not so. We can change our environment to avoid triggers that spark desire, and learn more about our desires and what they will get us. I used to hate oatmeal and would rather eat Pizza and ice cream for breakfast. Then I learned more and gained experience and my desires changed to enjoy oatmeal for breakfast. If I don't want to want something, stay away from it, completely, or as much as possible, so that the triggers we face are small and few and our more mature desires can overpower our instinctive desires

@@christianlassen1577 You are using a desire, to justify a desire to not have a temptation. You want two things, and one want outweighed the other as an influence on your actions.

Schopenhauer is the only person I've ever connected with, truly. He understands. Slept on unfortunately and misunderstood.

Have you ever heard of desire? The goal of life to test people Did they really want to be good even of that means doing what you don't like, same be patient and thinks out our control Happy life for you

Only partially true. I agree with the first commenter. You can acquire a taste. However, deeper desires like sex are harder to deny.

Yeah, my parents dismissed me when I pointed out the flaw of that logic. Their god gives these laws such as thou shall not kill or thou shall not steal, that would allude to the idea of free will. But if everything is predetermined, some people are bound to steal and kill, making those rule’s meaningless if such people are doomed from the start

​@@user-ij6py2zi9b Faith is what let's them turn off thinking about it any further. The moment they are presented with a contradiction in their beliefs they will fall back on faith internally to protect those beliefs.

@@christopherchilton-smith6482 I recognized this, because they were conditioned to uncritcally take in this knowledge of how the world works since childhood without considering alternatives (against free will) being such a pivitol part of their ego or identity that defines who they are as people and what they live for. Many in my family blast gospel music to cope with the negatives of life and fall deeper in their supposed worship and try to force those beliefs on me. As an observer, I'm aware of all of this, but knowing how they'd react, I can't do or say anything

Free will is the gift humankind has been given that allows each being to freely choose their ideas and what they wish to believe or not believe. Our ability, through the choices we make, "to create new circumstances and environment, relationships, achievements or failures, prosperity or poverty." There is no way that man may escape what he thinks, says or does [i.e., the fruits of his free will]-for he is born of the Divine Creative Consciousness power and is likewise creative in his imagination.

@@edgarmorales4476 Those are empty proclamations, there's little to substantiate them. The world is either determined or determined with some randomness thrown and that's just where science is right now. In either case your brain is first developed by the deterministic biological factors and then shaped by deterministic environmental factors. No amount of randomness thrown into the mix frees your will. Anyone can stand outside of science and proclaim anything just as you have done.

Take away the vote

"there is nothing worse than ignorance in action" - Goethe. Unfortunately most ppl never past teenager stage of their life in the 70s and some of those ppl run countries - Bernardo Kastrup

That's a social function. When someone isn't up to a job, they should not get promoted. That's how we do it now.

It's because we live in a stratified class society instead of a meritocracy.

this sounds like an excuse for tyranny. he's not entirely wrong, but he's not entirely right either, and the half truths are often the most dangerous

Indeed. Most "controlled" experiments are anything but. They never observe the full list of factors or biases due to subject selection.

people tend to look at psychology and sociology as branches of science that compare with biology, physics or chemistry, but the chasms of evidence are enormous. the big bang theory and evolution have far more evidence backing them up than literally any idea ever proposed in psych or soc. it's not even close.

So how does this work with free will then?

NUEROPSYCH not Psychology FYI.

I appreciate your points. On a lighter note, we didn't choose our parents because we didn't exist to make such a choice. May be it was our parents' exercise of free will that brought us into existence and so we are living now.

I already overthink stuff, dnt need to do this at all. U won’t be able to find out the answer

Yeah it's the S1 versus S2 thinking of Kahneman... how the brain works... here's to hoping everyone has enough prefrontal cortex capacity to do this; because hey, we're all created equal (not) => hey!

Skeptical

Yeah, overthink every single aspect of life, every single action of you and others, that is a really solid advice if you're trying to speedrun suicide.

Except you have no free will to do any of that, right? 😂🙄

yet no one talks about eternal torture if consciousness is infinite/can replicate forever in infinite universe/survives death!!!!

A 3 week LSD binge omg

@@Mortepheusi think they meant binging on the lectures..

Same here.

​@@Mortepheustwo days is in a row is a waste. I did a whole year macrodosing just to see what would happen. It was quite expensive.

I came to the comments to say this. It's so important we agree on or are at least aware of the definitions of the concepts central to what's being discussed.

Underrated comment. The motivations that cause us to make certain decisions is, in fact, us. Our self, our will.

exactly, the way he describes that we don't have free will says nothing about what constitutes free will or what would free will look like if it were possible. By the definition, it seems there is no such thing as free will as there is always something that happens before. Its all cause and effect...which to some degree seems accurate but i don't think either cause and effect or free will. There doesn't seem to be a reason why you can't have both at the same time.

It comes down to physics, atoms. Their theory is based on the idea that we are just atoms moving according to the laws of physics. It is probably correct. But it is disturbing to think of life that way. We should not do so.

He did explain free will, he mentioned: it's about choice and having alternatives

👍👍👍

It's really asking questions wrong. The concept of "making a choice" already assumed agency. But are we really "making the choice"? Or is it merely the outcome of a natural process (despite being highly complicated)?

