Do We Have Free Will? - Philosophy Tube
ฝัง
- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 20 มี.ค. 2014
- Do you have free will? Are you sure? David Hume might know.
Metaphysics Playlist: • METAPHYSICS
Facebook: PhilosophyTu...
Twitter: / philosophytube
Email: ollysphilosophychannel@gmail.com
Cartesian Dualism: • Cartesian Dualism - Ph...
Kant: • You Kant Touch This - ...
The Philosophy Tube theme is "Show Your Moves" by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
The comment music is "Pamgea" by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
We can choose to do whatever we want but we can't choose to want to do what we want to do.
Jack Carton
You can't.
like Schopenhauers "A man can do what he wants but not want what he wants."
Or can we choose? :)
we might have 3rd order volitions, ya never know
...Except you can?
OMG, I've learned more about determinism and free will in five minutes than I have at school in the pas two weeks, and not in a super over-complicated way!!!
Bless this channel!
zombiesandteaparties My pleasure!
Olly, please don't ever stop making videos!
+Sean Sheppheard I'll do my best!
+Philosophy Tube a smart phone..... it behaves in a certain way according to inputs given to it using a operating system to control and organizes everything to make it more manageable. this operating system simplifies what is truly happening ( in a physical way ) into something we can adapt to very quickly, giving us the sense that we have complete control over it. first question is do we have control?
now I take that smart phone and erase all soft wear off the device. I then connect it to a power source and permanently fix the power button on. second question, have I given the smart phone free will? and just because I dnt see anything happening on its screen dos that mean that it is not operating. we cant say it is not operating but we cant prove it is operating. but the smart phone now has the ability to use all its hard wear for what ever it wants to use it for.thirdly, just because I took away my controlling forces on the smart phone, did I give it consciousness or did it have true consciousness and I just gave it the free dome to realize.
it's 2019 and he's still doing them congratulations on making sure he did that
thanks to you he's still making them, I can't express how glad I am!!
I'm here from the future to tell you he won't. Don't worry. But also, things will go places. Strap yourself in and stockpile toilet paper and hand sanitizer.
Man, this video is fucking great. It is extremely pleasant to know that someone has arrived at the same conclusions as you have, and even in the same way, and that they understand and agree with you.
Thanks! IMO my more recent videos are way better but I'm glad people still like the old ones!
Yeah, I agree.
When I was younger I developed a similair idea to this.
I truly believe everything is pre-determined in a cause in effect way as science dictates events through past stuff (just generalising)
However, this troubles me. I don't know where my morality sits anymore.
For example; if we as complicated "objects" aren't responsible for commiting a crime (as you mentioned in the video) that either means in knowledge of this they are innocent or still held responsible.
If they aren't responsible;
This rids good, evil and any sense of morality because it isn't wrong to act a certain way.
If they are responsible however;
This means that all eniquality is irrelevant as everyone is still responsible for their pre-determined lives.
Like to say that helping another person or leaving a legacy is typically pointless.
I find this hard to explain so let me just put it like this, in relatable and more understandable terms.
With Determinism comes the absense of Morality. Society and life cannot function without Morality.
Is it "wrong" or "ok" to have eniquality and the sheer chaos that would come of no responsibility?
Is their any reason to stop such, (rather sadistic, i know) espicially if the is simply "no real point" to life?
they are trully good - old and new videos =)
Agree. I will just reject it without evidence so I don't really need to answer this question to my own self... Maybe we should look for more material on determinism.
that's exactly what i just said to my self and i'm like a universal moral and reality turth may really exist and every question would have a single right answer
When my maid comes over she never wants to hang out and have a couple beers.
LOL
Human Resources You have to pay extra for that. Mostly in the form of replacing all your stuff every week.
She actually may want to, but her want to do a good job and not potentially get fired overrides her want to chill with a beer. She can’t control what she wants based on the massive domino effect of events leading to her current mindset.
I could listen to you talk all day. lol. & I might actually pass my midterm now!
Shelby Kupiainen Good luck!
Philosophy Tube Hey, good video.
I have to ask, how does dualism get out of the standard argument?
The argument against free will? Well if you're a hardcore substance dualist you can just say that whilst physical stuff is causally determined mental stuff isn't, or as far as we know isn't. Of course you'd have to argue for dualism first though!
Philosophy Tube Yes! What would mental stuff being indeterministic do though? I don't see how that's any less random then physical things being indeterministic.
Quite!
this channel has helped me so much with my philosophy class. By breaking everything down, I understand everything more clearly with your explanations.
+shaakira brown Glad to help!
+Philosophy Tube hey I'm in ninth grade and my public high school doesn't offer any philosophy class. This is unfortunate because I love thinking, so your channel has been a god send. Keep it up.
I see freedom as the space between order and chaos, where there is just enough order for structure and just enough chaos for possibility.
I'm really glad that you pointed out a few different philosophical responses to hard determinism. Certain deterministic arguments make my depression and anxiety worsen when they come to mind, so just knowing that there are positions that aren't completely exclusionary of the possibility of choice is helpful.
Determinism in of it’s self does not mean choices don’t matter or that change can’t happen(that’s fatalism )but rather weather that change can happen is down to what options are available(circumstances,genetics,etc).
For context a fatalist would say weather or not you die in an earthquake is up to fate while a determinist would say it’s up to the previous decisions you made,how you responded to conflict,the environment your in,etc.
I liked how you addressed some posts at the end of this. As someone who came out of a strong religious background it is sad that so many people today are repeating the same things they did in the 80s. One would hope that people would be more knowledgeable today. Thanks for taking the time to once again set things straight.
