This is a profoundly lovely discussion again thank you both. I certainly went through a long period of self-destruction - actually since my early childhood, and especially after my life and sense of self began to disintegrate when I was age 50. Marriage collapse, ten year divorce, during which time my new partner killed herself and I survived what would have been my suicide. Then many layers of self-inflicted traumas. Lack of self love. Self-loathing instead. Gradually I emerged. It hurts. Dabrowski - positive disintegration. There is a point to the pain. I realised I could ask for help. I realised I am still here for a reason; many reasons. And so I align with the being of accepting and submitting to what happens - letting go of the belief that I know what is best for me, which at an existential level I do not (or at least I am still learning), and letting go the belief (conditioning) that somehow I can control our destiny. Life is what happens to us and how we respond. Our freedom is in our responses. (For me) optimism is part of my fuel for wonderment. I am grateful for my traumas. Without them I would be far less grown emotionally and spiritually. I would be a lesser man. I want to be the best version of myself. Love and gratitude to you both, Alan Chapman
Man has a method of choice that represents his current capacity but also the power to improve it in the future. This means that regardless of his existential level, man has free will. This means that man will live different experiences where he will have the responsibility to observe, think and understand them. He will improve his choice method by paying responsible attention to the present, by remembering the past and how much he was wrong or right in the choices he made, he will also think about the future through more realistic planning. Determinism only tells us that "the sky is blue", and does not emphasize the method of improvement and human power, because knowledge means power, and this is valid in a perfect form when it improves us, and through the good that it we do to ourselves, but which we must also do to those around us. Instead, what does man see when he sees his weaknesses and inabilities, he wants to believe that it is something he cannot change, because he has a weak will and most of the time he likes lies more than the truth, he likes to lie to himself , to lie and he gets used to being lied to. Most of the time, if he were honest or if he loved and valued the truth more, he would understand that everything that is negative can be changed more quickly, with the exception of a vice. But to fight a vice through will and understanding, it is necessary to find a very effective method, and then free will is tested very strongly. Then the brain is used by thinking as strongly as possible by analyzing the problem through as many observations as possible. So whether we think about the spiritual or moral aspect, or the existential one through which we make our thinking and intelligence more efficient, we can understand that in the long term free will is built from the best possible morality and the best possible efficiency of intelligence. Determinism only tells us that our actions are influenced by a chain of causes and effects, but man cannot notice that there are other chains of causes and effects in time that man chooses through free will. Changes do not take place immediately, because after free will no matter how beneficial it is, determinism is manifested, and then free will through the need or better said the responsibility or the awareness of the benefit of improving ourselves. So since the beginning there has been free will, and the determinism in which we can find ourselves at a given moment shows us certain specific states, but which can be changed through improvement through a feeling and thinking as efficient as possible through free will. Free will determines a certain form of determinism, and this is essential and cannot be confused with the latter.
In Spanish, we have a sarcastic saying when someones says that things could have been different: "If my grandmother had wheels, she would be a bicycle". "Could have been" is all in your imagination, your grandmother is not a bicycle.
@@francesco5581 You chose to answer my comment here because you read it, and u are interested on consciousness, and u have an idea of free will and determinism elaborated through your education and interrelation with other beings, and you have emotional and mental conditionings, and u are experimenting an evolution through ur hundreds of lifes (if u believe in them or ur one life if not), and u have a relation with parents, friends, relatives, unknown people which had an influence on you, desires, fears, etc. etc. etc. The list would be endless. So, your choice was not unconditioned, unless you believe you are an enlightened being, meaning one who reached such a high conscious state that allows him to "see" all these infinite connections and obviate them (but being honest, if that was the case you woulndt be in this world...). So, the point is that you MADE A CHOICE but at the same time the choice was DETERMINED.. And one would say: How is that possible? In the same way that that we can only see "me vs others" when actually we are me and others at the same time (because the Universe is fractal and continuum), we can only see "bad vs good" when all is bad and good at the same time (because everything has a purpose), etc... Labels (determinism-free will, good-bad, me-others, etc) are symbols our mind needs to classify and survive in our physical existence (u needed to differentiate between a dangerous and not dangerous animal, etc), they are concepts, mental constructs. When u assimilate this, you then stop offering resistance against reality (because you realize you are what you are and what you need to be) and you flow with it and stop suffering. But yes,,, its a process,,,, I understand that tomorrow we need to pay bills, grow up children, etc... But it helps.
We all choose when to conform or rebel against what others believe to be right, based upon what sports teams, political systems, or philosophies we choose to make part of our nature. We can all choose what landscapes in nature to focus quantum entanglements with, and which to reduce quantum entanglements with, as we architech the landscapes which adorn our natures.
Note that determinism is not the same as pre-determinism, which has been completely debunked by quantum theory (basically Einstein's famous saying "God does not play dice" was debunked by further scientific experiments in quantum mechanics after hia death, which is very widely accepted). So things aren't pre-determined, meaning there is a newness, a creative freshness in every moment (despite the obvious aspects of reality that in fact are influenced by past events, however the quantum fluctuations that create newness can never be predicted, thus they cannot be predetermined). So things happen, bur what causes them to happen? This is a question that at this point of our scientific level of understanding we have no answer to. On a philosophical level, as Kastrup does, we can then call this creative force free will (personal) or determinism (impersonal), both being technically true, as they both represent the two aspects (personal and impersonal) of the Universe. So, indeed in that sense, it could be called the "same thing".
A) That's not what the difference between determinism and pre-determinism is. Determinism means everything will play out according to cause and effect, that could theoretically be predicted if you had enough knowledge. Pre-determinism is that everything was all planned and known in advanced. And B) Quantum Physics has not been proven to be truly random. There are valid deterministic interpretations of QM, like de Broglie-Bohm pilot wave theory (non-local hidden variables), Many Worlds, etc.
“Dualism is samsara in Sanskrit; ka 'khorwa (ka 'khor ba) in Tibetan. It means going round in circles: the process of failing to get what we want through the very methodology of trying to get what we want. Samsara is the self-defeating process that dualistic beings continually re-enact until they begin to feel suspicious about it.” - Khandro Déchen and Ngakpa Chögyam 10:54 “The universe […] is an organism, it interacts, it has a parity of purpose and a harmony of identity. Most questions on the order of, “Why are we here?” can’t be answered because they presuppose that each of us is discrete, set off from the universe or environment, confronting it rather than a subsection of it.” - Philip K. Dick, The Exegesis of Philip K. Dick
I've struggled to articulate this as well as Bernardo, but the idea I've punted around is that free will & determinism are a false dichotomy built on a faulty premise - the premise of a discrete self. Categorizations are purely the borders drawn onto the maps of our minds, but in reality there is no distinction. The land between nations is the same dirt. As the Buddhists say, one with everything. The idea here is that is-ness, the experience of being-at-large; this is free will incarnate. Debating if your mind is the originator of free will or the subject of determinism is categorically the same as debating if your left kneecap is the origin of free will or determined. The categories are false mental projections. Categorization is Wile E Coyote gleefully charging over the edge of the cliff and not falling because he hasn't looked down yet to see he stopped standing on ground a while ago. In order for you to have free will or determinism, you must buy into the idea of a discrete you - the crucial step which materialists have skipped and mystics have studied tirelessly. Is-ness is beyond category, inseparable, simultaneous, and our curse or cross to bear is the mind which exhausts itself cutting the world into the smallest quarks to answer a question it doesn't realize is born out of ignorance.
The problem I find myself running into here is that, objectively speaking, consciousness does not exist - it's a category error created by my subjective experience; but also, objectivity does not exist, because experience by definition is always subjective.
It is remarkable to witness how influential was for Bernardo to have a conversation with Tantric teacher Igor Kufayev a couple of years ago, even if Bernardo would not admit it publicly. Particularly how that showed itself in the conversation that followed with Swami Sarvapriyananda of Vedanta Society where Bernardo, encouraged by Igor to delve into great Indian spiritual tradition, came equipped with some basic information coming from Vedic thought. If Bernardo continues delving into Tantric and Vedic wisdom it’ll give him even more clarity on this question of Free Will vis a vis Determinism. For despite undeniable brilliance displayed in this excerpt there are mixing of levels of Reality when it comes to how Will functions at each of its respective levels of manifestation.
Where can I find the Kufayev interview? Bernardo and Sarvapriyananda convo was a good. I made concept artworks on my website including Kastrups work and Vedanta/Trika (ravibajnath.design) under metaphysics if interested.
there is a problem , that this "unfolding" created a meaningful universe where morality plays a big deal ... and morality require free will. Also what is nature ? is a bit ambiguous ... Is consciousness ? then how a consciousness cannot have free will ? by who is governed the idealism consciousness if you remove free will ?
But the interesting thing is that imagining "could have beens" does influence future decisions, even though these "could have beens" cannot be accessed directly. Fantasy in this way is an indirect method of interacting with reality: changing the present based on the past until the principles of these changes are integrated into the "future." I put future in quotes because, ontologically, it never really arrives.
@@Jack-in-the-country exactly, we pass a good part of our life thinking what could have been with different choices ( a bad habit btw if not about moral issues)
Yes... but this is essentially the same as saying that "free will" is just an imaginary illusion. That's not free will, that's determinism. Most free will advocates would not agree with that. All the so called "compatibilists" just redefine what "free will" is to mean something different than actually having the ability to act differently than how you actually did act. Free will and determinism are not compatible. If the only way to make them compatible is to redefine them, then you are just working around the bush to avoid accepting the incompatibility.
The discussion of free will vs determinism always address the “could have been” but always seem to ignore the other side of the coin: “what can be”. And I think that’s what many people mean when they refer to free will. It’s the agency to logically choose future actions and behaviors and change habits and choices over time.
But there is one thing sir...if we don't have free will, what does it mean to have willpower? How under certain circumstances are we able to act the way we had never acted before? How we change things suddenly by merey accepting that our choices if made consciously can have long lasting and satisfactory effects? What does it mean to be conscious otherwise? Apart from accepting our limitations that we can’t control what is happening, does this mean that we don’t accept our power over certain things, and not just a few things but every now and then and see which the best???
This is basically what “Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law” means in practice, once you strip away some of the esoteric language. Things doing what they do because of what they are. Crowley’s contention was that we are apparently the only species that actively strives to set ourselves against our own nature and that we should then make the conscious choice to discover what we actually are and live in accordance with that.
I always find it amazing that those guys ( the ones who are considered the contemporary great minds and philosophers) are so keen to talk about how they are able to grasp what nature is itself, plus countless ontologies on the "nature of nature" deep down to the very fabric of the universe with so much confidence that they know what they are dealing with, yet none of them is able to bring forth some ideas on how can humans live in this world without destroying themselves and "nature".. maybe "nature" wills or "chooses" this too..
Hola, muy buenos días, leelos y escuchamos, por que deberían de recetar una fórmula mágica de convivencia?, vaya fantasía esperar algo semejante, además de ingenuo, perdona no trato de ofenderte, tiene que decirte alguien como comportarte en tu vida?, no eres lo suficientemente serio para vivir una vida consistente, seria, comprometida, lo que hagan los demás no depende de, depende de eso mismo, que sean serios, comprometidos, sensibles, empaticos.
@@milainkstincto Yes, may be it is indeed a nature's choice or will. They knew due to their involvement and the nature of nature finds its way towards an outcome.
Hola, buenas tardes, quedate con tu primer parrafo, parece que es asi, yo asi lo creo y lo suscribo, el segundo lo estamos poniendo nosotros, en este caso tu, nuestro intelecto.@@sunchis717
Big fan of Bernardo's work and completely agree with this perspective. If you say "I have free will" or "I don't have free will" first you have to define what you mean by "I". If you mean the persona you perceive as "I" (as the limits within your physical body), then no. However, you (the real you), are far more than your body. You are literally a manifestation of the entire universe itself. Just consider the countless events that occurred from the beginning of creation to bring you to this moment in space and time. The feeling that you are just your body (or mind), that is an illusion. This is not some sort of woo woo, if you consider the facts logically (as Bernardo describes here), it is an inescapable fact. Your persona is finite and limited, but that is not the real you. You (your persona), is the universe experiencing itself from a given perspective. The real you is far more than you can possibly imagine, and regardless of how it may seem, life plays out exactly as you intend. This is why so many religions and philosophies speak about gratitude, love, and forgiveness. When you hate and fear, you are hating and fearing yourself, and when you love, forgive, and accept (even the worst aspects), you are loving, forgiving, and accepting yourself.
@@dieselphiendphysical processes in the brain create "irrationality". It's not a thing that exists in the world beyond the physical state of the nervous system (based on external inputs or self-referential thoughts)
@@dieselphiend If all things are interdependent, when do you make YOUR determination, inherently on your own wothout influence or cause? You are only making it in thought because your determination depends on everything else. Thought is just the reaction, or sense, of brain activity that has already occurred (according to some MRI experiments)
@dieselphiend Entropy is sometimes defined by the number of possible states a system can have. High entropy means more possible states or configurations, while low entropy means fewer possible configurations. For example, a chessboard with one piece has 64 possible states, but one with three pieces has many more.In your argument, you're essentially equating freedom with high entropy and constraint with low entropy. When a man gets out of jail, his "human system" experiences higher entropy-he can now exist in more possible states within the universe, not just a single "chess square" like a jail cell. However, chess pieces themselves don't have free will; their movements are determined by the player, and those movements are constrained by the rules of the game. Similarly, the player's choices are limited by the "entropy" of the system-the range of possible actions dictated by the rules and the current state of the board. Moreover, the choices made by the mind are further confined by what enters the mind-our thoughts, decisions, and perceived options are influenced by the information we receive and the experiences we have. Just as the chess player can only make moves based on the current state of the board, our minds can only make choices within the limits of what we know and perceive.
I like Bernardo's reasoning here, and I agree with it for the most part. However, I think that I would put more of an accent on the fact the human nature - which, unlike the nature of any other entity in Nature, is self-transcending - is such that this temporary "physical" form, i.e. the body, which I mistake to be the locus of my identity, gets conflated by with the true Self: the Universal Will, which is the True and Supreme Identity. The upshot of this mistaken identity is that, as soon as one awakens to realize that the "I" - my real identity - is not associated with this body, but rather with the Universal Will who has only temporarily disassociated itself into 8 billion+ vessels that I like to call "T.E.L.O.'s" (temporarily extended limiting objects) - or bodies - then "I" am given a choice to exercise the ultimate decision of free will of any volitional being, and the highest state of freedom that a human being can achieve: either to choose to follow the petty passions and desires associated with the illusory ontology of the finite microself; or to give oneself over to the inner call coming from the higher ground of the infinite MacroSelf, my Supreme Identity with the Universal Will.