Well put

This seems to agree with Alan Watts, who said “I know Alan Watts is just a big show” 😂 Seriously, the sense the world revolves around us from our vantage point is the impetus for I, and your name is just a personification (mask wearing) to differentiate your I from another’s. Crazy stuff …

Once upon a time, when a child misbehaved in a tribe or a village, the whole group accepted responsibility for the crafting of that individual. Clearly, that kid did not get some of their needs met, if they are misbehaving so badly. Everyone was responsible for the kid. It takes a village to raise a child. In modern Western society, individualism removes responsibility for others, and rejects the fact that others crafted each individual. It's all about "you". A kid turns 18 and declared "I" am me, and "I" made me, and "I" am independent. They don't credit the structures which rewarded them. No one is independent. People who are narcissistic or otherwise don't understand that their "self" was made by a socially collective environmental causation, tend to de-value society in favour of individualism. The individualism of neo-classical economics and the resulting culture, promotes the idea that if you are rich and powerful, you did that yourself, excluding the influences and circumstances other people produced to make you what you are. When the successful, the leadership, the wealthy, reject the idea that their success is built on a society, the society is denigrated, and discarded in thought and policy. Now we have ended up with a scenario where those who have not had their needs met by a system built by and for the successful, are taught to blame themselves for being inferiour. This suits the powerful. The individual blames themselves, for the lack of social support and belonging. Free will is tied up with religious concepts which don't make sense, and socio-economic systems built by and for the "winners" who fail to understand that they could not exist as they are, without the group which made them. Individualism is obtuse, and so is free will, and so is "independence". The "real me" is a product of all the factors which made me, not merely my experience of having agency.

Even this comment and mine... 😅 Owing to super-determinism of quantum mechanics, this and everything before and after, and around was determined 13.8 billion years ago.

Because there was no need for it

lmao

Correct

He would agree.

Well put!

Yes, you are indeed correct! The arguments that are made about free will are essentially semantics. Interestingly, just like in the book I'm currently writing, they are using doing the same thing that the string theory physicists community does. Essentially saying there's an invisible connection or string of causes and effects that are invisibly taking place, and calling all of the outcomes that we see with our physical lies in the real world. Just like the essential premise of string theory, the Free Will theory is essentially the same in its own right. It says we can can see the physical outcome of all of our choices and we can be sure that there's an invisible cause and effect relationship, and because there exists a cause and effect relationship, that we never choose anything at all, but rather, the cause chose it for us. And thus the effect is the tangible result that we can see with our own eyes. It is the biggest sleight of hand next to string theory and I am so glad out of a sea of millions of people that you are one of the only ones to see this. Just as I was for string theory and free will. It's the same old playbook, claim something invisible is causing something tangible and because no one can verify the invisible thing, it infinitely gives possibility to the physical thing that we can see touch and smell. It's the same for religion. A handful of people turned God's communication with them invisible and say, hey, God spoke to me and told a message to me only me, and now you have to listen to me. And because God's conversation with that person is invisible, no one can truly say that it didn't happen lol. This invisible sleight of hand is the most pervasive and dangerous and is responsible for over 99% evolve false concepts, beliefs and theories. This is why I am finishing my work on this because the public has to get a hold on this trickery once and for all. 💪💪💪💪

Cope

@@dauagovz2823 Wow, thanks for the sage advice. Don't know how I've managed over 65 years without it!

​@@jaykay6387cry abt it

for real

Sapolsky is Archimedes and I am a fruit fly that will always watch whatever he says.

If only he would stop talking about ants in this context. The average ant enters its life as specialized as possible and would therefore have the least imaginable benefit from anything even remotely resembling this so-called free will thing.

he was an uncle before being a grandpa, watch his earlier lessons (stanford classes)

He might be one of the smartest people alive. If you haven’t read “Behave”, I highly recommend it.

From my limited perspective, the human animal has two fundamental needs (before we get to Maslow's Hierarchy). The first need is agency. We need to feel we have control (see Matrix 1-3 movies - LOL) over our existence. The second need is the need for connection. When either of these needs is not met, then the trouble begins.

@@AVADAMS1967Maslows pyramid has proofed to be wrong

@@florentin4061 the model is incomplete, not wrong. There's a difference.

360 means you landed where you srarted.

@@MblCJluTEJlb *180

Brilliant! I had to reply to your comment... I have NO free will. haha.

I suggest that he wrote the book because realising that we have no free will we should change the way we behave in terms of apportioning blame and rewarding people. That is, he wants to influence (cause) others to think along those lines hoping for a positive reaction.

@@sjoerd1239 Spot on. Now we can influence others and so one. I suppose it is about positive memes.

Butterfly effect

@@BobSacamano666 🦋 Try 'Interesting times' by Terry Pratchett. I think the audiobook is on you tube. It is one of my favorite books.

About 13.8 billion years ago

Thank you for putting this out there.

Thank you for putting my thoughts on this together so well! To summarize what you said: people are products of their environment but they still have a choice to change.

I choose not to believe you! Ha, gotchu!!

So we must release all the criminals we convicted because they have no free will. Therefore, they are not guilty. Right? Wrong?

@@ron_peIn one sense that’s true of course we won’t do that because they’re still a threat to us but yeah, makes ya think.

@@ron_pe So you didn't watch the video.

@@Greg-xi8yx You didn't hear the part about "quarantining"?

That's not very free then. If all our "choices" are limited by biology, physics etc, then why even entertain the concept?

@@jamesmillar5951 Why entertain the notion of driving when you are limited by the speed limit and the path of the road? Does a train not exist simply because it is limited to the tracks? Everything has limits. We shouldn't expect free will to be any different.

@@billmcleangunsmith because I'm not disputing things existing despite laws governing them. I'm disputing the idea that humans are somehow the one exception to determinism

The issue here is that a lot of people are stuck in black and white thinking. Freedom and structure are an interplay more like the yin yang concept. One cannot exist without the other. Several people have commented as if- if you are not 100 % unbound you must have no freedom at all, which is just black and white extreme thinking. If you were completely unbound (from time, space, having a body, etc.) you would not exist to experience freedom.

The world is grasping onto victimhood more now than ever before. The idea that it is freeing you of guilt and giving it to others is a false one. Gaining the approval of others of like mind seems to give us freedom and innocence. That false idea is limiting us rather than setting us free. Being responsible is the way to joy.

