causation, all the way back to the earliest-known event in our apparently-real universe (the so-called “Big Bang” singularity).
At this point, it should be noted that according to reputable geneticists, it is possible for genes to mutate during the lifetime of any particular person. However, that phenomenon would be included under the “conditioning” aspect. The genes mutate according to whatever conditioning is imposed upon the human organism. It is simply IMPOSSIBLE for a person to use sheer force of will to change their own genetic code. Essentially, “conditioning” includes everything that acts upon a person from conception.
University studies in recent years have demonstrated, by the use of hypnosis and complex experimentation, that CONSCIOUS volition is either unnecessary for a decision to be enacted upon or (in the case of hypnotic testing) that free-will choices are completely superfluous to actions. Because scientific research into free-will is a recent phenomenon, it is recommended that the reader search online for the latest findings.
If any particular volitional act was not caused by the preceding thoughts and actions, then the only alternative explanation would be due to RANDOMNESS. Many quantum physicists claim that subatomic particles can randomly move in space, but true randomness cannot occur in a deterministic universe. Just as the typical person believes that two motor vehicles colliding together was the result of pure chance (therefore the term “accident”), quantum physicists are unable to see that the seeming randomness of quantum particles are, in fact, somehow determined by each and every preceding action which led-up to the act in question. It is a known scientific fact that a random number generator cannot exist, since no computational machine or software program is able to make the decision to generate a number at “random”.
We did not choose which deoxyribonucleic acid our biological parents bequeathed to us, and most all the conditions to which we were exposed throughout our lives, yet we somehow believe that we are fully-autonomous beings, with the ability to feel, think and behave as we desire. The truth is, we cannot know for certain what even our next thought will be. Do we DECIDE to choose our thoughts and deeds? Not likely. Does an infant choose to learn how to walk or to begin speaking, or does it just happen automatically, according to nature? Obviously, the toddler begins to walk and to speak according to its genes (some children are far more intelligent and verbose, and more agile than others, depending on their genetic code) and according to all the conditions to which he or she has been exposed so far (some parents begin speaking to their kids even while they are in the womb, or expose their offspring to highly-intellectual dialogues whilst still in the cradle).
Even those decisions/choices that we seem to make are entirely predicated upon our genes and conditioning, and cannot be free in any sense of the word. To claim that one is the ULTIMATE creator of one’s thoughts and actions is tantamount to believing that one created one’s very being. If a computer program or artificially-intelligent robot considered itself to be the cause of its activity, it would seem absurd to the average person. Yet, that is precisely what virtually every person who has ever lived mistakenly believes of their own thoughts and deeds.
The IMPRESSION that we have free-will can be considered a “Gift of Life” or “God’s Grace”, otherwise, we may be resentful of our lack of free-will, since, unlike other creatures, we humans have the intelligence to comprehend our own existence. Even an enlightened sage, who has fully realized that he is not the author of his thoughts and actions, is not conscious of his lack of volition at every moment of his day. At best, he may recall his lack of freedom during those times where suffering (as opposed to mere pain) begins to creep-in to the mind or intellect. Many, if not most scientists, particularly academic philosophers and physicists, accept determinism to be the most logical and reasonable alternative to free-will, but it seems, at least anecdotally, that they rarely (if ever) live their lives conscious of the fact that their daily actions are fated.
When a person blames another person for his or her actions, it is akin to blaming the penultimate domino in a row of dominoes for doing what it did to fell the final domino, when in actual fact, the ultimate cause of the final domino falling was the INITIAL domino which fell. If anyone is to blame for anything, surely it is the Person who created everything. Who then, is that Supreme Creator? That thou art (“tat tvam asi”, in Sanskrit). Read Chapter 08 for a succinct, yet accurate, explanation for this chain of causation, and Chapter 05 to understand the Primal Self.
Cont...
I don't think you have to relinquish a belief in free will to focus on the problems that lead to the things he mentioned. I don't dislike his proposition, however.
So ur emotions over logic? (Ignoring that he made thinking errors that sliglthy water down his points that are generally correct)
This is my philosophy professor
YES!! :)
i never had an opinion on free will until i heard this man speak. i now believe free will is real without a doubt, especially if laywerbirds are trying to use this angle to get criminals out of punishment. im sure this person will also say welfare was not damaging to the poor etc....
But if free will doesn't exist how can killers stop being killers? how can our justice system work how can we help make people make a better choice if we have no free will?
Exactly. Without free will, rehabilitation is impossible. The goal of rehab is to return to society a person who will make better choices and do so voluntarily, of their own free will.
Interesting how he chooses not to try and convince people that they do not have free will, instead he presents them with a choice: imagine there is no free will. However, can someone, who through causality believes in free will, imagine otherwise, or choose something that goes against his neuronal wiring? He's asking them to choose, believe or don't believe in free will, and choices are a product of free will. Choose a better world, choose a less punitive world, choose to believe the world is not just, turn away from the dark side. This is an appeal to free will. (... correlation is not causality. )
Nice talk - I would change the title to The Dark Side of Belief In Free Will.
Free will doesn't have a dark side, because libertarian free will can't exist. It's the public belief that it exists that's the problem.
I agree with every word.
Also, it would make us truly free since free will and choice is a great burden, where all the considered consequences we would have to take into account leading up to a given choice couldn't possibly be calculated.
So, what do we have:
freedom of choice or
freedom FROM choice?
Without free will love wouldnt exist
Interesting points. Though my belief in free will vs lack thereof doesn't really effect my punitivism, it does have an impact on my ability to forgive them though. Deprivation of freedom whether we are talking about length of suspended sentences or non-suspended ones should not be done out of a desire for retribution/suffering, but for matters of public safety. Causing suffering for it's own sake goes strictly against my moral philosophy even if done to monstrous people. But on the topic of forgiveness, whether they should be forgiven or how quickly they could be, however does depend to some degree on things like free will/lack thereof.
How can I change my belief in free will if free will does not exist?
there is a (to me) very obvious flaw in the whole argument. the other 95% of the world population are no free will skeptics and still manage to have way less incarceration. so it is obviously not necessary to be a free will skeptic to achieve this.
free will is a perfectly fine hypothesis, but nothing more at this point in time. it is perfectly possible to form a more human society and believe one actually has chosen to do so.
I must say, as someone with a lot of sympathy for Caruso's concerns about moral anger and punitive justice, I've always found it a little odd how free will skeptics will frame their arguments as being motivated at least in part by an opposition to retributivism. There are lots of different theories about a just basis for criminal law (retribution, deterrence, social protection, rehabilitation...), and many convincing arguments against retribution don't in any way rely on denying free will. Regardless of one's position in the free will vs. determinism debate, the idea that we should base our criminal justice system entirely on what is ultimately a question of metaphysics, one that philosophers have been struggling with for centuries (and that, let's face it, will probably not be resolved anytime soon), seems reductive to me, if not counterproductive.
Interesting talk, although I'd say that its more of a practical talk on empathy and constructive policy-making than a philosophical talk on determinism.