I always think about this problem a little differently. If there is no free will, well, then what I think about free will has been determined and that's that. However if I do have free will and I decide to act as if I don't then I'm really throwing my life away. So I should "choose" to believe in free will.
That was probably one of the best summaries of the free will debate I have ever heard. You got a lot of information across in a very short turn period. Well done!
Aaron Scardina Thanks!
As a materialist, I tend to think determinism is unproblematically true. Like Hume, I also feel that the so-called "problems" for compatibilism tend to be due more to semantic sloppiness rather than real philosophical holes in the argument.
I do agree with Hume's definition of free will being something like, "the ability to take action based on one's preferences or personal disposition", but wasn't that given much earlier in the freewill/determinism debate during the Hellenistic Period? Didn't the Stoics make similar claims about the universe being fundamentally deterministic, and yet maintain that our actions are "up to us"? I think Chrysippus defined free will in a similar way to what you cite as Hume's notion of free will; was Chrysippus the first one to define free will this way? Or, am I totally misremembering?
I also wanted to say a few words about my personal way of thinking about compatibilism and why I think it is fairly unproblematic as general idea.
So, when we talk about determinism, we are speaking of the entire universe and every material thing in it (which, as a materialist, I tend to think of those two things as being identical) as one whole thing composed of many predictably interacting physical parts. We are saying: If you could stand "outside" or "above" the universe-with a complete and total understanding of its physical laws and mechanisms-you would see an internally-determined system. Why? Because, with a full and complete understanding of the physical laws that govern the PARTS of the system, you can then make extrapolations about events that will happen at many separate levels of complexity. You can determine the movement of atoms over milliseconds, or you can determine the outcome of a decades-long political tussle.
My thought is this: why are we assuming that "free will" refers to that grandiose of an assumption? When I say that I have free will, I don't mean to say that I have direct and total control/agency at the micro-level of atoms or the macro-level of geopolitical events. After all, as a mere human, I am extremely limited in the possibilities of what I can do at any given moment. I can't stretch my body at will like Jake from Adventure Time; I can't do magic like Twilight Sparkle or fly like Rainbow Dash; I can't even see the wide variety of colors a butterfly or mantis shrimp can see.
So, when I say "I have free will", I don't mean that I can make ANYTHING happen at will. I'm referring only to my ability to CHOOSE BETWEEN a fairly modest set of physically possible options that correspond to the moment in question. And it seems to me that, when I freely choose to stand up and walk across the room, I don't have to be directly choosing how my atoms are moving and which neurons fire at what moment in order for that action to be considering an act of "free will".
When we define free will more carefully, as something like "the ability to freely choose between a set of possible actions" you are really just defining the domain you're talking about. In the human-experience-domain, the fact that, in principle, our universe is deterministic doesn't matter. And in the entire-universe-domain, the fact that humans think and feel as though they make choices doesn't matter that much either!
But the ability to choose between a set of actions is still supposedly set in stone due to determinism, so it could not have gone any other way than the way it went lmao, and that's not free will or free choice. That's forced choice by the determinism itself.
watch alex o connor compatibilism. just youtube him or his channel cosmic skeptic.
Taking philosophy right now... you just helped me a ton w/ my homework!!!!
Thanks for the excellent video! I've only just started looking into free will and I am fascinated by the concept. This is one of the first few videos I have watched on the subject and I found it really helpful, clear, concise and just pleasant watching! Thanks.
Thank you for that video! I have always been thinking about that!
Many folks dismiss determinism immediately because they don't like the idea of having no say in their actions and are terrified by the implications of what the point of living would be. However, the way I think of life is like a movie or novel; you know it's determined to end a certain way and that it will follow that path no matter what, however, one can still derive pleasure and fulfillment by finding out what will happen next regardless of having a choice.
but if think you have no freedom, arent you just living life as a slave in a guilded cage?
But these people can't just think the way you think because, well... they are determined to think the other way...
@@DuchAmagi I know this is a joke but it was determined that I would chime in and say he was determined to post a message on this video and is will linger in the minds of some of the people who believe in free will until perhaps some of them continue to come back to this question and in the moment they change their mind to determinism it will be in part due to the fact that he made this post just like it was determined that you make that joke and me determined to beat this dead horse into the ground.
2:18 I had to rewind cause I heard that line as: “you are in most animes”
There's a few I never made it into but I'm in most
Fantastic arguments from the last episode Olly, You did a lot better than I could do.
These videos made a huge difference in my philosophy grade!!! Thank you so much!
Olly I know you’ve come on a very complicated and necessary journey but my god, the glow up, dramatisation, and queering in your recent videos was such a positive direction
I'm on board for compatibalism for exactly the reasons he states. David Hume FTW!
Compatibilism is like shouting really loud that there is a fire and then adding silently your personal definition of "fire".
@@MrCmon113 Compatibilism is like someone else is shouting "fire" and you look and see a fireplace so you say "you are technically correct but please shut the fuck up"
Nice slap to the unpredictability principle! When I heard the argument, I was like how does chaos equal control?
I love how sassy you got at the end there! Keep it up!
I hate when people say determinism means morality doesn't exist. If someone does something wrong, even if that is determined, the consequence is also determined, so while you can't say they could've done any different, you also can't say they could've been punished any differently.
Exactly my thinking
The fact they couldn't be acted upon any differently has no relation to how just that acting may be...
If a lightning bolt strikes someone does that mean that's fair? In our classical understanding, no.
Does whether someone has or hasn't control over something matter as to how accountable he is to that something? Classically, yes - see how mentally ill, intoxicated, non-premeditated criminals and crimes are treted differently, for example.