@@robertdouglas8895 knowing there's no free Will liberales and also gives you a great deal of responsabilities, coz you know you can shape the will of others, and not even interacting with them, but just by being in the same environment

@@estudiopersonal1020 All minds are connected. When we forgive others, all receive the freedom and joy of seeing everyone as free.

I wonder if that's bc humans were programmed with slave DNA

I agree that accepting lack of agency is liberating and it has also increased my gratitude for my life and empathy and sympathy for others. I am more humble and forgiving. This knowledge adds a whole new level of meaning to "walk a mile in my shoes". No free will does not mean no responsibility. Quite the opposite. Now I know how my actions affect others in ways that I was totally unaware of before. And I make sure I eat regularly. 😁

Good Girl! 👌 🐟 11. FREE-WILL Vs DETERMINISM: Just as the autonomous beating of one's heart is governed by one's genes (such as the presence of a congenital heart condition), and the present-life conditioning of the heart (such as myocardial infarction as a consequence of the consumption of excessive fats and oils, or heart palpitations due to severe emotional distress), each and EVERY thought and action is governed by our genes and environmental conditioning. This teaching is possibly the most difficult concept for humans to accept, because we refuse to believe that we are not the author of our thoughts and actions. From the appearance of the pseudo-ego (one’s inaccurate conception of oneself) at the age of approximately two and a half, we have been constantly conditioned by our parents, teachers, and society, to believe that we are solely responsible for our thoughts and deeds. This deeply-ingrained belief is EXCRUCIATINGLY difficult to abandon, which is possibly the main reason why there are very few persons extant who are spiritually-enlightened, or at least who are liberated from the five manifestations of mental suffering explained elsewhere in this “Final Instruction Sheet for Humanity”, since suffering (as opposed to pain) is predicated solely upon the erroneous belief in free-will. Free-will is usually defined as the ability for a person to make a conscious decision to do otherwise, that is to say, CHOOSE to have performed an action other than what one has already done, if one had been given the opportunity to do so. To make it perfectly clear, if one, for example, is handed a restaurant menu with several dishes listed, one could decide that one dish is equally-desirable as the next dish, and choose either option. If humans truly possessed freedom of will, then logically speaking, a person who adores cats and detests dogs, ought to be able to suddenly switch their preferences at any given point in time, or even voluntarily pause the beating of his or her own heart! So, in both of the aforementioned examples, there is a pre-existing preference (at a given point in time) for one particular dish or pet. Even if a person liked cats and dogs EQUALLY, and one was literally forced to choose one over the other, that choice isn’t made freely, but entirely based upon the person’s genetic code plus the individual's up-to-date conditioning. True equality is non-existent in the phenomenal sphere. The most common argument against determinism is that humans (unlike other animals) have the ability to choose what they can do, think or feel. First of all, many species of (higher) mammals also make choices. For instance, a cat can see two birds and choose which one to prey upon, or choose whether or not to play with a ball that is thrown its way, depending on its conditioning (e.g. its mood). That choices are made is indisputable, but those choices are dependent ENTIRELY upon one’s genes and conditioning. There is no third factor involved on the phenomenal plane. On the noumenal level, thoughts and deeds are in accordance with the preordained “Story of Life”. Read previous chapters of “F.I.S.H” to understand how life is merely a dream in the “mind of the Divine” and that human beings are, essentially, that Divinity in the form of dream characters. Chapter 08, specifically, explains how an action performed in the present is the result of a chain of causation, all the way back to the earliest-known event in our apparently-real universe (the so-called “Big Bang” singularity). At this point, it should be noted that according to reputable geneticists, it is possible for genes to mutate during the lifetime of any particular person. However, that phenomenon would be included under the “conditioning” aspect. The genes mutate according to whatever conditioning is imposed upon the human organism. It is simply IMPOSSIBLE for a person to use sheer force of will to change their own genetic code. Essentially, “conditioning” includes everything that acts upon a person from conception. University studies in recent years have demonstrated, by the use of hypnosis and complex experimentation, that CONSCIOUS volition is either unnecessary for a decision to be enacted upon or (in the case of hypnotic testing) that free-will choices are completely superfluous to actions. Because scientific research into free-will is a recent phenomenon, it is recommended that the reader search online for the latest findings. If any particular volitional act was not caused by the preceding thoughts and actions, then the only alternative explanation would be due to RANDOMNESS. Many quantum physicists claim that subatomic particles can randomly move in space, but true randomness cannot occur in a deterministic universe. Just as the typical person believes that two motor vehicles colliding together was the result of pure chance (therefore the term “accident”), quantum physicists are unable to see that the seeming randomness of quantum particles are, in fact, somehow determined by each and every preceding action which led-up to the act in question. It is a known scientific fact that a random number generator cannot exist, since no computational machine or software program is able to make the decision to generate a number at “random”. We did not choose which deoxyribonucleic acid our biological parents bequeathed to us, and most all the conditions to which we were exposed throughout our lives, yet we somehow believe that we are fully-autonomous beings, with the ability to feel, think and behave as we desire. The truth is, we cannot know for certain what even our next thought will be. Do we DECIDE to choose our thoughts and deeds? Not likely. Does an infant choose to learn how to walk or to begin speaking, or does it just happen automatically, according to nature? Obviously, the toddler begins to walk and to speak according to its genes (some children are far more intelligent and verbose, and more agile than others, depending on their genetic code) and according to all the conditions to which he or she has been exposed so far (some parents begin speaking to their kids even while they are in the womb, or expose their offspring to highly-intellectual dialogues whilst still in the cradle). Even those decisions/choices that we seem to make are entirely predicated upon our genes and conditioning, and cannot be free in any sense of the word. To claim that one is the ULTIMATE creator of one’s thoughts and actions is tantamount to believing that one created one’s very being. If a computer program or artificially-intelligent robot considered itself to be the cause of its activity, it would seem absurd to the average person. Yet, that is precisely what virtually every person who has ever lived mistakenly believes of their own thoughts and deeds. The IMPRESSION that we have free-will can be considered a “Gift of Life” or “God’s Grace”, otherwise, we may be resentful of our lack of free-will, since, unlike other creatures, we humans have the intelligence to comprehend our own existence. Even an enlightened sage, who has fully realized that he is not the author of his thoughts and actions, is not conscious of his lack of volition at every moment of his day. At best, he may recall his lack of freedom during those times where suffering (as opposed to mere pain) begins to creep-in to the mind or intellect. Many, if not most scientists, particularly academic philosophers and physicists, accept determinism to be the most logical and reasonable alternative to free-will, but it seems, at least anecdotally, that they rarely (if ever) live their lives conscious of the fact that their daily actions are fated. Cont...