In fact I think you could scrap the free-will thing entirely and it wouldn't matter.
you know what i mean whe have to stand together
There's another, very practical explanation for why the incarceration level is so high in the USA compared to the rest of the world; it's become Big Business in the US. A Few rich people make a lot of money on it, and the more prisoners, the more they make. From this perspective it has nothing to do with belief or non-belief in free will, it has to do with worshiping the almighty $.
Exactly right, to answer a previous point about why the rest of the world succeeds with free will and has less prisons is because here in the USA, all (most) of what we're taught and are shown by commercialism and television, is that money is the only way to succeed. While the rest (most) of the world feels that equality and compassion, as in say, socialized medicene and safer and better prison systems are the goal. The US seems to worship weath over putting that wealth to good use. There is no free will.
The belief in free will may not be a major cause of our high incarceration rate and cruelty in criminal punishment, but it is a reason why the public is complacent with there being such a punitive response to crime.
Some people can’t be rehabilitated tho.
If it starts in the brain and if we can’t change what’s “broken” in their brain, well…
Just read Jonathan Edwards' book "The Freedom of the Will."
Free people are arrogant about criminals, thinking they are so different from them when we are not.
Well, as free will doesn't exist... it matter not. We do what we do, and believe what we believe.... it's not that complicated.
Isn't saying "I deny the existence of free will" paradoxical? Maybe am not getting it, but he claims to be right subjectively, right? This claim from his self seems logically identical with (his) will, right? This seems to be in-sync with his reasoning methodology (dualistic?). Fun! Life is a paradox, so he seems on the 'right' path. He just seems so convinced (willed) in one side (to not be willed by himself?).
)
+dnb___snnh You might be right. saying that There is no freewill and we should change our perspective about it seems somehow paradoxical! But I guess I believe that most of our actions are forced by so many factors that we should try hard to overcome the desire to commit them.
It's not about denying the existence of free will but accepting its non-existence. Same thing with gods.
Not necessarily because he didn't choose all the factors (such as inherent agreeableness) that led him to that conclusion. He didnt decide how the information he consumed/life experiences he had would influenced him. If he were born and indoctrinated into a religion as a child and brainwashed into thinking that this life is just a test thats dependent on our free will to make sense, he probably wouldnt hold this stance.
do i vote up or down..
An incompatible deterministic perspective would have significant positive sociological consequences including a greater understanding of the human condition and collective compassion.
Everything he argued for is consistent with compatibilism. Hard determinism has been comprehensively dismissed by modern science and philosophy.
nope.
Sorry, I think that's my job. Hard determinism ignores the role of living organisms as purposeful causal agents. You can't be real determinism if you leave out meaningful and relevant causes. This all started when some "philosopher" made the mistake of assuming causal inevitability was some kind of constraint upon freedom. See marvinedwards.me/2016/06/30/the-illusion-delusion-2/ for more detail.
Why do you think not?
Most dictionaries have two definitions of free will, as in this one from Wiktionary: "1.A person's natural inclination; unforced choice. 2.(philosophy) The ability to choose one's actions, or determine what reasons are acceptable motivation for actions, without predestination, fate etc." (en.wiktionary.org/wiki/free_will) -- The first definition is the one that everyone uses and understands, a decision we make for ourselves free from someone else's coercion or other undue influence. It makes no supernatural claims. It makes no metaphysical claims of freedom from causation. And it is still sufficient for both moral and legal responsibility. -- The second definition is the silly bit of nonsense that hard determinists and libertarians argue over: freedom from causal inevitability. -- The real world problem is when those attacking the second definition end up undermining the first definition. So it is about time that we resolve the second definition. And it is resolved this way: causal inevitability is not a meaningful constraint, because what you inevitably do is exactly identical to what you choose to do.
+Marvin Edwards Again nicely said.
In reply to Hop lite (for some reason there isn't an option to reply directly) -- your argument would hold some merit if you hadn't degraded it so entirely with name calling. If we bring Dr. Caruso's perspective into the discussion we can only assume that you have a predisposition to rudeness and you didn't choose to be so rude and belittling.
choose not to believe in free will and you'll quarantine yourself, freely
talk others into disbelief->you are morally responsible for jailing them
how could you choose not to believe in free will anyway??
whe all have beleve working in this world you know that what effer beleve is working is becoming reality you know that work on it
And so how are we to "Leave these moral outrages behind - loose our moral anger ..."adopt these blameless mind sets when we have no free will to do so?
Many errors in thinking but the generall jist is correct. Those errors will cause instinctive oposition so you im a way helped and harmed your own cause mr speaker
"Although certain systems of punishment like those based on the model of retribution or just dessert would be ruled out"
In the next sentence, he says:
"Preventive detention and rehabilitation programs would still be justified"
So first he denies justice. Then use that concept immediately afterward.
He does not deny justice; he denies justice based on retribution.
What is justice if not the effect of a cause? Education isn't justice. Rehabilitation is not justice.
john999449 Education isn’t justice, but it isn’t injustice, either. The same applies to rehabilitation.
Evan Fortson There are several items in your response that I'm going to unpack.
1. I think that drugs should be legalized.
2. You can argue that someone who currently has that extremely strong desire to stick the needle into his arm may have great difficulties saying no. Great difficulties is not the same thing as inability. However, let put that aside for the moment. Outside of the situation where he has that great urge are all those moments when the urge does not exist. It is in those moments that he can seek help and rehabilitate himself. However, the addict may lie to himself by saying that he "doesn't have a problem" in which case he is CHOOSING to not get help.
3. The functional purpose of imprisonment is to ensure that there are consequences to human actions. Note that it is only in the realm of human actions that we have the concept of justice. We do not say that the lion is unjust when he eats a zebra. Nor do we say a rock is unjust when it falls down and hits us in the head. Justice is the recognition that men needs to be judged for their actions. To be concern about the welfare or rehabilitation of the man who commits an act of injustice is to be unjust towards the victim.
A fish in the sea. Then maybe Gregg shouldn't have said this sentence.
"Preventive detention and rehabilitation programs would still be justified"
As I believe in the Importance of fixing the greater causes of crime ( inequality) in general ...
I also believe people should be held responsible for what they do ,unless there has been direct blackmail or extortion
another question that comes to mind how do you measure social Vs individual responsibility of an action , such as rape ?
to conclude , Direct Judgement are to be made .. otherwise it would be chaos , hand in hand with dealing with the roots of the problem .
Note : I don't believe in " prison " , as Known nowadays , cause its a waste of time and money , and a system that is sure to produce ( worse ) people and a destruction of humans mentally .
I believe Forgiveness is the key . ( between people ) .
if that's not working then social working , if not material fines .
if not , personally i would prefer quick physical punishment to long -time imprisonment . ( old fashioned wiping ) .
Great talk. I wonder how many in the audience were thinking like: "But... what do you mean no free will?" lol. Bit of a mindfuck for sure.
Wouldn't giving up the belief of free will be an act of accepting free will?