Good point. But by saying "if someone does something wrong" u presuppose that an action can be right or wrong in a determined world. This presupposition can't be contained within your argument for morality still existing in a determined world, without begging the question. You argument also implies that an actions moral value is determined by its consequences, this( while not be necessarily wrong) is a highly debated viewpoint with many detractors( which I'm not saying is an argument against it)
it can also be said that laws and punishements help rightening your actions and shapes them into something good instead of complete chaos morality is just including other factors that determin your actions
legal insanity is by definition not having any control over your actions by the time the crime was commited and thus they cant be found guilty, because punishing someone for something they have no control over is irrational and draconian.
My regret today is that I did not find this channel sooner. Good job.
Free will is something I have been pondering for quite a while now, though I drift towards determinism I do not have a conclusion yet so I still say "I don't know". Like most things in philosophy though, I think there is more to look at when questioning free will rather than solely focusing on it. Lets keep thinking though.
+Malaama John Wachi (MJ Wachi) Welcome to the little community! Tell your friends, we might just make it to 50,000 by 2016, there's only 50 or so to go!
Thank you for this! It has helped me explain, in much better terms, what I was trying to explain to my family over dinner.
Don't get me wrong, I absolutely love your newer work, the more theatric stuff, but there's some quality to this much older stuff that I just adore. I'm not sure what it is.
omg your channel is the best, I didn't like philosophy , but now , I want MORE !! :)) :D
Good job :)
Maryam M Aww, thank you!
This is definitely a great channel, he does a great job. Other great sources are The School of Life and Wired Philosophy.
2:37 "...Especially Chad from accounting."
These have been great for my A-Level revision, thank you!
Quite impressed about the change of production quality in your videos
Thanks a lot! I'm passing my philosophy course because of your videos!
How can determinism be correct if the Heisenberg uncertainty principle tells us that we cannot ever know every possible outcome, even if we know the exact arrangement of every particle and energy distribution everywhere in the universe?
+Randomaited Even if the uncertainty principle implied that the Universe was inherently built on randomness, that would simply mean that we can't PREDICT outcomes. It doesn't mean you have any control over them.
Consider, for example, if our mental states are determined by the uncertainty principle. Can u control the outcome of the uncertainty principle? Whether an electron is spin up or spin down? No? Then ur still not ultimately in control of your mental states and, hence, your actions.
+Randomaited
Effects of uncertainty play no role on the scale of the neuron.
There is an interesting theory saying our brain actually works like a kind of 'quantum computer', in that model quantum effects do have significant effects on our mental states due to the butterfly effect. It has no direct effect on the scale of the neuron, but it has effect on a smaller scale, and through a chain reactions it could have effects on neurons and larger system.
For example, the spin up or down position of an electron effects it's tiny magnetic field, this may effect some other electrons moving through a currect, and they may effect yet others, etc. All this may eventually get effects on macroscopic levels, as in, if the electron would have been spin down that would have led to a different chain reaction than if it had been spin up. So the uncertainty principle could accumulate to macroscopic systems by the butterfly effect.
If the uncertainty is between finite number of state [one among them will be the final state] than a system to handle those inputs [uncertain but finite number of inputs] can still be designed to give us a definite output.
I'm pulling an all nighter on my philosophy essay on free will and this really really helps. Thank you!! Also I liked and subscribed :D
Okay so this is officially the best TH-cam channel ever
+April Raver Aww, thanks! Welcome to the community!
I thinik I stick to the compatibilism part. Sounds about right to me.
Question about the "morality relies on free will" thing:
Isn't this only true for some kind of "ultimate/immovable morality"?
Can we not take our morals from past experience....without feeling we're contradicting ourselves?
"You're punishing me for something I couldn't help!!!"
"No...I'm protecting society from your actions"....(& then to rub salt in; "And I don't have any choice about it!)
Am I confusing "morals" with "laws" or "deductions" or some such?
wow i love this channel so much!!
A nice argument for compatalism I read: "Not all factors are causal. Not all are neccessities. Many factors combine into a a context of _sufficient conditions._ Initial- and boundry- conditions, like "I live in a world, where cars have been invented, gravity is not ridicualously strong... are _sufficient_ conditions for me to drive with my car to the gas station. _Then_ comes the additional neccessity, that motivates me to actually do so. And if it rains or not might be totally contingent."
Sam Harris on "Free Will"
Here's an interesting lecture regarding the subject from Sam Harris.
Let's suppose that people do have free will. How would that cause morality to exist?
No attempt at answering the free will question will be convincing without a theory of time and a theory of causation on which it must be based. The reasons for that should be obvious.
The question of determinism also sounds like it can be reduced to a problem in theoretical physics: e.g. if you consider the universe to be a path through some state space then determinism would be the state of affairs if paths are continuous (i.e. different possible histories do not cross at some angle, introducing a kink in the path, and do not contain breaks, which could be one description of "branching" histories).
Finally, the challenge for epiphenomenalists is how does such a strong impression of having a free will come about?
I like the idea of thematically linked videos so I'll side with "what is weakness of will" for the next topic.
>how does such a strong impression of having a free will come about
There is no such thing. There is a weak, superficial impression. It's just that most people never analyze their moment-to-moment experience. You really never have a feeling of free will, you merely believe in it. It's a delusion, not an illusion.
excellent video. you deserve way more views.
Olly Thorn, Been watching a lot of your videos. Thanks for putting up great content. It's funny watching this video from 2014 after watching 2019 (year of writing this comment), you talked a lot faster 5 years ago. Thanks again, on the off chance you read this comment.