my god, thank you

THANK YOU SO MUCH

Thank you Can you suggest me some more podcast on psychology

@@THE_NEO_DAWN I find Dr. Ramani is quite interesting: narcissism, psychopathy and other anti-social behaviors. However, I think she could use some anthropology. Speaking of which 1972 quote from anthropology (translated from French) "we did not evolve to live in the societies we have erected. We evolved to live in tribes and cooperate for the whole tribe as those were most successful at adapting/surviving.

Or the illusion of awareness as a conscious being. We fundamentally fear the fact that we are merely a mortal reactive machines that produce deterministic outcomes.

You type this comment as if you have a choice to feel bad for people

I think you nailed it and that's spot on

@@frankxu4795 That's the thing though. The experience of feelings still has to exists. The only thing anyone can know for truly certain, objectively, is that their own subjective experience exists as a real thing. For example, I know that the feeling of me seeing the color red exists, I can't prove it to anyone but myself, but the proof for me already happened in the moment I saw the color. Whatever the nature of the universe may be, it definitely has at least one series of complicated sets of different feelings in it.

Yes

If there is no free will how would it be possible for a person truly know this or anything at all? Would not all thought and knowledge be an illusory mirage generated by the brain's neurons and distributed causality?

Might want to look up axiom of choice.

Freedom from or freedom to? From/to what? Overly simplistic phrases have multiple possible interpretations and therefore carry very little information.

"If there is no free will it is logically impossible to know if you have free will or not" - the laws of logic

@@user-qi7xx5ih6zthe meaning is deeper than you think. The quote questions the true meaning of what freedom is? Are we really born free in this nature? Do we have a will? When does a will start? Think deeply, Swami Vivekananda is talking from the perspective of advaita vedanta philosophy of Hinduism.

Well put. And we can certainly improve our awareness. Of both the external circumstances and internally, the subconscious. We will never escape these factors completely, either by nature or because they serve us. What we can do is keep our eyes open and not let them possess us. To walk this path is to walk the path of self discovery and growth.

I know the guy who wrote it 😏

The truth is nuanced the why of anything is the most important to anyone

Cope

For me, there's no freewill. For the past decade I've shifted from complete freedom into deterministic value. Life is Math doing it course. It's no use to interpret the equation, we just ride along with equation. Even psychology is rooted back to math. Wea re just numbers, and it gives me sense of Liberation through deterministic outlook. It's a Paradoxical world view, but when I see the world as deterministic equation, then I have no hustle to judge others anymore. Because they're also just a correspondent from previous correspondences.

What does that even mean.?..ofcourse, you gonna choose from the options available to you. What else are you gonna choose from?? The problem is you don't choose what options are going to be available to you and your choice among those options is also dermined by factors you don't control...hence, no free will. People just keep trying to twist and turn this simple notion to insert some sort of their own definition of free will into.

@@Enoynanone if there's more than just one available option for choice, even predetermined by circumstances of existence or previous choices, you have freedom (read free will) to choose the one that works best for you in that particular moment. We always have at least two options: to choose or not choose, but often there are more than two. And time wise, free will doesn't exist in the past or future, it only exists in the present moment, in the "now".

What you are describing is your will, NOT free will. You choose what you want but you can’t choose your want, you can only realise it. People always confuse their will with free will....that is just your WILL, Yes you have your will, it is just not free, it is either determined or it is random..there is no third option..third option isn't even possible.

@@Enoynanone what you are talking about is universal free will, and it is beyond the topic of this conversation. If everyone had it the world would be an out of any order mess. That's why our free will is limited to the freedom of choice in the realm that an individual can control and able to take responsibility for, not more. For some people it's hard to accept that you/your will is equal freedom/ free will because it's much easier to brush off the responsibility for the outcomes of the choices that were either made by the individual or on their behalf. Let go of control over things you can not control, take responsibility for things you can control and you'll find freedom.

@@TheElenarybalko 😂 I am not talking about any universal free will . I am talking about individual will of a person which is not free at all. IT just feels free to an individual, that's all. Your will is not free. Hence, it is not free will it's just will. Don't make it complicated it is so simple. And I am not searching for freedom. The truth is enough.

A lot of it comes from religion. If all the things you do are determined already, going to heaven by deduction is pre-determined. What is the point? That's very hard for those people to swallow.

of course free will exists. just like the continuum of space curvature utterly impacts the continuum of mass-energy without touching it, likewise the continuum of awareness impacts mass-energy without touching it. the religious magical thinking lays in the delusion that attempts to pray nonexistent emergents of awareness into existence as properties of mass-energy.

