Daniel Dennett - What is Free Will?

[@bart666a]

Santo claus talks about why he cannot resist those cookies

[@endrankluvsda4loko172]

This is simultaneously the dumbest and most hilarious thing I've read in a very, very, very long time.

[@harryroadman1089]

why did you write this comment sir. did you have to

[@Nissenov]

And the Milk, do not forget the Milk.

[@London.h.2007]

@@harryroadman1089 He wrote it cause it's funny! Big deal man, we need more humor in the world!

[@shawarmageddonit]

"Santo"??

[@wolfumz]

The compatibilist approach to free will is to redefine "free will" such that they're not really talking about "free will" as we intuitively understand it. I still don't understand how compatibilists reconcile ambivalence and conflicting desires with choice.

[@peterjackson5539]

It can't be done.

[@bozdowleder2303]

Wouldn't that be the least of their problems? We see physical systems teethering between several possible alternatives before settling down to one particular equilibrium all the time. The difference being that there wasn't a real possibility of any other choice - that impression only comes from that the system was close to doing something else at various points

[@pjmlegrande]

@@wolfumz disagree that what you call free will is meaning that is “intuitively” understood.

[@trueblueedits4673]

"Redefine"? Who gets to define free will but the very camp of people defending their outlook on free will? Most philosophers and neuropsychology students and practitioners identify as compatibilists; it's only fair that the camp explaining and defending THEIR point of view get to define free will as THEY want wish to define it in their philosophy. I don't get why in the determinism, free will, compatibilist debate people are always so quick to say "NONONO YOU COMPATIBILIST JUST DON'T GET WHAT FREE WILL IS". And you do? Why be so quick to shut down on the basis their argument and definition of free will isn't the same as yours?

[@ginabisaillon2894]

What I love about these discussions on free will vs determinism is that we can't agree on it and that causes some very interesting conversations.

[@landsgevaer]

You could say the same about discussions about the christian god vs the islamic allah, for instance. Some people that cannot agree on these find it an interesting discussion. I concluded that neither exists. Maybe the same should be concluded about free will and determinism...?

[@pedestrian_0]

There is a fundamental truth about our observable universe and it is that it appears deterministic, so we hold determinism as true. However, there is no degree of freedom available when concluding determinism, you see a line of dominoes fall, you can then take this observable truth and apply it to yourself. Dennett isn't arguing for the traditional sense of free will that the vast majority of people feel like they have, the feeling of having the ability to have done otherwise. He's changing the topic in some regard to how people really experience free will. There is no reconcilable sense of preserving free will, meditation shows you this very clearly.

[@lrvogt1257]

@@landsgevaer : It seems a tall order to show how neither free will nor determinism exists since they seem by definition to cover the only possibilities. Trying to conflate them into compatibilism is difficult and I can't accept that.

[@landsgevaer]

@@lrvogt1257 The universe could easily be stochastic. No free will needed, yet no determinism there.

[@lrvogt1257]

@@landsgevaer : There may be randomness in the universe but we see cause and effect everywhere. It's hard to image that the entire universe could be completely different from one moment to the next or that anything would exist without the very causal laws of physics.

[@joshboston2323]

3:10: seems as if Daniel couldn't avoid the brick.

[@joshboston2323]

@Ψ Right :p

[@nicholasfontana4747]

😂 funniest thing so far

[@Mertyy3]

He ducked it! To suprisingly gratifying degree...

[@stefantherainbowphoenix]

Free will is the ability to choose between different possible courses of action. It is closely linked to the concepts of responsibility, praise, guilt, sin, and other judgments which apply only to actions that are freely chosen. Without free will, we couldn't praise or blame people for their actions. They couldn't have done otherwise because their actions would have been determined since the beginning of time. All sentenced people would actually be innocent, all "good" people wouldn't actually be good and all "bad" people wouldn't actually be bad. In fact, courts of law and our sense of justice depend on free will being true.

[@stephenlawrence4821]

Stefan That's right. And it turns out indeterminism doesn't help. So we don't have the traditional version of free will.

[@daviddeida]

This is why the atheist world view does'nt hold up,unless you are honest and say I am a meat puppet.Anywat people going to prisons is also determined.Just because the person is innocent of rape,if we dont want the possibility of rape lock him/her up.

[@peterjackson5539]

Hitler is no better or worse than Martin Luther King Jr.

[@peterjackson5539]

Yep. Too bad it's not.

[@stefantherainbowphoenix]

@@peterjackson5539 What?

[@gkiosterakis]

Could it be that Dennett didn't duck at 2:57 and the brick did leave a mark on his skull? Isn't that seriously self-contradictory?

[@zarrowthehorse]

wouldve happened anyway

[@droselover5149]

So, essentially he is redefining free will to be something else. He isn't saying free will is compatible with cause and effect, he is saying that something else is compatible with casuality. Well, yes. Something else is. That is not free will.

[@marvinedwards737]

Free will is compatible with cause and effect, because free will is when we decide for ourselves what we will do, free of coercion and other undue influences. That's the operational definition of free will that is used to assess moral and legal responsibility. The so-called "philosophical" definition is a choice free from causal necessity. And, since causal necessity is nothing but a history of instances of reliable cause and effect, and all our freedoms to do anything at all require reliable cause and effect, the philosophical definition is a bit of silly nonsense, and should be immediately dismissed.

[@ComeAlongKay]

So if all things are caused that way what caused the universe? And what caused the thing that caused the universe? And if those things can cause themselves why can’t humans? And if there is no free will then judgment and morality and choice and really most of these things seem mute and we can’t really logically condemn prisoners and have no ability to use legality as the entire concept judge is mute. You can’t even decide who should go as they hurt you maybe but who’s to say hurting you is worse than not hurting you, there’s no way to judge if one is right and the other isn’t all their perspectives are equal therefore you can’t punish someone for hurting someone else as who’s to say their perspective of why they needed to hurt you isn’t equally valid, and you can’t just say well we need to act according to what’s best for us all as again maybe they see that as what is best and nothing else matters for them and your view isn’t better than theirs as there is no judgment of better or worse lower or higher all of life is mute.

[@pjmlegrande]

Sez you

[@pjmlegrande]

@@ComeAlongKaymoot

[@pjmlegrande]

I think he’s also saying it’s the only notion of free will that matters to us as biological entities

[@flyingkeyframes]

"Free will is our capacity to see probable futures - futures that seem like they're gonna happen - in time to take steps so that something else happens instead."

[@rotorblade9508]

That’s like accepting there is no free will the way we thought it was. That’s called ability to predict future outcomes.

[@nickb1156]

@@rotorblade9508 and make decisions in accordance with that ability.

[@villekansanen9053]

@@nickb1156 but how can you make “decisions” if everything is determined? Seems to me that this is just an explanation of the mechanics of the *experience* of free will, within the larger context of determinism.

[@saritajoshi1737]

We can't even concieve what having absolute "free will" will look like subjectively and yet people have existential crisis once they are made aware of the fact that they don't have the kind of free will they thought they had. Dan is essentially changing the definition of free will here. It's not the kind of "free will" people care about but the kind of free will most people think they have or wish they had does not even make sense. It is beyond our minds to conceive of this kind of "free wiil". And Dan is essentially saying we should not even care about this free will and focus on "will". What he means by free will is what most people think of as "Will" and Dan argues that's the kind of free will worth wanting. Also, Dan finds the idea of telling people that they do not have free will to be a dangerous one. That is also a reason why he plays this word game. It's funny that Dennet is someone who argues "Consciousness" is an illusion and "Free will" is not.

[@villekansanen9053]

@@saritajoshi1737 My understanding is that Dennett holds onto free will - or "will" as you smartly pointed out - because of moral reasons. As in, how do you have a justice system without the concept of free will? People can commit murders and point out that they couldn't have done otherwise, and therefore shouldn't be punished. Accepting consciousness as an illusion, I think, preserves morality. As in, people should be punished within the Matrix because they're trapped inside it and suffer pain and experience pleasure through their choices and the choices of others.

[@dewinthemorning]

Daniel Dennett is the best on the topic of free will. Biology, evolution has provided us with two kinds of teleonomic processes, or "programmes" - "closed" ones - reflexes, and "open" ones - in our mind, and that is the ability to reason and take decisions. Those who deny that there is "free will", invoke the teleology of hard determinism, which has been disproved. The religious ones who state that there is "free will", independant of our bodies and everything else, invoke the teleology of a divine figure, but as I mentioned already, biology and evolution give a better explanation for our abiity to reason and take decisions.

[@prygler]

LOL!!! Where did you get the scientific evidence against hard determinism??? In a religion??? In your introspection??? In a feeling that just told you that???

[@josea.9475]

prygler ever heard of Heisenberg's uncertainty principal?

[@prygler]

Jose Aleman Ever read the science in the subject rather than listening ignorantly to a philosopher doing an abstract thinkingspin? All scientific evidence points to the conclusion that free will is an illusion. For a quick introduction to the science about it, you could read Wegner's book the illusion of free consciousness, Harris' book free will and the chapter about free will in Franks' book Neurosociology. You can easily be persuaded by a logical argument, when you do not know the scientific knowledge in the field. This is the mistake common people do all the time.

[@dewinthemorning]

prygler I have tried to explain (on the basis of scientific books) why we can say there is no hard determinism, in my video "Hard Determinism? No. The World is Built on Probability!" You can find it on my channel. (I will post the link in a separate reply comment to you, because it may be marked as spam). As regards human thinking and what people call "free will" (it's not a thing, you know, it's our ability to have feelings and to reason, and take decisions as a result of our feelings and reasoning), we should consider the philosophy of the science of biology. The philosophy of the physical sciences is not applicable to biology and also, there are unique principles in the science of biology which are not valid for inanimate matter. I've started a series of videos on that topic, but I'm just at the beginning. Better read Ernst Mayr's book "What Makes Biology Unique".