@6:28 " the structure of reality is not the structure of language." LLMs would disagree, the possibility of meaningful equivalence is the theory behind how they work
I think Split Brain patients should be included in the conversations about consciousness and free will. To me it looks like our brain has at least two, maybe more "operating" systems. How did they evolve, who's incharge, of what? I like Robert Sapolsky's views. But again. We seamingly have this high level "Dos" system running in the background. I'm really looking forward to some science that tries to connect the dots, with Split Brains, consciousness and free will.
To settle the issue: Our macrostate is physically, biologically, culturally, socially, and ideologically deterministic. But we exercise free will within our local volitional state. As simple as that. Furthermore, you have the free will to do anything you want to do. But before you choose, you must ask yourself: "Am I willing to suffer the consequences or reap the glory?"
Every choice is not determined, because the act of me saying that could be denied by choice immediately, choice implies being in the moment only with decisions, anything that came before can be known to choose from and anything afterwards can choose the same way, even for or against this whole statement. Eliminate regret from your life, I concur.
But you didn’t chose the parameters of your choice, like you don’t chose to have a brain or fingers to type, and you don’t chose the conditioning that made you who you are.
Interesting points, however I believe Bernardo is being inconsistent. My reason is this, (at 0.43) Bernardo says "there is no external environment beyond nature to impose choices on nature." Then he says "what nature chooses to do comes out of itself". But what is it that defined what "itself" is, it must have come from something external. The question to answer is this, when we make choices are we discovering who we are (determinism) or are we creating who we are (free will)? Bernardo is presuming that what nature is, is already decided. But then that begs the question, if our choices are already determined, then who determined them. And if it wasn't nature then it must be something external to nature. The only view consistent with no external environment beyond nature, is that nature is not discovering itself through choices. Instead choices are an act of self creation, and are genuinely free.
Why do you think that nature “must come from something external”? He is defining nature as “all that exists”, in which case there can not be anything external to it by definition. Nature is the totality of all that is, so it can’t be anything other than what it is.
@@CampingforCool41 What Bernardo is assuming is that, nature is already FULLY defined. In other words, the story of your life is like a movie, where you don't know what comes next, but it is already determined, because "it is what it is". This obviously begs the question, who created the movie? Well, it certainly did not create it self, since "it is what it is". There for there must have been something external to the movie, that created the movie. This is the inconsistency. However quantum physics teaches us that nothing is FULLY defined. Nature is uncertain. There for to assume that nature "is what it is" is to presume there is something deterministic behind the uncertainty we observe. So lets be clear, this is an assumption that is contrary to our observations. But since we observe uncertainty, why not accept that nature is uncertain. And as such, you can not say nature "is what it is", because nature has not decided what it is yet. And the process of deciding what it is, is a genuine free will act of self creation. This is the only way you can say that there is nothing external to nature. Nature must possess free will, so that it is capable of creating what it is.
@@Curious112233 I think you might be misunderstanding what he means. The fact that Nature is uncertain and can change from moment to moment doesn’t contradict that Nature as a whole is what it is right /now/. He is saying that the universe has free will and is deterministic at the same time, according to his definitions of them.
@@CampingforCool41 I believe I do understand what he means, which is why I point out the inconsistency. His idea of free will is not what most people would consider as genuine free will. It is just a will that is not really free. It is actually determined by the nature of nature. When you say, "The fact that Nature is uncertain and can change from moment to moment doesn't contradict that Nature as a whole is what it is right /now/" As I understand it, this is saying that the uncertainty of nature is only apparent uncertainty due to our limited knowledge, but the reality is that Nature as a whole is FULLY certain and determined. But to say that Nature as a whole IS what it is. Implies that nature did not decide what it IS, which means something else must have decided what it IS. I'm saying that to avoid an external maker we need to assume that nature possesses the ability to create itself, and it does this through its free will choices.
The nature of 'Cause' inhere in the 'Effect' and not vice versa ; so through reasoning it is found that, in absence of 'Effect' the 'Cause', as such, also disappear.
I think it was Stephen Hawkings who basically said ‘The Universe is Deterministic, but since we have no way of knowing what has been determined, we may as well act as though it’s free will’ Basically’Eh, whadaya gonna do, hunh?’fugetaboudit
I think of human capacity for predicting, planning, and/or intention.. I can plan to water my flowers next Thursday, and predict that I will do it the day before (Wednesday), but none of that will really matter if I intend to un alive myself Tuesday. It seems like we can time things. But then..we really measure 2 way again.
You can't choose (example ideal action) what you want to do because your preconditioning determines the next course of action. The brain (a predictor) depends on the stored memories to come up with the best possible course of actions. It has no way of knowing what the ideal course of action is in the absence of any previous input. So, it maps its available data (memories) to produce an output (action) that almost always is not an ideal choice. You are enslaved by your previous karmas (your actions and all the bad things you have absorbed from the society).
This is the phylosophy of SPINOZAAAA. Also Einstein said "my god is Spinoza's one" (Also related to the old eastwrn philosophies) Anyway beatiful video:)
One thing to consider is that our amount of consciousness is the same as our ability to accept. so the more actions we think we are consciously taking the less conscious we are being. The less "free will choices" we are making the more free will we are actually exerting
Every choice (thought generation, image formation, followed by action) we make is a product of the past memories (preconditioning, habits etc). In other words, we are prisoners to our own past. The future is just a form of the modified present (present is modification of the past moment to moment). Therefore, there is no such thing as free will. The only way to take control is to dissolve the past so that future decisions are no longer dependent on conditionings from the past.
Causality but not determinism and neither probabilistic. Totality can never 100% predict its next move because it’s always a novel state space. Causal emergentism but empirical indeterminism.
The question isn’t whether man has choice, but whether he is free by nature or completely determined. If you deny that man is free, then it’s obvious to conclude (as Bernardo does) that there is no distinction between free will and determinism. A choice which isn’t free is no choice at all.
The ideat of being "free from" means being separate and independent from. Where's the separation in reality? We are a part of nature. We breath nature. Our cells are nature. We are born and die into nature. The separated self is an illusion.
@@eprd313 To be free by nature does not mean or imply that we are “separate from” anyone or anything. Reality is non-dual, as you point out. Non-dual reality, however, does not necessitate pure determinism. To live according to one’s nature as a free human being is to not be enslaved to the false idea that we are a separate self or that our entire life, including all our choices are purely determined. So long as we don’t live consciously according to our free nature, we have no choice but to be enslaved to our deterministic patterns of thought, behavior, emotions, and environment. Freedom does not deny the fact that much of our life and reality is determined. However, as free human beings we have the capacity to interact consciously, intelligently, and synergistically with the unfolding of reality, to the extent that we live according to our free nature.
@@Aaron-xb4rq again, free from what? If there's something you are free from it means you are not that thing, ie. you are separate from that. So I ask again, free from what? We are part of everything. Our freedom is the freedom of an unbound totality, for which our will is a minuscule illusion
@@Aaron-xb4rq our deterministic pattern of thoughts, behaviour and emotion *IS* our will. If you think it is something else that's where you create the egoic illusion that there's something superior and separate about you that has control over the forces of nature.
@@eprd313 Free from the illusion that you are a separate self. You are not a separate self, as we both agree. However, according to your logic, freedom means separation. So to be free from the idea of separation would mean to be separate from the idea of separation. The illusion of separation is the whole problem, so why define freedom in terms of separation? That just supports the delusion. Freedom has nothing to do with separation. There is no separation whatsoever. Reality is non-dual, as we both agree. Therefore, freedom cannot be defined in terms of the false concept of separation. Freedom is to live in accordance with one’s nature - to actualize one’s essential potential. If one is not free, then they are not (for a host of possible reasons) actualizing their potential. What most often plagues and enslaves mankind and prevents people from actualizing their potential is the false belief in separation - that you are a separate self and that you are your thoughts, feelings, emotions, and conditioned reactions to your environment. This is not who you are. Who you are is not purely determined. If this is who you think you are, then you are enslaved by ignorance of who you really are. You are not living in accordance with your nature - you are free, but you don’t know it. You are self-imprisoned by your belief that you are a separate self. This is why free will isn’t ultimately about choice. Free will is about our nature. So the question becomes: what is our nature? Ultimately, who are we? This is where it seems you believe that we are “our deterministic pattern of thoughts, behavior and emotions.” That this is “our will” and that we are determined to act in accordance with it. This is not who you are. To believe so, is to be enslaved by self-ignorance. From this vantage point, it is easy to conclude that determinism = free will. That is, that there is no free will. The will, from this perspective, is purely determined. Self-knowledge is the key that sets one free from this delusion. You said that to think otherwise is to “create the egoic illusion that there’s something superior and separate about you that has control over the forces of nature.” This highlights precisely the key to self-knowledge which is necessary to be free from the delusion of self-ignorance. Who you are is the consciousness that transcends all thoughts, feelings, and emotions, and it is not separate from you. You are this consciousness. Thoughts, feelings, and emotions arise within the consciousness that you are. Thoughts, feelings, and emotions are determined in that sense, but they do not determine you. However, if one is ignorant of who they are and is not aware of the consciousness that they are, then all those “external” things that arise within the consciousness that you are will “control you,” as you point out. Alternatively, to act in accordance with one’s nature - consciousness - is to be free. If we know who we are, then we can observe thoughts, feelings, and emotions arise, along with everything else that is continuously unfolding in our environment, and choose to act in accordance with our free will - not purely determined and enslaved by all that arises in the consciousness that we are. This is freedom. This is who you are.
Life is emergent. Letting go of the control allows a greater emergence and a higher degree if manifesting more of what you intend. My own journey experientially. Peace 🙏
Schopenhauer says that the will is blind, but that we have an intellect that gives us the possibility of sight. Humans have an intellect fused with a will, so they serve the will. Through gradual knowledge and the pursuit of knowledge, we can glimpse and examine our will. The greater the distance, the more room we have for a conscious decision in accordance with the objective state. In this way, we transform ourselves at the same time and thus break away from mere nature.
Perfect explanation of Free Will vs Determinism. I had the same argument however Kastrup puts it in better terminology. My question however still stands and I hope you make an episode with Kastrup on the following. Is there at least two different experiences, where one experience is not known by the other experiencer? Ex: a pig being slaughtered not in my vicinity of knowing/feeling its pain… does the pig feel pain while I don’t know about it?
We have free will in 3 dimensions but not in 4 dimensions. We are free to choose any available option in the conventional common sense notion of free will. But if we could roll the Universe back to the time point when we chose an arbitrary option and go back to that time as we were then (without hindsight), we would choose the exact same outcome because our reasons for choosing what we did initially are identical. Hence we are not free when taking the 4th dimension of time into account. This is precisely what Kastrup means when he says that free will is determinism. Our ‘freedom’ to choose is ultimately an illusion because there is no other possibility of any other events occurring except what is actually happening. Our choosing is just a part of the stream of cause and effect. No matter what you choose to do at any specific moment, you were destined to choose that option for all time
Nope. There is a "could have been". They are rare, but they exist. These are moments where you fully experience a "fork" in your experience, where you feel an almost 50/50 pull in either direction, and yet you take one of them. Also, any present choice affects all future choices, and all present choices affect past choices. So determinism flies out the window due to non-linearity. By going to a therapist and healing a past trauma, it can change the entire "past" within you (present choices affecting past choices). And also, all present choices affect all future choices (for self-obvious reasons). So every time we make a choice, we choose for our entire being across the entire "timeline" of our life. Finally, there are ways to think about free will and determinism which are more subtle using geometry. If you imagine your being as a cube, and your life's experience as a 2D projection of the cube, with linear time and experience as being a rotation of the cube which shifts the shadow projected in 2D, then you BOTH have free will (the choice to rotate the cube in one way or another, which translates into a specific series of shadows shifting in a specific way), and yet you are fully determined (the cube is "what it is", regardless of how you rotate it).
To truly prove or disprove "determinism" would require a complete duplicate but independent test universe with everything in it except the chooser, and then the chooser is placed into that universe to see if it makes the same choice.
As much as I like Bernardo, I wish he wouldn't talk in such broad generalizations when it comes to subjects like free will. It always takes me a minute to try and figure out what he's actually saying here. Yes, we are what we are - and our choices always have to be, in some sense, restricted to the confines of our respective degrees of freedom. We are bound by the intrinsic values of Nature itself and so we're *always* acting through the lens of those values because we're after certain things. We desire those eternal values of Truth, Beauty, Happiness & Love itself. Foundationally, we're always after these things because they are (to put a bit more of a romantic spin on it) inherent in the divine being and we, as dissociated aspects of that divine reality, yearn for them specifically because we have forgotten what we really are even as our essential nature cannot be anything but that. This is how we can act in direct contradiction w/ God (committing acts of evil and cruelty) even as we essentially are a part of it. And so where I think Bernardo slips up is to, in his mind, preassume that there's a given answer here. It's not a yes or no proposition. It's both at the same time. God both acts in accordance w/ itself (because the divine is what it is) and yet explicitly contradicts itself through being us. We have to appreciate that, at the end of the day God doesn't really give a damn about my logic or Bernardo's logic. It's going to do whatever it wants because it's all that exists - and if that means outright forgetting what it is in order to have an experience of being Hitler, then it's going to do that too. Do we have any good reason to think that God's capacity for manifestation is limited in some sense? I see no particular line of argument to think that. It seems to be able to set the rules and state of play however it wants for whatever reason because it itself is the source of all probability and outcome that exists.
There’s a lot of question begging easily being thrown out of his deterministic hat. Let’s start with an “abstraction “ which categorically is not defined as a physical feature of a deterministic universe.
I've never liked the idea of free will. People who say we have free will never define what they mean by "free will", because they don't know what they mean. Can one decide to not be part of this universe and still exist? There are many thousands (at least) of near death testimonies. During that experience, most of them say they don't want to go back to the Earth realm, but they are told they have to go back. If they are here describing their NDE, I guess that means they were sent back against their will. Don't tell me we have free will unless you have clearly defined what you mean by "free will".
I like to say the concept of "free will" is an oxymoron, it contradicts itself. To will means to be bound, restricted, limited etc. Certainly that is not complete freedom. What people usually think of although by being "free" is having options and being able to choose between them, and this fact is not inconsistent with determinism at all.
Yes 'could have been' is an illusion. And yes we can have a will that is literally 'causing' the next thought we have to pop into consciousness, since the will is not something separate from our brains, but identical to a subset of our brains. The issue is that this merely gives us a will, not a free will. Our will in this present moment was still fully determined by our brain state and the environment in the moment prior.
A very large portion of the choices nature makes for us we can't oversee, or understand, or may not even be aware of. In that sense, free will may be the same as determination, but determination doesn't necessarily imply free will. In other words, free will is simply personal determination - isn't that a tautology?