Nope it would be accepting that one has a will that has been influenced by outside factors (and maybe local ones as well) to no longer believe that that very will is free.
Matthew Bainbridge So in other words, there would need to actually be nothing even resembling free will in order to drive the belief out of existence?
I think the question isn't whether there is free will or not, but how much free will there actually is.
Matthew Bainbridge Acceptance is a choice. Choice is a part of free will. You may choose to accept or you may choose to deny, you have to free will to do either. It seems as though philosophy really is dead.
Thinking while trying to respond a comment brought me the next question.
I was trying to prove that free will exists, but I dont have evidence of that, I was going to give up trying to win the argue when this idea came to my mind:
Why do I have to proof that a non-tangible thing exists? Why they don't have to proof that it doesn't exist?
If someday we confirm the theory of parallel universes, free will will be a fact, every chose made will develop a new different universe. Quantum physic talk about non-predictable particles (I guess, I only saw a documental about it in tv about 4 years ago), a random part of the universe, if there are random particles why there can't be bigger random processes?
elbilos1 No, I thought the multiverse thing was a solution too but it just renders the idea of free will meaningless. If I didn't do something - lets say punch someone - but somewhere else there's a version of me that did do that ... that only means that I - me personally - am very capable of doing what I didn't do but for some reason beyond my control I didn't do it ... it still means that I just do what my brain decides to do in any situation.
try searching for 'sam harris on free will' here on youtube and you should find about a 40-min excerpt from the Joe Rogan podcast where they talk about this perspective among others ... that is to say if free will is hiding in the randomness of quantum physics.
“Why do I have to proof that a non-tangible thing exists? Why they don’t have to proof that it doesn’t exist?” Because the burden of proof lies upon the person making the claim. Why should we just assume that free will does exist? It is true that we don’t know that it doesn’t, but we also don’t know if it does. All we can say is that we don’t know. I believe it doesn’t because a lot of reasons but one argument is that if we believe that all other events in the universe are caused by some prior event and those things are in tern caused be something else, and so on and so on, it would be reasonable to assume that humans are the same as everything else.
more criminals are caught in the US because security is applied well, in most other places they get away with murder; that scary pie is a lie . . . i like the preventative measure offered though
whe must not stand alone
So what exactly is the dark side of free will? He never seemed to really make that very clear.
lhhbuck77 Just world belief (get what you deserve)... our heavy handed penal system & lack of reform measures...the entire last half of the talk
Instead of circling around the tenet of his argument, Caruso should have landed his plane squarely on it. He’s saying, “I don’t want the responsibility of choosing to think, choosing to validate my concepts nor prove my arguments, nor acting according to what I know is true. Reality and the mind are too much. Instead, I want to hold any idea and act anyway I want. With my recognition of reality and my free will out of my way, what’s to stop me from eating my cake and having it too.”
So do you think he is lying, trying to decieve, or hide the truth of what he believes? Why? I also feel that way but I can't prove it. How did you come to that conclusion? Was it just a conjecture?
I do think he is being somewhat dishonest but that shouldn't stop you from listening to the ideas he has on their own merits. Personally I think humans are better suited to act on a world where they believe they can impose change based on their own experience, but that is besides the point if free will is actually a thing or not.
Maybe trying to listen to what he had to say might give you some perspective. The way I see it, you are just as emotionally attached to your position as he is to his.
@@goodtimejoe1325 I think that he's chosen to deceive others. So, he gets on stage and puts on an act in order to dup people. Denying free will has grown popular today. Even though the doctrine of determinism is ancient, many people are cashing in on it in modern times.
You ask, "Why?" That's a good question. He knows by simply introspecting that he has the faculty of free will; it's SELF evident. Even to open his mouth to speak requires him to choose to think, to choose to direct his thoughts and express them.
It's ironic in that he has to use his free-will in order to deny it.
I classify free-will not as a "thing" but as attribute of an individual, a faculty that is a key attribute of our nature as humans. For me, you or any individual (with a healthy brain), we can not have a position on any idea without it. Free will is fundamental to focused awareness which is fundamental to thought. To deny it is to deny our nature as humans, and that is what I think Caruso is choosing to do.
What is worth listening to or praiseworthy of a human who says in effect, "I choose not to be a human."? Isn't Caruso's evasion the root of darkness?
When you said, "Personally I think humans are better suited to act on a world where they believe they can impose change based on their own experience, but that is besides the point...", I say that that is the point. To achieve that, one must choose to make that happen.
No other species on the planet has that capacity. A bear, for example, doesn't choose to live like a bear. None of the lower animals decide to live like the creature they are. For them, it's automatic. Unlike the lower animals, If we are to live as humans, then we must choose to do so. That is what Caruso is scrambling to avoid.
@@jimbrown1576 Ok I get you now. I think you are defining free will into existence. I pesonaly believe that taking things as self evident is something we should avoid, and I think you should so so as well. That is if you desire to find truth above all else. If you want to live a happy life free will will do just about right. (I do take living a happy life as my number one objective, the value I give truth is just a tool, a very usefull one indeed)
Free will is just a matter of perspective I think. If you look at our universe you will see that all events are causaly related (At least at the size scale we live in). So why is it the case that humans do not follow this causal relation? What makes us so special? Is being special something we should even care about? I don't think we are special in the sence that we obey diferent rules than the rest of existance.
Either way, belive what is most useful for you to believe in. I know the logical part of your brain will find that proposition very apealing. If you think it does not matter, then it does not. Value is a human construct.
Also, I don't belive we can actually define what a human as a person is. Claiming to do so is very reductive. Things in this world are very complex and we must take them for what they are instead of what we want them to be if we seek to understand how the actual thing itself works.
@@goodtimejoe1325 Why do you say, "I don't believe we can actually define what a human as a person is."? I am asking because long ago, a man did exactly that. He observed facts about living things in contrast to the non-living, and retained his observations with the concept "animal", and distinguished some animals from others by the extent of their awareness, and retained those distinctions by the concepts "rational" and "irrational", and he summarized and retained those discoveries with definitions.
He was the first (that I know of) to develop rules of proper definition with two of several rules being that a proper definition must have a genus and differentia, as in "Man" is a rational animal. His name was Aristotle.
It is because of the complexities in the world and because of our very nature that we can choose to hold a vast amount of complexity by our concepts, if they are valid, and by our definitions, if they are true.
Reducing complexity is not a subjective whim. Our nature provides the capacity to reduce, an aspect of our nature, volition, provides the capacity to learn how to reduce, so that we can hold in mind the complexities not only of the world but of the universe, act on them in order to live and live to achieve happiness.
As to the self evident, one can not avoid what is self evident. When one starts to wake in the morning, for example, one is aware by virtue of what one sees, hears, touches, etc. That is the self-evident. It is caused by the interaction of things out there with one's sensory apparatus. When one directs one's awareness inward, one experiences self or as the philosophers say, one experiences agency. That is caused by one's choosing. That too is self evident. But to avoid either is self destructive as one would quickly experience by choosing to close one's eyes, stifle one's ears but walk across a busy highway.