Another thing I just remembered is that if we're going to bring quantum uncertainty into this, then could it be a combination of uncertainty with causality? Take the sun for example. The sun is a macroscopic object, but it still behaves in a quantum way. It's not possible to predict exactly when a solar flare will happen, since the mechanism that triggers is is, in its nature, a probabilistic effect called quantum tunneling. So knowing this, we do know that solar flares can and do have a lot of effects down here on Earth, as they knock out power grids, and disrupt wireless communications. These disruptions can have huge effects on what people do, and can change the course of someone's life, but the thing that caused that change was initially uncertain, and it was possible that it might not have happened at all. So can we combine uncertainty with causality as it pertains to us in this way? what do you think?
the sun doesn't 'act in a quantum way', fusion can happen--and can only happen--because of quantum effects at the sub-atomic particle level. Very very different. The sun's too big and energetic to be a quantum object in itself.
From our perspective and for all practical intents and purposes yes.
Objectively, no. Free will is an illusion.
+Insufferable Realist Jackanapes Nothing is practical.
+Insufferable Realist Jackanapes I noticed that's the position that most determinists take. Acknowledge that it doesn't exist, yet still insist that we should "act" as if it did.
Sideeq Mohammad It's a function of our limited awareness of and ability to interact with any specific series of causal chains at any one time. That's all.
So far there's absolutely no way to prove that free will doesn't exist and we don't have an even remotely decent knowledge about physics and neuroscience to make the claim that it likely doesn't exist.
Darmo Dak Saying that there is any possibility for free will to exist is a much more extraordinary and irrational claim than saying that unicorns exist.
I'm new to this channel and had read well , casual philosophy books . I personally think that free will or specially freedom is already very well defined by Spinoza , which you pointed out in the beginning of the video .
The definition of freedom of Spinoza : people are aware of their desires , but not what causes them .
It was refreshing that you immediately identified determinism as a philosophical position (I would say religious) since most people seem to think that it is a scientific principle. Determinism tells you nothing about the real world and how it works.
Free will is a red herring. People will act like they have it regardless of what they tell you. I, for instance, don't believe in free will at all. I think it is literally one of the dumbest ideas still seriously discussed by intelligent people. But I still act like I have a choice in things, feel offended when that choice is not considered of value or is thwarted, and blame myself and others for doing things I think poorly of. I have absolutely no clue how I would even begin to talk myself out of all of those things. Hence, the discussion is purely academic. I am no less capable of not judging a person who has horribly wronged me or my loved ones than I am of outrunning a fighter jet.
+sean rodgers it seems that you're thinking of the unintelligible while your own common sense is trying to convince you otherwise. the problem with these kinds of beliefs is it creates disparity between our perceptions and what we think to be reality to a point where we find reality is something that is too far from our experience to know. but is that the truth? is reality that far from our senses? or are we just deluding ourselves based on false assumptions. I would say that our experience is all we have, and when we start to doubt our fundamental senses of reason we start to commit intellectual suicide.
+sean rodgers I think Kant alluded to something similar to what you're saying. Whilst we can't rationally prove Free Will, we have to accept it because it's part of our mode of cognition, part of the way in which our mind sees the world. It's not something we can actually break out of. He thought something similar about God too, which is why he remained a Christian despite raising objections to the ontological, cosmological and design arguments.
Kant was a smart guy. My familiarity with him is passing at best. I do recall enjoying the text he wrote on morality I encountered in an ethics class many years ago. As for his Critique of Pure Reason, that sent me running for cover on no less than three occasions. That and Being and Time are the two only books I've ever given up reading for sheer difficulty.
+sean rodgers I agree that to start *without* a strong definition of "Free Will", the +Philosophy Tube speaker was loosened to go off on commonly-spit tangents. It's funny that during the babbling, the need to define his topic eventually became apparent ... buuuuut, he ignored and spat some more red herring.
Olehenry1 I don't see what is wrong with the definition of free will: the ability to act, think, or decide without any force or coercion by factors that are beyond your control. now force or coercion does not imply that there can't be factors that influence your decision such as circumstances of your upbringing... but those who believe in libertarian free will believe that those factors do not determine the outcome of your choice, they merely influence it. philosophy tube stated that free will doesn't make sense given law of causation, but this is a very narrow view of causation. material causation is not the only causation, and this has been acknowledged very early in philosophy. this is also assuming materialism off the bat which is far from settled. materialism seems to be the metaphysical position most people assume which causes them to believe what appears to be counter intuitive. it causes us to doubt the most basic of beliefs such as free will, it causes us to doubt our senses and worst of all it causes us to doubt our senses of reason. the position of materialism thus implies logical nihilism which is self refuting. to get past this, people tend to adopt a pragmatic approach to knowledge, that it doesn't matter if it's true so long as we can make predictions of what we observe in our experiences. however this also has problems, if all beliefs are tentative then no belief can be said to be wrong. they respond with the statement that we can know things to be false but we can't know them to be true, but this itself granted true must also be granted tentatively true (you can't generalize knowledge with special exclusion or that would be special pleading) which means we can't know it to be true... thus the foundation of all beliefs must grant that our senses of reason are fundamentally accurate and reliable. if they are not accurate then we can't know truth which is incoherent.
not sure if this follows but, If causes and effects means that a murder couldn`t choose otherwise, wouldn`t the action of punish such murder be the cause for other people not to kill. I mean even from a cause and effect approach, punish certain actions seems viable and morality seems to keep playing a roll.
Or even morality towards being the cause for stopping someone from killing.
I mean for example, even if choosing is just an illusion, we can spread the word of why killing is counter productive and bad for the well being of our species in order for that message (information input) to be the cause of us to behave morally.
Not sure if this follow, is just a thought.