[@prygler]

***** There is no such thing as "hard" or "soft" determinism. Either everything is determined or it is not. We know from state of the art scientific studies, that we can predict peoples choices before they are conscious. This has to be "explained away" in order to give any kind of serious ground for free will. But no one has done that, so the odds are that there is no free will. Dennett is far from the best on the topic. Harris absolutly murdered his arguments for free will (you could go read Harris' response to Dennett's response to Harris' theory of the illusion of free will). Have you read Sam Harris book "Free Will"? Wegner's book "illusion of free consciousness"? Have you read Dennett's attack against Harris' theory about the illusion of free will? Have you read the destruction/critique against Dennett's attack on Harris' theory (both Harris himself and others have wrote how obviously incorrect Dennett's theory is. You could look it up)?

[@yuppuh9097]

I think he just has a definition of free will that hasn't clearly been laid out. I've just starting exploring this subject but it seems to me the definition is muddy.

[@s871-c1q]

So is the proof. I think both free will and total determinism are equally improbable, as Daniel and Sam Harris and so forth have said. The unconscious self, which cannot be inspected, is both determined (the world is arrayed as it is and we must work within it) and free. It is free in the sense that it can make decisions but those decisions are often less biased-toward by reason than we think. He is making Hobbes' argument in a way, fear lead us out of the state of nature toward the polity for an unconscious security: I give my freedom, rights, and taxes to the Leviathan and he affords me security which pleases my unconscious fears, even if he is a tyrant.

[@PaulTheSkeptic]

This is a 6 minute video. Not bad for 6 minutes. The less muddy version would probably be found in his book.

[@resurrectionway]

The word free is a made up word created to cause confusion, the meaning of free is to be without restrictions to be without limitations to be without rules when we make choices those choices have a reason and it is that reason and not free that determined the choice. So there is no way that free and a reason can coexist.

[@williamriggs1972]

It's a very muddy subject. It's been debated for millennia and hasn't really gotten anywhere.

[@williamriggs1972]

@@resurrectionway I agree. Free will is not the best term to describe what they are talking about.

[@LukeDunn6667]

This video gave me a new lease on life.

[@oscarmoreno2585]

😂😂😂😂😂😂

[@bkeyesnanjing]

I am definitely in Daniel Dennett's camp with respect to "Free Will". As long as one isn't an absolutest, then the notion of whether or not we has humans have "free will" becomes unimportant. We should be focusing our attention on fixing systems rather than try to fix individuals IMO.

[@scottwilkins886]

I am not convinced of his ideas here. He is adding the deminsion of "freewill" where it logically does not follow. Where is there a jump to will. Determinism follows. We are in a cosmic flow of particles playing out our trajectory!

[@lrvogt1257]

You may be right that it is unimportant but it has been of great interest for a long time.

[@peterjackson5539]

Just saying it's unimportant is a cop out. Free will is a very important topic in philosophy.

[@pjmlegrande]

As any good lawyer will tell you, you first must be clear on the meanings of your terms. I think DD was trying to point this out in various ways in his discussions of free will, determinism and indeterminism. I think that many who closely follow free will vs determinism arguments have become wedded to certain positions and meanings of terms that foreclose deep understanding.

[@rodriguezelfeliz4623]

I'm very confused. Those avoidance mechanisms are also physical, they are also determined. You will only be able to regulate an action if you have cerebral structures that are able to do that. And those cerebral structures will only fire if they recieve stimuli from other neurons. There cannot be a neuron that fires just because you wanted it to fire. Furthermore, those biological structures that allow you to avoid an action are determined by a bunch of other physical factors such as hormones, development, genetics, epigenetics, evolutionary changes, mutations etc...

[@rodriguezelfeliz4623]

@@makomichael Idk. You are right, we are notable to explain exactly how neurons produce thought yet. Still, saying that it is just correlated is a bit of an understatement. Neurons being activated is the single best predictor for thought. It happens ALWAYS before a thought. And still, even if neurons are not the only part of the explanation, there has to be AN explanation. Unless thought is somehow the only thing in the universe that breaks the laws of causation, thought HAS to be produced by some mechanism that follows the laws of physics and is deterministic. Look, I am no expert, so I might be wrong. It's just that I really cannot see how there can be free will in a world governed by the laws of physics... it just does not make any sense to me.

[@daviddeida]

@@rodriguezelfeliz4623 Atheist in all honesty have to admit this.My experience thought randomly appears.I am not the thinker of thoughts.I know I exist,so who am I then when I dont identify as a thinker nor doer.?.

[@peterjackson5539]

@@rodriguezelfeliz4623 how far back do you want to go? Who or what caused the initial neuron to fire? It's like the big bang. What was there before to the big bang? A singularity? Where did that come from? No matter how far back you go there is always an unexplained mystery. So far at least.

[@ComeAlongKay]

@@rodriguezelfeliz4623I don’t know. I mean no free will would depress me unless I believe otherwise then suddenly I’m not depressed which seems like okay maybe I should just hold the view that empowers and motivates me most in life since the whole argument seems endless anyway. But one theory is that there is a formative field that transmits thought and that all of life is dense energy like consciousness just you know at a lower denser vibration. In the world of quantum mechanics physics can be random and not work the same. Then the deterministic people would say well then it’s all random but it seems like a chicken and the egg situation this endless back and forth of this causes this which causes this. Also they start to separate the person into tiny bits of impulses and neurons and you start to ask so what is and isn’t you is another question. I feel like if there is a biofield to speak of that decides formation and if that biofield is a feedback loop with other fields and aspects of you and now you feed to and from it then if you don’t know that it’s hard to have all the facts. It seems like if we don’t have a total knowledge of the nature of things how we do we argue points this grand as we don’t know what all factors in or how that feeds back or how it all interacts.

[@ComeAlongKay]

@@peterjackson5539yeah that seems like the crux of it. It’s like they’re saying this causes humans the same way they’re saying this caused the universe. Also this is all based on a causal idea of things but how do they then explain how the universe happened? How can it casue itself? And if the universe caused itself why can’t humans cause themselves?

[@DCI-Frank-Burnside]

Perhaps there's a category error involved. We talk of determinism and free will as if they were direct opposites. Determinism is a set of universal equation if you like. Freewill a component part of this grand equation perhaps but it's still not a direct comparison. It may seem like a small niggling point but I think there's something to pursue here.

[@Eudaletism]

*You run models* in your mind of what the world will look like if you do different things, you evaluate the consequences, and you make the choice which has the consequences that are best. You were always going to make that choice, but you had to run a model where you didn't. That's what gives us the feeling that we could have made the other choice. *We confuse our mental model of reality for reality*. Our mental model has our future decision as an unknown element, because we can't predict the result of our own reasoning before we finish the reasoning itself.

[@HowToMoneyTV]

This is exactly how I think. I believe everything happens because of a reason (but not for a reason)

[@marvinedwards737]

Since the model is our only access to reality, we call the model "reality" when it is accurate enough to be useful (like when we navigate our bodies through a doorway) and we call it "illusion" when it is inaccurate enough to cause problems (like when we walk into a glass door, thinking it is open).

[@williamriggs1972]

Well, we don't live in reality, we live in our mental model.

[@marvinedwards737]

@@williamriggs1972 And, since the model is our only access to reality, the model is what the word "reality" refers to. Except when the model is inaccurate, then we call it "illusion".

[@williamriggs1972]

@@marvinedwards737 Exactly. I think determinists often overvalue "reality" at the expense of those who experience models of reality. Sure, our perception is an illusion of sorts. But its inescapable and its all we have.

[@helifonseka9611]

Knowing that we can avoid and then gaining the information on how to avoid is again determined by causality..

[@rotorblade9508]

4:40 basically he wasn’t convinced and Dennet tries find a better explanation but it doesn’t succeed. Computers can predict things and avoid them and they clearly don’t have what we call free will. free will is an illusion generated in billions of years of evolution of a system. And lifeforms are physical systems that evolve(change their state like moving for example) rapidly in time based on what happened millions of years ago. For example for a rock what happened several days or years before doesn’t matter that much and it also wont do a complex evolution, it remains mostly unchanged.

[@justaguywithaturban6773]

Illusions don’t exist, if they do you believe the metaphysical exists.

[@Farmfield]

The problem is that we don't have the free will we experience. The meat machine makes choices based on some foundational idea of survival and wellbeing, and having choices, making choices, gives it free will. But our experience of free will is most likely just a side-effect of being sentient, the meat machine tricking our consciousness into rationalizing those choices. As for the physics, as much as determinism makes sense in particle physics at small scales, the proposal that, given you have the exact initial conditions and limitless computing power, you can interpolate all following interactions over time, just cannot be true. That would require a framework for reality with 10^80 particles interacting over 13+ billion years with no errors/divergence whatsoever. Again, that just cannot be true.

[@Chrisplumbgas]

With that explanation, I’m even more convinced Christianity is the most plausible explanation as to why we feel overwhelmingly like we have free will

[@anonymousjohnson976]

Christians are always saying we have free will. However, how could we even have free will if we choose not to believe, but then get tortured in hell for exercising that choice?

[@Chrisplumbgas]

@@anonymousjohnson976 ok you don’t have free will. So everything you do in life or what ever happens, whether you drive off a cliff or help a little old lady across the street, or vote for trump, you had no choice?

[@rayremnant.u]

The point he's trying to make is that we need the illusion, for if we see the future as "unavoidable" we may let ourselves be "hit" by events without taking action, at the excuse that it is all determined, so what difference would it make? Free will in this sense is our capacity to interact with the world, to act in our own self interest. And, paradoxically, this was given to us evolutionary by enhancing our brains with the capacity of abstraction and interpretation. We don't have free will, we can't see reality for what it is, and that is required for the illusion of free will to exist.

[@hydernoori146]

How can we deem a certain organism/entity "free" if (it's) subject to influences out of its control, i.e laws of physics and biology? Am I missing something here?

[@damillionmalania]

Hyder Noori Dennett is a compatibilist. He means free will in another sense than some others do. You are free to choose, but what you will choose freely is already determined. This means that free will does not give you freedom to do otherwise, it is free in a more restricted sense.

[@hydernoori146]

damillionmalania First, thank you for helping me out here.. Second, "you are free to choose...already determined" isn't that self contradicting? If freewill doesn't give me freedom then why call it freewill in the first place? Is "restricted freedom" a form freedom?