As to humans following the causal relation, we necessarily have to. Causality is nothing more but nothing less than a thing acting according to its nature. By our nature, we must choose; there is no getting around it. That is not a violation of the law of causality but an instance of it. And as history to the present day demonstrates, many haven't made good choices, but some have.
To your good choices and happiness.
@@jimbrown1576 I guess we do see the world trough a different lens. I value science over philosophy when it comes to discovering the facts about the world. And I do the opposite when it comes to interpretation. I guess that I see free-will as more a matter of fact so I chose to view it trough science, and that is where I can confidently say that I do not know if we have free will or not, but I lean towards the side of not having free will in the conventional sense of the word.
I mean, philosophy is useful, but we have access to data that Aristotle did not have, and in light of that data I think that we should reconsider what we think to be self-evident. I think that is what Aristotle would have done. Aristotle had some really good ideas, some of them I still live by to this day. He was a smart dude that's for sure. I hope that you come to your own conclusion, that's all we can do I think. Thanks for making me think, and if the rule of the golden mean turns out to be correct as a way to describe reality, may we meet in a happy middle.
Edit: Oh and, you didn't answer what I consider to be the most important thing about my first comment
Do you think you are as emotionally atatched to your possiton as he is to his?
His argument is circular. It all boils down to how do you define morality, the difference between good and bad. He says - If we do not believe in free will then it's our moral obligation to intern dangerous criminals and rehabilitate them just like it's our duty to intern and treat people with a disease or illness. The question is why is it our "duty" to try and treat people with illness or disease? We might do so for practical reasons, but where does that sense of duty/morality come from? If that is an innate sense, then so is our sense of justice and our feeling for punishing crime. It is eminently satisfying to know that a serial killer or child murderer has been executed. Why should we accept our innate sense in the first case but reject it in the other?
Well, justice is about the balancing of rights. A just penalty seeks to (a) repair the harm to the victim if possible, (b) correct the offender's future behavior if feasible, (c) protect the public from the offender until we're confident his behavior has been corrected, and (d) to do no more harm to the offender than is reasonably necessary to accomplish (a), (b), and (c). However, rehabilitation presumes free will. If there is no free will then there is no rehabilitation. The whole point is to return to society a person who will choose on his own (autonomously, of his own free will) to do the right thing.
Where do you get the balancing of rights from? That is your definition or your desired outcome. Your opinion in other words. In my opinion, the rights of the criminal get diminished by the act he does. So for example, if he kills a person deliberately, he forfeits his rights, all his rights. If he rapes a person he should lose a lot of his rights because the harm he has caused is lifelong to the victim. The trouble with your definition is what happens if (a) is not possible? (b) is not feasible? (c) who decides about (c)? Repeatedly we see someone does decide and it's wrong and we have more victims. Why is (d) so supremely important? It seems to me that (a) is kinda incidental (if possible) but (d) is the really important thing according to your definition.
And yes, as you have correctly pointed out, if there is no free will (c) is not possible. But we know that people have been known to turn their lives around, so what does that say about free will?
Check out Sam Harris's talk on Free Will.
Why? I read his book and found it a bit incoherent. For example, here are my notes on Chapter 4:
From the beginning of the chapter he asserts (a) the importance of distinguishing voluntary from involuntary actions, and then (b) erases that distinction by convincing you that you are not really in control of anything, but that it only "feels" or "seems" like you are. Instead he suggests we are pawns being controlled by dark (page 34) and mysterious (page 43) forces.
On page 32, he speaks of the "apparent reality of choices, freely made" and then suggests that "from a deeper perspective" our "thoughts simply arise unauthored and yet author our actions."
Then he comes back offering us free will again in the next sentence, "This is not to say that conscious awareness and deliberative thinking serve no purpose. Indeed, much of our behavior depends on them."
And then he takes it away again when he says, "This process of conscious deliberation, while different from unconscious reflex, offers no foundation for freedom of will." (page 33)
And then gives it back in the discussion of fatalism when he says, "To sit back and see what happens is itself a choice that will produce its own consequences." (page 33-34)
And he claims to be the "primary cause" of writing his own book (page 34), affirming that "Decisions, intentions, efforts, goals, willpower, etc., are causal states of the brain, leading to specific behaviors, and behaviors lead to outcomes in the world." In other words, we, ourselves really do cause stuff.
But attempts to take it all back in the next sentence when speaking of you, "But the next choice you make will come out of the darkness of prior causes that you, the conscious witness of your experience, did not bring into being."
It's enough to make you dizzy
down site you see sin somewhere about live you know as i do now about you but its oke i love you as you are am forgiving
Cruelty is still an option insofaras it has utility
The belief in free will is not the cause of anyone's belief in retribution. Since most people believe in free will, you will find that most people involved in the prison reform movement also believe in free will. Christians, for example, generally believe in free will but are also taught the principle of "redemption" (another word for rehabilitation) and forgiveness. The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops has sent letters to congress supporting both the "Second Chance Act" and the "Sentencing Reform and Corrections Act" of 2015. Anyone who is ACTUALLY SINCERE about reforming our prison system would not be going about it so indirectly as to attack the concept of free will. Rather than pitting the atheists against the religious, a person who actually cared would be eliciting the support of all moral people in this effort, making allies instead of enemies.
It is only because of your religious dogma that you view this topic in that light, so that any questioning is viewed as an attack. He IS sincere but not pandering to your prior proclivities.
But if the solution to human depravity was merely "wealth equality" and "education equity," then shouldn't we expect Lawyers, CEO's and Politicians to be the godliest people on earth? Not all who are poor and uneducated are bad; not all who are rich and educated are good. So doesn't this indicate that the solution runs deeper than what is being proposed?
The fact that you can identify lawyers, CEOs and politicians as being wealthier and more educated than the general population is actually an indicator of wealth and education equality.
I think the point that he's trying to make is that if everyone was as wealthy and as educated as these individuals, there would be less of a disparity of power. There would be less low-income and undereducated people for them to exploit.
The idea seems to be that a crime is committed because the criminal’s circumstances predisposed him/her to commit the said crime. Ergo, effort should should be expended on improving those pernicious circumstances, such as poverty or brutal parents.
But, since the poverty and the brutality of the parents were also preordained, then, ultimately, the Big Bang was intrinsically malignant, and should not have happened.
In short, Arthur Schopenhauer was right.
Give up free will? Yeah, no.
You didn't have it in the first place lol.
I have to disagree to a point. I don't think its society or social stature that designs criminals. That might account for a few criminals, but I don't think it covers many. Many criminals turn to life of crime through necessity. The lottery of life is only half of the picture, leaving out the greed of our politicians, the ones that vastly decide what life is in a given social structure. I can say without a doubt in my mind that if life was enough of a struggle for me that I had to fear what or how I could provide for my family, what's for dinner for example, if I had no resources at all and no way of feeding my family, you better believe that I would be robbing someone or thieving from a store to put food in my kids' mouths. Plain and simple. If I was a single bachelor living homelessly and I was hungry with no prospects for a good meal, you bet, I would be doing something that would get me fed, even if that means being incarcerated, that's 3 hots and a cot.