@@frankxu4795 The concept of being 'determined already' is indeed present in religion and isn't 'very hard for those to swallow.' I understand that when you say 'determined already,' you mean that we as humans are solely driven by our circumstances, and here comes the misconception. On one side, some people say that there is no outer will; our choices are based solely on circumstances, while others say that between the stimulus and response, there is a space.

I know it's crazy, it is a concept that makes absolutely no sense at all when you shine a light on it. It's magic. The reason that people are disagreeing with is is either that they have a different definition of free will, they don't understand the argument but think they do, or they don't want to let go of their free will because that is a huge part of their identity.

@@frankxu4795 theistic determinism is a thing for a reason. of course an omniscient being would know exactly what was going to happen all along, right? so then what is the point of creating humans and asking them to obey when it is already known who will and who won't?

god alone exist, and this is a movie being watched by god(he's your consciousness/the real you), this was revealed in my mystical experience when i thought i died as a human just to be shown that i am pure consciousness that exist nowhere and everywhere and it's all that exists

@@ayoubzahiri1918you can belief that yourselve, but dont force your Theories on to others

@@juriG10how is he forcing anyone

Quit trying to force people not to force their theories on others​@@juriG10

Free will, God willing. These 4 words -blew the mind of a preacher l said it to. We had been discussing free will & I just said it innocently.. But he reacted in a manner that led me to feel, it had blown his mind in that moment.... Coincidences loom in wait. They are either ...always at the ready to occur, or else they were always there ..in the pipeline. But surely the mystery of all wonder. ~

I agree, it ultimately doesn't matter. I see predeterminism being used by people to not take responsibility for their actions. It's like they can't cope with the dual reality that there are things within and out of our control.

Even further than that, there is no fundamental difference between us and every other thing in the universe. Our actions are determined by physics the same way a rock rolling down a hill is. To me, this is not depressing, this frees us from worrying about the future or resenting our past, because there is only one way things can play out, and that is not under our control.

Free will is an illusion of sorts. It still seems "free" because we can't predict the future. So the unknown can seem random or brought on by "choice". IMO you can still experience life as NOT being deterministic because of the unknown. Not to mention the number and complexity of things that factor into "choice" means you'll always be ignorant of the determinism. Things like "class" or "upbringing" are just abstracts and assumptions. While humans assume that their abstractions are the only determining factors in life, our "will" is actually being decided by mostly things the average human will not be cognizant of. The problem with people taking to determinism is they start to think they can predict the future. But that's ridiculous. It'd be like an analyst working with only 1% of the available data which itself is only 1% correct. No matter how you analyze, your answers are far from any truth.

What causes you to not react in anger when you feel angry? It's because you were conditioned by your mom/dad/teachers/society to do so. You had no part in that.

@@mugdays What if we climb the ladder of those supposed ancestors up until the one true ancestor who took that ultimate decisions of "not reacting to anger" and passed it to his siblings or contemporary or whatever, then where does the decision come from? What if his ancestors had no emotions and couldn't pass it to him? The world is vast and complex and your brain has to take A LOT of decision each time, and yes as you pointed some of it comes from parental figures or events that shaped you or society. Some of those pre-digested answers are useful and do not require modification but if you want to modify a behavior or a conclusion you have the ability of doing it. You have reason and critical thinking, you have the ability of gathering data if the ones you have are not enough. Free will seems to be more on a scale rather than a simple "yes" or "no" answer. I'll answer your question with another one : What if you are in an absolutely brand new situation where not a single answers from society or parental figures fits in this moment?

​@@nicolasAT1991I think you are oversimplifying what is being presented here. It is not to say your decisions are based on your upbringing, genetics, or society. But also the factors in and before that situation, whether and what you ate that morning, whether someone cut you off in traffic that day, what time of day you make that decision, to say that all these factors brought in together determine the decision you will take. To say that if we had perfect information up to the nanosecond one could predict the decision you take with absolute accuracy.

No. That is not what he is saying. He is saying we have no freedom at all because we just do what our environment tells us. All the examples he is giving are not "parts where you don't have freedom but you might have freedom in other ways". All the examples he is giving are simply examples of where we once thought there was freedom but there is none. Every mystery ever solved turned out to be "not magic" and that is a good indicator of no magic existing. The same will be true for causes of behavior. Every cause of every behavior so far explained turned out to be "not free will" and that is a good indicator that no free will exists. And that is pretty logical, because free will can't exist. "People who believe they have choices tend to work on improving themselves. Those who don't tend to be more passive." Where you listening? He is saying that people do(!) make choices. The absence of free will is not the absence of choice. I haven't believed in free will since I was 14 years old and read Bas Harring, but why the hell would that stop me from working on improving myself? Not improving yourself just sounds like a dumb decision and totally irrelevant to the discussion about free will. "They will attribute everything, good or bad, to their genetics, their ancestors, the weather." Those are not the only 3 factors. The amount I improved myself is also(!) a factor (for example). That doesn't mean I have free will.

No, your brain does not yet understand what no free will means. You have no control over how your brain works and how it responds to stimuli. There is no free will. You are your brain. Your unconscious mind makes decisions based on the capacity of your brain. A story is created for your conscious awareness of why you made a decision. That's why people feel like they are in control.

Yes free will is an important motivator via emotions like guilt, shame, and pride. It encourages prosocial behaviour and discourages antisocial behaviour so I don't know if Sapolsky realizes that the widespread dissemination of these ideas could cause some problems - essentially for some people, it could serve as a catch all excuse for whatever heinous behaviours they wish to commit.

Niche reference there

People are just confused thinking free will thinks infinite possibilities. We obviously live in a finite reality so you can't just spread your wings and fly. Free will within a finite reality.

True story.

You're not just ensnared by things like social conventions, everything you do dictated by the laws of physics. You feel like you "freely" will something, but actually you're just noticing in your conscience something that's the result of your neurons having a mechanistically determined behavior.