[@damillionmalania]

Hyder Noori I admit it sounds pretty odd when you hear it the first time. We have been taught to think that free will means that we can "choose to do otherwise" (than what has been determined). This free will does not exist. On the other hand, we can see it this way: I have free will, but the universe already "knows" what I will choose freely. It knows I will pick strawberry ice cream over vanilla tomorrow, it knows I will choose to steal a motorbike in 2 years, but it's still my choice. Why should I be held any less responsible for my actions just because they could have been anticipated?

[@hydernoori146]

I see. But isn't the "anticipation" a completely different problem than freewill? Don't you agree that these are different subjects?

[@damillionmalania]

Hyder Noori Once again, it depends on what you mean by free will. If you mean that you can choose, it is not a problem that the universe is determined. If you mean that you can choose something that is undetermined of course it is a problem that the universe is determined. The ancitipation is just a way of explaining it. Since no one knows the future and since the universe, at least as far as we know, has no brain, nobody really knows or anticipates the future. It's just a helpful thought experiment to explain what determinism entails for free will.

[@7JeTeL7]

"we are determined to be masters of our fate" is such an elegant encapsulation of free will question...i mean, yeah, we are determined to have innate capacity for decision making and rewriting our programming; this decision making and rewriting don ´t happen in vacuum and is subject of inner and outer circumstances, as well as previous programming, but it definitelly ain´t subject of circumstances and programming to same degree like rock, or cat is.

[@LordLoss]

So determinism is not fatalism (inevitable future) therefore we have free will. Dan is mistaken. I'm with Sam Harris on this one.

[@Earthad23]

+Bastian B I think his point was the term free will is not coherent.

[@LordLoss]

I thought he said that "what matters" is that determinism is true, but the reason free will exists is supported by the fact that fatalism doesn't exist. I mean I know this isn't his whole argument, but I thought he was supporting it with this idea.

[@LordLoss]

Because the majority of people do in fact believe that they are "free" to roam about with contingency and not constrained (choose vanilla over chocolate). America's whole penal system in the court of law is based on the idea of "free" will, specifically that one "could" have done otherwise.

[@LordLoss]

"man is free to choose what he wills, but cannot will what he wills." I agree with this, although I find redefining free will as being "constrained" rather suspect of one merely not wanting to rid themselves of a comforting illusion.

[@LordLoss]

People feel that they are the "free" agents determining their own "will". They believe this will is "free". The will you are explaining is one that is misunderstood, the argument is not whether or not people have wills, rather it is whether or not they are "free". If one's will is not free as in contingent, then it is wholly subject to the iron bank of determinism. If you want to plead as Dan does, that the only free will we are "really" talking about is the will we as people voluntarily choose/ want, then this simply misses the point of determinism which is that even the "want" to do X is determined by prior causes one did NOT want or choose.

[@jamesfleming1155]

He's saying that free will is seeing that other things will happen in time to do something else. (3:30) ok? That doesn't mean that you had any free will in that action.

[@ronaldp.vincent8226]

The first question should have been, "If determinism is true, how can I have RESPONSIBILITY." That is the word that determinists have to acknowledge. Responsibility is entirely incompatible with determinism.

[@ronaldp.vincent8226]

@Brett Sylvester If you're not choosing to lock them up, you are not doing so to "serve a social purpose". If we don't choose, there is no excuse required to lock someone up or not. The idea that you feel the need to provide one is behavior aligning with free will. This happens with every person I have encountered who argues for determinism. They still act as if they make choices. They still use language like 'regret,' 'should have' and 'would have'. I get the strong feeling that they are arguing with themselves more than they are arguing with me.

[@ronaldp.vincent8226]

@Brett Sylvester I'm not claiming that. They are. You are the one who seemingly disagreed with me about determinism lacking responsibility. Now you are saying responsibility is irrelevant in determinism. That is exactly my point. What side are you even arguing for? What point are you trying to make?

[@ronaldp.vincent8226]

@Brett Sylvester Some would say it's idiotic to think we aren't responsible for our actions. We obviously are, and we should be held accountable. I honestly haven't figured out how to talk to someone who won't admit they share this very basic intuition. Also, can you please answer the question?? What side are you on, and what is your fundamental point?

[@ronaldp.vincent8226]

@Brett Sylvester You really can't answer a question... I'm assuming you are a determinist, and now it sounds like you agree with me that responsibility is incompatible with determinism. You don't know what the nature of reality is, so there is nothing that can currently trump intuition. Unless you are Laplace's demon... We obviously have responsibility. You may not admit it here, but I assume you live that way in REALITY. I assume you use language like 'should have,' 'would have' and 'regret'? Like I said, I get the feeling that determinists are arguing with themselves more than they are arguing with me.

[@ronaldp.vincent8226]

@Brett Sylvester I just want to make sure you understand your claim that "free will is an illusion" is entirely based in faith. You believe that, but you are not Laplace's demon. You cannot predict choice. Just as I said before, you have virtually zero understanding of the nature of reality. We don't even know what consciousness is. How on earth could we come to any conclusions? If you use words like 'regret,' 'should have' and 'would have,' you agree it is obvious too, whether you choose to admit it here. You have already agreed twice that responsibility is incompatible with determinism, so as I have said before, you are arguing with yourself. You are OBVIOUSLY responsible for your actions, so your beliefs about reality should integrate that idea. Otherwise you'll end up with the cognitive dissonance you have demonstrated.

[@JACKOOZY]

The “avoidance” decision opted for by an individual couldn’t also be determined; recurring if time rewinded and replayed?

[@wardandrew23412]

I don't understand the usefulness of Dennett's definition. According to Dennett, to have free will one must be able to do the following: (1) anticipate a future state of affairs and, (2) take steps to avoid it. Yet no one would say that a chess computer, which does exactly those things, has free will; it's actions are entirely deterministic.

[@onesky5570]

Andrew Ward but do chess computers contemplate/imagine/envision a future where the opponent will win and try to avoid it or are they just like "piece A is in square X, piece B is in square Y" etc and determine the next play based on pre programmed algorithms having NO understanding why it's doing that (avoiding loss) or even an understanding of the future itself? Anyway I think the field of AI will teach us so much about free will/morality/consciousness in the near future, possibly more than philosophy or physics.

[@wardandrew23412]

First I would ask what precisely is it to "understand" something, and how does that differ from what a computer does? Secondly, Dennett hasn't worded his response to apply only to decisions made by a biological creatures and not machines, so I don't see how any of this is relevant. The fact remains that machines are capable of doing precisely the thing Dennett specifies, so either his criterion is inadequate, or he must grant that computers have free will.

[@onesky5570]

Andrew Ward I'm just saying that computers just "do" without thinking, like a complex structure of knee jerk reactions. Free will in the conventional manner doesn't exist, but what I think Dennet is referring to as free will is simply a different, more complex form of causation. I think there's a clear difference between conscious choices like marrying someone or flinching when an object comes at you, we all experience consciousness even if we don't what it is, and any choice made in consciousess is "free will" IMO

[@wardandrew23412]

Words like "thinking" and "consciousness" are notoriously slippery terms. The more closely we examine them, the more doubt is cast on their utility. There is no useful distinction to be made between the calculations performed by a human player and a computer. To suggest that humans "think" when performing these calculations but that computers don't, appears to me to be nothing more than a peculiar bias.

[@onesky5570]

Andrew Ward hmmm, fair. that's why I think conversations about free will aren't very fruitful until we fully understand what consciousness is IMO But for the time being, I think I like Dennet and Baumesteir take on the topic the most. Absolute determinism could end society as we know it, it's completely incompatible with how we live today, how we prosecute criminals etc

[@wmrajput]

But why does one person make a choice to duck and the other one to try to catch the brick. The calculation that went into the minds of a person in either case, are based on several factors, like how good their refexes are, if they have had poor experience in the past trying to catch vs duck. What does it really say about agency? To me, in either case the choice was made based on who you are rather by you. Bennet just expanded the question rather than addressing it.

[@DoctorShrink]

Who agrees that the brick example adds absolutely nothing to long standing interpretations of free will?

[@sunbear3324]

The way I see it, even on the premise that everything is predetermined, it still makes sense to say that in that scenario you still *avoided* the incoming brick. So still, you can talk about agents with their own agency and ability to avoid certain probabilistic outcomes while maintaining the idea of determinism.

[@DoctorShrink]

@@sunbear3324 So have you avoided the brick or has the brick avoided you? I mean, 2 large assemblies of molecules simply behaved under the laws of physics and chemistry such that they did not collide. Why is the brick less conscious than you under your mechanism?

[@sunbear3324]

@@DoctorShrink Talking about humans as just a bunch of atoms isn't really useful for anything, sure you can put it that way, but it doesn't account for human behavior in any way and it doesn't account for human ability to avoid things. The brick has no agency it has no goals or desires or ways to change anything that happens to it by external factors, we can however. It's the fact that you can often ask someone why they did something and that person being able to give you reasons for their actions, rather that just looking at every atom in that person's body and calculating why are they doing whatever it is they're doing.

[@DoctorShrink]

@@sunbear3324 The whole basis of hard determinism is that you can't provide any evidence to refute the possibility that every event in the universe is pre-determined- just the result of physical laws. Like billiard balls on a billiard table. If you don't accept that then you have to invent the mind. If you do that you have to explain where it is. Is the movie theater in my head in my left or right hemisphere. Where is the "I" making these decisions? If I lose 95% of my neurons where does my "I" go? How do chemicals create my sense of "I".

[@phillipmoore6295]

I thought it was a pretty good discripition of free will. Because in that example you "choose" to not get hit by the brick. You very well could "choose" to get hit, and not move. Thing is our bodies are "pre wired" to avoid pain and damage. Our bodies are semi autonomus vehicles that will do what "it" thinks is correct. Often without running it by our "conscious" for approval. Our conscious has ultimate approval over our actions, only "if" the body determines that there is time to hand that function off to the conscious. The conscious mind can "train" the semi autonomus body to react with pre determind actions. In martial arts this is referred to as "muscle memory". So that in this example, you could train the body to swat the brick (without 'thinking' about it) instead of ducking. OR even letting the brick hit you.