Free will is what drives our moral obligations and keeps our ethics on a standard plain of existence. We do have a majority of incarcerated in this country, but I feel that it's because we do nothing to fix the SOURCE of misguided moral obligations. The phrase " lead by example " means just that, and when our countries leaders are making it a habit to break every conceivable law and then tell the nation publicly about it and laugh saying that it was necessary, then the rest of the country that is not thriving thinks that its ok to bend or break the rules. Free will only works if there is a set standard and everyone in our society is held to the exact same standard.
There is no such thing as free will.
Will is never ever free.
Will is the movement of the I, the me, the self, the so-called True or Higher Self, which is the invention of the past conditioning of the brain.
Will is knowledge.
Will is the past.
Will is mechanical.
Will is the program.
The end of will is the beginning of Inner Total Freedom for the very first time in each and every moment of daily life.
Without Inner Total Freedom, there is no Lucidity.
Without Lucidity, there is no Love, Peace, Joy, or Creativity...none whatsoever. There is only their limitations, which are imitations.
Fate or destiny is whatever happens to you when there is no Lucidity.
Inner Total Freedom: Total Freedom from the I, the me, the self, the observer, the listener, the chooser, the experiencer, the interpreter, the so-called True or Higher Self, which is an illusion invented from the past conditioning of the brain.
It acts as a filter, which limits, distorts, shapes and colors all perceptions, and so you never Perceive anyone or anything as it actually is.
It is an inner tyrant who tells you what to think, how to feel and what to do.
Moreover, it invents the illusion of division, separation, and disconnection from everyone and everything, which leads inevitably to conflict, violence, and suffering.
Just like a woman can't be half pregnant, your brain is either Totally Free OR you are functioning at some level of slavery to self-deception.
Inner slavery has many levels.
Inner Freedom has no levels.
Without Inner Total Freedom, there is no Love, no Peace, no Joy, no Goodness, no Kindness, no Feeling, no Beauty, no Creativity, no Lucidity, no Truth, no Wisdom, no Communication, no Communion, no Relationship...none whatsoever.
Without Inner Total Freedom, there is no Happiness, Joy, or Ecstasy.
There is only their limitation and imitation.
There is only pleasure and suffering, which are opposite sides of the same coin.
Without Inner Total Freedom, your every action, regardless of your intention, will continue to contribute to the conflict, violence, and suffering in the world today.
You may solve one problem but in so doing you will create a hundred other ones without being aware of it.
What you call progress, evolution, or growth, will merely be the movement from one form of tyranny to another form of tyranny.
See the danger.
i created Jacob's Ladder to help people set themselves Totally Free of fear, anxiety, sorrow, suffering, confusion, alienation, addiction, envy, greed, jealousy, pride, anger, hatred, violence, bias, and prejudice, in daily life, once and for all, now forever. See my group on Facebook: "Total Enlightenment NOW!".
First, sorry if I misspell something or I directly use spanish languaje to express myself, the ideas talked here are a bit complex for my english level.
To disbelieve in free will makes absolutely everything senseless. This video, this comment, because everything is already written, even the fact that today, we believe in free will. It doesn't matter if you "choose" to do something about it or not, because whatever you have "chosen to do" is what the universe (or you, there is no diference since no matter whatever people believe choose, things are previously written) was fated for.
I belive in free will, Im an "atheist agnostic", and Im the first to complain about the legal system of my country. In fact, not believing in free will means that, no matter what society does to prevent crimes, people are destined to commit (and to be victims) of them. When you believe in free will, you understand as true the concept of cause-consecuence and then, it is meaningfull to change things now, because it changes the future.
Edipo (Oedipus in english?) was condemned to murder his father and to lay with his mother, greek society didn't believe in free will, Edipo ran far away from his destiny and it caught him anyways.
I prefer to see (or better said, to believe in) a corrupted world that can change by the hand of humanity than to see a corrupted world that can only change by the hand of the completly misterious destiny, just waiting it to happen.
elbilos1 "In fact, not believing in free will means that, no matter what society does to prevent crimes, people are destined to commit (and to be victims) of them. When you believe in free will, you understand as true the concept of cause-consecuence and then, it is meaningfull to change things now, because it changes the future."
But the law of cause and consequence aren't dependent on free will, in fact they are the reason it can't work ... without free will it makes sense to make society better for everyone since a bad environment breeds crimes ... saying free will doesn't exists is not the same as saying you can't make a difference.
"To disbelieve in free will makes absolutely everything senseless." No, without free will everything has a cause that we can learn about and try to prevent or encourage in the future.
+elbilos1 It doesn't make sense that you're an atheist who believes in free will. Because for free will to exist, that would require some kind of supernatural trick to occur either inside the brain or in our 'soul'. It is not meaningless to change things now; you can change the change of causation which will help to improve things in the future.
I understand free will as not-believing in an already written destiny. There is no magic involved in brain conections, just a lot of complex chemical reactions.
I correct myself, if there is no free will, changing things is not senseless, its IMPOSIBLE. Because every "change" is already predicted. Whatever you do, no matter if you pretend to help or not, or if you decide to do anything at all is what the universe planned it to be, and its results are already predicted. Choosing would be an illusion emerged from human subjectivity. E.G. This disccusion and it exact words would haven been destined to be even before internet (and mankind) existed. You cant deviate someone from its destiny because everything is already set. If you seem to help someone and prevent them from commiting a crime, it might seem as something you had chosen to do, but it was meant to be that way. You dont see the illusion of choosing because that would require to know "the universe's will".
If you believe in free will, when you "chose" to do or not to do something, it changes the future because any outcome it possible, thus choosing has real impact and, because of that, real meaning.
I'm not saying that criminals dont come from a society that has "forced" them to do what they do, but that society is the result of many choices taken by many people in a really long time, not the result of some hidden plan.
+elbilos1 I understand what you're saying, as we cannot change in the present moment the future that is predetermined to occur. However, the chain of causality depends on information being injected into that chain. So perhaps people being exposed to this information will result in a future where people do not believe in the nonsensical idea of free will. So yes, I cannot consciously decide to change how people think, because my reaction to the free will argument was already predetermined. But I am hoping that this idea will become a causal factor in yielding a more enlightened future for the human race.
Let's ignore quantum mechanics and assume determinism for a second.
Yes, your brain's state and your soul's state are "equivalent", because each one can be deduced from the other. But that doesn't necessarily mean your soul's state is *caused* by your brain. By the same logic you could say your brain's state is *caused* by your soul.
Does the hardware control the software or the software control the hardware? Let's say the latter. Then can the software be free? It depends whether you define the software as something controlled by the laws of logic, or the particular laws of logic that control the hardware. Let's say the latter.