Does an algorithm that selects the largest number from a set of numbers have free will then? Nothing is stopping it from selecting any of the numbers, but it will deterministically select the largest one (because it is what it is). How does it help our understanding of reality in any way to say that this algorithm has free will?
He says "free will is same as determinism" but his explanation indicates "There is only determinism. Free will is just an illusion we make up" The essence of the argument is: 1. Free-will pertains to 2 things: Freedom on WHAT we choose, and the autonomy on WHO is choosing (agency). 2. Overall - all choices can be random or deterministic. It is obvious what we call randomness is just due to lack of complete understanding of the deterministic causal chain that we cannot explain. Before understanding germ theory, disease symptoms would appear 'random'. But inability to predict choices does not rule out determinism. 3. Argument for part 2: Even if choices are pre-determined, I am making those choices. Even if choose vanilla ice cream for my entire life, it is ME who is choosing. Based on MY preferences, biases, inclinations. Hence I have agency i.e. free will. 4. But 'What determines my preferences, biases, inclinations?' It's nature again. Illusion: "Choices are being made BY me" Reality: "Nature is choosing THROUGH me". A plant grows leaves. But Just because we chose to name the part (stem) of a whole(plant) does not mean the part 'stem' exists independent of the whole 'plant'. 5. Argument for part 1: I can say that "I did A, but I could have done B, C, D too". Firstly, B/C/D are imaginary "could haves". And also, the accurate statement would be "Nature chose to do A through me instead of B, C, D or a million other things". In short, there is no free-will - except as a misunderstanding. Only determinism?
You're association with psychological continuity as free will is a completely separate argument. You're appeal to "ME" is absolutely unnecessary. "ME" is a fleeting feeling and there is absolutely no guarantee that you will maintain those preferences, biases or inclincations. The only thing guaranteed is your field of subjectivity, not autonomy over WHO is choosing.
Determinism and free will aren't the same, the conditions ensuring determinism are different from those that decide free will. The other option is 'the path not taken', in itself results in another set of condition. These three are all different.
I'm not convinced that the identification of determinism with free will actually works. There seems to be a confusion of semantics here. If nature allows choices and this state is deterministic because nature has the quality to be able to make choices, then this is only meaningful if a choice could have been something else because I chose an option and not another. So: I choose to drink from a glass of water; I choose to push the glass of water away. I can deliberately choose one and then the other to prove my capacity to choose. If you claim that the capacity to choose is a characteristic of natural properties and in this sense is deterministic then it makes the concept of determinism redundant, or conversely, it makes the concept concept of free will redundant.
Of course... ❤... A freewill that may experience feelings of determination...freewill to choose to prioritize that determination...freewill to continue feeling choosing prioritize .. carrying out decisions and actions ... from and through...freewill❤ mm
First part seems a bit tautological. The arrow of time makes it impossible to decide whether there's free will or not. That's why Marx says history is inevitably deterministic. However we may talk about degrees of freedoms within a random distribution, methinks.
If one considers it by Marx or any ultra-materialistical lens of reality, of course it is going to be tautological and impossible to fathom in reality. The problem is, materialistically, one cannot correctly consider the onthology of the being, and without considering the beings, you cannot comprehend it fully and will inevitably put it as tautological (but it is not).
This is the first step in ACA (12 step). You make a diagram of your family tree and get a big picture of what you came from. There's no way you could have turned out differently. That you can't pick your family already eliminates the majority of choice in life: genes, race, class which determine your foundational being.
But if every moment is an opportunity for self discovery it can also be an opportunity for self deception. If these opportunities are determined then what we have is the determined illusion of choosing or not choosing one of these opportunities. I don't understand what else choosing can mean per Kastrup's framework.
Leaving the Antrophic bias. How it is the m/ultiverse? It seems that it is all about conciouss beings? Also they assume nature given. We really do not know how quantum realm is.
The fundamental flaw of logic here by Bernardo IMO is that somehow humans, who are conscious of being conscious, are somehow the same as ‘nature’… the Gnostics understood that our fallen self here in the physical is part of nature but inherently we can transcend nature as consciousness ie: being conscious of Consciousness.
There is less misunderstanding if you discuss this without using the term "free will." The universe changes only according to the laws of the universe. Humans are part of the universe. Therefore, humans change only according to the laws of the universe. It's a simple syllogism.
After knowing all these, what happens to the knower ? Will the knower escape rebirth ? Finally what is the end result of knowing and understanding these truths ?
If by the word determined you mean non-random, then why don't you just say that? You obviously mean something completely different if you say that your thoughts are determined by your neuronal activity. Do you think you are saying that your thoughts are non-random because of your neuronal activity? This has a completely different meaning. The second one doesn't imply that you are somehow controlled by the neurons, which are controlled by the molecules and then the atoms. Imagining that your thoughts are controlled by particle interactions (Sabine Hossenfelder) is silly since particles don't know anything, so how can they control thoughts? What's the point of having a brain at all if it is just passing through the will of the universe? It's not only malarkey, but mysticism.
To nije slobodna volja, to je neslobodna "volja", odnosno nije ničija volja i nije uopšte volja, tek vačito "mrtvilo" kvazi-rasparčanog kvazi-dešavanja
They make living out of ambiguity, confusion, easily convincing themselves and humanity out of desperation for answers they listen to them. my honest opinion is they are very pretentious idiots. In my experience Free will is everything and you get out of life only what you put into it.
Determinism is the same kind of illusion like a free will. Inside every macroscopic deterministic act lays quantum phenomenons that fully probabilistic.
I really like Bernardo and I agree with so much of his work, but not on this one topic. I am a very "what is good in the way of belief" type when it comes to will and agree most with William James on this topic. The ability to see the particulars of a circumstance and actualize latent potentialities of the present moment is precisely what empowers us. It is the meaning of life. Materialists deny free will because they need consciousness to strictly follow mechanistic laws of physics so they deny their own experiential states and the intuitive sensation of making choices and acting on them. There is no need to fear radically departing from this materialist view and taking on one that is more powerful and has more meaning.
Suppose you were all individual experiential state without support to your will by nature. How do you sustain your will? Or, in other words, where does it come this will to be? If you restrict mentally your choices only to what you perceive yourself to be, which is your experiential state, the feeling you have that you are actually making a choice, you isolate yourself from your physical background, and you contradict yourself, bc you refer the sensation you have of your own will to the idea you have of yourself, not to what you actually are. You can't have a complete accurate idea of what you are bc your being isn't entirely conscious. The very distinction between internal states and physical ones is only a tool made by language to refer to things more clearly, for communication. What actually is can't be said bc it transcends duality. Language can only express duality. The distinction between internal states and physical ones is a form of duality, which means is a separation that makes sense only in a system of language, not in reality.
@@echoshadow1490 I agree with much of what you have said about the unity between mind and body and the fact that there is what is within awareness and what is outside of awareness existing in unity to make up the individual. That is exactly why the nature of the beliefs of our own conceptions of "will" are important. If someone is a fatalist and unaware of it, they may never reach their true potential or attempt to understand themselves enough.
@@BlackthorneSoundandCinema Fair point. But I would understand a person who decides to take that path. For in order to actualize herself, she needs to embrace chaos, in the sense that up to some point intellectualizing your emotions in of no help at all, and of no utility, and you need to step over. This sensation is not pleasant at all, and feels like the most wrong and twisted thing you could ever do. Some people never take that step. Others aren't even on the sufficient level of awareness to see the threshold.
@@echoshadow1490 You're starting move deeper into my point. No one should embrace chaos. Personal efficacy requires someone to respond rather than react. Understanding the causes of physiological responses to stimuli is essential for settling the emotional state and regaining the ability to think clearly using reason. If someone has goals, plans and purpose using conscious mental effort in the face of pressures and disturbances is required. If someone REACTS they are the effect of causes and are acting more automatically being swept away by underlying currents. Responding is thinking rationally and making the decisions and taking the actions that are optimal.
@@BlackthorneSoundandCinema Well, my assumption is that the goal of a person isn't just to respond to stimuli efficiently, but to become herself. One struggles to become complete. Learning what are the underlying factors that make you react automatically to things is a good way to assert more control over yourself, but it isn't the goal, rather a tool for it. We respond to stimuli bc they trigger some function we have. According to Carl Jung, we have four major functions: thinking, feeling, sensation, intuition. One of them can develop, and become more complex than the others, leading to a more important conscious effort involving it: a person who has developed the thinking function over other functions will engage in it more often. This leads to potential suppression of the other functions, creating an imbalance. Those functions can't be engaged in consciousness all at once, bc they limit and twart each other. If one is a sensationist, he will do things for pleasure, suppressing thinking. This isn't a wrong thing: it only means that that person is made that way. The problem arises when that particular function gets too extreme, and makes the other extreme as well for compensation. This will beget unconscious responses to conscious activity that can get violent and out of control. So the whole thing about the difference between to respond to stimuli and to react to them means that when you react to them you are involving in a fight against something exterior to you, in order to avoid the confrontation with the unconscious. If you only respond, this means the other functions aren't extreme, and you are just doing things according to what you are, given the main function you use to address yourself to the world. See, this distinction has nothing to do with rationality, or personal efficacy, bc it doesn't necessitate conscious effort to do anything. It merely recquires an accurate balance between the functions. And how you do it? By "embracing the chaos". You do it by hindering the excessive development of the main function, by directing conscious activity towards the unconscious. In this way, you accept its contents, and those can't manipulate you without you not knowing it. It isn't about rationality, bc rationality is thinking, and is only 1/4 of all the things you can do. It's about accepting yourself, which could also mean to accept self contradiction, and impulsive and irrational behaviour.
I still don't really understand why you would shoehorn in "free" when you're actually just describing will.. Except maybe to appease the free will believers
I guess the freedom is in the absense of anything outside ourselves restricting us to choose what we want in at least some instances. While what we want is perhaps determined by factors outside ourselves, we are still at least to some degree free to choose what we want.
Yes.. all these "compatibilists" just redefine what "free will" is to mean something different than actually having the ability to act differently than how you actually did act. Free will and determinism are not compatible. If the only way to make them compatible is to redefine them, then you are just working around the bush to avoid accepting the incompatibility.
@@highvalence7649 That's not was kastrup said though... I don't see how there an be freedom from what he said, not even "at least to some degree". He did say we make choices.. but that those choices are predetermined. If we can't change them then they aren't really "free" choices. So at that point why call it "free" will? He's clearly a determinist, so I don't understand why he needs to redefine "free will" and pretend it's compatible with determinism.
@@Ferkiwi it is what he said elsewhere, i believe. In any case it is what i'm saying. "If we can’t change them then they aren't really free choices". It depends on what we mean by free choice. Do you just mean not predetermined choices / choices that are not inevitable given the prior causal chain of events that led up to that choice? Then sure we don't have free choices. But that’s not what i have in mind when i hear "free choice". I have in mind something like choices that we make that aren't forced upon us by someone else, that we aren't coerced to make, and that aren't so limited in terms of the available options that the best option given our desires isn't something we don't want anyway. Of course, in a sense the only option available to us is the one we are predetermined to make or we're inevitably going to make as an inevitable result of the prior causal chain leading up to it, however given that nature is what is and that therefore we are going to inevitably want certain things and choose what we want given that that choice is available, we are free to choose what we want given that that option is available and given that no one is forcing or coercing us to choose something different.
@@highvalence7649 Ok, I think the original commenter was referring specifically to what was said in this video. But about what you are saying: I agree that the colloquial definition for "free" means "not forced upon us". And yet, if we think deeply about it, the line can be unclear ..because technically, if they blackmail or threaten me, I do still have the "choice" of not obeying, they can't really "force" me to comply. Even if they have me at gunpoint, I can sacrifice myself if it's for the greater good... so in a way, even under those situations, the term "free" is fuzzy. Of course you can't act in a "normal" way when you are being coerced, but determining what would be the "normal" non-coerced behavior is just as fuzzy, since the limits of what constitutes as coercion can become blurry the more subtle the act that influences you becomes. Is subliminal advertising a form of coercion? In my opinion, when you think deeply about it and try to actually get to the bottom of what makes a choice free or not, I feel that you need to either assert that all our conscious choices are free, despite all the influence, or that none of them actually are, because of the influence. Anything in between seems to be more of a confusing blurry line that just tries to place arbitrary limits based on the knowledge we have about ourselves (which is a knowledge that will forever be incomplete) and the possible situations we can imagine.
Bernardo is completely wrong and misleading - first, according to QM reality (the universe) is not deterministic, and Bernardo knows it and acknowledges it in other recent interviews - 2nd, our intuition of free will is not just that our choices are determined by us as he says in 5m15s - rather they cannot be free if we are equivalent to a ball rolling down a rail - Bernardo himself claims a minute before that, that free will is incompatible with randomness for the usual reasons, but skips the point that determinism is traditionally rejected for the same reasons. The truth is that he simply advocates the usual traditional argument of compatibilism, but dresses it with fancy psychologically artistic and ultimately misleading language. according to which the moon does not just go around the sun like a ball on a rail, but rather the universe freely chooses that the moon go around the earth... ok... whatever...
Taoism, Buddhism and Vedanta said this word by word thousands of years ago. Hope we respect everything and everyone as oneness. Modern Ivory Tower and Woke science have been too arrogant, and they start canceling good scientists. If we respect each other’s point of view regardless of our differences, the world would be a harmonious garden full of variety of flowers, bug, and birds etc.
I agree that there is no "free" will in human beings. I believe that a human being is a manifestation of a spirit (as Federico Faggin says, using another term for "spirit", so as not to be misunderstood). The behavior of a terrestrial human being is correlated with the spirit, but it is also determined by many other factors. I agree with Federico Faggin when he says that spirits are ontological parts of a Whole that exists in everything. It is the set of all interconnected spirits. The correct metaphor would be the analogy with the human body. It is made up of groups of interconnected cells, the organs, which are in turn also interconnected. It is an interconnected Whole that is incomparably greater than the sum of its parts. And it has a purpose, which is probably to know itself. The purpose of the parts and the Whole is the same. To know oneself and/or to know themselves. This Whole would be, for me, the so-called Mind At Large. Bernardo Kastrup speaks of Mind At Large as if he knew it intimately. He says that spirits are not ontological units, as if he mastered metaphysical knowledge with great rigor. It is a great illusion to think that he knows Mind At Large. Metaphysics are hypotheses. No one masters metaphysics. Bernardo Kastrup's great merit, for me, is his capacity for expression, the scientific credibility given by his academic degrees and professional experience, the capacity for expression, which helps to clarify concepts and questions, his great intelligence, and the ability to challenge metaphysical materialism. I admire very much Bernardo Kastrup, but he should be more humble when he speaks of Mind At Large than he would be to a human being and a living being. He knows incomparably more than I do. But I know enough to know that no one knows what Mind At Large is. There are only hypotheses/beliefs on the subject. When speaking, Bernardo Kastrup seems a little too sure of what he is saying. However, I admire and i'm grateful to Bernardo Kastrup. He is one of the greatest philosophers of the 21st century. He leads us to question all and to question ourselves like few others. But his "Daemon" is not necessarily the wise thing who knows everything, who understands everything....