Yeah, well Sam Harris argues that we don't have contra-causal free will. He says that punishment no longer makes sense in any way other than as a deterrent to others. It seems like the best way to take care of murderers is to rehabilitate them and take measures to protect the public from them (imprisonment perhaps).
Even if we don't have contra-causal free will, there are still consequences for our actions. He also argues that morality can be objective if we set a criteria. I think he uses "wellbeing of conscious beings" as his criteria but I have to read more.
Bertrand Russell addressed this problem. He referred metaphorically to criminal activity as having a car that doesn't work. He said we take broken cars off the street and do what's needed to fix them. If they are a permanent danger then they cannot be put back on the street. What he advised was an attitude change from blaming, cursing, and abusing the car with kicks, etc. to understanding what the problem is and taking care of it. There is an interesting report on the Norwegian model prison system. They set up their society to have the best chance for their citizens to succeed as productive members of society. It's too long to include all the details here (I'll include the site at the end.) Their record speaks for itself. They have an incarceration rate of 71 per 100,00 while ours is around 700, Their recidivism rate is about 23% ours is closer to 60%. The system the U.S. has now is an embarrassment. Why is Norway doing something we can't do?
mic.com/articles/81233/norway-treats-its-inmates-like-people-the-result-is-a-system-america-can-only-dream-of
Please do not complain that the prison looks too nice. The humanizing effect of being treated like a. . . human means a more successful system. At the end of the day we have to decide what our goal is, revenge or creating productive citizens. Can you imagine the savings in money and human misery?
SweetPea Brown exactly, we might even say "you wouldn't punish a car for breaking down, you'd just try to fix it".
Really good comment
mongke Thanks! It's a very complex issue. We're immeshed in a system that doesn't work and it's 'for profit' so there's not much incentive to change it. Also, I sense that revenge is the type of correction American's like best.
SweetPea Brown
I think that is a great way of extrapolate.
I haven't put much thought at it, but the very difference as to a car is that we perceive, lets say, and from there the idea of "Punishment" to a car breaks down, as I guess, you can "fix" other cars that see what happens to cars that are not working well, per say.
but even like that as you said there are better results by not seeing it as punishment, but as a fix.
But I guess that even punishment does count in determinism, is also implying being the cause of change, even i there are better ways.
PS_ sorry if this sound morronic, but as I said I haven't put much thought to it.
You sir are a very talented man!
Wickedly thought provoking!
You might wanna move the camera back a few feet bro.
Nips 😂😂😂😂
I figured this out when I was 11, i fell into deep depression. I had no exposure to this theory. Figured it out on my own
I was the same, even knew that meant I was a moral subjectivist and that nothing mattered, and most human states are illusions that pass with no effect, most knowledge will be forgotten, just thought everything was arbitrary lol. Was not healthy haha
yup shiraz d. esufali
+Offensive White Family There is something wrong with you if that made you depressed.
+Offensive White Family
On sober inspection it should make you rejoice.
I was a child but yes Taxtro
Well explained, but it confirms my view that whether we have Free Will or not depends completely on whether or not we define ourselves as having it.
Just subscribed! Your videos won me over!! Greetings from Greece, and see you in the comments! :D
You reference Hume a LOT, how about you just do a whole episode on him? I would personally love to see that, and I think a lot of people would agree with me on that.
Wow 😂😂 sorry earliest one I've watched yet...so young🤣
Also great video I should have said that as well
Thanks for Those well thought out answers ☺
i thought i could leave at the endcard, but these questions were hilarious
Okay, so here's my theory (it might be similar to 'Quantum mind', which is, to be honest, beyond my understanding, but here's my own take). In quantum mechanics, you cannot know anything about a body until you 'observe' it. And the very act of observing it makes the body change its state. Now, it is known that thoughts are neural signals (action potentials), very much in the quantum domain (due to there being interactions on the scales of a single atom). This makes thoughts probabilistic, which rules determinism out. However, when we think actively (as opposed to passive thoughts, like dreams, maybe), we force the neural signals to do certain things, so that we make the thoughts collapse in the states we want them to, which gives rise to free will.
Now, comes the major distinction between the active and passive thoughts. Active thoughts use feedback mechanisms from the various neurons in the body to arrive at what you or your body 'wants to do' (i.e. free will). Passive thoughts use feedback mechanisms differently to arrive at what your body 'needs to do' (this essentially allows you to stay alive, by making the heart beat, etc.).
There is a definite Darwinian fitness advantage to free will. Passive thoughts make you live, but in order to optimize your fitness, you can do much more than that. You can eat different things, you can try to develop your physical strength and stamina, you can try to improve your 'fecundity'. And these often require you to make decisions based on your environment, your experience and your 'wants'. And because your thought process related to your wants is probabilistic, but influenced by feedbacks, you have 'free will' which is neither deterministic, nor random.
Tushar Shrotriya That's the biggest bullshit I've ever read in my life, there's no free will
Causality itself is an illusion, as Hume so pointed out. When a billiard ball strikes another, and the second ball rolls away, there is no little flag that pops up and says, "This is causliaty." This is simply an interpretation from the human perspective in regards to reality. Determinism is the greatest illusion.
7 years late but "do we have individual duties for environment " is fantastic subject ti discuss 🌊
Better to place this in a recent video than an ancient one.
did a better job than my philosophy tutor of delivering this
You're ignoring quantum indeterminacy and the Heisenberg uncertainty principle.
He mentioned that there are things at the quantum level that are random, or at least unpredictable, but he followed it that something random isnt something that is free.