@2CSST2 free will simply means selecting an option while rejecting another option. Something determined doesnt evaluate another option, it selects exaclty what its preselected to. What you choose is not determined but its actually up to you. You are telling me you have no choice in what you choose to eat? That's nonsense

Exactly. There are countless factors that confine us. Yet, we enjoy the safety features on roller coasters and in cars. To be confined to parameters doesn't mean the death of free enjoyment.

Is everything you are and do a direct result of a choice you made

Let me illustrate my point with a simple, straightforward example. The way an ant perceives reality is completely different from how we perceive it. Your finger could be right in front of the ant, but it will remain completely oblivious until it directly obstructs its way. It cannot see that the finger is attached to a hand, which is connected to a muscular arm, and eventually a towering human. The ant's brain is wired to prioritize its survival as a species, leading it to block out all other senses except for what is necessary to see. Thus, the ant is confined by the limitations of its brain, unable to perceive anything beyond its predetermined boundaries. The ant will never know that it resides on a monstrous globe because it doesn't need to know. Nevertheless, the ant faced a decision: flee from the finger or defend itself by sinking its tiny jaws into it. Please correct me if I am mistaken, but that is my understanding. Our freedom to observe is restricted, with only a limited range of choices available within our designated sphere and controlled by the brain. Another example is that of a computer program bounded by its code and can only perform functions that are programmed into it. Hope this helps!

His idea of free will is some part of the brain being able to make a spontaneous choice that wasn't pre-determined by all the previous events that led up to that choice, including your current mood (in his book he mentions a study of judges who on average would give parole much less often if it had been hours since their last meal), your environment, your social circle, your childhood traumas, the conditions of the womb you grew in, and all the genetics and evolution that went into giving you the brain that you currently have. Essentially his argument is that the subconscious part of the brain makes choices for us based on all of these factors and then we feel the illusion of making the choice ourselves. So to disprove his idea you would have to show a neuron firing that wasn't directly influenced by another neuron, and another neuron before that; because anything else wouldn't be free will, it'd be just another in a long series of pre-determined, predictable (with enough understanding of the brain; which we don't have yet) series of events.

@@whateverusername I agree our minds are constrained in ways we dont think about, but that's not the same as saying there is no free will. It seems closer to saying something like: thinking about teleporting wont make you teleport. So what? we already know there are constraints on free will. I dont see how individual neurons firing proves or disproves anything. Thinking involves billions of neurons in parallel. Nobody is arguing about whether a single nerve cell on its own has free will.

People who make these absolute conclusions are so full of ego and so limited in their thinking even though they sound intelligent the fact they arrived to that point. He can’t prove or disprove his theory, it’s the same argument he’s using to disprove it is the same as the one that disproves his own argument, correlation doesn’t equal causation. We don’t actually know for sure that’s how it works, we can’t know, it’s impossible

excellent

@@vervor :P

Great question! I’d love an answer on this from him

If you could retroactively change any condition in the casual change that lead to a decision without also making a different decision then you could say your decisions are free because you're litteraly freeing those decisions from the conditions that lead to them. That's what free will looks like, Sapolsky says something like this about free will when addressing why emergence isn't a route there.

Libertarian free will is an incoherent concept, it can't exist so it doesn't look like anything. It's like asking what a uniformly coloured blue red balls looks like. That is the entire point. There is no definition of free will that can exist that is a basis for moral fault judgement. People do exactly what their situation (nature, nurture, environment, quantum randomness influences, mood, etc) tells them to do, they can't do anything else. Free will would look like somebody doing something other than the thing reality forces them to do. It's impossible.

Stop using your critical thinking skills. Science told you so!

But the fundamental choice of which road to take is determined by factors you don’t control (based on your current brain activity). In reality, while it appears you can choose any road that you will, your brain state selects a road which you are forced to select despite the fact that it appears to you that you where the author of the decision.

have you seen the series "Devs"?

Think about lightning, finding it path of least resistance... I think that statement is false, i think lightning is more like an opportunist who takes from where is available.

You night have the abilities that determine whether or not you have the forsight, insight, wisdom, whatever that is needed to get off that road quick enough or you might not, and that determines whether you take that road or not and that was already true before the choice was ever presented to you.

@@nonononononono8532 ok, this depiction would mean we're are just character in a prewritten story, we have no will, no choice, and therefore we are not technically responsible for our actions. Wouldn't this mean reality is an illusion, like a video game were the characters look and act real, and yet they are only light pulses on a screen controlled by outside forces?

If you want to believe in free will, you have to believe in some sort of supernatural phenomena, like God. Without that, there is no free will whatsoever.

Quantum mechanics. There's discussions emerging that our consciousness, which is the deciding factor in a possible freewill, is due to microtubules, which have observed quantum elements within them and are part of the cells in our body. Free will is real. It's more illusory than we like to admit for most and rather fragile in a life that tends towards disarray and material pull - but none the less there are non-deterministic parts of this reality, which I believe is where that spiritual dimension arises from.

Yeah, I've read stuff that argues free will isn't absolute either way; we are influenced enough that some avenues of decision making are completely cut off, and some are much less likely than others. However, there is still an element of "choosing" between those options, and science has no real mechanism for explaining it entirely one way or the other, at least for now

You don't understand what he is saying. You are missing the point. There is absolutely no free will and Sapolsky is 100% correct on this matter. We have to protect society from dangerous criminals the same way we have to protect society against earthquakes or tornados. They are dangerous. Also, the feeling of there being free will is useful for encouraging prosocial behaviour and discouraging the opposite. If you decide to protect society from dangerous criminals, you are doing so to protect society and maximize well being. It does not necessarily imply moral obligation or agency. Do not assume that he is wrong just because you don't understand the argument.