"Ah," I hear you say, "but even then, the laws of logic aren't free because they are forced to behave as they do." Well, if they are forced to behave as they do by something else, then the "something else" could be the definition of our software. If not, then logic is as it is because logic itself said so. But then isn't that the definition of free will? X doing X only because X says so?
If all that sounds far-fetched or wishful, think about the sensation of making your next decision. It feels as if you can define your soul as something to do with the rules and laws which control your brain, as opposed to some pointless after-effect controlled by your brain.
So you say we shouldn't believe in free will, so we shouldn't blame the criminals for the actions. You say we should work on reforming them because they can't choose what they did and who they are. So how are we supposed to reform them if free will doesn't exist? You're saying you don't believe in free will, yet reforming the criminals is free will. If free will doesn't exist, then we wouldn't be able to do anything about their state. They are who they are and attempting to change it is nonsense and going against what you just said.
Exactly. Without free will, there is no such thing as rehabilitation. The whole point of rehabilitation is to give the offender new options, through addiction treatment, counseling, job training, education, post release follow-up, and other programs, so that he can make better choices in the future.
Why does a response to their non-free-will actions, by you, amount to free will? Why is a desire to make things better free will? Why do you say these things? The causal chain goes all the way back, with random components, for perhaps eternity.
Amit, everything that happens is always causally inevitable, however, this is not a meaningful constraint upon anyone's freedom (if you wish to view it as such then you have to remove "free" and "freedom" from the dictionary). But there is no such thing as "freedom from causation". That's an "oxymoron", a self-contradicting concept, because without reliable cause and effect we could not reliably cause any effect, and would have no freedom to do anything at all! All of our freedoms REQUIRE a deterministic universe. Therefore, free will never did, never can, and never will mean freedom from causation. All "free will" means is freedom from external coercion or other undue influence.
you definitely misunderstood the video.
"So how are we supposed to reform them if free will doesn't exist?"
THE SAME WAY PSYCHOLOGISTS TRAINED(REFORMED) RATS INTO DOING TRICKS, PUZZLES, AND SPECIFICALLY DESIRED ACTIONS.
reforming criminals is NOT free will.
"They are who they are and attempting to change it is nonsense and going against what you just said." No. People can be changed by applying external variables to them. There are plenty of studies with evidence of this in the field of psychology.
External variables is what makes people who they are. Just apply some different ones and shift their state of being into something desired.
Not sure how belief in free will increases authoritarianism. Its the foundational ideal for political libertarianism.
Here's your problem. You argue "If you give up free will, here's what you can do," so basically you give up free will but then you go right ahead and talk about what you can then do (which assumes you DO have free will). If you don't have free will, as I believe, then you will just do what you do.
He does not assume that one has free will. When he says that we do not have free will he does not mean that we do not do what we want or that we are not able to change our minds or objectives, rather he means that the fact that we change our minds about a topic is determined by many factors such as our genetics, education, current mood, etc. Try to think us somewhat like computers that change their programming through experience. So when he explains what you can do if you give up free will, your "decision" to do what he proposes depend on your will, but this will is not free, because it is determined by your genes, education, inteligence, etc.
why not address the trigger of sound triangulation, and the philly exp. gone astray
I don't agree with the presenter, but it has nothing to whether or not we have free will. Because that is questionable and could just depend on your definition of it. I think that we're fully capable of changing the prison system and being more compassionate with or without "free will". There are places in the states where they have changed things for the better and its just a matter of getting the rest of the country to adopt the same standards.
Watch FREE WILL by Sam Harris.
@@AngryCanadian1971 Pretty sure I've seen some of his videos before. Can't be sure, I've watched a lot of stuff on free will.
Though I'm not sure how this response explains anything or points out anything wrong with my position.
Lol. I love how so many don't get it in order to preserve their ego... The idea of free will is WHY our prison system is messed up... Why we are quick to condemn others rather than understand... Why do you grasp so feverishly at illusion? Because you think its important... But its not. Choice does not prove free will. Choice just means there were options of almost equal merit that took more time for the brain to settle on one... All you did was exist and that stuff happens through you. Without any real free will
+cleverdusty Well said.
why are you going to prove it?
not sure if true but surely the saddest thing ever. no free will...no sense in continuing living
+Fran Ninguno Whether you are going to continue living or not is predetermined. You can still enjoy life whilst understanding that your brain isn't performing magic tricks.
This is why we are who we are , because we do not have free will so we simply cannot be convinced to anythig so any further discussion is irelevante:D Or you just have to present this argument i i had to respond to this
It's always nice to hear someone call for a more humanitarian world but this was nothing but a slick, superficial presentation of a
non-argument.
Nothing he says has any relation to the belief of free will.
He talks about systemic and social issues of the US and projects them onto some obscure concept, offering solutions many people have offered before and that are already in effect in other civilized countries with the majority of people in those countries still believíng in free will.
Exactly. And many Christian organization, who presumably believe in free will, have pioneered prison reform. After all, they are taught in their churches that even the worst sinner can be redeemed. And redemption is just another word for rehabilitation.
It doesn't matter if other countries have done it for other reasons (Scandinavian prison model). That just shows that the system works very well. Which is a good thing.
Now since free will doesn't exist, that model is actually perfect and what needs to be adopted for this new purpose, as well as the reason it exists in the first place.
What is your point exactly? Were you under the assumption that he's saying that if you have free will, then such a system can't exist? that's strange...
Or that you need to think you don't have free will to be able to create such a system.. or are you thinking he is trying to take credit in ways, when he already mentioned that such prisons exist...
You seem to be way off track.
Bottom line. Retribution makes no sense if you have no free will. What prison system doesn't focus on retribution and works really well? yes the Scandinavian model, so lets do that.
The good thing is that because it works anyway, people won't have a problem with adopting it.. unless of course their feelings of retribution get in the way.. which is what comes with free will, but despite having those feelings, luckily you can ignore it to try and do what works. That's why the model exists.
But when you know free will doesn't exist.. you don't have to fight against that.
I think I touched on what you were getting at, right at the end there... maybe.
I don't understand this muddled correlation between freewill and punishment. If i rob a shop, if i drink drive, and hit someone should action not be taken against me? Would i not be to blame for my actions? Should i not be held ACCOUNTABLE. I find it strange also that the word retribution is used, why not go the full hog and just use the word revenge instead? Is that what our justice system is just now, a revenge/retribution system? And saying things like criminal behavior is a disease? Alcoholics get to rid themselves of their personal responsibility by having their over indulgence classed as a disease and now criminals are too? Well all i'll say is this, these are the first two diseases we have encountered that humans can actually consciously give themselves. There is so much wrong with this video.
nihilityjoey "Alcoholics get to rid themselves of their personal responsability[sic] by having their over indulgence classed as a disease and now criminals are too?"
No, people are still to be held responsible for their actions, but the goal is to make society better for everyone, not have revenge on them ... that's the main thing in the punitive part of the video.