What if there is a creator who gave us a free well and made our lives meaningful because of it. The theory in the video works for ants or animals and it’s not valid for the human beings in my opinion.
So if I have a choice of either smoking a joint or not, I think about it for a while and then decide to smoke it up. If I understand You correctly, My Will to smoke the Joint IS the same as Natures will to smoke that Joint, actually Nature must smoke that Joint through Me? The smoking of this Joint is inevitable. If I decide I want it, right now this IS My mission on Earth! Alright Alright Man, makes alot of sense
Of course! And if you decide to use it as a justification for any action, this also is the will of nature. The question is what is your true goal. If your true and honest goal is to maintain sobriety, then you wouldn't smoke it. Some other goal that makes you smoke it has higher priority than that of maintaining sobriety - then you simply act it out.
@@JHeb_ I think I get the viewpoint but I can sense there is something missing here. There is something to this as well but this explanation is missing something. I appreciate Bernardo, we people need Philosophy, maybe more in this day in age than ever. Have a great day
There is another possibility. It may be that our choices are happening just prior to the present moment and so outside the causal chain that Bernardo ascribes to "nature."
Nature doesn't will itself into being though. Nature isn't free to do otherwise of what it does under any given circumstances. You have to mangle the concept of nature, the concept of free and the concept of will beyond the point of recognition to reach Bernardo's conclusion here.
I agree that the dichotomy between free will and determinism is false, but I think for different reasons than Dr. Kastrup mentions. My argument centers more on the circular nature of most definitions of free will. With the exception of a compatibilist-based definition, most definitions are presented in such a way that makes free will seemingly impossible by definition-assuming we live in a world ruled by cause and effect. Most definitions seem to require some sort of "causeless effect" as the driver of our decisions, which isn't possible if we assume we live in a world ruled by cause and effect. This basically makes the argument incoherent. Additionally, we are still held accountable for our actions by our friends, families, and society as a whole. Regardless of whether it’s some omnipotent god, demon possession, or biology that dictates our actions, we are still held accountable as if we have free will. So, basically, the entire discussion seems pretty moot to me. That was addressing the arguments against free will. To be clear, I also think many of the arguments for free will suffer from the same sort of flawed reasoning as the arguments against free will. Most arguments for free will seem to center on the idea that the symbol we label as "I," the narrative self, is the thing that dictates our actions and is free from prior influence. However, it is far more likely that whatever it is that makes these decisions rests at a lower level than that one particular stream of information. That particular stream of information is far more likely to be something like a large language model (LLM), where it generates a convincing-sounding story to explain why we choose x instead of y, when in reality, that narrative most likely has no prior causal bearing on the actual underlying decision process. What I mean is that the narratives may shape our future actions, but the narratives don't shape our current actions.
I think that "free will" is not needed for "being held accountable". To be accountable for something just means to be identified as the cause that is most appropriate (practical) to correct when that something goes wrong. So every time you correct something (it does not even need to be a human) you are applying some level of accountability to that which was corrected. Punishment is just an attempt at correcting a behavior, the same way as fixing a bug in a piece of software is a correction to a misbehavior in a program that behaves entirely without free will. We are just thinking machines.. sometimes machines act in ways that are not useful for society, so society tries and corrects them. That does not mean machines are free, even if they are responsible for the output they produce.
@@Ferkiwi "Free will is not needed for being held accountable" seems to imply a definition of free will that requires some sort of causeless effect. While I agree that accountability can exist without free will-since we can hold even non-conscious entities like robots accountable-it makes more sense to apply this concept to beings with a sense of self and preferences that can be affected by punishment or correction. As a machine learning researcher, I see a distinction between how we 'punish' algorithms versus humans. While algorithms can be optimized through reinforcement mechanisms, this isn’t analogous to how humans experience and respond to punishment. The idea of 'correcting' a human’s behavior involves a conscious experience, which differs fundamentally from tweaking a machine’s parameters. Regarding the idea that "we're just thinking machines," I think it's important to recognize the limitations of a purely mechanistic and materialist worldview. While these perspectives are valuable for understanding certain aspects of cognition, they may not fully capture the complexity of human experience. Therefore, making strong ontological assumptions based on these constructs might be an oversimplification. To illustrate this point, I think the "gliders" in Conway's Game of Life might be a good example. In some sense, one could argue that there are no gliders, only simple deterministic rules, and that any concept of a glider is simply a product of how some humans view the changes in the system over time. However, one could also argue that there are patterns that emerge, which we call gliders. Given a person believes in gliders, they can construct a Turing machine using them. The person who takes the simplistic view of naive determinism doesn't get to build a Turing machine out of gliders.
@@crypticnomad If "free will" is not causeless, then it's just "will". Can you tell me what is the difference between "free will" and "will" to you? if they are the same why not just call it "will"? If there are no free choices, but determined choices, then the word "choice" loses a lot of weight and becomes just something we attribute to our acts just because we can't accept that our experience of freedom is an (evolutionarily useful) subjective illusion. I agree with you about there being a difference between how we punish algorithms in current AIs. In our brain, we don't have a mechanism to directly affect the weights in a Bayesian neural network the way it happens in AI. And even the neurons are not exactly binary nodes either. Current AIs do not really replicate the brain function, nor do they replicate the system through which we interact with the world, so they will be a different kind of "animal" than us. But does an animal need to be like us to be conscious? How do you even know something is conscious? where do you draw the line? can you even prove whether or not another humans (other than you) experiences consciousness? About your example with "gliders", I'm not convinced that a deterministic view would make you unable to build a machine with it.. not unless that idea of determinism is unnecessarily "simplistic" and "naive" (your words) to the point that unbroken causality stops being its main defining factor. I feel you are misrepresenting what determinism is. If you are convinced that you actually know of a way (your gliders test) to differentiate the presence of consciousness in an external being reliably, then I think you should publish a paper about that, it would be a breakthrough.. you'd have essentially solved the biggest blocker in the hard problem of consciousness by yourself (and the Turing test, & the Chinese room mess...) if you can prove there's any sort of act/quality/capacity that can be externally measured and unquestionably makes something conscious (or at least free-willed).
@@Ferkiwi You seem to be stuck on the obviously incorrect and circular definition of free will that assumes free will to be impossible by definition. That is incoherent by definition-see my original post (OP) that breaks this down and explains in detail why it is incoherent. I explained why arguments for and against free will using that sort of definition are both incoherent. This is why I'm not giving an definition of free will, I believe the idea itself, as it is typically presented, to be incoherent. In addition to that, you seem to assume that I'm arguing against determinism, which I'm not-depending on how one defines determinism, anyway. My argument in the OP is simply that, with the exception of a compatibilist-based definition, most definitions are presented in such a way that makes free will seemingly impossible by definition-which is an incoherent argument. My point regarding naive/simplistic determinism is that assuming we're "meat machines" is an example of naive/simplistic determinism. It would still be an extreme oversimplification, but it would be much closer to reality to assume we're some sort of extremely complex dynamical system. As an example, if we look at the paper "Mental Models and Human Reasoning," it discusses how human reasoning actually appears to work. This is my short interpretation of a pretty long paper, so I recommend reading it for yourself and fact-checking me, but it appears that we basically run a bunch of simulations and then make inferences based on those simulations. The models, simulations, and inferences are comprised of the symbols we have developed to describe our world via previous experiences. It is important to remember that the components of these simulations are not just binary data stored in memory somewhere, but instead are made up of living cells that all have some small measure of competence and intelligence themselves. Every cell in the human body is capable of having simple goals and working towards them, and the components of these simulations are those living cells. In my last paragraph, I said "narratives may shape our future actions, but the narratives don't shape our current actions," and I specifically mean the narratives we tell ourselves about why we choose x instead of y. Although those narratives don't influence our current decisions-this has been verified by several studies showing how we actually make decisions before we become consciously aware of them-those narratives do shape our future actions. Meaning the actions we take today are, in some important way, based on the narratives we came up with yesterday. The main reason I'm not going to address the issue you bring up with consciousness is that there isn't a good definition that is commonly accepted, and I'm pretty sure you might reject mine. If we have two very different definitions of something, then we're unlikely to come to some common agreement about the broader implications. I simply use the components of the word "conscious" and the suffix "-ness," which comes out to something like "the quality or state of perceiving and responding to one's environment." By my definition, it would be trivial to prove the existence of consciousness in an external system. However, most definitions of consciousness suffer from the same circular problems I mentioned with most definitions of free will. They are often impossible by definition, which is incoherent by definition
@@crypticnomad Yes, I agree with you that you need to redefine "free will" in order for it to not be "impossible" and "determined" at the same time. You cannot be compatibilist without doing things like equating "free will" with "will" or some other definition that's different than what all the traditional "free will" thinkers of the past (who rejected determinism and pure causality) were postulating. We agree on this, "free will" needs a different ("modern"?) definition to be compatible and that essentially reduces the idea of "freedom" to something illusory. This is a deterministic view. Compatibilism is, in essence, determinism that somehow wants to redefine "free will" for the sake of making it make sense. I'm not saying that you are arguing against all forms of determinism.. I quoted the adjectives you used to qualify the determinsm you criticised ("simplistic" and "naive") for a reason. What I'm saying is that one of these is true (A or B): A) you actually have found an experimental test that can unequivocally set the limits on how to differentiate an "extremelly complex dynamical system" (with consciousness) from what you interpret as a "meat machine" (without consciousness). B) you don't have such a proof but believe that "thinking machines" are not "extremely complex dynamical systems" because either: (B1) you are including it as part of the definition of what you interpret as a "thinking machine" to mean or (B2) you see it as a necessary belief/dogma that doesn't require proof I'm gonna assume you are in "B1": this makes it a question of terminology. In this case, you are probably using the term "machine" to equate it with a very particular computational model that might, in your view, be unable to represent the dynamic complexity I do see as necessary for "thinking machines", in which case please give me a different word for it.. if you don't like the word "machine" I don't mind using a more generic term like "system"... the important thing is that it must be necessarily be a causal-based system driven by natural laws.. so every thread of thinking process must be determined by nature, and thus behaves predictably and in a way that could not have been any different. To me, the term "machine" fits with that definition. Because my definition of machine is "any process that follows an unbroken cause-effect chain" then EVERYTHING is a big machine... ideas are machines, the ripples in physical fields are machines.. feelings are machines. Only when something is "causeless" does it behave non-mechanistically. If it has a cause, then it's just following the causal chain without any real agency. You can't simultaneously be stuck with the old definition of "free will" and accept causality. Your new definition must, necessarily, be applicable within a process that has no capacity to act outside of the causal chain, like a machine.
@@highvalence7649 if they are determined then they are not free choices. There's a difference between "will" and "free will". The whole point in discussion is the idea of freedom. He's saying we are not really free to choose differently than what we choose (you'd need to be a different person 2:39). We are not free. We have a will, sure.. just not a free will.
@@Ferkiwi i'm not sure why you're saying they are not free choices. We can make choices that are not restricted by some external force. Our desires may be determined, but under that scope we can make choices according to our desires and wishes. I was an anti free will person before, using the same arguments you are using. Ultimately i dont take a position on free will per se, as I'm just not sure how exactly we'd define that, but it seems clear that we can make choices that are free in the sense that we have The ability to choose what we want. We didn't choose what we want, but given that we want a variety of things we can make some choices according to those wants. It's pretty simple.
@@highvalence7649 It's not only our desires what's determined though. Also our circumstances, our physical capacity to do things (we can't just "choose" to fly and float away), even the rules of logic through which we finally decide the outcome are essentially mathematical rules, we choose based on the weight each of the choices have to us. Our thoughts are not simple, they are complex amalgamation of factors and rationality, so amongst that amalgamation, isolating exactly what is that makes us "free" has not been something that anyone has, so far, been able to reliably pin-point. At least as far as I'm aware. I think that if our mind was simple enough for us to understand, then we would not be intelligent enough to do it. By necessity, we are unable to exactly understand fully the factors that determine our "choices" because if we did, then that would become a new factor that we would necessarily have that could affect our choice, so being oblivious of our own motives is almost a requirement for us to move.
This is a profoundly lovely discussion again thank you both. I certainly went through a long period of self-destruction - actually since my early childhood, and especially after my life and sense of self began to disintegrate when I was age 50. Marriage collapse, ten year divorce, during which time my new partner killed herself and I survived what would have been my suicide. Then many layers of self-inflicted traumas. Lack of self love. Self-loathing instead. Gradually I emerged. It hurts. Dabrowski - positive disintegration. There is a point to the pain. I realised I could ask for help. I realised I am still here for a reason; many reasons.
And so I align with the being of accepting and submitting to what happens - letting go of the belief that I know what is best for me, which at an existential level I do not (or at least I am still learning), and letting go the belief (conditioning) that somehow I can control our destiny.
Life is what happens to us and how we respond. Our freedom is in our responses. (For me) optimism is part of my fuel for wonderment. I am grateful for my traumas. Without them I would be far less grown emotionally and spiritually. I would be a lesser man. I want to be the best version of myself. Love and gratitude to you both, Alan Chapman
And this actually solved for me what is meant by surrender.. Thanks Kastrup!😊
Man has a method of choice that represents his current capacity but also the power to improve it in the future. This means that regardless of his existential level, man has free will. This means that man will live different experiences where he will have the responsibility to observe, think and understand them. He will improve his choice method by paying responsible attention to the present, by remembering the past and how much he was wrong or right in the choices he made, he will also think about the future through more realistic planning. Determinism only tells us that "the sky is blue", and does not emphasize the method of improvement and human power, because knowledge means power, and this is valid in a perfect form when it improves us, and through the good that it we do to ourselves, but which we must also do to those around us. Instead, what does man see when he sees his weaknesses and inabilities, he wants to believe that it is something he cannot change, because he has a weak will and most of the time he likes lies more than the truth, he likes to lie to himself , to lie and he gets used to being lied to. Most of the time, if he were honest or if he loved and valued the truth more, he would understand that everything that is negative can be changed more quickly, with the exception of a vice. But to fight a vice through will and understanding, it is necessary to find a very effective method, and then free will is tested very strongly. Then the brain is used by thinking as strongly as possible by analyzing the problem through as many observations as possible. So whether we think about the spiritual or moral aspect, or the existential one through which we make our thinking and intelligence more efficient, we can understand that in the long term free will is built from the best possible morality and the best possible efficiency of intelligence. Determinism only tells us that our actions are influenced by a chain of causes and effects, but man cannot notice that there are other chains of causes and effects in time that man chooses through free will. Changes do not take place immediately, because after free will no matter how beneficial it is, determinism is manifested, and then free will through the need or better said the responsibility or the awareness of the benefit of improving ourselves. So since the beginning there has been free will, and the determinism in which we can find ourselves at a given moment shows us certain specific states, but which can be changed through improvement through a feeling and thinking as efficient as possible through free will. Free will determines a certain form of determinism, and this is essential and cannot be confused with the latter.