[@aharmlesspie]

How does one manipulate physical matter in the brain at the smallest scales by will? What force is used? I can't see why anyone would believe in free will short of having been raised to believe it's real. The default position must be that free will does not exist.

[@LukeDunn6667]

aharmlesspie consider this though, even if there is no free will, how is mankind likely to change if that becomes common knowledge, think about all the psychopaths who will use this to excuse bad behaviour.

[@babbisp1]

Daniel Dennett is free to define 'free will' as he wants, just like any other person. However, he is not talking about the same thing that Sam Harris is talking about, which is why they keep disagreeing pointlessly. Daniel Dennett is right when he says that we make choices and that we do what we want, but the idea that we can freely choose our will is what people mean by 'free will'.

[@jacksonstone246]

The constraints of volition aren’t the same in meaning as when speaking about the constraints that existence puts on you (your environment). Existence doesn’t force itself on to your consciousness. You have the choice of acting or not, to think or not to think.

[@pjmlegrande]

@@babbisp1 well, I would add it’s what SOME people mean by free will. But not Dennett. IMO, he clearly explained what he meant by it, further explaining that his is the only meaning that matters, in a practical sense, to humans given their existence as biological organisms.

[@dublinfitzpatrick7838]

If you can do what you want, when does anyone determine when they're wrong??

[@LukeDunn6667]

I don't believe in God but we certainly inherited our will from forces more powerful than ourselves. In a sense, our will is free because we didn't have to pay any price to get it. I think a more important question to ask than "do we have free will?" Would be "are we free" and to this I answer, do you feel free? If yes, isn't that freedom enough? So, in other words, if you feel free then you are free.

[@gps9715]

I think this is a very important concept to understand. Even Laurence Krauss (who denies free will vehemently) says in a video debate with Richard Dawkins that the world operates as if we have free will, so it doesn't matter if we do or do not. I agree with this. There is a reason evolution evolved us to believe we have free will, even if we do not.

[@peterjackson5539]

Winston Smith felt free at the end of 1984.

[@Jalcolm1]

You do have to choose between religion and biology. The choice is free. Only one choice is sensible.

[@jairofonseca1597]

If there is no free will, why he tries to convince others ?

[@marvinedwards737]

Dennett does not say that there is no free will. There are 3 impossible freedoms: freedom from causation, freedom from oneself, and freedom from reality. Thus, the word "free" can never reasonably imply any one of these. Since it cannot, it does not. Free will is simply when we decide for ourselves what we WILL do, when FREE of coercion or other undue influence. And that is sufficient for both moral and legal responsibility.

[@marvinedwards737]

@Hal Landy We are never free of influences. We see TV ads, hear preachers and politicians, our peers and our parents. But those are all influences everyone is exposed to in the due course of their lives. An "undue" influence is something extraordinary, something that effectively removes our control over our own choices. Take hypnotic suggestion, for example. Or a mental illness that either (a) distorts ones view of reality by hallucination and delusions, (b) directly impairs the ability to reason, or (c) subjects one to an "irresistible impulse. Coercion and extortion are also undue influences, because they are not the kind of influences that people are subject to every day and expect to resist. So, the issue is who or what is controlling the choosing. Free will is when I make the choice for myself, according to my own purposes and my own reasoning.

[@marvinedwards737]

@Hal Landy Not quite. The transistors in your computer have no capacity to reason on their own. But we can use them to communicate concepts between us. Purpose emerges with living organisms. Reasoning emerges as living organisms evolve neurological computational devices, like the brain. Neurons are rather sophisticated transistors, each with multiple inputs and outputs. But neurons do not think. The overall process is doing the thinking.

[@beingsshepherd]

In theory: because he's *compelled* by circumstances to do so, like everything else he does.

[@jairofonseca1597]

@@beingsshepherd Yes, fair, in the sense that everything has a cause, however, he also can stop it, compelling does not determine the outcome.

[@anasshamid8694]

It's impossible to know if destiny is a real thing, because simply we can't rewind the our lives and see what other outcomes our actions would've had.

[@daviddeida]

What happens happens,that you cant argue with.You are not even the thinker of thoughts,they appear.

[@claspuse3167]

Our brains all look the same from person to person but when inspected very closely they are wired so uniquely from other brains (like a fingerprint). We make thoughts and decisions influenced by the nature of our wiring and our life experiences. This gives the illusion of soul /personality

[@daviddeida]

So we are puppets,biological machines.It gives the illusion of personality of being separate .Isay we are not even the thinker of thoughts ,they just appear dont they ?

[@durgurgurdur5880]

Then what experiences my sight, my toughts,my hearing,my Joy and my pain..... Why isn't it experiencing your brain wiring instead of mine?

[@claspuse3167]

@@durgurgurdur5880 because they are experienced by you and therefore unique to you, not me

[@durgurgurdur5880]

@@claspuse3167 but why am I me and not you? why did someone deserve to have life full of suffering, while someone else to have joyful Life? If our brains are just really complicated wiring, why didn't scientists succedd to recreate any brain, of any individual? A human being, no matter how intelligent, will never be able to create a real awareness or concioussnes that you and I and every living being is experiencing. Soul does exist.

[@claspuse3167]

@@durgurgurdur5880 the suffering is either luck or a product of wrong decisions I guess. You are you because your brain is wired uniquely like a fingerprint but much more complicated. Multiply that by your unique experiences and how your brain processes these things and that's your you

[@kaielvin]

How is avoidance free-will, and not simply will? Where is the freedom and does it matter?

[@Droselover-hu1gt]

The freedom is in the degrees. i have more degrees of freedom than a lobster. I have the ability think, run, and jump. A lobster can't even if he wanted to.

[@kaielvin]

@@Droselover-hu1gt To take back Daniel's example, throw a brink at anyone, and they will consistently try to avoid it. This is an extremely predictable outcome. They are not free not to avoid it. Their degrees are constrained by their fear of getting hurt. The same goes for all decision making processes (anyone is my shoes would make all the same choices as I make). I have will (I make decisions), but it is not free.

[@egodust11]

1. If the future can be seen (as I've done dozens of times), then, if we factor in the precision of the butterfly effect, how can there be a random process of unfolding? 2. If we are a product of our past experiences plus what we've taken away in knowledge and insight from those experiences, therefore leaving us with a certain dynamic compulsion to act in accordance with what we've come to know, how can we chose against our currently developed proclivity? For example, a criminal has no choice of his own to stop stealing if that's what fulfills his life's desire, unless he discovers another means to override that desire, in which case he will act on the newly discovered means. His will, therefore is wholly dependent on his current proclivity, hence he has no choice but to follow that proclivity...it isn't a free will choice the way we *casually* define it.

[@egodust11]

@Ψ you might be jesting, but this is to my understanding *exactly* how it works. We pass this exact moment infinite times throughout eternity. It's all made possible by the predominance of amnesia. There's recently been a mathematical "proof." (in quotes coz NOTHING can be known with ABSOLUTE CERTAINTY, IMO)

[@budaraivoso]

funny how he starts defending the concept w/o defining IT, just to acknowledge at the very end that IT has multiple definitions. Seems to me that for such a clear thinker he dances around a lot in this matter. He kinda of does what Chalmers does with *the hard problem*. I would love to hear his answer to a question he asks Chalmers himself, i.e., 'what data made you come to this conclusion about free will?'. Maybe he thinks its best for us to believe in it, even though it makes no sense from a materialist perspective. Like fitness vs. reality. That always puzzled me about him

[@jimmypoindexter9233]

