Wonderful interview, thank you. Sapolsky is making a difference for the good of mankind in the best way possible. Once we get rid of the belief in free will or illusion of it so many things will go with it including blame praise punishment award judgement superiority inferiority resentment anger etc. Once we start teaching our children who/what the human race really is they will grow up fundamentally kind and understanding towards one another. “Be kind” will no longer be a bumper sticker or tshirt logo, it will be the only way and option to be. It will likely take many generations and growing pains to get there but once we do life will be immensely better for all of mankind. And I imagine people’s motivation to do good is simply for the love of their fellow human. Yes idealistic, but with education and truth there’s no doubt we can get there. Too bad we can’t come back in 500 yrs to check it out 🤔

Dr. Sapolsky is at the leading edge of what will become the accepted, understood paradigm of our lives. It will very likely have a more profound impact on society than germ theory did on the cause of diseases. Highly recommended book.

Even if you can act your will you can not will your will.

I love Sapolsky, I have seen over 100 interviews and it is great he is also coming to smaller podcasts :) such a friendly guy

To answer the question: No. We don't have Free Will. But- -but we do have a most excellent illusion thereof. Taking the religious aspect first- -if (I say again) IF God exists and is omniscient, no way do we have Free Will. Given that particular given, He knows (He knew!) millions of years before you were even born exactly what you would "choose" to do, say, or think; 24/7 every day of your life. Indeed, how could you possibly ('choose') otherwise?

I enjoyed listening to this. I’ve been a hard determinist since I was a philosophy student decades ago. However, I do wonder about the social justice elements of the dialogue. If determinism is true there is still good and bad, but not right and wrong. I think the concept of justification breaks down totally; yet much of this exchange turns on various 'justifications' of non retributive punishments.

Yes, my favorite question again look back 100 years and say oh my God how horrible and 100 years from today they’ll look back and say oh my God how horrible and we can’t see the forest for the trees thank you. And yes, I learned the phrase oh my God from my family.

** John Horgan! **ROBERT SAPOLSKY!** ( Reaching out of the ''BOX'' !" Higher levels of thought that are intellectually considered within the realm of the sciences! ) THANK YOU! ( Biology! YES! ) That COUNTS! *PEACE! { When already? )

So what is it that we don't have? Unique question amongst the Determined interviews I've watched so far 🤓 thank you!

"I decided...." !? Well, everyday language trips us up.

I do.

So, John, do you have free will in resisting Robert’s arguments? What if it had been one of your undergrad students presenting this case in Robert’s words? What would you be thinking?

What about "retrocausality" " chaos indeterminacy" or "1 electron universe" hypothesis? Nothing determined & no free will . Or could free will the source of all there is? Including Illusory individual mind ...😮

Thank you for the video! I personally think logic is the more efficient way to go (not science). Either way, I feel I think as Sapolsky does in the sense that I don’t see how we're expected to be able to look at the worker who cleans the toilets at the mall in the eye (or the crack-addict or the prostitute) when luck and luck alone has each of us standing in their shoes. In addition, all us babboon-like humans horrendously violent exactly because we're never aware enough that our neighbor Couldn't Have Done Otherwise. So when compatibilist are afraid of potential immorality and so defacto are “hiding” this truth, they must not understand the direct relation to 70fold immorality and outrageous injustices today, fueled to an utmost fundamental extent by bumanity’s lack of the knowledge that our neighbors Could Not Have Done Otherwise. ********************** No one could have done otherwise because we are all subject to time and logic and to the logical dichotomy that: every 'event' must be either: caused- or- not. When an 'idea' is already logically incoherent (ie 'square-circle'), then there's no need to search for it in the physical world. And for any & all other urgent moral practical issues, no one stops just to argue that '7=7 isn't absolute knowledge.' **************** any idea of 'a cause' has to also be an 'event', because the ‘idea’ of any 'cause' takes 'time'. Everything here is in terms of 'events'; a process. There’s no static, unmoving, beyond-time 'self' creating events within the universe. the 'self' is also a process. An indeterministic event can only either be one of the following: 1. via the idea of real perfect randomness, ie of the true ontological nature of reality/the universe. 2. via an idea of some perfect-probability. 3. only seems indeterministic to us due to lack of potential human knowledge, and so really via the idea of determinism/causality. this is a logical trichotomy of ideas. none of these logical-options give any of our neighbors the ability of CHDO (Could Have Done Otherwise) of their own accord.

Ofc we have free will, as everybody is yearning for different aspects of his own chemistry, and reacts differently to it too. But we can't will ourselves invincible or Omnipotent. I was a drug addict, and i quit. I chose, despite what my body chemistry told me. But hey, i bet Sapolsky never quit drugs.

Yeah I heard of his book , but I refuse to read it even though I heard its a must read .

I can unconditionally destroy the ENTIRE premise of this book in one VERY simple sentence: “Can we (you, I, they) make choices that will change the direction of our lives that you (Sapolsky) cannot definitively explain? The answer is…irrefutably indisputably and unconditionally YES (…in fact…I am doing that very thing right this moment…and so is every single human being on this planet…and it is done trillions of times every day!)! THAT…is free will. It is nothing more than that…AND nothing less. The truly offensive thing about how blindingly and trivially easy it is to UNCONDITIONALLY confirm that Sapolsky is WRONG (…in fact…I would go further…to borrow a phrase from a fellow scientist…I would say Sapolsky is “…Not even wrong…”)…is that Sapolsky is an internationally acclaimed scientist. He has ENORMOUS influence, authority, and credibility…and in this book he is assuming he has not only the right but the means to successfully dismantle one of the very foundations of human identity. And he fails …utterly and completely. And worst of all…his failure is so blindingly obvious and easy to verify. And the embarrassment does not only fall upon him. Countless supposedly intelligent interviewers seemed somehow to lose every ounce of intelligence they possess since not one was able to locate the trivially simple and utterly fatal flaw in his supposed grand thesis.