In Spanish, we have a sarcastic saying when someones says that things could have been different: "If my grandmother had wheels, she would be a bicycle". "Could have been" is all in your imagination, your grandmother is not a bicycle.
we have this in Italy too ... but is more related to "deal with what you have" and dealing is an act of free will.
@@francesco5581 You chose to answer my comment here because you read it, and u are interested on consciousness, and u have an idea of free will and determinism elaborated through your education and interrelation with other beings, and you have emotional and mental conditionings, and u are experimenting an evolution through ur hundreds of lifes (if u believe in them or ur one life if not), and u have a relation with parents, friends, relatives, unknown people which had an influence on you, desires, fears, etc. etc. etc. The list would be endless. So, your choice was not unconditioned, unless you believe you are an enlightened being, meaning one who reached such a high conscious state that allows him to "see" all these infinite connections and obviate them (but being honest, if that was the case you woulndt be in this world...).
So, the point is that you MADE A CHOICE but at the same time the choice was DETERMINED.. And one would say: How is that possible? In the same way that that we can only see "me vs others" when actually we are me and others at the same time (because the Universe is fractal and continuum), we can only see "bad vs good" when all is bad and good at the same time (because everything has a purpose), etc... Labels (determinism-free will, good-bad, me-others, etc) are symbols our mind needs to classify and survive in our physical existence (u needed to differentiate between a dangerous and not dangerous animal, etc), they are concepts, mental constructs. When u assimilate this, you then stop offering resistance against reality (because you realize you are what you are and what you need to be) and you flow with it and stop suffering.
But yes,,, its a process,,,, I understand that tomorrow we need to pay bills, grow up children, etc... But it helps.
Wow! That's so clever!
We all choose when to conform or rebel against what others believe to be right, based upon what sports teams, political systems, or philosophies we choose to make part of our nature. We can all choose what landscapes in nature to focus quantum entanglements with, and which to reduce quantum entanglements with, as we architech the landscapes which adorn our natures.
"If my aunt had nuts she'd be my uncle. " Americans a bit more crude ya know 😊
Note that determinism is not the same as pre-determinism, which has been completely debunked by quantum theory (basically Einstein's famous saying "God does not play dice" was debunked by further scientific experiments in quantum mechanics after hia death, which is very widely accepted).
So things aren't pre-determined, meaning there is a newness, a creative freshness in every moment (despite the obvious aspects of reality that in fact are influenced by past events, however the quantum fluctuations that create newness can never be predicted, thus they cannot be predetermined).
So things happen, bur what causes them to happen? This is a question that at this point of our scientific level of understanding we have no answer to.
On a philosophical level, as Kastrup does, we can then call this creative force free will (personal) or determinism (impersonal), both being technically true, as they both represent the two aspects (personal and impersonal) of the Universe.
So, indeed in that sense, it could be called the "same thing".
A) That's not what the difference between determinism and pre-determinism is.
Determinism means everything will play out according to cause and effect, that could theoretically be predicted if you had enough knowledge.
Pre-determinism is that everything was all planned and known in advanced.
And B) Quantum Physics has not been proven to be truly random.
There are valid deterministic interpretations of QM, like de Broglie-Bohm pilot wave theory (non-local hidden variables), Many Worlds, etc.
“Dualism is samsara in Sanskrit; ka 'khorwa (ka 'khor ba) in Tibetan. It means going round in circles: the process of failing to get what we want through the very methodology of trying to get what we want. Samsara is the self-defeating process that dualistic beings continually re-enact until they begin to feel suspicious about it.”
- Khandro Déchen and Ngakpa Chögyam
10:54 “The universe […] is an organism, it interacts, it has a parity of purpose and a harmony of identity. Most questions on the order of, “Why are we here?” can’t be answered because they presuppose that each of us is discrete, set off from the universe or environment, confronting it rather than a subsection of it.”
- Philip K. Dick, The Exegesis of Philip K. Dick
“It is what it is”
no "It is stranger than we can think"
It just is
There is no why .
@@ruskinyruskiny1611 “reality is not only stranger than we suppose, it may be stranger than we can suppose.” - J.B.S. Haldane
@@sunchis717 “why not”
I've struggled to articulate this as well as Bernardo, but the idea I've punted around is that free will & determinism are a false dichotomy built on a faulty premise - the premise of a discrete self. Categorizations are purely the borders drawn onto the maps of our minds, but in reality there is no distinction. The land between nations is the same dirt. As the Buddhists say, one with everything. The idea here is that is-ness, the experience of being-at-large; this is free will incarnate. Debating if your mind is the originator of free will or the subject of determinism is categorically the same as debating if your left kneecap is the origin of free will or determined. The categories are false mental projections. Categorization is Wile E Coyote gleefully charging over the edge of the cliff and not falling because he hasn't looked down yet to see he stopped standing on ground a while ago. In order for you to have free will or determinism, you must buy into the idea of a discrete you - the crucial step which materialists have skipped and mystics have studied tirelessly. Is-ness is beyond category, inseparable, simultaneous, and our curse or cross to bear is the mind which exhausts itself cutting the world into the smallest quarks to answer a question it doesn't realize is born out of ignorance.
This
YES!🙌
The problem I find myself running into here is that, objectively speaking, consciousness does not exist - it's a category error created by my subjective experience; but also, objectivity does not exist, because experience by definition is always subjective.
It is remarkable to witness how influential was for Bernardo to have a conversation with Tantric teacher Igor Kufayev a couple of years ago, even if Bernardo would not admit it publicly.
Particularly how that showed itself in the conversation that followed with Swami Sarvapriyananda of Vedanta Society where Bernardo, encouraged by Igor to delve into great Indian spiritual tradition, came equipped with some basic information coming from Vedic thought.
If Bernardo continues delving into Tantric and Vedic wisdom it’ll give him even more clarity on this question of Free Will vis a vis Determinism. For despite undeniable brilliance displayed in this excerpt there are mixing of levels of Reality when it comes to how Will functions at each of its respective levels of manifestation.
Where can I find the Kufayev interview? Bernardo and Sarvapriyananda convo was a good. I made concept artworks on my website including Kastrups work and Vedanta/Trika (ravibajnath.design) under metaphysics if interested.
@@RaviBajnaththe interview is on Kufayev’s channel serviced by his team. Google Kufayev Kastrup ‘The end of philosophy as we know it’, it’ll show up.
point me to a book to read on this topic
and me
Igor Kufayev writing comment here, cool.
I think the same. Free will is the unfolding of nature - "could have been" is the same as imagining you were someone else.
there is a problem , that this "unfolding" created a meaningful universe where morality plays a big deal ... and morality require free will. Also what is nature ? is a bit ambiguous ... Is consciousness ? then how a consciousness cannot have free will ? by who is governed the idealism consciousness if you remove free will ?
Nature is an abstraction of the quantum or more fundamental processes.
But the interesting thing is that imagining "could have beens" does influence future decisions, even though these "could have beens" cannot be accessed directly. Fantasy in this way is an indirect method of interacting with reality: changing the present based on the past until the principles of these changes are integrated into the "future." I put future in quotes because, ontologically, it never really arrives.
@@Jack-in-the-country exactly, we pass a good part of our life thinking what could have been with different choices ( a bad habit btw if not about moral issues)
Yes... but this is essentially the same as saying that "free will" is just an imaginary illusion. That's not free will, that's determinism. Most free will advocates would not agree with that.
All the so called "compatibilists" just redefine what "free will" is to mean something different than actually having the ability to act differently than how you actually did act.
Free will and determinism are not compatible. If the only way to make them compatible is to redefine them, then you are just working around the bush to avoid accepting the incompatibility.
The discussion will always remain superficial until the “you” who is making choices in brought into question
The discussion of free will vs determinism always address the “could have been” but always seem to ignore the other side of the coin: “what can be”. And I think that’s what many people mean when they refer to free will. It’s the agency to logically choose future actions and behaviors and change habits and choices over time.
"Man can do what he wills but he cannot will what he wills." - Schopenhauer
The big issue with free will 🎯
But a man's will is not fully definitive. In other words, there are many choices that will satisfy a mans will. Those are the genuinely free choices.
Man can't even do what he wills, because that's just more will. Haha.
never follow a man with mommy issues #schopenhauer
The mind of someone that chooses what he wills looks the same as one who does not.
But there is one thing sir...if we don't have free will, what does it mean to have willpower? How under certain circumstances are we able to act the way we had never acted before? How we change things suddenly by merey accepting that our choices if made consciously can have long lasting and satisfactory effects? What does it mean to be conscious otherwise? Apart from accepting our limitations that we can’t control what is happening, does this mean that we don’t accept our power over certain things, and not just a few things but every now and then and see which the best???
This is basically what “Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law” means in practice, once you strip away some of the esoteric language. Things doing what they do because of what they are. Crowley’s contention was that we are apparently the only species that actively strives to set ourselves against our own nature and that we should then make the conscious choice to discover what we actually are and live in accordance with that.
But people can misinterpret that, which they have. It doesn’t mean we have freedom from consequences, it still pays to be mindful.
I always find it amazing that those guys ( the ones who are considered the contemporary great minds and philosophers) are so keen to talk about how they are able to grasp what nature is itself, plus countless ontologies on the "nature of nature" deep down to the very fabric of the universe with so much confidence that they know what they are dealing with, yet none of them is able to bring forth some ideas on how can humans live in this world without destroying themselves and "nature".. maybe "nature" wills or "chooses" this too..
What they do... it's a new form of poetry, really... ;)) Quite enjoyable for many.
Hola, muy buenos días, leelos y escuchamos, por que deberían de recetar una fórmula mágica de convivencia?, vaya fantasía esperar algo semejante, además de ingenuo, perdona no trato de ofenderte, tiene que decirte alguien como comportarte en tu vida?, no eres lo suficientemente serio para vivir una vida consistente, seria, comprometida, lo que hagan los demás no depende de, depende de eso mismo, que sean serios, comprometidos, sensibles, empaticos.
@@sydney456Buen día, para mi si lo es.😊
@@milainkstincto Yes, may be it is indeed a nature's choice or will. They knew due to their involvement and the nature of nature finds its way towards an outcome.
Hola, buenas tardes, quedate con tu primer parrafo, parece que es asi, yo asi lo creo y lo suscribo, el segundo lo estamos poniendo nosotros, en este caso tu, nuestro intelecto.@@sunchis717
Big fan of Bernardo's work and completely agree with this perspective. If you say "I have free will" or "I don't have free will" first you have to define what you mean by "I". If you mean the persona you perceive as "I" (as the limits within your physical body), then no. However, you (the real you), are far more than your body. You are literally a manifestation of the entire universe itself. Just consider the countless events that occurred from the beginning of creation to bring you to this moment in space and time. The feeling that you are just your body (or mind), that is an illusion.
This is not some sort of woo woo, if you consider the facts logically (as Bernardo describes here), it is an inescapable fact. Your persona is finite and limited, but that is not the real you. You (your persona), is the universe experiencing itself from a given perspective. The real you is far more than you can possibly imagine, and regardless of how it may seem, life plays out exactly as you intend.
This is why so many religions and philosophies speak about gratitude, love, and forgiveness. When you hate and fear, you are hating and fearing yourself, and when you love, forgive, and accept (even the worst aspects), you are loving, forgiving, and accepting yourself.
We make choices, but we don't choose what choices we make.
@@dieselphiendphysical processes in the brain create "irrationality". It's not a thing that exists in the world beyond the physical state of the nervous system (based on external inputs or self-referential thoughts)
@@dieselphiend If all things are interdependent, when do you make YOUR determination, inherently on your own wothout influence or cause? You are only making it in thought because your determination depends on everything else.
Thought is just the reaction, or sense, of brain activity that has already occurred (according to some MRI experiments)
@dieselphiend Entropy is sometimes defined by the number of possible states a system can have. High entropy means more possible states or configurations, while low entropy means fewer possible configurations.
For example, a chessboard with one piece has 64 possible states, but one with three pieces has many more.In your argument, you're essentially equating freedom with high entropy and constraint with low entropy.
When a man gets out of jail, his "human system" experiences higher entropy-he can now exist in more possible states within the universe, not just a single "chess square" like a jail cell. However, chess pieces themselves don't have free will; their movements are determined by the player, and those movements are constrained by the rules of the game. Similarly, the player's choices are limited by the "entropy" of the system-the range of possible actions dictated by the rules and the current state of the board.
Moreover, the choices made by the mind are further confined by what enters the mind-our thoughts, decisions, and perceived options are influenced by the information we receive and the experiences we have. Just as the chess player can only make moves based on the current state of the board, our minds can only make choices within the limits of what we know and perceive.
Of course we do. The question is what you think of when you refer to "we", the person or the consciousness? That's the difference.
This is a beautiful conversation ❤ I am searching the comments for answers. It is that good.
I can choose to create or expand upon what my nature is, through repetitive action, this is an exemplary embodiment of free will
I like Bernardo's reasoning here, and I agree with it for the most part. However, I think that I would put more of an accent on the fact the human nature - which, unlike the nature of any other entity in Nature, is self-transcending - is such that this temporary "physical" form, i.e. the body, which I mistake to be the locus of my identity, gets conflated by with the true Self: the Universal Will, which is the True and Supreme Identity.
The upshot of this mistaken identity is that, as soon as one awakens to realize that the "I" - my real identity - is not associated with this body, but rather with the Universal Will who has only temporarily disassociated itself into 8 billion+ vessels that I like to call "T.E.L.O.'s" (temporarily extended limiting objects) - or bodies - then "I" am given a choice to exercise the ultimate decision of free will of any volitional being, and the highest state of freedom that a human being can achieve: either to choose to follow the petty passions and desires associated with the illusory ontology of the finite microself; or to give oneself over to the inner call coming from the higher ground of the infinite MacroSelf, my Supreme Identity with the Universal Will.
Telo, means body in Serbian. So it fits well.
@@metalneandertal26 Yes, you're right. In Russian, as well. I'm a Russian speaker, so that's what I borrowed it from.
@6:28 " the structure of reality is not the structure of language." LLMs would disagree, the possibility of meaningful equivalence is the theory behind how they work
I think Split Brain patients should be included in the conversations about consciousness and free will. To me it looks like our brain has at least two, maybe more "operating" systems. How did they evolve, who's incharge, of what?