The evidence for 'TRUE FREE WILL' is lacking. By true free will, I mean, the power to make a decision on our own accord without it being just the sum total of all various forces in the universe working together to produce your response in various situations. Every decision we make is an expression of our acquired DNA and past experience, both of which are decided by other people and forces of nature (out of our control). Every decision I make is an expression of my past in the present time. Not being able to tell where an electron will be at any given time is NOT evidence for free will, it is just another event which appears random to us because of current, limited understanding. Hard decisions are basically neurons engaging in an intense battle for action potentials, and the majority of neurons, and/or the most persuasive neurons, will succeed. We see this in bee colonies, in which bees will dance a certain direction and "vote" for the best place to create a new hive. They not only send out signals to other bees promoting their choice, but also they try to corrupt the voice of their opposition. Altogether the colony makes a consensus and usually picks the ideal conditions for survival (this is similar to how neurons work, humans, politics, etc.). I will also comment on the religious arguments just to spread my message. My background: I am Agnostic (former Baptist) and will NOT assert that a god exists or does not exist. After dedicating 22 YEARS of my life to the CHRISTIAN faith, serving as a disciplined infantry combat paratrooper in both IRAQ and AFGHANISTAN, study/living/meeting people from other RELIGIONS, and achieving a degree in liberal arts (anthropology, psychology, philosophy, science, economics, history, art); I have learned that most religions are a means to an end (for better or worse) rather than being the answer to all your historical, ancestral and ethical questions. Here are FIVE important ideas to consider before adopting any faith, or supernatural belief: 1. Evidence: virtually all religious or supernatural texts, claims, experiences and doctrines consistently fail to show any evidence of miracles, efficacious prayer, scriptural consistency, communication with a deity or reliable fulfillments of specific prophecies. Usually the belief in these events stem from confirmation bias, a predisposition to believe, social pressure, limited knowledge, the placebo effect and/or wishful thinking. All of my previous prayers as a Christian had close to a 50% success rate, prophecies are usually ambiguous at best (and not time-sensitive), and reports of miracles or supernatural phenomena are too often regurgitated myths which are used to convey themes rather than hard facts (the best lies are rooted in truth so they usually contain some facts as well). My sister used to wear a t-shirt which read, "It is not a religion, it is a relationship". That mind sound pleasing to the ears, but it would be an odd relationship indeed if I am supposed to love this god more than my family or myself and can't even be sure that it exists. That is like telling another person that I love my sister more than anything, she talks to me, she has all the right answers, and I have a deep understanding of her, but when people ask to meet her I tell them that I don't even know if she exists. Huh? 2. Faith: faith can usually be defined in three ways which can disrupt many philosophical debates. I have heard it defined as: believing without evidence, hope for the future, and/or trusting an individual/deity. You hear people use these terms interchangeably, "I have faith in you!" or "It is important to have faith in people", or "I don't have evidence, just faith". I like to use the first definition 'believing without evidence', since we can easily use HOPE and TRUST for the other two definitions. Hope is beneficial for humans due to the placebo effect and positive hormones it releases, it motivates humans to maintain a positive outlook which increases you're ability to be successful despite obstacles. Hope is a state of mind, not a path to knowledge. Trust is tentative and relies on evidence (if someone lied to you in the past, you are less likely to believe them in the future). Is believing (accepting something as true, not just guessing) without evidence ever good? Which area of our life, other than religion, do we ever use faith? In the courts? No way. Scientific evidence is ALL that matters, and the courts are deciding whether to put people to death or not. Does a doctor just have faith that you are well? No. They use their senses and their instruments, and it saves countless lives. They could be sued for malpractice if they only used faith. Do you tell your kids to cross the street after praying, or after looking both ways? The scientific method is not infallible but it our best approach to understanding the beautiful universe in which we live. Scientific theories (theories can be facts too, like the theory of gravity, atomic theory, or the cell theory) are the best models we have currently to describe reality and are very modest in terms of absolutes. I defend the statement, "Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence". I have been best served when gauging my certainty by available evidence. Most children are spoon-fed logic and reason to gain their belief in god before their brain is fully developed (especially the frontal lobe, responsible for judgment and critical thinking), then later when the arguments lose their validity, the young adults are told to use faith (to abate sound arguments). People choose to abandon reason when studying religion as an adult because they know deep down inside that the arguments are silly and contradictory. You were convinced of your religion by means of reason (miracles, history, perfection of Jesus, Mohammad's unexplainable wisdom, Prince Buddha's powerful insight, consensus, etc.), and reason can get you out of it. Don't climb up on a roof using a ladder, then kick it out from under you and profess that you got up there all by yourself (leap of faith). 3. Morality: it is important to remember that morals precede the existence of homo sapiens, are found in other animals and are/were necessary for our survival and the survival of other organisms. We never would have made it this far as a species without working together and developing rules for a more organized, peaceful existence. Your body is a network of cells which came together to communicate, divide labor and defend each other to the death (apoptosis) for the sake of survival. Jane Goodall, a leading anthropologist, has asserted, and I am paraphrasing: "a primate who is alone in the wild, is a dead primate". Ever watch survival shows with only one adventurer? What happens to their health over the span of a few days or a week? Survivors are considered successful when they reach other humans. You cannot perform your specific job unless your fears of adultery, murder, theft, dishonesty and selfishness are put to rest, so naturally humans will adopt laws or tenets by which to live in order to preserve themselves as a whole. Have you ever argued with another person and then found out that you needed them for some reason? Sucks don't it? HA! Religion might have been helpful in assisting altruistic behavior through fear for a time, but like our insatiable crave for sugar, it is outdated and sometimes harmful. Since becoming agnostic, I have been more truthful about what I believe (so therefore, more truthful),as well as being more understanding and open-minded. I have stopped looking at others as unfortunate or incomplete, I care more about this world because I not get another one, and I can treat all religions with equal appreciation and equal scrutiny (not play favorites). I also do the right thing because it is right, not because I will be rewarded later, which increases the satisfaction. 4. Functions of Religion: I am not blind to the many positive services which church's or religious-based intuitions have provided or currently provide: sense of community/service to others, consoling persons who lost loved ones, meeting new friends/connections, singing soothing hymns and structure for children. But it is also hard to accept that any one of these functions are dependent on a God, or cannot be better implemented or emulated by institutions devoid of religious discourse. Other institutions such as non-profits have to account for their spending and the exact services rendered to obtain donations--not churches. Government agencies must worry about voter sentiments and checks/balances. In terms of prayer, we pray for answers but all we really do is ask our brains to come up with the moral answer, then after you weigh the evidence, you come up with a decision that apparently "god" gave you while kneeling in silence. Praying for others does absolutely nothing when practiced but makes you feel like you have helped when you haven't. I believe it is more helpful to sacrifice time or effort to help them achieve their goals or get back on their feet. Singing, asking for forgiveness, touching, shaking hands, positive thoughts and feelings of security are all therapeutic according to science, they release powerful chemical signals which create a feeling of euphoria, and require no metaphysical explanations. 5. What are you left with?: A god or gods might exist or might not exist, but just like bigfoot, ghosts, vampires, werewolves, fairies, demons and boogie men, I will not be in search of them my whole life to feel whole, or to legitimize my moral compass. This universe could be a matrix or a six-grade science experiment conducted by an alien--but it is irrelevant at this time. You can be successful, altruistic, enjoy this world, marvel at its beauty, raise moral children, give to charity, set a good example, love everyone to the best of your ability, hope for an afterlife, and earn the trust of your peers without being divinely warranted. If a god created logic and reason to protect you while you're here on earth, why would it condemn you for using it? There are two occupations which thrive in a faith-based system of knowledge--religious leaders and con men. I love all of you--god or no god--and for better or worse. 

[@jhwhthemerciful]

You're ten times the philosopher Daniel is.

[@akashm5719]

Brother you have a God shaped hole in your heart. God bless.

[@pjmlegrande]

You’ve thought deeply about the big questions, clearly. Thanks. I’ll chew on these for a bit. As for why religions came to exist, I tend to take a functional, anthropological perspective. Early human societies developed them as a way to explain their existence to themselves and in doing so they established rituals, beliefs and customs, often used as a hedge against forces that tended to threaten their survival. I think it wasn’t till much later that larger, more complex societies employed their belief structures as a banner to declare identity, which in turn became a means to exert greater hegemonic control over neighboring groups. Later still, more profound insights into the nature and meaning of existence and humans’ role in it were propounded, and some of those ideas had lasting effect (e.g., Buddhism, Christianity to name a couple). Religion used as a banner to declare identity and exert control still persists, though. Bear in mind that without Christianity being declared the official state religion of the Roman Empire by Emperor Theodosius I in the late 300s, I doubt it would’ve become quite the dominant force it is today.

[@pjmlegrande]

@@jhwhthemercifulnope, but impressive nonetheless

[@latestgreatest5116]

I don't believe in free will, simply because not every outcome has the same chance to occur, we are more likely to make specific choices, and in so doing the 'free' become void and null. Or am I looking at this the wrong way?

[@beingsshepherd]

More likely? _Compelled_ more like.

[@derantiobskurant]

Great philosopher!

[@justinlowry2719]

😂😂😂

[@ComeAlongKay]

@@justinlowry2719your emojis provide a truly devastating point.

[@edwardlawrence5666]

Free will is life.

[@Brian.001]

The focus on inevitability is a distraction, and just confuses matters. Yes, we have some possibility for directing our future according to our choices, but absolutely no possibility for choosing freely. It doesn't even mean anything, so 'free will' is unintelligible.

[@prof.zephyrous8952]

The free part is in the range of possible actions, between which we may will one to be taken. I hope this helps telligise it!

[@prof.zephyrous8952]

Do we choose without constraints on what we can choose from or without incentive to choose from those options by anything other than our selves? No. Do we choose an option without being forced to only choose that one option? Yes, for we could have chosen otherwise ergo it was not inevitable that we should have chosen that particular option. It might be confusing, but it's true.

[@pjmlegrande]

It means a great deal, in a purely practical sense. We are not abstractions, although we are capable of abstract thought. Some of the abstract notions we conjure are profound. Others are not.

[@nalakananayakkara1759]

Thanks... Something new. Nature built an avoidance mechanism. Which now can plan to avoid even when no avoidance needed.

[@premed2]

I'd prefer not to change the definition of free will as Dennett proposes, but instead simply accept that the experience of free will is an illusion which serves a vital function in recursive feedback systems associated with higher levels of consciousness. In any other context the term "free will" is meaningless.

[@alejandromartin8347]

If you say that free will is an illusion then you admit to experiencing free will. How can you say that free will something that is very real is an illusion and your experience of sight, logic, thinking, hearing which are just as real are not illusions. It seems that you are bias towards the experiences that fit your world view.

[@premed2]

The experience of free will is not an illusion, however, like a magic trick, what appears to be occurring is not. "It seems that you are bias towards the experiences that fit your world view." Aren't we all? Sorry, I was not able to respond to your 2nd sentence; your meaning is not clear to me. (Not meant as a put down)

[@alejandromartin8347]

premed2 How do you determine what experiences are real. If you feel like free will is not real. But then the other experiences you have that you use to reach that conclusion are real. As in the experience of sight, hearing, thinking, consciousness. It seems like you first adopt a materialistic world view then disregard whatever doesn't fit that view. Consciousness doesn't fare well with a materialistic world view. You might have to believe that experience is an illusion or magic trick too.

[@premed2]

All experiences (our sensory impressions) are real. Experience is primary, all else is manufactured by our our thought processes which though related, are distinct from are primary sensory impressions. See Socrates "shadows on the cave wall" and David Hume's discussions on sense impressions for more on this. Our primary experiences are the foundation upon which we construct our hypothetical notions of the world, to which we may tentatively attach the label "reality". I cannot be certain of a materialistic reality, or any reality, but I can look for parsimony in the models of reality I give greater credence too. I agree that there is a big problem with how consciousness could manifest in an exclusively materialistic world. I have a good deal of ambivalence on this. I timidly lean in the direction which argues that the phenomena of consciousness involves some element or process in the materialistic realm that we are largely or completely unaware of, but based on what I currently know, consciousness seems impossible in a strictly materialistic universe.

[@alejandromartin8347]

premed2 I actually appreciate your honesty about your world view. Its so refreshing to see people that can be honest with problems about their own world view. I don't personally believe that materialism is true based on my experience of free will and conscious thought. And all the solutions I have explored to this problem only seem to make it worse. But I respect you as a person for being honest.

[@mutantbaby1672]

If everything is determined what do we have a legal system for? Why hold anyone responsible for their actions if everything is determined?

[@stefantherainbowphoenix]

Very good questions.