@@plotofland2928you just explained that free will exists

How so? As far as I am aware, nothing in my comment suggested that free will is real. Free will is literally magic. The only reason anybody would disagree with me is if they were going by a different definition of free will (which seems to be the primary problem in free will debates, that each side is operating off a different definition).

@@plotofland2928 when you say things like “we have to protect society from dangerous criminals” you are implying an ought (some sort of obligation) you can’t in one breath say that everything is 100% determined and in the same breath say that you should do things. When there is an obligation, there is an option to not respond to an obligation which means I could do otherwise. Meaning there is a will involved to some degree which would mean we are not 100% determined. If the criminals are comparable to earthquakes, that means non criminals are as well. How does one natural disaster lock up and jail another natural disaster.

wanting to act or not, is the same want, which you cannot control. It appears that you in control, but decision was already in head, before you realized it. There is research that show, people made decision, before they knew themselves

I wrote an entirely different reply and erased it to leave this. Would this be considered "free will"? It's more of an existential sort of question anyway.

He is not saying conscious thought is not a factor. Of course conscious thought might influence your behaviour. But your conscious thoughts are caused by all those same factors. You simply think the concious thoughts that your situation/reality tells you to think. You can't think different thoughts than those.

⁠ All the factors present affect your pfc which is where you have conscious thought and that’s all deterministic. The minor events and factors shape the way you think causing you make the decision the level of complexity and modularity is just really high. Everything in the present time has a past dating back to the beginning of time, how anything go to where it is now is dependent on an incommensurable number of factors and that’s just the system we’re in. To have free will would be to never be subject to this system essentially existing externally from it.

@@inu4992don’t we to a certain degree remove ourselves from the “system”? Isn’t that basically what engineering, agriculture are? Conscious thought gives us the ability to observe the “system”. Are we to assume going against the “system” isn’t part of the “system”? That’s some love and rockets philosophy right there. No new tale to tell.

those concepts are just developed forms of very simple interactions between us and the environment which we barely “willed”. They date back far before our prefrontal cortex was even that advanced. Agriculture is just developed hunting/gathering and engineering is just the use of basic mechanical principals. All of which are developments we couldn’t have willed because we didn’t even think they’d turn out to be half of what they are today

There is evidence for Consciousness being a universal field, in SAVANT SYNDROME, a condition in which those persons with significant mental disabilities demonstrate certain abilities far in excess of the norm, such as superhuman rapid mathematical calculation, mind-reading, blind-seeing, or prodigious musical aptitude. Such behaviour suggests that there is a universal field (possibly in holographic form) from which one can access information. Even simple artistic inspiration could be attributed to this phenomenon. The great British singer-songwriter, Sir James Paul McCartney, one day woke with the complete tune of the song, “Yesterday”, in his mind, after hearing it in a dream, as did his songwriting partner, John Lennon, who heard what is arguably his finest song, “#9 Dream” (as the title suggests) in a dream. American composer, Mr. Paul F. Simon, had a similar experience, when the chorus of his sublime masterpiece, “Bridge Over Troubled Water”, simply popped into his head. I can personally attest to the phenomenon described in the previous paragraph, in which a novel piece of music is heard within a dream, since one of the hymns I wrote when I was a Roman Catholic novitiate monk, was composed after the remembrance of both the melody and the lyrics (actually a setting of the “Hail Mary!” prayer, in English) from a dream on the morning of the fourth day of October, 1994 (Christian Era). This phenomenon could plausibly be relevant to the chapter on determinism, as some could argue that Sir James Paul McCartney did not really compose the tune of “Yesterday”, since he did not do anything in particular to produce it, other than hearing it in a dream. Of course, Chapter 11 demonstrates that not a SINGLE thought or deed of any animal, human or otherwise, is the result of free-will, as we humans are naught but characters in the play of life (or the Mind of God, for those who are Theistic), as the great English playwright, William Shakespeare, once wrote.

Totally!

Me too !!!!😊

they dont exist

And you can prove that with complete certainty?​@@oedesse

Free will is the gift humankind has been given that allows each being to freely choose their ideas and what they wish to believe or not believe. Our ability, through the choices we make, "to create new circumstances and environment, relationships, achievements or failures, prosperity or poverty." There is no way that man may escape what he thinks, says or does [i.e., the fruits of his free will]-for he is born of the Divine Creative Consciousness power and is likewise creative in his imagination.

That's irrelevant for the free will discussion though. Whether the future can be predicted, does not mean you are "free" to choose anything. It just means you cannot predict the circumstances in which the choices are going to be made. But the point is, all the factors that will eventually determine the choices before that point, are all pre-determined.

Without a mindset-you have no life, no development, no evil and no good. Your TYPE of mindset determines the quality of your life. This is the very first TRUTH of EXISTENCE. Furthermore, for as long as you live-you carry your mindset with you wherever you go. There is no escaping it-and day after day-it will continue to create for you the type of existence you have experienced in the past. Most people go through their entire life believing they are unfortunate. They think that other people have been mean, unkind, ugly to them and have made their life thoroughly unhappy. They believe that "other people" quarrel with them and constantly make difficulties, while they are absolutely innocent of any provocation. On the contrary, "other people" are not to blame. It is the personal mindset that is attracting to them their negative conditions. Most people shy away from the suggestion that they alone are responsible for their troubles. It is more difficult for most people to face up to their inadequacies than it is for those who have the inner strength and self-confidence to look at themselves fairly and squarely. Sincere Prayer draws the "Father-Mother Creative Consciousness" into the mind-quietly and secretly-It cleanses the human consciousness of all that the individual no longer feels comfortable with. It is, of necessity, a very gradual process of inner cleansing and development.