I like Robert Sapolsky's views. But again. We seamingly have this high level "Dos" system running in the background. I'm really looking forward to some science that tries to connect the dots, with Split Brains, consciousness and free will.
To settle the issue:
Our macrostate is physically, biologically, culturally, socially, and ideologically deterministic. But we exercise free will within our local volitional state.
As simple as that.
Furthermore, you have the free will to do anything you want to do.
But before you choose, you must ask yourself: "Am I willing to suffer the consequences or reap the glory?"
Every choice is not determined, because the act of me saying that could be denied by choice immediately, choice implies being in the moment only with decisions, anything that came before can be known to choose from and anything afterwards can choose the same way, even for or against this whole statement.
Eliminate regret from your life, I concur.
But you didn’t chose the parameters of your choice, like you don’t chose to have a brain or fingers to type, and you don’t chose the conditioning that made you who you are.
Interesting points, however I believe Bernardo is being inconsistent. My reason is this, (at 0.43) Bernardo says "there is no external environment beyond nature to impose choices on nature." Then he says "what nature chooses to do comes out of itself". But what is it that defined what "itself" is, it must have come from something external.
The question to answer is this, when we make choices are we discovering who we are (determinism) or are we creating who we are (free will)?
Bernardo is presuming that what nature is, is already decided. But then that begs the question, if our choices are already determined, then who determined them. And if it wasn't nature then it must be something external to nature.
The only view consistent with no external environment beyond nature, is that nature is not discovering itself through choices. Instead choices are an act of self creation, and are genuinely free.
Why do you think that nature “must come from something external”? He is defining nature as “all that exists”, in which case there can not be anything external to it by definition. Nature is the totality of all that is, so it can’t be anything other than what it is.
@@CampingforCool41 What Bernardo is assuming is that, nature is already FULLY defined. In other words, the story of your life is like a movie, where you don't know what comes next, but it is already determined, because "it is what it is". This obviously begs the question, who created the movie? Well, it certainly did not create it self, since "it is what it is". There for there must have been something external to the movie, that created the movie. This is the inconsistency.
However quantum physics teaches us that nothing is FULLY defined. Nature is uncertain. There for to assume that nature "is what it is" is to presume there is something deterministic behind the uncertainty we observe. So lets be clear, this is an assumption that is contrary to our observations. But since we observe uncertainty, why not accept that nature is uncertain. And as such, you can not say nature "is what it is", because nature has not decided what it is yet. And the process of deciding what it is, is a genuine free will act of self creation. This is the only way you can say that there is nothing external to nature. Nature must possess free will, so that it is capable of creating what it is.
@@Curious112233 I think you might be misunderstanding what he means. The fact that Nature is uncertain and can change from moment to moment doesn’t contradict that Nature as a whole is what it is right /now/. He is saying that the universe has free will and is deterministic at the same time, according to his definitions of them.
@@CampingforCool41 I believe I do understand what he means, which is why I point out the inconsistency. His idea of free will is not what most people would consider as genuine free will. It is just a will that is not really free. It is actually determined by the nature of nature.
When you say, "The fact that Nature is uncertain and can change from moment to moment doesn't contradict that Nature as a whole is what it is right /now/"
As I understand it, this is saying that the uncertainty of nature is only apparent uncertainty due to our limited knowledge, but the reality is that Nature as a whole is FULLY certain and determined.
But to say that Nature as a whole IS what it is. Implies that nature did not decide what it IS, which means something else must have decided what it IS.
I'm saying that to avoid an external maker we need to assume that nature possesses the ability to create itself, and it does this through its free will choices.
The nature of 'Cause' inhere in the 'Effect' and not vice versa ; so through reasoning it is found that, in absence of 'Effect' the 'Cause', as such, also disappear.
I think it was Stephen Hawkings who basically said ‘The Universe is Deterministic, but since we have no way of knowing what has been determined, we may as well act as though it’s free will’
Basically’Eh, whadaya gonna do, hunh?’fugetaboudit
Queue philosophy: obviously nature has a will. And so do you!
The debate is over the adjective (judgment): free.
I think of human capacity for predicting, planning, and/or intention..
I can plan to water my flowers next Thursday, and predict that I will do it the day before (Wednesday), but none of that will really matter if I intend to un alive myself Tuesday.
It seems like we can time things. But then..we really measure 2 way again.
Compatibilism: you can choose what to do, but you can’t choose what you want to do.
You can't choose (example ideal action) what you want to do because your preconditioning determines the next course of action. The brain (a predictor) depends on the stored memories to come up with the best possible course of actions. It has no way of knowing what the ideal course of action is in the absence of any previous input. So, it maps its available data (memories) to produce an output (action) that almost always is not an ideal choice. You are enslaved by your previous karmas (your actions and all the bad things you have absorbed from the society).
This is the phylosophy of SPINOZAAAA. Also Einstein said "my god is Spinoza's one"
(Also related to the old eastwrn philosophies)
Anyway beatiful video:)
Very helpful as always
One thing to consider is that our amount of consciousness is the same as our ability to accept. so the more actions we think we are consciously taking the less conscious we are being. The less "free will choices" we are making the more free will we are actually exerting
Every choice (thought generation, image formation, followed by action) we make is a product of the past memories (preconditioning, habits etc). In other words, we are prisoners to our own past. The future is just a form of the modified present (present is modification of the past moment to moment). Therefore, there is no such thing as free will. The only way to take control is to dissolve the past so that future decisions are no longer dependent on conditionings from the past.
Causality but not determinism and neither probabilistic. Totality can never 100% predict its next move because it’s always a novel state space. Causal emergentism but empirical indeterminism.
Thanks.
The question isn’t whether man has choice, but whether he is free by nature or completely determined. If you deny that man is free, then it’s obvious to conclude (as Bernardo does) that there is no distinction between free will and determinism. A choice which isn’t free is no choice at all.
The ideat of being "free from" means being separate and independent from. Where's the separation in reality? We are a part of nature. We breath nature. Our cells are nature. We are born and die into nature. The separated self is an illusion.
@@eprd313 To be free by nature does not mean or imply that we are “separate from” anyone or anything. Reality is non-dual, as you point out. Non-dual reality, however, does not necessitate pure determinism. To live according to one’s nature as a free human being is to not be enslaved to the false idea that we are a separate self or that our entire life, including all our choices are purely determined. So long as we don’t live consciously according to our free nature, we have no choice but to be enslaved to our deterministic patterns of thought, behavior, emotions, and environment. Freedom does not deny the fact that much of our life and reality is determined. However, as free human beings we have the capacity to interact consciously, intelligently, and synergistically with the unfolding of reality, to the extent that we live according to our free nature.
@@Aaron-xb4rq again, free from what? If there's something you are free from it means you are not that thing, ie. you are separate from that. So I ask again, free from what? We are part of everything. Our freedom is the freedom of an unbound totality, for which our will is a minuscule illusion
@@Aaron-xb4rq our deterministic pattern of thoughts, behaviour and emotion *IS* our will. If you think it is something else that's where you create the egoic illusion that there's something superior and separate about you that has control over the forces of nature.
@@eprd313 Free from the illusion that you are a separate self. You are not a separate self, as we both agree. However, according to your logic, freedom means separation. So to be free from the idea of separation would mean to be separate from the idea of separation. The illusion of separation is the whole problem, so why define freedom in terms of separation? That just supports the delusion. Freedom has nothing to do with separation. There is no separation whatsoever. Reality is non-dual, as we both agree. Therefore, freedom cannot be defined in terms of the false concept of separation.
Freedom is to live in accordance with one’s nature - to actualize one’s essential potential. If one is not free, then they are not (for a host of possible reasons) actualizing their potential.
What most often plagues and enslaves mankind and prevents people from actualizing their potential is the false belief in separation - that you are a separate self and that you are your thoughts, feelings, emotions, and conditioned reactions to your environment. This is not who you are. Who you are is not purely determined. If this is who you think you are, then you are enslaved by ignorance of who you really are. You are not living in accordance with your nature - you are free, but you don’t know it. You are self-imprisoned by your belief that you are a separate self.
This is why free will isn’t ultimately about choice. Free will is about our nature. So the question becomes: what is our nature? Ultimately, who are we?
This is where it seems you believe that we are “our deterministic pattern of thoughts, behavior and emotions.” That this is “our will” and that we are determined to act in accordance with it. This is not who you are. To believe so, is to be enslaved by self-ignorance. From this vantage point, it is easy to conclude that determinism = free will. That is, that there is no free will. The will, from this perspective, is purely determined. Self-knowledge is the key that sets one free from this delusion.
You said that to think otherwise is to “create the egoic illusion that there’s something superior and separate about you that has control over the forces of nature.” This highlights precisely the key to self-knowledge which is necessary to be free from the delusion of self-ignorance. Who you are is the consciousness that transcends all thoughts, feelings, and emotions, and it is not separate from you. You are this consciousness. Thoughts, feelings, and emotions arise within the consciousness that you are. Thoughts, feelings, and emotions are determined in that sense, but they do not determine you. However, if one is ignorant of who they are and is not aware of the consciousness that they are, then all those “external” things that arise within the consciousness that you are will “control you,” as you point out. Alternatively, to act in accordance with one’s nature - consciousness - is to be free. If we know who we are, then we can observe thoughts, feelings, and emotions arise, along with everything else that is continuously unfolding in our environment, and choose to act in accordance with our free will - not purely determined and enslaved by all that arises in the consciousness that we are. This is freedom. This is who you are.
Life is emergent. Letting go of the control allows a greater emergence and a higher degree if manifesting more of what you intend. My own journey experientially. Peace 🙏
Schopenhauer says that the will is blind, but that we have an intellect that gives us the possibility of sight. Humans have an intellect fused with a will, so they serve the will. Through gradual knowledge and the pursuit of knowledge, we can glimpse and examine our will. The greater the distance, the more room we have for a conscious decision in accordance with the objective state. In this way, we transform ourselves at the same time and thus break away from mere nature.
Perfect explanation of Free Will vs Determinism. I had the same argument however Kastrup puts it in better terminology. My question however still stands and I hope you make an episode with Kastrup on the following. Is there at least two different experiences, where one experience is not known by the other experiencer? Ex: a pig being slaughtered not in my vicinity of knowing/feeling its pain… does the pig feel pain while I don’t know about it?
Wow. I would like to know it too 🤯
Yes
There is something we can't explain. May be the science of conciousness can explain in the future.
Kastrup is throwing me for a loop. Got my brain all twisted.
Osho said that. There is only interdependence. Free will and determinism are nonsense. IN BOTH CASE, YOU CREATE ARTIFICIAL SELF FOR MOVEMENT.
thats true. thats reality. thank you
To understand the totality of being is to negate individualism.
My toenail is quite different from my eyes.
We have free will in 3 dimensions but not in 4 dimensions. We are free to choose any available option in the conventional common sense notion of free will. But if we could roll the Universe back to the time point when we chose an arbitrary option and go back to that time as we were then (without hindsight), we would choose the exact same outcome because our reasons for choosing what we did initially are identical. Hence we are not free when taking the 4th dimension of time into account. This is precisely what Kastrup means when he says that free will is determinism. Our ‘freedom’ to choose is ultimately an illusion because there is no other possibility of any other events occurring except what is actually happening. Our choosing is just a part of the stream of cause and effect. No matter what you choose to do at any specific moment, you were destined to choose that option for all time
Nope. There is a "could have been". They are rare, but they exist. These are moments where you fully experience a "fork" in your experience, where you feel an almost 50/50 pull in either direction, and yet you take one of them. Also, any present choice affects all future choices, and all present choices affect past choices. So determinism flies out the window due to non-linearity. By going to a therapist and healing a past trauma, it can change the entire "past" within you (present choices affecting past choices). And also, all present choices affect all future choices (for self-obvious reasons). So every time we make a choice, we choose for our entire being across the entire "timeline" of our life. Finally, there are ways to think about free will and determinism which are more subtle using geometry. If you imagine your being as a cube, and your life's experience as a 2D projection of the cube, with linear time and experience as being a rotation of the cube which shifts the shadow projected in 2D, then you BOTH have free will (the choice to rotate the cube in one way or another, which translates into a specific series of shadows shifting in a specific way), and yet you are fully determined (the cube is "what it is", regardless of how you rotate it).
Nope
To truly prove or disprove "determinism" would require a complete duplicate but independent test universe with everything in it except the chooser, and then the chooser is placed into that universe to see if it makes the same choice.
As much as I like Bernardo, I wish he wouldn't talk in such broad generalizations when it comes to subjects like free will. It always takes me a minute to try and figure out what he's actually saying here.
Yes, we are what we are - and our choices always have to be, in some sense, restricted to the confines of our respective degrees of freedom. We are bound by the intrinsic values of Nature itself and so we're *always* acting through the lens of those values because we're after certain things. We desire those eternal values of Truth, Beauty, Happiness & Love itself. Foundationally, we're always after these things because they are (to put a bit more of a romantic spin on it) inherent in the divine being and we, as dissociated aspects of that divine reality, yearn for them specifically because we have forgotten what we really are even as our essential nature cannot be anything but that.
This is how we can act in direct contradiction w/ God (committing acts of evil and cruelty) even as we essentially are a part of it. And so where I think Bernardo slips up is to, in his mind, preassume that there's a given answer here. It's not a yes or no proposition. It's both at the same time. God both acts in accordance w/ itself (because the divine is what it is) and yet explicitly contradicts itself through being us.
We have to appreciate that, at the end of the day God doesn't really give a damn about my logic or Bernardo's logic. It's going to do whatever it wants because it's all that exists - and if that means outright forgetting what it is in order to have an experience of being Hitler, then it's going to do that too.
Do we have any good reason to think that God's capacity for manifestation is limited in some sense? I see no particular line of argument to think that. It seems to be able to set the rules and state of play however it wants for whatever reason because it itself is the source of all probability and outcome that exists.
In this 4d earth plane, there is free will. In higher dimensions our will lines up MUCH CLOSER to Source and they coincide a ton
No praise ,no fault only "There but for fortune go you or I"
There’s a lot of question begging easily being thrown out of his deterministic hat. Let’s start with an “abstraction “ which categorically is not defined as a physical feature of a deterministic universe.
I've never liked the idea of free will. People who say we have free will never define what they mean by "free will", because they don't know what they mean. Can one decide to not be part of this universe and still exist? There are many thousands (at least) of near death testimonies. During that experience, most of them say they don't want to go back to the Earth realm, but they are told they have to go back. If they are here describing their NDE, I guess that means they were sent back against their will. Don't tell me we have free will unless you have clearly defined what you mean by "free will".
I like to say the concept of "free will" is an oxymoron, it contradicts itself. To will means to be bound, restricted, limited etc.
Certainly that is not complete freedom.
What people usually think of although by being "free" is having options and being able to choose between them, and this fact is not inconsistent with determinism at all.