[@beingsshepherd]

If everything is determined then why do we have *anything?* The universe's conclusion would have been already known before it started.

[@pjmlegrande]

Thank you. All DD is suggesting is that we must think of free will in a way that matters to us as biological organisms.

[@viralamin5568]

It seems Dan's re-interpreting free will and assigning it the meaning of "agency," essentially beings that do things such as plan and implement those plans.

[@arrogantlyinthemiddle1751]

That's exactly what he's doing, because that's a description of how humans take action, self-control, self-cause, and can change their futures from X to Y. He's dismissing libertarian free will and re-imagining free will as an actual description of human beings and how they work. It's the same way we look at consciousness. We no longer view our consciousness as a duality between mind and body, but understand it now as just body. Mental states are brain states. That does not mean consciousness is an illusion. We've just redefined what consciousness is at its source.

[@viralamin5568]

@@arrogantlyinthemiddle1751 Why not just use "agency" instead of "free will?"

[@arrogantlyinthemiddle1751]

@@viralamin5568 Mostly because "free will" is the folk term for the act of making conscious, rational decisions as a free agent. Lots of philosophers have expressed frustration in the term, since it isn't accurate. I'm likely to agree with them.

[@BigCarso]

@@arrogantlyinthemiddle1751 100% agree. Can we now close this 2000 year old thread as solved and move on.

[@rodriguezelfeliz4623]

I also understood the same. The problem is that the ability to plan and implement those plans is determined by areas of the brain like the pre frontal cortex. Those areas are determined by stuff like hormones, development, genetics, epigenetics, evolution... and they only act when they recieve certain stimuli (you cannot just activate them out of nowhere). Your ability to avoid making certain actions does not mean you have free will, it just means you cannot avoid avoiding making that action. At least that's what I think based on what I know (I am no expert tho)

[@123unknownsoldier126]

Can someone please explain Dennett's position on free will for me? I've listened to so many of his talks but something about it just isn't clicking for me. It really sounds like determinism dressed in fancy clothes. When you redefine free will in this way you're moving away from any useful notion of free will and it's simply not what people generally mean when they say they have free will. Is he simply saying the concept itself is not important?

[@wzupppp]

If consciousness is created by random events in the brain, then how come these random events lead to normal behaviour?

[@hamnchee]

Because "not normal" behavior got eaten by predators along the way.

[@antares-the-one]

jan jansen Because behavior is a product of complicated systems, that created with some safety against "unwanted" events.

[@pjmlegrande]

They don’t always

[@mertonhirsch4734]

1) The standard argument against free will says that the universe is either deterministic, with only specific effects occurring from specific causes, or it is chaotic and there is no predictable relationship between a cause, the the effects of the cause. If it is deterministic, then OUR state when we make a "choice" is 100% determined by the history of the Universe right up to you thinking the thought and making the "choice" or taking the action. If it is chaotic, then the state or our brain does not have any predictable effect on our physical action. This argument may not hold up even if we accept the premise that the universe must be deterministic or chaotic. If it is a mix of deterministic limitations, but with some chaotic variability within those limitations, like a game of chess, or a die that can roll a number but only a number from 1-6 for example, then the past does not fully determine our state when we make a choice, it only limits the possible states, but as long as it is somewhat deterministic, also perhaps in a limiting way, then out brain state can have some degree of predictable effect on our actions and what follows, so put simply, limiting determinism frees our mind from being determined by the past, but also allows our minds to exert limiting determinism on our actions and what follows. 2) With quantum physics we have a combination of limiting determinism, but randomness withing the boundaries of the limits that the past places on the present. Our thoughts are NOT determined 100% by the history of the universe, and our actions are not 100% determined by the state of the universe. In fact the Bell theorem is a theorem that entails several observations about quantum mechanics that requires that the quantum randomness in the universe is not actually the result of "hidden information" or "hidden variables" that are merely impossible to observe. It says that quantum randomness is TRUE randomness,. Einstein thought that there had to be hidden information within the universe that really made one quantum outcome occur over another. Stephen Hawking wrote about this in saying "Not only does God play dice, but he sometimes throws them where they cannot be seen", however the resolution of the Bell theorem in recent years has actually gone a step further. I won't refer to "God" but the "dice" are not just unobservable, they can not exist within physical reality. This was found by comparing the amount of rotation of entangled Photons, proving that when one entangled photon is forced from a superposition into a defined state, the other is instantaneously affected with a probability that is not consistent with there being hidden "unknowable" factors that secretly cause the state. There are only two ways to view this. If you believe that only physical things can be real things, then the state of the photon is affected by "no thing", or you can hold that there may be "things" that are not part of physical reality. Which you ascribe to is semantic. This is all agreed on with there being a few alternate theories like the many-worlds theorem (which itself raises more questions than it answers and would also infer the existence of "things" that are not part of our universe. The general response to this has been that while this undoes hard determinism, it is not an explanation of humans having some kind of agency over the indeterminism. However: 3) a) The state of our mind could have truly been otherwise. b) Our actions could have been otherwise. c) The reason for the brain state, or action that occurs versus other allowed possibilities is not due to any component of the physical universe. d) Our actions have a strong correspondence to the thoughts that preceded them (they aren't chaotically related to them). For example, I am thinking about what I am going to type to complete this sentence. I think of the words, and then decide to type them, and then I type those words with a high degree of accuracy. I don't type words that have no relationship to what I am thinking about. If my thoughts are free to have been otherwise, and my actions are free to have been otherwise, and my actions correspond strongly to my thoughts, then there is no empirical way to distinguish what occurs from what people mean by free will. Thoughts cause actions, thoughts are limited by, but not determined by the physical universe. Actions are free to multiple possibilities, but they are STRONGLY limited by the thoughts that proceed them. So, how does a scientist experimentally distinguish this from free will?

[@avitardotnet]

People have overthought this for centuries although I am confused why. It is obvious we have free will since were are agents that can interact with the world. Just because we can causally predict how things will happen with science under controlled conditions does not mean that determinism prevents us from being interactive agents.

[@TheGreatslyfer]

Define agents.

[@marvinedwards737]

@@TheGreatslyfer An agent is an object or force that causes things to happen. Gravity has causal agency. It is not a conscious agent, but it is a causal agent. We are also objects, that happen to be living organisms that act purposefully to survive, thrive, and reproduce. We are also an intelligent species, with the additional capabilities to imagine, evaluate, and choose. And free will is when we decide for ourselves what we WILL do, FREE of coercion and other forms of undue influence.

[@pjmlegrande]

Pretty much agree but would state it this way: the only notion of free will that matters to us is one that takes into account that we humans are biological organisms genetically compelled to survive to reproductive age in order to propagate. As Dennett says, to effectively accomplish this biological imperative humans have developed capacities (through millions of years of evolution/natural selection) to learn from experience, anticipate likely futures that threaten survival and plan in ways to avoid them. Determinism is not inevitability - some threatening futures can be avoided with planning, which is learned behavior based on experience and , ultimately, evolution. Other more “absolutist” notions of free will don’t matter.

[@bumrayspannagan7259]

I don't really understand what Daniel is trying to say. To me any deterministic and/or random system (the only two that humans can even conceive of) do not allow for agency on any level. He says that what you can do is "change what you thought the future was going to be into something else". How does the brain's operation that produced that any different from the one that ducked the brick, which he seems to think are different. What are these other versions of free will? He seems to concede absolute determinism, but says there's something within that framework that allows us some autonomy.

[@wolf1066]

The ducked brick is a very simplistic example, requiring no major modelling of possible future scenarios and possibly no time in which to do them. The agency presumably comes when you can, based on your understanding of the world, determine a number of likely outcomes to a situation depending on the actions you take and then choosing which of those actions you will take, thus avoiding possible unfavourable outcomes. While your knowledge base and such is "set" at the time you make these models and the models you can conceive are limited by your experience, training to date etc and your desire for harm avoidance/reduction is going to influence the action you choose - so your state is "determined", the fact that you can create these models and compare them is what gives you agency. I'm no expert, but I think the other "free wills" include Libertarian Free Will (the idea that if you were to rewind time to the point of the choice, you are "free" to choose differently - which contradicts the deterministic state of being at the time the decision was made) and Caprice - just doing things on a whim or for shits 'n' giggles. There may be others, I've not made an exhaustive study on this, yet. The point of Compatibilism, so far as I can see is that we are "free" to predict likely outcomes (a conscious act) and then choose amongst them and that this is perfectly *compatible* with determinism based on the state of the brain at the time of the decision. Of course how many likely outcomes we can predict and how accurate those models are would be determined by our knowledge, experience etc. But if there's more than one, we get to choose the favourable/preferred one. I think the problem is that "Free Will" has a lot of baggage and means different things to different people. I could be wrong, but it looks like Dan defines it as synonymous with "agency" - which people take exception to as "agency" is not the same as Libertarian Free Will or Capriciousness.

[@ManSpidernater]

It's not physics, it's biology - Genuinely, how is biology not physics?

[@ArjunJagadeeshV]

you got it 😀

[@daviddeida]

Yep,and hes meant to be a thinker.lmao

[@bobwill712]

So, someone fell free to reply. Is he saying we have free will or not? He said we do on the things that matter, like what?? Is his difinition just different for free will..?

[@LeonardoYip]

I think he is saying that we have the ability to deliberate and decide between choices and then reach a conclusion of the best choice. That is the free will worth having and we do have that ability to deliberate, therefore we have free will (at least the free will of that definition). But this is not entirely clear in what he is saying, so someone please clarify. I just think in general Dennett has not been as clear as he could be.

[@ottofrinta7115]

A computer program can predict future events and take precaution. Does it have a free will? I think not. See Daniel Dennett just redefined free will in order to be able to say that we Do have free will. Stop being frightened of the notion that we don't have a free will. It doesn't change the way we are programmed - to feel compassion, to achieve something in the world, to want to have freedom to do whatever we "choose" in fact it just really gives you more understanding and compassion for yourself and other people.

[@LuxeprivaeMedia]

+McGuywer My cat has free will. He decided to eat breakfast this morning....... sarcasm

[@LuxeprivaeMedia]

+McGuywer BTW, what u wrote makes zero sense. As used in the bible freewill means voluntary. It is NOT choice, the ability to choose or any other such variation....