None of the theories of anything whether it be Philosophy or Science will ever be completely correct. The universe's laws are way too complicated to have clearly defined dividers. Rather, the true answer would be a mix of almost any combination of any two or more. Because the Universe doesn't play by our rules. We can't even prove whether or not this universe is real let alone try to isolate its rules. Light has weight. The Earth is heavier during the day. Solar winds can be studied themselves but we haven't been able to determine just what causes them. Simply observing an object can have measurable effects on it. Life is beautifully meaningless and even the words words words I just spouted will probably be long gone by the time Humanity can actually, objectively prove any of our long-standing theories. I'm also retarded so that helps
You're wrong. You can only say such things if you know it, which you don't.
For all you know, it's extremely simple ... so simple that you find it too complex to *understand*.
Light does not have "weight" in the same way we usually mean "weight". Wtf does "the Earth is heavier during the day" even mean? We do know what causes solar winds. We also have proved many theories. I mean I don't get how you can disprove evolution by natural selection.
lmao
Really good video! From my research compatibilism has always seemed like the most rational position, which makes sense because the majority of philosophers are compatibilists.
I agree with Hume on this topic; I believe in the idea that even when people do something wrong, they mostly would do it for the right reasons, basically weighing the moral action on one side versus another side.
I believe in determinism/no free will since:
1. I believe nature is a system in which any event has a cause.
We may not know the cause, fx we don't know for sure how the universe came into existence, and how it will end. But since the demise of the universe (assuming it will die eventually) PRESUMABLY depends on factors within itself (as opposed to outside forces like gods, which are impossible to prove/disprove) then it is in fact determined
2. I hold a materialist view of the mind. I don't belive in souls whatsoever.
We are alive and have consciousness yes, but we are "only" intelligent animals . We are not above the laws of nature that governs our universe.
If Hume says that 'free will' is just the ability to "do what want" then I say
That would just be 'will', not necessarily 'free will'
Freedom of will means (in my eyes) the ability to do otherwise. We may have the ability to do what we want, but if we simultaneously are unable to do otherwise than the thing we consciously or subconsciously "want", then we don't possess free will.
I'd argue that a lot of the time we aren't even aware what we "really want" or why we do things on a deeper level. We act on 'impulse', or 'instinct' if you will. (in everyday life we usually do what is familiar, what others do etc.)
Of course one's will may be ambiguous. It may relate to several wants at the same time, rather than one particular.
Our will may also change because we reflect on things and then change our minds.
However that DOESN'T defy determinism, since our minds are also part of the 'system of the universe'. Not seperate from it.
Also there seem to be indications (from psychological studies) that our subconsciousness MAY make decisions for us long before we are aware we "made a decision. What we perceive as a making a decision is actually post-rationalization. The mind is already made up.
The way he described free will was a little bit confusing. I'll agree with you that what he described was simply "will". However free will is still not maximal autonomy. Sam Harris loves to point out that since we can't choose our background and genes and where we were born that we don't have free will. But if I have the free will to do something and my brain is only influencing it and not unconsciously predetermining it then I have free will. I will agree that if the mind was materialist then we don't have free will though. Though there's way more evidence towards the mind being immaterial rather then material. It's idealism when it comes to the brain and the mind interacting with one another. One proof is the visual binding problem, where there is parts in the brain that store information, but not one part of the brain that holds perception. Just like there is not one part of the brain (to be found at least) that makes us do an act and that makes us decide. If there was we would be able to stimulate a part of a brain that makes us decide and act but it's clearly not on the brain.
***** The mind is what the brain does :)
The distinction I draw is between the conscious and the subconscious, nothing else.
"But, was the signal involuntary? What, exactly, is it that triggers the signal initially? "
The participants were asked to raise their arms whenever they "felt like it", so it was voluntary.
However since the situation didn't lend itself to meaningful decision making, I would guess that most would just:
1. Raise their arm at some point since that was what they were asked to do.
2. Do it sooner rather than later. It's unlikely that people would sit around for more than a few minutes.
To answer your second question: I don't know! :)
those studies were proven to be inconclusive and still heavily debated, so your beliefs are purely confrontational and based on whats most convenient to your self esteem at the moment. hence why I'm beginning to despise philosophy in general.
it always seems to just provide excuses for ones views/actions through un-falsifiable claims rather than being capable of being built upon through trial and error and ironically as a result, promotes closed mindedness.
Of course we have free will. All of society relies on the idea that we have free will and can hold people responsible for their actions. So I will always side with the idea that we have free will. Free will isn't the idea that you can do whatever you want to do or that you can act randomly without consequences, but it's the idea that you can do what you want to do as long it falls within the rules of society and nature. If what you want to do goes against the rules of society or nature there are consequences to attempting those actions. So there's that to think about. That's what sounds best to me.
I don't see how this addresses the metaphysical argument here. All it seems to do is say that it doesn't fit with society, which doesn't contradict the argument.
Sporkabyte You missed my point.
You said that you would always side with free will because society relies on it to work, but is that a good reason to agree with a certain position? Certainly, something can't be true just because it's used as a foundation for something else. How have I missed your point?
Sporkabyte I started out with that statement yes, but then I later explained a more compatibilism version of free will. This ultimately was the point I was trying to get at. I mayn't have a very good way of going about it, but that his the point that I was trying to get at and you missed it entirely. Okay?
Compatibilism is the belief that free will and determinism are compatible ideas, and that it is possible to believe in both without being logically inconsistent. Compatibilists believe freedom can be present or absent in situations for reasons that have nothing to do with metaphysics.
***** I understand what you're saying, but I reject your premise. I do this because I think your thinking is flawed.
oh my god watching this in 2020 after seeing new philosophy tube oh my god, what happened to this sweet boy.
Very good Video ! Thank you !I explain in my 3 part video-series the "forecast paradox : free will or determinism".