In simple terms: We can choose what we do but we cannot choose what we choose to do.
Yes 'could have been' is an illusion. And yes we can have a will that is literally 'causing' the next thought we have to pop into consciousness, since the will is not something separate from our brains, but identical to a subset of our brains. The issue is that this merely gives us a will, not a free will. Our will in this present moment was still fully determined by our brain state and the environment in the moment prior.
A very large portion of the choices nature makes for us we can't oversee, or understand, or may not even be aware of. In that sense, free will may be the same as determination, but determination doesn't necessarily imply free will. In other words, free will is simply personal determination - isn't that a tautology?
What can you say to someone who says they want free will separate from the ever obscured determinism?
Très intéressant.
Does an algorithm that selects the largest number from a set of numbers have free will then? Nothing is stopping it from selecting any of the numbers, but it will deterministically select the largest one (because it is what it is). How does it help our understanding of reality in any way to say that this algorithm has free will?
He says "free will is same as determinism" but his explanation indicates "There is only determinism. Free will is just an illusion we make up"
The essence of the argument is:
1. Free-will pertains to 2 things: Freedom on WHAT we choose, and the autonomy on WHO is choosing (agency).
2. Overall - all choices can be random or deterministic. It is obvious what we call randomness is just due to lack of complete understanding of the deterministic causal chain that we cannot explain. Before understanding germ theory, disease symptoms would appear 'random'. But inability to predict choices does not rule out determinism.
3. Argument for part 2: Even if choices are pre-determined, I am making those choices. Even if choose vanilla ice cream for my entire life, it is ME who is choosing. Based on MY preferences, biases, inclinations. Hence I have agency i.e. free will.
4. But 'What determines my preferences, biases, inclinations?' It's nature again. Illusion: "Choices are being made BY me" Reality: "Nature is choosing THROUGH me". A plant grows leaves. But Just because we chose to name the part (stem) of a whole(plant) does not mean the part 'stem' exists independent of the whole 'plant'.
5. Argument for part 1: I can say that "I did A, but I could have done B, C, D too". Firstly, B/C/D are imaginary "could haves". And also, the accurate statement would be "Nature chose to do A through me instead of B, C, D or a million other things".
In short, there is no free-will - except as a misunderstanding. Only determinism?
You're association with psychological continuity as free will is a completely separate argument. You're appeal to "ME" is absolutely unnecessary. "ME" is a fleeting feeling and there is absolutely no guarantee that you will maintain those preferences, biases or inclincations. The only thing guaranteed is your field of subjectivity, not autonomy over WHO is choosing.
Determinism and free will aren't the same, the conditions ensuring determinism are different from those that decide free will. The other option is 'the path not taken', in itself results in another set of condition. These three are all different.
I'm not convinced that the identification of determinism with free will actually works. There seems to be a confusion of semantics here. If nature allows choices and this state is deterministic because nature has the quality to be able to make choices, then this is only meaningful if a choice could have been something else because I chose an option and not another. So: I choose to drink from a glass of water; I choose to push the glass of water away. I can deliberately choose one and then the other to prove my capacity to choose. If you claim that the capacity to choose is a characteristic of natural properties and in this sense is deterministic then it makes the concept of determinism redundant, or conversely, it makes the concept concept of free will redundant.
Of course... ❤...
A freewill that may experience feelings of determination...freewill to choose to prioritize that determination...freewill to continue feeling
choosing
prioritize ..
carrying out decisions and actions ... from and through...freewill❤ mm
First part seems a bit tautological. The arrow of time makes it impossible to decide whether there's free will or not. That's why Marx says history is inevitably deterministic. However we may talk about degrees of freedoms within a random distribution, methinks.
If one considers it by Marx or any ultra-materialistical lens of reality, of course it is going to be tautological and impossible to fathom in reality. The problem is, materialistically, one cannot correctly consider the onthology of the being, and without considering the beings, you cannot comprehend it fully and will inevitably put it as tautological (but it is not).
I do not know if this is accurate but this is about the most accurate attempt to describe free will. I tip my hat to you sir!
This is the first step in ACA (12 step). You make a diagram of your family tree and get a big picture of what you came from. There's no way you could have turned out differently. That you can't pick your family already eliminates the majority of choice in life: genes, race, class which determine your foundational being.
But if every moment is an opportunity for self discovery it can also be an opportunity for self deception. If these opportunities are determined then what we have is the determined illusion of choosing or not choosing one of these opportunities. I don't understand what else choosing can mean per Kastrup's framework.
Great insights! Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think that Kastrup's take on free will is very close to - if not identical - to that of Sam Harris.
How would these two lives differ: someone who is allowing themself to be played by the universe vs. someone who is not?
All is One.
This is the answer.
Leaving the Antrophic bias. How it is the m/ultiverse? It seems that it is all about conciouss beings? Also they assume nature given. We really do not know how quantum realm is.
One the greatest philosophical arguments ever made.
😄
what? its nothing more than what two drunk philosophy students say in the pub. ...
@@matswessling6600 Not saying that it's original, just the argument itself is really great.
The fundamental flaw of logic here by Bernardo IMO is that somehow humans, who are conscious of being conscious, are somehow the same as ‘nature’… the Gnostics understood that our fallen self here in the physical is part of nature but inherently we can transcend nature as consciousness ie: being conscious of Consciousness.
There is less misunderstanding if you discuss this without using the term "free will."
The universe changes only according to the laws of the universe. Humans are part of the universe. Therefore, humans change only according to the laws of the universe. It's a simple syllogism.
After knowing all these, what happens to the knower ? Will the knower escape rebirth ? Finally what is the end result of knowing and understanding these truths ?
If by the word determined you mean non-random, then why don't you just say that? You obviously mean something completely different if you say that your thoughts are determined by your neuronal activity. Do you think you are saying that your thoughts are non-random because of your neuronal activity? This has a completely different meaning. The second one doesn't imply that you are somehow controlled by the neurons, which are controlled by the molecules and then the atoms. Imagining that your thoughts are controlled by particle interactions (Sabine Hossenfelder) is silly since particles don't know anything, so how can they control thoughts? What's the point of having a brain at all if it is just passing through the will of the universe? It's not only malarkey, but mysticism.
One small catch. Language is not nature. That doesn’t sound correct. Language is nature. It’s created from and by nature.
To nije slobodna volja, to je neslobodna "volja", odnosno nije ničija volja i nije uopšte volja, tek vačito "mrtvilo" kvazi-rasparčanog kvazi-dešavanja
Is what it is. We get it. Stop repeating yourself.
They make living out of ambiguity, confusion, easily convincing themselves and humanity out of desperation for answers they listen to them. my honest opinion is they are very pretentious idiots. In my experience Free will is everything and you get out of life only what you put into it.
Determinism is the same kind of illusion like a free will. Inside every macroscopic deterministic act lays quantum phenomenons that fully probabilistic.
are not fully probabilistic since we have meaningful things, a stable universe, life, matter ....
"It ain't what it ain't."
-Bizarro Bernard Kastrup
"Both and, Neither or, It's what it ain't ." - JuanHugeJanus
I really like Bernardo and I agree with so much of his work, but not on this one topic. I am a very "what is good in the way of belief" type when it comes to will and agree most with William James on this topic. The ability to see the particulars of a circumstance and actualize latent potentialities of the present moment is precisely what empowers us. It is the meaning of life. Materialists deny free will because they need consciousness to strictly follow mechanistic laws of physics so they deny their own experiential states and the intuitive sensation of making choices and acting on them. There is no need to fear radically departing from this materialist view and taking on one that is more powerful and has more meaning.
Suppose you were all individual experiential state without support to your will by nature. How do you sustain your will? Or, in other words, where does it come this will to be?
If you restrict mentally your choices only to what you perceive yourself to be, which is your experiential state, the feeling you have that you are actually making a choice, you isolate yourself from your physical background, and you contradict yourself, bc you refer the sensation you have of your own will to the idea you have of yourself, not to what you actually are.
You can't have a complete accurate idea of what you are bc your being isn't entirely conscious.
The very distinction between internal states and physical ones is only a tool made by language to refer to things more clearly, for communication.
What actually is can't be said bc it transcends duality. Language can only express duality. The distinction between internal states and physical ones is a form of duality, which means is a separation that makes sense only in a system of language, not in reality.
@@echoshadow1490 I agree with much of what you have said about the unity between mind and body and the fact that there is what is within awareness and what is outside of awareness existing in unity to make up the individual. That is exactly why the nature of the beliefs of our own conceptions of "will" are important. If someone is a fatalist and unaware of it, they may never reach their true potential or attempt to understand themselves enough.
@@BlackthorneSoundandCinema Fair point.
But I would understand a person who decides to take that path.
For in order to actualize herself, she needs to embrace chaos, in the sense that up to some point intellectualizing your emotions in of no help at all, and of no utility, and you need to step over.
This sensation is not pleasant at all, and feels like the most wrong and twisted thing you could ever do.
Some people never take that step. Others aren't even on the sufficient level of awareness to see the threshold.
@@echoshadow1490 You're starting move deeper into my point. No one should embrace chaos. Personal efficacy requires someone to respond rather than react. Understanding the causes of physiological responses to stimuli is essential for settling the emotional state and regaining the ability to think clearly using reason. If someone has goals, plans and purpose using conscious mental effort in the face of pressures and disturbances is required. If someone REACTS they are the effect of causes and are acting more automatically being swept away by underlying currents. Responding is thinking rationally and making the decisions and taking the actions that are optimal.
@@BlackthorneSoundandCinema Well, my assumption is that the goal of a person isn't just to respond to stimuli efficiently, but to become herself. One struggles to become complete.
Learning what are the underlying factors that make you react automatically to things is a good way to assert more control over yourself, but it isn't the goal, rather a tool for it.
We respond to stimuli bc they trigger some function we have. According to Carl Jung, we have four major functions: thinking, feeling, sensation, intuition.
One of them can develop, and become more complex than the others, leading to a more important conscious effort involving it: a person who has developed the thinking function over other functions will engage in it more often. This leads to potential suppression of the other functions, creating an imbalance. Those functions can't be engaged in consciousness all at once, bc they limit and twart each other. If one is a sensationist, he will do things for pleasure, suppressing thinking. This isn't a wrong thing: it only means that that person is made that way.
The problem arises when that particular function gets too extreme, and makes the other extreme as well for compensation. This will beget unconscious responses to conscious activity that can get violent and out of control.
So the whole thing about the difference between to respond to stimuli and to react to them means that when you react to them you are involving in a fight against something exterior to you, in order to avoid the confrontation with the unconscious. If you only respond, this means the other functions aren't extreme, and you are just doing things according to what you are, given the main function you use to address yourself to the world.
See, this distinction has nothing to do with rationality, or personal efficacy, bc it doesn't necessitate conscious effort to do anything. It merely recquires an accurate balance between the functions.
And how you do it? By "embracing the chaos". You do it by hindering the excessive development of the main function, by directing conscious activity towards the unconscious. In this way, you accept its contents, and those can't manipulate you without you not knowing it.
It isn't about rationality, bc rationality is thinking, and is only 1/4 of all the things you can do. It's about accepting yourself, which could also mean to accept self contradiction, and impulsive and irrational behaviour.
I still don't really understand why you would shoehorn in "free" when you're actually just describing will.. Except maybe to appease the free will believers
I guess the freedom is in the absense of anything outside ourselves restricting us to choose what we want in at least some instances. While what we want is perhaps determined by factors outside ourselves, we are still at least to some degree free to choose what we want.
Yes.. all these "compatibilists" just redefine what "free will" is to mean something different than actually having the ability to act differently than how you actually did act.
Free will and determinism are not compatible. If the only way to make them compatible is to redefine them, then you are just working around the bush to avoid accepting the incompatibility.
@@highvalence7649 That's not was kastrup said though... I don't see how there an be freedom from what he said, not even "at least to some degree".
He did say we make choices.. but that those choices are predetermined. If we can't change them then they aren't really "free" choices. So at that point why call it "free" will?
He's clearly a determinist, so I don't understand why he needs to redefine "free will" and pretend it's compatible with determinism.
@@Ferkiwi it is what he said elsewhere, i believe. In any case it is what i'm saying.
"If we can’t change them then they aren't really free choices".
It depends on what we mean by free choice. Do you just mean not predetermined choices / choices that are not inevitable given the prior causal chain of events that led up to that choice? Then sure we don't have free choices. But that’s not what i have in mind when i hear "free choice". I have in mind something like choices that we make that aren't forced upon us by someone else, that we aren't coerced to make, and that aren't so limited in terms of the available options that the best option given our desires isn't something we don't want anyway. Of course, in a sense the only option available to us is the one we are predetermined to make or we're inevitably going to make as an inevitable result of the prior causal chain leading up to it, however given that nature is what is and that therefore we are going to inevitably want certain things and choose what we want given that that choice is available, we are free to choose what we want given that that option is available and given that no one is forcing or coercing us to choose something different.
@@highvalence7649 Ok, I think the original commenter was referring specifically to what was said in this video.
But about what you are saying: I agree that the colloquial definition for "free" means "not forced upon us". And yet, if we think deeply about it, the line can be unclear ..because technically, if they blackmail or threaten me, I do still have the "choice" of not obeying, they can't really "force" me to comply. Even if they have me at gunpoint, I can sacrifice myself if it's for the greater good... so in a way, even under those situations, the term "free" is fuzzy. Of course you can't act in a "normal" way when you are being coerced, but determining what would be the "normal" non-coerced behavior is just as fuzzy, since the limits of what constitutes as coercion can become blurry the more subtle the act that influences you becomes. Is subliminal advertising a form of coercion?
In my opinion, when you think deeply about it and try to actually get to the bottom of what makes a choice free or not, I feel that you need to either assert that all our conscious choices are free, despite all the influence, or that none of them actually are, because of the influence. Anything in between seems to be more of a confusing blurry line that just tries to place arbitrary limits based on the knowledge we have about ourselves (which is a knowledge that will forever be incomplete) and the possible situations we can imagine.
À longer version of this idea had been written by Baruch spinoza 350 years ago - ethics
Who is free of will, is non determined.
Bernardo is completely wrong and misleading - first, according to QM reality (the universe) is not deterministic, and Bernardo knows it and acknowledges it in other recent interviews - 2nd, our intuition of free will is not just that our choices are determined by us as he says in 5m15s - rather they cannot be free if we are equivalent to a ball rolling down a rail - Bernardo himself claims a minute before that, that free will is incompatible with randomness for the usual reasons, but skips the point that determinism is traditionally rejected for the same reasons. The truth is that he simply advocates the usual traditional argument of compatibilism, but dresses it with fancy psychologically artistic and ultimately misleading language. according to which the moon does not just go around the sun like a ball on a rail, but rather the universe freely chooses that the moon go around the earth... ok... whatever...