[@boris9047]

+McGuywer Consciousness does not have a will, it's an observer. As soon as you decide to do something, it's the DNA and life conditioning that's working behind the scenes in the subconscious mind to make you to take action. There is no true free will, but it feels great thinking our actions are chosen by us.

[@boris9047]

Itta Nimulli Do you believe that the universe and everything in it is chained in a web of cause and effect? If yeas, then none of our actions are our own.

[@rotorblade9508]

If a system evolution is deterministic it means from state say S=s1,s2,....sn) at the next iteration it will evolve to S’=(s1’, s2’...sn’) and there is no alternative to S’, S’ is inevitable Then if you can make predictions it means you can predict some variables similar to the state S’, but you making the predictions is part of the normal process of evolution of the system

[@seschaitanya5676]

The same little tactic that he uses all the time, he redefines the classical libertarian definition of free will and starts supporting it from all the directions.

[@909sickle]

If free is seeing different possible futures and choosing one over the other, then electronic have free will. A computer can be programmed to see two different possibilities and then choose one.

[@beingsshepherd]

Computers run on _commands._

[@HalcyonKeepitHalcyon]

The youtube user Unkempt is the smartest person in these comments. Sam Harris is consistent and his argument against free will makes a lot more sense than DD's compatabilism.

[@peterjackson5539]

Some people will do back flips somersaults to try to save free will without some sort of idea of a non physical actor. If you avoid something that was determined just as much as if you didn't avoid it.

[@chilledoutorange4269]

Determinism gud Fatalism bad Got it

[@naturalisted1714]

Just because we're Determinists doesn't imply that we are depressing and hopeless. It just means we acknowledge that we have no control but still admit that we appear to have total control. Who'd WANT to be someone with no control??

[@beingsshepherd]

Life might actually treat some of you well.

[@Unkempt27]

"Man does not have free will. We possess enough intelligence to entertain the idea of free will, but not enough to realise it is an illusion." Me, just then

[@prygler]

Unkempt27 Wegner and Harris are intelligent enough to realise it is an illusion. Many people won't realise it, because it feels so real. It is a strong illusion.

[@QuantumEntangledSelf]

How would you explain overcoming addiction?

[@Unkempt27]

QuantumEntangledSelf How would you explain the origin of someone's ability to overcome addition?

[@QuantumEntangledSelf]

Unkempt27 Self discipline doesn't come from passive conscious observation.

[@Unkempt27]

QuantumEntangledSelf so how come some addicts, who want to, can overcome addiction and some can't? If obtaining self discipline is a choice, then everyone can have it? Some people have a predisposition for it. How come some talented sportsmen succeed and some don't work hard enough? It's the same thing. Everyone is different. You can't say 'he had a bad childhood and ended up a criminal, but the other guy had a bad childhood and he turned out ok.' That doesn't prove free will, because those 2 people have different biology and had different (though perhaps similar) upbringings) Everything is determined.

[@franknimal9966]

The origin of the big bang is a thought. Thoughts are acts of creations. Yes you can choose another's thought and make it your own, or you can create brand new thoughts. The space of thoughts are infinite. This is why they cannot be determined. An infinite source provides infinite possibilities continuously without ever running out. When you say we don't have free will? what is the "we" made from? One must clarify what the "thing" that has or has no free will made from before you can say anything about if it does have free will or not. So the steps for a viable approach is. 1. What is the definition of free will? 2. What stuff makes the "thing" that I call me? 3. Does that stuff permit free will? These are my answers to the above 1. What is the definition of fee will. The ability to change space-time 4 dimensionally, that is change past present and future 2.What stuff makes the "thing" that I call me? The thing I call me is a single thing that is made of stuff that can connect simultaneous events as is evident from my ability to see simultaneous event. 3. Does that stuff permit free will? A thing that can connect simultaneous events can operate faster than the speed of light and as such can change past present and future as needed by the definition philpapers.org/rec/DESCAS

[@chuck1prillaman]

"Your Honor, Professor Dennett says I have no free will. I am therefore guilty of nothing." Judge: "The court will not quibble with your logic and is certain the defendant will understand that the court has no choice but to sentence you to 1000 years of listening to Sam Harris."

[@allegrot438]

chuck1prillaman Harris has the most articulate and persuasive case on the topic of free will.

[@caseyspeaks6380]

Dude, you got it backwards ! Dennett says free will is a biological function. Harris is a philosopher not a psychiatristHe completely overlooks basic concepts of training and re-training, inhibition and reinforcement.

[@kjustkses]

Ouch!

[@kjustkses]

Aaron We have to reassess nothing but the fact that we do actually have free will and free won’t.

[@jamesruscheinski8602]

What is determinism?

[@chloegregory9725]

the doctrine that all events, including human action, are ultimately determined by causes regarded as external to the will. Some philosophers have taken determinism to imply that individual human beings have no free will and cannot be held morally responsible for their actions.

[@daroay]

the free will problem makes me think there are only 2 possible scenarios: 1. There is no free will and no soul. 2. There is free will and a soul. both are great possible scenarios. On the former there is no need to ruminate on the past because it was impossible to choose otherwise, on the latter there is an afterlife with infinite hope to try life once again.

[@pedestrian_0]

There is no such thing as free will, even if you added a soul to the equation, free will is completely incoherent with the physics we know.

[@daroay]

@@pedestrian_0 thats why I say "free will and a soul"... because since the soul is outside the physical realm, it does not depends on causation.

[@peterjackson5539]

Well obviously the belief in a soul implies that our understanding of physics in incomplete. @@pedestrian_0

[@QED_]

Look . . . it's got to depend on what you're expecting from the notion of "free will". Compare to the question: "Do chairs exist (?)" "Science" has no room for "chairs" -- only space/time, matter, and energy. But we all have reasonable and legitimate expectations about "chairs". "Free will" is no different . . .

[@allegrot438]

Arbiter While I agree a definition of the notion of free will is important, you're analogy is inapplicable. Chairs are an ordering of the physical universe in a way that is consistent with what we know about physics. The chair can logically exist in this paradigm, and does. Free will isn't compatible with a materialistic universe in the way a chair is... it is a direct suspension of the laws of physics (and in turn, biology).

[@Droselover-hu1gt]

@@allegrot438 It depends on your definition of free will. A compatibilist or even an event-causal libertarian free will is not a direct suspension of the laws of physics. Those definitions of free will are perfectly compatible with physics.

[@DavidMiller565380]

It's short, but this is the best argument I've heard Dennett make about his concept of free will.

[@prygler]

Then Dennett is an idiot regarding this subject

[@allegrot438]

If this is the best, then the worst must really be a load of old bollocks.

[@stephenlawrence4821]

"We are determined to be the masters of our fate to a surprisingly gratifying degree" Firstly I'm not critical of Dan Dennett's approach. I think he's mostly maybe even completely got this right. And people do tend to get negatively fatalistic if we say free will is an illusion. But on the above quote would he agree to " we are fated to master our fates in precisely the way we do". I think he'd object on semantic grounds or would it be more? I can say precisely what fated means by giving two facts. 1) To have selected different options circumstances we did not choose in our distant past would have had to have been different. 2) And if circumstances we did not choose in our distant past had been appropriately different we would have selected different options.

[@daviddeida]

Thats like saying I have no choice to believe in free will.We cant possibly have, only think we have,and I am not even the thinker, and experience the effects of that belief.

[@stephenlawrence4821]

@@daviddeida It's not that it's a mistake to think we have a choice. As long as that means we have options we can select from, that's fine. The illusion is to imagine we can select any one of the options in the actual circumstances with exactly the same past. That's fairly obviously an error, a very stubborn one at that. On who the thinker is, you are conscious of your thoughts but don't know where they come from. In short, all is as you experience it to be.

[@daviddeida]

@@stephenlawrence4821 Do you think there is individual consciousness or just one consciousness perceiving itself through many bodies.I'm saying its a mistake either,what would life be if we did'nt have the illusion of choice.

[@stephenlawrence4821]

@@daviddeida What do you mean by the illusion of choice? I know I have options I can select but it also seems like I have to select the option I do given my internal and external circumstances. I see no need for any illusion.

[@daviddeida]

@@stephenlawrence4821 What chooses ?Or who chooses ?The genes and conditioning are responsible for choices.As you did not choose the genes ,not chose your conditioning,how can one claim its my choice.Science has mapped now the choice was already made ,before you recieved the thought I chose that.So in that respect its an illusion and life would be very different without that illusion,you simply would not identify as the doer nor experience guilt ,nor pride.However there would be an acceptance of whatever is happening is meant to happen.

[@teodordl]

I had hoped that the video would end with the priest asking them to kindly shut up

[@lauricetork2747]

thanks for this video 6 minutes but really important

[@prygler]

Well even on a neurobiological level we can predict peoples choices before they become conscious. So Dennett is talking nonsense....

[@prygler]

+Rodrigo Gallinari Where is that debunked? Please do show me! The latest neuropsychological experiment i read, predicted choices before they were conscious with 80% accuracy by looking at the processes in the brain with brain-imageproducing-technology up to 12 seconds before consciousness. If you are talking about Libet, then you should read more and also read newer scientific experiments about free will! Forget Libet... Read the latest research in the field.... Expand your knowledge and understanding...

[@prygler]

Rodrigo Gallinari Are you kidding me? Did you even read any of it? Its not a reflex. They are asked to do a free decision, where scientists are recording what happens in their brain in real time, and they could predict their choices 80% of the time with these brain-images in real time (that is, the scientists could predict free decisions up to 10 seconds before they were consciously "made"). This is not a simple reflex. You know nothing about it Rodrigo. A reflex is, for example, if you hit right under your knee, then your leg will bend a bit, if you are sitting relaxed while doing it. There is not 'free choice' in that, because it is automatically happening. Why would you think that anyone would take the research seriously as a science about the question of free will if it was only an experiment based on human reflexes? That would be ignorant and arrogant to assume. Then again, maybe you are just that, which would explain your comment.