There is one little problem with this reasoning mister 'philosopher'. You were not free to come up with it and we are not free to accept or reject your reasoning. The statement that free will does not exists self-destroys. Determinism is non-falsifiable. Since our actions are supposed to be determined by previous materialistic causes, arguments for and against determinism couldn't even be weight if determinism were true. In short: why are you trying to defend a position that is so obviously false. Like I just demonstrated it is trivially easy to debunk determinism.
***** I'm not sure why people not being free to reject an argument if it is determined that they would is incompatible with determinism? Your idea about determinism being unfalsifiable is actually a separate concern, but it's not the case because an uncaused event would falsify it.
The entire point is that arguing for determinism makes no sense if our convictions are not based on arguments but every one of our thoughts, dispositions and opinions are decided for us by factors completely out of our control. Moreover if you are to reject self-evident positions the burden of proof is on you, So you have to come up with some evidence in stead of some circular reasoning. Could it be that the lack of evidence for the religion of philosophical naturalism forces you to do this?Please don't come up with bold statements when you lack the evidence to back them up.
I'm sorry, I think you've conflated whether an argument is likely to convince anybody with whether it's true. It might well be the case that someone will not in fact be convinced by an argument from determinism because it is determined that they won't be for whatever reason, but that doesn't mean the argument isn't also true.
I think you've also conceptually separated 'factors beyond our control' from thoughts and arguments a little too much: determinism doesn't deny that arguments can play a causal role in convincing somebody.
I think I haven't conceptually seperated factors beyond our control from thoughts and arguments. People can only convinced by arguments when they are not fully determined by previous factors. In fact terms like 'arguments, reasoning, logic and philosophy' don't make any sense in such a setting. I'd like to see how you've 'freely' come to the conclusion that free will does not exist.
I'm not sure why people could only be convinced by arguments if determinism was false? It's consistent to say both that someone was convinced by an argument and that they could not fail to have been convinced. The argument is part of the causal chain in their being convinced.
God is omniscient so he knows everything including the future. so lets say one morning, you are choosing what to wear the black shoes or the white ones. You decide to choose the white ones but you never really had the choice to choose the black ones. why ? thats because God knew that you will choose the white pair from the beginning of the universe so you could never really choose the black pair of shoes. You have the illusion of free will but if you've chosen the black pair of shoes then congrats you have single handedly stripped God of his omniscience... 😊 I hope you've learnt something from this
Ah but putting God into the mix makes things even harder to explain. If, as you say, we have no free will and God knows exactly what we are going to do then why bother creating the world in its first state rather than its last state?
Why bother waiting for people to live their lives on Earth before judging them and putting the into either Heaven or Hell? God could surely create them with memories of Earth even if they never lived, simply will them into existence in either Heaven or Hell with a full earth backstory.
And if he could do that why create the people who go to Hell? It seems immoral to create beings with no free will who commit acts that force them into Hell and eternal torment.
Your either controled by the flesh or your controled by the spirit. There is no free will. When Jesus said; follow me, to the disciples they had no real choice in the matter. The world is controled by the flesh, gods church is controled by the spirit.
Lmao, I love how some people always use God as a gap filler whenever it's convenient. They used to do the exact same thing when we didn't know what caused lightnings or diseases.
Besides, what makes you assume that it is God that is making me do things? It could just as well be the flying spaghetti monster that controls my brain with it's noodly appendages.
My thoughts have always been, that there a number of countless dimension, each dimension is a derived from each choice we make. Since we have made every variation of choices possible that leaves us having done all possible choices and thus there is no free will.
Nome Chomsky has some really good talks about free will. His main points are that there is no reason to expect that minds work in a way that is understandable by thise sane minds. Just because we can only really understand the concepts of determined and random doesn't mean minds have to work in those ways. Similer to how we can understand waves and particles but the reality of light is some combonation of the two that we can only understand by refrence to waves and particles. His hypothesis is what he calls 'appropriate to situations but not caused by situations ' which has elements of both randomness and determinism. Though he also says we know way too little about what thought and mind are to be anywhere near answering questions like 'do we have free will' 😀
When I think about Free Will, I think about exercising self control, that is actively and consciously making decisions regardless of emotional motivation. Contemporary psychology separates conscious decisions and thought and unconscious mechanical behavior as separate functions of the mind. The mechanical behavior may be influenced by outside forces, but the ability to influence outside forces actively arises from conscious decision.
Totally awesome. Thanks.
My brother saw this on my recommended and just said "free my man Will"
Why is this so funny
What did he say at 9:12?He says It's the most complex thing in the universe but I didn't understand what he said
best philosophy channel on youtube.....thanks alot
]
+david Mudzudzu awww, thanks!
Right of the bat i thought of a scene from the movie "Waking life". A great watch, asks pretty cool questions.
This one is surely bound to come back up as time goes by. Keep these concepts in mind when discussing potentially controversial future issues. This video is great. The fragile house of cards of reality, it begins to crumble when we begin to examine its minute aspects. If something as mundane and facile as our psychologically driven desires are designed by either DNA/Nature/Randomness or something metaphysical beyond the limits of our conceptualization, if there is some way of conclusively proving this "either/or" duality or even an aporia between concepts, then this reasoning only serves to prove the nihilistic meaninglessness of existence of which Nietzsche foresaw.
Free will and consciousness seem to be about an apparently subjective interpretation of a phenomenon described as self-presence. Life, for that matter seem to be about experiencing a succession of consecutive instances of self-presence.
you have to read the next book in Nietzsche's series, the one after Thus Spake Zarathustra. Explains the whole series.