For instance Saddam Hussein's sons were by most accounts the kind of people that no one wants in their society, and so they had to be removed from it. I would say though that there's no way of knowing how you or I would have turned out if we were brought up the same way: The sons of dictators ... never hearing no ... having no accountability.
So if you go back in time to when they were just kids, would you hang those kids?
No, the kids are just a product of their environments, but the thing is that adults are too.
Johannes G Halldorsson
"No, people are still to be held responsible for their actions, but the goal is to make society better for everyone, not have revenge on them ... that's the main thing in the punitive part of the video." What does putting people in jail, or hospitals for there actions/crimes have to do with revenge? That paragraph reeks of little understanding.
You are talking about HOW and to what degree should we punish or rehabilitate these people. Does the notion that Saddams sons can be better people later on in life excuse their actions until then? I would say no, but that does not mean they are being punished as revenge, they are being punished and locked up because at this present time they ARE a threat to society or in their case other parts of the world. And your last part about hanging the kids????????????? Wow, they are not kids tho carrying out the actions of kids, they are grown men ABLE to think and act for themselves, being a product of your enviroment entails what exactly? And what does it intail that would have control over these grown mens actions? Im sorry but you have posted a very naive and shallow comment without thinking about what you are saying.
And I'm sorry you've spent so much time answering a comment you've failed to grasp.
I refuse to believe anyone can take part in public debate without noticing that vengeful thinking guides a lot of people's views on how crime should be handled ... it is, for instance, the only reason people support the death penalty and the only reason politicians don't want to be seen as 'soft on crime' ... I'm not saying the entirety of every justice system on earth is totally based on revenge, just that much of the public discourse is.
Also: The insults are inaccurate and unnecessary.
Try this thought experiment to see what the implications of no free will are:
If we had a pill that cured evil without significant side effects, would it make sense to lock people away and withhold that cure because they 'deserve' it for being born evil in the first place?
Without free will there is no debate, you just give them the pill and they're no longer a threat to society, but if you mistakenly believe in free will then that might seem 'unfair' and you'll throw a hissy fit that you didn't get those kinds of breaks when that's irrelevant if you didn't need them.
But Brad explained all this with better vocabulary in an earlier comment ... did you understand that one or were you busy being about as condescending as I'm being now?
Johannes G Halldorsson
I'm not sorry, after all "I" am the one who decided to write the comment, not you.
This gets very boring after a while. So on the one hand we still lock people up, even though what they do is not really their fault but we have to do so to keep others safe? Yet on the other we have what we have now (or what you would describe as a "vengfull" system) people commit crimes, we determine the facts, evidence, what have you, then the sentence is decided. In both instances the person is put away (in to whatever institution is deemed necessary), but from my perspective the former seems utterly nonsencical, "we know your really not to blame, but were gonna lock you up anyway, just incase"?????? Mmmhhh, okay.
I haven't insulted you.
Please do not use hypatheticals because your example is not based on reality i could say "if we could give ourselves wings we wouldn't need airaplanes". Here's an example from REALITY. A man stabs his wife to death for cheating. Who do you hold accountable? You keep useing words like "punishment" and "evil"? Do you believe people are born evil? Very curious use of words.
Are you for real? Throwing hissy fits? I'm Going to take a wild stab here and say that you must be from America, (in Britain we don't have the penalty), but in any case both our justice systems have TRIALS!!!! before anyone is found guilty or not of anything. So my own b.s detector is drawing me to conclude that you are coming at this from a religious sort of angle mmhh? Using words like evil and punishment? I am not religious okay, and freewill has nothing to do with religion, the two are not mutualy exclusive to each other.
We have a long way to go to provide the people who are locked up every help and opportunity to change THEMSELVES, there are so many things we could be doing right now, the way we sentence, the way we house, protect and rehabilitate, could all be doing with serious upgrading but these things can only get better once you show/teach these people that they are (for the most part) responsible for their own actions, and that they have to use that knowledge to help them and the justice system work to change themsleves for the better so they can go back into society better humans. With what you are proposing change would not be posible for no one is really resposible for anything.
I wasn't being condesending, my tone might come off like that but it's more, annoyance that instead of presenting an argument from your own understanding of this you just regurgitate what others have said, without actually thinking about it, and as i have already said, it gets boring after a while.
Ok, I think this discussion has become unnecessarily hostile on both sides so if I try to do my best to explain my point of view, will you do your best to try and see it?
No, no one is ultimately absolutely responsible for their actions.
But yes, they should still be held responsible because unless you're an anarchist you probably want a state monopoly on violence to decrease violence over all.
The difference is that I don't think a justice system is justified by how the world works, just by how human societies work.
You don't need free will to justify a pragmatic justice system where the way to go is decided on which one offers the best results according to the best available scientific research.
You do need free will to justify making criminals suffer because they "deserve" it.
And that sounds to me like a fundamentally sadistic argument that has no place with the lawmakers.
So if a husband stabs his wife he should go to jail because that punishment deters other people from committing murders and deters him from doing it again.
But he should also get help to become a better person while imprisoned and such help should never be denied on the basis of him not "deserving" help.
Now, if you respond to this can you tell me if we imagine a type of justice system where sentencing and all policies in fact were decided based the scientific research on what was most effective in reducing crime, harm and suffering or you know ... some good metric on making society a better place to live for as big a part of society as possible ... then if you have that practical reason to have it in place, why would you need free will to justify it?
PS I'm Icelandic and agnostic, smart guy.
This guy figured out Jesus' secret.
The error this speaker makes is that he seems to be advocating for using your free will to give up your belief in free will.
Sam Harris talked about this much earlier.
Does it matter who discusses ideas as long as they are disseminated?
Joshua Wonser It matters to me. You have to give a credit. Before Harris came with his "Free Will" book and ideas that predated it, nobody was talking about this particular topic, this way. So yeah, I value differently some speech that originated into mind of speaker and some speech that was taken from someone else`s idea and work.
Agreed, credit should be given where credit is due. It's awfully hard to prove he derived these ideas from Harris though. Definitely possible it was independent realization.
I think that probability here matters more then possibility. When Harris came with his "Free Will" majority of philosophers hit him hard with criticism since they adopted compatibilism. Is it more probable that same controversial view raised independently at the same time in two different minds or that one was influenced by another. Acting to be author of this just because its impossible to prove otherwise is very hypocritical to me.
hldemi LMAO. MAYBE IF YOU IGNORE HUNDREDS OF YEARS OF PHILOSOPHY NOBODY WAS TALKING ABOUT IT,
alright comments on this video are so bad
The establishment - youtube
My only question for Dr. Caruso is, "Did you freely decide to be a free will skeptic? Or was your denial of free will fated or determined?"
If you freely chose to be a "free will skeptic" then you just proved free will exists. If you were fated to deny free will then why try to convince others to change their minds about it's existence? If free will doesn't exist and our belief in the existence of free will is fated, then why tell to convince anyone of your position.
This is the most logically incoherent position ever - choosing to disbelieve in free will. Give me a break.