Taoism, Buddhism and Vedanta said this word by word thousands of years ago. Hope we respect everything and everyone as oneness. Modern Ivory Tower and Woke science have been too arrogant, and they start canceling good scientists. If we respect each other’s point of view regardless of our differences, the world would be a harmonious garden full of variety of flowers, bug, and birds etc.
I agree that there is no "free" will in human beings. I believe that a human being is a manifestation of a spirit (as Federico Faggin says, using another term for "spirit", so as not to be misunderstood). The behavior of a terrestrial human being is correlated with the spirit, but it is also determined by many other factors. I agree with Federico Faggin when he says that spirits are ontological parts of a Whole that exists in everything. It is the set of all interconnected spirits. The correct metaphor would be the analogy with the human body. It is made up of groups of interconnected cells, the organs, which are in turn also interconnected. It is an interconnected Whole that is incomparably greater than the sum of its parts. And it has a purpose, which is probably to know itself. The purpose of the parts and the Whole is the same. To know oneself and/or to know themselves. This Whole would be, for me, the so-called Mind At Large. Bernardo Kastrup speaks of Mind At Large as if he knew it intimately. He says that spirits are not ontological units, as if he mastered metaphysical knowledge with great rigor. It is a great illusion to think that he knows Mind At Large. Metaphysics are hypotheses. No one masters metaphysics. Bernardo Kastrup's great merit, for me, is his capacity for expression, the scientific credibility given by his academic degrees and professional experience, the capacity for expression, which helps to clarify concepts and questions, his great intelligence, and the ability to challenge metaphysical materialism. I admire very much Bernardo Kastrup, but he should be more humble when he speaks of Mind At Large than he would be to a human being and a living being. He knows incomparably more than I do. But I know enough to know that no one knows what Mind At Large is. There are only hypotheses/beliefs on the subject. When speaking, Bernardo Kastrup seems a little too sure of what he is saying. However, I admire and i'm grateful to Bernardo Kastrup. He is one of the greatest philosophers of the 21st century. He leads us to question all and to question ourselves like few others. But his "Daemon" is not necessarily the wise thing who knows everything, who understands everything....
What if there is a creator who gave us a free well and made our lives meaningful because of it.
The theory in the video works for ants or animals and it’s not valid for the human beings in my opinion.
There is no could-have-been - Bernardo Kastrup
So if I have a choice of either smoking a joint or not, I think about it for a while and then decide to smoke it up. If I understand You correctly, My Will to smoke the Joint IS the same as Natures will to smoke that Joint, actually Nature must smoke that Joint through Me? The smoking of this Joint is inevitable. If I decide I want it, right now this IS My mission on Earth! Alright Alright Man, makes alot of sense
Of course! And if you decide to use it as a justification for any action, this also is the will of nature. The question is what is your true goal. If your true and honest goal is to maintain sobriety, then you wouldn't smoke it. Some other goal that makes you smoke it has higher priority than that of maintaining sobriety - then you simply act it out.
@@JHeb_ I think I get the viewpoint but I can sense there is something missing here. There is something to this as well but this explanation is missing something. I appreciate Bernardo, we people need Philosophy, maybe more in this day in age than ever. Have a great day
There is another possibility. It may be that our choices are happening just prior to the present moment and so outside the causal chain that Bernardo ascribes to "nature."
Nature doesn't will itself into being though. Nature isn't free to do otherwise of what it does under any given circumstances.
You have to mangle the concept of nature, the concept of free and the concept of will beyond the point of recognition to reach Bernardo's conclusion here.
Very true!
@@axel1million Humans cannot direct the laws of physics with their free will because the natural laws are subject only to God the Creator.
Nature and the universe itself is an abstraction, so if we don't identify with them then I have free will.
What?
I agree that the dichotomy between free will and determinism is false, but I think for different reasons than Dr. Kastrup mentions. My argument centers more on the circular nature of most definitions of free will. With the exception of a compatibilist-based definition, most definitions are presented in such a way that makes free will seemingly impossible by definition-assuming we live in a world ruled by cause and effect. Most definitions seem to require some sort of "causeless effect" as the driver of our decisions, which isn't possible if we assume we live in a world ruled by cause and effect. This basically makes the argument incoherent. Additionally, we are still held accountable for our actions by our friends, families, and society as a whole. Regardless of whether it’s some omnipotent god, demon possession, or biology that dictates our actions, we are still held accountable as if we have free will. So, basically, the entire discussion seems pretty moot to me.
That was addressing the arguments against free will. To be clear, I also think many of the arguments for free will suffer from the same sort of flawed reasoning as the arguments against free will. Most arguments for free will seem to center on the idea that the symbol we label as "I," the narrative self, is the thing that dictates our actions and is free from prior influence. However, it is far more likely that whatever it is that makes these decisions rests at a lower level than that one particular stream of information. That particular stream of information is far more likely to be something like a large language model (LLM), where it generates a convincing-sounding story to explain why we choose x instead of y, when in reality, that narrative most likely has no prior causal bearing on the actual underlying decision process. What I mean is that the narratives may shape our future actions, but the narratives don't shape our current actions.
I think that "free will" is not needed for "being held accountable".
To be accountable for something just means to be identified as the cause that is most appropriate (practical) to correct when that something goes wrong. So every time you correct something (it does not even need to be a human) you are applying some level of accountability to that which was corrected. Punishment is just an attempt at correcting a behavior, the same way as fixing a bug in a piece of software is a correction to a misbehavior in a program that behaves entirely without free will.
We are just thinking machines.. sometimes machines act in ways that are not useful for society, so society tries and corrects them. That does not mean machines are free, even if they are responsible for the output they produce.
@@Ferkiwi "Free will is not needed for being held accountable" seems to imply a definition of free will that requires some sort of causeless effect. While I agree that accountability can exist without free will-since we can hold even non-conscious entities like robots accountable-it makes more sense to apply this concept to beings with a sense of self and preferences that can be affected by punishment or correction.
As a machine learning researcher, I see a distinction between how we 'punish' algorithms versus humans. While algorithms can be optimized through reinforcement mechanisms, this isn’t analogous to how humans experience and respond to punishment. The idea of 'correcting' a human’s behavior involves a conscious experience, which differs fundamentally from tweaking a machine’s parameters.
Regarding the idea that "we're just thinking machines," I think it's important to recognize the limitations of a purely mechanistic and materialist worldview. While these perspectives are valuable for understanding certain aspects of cognition, they may not fully capture the complexity of human experience. Therefore, making strong ontological assumptions based on these constructs might be an oversimplification.
To illustrate this point, I think the "gliders" in Conway's Game of Life might be a good example. In some sense, one could argue that there are no gliders, only simple deterministic rules, and that any concept of a glider is simply a product of how some humans view the changes in the system over time. However, one could also argue that there are patterns that emerge, which we call gliders. Given a person believes in gliders, they can construct a Turing machine using them. The person who takes the simplistic view of naive determinism doesn't get to build a Turing machine out of gliders.
@@crypticnomad If "free will" is not causeless, then it's just "will". Can you tell me what is the difference between "free will" and "will" to you? if they are the same why not just call it "will"? If there are no free choices, but determined choices, then the word "choice" loses a lot of weight and becomes just something we attribute to our acts just because we can't accept that our experience of freedom is an (evolutionarily useful) subjective illusion.
I agree with you about there being a difference between how we punish algorithms in current AIs. In our brain, we don't have a mechanism to directly affect the weights in a Bayesian neural network the way it happens in AI. And even the neurons are not exactly binary nodes either. Current AIs do not really replicate the brain function, nor do they replicate the system through which we interact with the world, so they will be a different kind of "animal" than us. But does an animal need to be like us to be conscious? How do you even know something is conscious? where do you draw the line? can you even prove whether or not another humans (other than you) experiences consciousness?
About your example with "gliders", I'm not convinced that a deterministic view would make you unable to build a machine with it.. not unless that idea of determinism is unnecessarily "simplistic" and "naive" (your words) to the point that unbroken causality stops being its main defining factor. I feel you are misrepresenting what determinism is. If you are convinced that you actually know of a way (your gliders test) to differentiate the presence of consciousness in an external being reliably, then I think you should publish a paper about that, it would be a breakthrough.. you'd have essentially solved the biggest blocker in the hard problem of consciousness by yourself (and the Turing test, & the Chinese room mess...) if you can prove there's any sort of act/quality/capacity that can be externally measured and unquestionably makes something conscious (or at least free-willed).
@@Ferkiwi You seem to be stuck on the obviously incorrect and circular definition of free will that assumes free will to be impossible by definition. That is incoherent by definition-see my original post (OP) that breaks this down and explains in detail why it is incoherent. I explained why arguments for and against free will using that sort of definition are both incoherent. This is why I'm not giving an definition of free will, I believe the idea itself, as it is typically presented, to be incoherent. In addition to that, you seem to assume that I'm arguing against determinism, which I'm not-depending on how one defines determinism, anyway. My argument in the OP is simply that, with the exception of a compatibilist-based definition, most definitions are presented in such a way that makes free will seemingly impossible by definition-which is an incoherent argument.
My point regarding naive/simplistic determinism is that assuming we're "meat machines" is an example of naive/simplistic determinism. It would still be an extreme oversimplification, but it would be much closer to reality to assume we're some sort of extremely complex dynamical system. As an example, if we look at the paper "Mental Models and Human Reasoning," it discusses how human reasoning actually appears to work. This is my short interpretation of a pretty long paper, so I recommend reading it for yourself and fact-checking me, but it appears that we basically run a bunch of simulations and then make inferences based on those simulations. The models, simulations, and inferences are comprised of the symbols we have developed to describe our world via previous experiences. It is important to remember that the components of these simulations are not just binary data stored in memory somewhere, but instead are made up of living cells that all have some small measure of competence and intelligence themselves. Every cell in the human body is capable of having simple goals and working towards them, and the components of these simulations are those living cells.
In my last paragraph, I said "narratives may shape our future actions, but the narratives don't shape our current actions," and I specifically mean the narratives we tell ourselves about why we choose x instead of y. Although those narratives don't influence our current decisions-this has been verified by several studies showing how we actually make decisions before we become consciously aware of them-those narratives do shape our future actions. Meaning the actions we take today are, in some important way, based on the narratives we came up with yesterday.
The main reason I'm not going to address the issue you bring up with consciousness is that there isn't a good definition that is commonly accepted, and I'm pretty sure you might reject mine. If we have two very different definitions of something, then we're unlikely to come to some common agreement about the broader implications. I simply use the components of the word "conscious" and the suffix "-ness," which comes out to something like "the quality or state of perceiving and responding to one's environment." By my definition, it would be trivial to prove the existence of consciousness in an external system. However, most definitions of consciousness suffer from the same circular problems I mentioned with most definitions of free will. They are often impossible by definition, which is incoherent by definition
@@crypticnomad Yes, I agree with you that you need to redefine "free will" in order for it to not be "impossible" and "determined" at the same time. You cannot be compatibilist without doing things like equating "free will" with "will" or some other definition that's different than what all the traditional "free will" thinkers of the past (who rejected determinism and pure causality) were postulating. We agree on this, "free will" needs a different ("modern"?) definition to be compatible and that essentially reduces the idea of "freedom" to something illusory. This is a deterministic view. Compatibilism is, in essence, determinism that somehow wants to redefine "free will" for the sake of making it make sense.
I'm not saying that you are arguing against all forms of determinism.. I quoted the adjectives you used to qualify the determinsm you criticised ("simplistic" and "naive") for a reason.
What I'm saying is that one of these is true (A or B):
A) you actually have found an experimental test that can unequivocally set the limits on how to differentiate an "extremelly complex dynamical system" (with consciousness) from what you interpret as a "meat machine" (without consciousness).
B) you don't have such a proof but believe that "thinking machines" are not "extremely complex dynamical systems" because either: (B1) you are including it as part of the definition of what you interpret as a "thinking machine" to mean or (B2) you see it as a necessary belief/dogma that doesn't require proof
I'm gonna assume you are in "B1": this makes it a question of terminology. In this case, you are probably using the term "machine" to equate it with a very particular computational model that might, in your view, be unable to represent the dynamic complexity I do see as necessary for "thinking machines", in which case please give me a different word for it.. if you don't like the word "machine" I don't mind using a more generic term like "system"... the important thing is that it must be necessarily be a causal-based system driven by natural laws.. so every thread of thinking process must be determined by nature, and thus behaves predictably and in a way that could not have been any different. To me, the term "machine" fits with that definition.
Because my definition of machine is "any process that follows an unbroken cause-effect chain" then EVERYTHING is a big machine... ideas are machines, the ripples in physical fields are machines.. feelings are machines. Only when something is "causeless" does it behave non-mechanistically. If it has a cause, then it's just following the causal chain without any real agency. You can't simultaneously be stuck with the old definition of "free will" and accept causality. Your new definition must, necessarily, be applicable within a process that has no capacity to act outside of the causal chain, like a machine.
A self contradiction doesn’t become profound or true just because you say it slowly and repeatedly.
Spell out the contradiction. We make choices even tho our choices are determined. In that sense free will and determinism are compatible.
@@highvalence7649 if they are determined then they are not free choices. There's a difference between "will" and "free will". The whole point in discussion is the idea of freedom. He's saying we are not really free to choose differently than what we choose (you'd need to be a different person 2:39). We are not free. We have a will, sure.. just not a free will.
@@Ferkiwi i'm not sure why you're saying they are not free choices. We can make choices that are not restricted by some external force. Our desires may be determined, but under that scope we can make choices according to our desires and wishes. I was an anti free will person before, using the same arguments you are using. Ultimately i dont take a position on free will per se, as I'm just not sure how exactly we'd define that, but it seems clear that we can make choices that are free in the sense that we have The ability to choose what we want. We didn't choose what we want, but given that we want a variety of things we can make some choices according to those wants. It's pretty simple.
@@highvalence7649 It's not only our desires what's determined though. Also our circumstances, our physical capacity to do things (we can't just "choose" to fly and float away), even the rules of logic through which we finally decide the outcome are essentially mathematical rules, we choose based on the weight each of the choices have to us.
Our thoughts are not simple, they are complex amalgamation of factors and rationality, so amongst that amalgamation, isolating exactly what is that makes us "free" has not been something that anyone has, so far, been able to reliably pin-point. At least as far as I'm aware.
I think that if our mind was simple enough for us to understand, then we would not be intelligent enough to do it. By necessity, we are unable to exactly understand fully the factors that determine our "choices" because if we did, then that would become a new factor that we would necessarily have that could affect our choice, so being oblivious of our own motives is almost a requirement for us to move.
All of the videos on your channel are very quiet compared to other videos on youtube. It makes them hard to hear on mobile.
Great video guys, thank you 🙏