Without a mindset-you have no life, no development, no evil and no good. Your TYPE of mindset determines the quality of your life. This is the very first TRUTH of EXISTENCE. Furthermore, for as long as you live-you carry your mindset with you wherever you go. There is no escaping it-and day after day-it will continue to create for you the type of existence you have experienced in the past. Most people go through their entire life believing they are unfortunate. They think that other people have been mean, unkind, ugly to them and have made their life thoroughly unhappy. They believe that "other people" quarrel with them and constantly make difficulties, while they are absolutely innocent of any provocation. On the contrary, "other people" are not to blame. It is the personal mindset that is attracting to them their negative conditions. Most people shy away from the suggestion that they alone are responsible for their troubles. It is more difficult for most people to face up to their inadequacies than it is for those who have the inner strength and self-confidence to look at themselves fairly and squarely. Sincere Prayer draws the "Father-Mother Creative Consciousness" into the mind-quietly and secretly-It cleanses the human consciousness of all that the individual no longer feels comfortable with. It is, of necessity, a very gradual process of inner cleansing and development.

Most people shy away from the suggestion that they alone are responsible for their troubles. It is more difficult for most people to face up to their inadequacies than it is for those who have the inner strength and self-confidence to look at themselves fairly and squarely. Nothing happens by chance! Everything is woven out of the inner threads of our personal consciousness-thoughts, expectations, beliefs in life, fate, "God." We live in a world of our own making! This is why children raised in the same environment turn out differently. Each one has their own individual mindset constructed according to inherent character traits. Most people go through their entire life believing they are unfortunate. They think that other people have been mean, unkind, ugly to them and have made their lives thoroughly unhappy. They believe that "other people" quarrel with them and constantly make difficulties, while they are absolutely innocent of any provocation. On the contrary, "other people" are not to blame. It is the personal mindset that is attracting to them their negative conditions.

It is a feeling. Here is a simple test. Nobody can prove the person next to him/her has free will. Every single action can be fully explained by external factors, including one's experience, environments, etc. The only "proof" ever given for free will is the feeling of self free agency.

Your brain learns from negative consequences. So the punishment you get for doing something that is not socially acceptable is to teach your brain to make different decisions.

you will not get punished. The body will

Instead of punishment and retribution the law would focus solely on protecting order and safety. Countries that implement such systems actually have lower reoffending rates when criminals are released.

The ideas of praise and punishment become meaningless. Instead of baseless religious dogma guiding much of our laws we can use materialism and rehabilitation to get the best results for the community. Some other countries like Finland have much more humane justice systems and actually have less recidivism.

You have no free will to decide about that as well

You have no choice how this will make you feel.

Doesn't matter. It's not up to you

Yes, you should.

You should feel no different because you can't perceive the lack of free will. You can understand it, similar to how you can understand quantum physics, but it's not perceptible to you without technology.

Ouch!

literally almost all genetic sociopaths at this point. Narcissists can only view the world from their own point of you. So keep that in mind when listening to this guy. Also, they don't feel love. Makes them extremely dangerous.

O dear . A closed mind is a stagnant pond. No growth. Give yourself time. Zoom out…

@@kramnam4716 would that include a zoom meeting?

Haha!

The word "free" is ill defined for basically any concept. There is nothing that's "free" in the universe. Everything and anything are affected by the environment surrounding it and what makes it up.

To prove that quarks (subatomic particles) are more real while protons and neutrons (atomic particles) are less real, we need to establish a clear definition of what we mean by "real" and then provide evidence or logical arguments that support this claim. Let's approach this step by step. Definition of "real": For the purpose of this proof, we will define "real" as being more fundamental, indivisible, and closer to the underlying nature of reality. Proof: 1. Quarks are the fundamental building blocks of matter: - Protons and neutrons are composed of quarks. Protons consist of two up quarks and one down quark, while neutrons consist of one up quark and two down quarks. - Quarks are not known to have any substructure; they are considered to be elementary particles. - Therefore, quarks are more fundamental than protons and neutrons. 2. Quarks are indivisible: - Protons and neutrons can be divided into their constituent quarks through high-energy particle collisions. - However, there is no known way to divide quarks into smaller components. They are believed to be indivisible. - Therefore, quarks are indivisible, while protons and neutrons are divisible. 3. Quarks are closer to the underlying nature of reality: - The Standard Model of particle physics, which is our most comprehensive theory of the fundamental particles and forces, describes quarks as elementary particles that interact through the strong, weak, and electromagnetic forces. - Protons and neutrons, on the other hand, are composite particles that emerge from the interactions of quarks. - Therefore, quarks are closer to the underlying nature of reality as described by our most fundamental scientific theories. 4. Quarks exhibit more fundamental properties: - Quarks have intrinsic properties such as color charge, flavor, and spin, which determine how they interact with each other and with other particles. - Protons and neutrons derive their properties from the collective behavior of their constituent quarks. - Therefore, the properties of quarks are more fundamental than those of protons and neutrons. 5. Quarks are necessary for the existence of protons and neutrons: - Without quarks, protons and neutrons would not exist, as they are composed entirely of quarks. - However, quarks can exist independently of protons and neutrons, as demonstrated by the existence of other hadrons such as mesons, which are composed of one quark and one antiquark. - Therefore, quarks are necessary for the existence of protons and neutrons, but not vice versa. Conclusion: Based on the above arguments, we can conclude that quarks are more real than protons and neutrons. Quarks are more fundamental, indivisible, and closer to the underlying nature of reality as described by our most advanced scientific theories. They exhibit intrinsic properties that determine the behavior of composite particles like protons and neutrons, and they are necessary for the existence of these atomic particles. It is important to note that this proof relies on our current scientific understanding of particle physics and the nature of matter. As our knowledge advances, our understanding of what is "real" may evolve. However, based on the current evidence and theories, the argument for the greater reality of quarks compared to protons and neutrons is strong.