The argument for skeptics is that he ultimately did not choose to not believe it. From an individual point of view, yes he chose to deny it. But ultimately the decision was made by the neurons in his brain which obviously do not individually have free will. They are single cells that dictate every action we make.
As for your second concern of why convince others, that's what this whole video was about. He wasn't trying to convince anyone to be a skeptic, he was saying the positives of skepticism and the negatives of free will belief. That is what this whole video was about.
+A Ransomed Mind " If you were fated to deny free will then why try to convince others to
change their minds about it's existence? If free will doesn't exist and
our belief in the existence of free will is fated, then why tell to
convince anyone of your position.
This is the most logically incoherent position ever - choosing to
disbelieve in free will. Give me a break"
This is a gross misunderstanding of determinism. Furthermore, your conclusion was arrived via a syllogistic fallacy.
Explicitly, if determinism is true and free will is bogus, then Dr. Caruso had NO CHOICE but to try to spread this information. He's not choosing to convince people. He must convince people.
More accurately, he doesn't control whether or not he ends up doing what he does. Hence, it makes no logical sense to ask "why" he's doing what he's doing.
Although we can't control what happens, we can still hope the world becomes a better place and take comfort in the people and events that seem to be pushing this positive agenda forward.
It's like watching a movie. You can't control the movie, but you're still along for the ride and you hope it has a happy ending.
+macnolds I think some peoples mental barriers are tumbling
Another misunderstanding you (and others) have is the definitions of the words "determined" and "predetermined."
Although one could argue that everything is "pre-determined," one does not KNOW what will happen. People can change. Influences are constantly changing us. Free will believers can become free will skeptics. Christians can become atheists.
Hence, there is no reason to believe that Dr. Caruso ' s arguments are "falling on deaf ears."
Lastly, as I said in a previous reply, he has no choice but to do that which he does.
+A Ransomed Mind If free will doesnt exist, Dr. Caruso had to do this speach.
But, Dr Caruso can still convince people that free will doesnt exist : if someone is convinced when watching this, it would means he HAD to be convinced. Eventually, he changed his mind, because it had to
do i combay satan and god olso
Choice = free will. Even Frankl had a choice in Auschwitz, whether to give up or whether to have hope and a sense of meaning. The attitudes we choose to adopt are a manifestation of our own free will.
As someone else said:
Choice does not prove free will. Choice just means there were options of almost equal merit that took more time for the brain to settle on one... All you did was exist and that stuff happens through you. Without any real free will
Also silly to think that if that was true, no one else in the scientific community would of stumbled across that? not that it proves free will anyway, just making a point.
The possibility to choose between different options doesn't mean you are free to choose at any time. Which option you decided for in the end was determined by the status of your underlying physical system on which you have no influence at all. If Frankl had chosen to have hope, it was because he could not act otherwise.
what a load of cap free will has no darkside.
What a load of grok. I believe in free will in the same way I believe the earth revolves around the sun.
Unless you were a genius, the illusion is that the sun revolves around the earth. Likewise, free will is of course an illusion.
free will is nonsense.
+macnolds explain please!
+Hey Yow freewillisfalse.com
^ Explained in detail there
Don't think so. And, since it didn't teach you enough to explain it yourself, why would you think it can explain it to someone else?
What exactly is free will? Doesn't it mean that we are free agents to go out and live our life and fulfill our dreams if at all possible? If there is free will, do children have it?
Nonsense in that it is an illusion.
Free will is the joke and you are the punchline
Cool, he begins the talk by saying the he is a free will skeptic; he denies the existence of free will. He does not know what skepticism is? really? OK, maybe he slipped up. but why would one 'believe' in free will or not 'believe' in free will. This guy is a con artist. He is speaking of free will as if he knew what free will actually is. That would be surprising as the people that study this stuff can't agree in what it is. This is one of the words that has no meaning when push comes to shove. Darn. Oh well.
The word has meaning to most people, and it is fraught with implications.
It means anything one wants it to mean individually therefore it has no common meaning. Practically, it means nothing, there is no real communication going on even if it "sounds" like there is. It this were not the case, this debate would have been over 2000 yr ago. But people seem to be able to play it for cash, hence, con job. Dark Logic.
The implications of this non-word are profound. If you acted of your own' free will" then I am' allowed to punish you. Virtually all "moral" justification for causing harm to another require the presence of free will and that is where all the money is made. It is the magic word that lets me get angry and punish the person that I do not like. In the more philosophical sense it is the opposite side of determinism. At this point it is all Dark Logic.
I notice he didn't bother defining what free will might actually be. I'd say it's an ability to act intelligently & you either have it or you don't. As far as presenting an intelligent case here this guy lacks it badly!
Was he paid to say this or is he smoking his own lies and truly believes it?
+vINCENT Zr the mind definitely acts by classical rules of determinacy. there's a definite correlation between brain states and mind states, seen through endless medical experiments. so, at least, mind behaves in synchronicity with the underlying physical events of the physical brain... and the brain is a macro system that evolved in a macro environment, with evolutionary pressures to react to classical interactions in that environment, as faithfully as possible! < if i push a ten meter rod by one end, i don't need to watch every quantum aspect of it's inner structure to know that the other end would move in accordance. classical logic! > brain is a machine that does everything in it's possibility to eliminate randomness from it's behaviour, because in the course of evolution, billions of organisms (from the first nervous system) in their countless interactions with a classical environment, the brains that didn't interpret things in the deterministic logic were not fit to pass their genes. so the brain-mind, both(!) act and react in the classical logic of things (attention, this doesn't mean we are logical in reasoning. because we live in a very complex society, with expectations, biases, feelings, traumas, etc/ and if the environment we grow in is dominated by let's say cristian beliefs... then we are head screwed). for example: i'm the clone of my father, it's incredible how we look alike, cough alike, we sneeze alike (always twice), sleep alike, we have similar traits of character... but we think so fucking different! the former, i think are traits that have to do in considerable amount to genes, and the latter has to do with the environment. my brain and his, were programmed by different environments, and as i sed above, brains are machines that grow faithful to their environments! i'm just what the environment did to me, and what's done stays securely done in a way that only another classical interaction could possibly change my behaviour. free will is clearly an illusion. where's free will in choosing the most important thing of all, one's identity ? when a scientists look at ordinary people they see children "knowing" santa and the tooth fairy exist :)) what can you do? smack them with 5 years of book reading? heck no, the little scoundrels will fucking burn those infidels trying to rob their precious shopping and TV time. +100 years and billions $ of scientific research are clearly in opposition to the tooth fairy, santa and free will. BUT i guess.... it might just be.... that the computations, and reasoning confined to your precious skull are in some way more profound.... hmmmm
we dont have free will but we have a duty to choose to act in certain ways and treat people in certain ways. lol, what philosophicaly illiterate nonsense.
Interesting. So where does personal responsibility fit it? Should we just let everyone out of prison. What about child molesters? Your premises are flawed. Wealth inequality myth. Rich people commit crimes. Your arguments sound simplistic.
not believing in free will is the worst prison you can be in