Very interesting topic. Great Video
Enjoyed it very much.
Could you/anybody gave a list of good books regarding this matter? I'd like to read about it but I do not know where to start
thanks
so glad you discovered punctuation and slowed down.
The progression of human knowledge and understanding reminds me of the way separate streams of trickling water gravitate towards each other and inevitably merge into a single stream.
Likewise, the pitfalls and mistakes carved out by earlier scientists will simply be repeated by following generations - if they blindly follow the same path without any original thinking.
It surprises me how, many smart people repeat the fallacies and follies of yesteryear, simply because they repeat answers that they have not thought out for themselves.
You seem to be a smart guy, but this applies to you too.
I believe in free will yes, because when faced with options we can actively chose amongst them, being them either "good" or "bad".
And even, making an association to quantum uncertainty and how the "observer" changes the results. I'm not that studied in the matter to explain it well, but it all leads me to think that even though a buckload of things can be predicted, the uncertainty will always be there. There will always be someone or something not doing the predicted, and I don't know, maybe that's an expression of will
How do you know you good have done otherwise? How do you know that, if we rewound the clock, that you could have done differently? You feel a sense of choice, but perhaps that sense is more akin to a computer running calculations before reaching an answer. A complicated, mushy, and unreliable computer.
And as was said in the video, yeah, the uncertainty principle may mean you can’t perfectly predict the outcome of an event, but can you really call what is the equivalent to a quantum coin toss, free? If all my “choices” were a determined by a random factor, can you really call that free will?
So thinking about it... I'm not really sure how much it's practical to worry about free will. I mean lacking it we can't make any judgement meaningful, like you can say we shouldn't punish people for bad things, but people couldn't any more NOT punish them then the people could not do bad things.
And really, it seems if anywhere is a good place to think about free will is seeing if randomness exist
and I want to see the environment one
(Also I like you talking to people in the little ending bit, I think you covered it really well)
Absolutely brilliant video!! I think I mostly favor compatabolism
As long as thier is duality, which there is on earth, then their has to be free will. Its the arguments we have with ourselves and how we react in any situation. It is in that moment that we decide how choose to react to any given moment, yet there are many different ways of reating to any situation. In the moment your true colours manifest.
I do have to say, it is quite eerie the similarity between determinism and the Judeo - Christian - Islamic references to being a slave to your flesh, knowing that you "could" do one thing and knowing OF multiple things, but being compelled to do others.
+Monkey Enma Do you happen to know the specific passages/ verses that mention that?
Surprised I missed this, give me a day or so and I can absolutely give at least judaic and christian quotes on it
I'm a little less experienced with the Qu'ran, but that will show it as well.
Really, though, a basic google search will turn it up.
Great video.
I didn't know about compatibilsm!
I was very much a believer of determinism.
I agree soooo much with the concept that everything (even thoug maybe not with quantum physics, now, but still) can be copy-paste alongside their state and the forces applies to them into a mega-simulation to predict the outcome of everything at any point in time, past and future.
And I agree that it doesn't matter and that, the same way I'm a nihilist but not constantly suicidal, it's absolutely fine to have the world structured in such a way, because whatever the laws of physics governing our brains, we can still percieve consciousness and enjoy life while it's there.
So I guess I'm a compatibilist. Yay. I learned stuff.
We've always had an intuitive definition of free will that went something like, "Free will is purpose that is nether caused by nor entangled with external factors." The problem with this definitions is that it is self defeating once you really look at it, since purpose is something that is, by definition, entangled with an external factor.
Your distinct lack of free will is only most obvious when you make large decisions, like choosing a house to move in to, or picking a college to attend, because at this point, you are conscious of the many many variables that drove you towards one outcome or the other. Even when you make small decisions, like choosing pepperoni or mushrooms on your pizza, the variables that determine what you pick aren't brought up consciously, and just stay in your subconscious. But when you do order a topping, you knew that you had a purpose for choosing what you did, but since you don't know why that purpose came to be, you assume that it exists somehow free of time and space and energy.
Love your videos, very well put together. Thank you for your work, and keep going :)
Freedom to have intentions is a psychological reality that defines free will when someone wants to defend it. The material correlates of consciousness is a physical reality for when someone wants to "disprove" it.
Many of the recurring arguments in philosophy come about due to confusing psychological (subjective) realities and material realities.
Philosophy Tube this is the first time I have watched a video from you and this was a brilliant one and I subbed! Also I was wondering are you a atheist, deist or theist?
Ellis Farrow Welcome! I usually try to keep my religious views semi-ambiguous, although I have mentioned them in one video, and in next week's I do come right out and say it.
Philosophy Tube Ok I will wait until then :)
I do Physics, Chemistry, Biology, Mathematics, IT, Structural Engineering and will be doing Astrophysics and Cosmology at University and while I am off I wanted to learn Philosophy and that's why I like your channel because you explain it very good and in detail like Dualism for example.
I would say, free will is the ability to choose something regardless of predictability or desire. We have free will because if we desire something, one might predict we would choose that. However, if what I desire is an outcome that someone would not be able to predict, my desire would change based on the prediction of that certain individual or society. Or, if you said that my desire to be unpredictable was in fact, predictable, I could then choose to be predictable. A prediction is an estimate, an educated guess. There is no absolute certainty in predictability. I feel our minds can only think about things in a linear manner, that one event must happen because an event previous caused it to. But many topics in psychology have no causation, no truth. Only chance, and variables.
Generally, when someone says "You shouldn't have done that", they mean "You are going to regret that action, and likely avoid taking similar actions in the future".
would this also mean that if someone treys to open a store and it fails it would be the laws of the universe that decided there store is not good or something like that?