[@prygler]

+Rodrigo Gallinari “Showing that one aspect of the Libet experiment can be open to interpretation does not mean that all arguments against conscious free will need to be ejected.” Dwell on that for a moment. And then go read the latest neuropsychological experiments and the latest evidence against the notion of a free conscious will. Furthermore, I would also recommend the book by Wegner called "illusion of conscious will" (ICW). We can start with the scientific question: "We often consciously will our own actions. This experience is so profound that it tempts us to believe that our actions are caused by consciousness. It could also be a trick, however - the mind’s way of estimating its own apparent authorship by drawing causal inferences about relationships between thoughts and actions. Cognitive, social and neuropsychological studies of apparent mental causation suggest that experiences of conscious will frequently depart from actual causal processes and so might not reflect direct perceptions of conscious thought causing action."(Wegner) Wegner writes: “Intentions that occur just prior to action … do seem to compel the action. This is the basic phenomenon of the [conscious] experience of [free] will” (ICW, 20). “When the right timing, content, and context link our thought and our action, this construction yields a feeling of authorship of the action. It seems that we [consciousness] did it” (Wegner 2005: 27)."The experience of consciously willing our actions seems to arise primarily when we believe our thoughts have caused our actions. This happens when we have thoughts that occur just before the actions, when these thoughts are consistent with the actions, and when other potential causes of the actions are not present [in our perception and subjective conscious experience]." (Wegner 2005: 23).The view is that an experience of conscious will just is an experience (as) of one’s intentions causing the action in question. Chris Frith endorses a similar view: “Our sense of being in control derives from the experience that our actions are caused by our intentions” (Frith, 2002: 483). This sense or experience can be manipulated in nonintrusive psychological experiments, where people's experience of free will can be created and destroyed independently of how much they actually chose freely. Wegner did such experiments. Furthermore, intentions and thoughts simply arise in consciousness, which you can discover yourself if you observe your own thought processes carefully through introspection (Sam Harris shows this best in his lecture and writes about it in his book "Free Will"). Thus, you will figure, that your intentions and thoughts are not freely chosen either. Not only that, there are neuropsychological experiments showing that we can predict people's free decisions up to 10-12 seconds before they are thoughts or intentions in consciousness. The last time I read about this, they could already do it with 80% accuracy with the relatively premature neuroimaging technology we have today. I am and can be confident that in 10 years time, we will be on about 95% accuracy atleast, because we have come so long from Libet till today. we believe that our experiences of conscious will cause our actions, they do not (ICW, 318). Wegner: … it seems to each of us that we have conscious will. It seems we have selves. It seems we have minds. It seems we are agents. It seems we cause what we do. Although it is sobering and ultimately accurate to call all this an illusion, it is a mistake to conclude that the illusion is trivial. On the contrary, the illusions piled atop apparent mental causation are the building blocks of human psychology and social life. (ICW, 342; emphasis added) The agent self cannot be a real entity that causes actions, but only a virtual entity, an apparent mental causer. (Wegner 2005: 23; emphasis added) Do you get the picture the scientific research provides?

[@fmbahrt]

@@prygler How do you know when a choice becomes conscious? I'm curious.

[@grantw8360]

@@fmbahrt When the subject in the test says they consciously made a decision.

[@xanderpayne4825]

Every time I bring up the argument of free will the main opposition always revolves around choice. That somehow if free will does not exist, choice does not exist. Nothing could be further from the truth. Our inability to see the future provides us with the illusion of free will, because we don't understand where our choices will lead us. It's almost impossible to see every outcome of our daily choices... Something you say in passing to a friend may actually result in changing that person dramatically in ways you can't imagine. Ideas are like viruses, and they change the way we behave. Once you've seen something, you can't unsee it. This is why I cannot believe we have free will -- too much of what we rely on to make our everyday decisions is not determined by us, not controlled by us, and cannot be changed by us and our decisions. If everything you use to make your decision is determined by factors that are outside of your understanding and beyond your ability to control, how can your decision be 'free'? That being said, perhaps the solution to this problem is to abandon the concept for another one entirely. Our inability to see the future creates the illusion of freedom, and the illusion is just as good as having 'free will' if you think about it. Our choices FEEL free, even if they are not, thanks to the limitations of our perception. It's like dreaming -- when we dream certain parts of our brain act differently or are shut off momentarily to allow us to accept the various elements of the dream, no matter how ridiculous or absurd those elements may be. It's only when we wake, and those parts of our brains restart, that we realize something was off about what we experience. Indeed, it is this very process that makes it difficult to remember what you were dreaming about, because of these parts of the brain regulating the split between reality and imagination. This problem of free will is similar -- we don't have it, but it FEELS like we do. Without that sensation that our choices are free, we're left feeling like slaves to destiny, instead of creators of our own worlds. I further have to say, that the concept of knowing yourself adds something to this experience. Human behavior could be classified as repetitious, that we repeat our mistakes over and over, that we choose the same people to fall in love with, that we can't help but try the same failed experiments over and over in our lives. But if you can notice these patterns about yourself, if you can realize that who you are has a very large part in the decisions you make, CHANGING who you are and how you perceive reality can change the pattern of choices you make. I still don't think this gives you free will, because the chain of events that lead you to this realization are still determined, but it DOES give you something to shoot for, changing the focus of destiny from an external force against you to an external force you learn to navigate better. Like riding the rapids. You have to learn how to do it to really get something out of it. Otherwise it's just a bumpy ride.

[@marvinedwards737]

Free will is not an illusion. Either you are FREE to choose for yourself what you WILL do, or someone else is forcing you to do their will, subjugating your will to theirs. This is an empirical distinction, an issue of fact, not belief. And this is pretty much how everyone, outside of philosophers and theologians, defines what free will means in operation. If you want to fix things, get the philosophers and theologians to argue over "freedom from causation" and stop calling it "free will". See marvinedwards.me/2017/08/19/determinism-whats-wrong-and-how-to-fix-it/

[@xanderpayne4825]

+Marvin Edwards Your choices are based on the options you have available at the time you have to make your decisions. Those options are not controlled by you. If you do not set your own options for your choices, how can they be free?

[@marvinedwards737]

If I go to the restaurant, my options are limited by the menu. I am free to pick from the menu. Free will is when we decide for ourselves what we "will" do, "free" from coercion or other undue influence. The menu is a "due" influence, because it is entirely expected by anyone sitting down to eat in that restaurant. An "undue" influence would be if you were treating me to lunch, and you happened to be a vegetarian, and insisted, after we had already sat down, that I not order any meat dishes. Every use of the word "free" must refer to some meaningful constraint if it is to have any meaning. Coercion is a meaningful constraint. An unexpected or extraordinary limitation would be a meaningful constraint. But causally deterministic inevitability is NOT a meaningful constraint. What we will inevitably do is exactly identical to us being us, doing what we do, and choosing what we choose. And that is not a meaningful constraint. It is not something that we can or need to be free of. See marvinedwards.me/2017/08/19/determinism-whats-wrong-and-how-to-fix-it/ for additional details.

[@marvinedwards737]

There are three impossible freedoms: freedom from causality, freedom from oneself, and freedom from reality. Because these are impossible freedoms, it is irrational to suggest that any use of the word "free" implies any one of these. Since it cannot, it does not. Free will is simply when we decide for ourselves what we "will" do, "free" of external coercion or other undue influence. It requires nothing supernatural. It makes no assertion of being uncaused (just ask the guy and he'll explain to you why his choice was the best one). And yet it is sufficient for both moral and legal responsibility.

[@marvinedwards737]

There are three impossible freedoms: freedom from causality, freedom from oneself, and freedom from reality. Because these are impossible freedoms, it is irrational to suggest that any use of the word "free" implies any one of these. Since it cannot, it does not. Free will is simply when we decide for ourselves what we "will" do, "free" of external coercion or other undue influence. It requires nothing supernatural. It makes no assertion of being uncaused (just ask the guy and he'll explain to you why his choice was the best one). And yet it is sufficient for both moral and legal responsibility.

[@jacobdavis6831]

such an awkward talking setting and position lol

[@Quarknjaguar]

i love how he chooses to make the best arguments for not having free will and doesn't see it

[@kristiandoon8976]

We are a way for the universe to view itself. Relax and feel the energy.

[@handcrafted30]

His brick analogy where he invokes the definition of free will being defined by avoidance seems to be just another argument that if followed through arrives again at determinism. The inherent motivation to avoid is a hard baked pre determined response thus once again the illusion of choice is being given as evidence of free will. Explored in the opposite sense, the supposed free will choice to not avoid, would be so contrary to the instinctual force to avoid that it’s basic manifestation would have to be beyond choice and control and thus would be predetermined. It really does seem that there is no argument for the existence of free will that cannot be followed through to a deterministic origin.

[@GungaLaGunga]

Couldn't you determine to not duck (turning off the inherent motivation), and let the brick hit you? I think I could, but ouch, I'd only volunteer to do it once. Or that's just silly, and maybe I misunderstand all of it. It's so fascinating though.

[@Bhuyakasha]

It seems that he has a very weak definition of free will where determinism avoiding an apparent future somehow makes us free...

[@zarrowthehorse]

That's why he created his own definition. It goes hand in hand with a different type of free will. Free will is a broad idea.

[@pjmlegrande]

Not weak. Just one that matters to humans as biological organisms

[@ataraxia7439]

I think this definition of free will doesn’t carry nearly the same connotations most associate with it to the point of being almost dishonest.

[@pjmlegrande]

Being very clear about you are using a term is the opposite of dishonest

[@ataraxia7439]

@@pjmlegrande I could have worded it better, I think it's misleading to imply other wise than most people not using this definition when they're talking about free will.

[@wihan_8228]

this is brilliant, thank you

[@benjaminwing7944]

The argument of having freewill seems very similar to religious people assuming they know gods mind. And oddly enough freewill seems to be the one thing derived from religion that science can’t seem to fully shake off but I can’t wait till it does.. if we can prove we have no freewill then we will inevitably open the stage for understanding what we truly are and in doing so will hopefully lead us to the theory of everything

[@paologiroldi90]

Imagine that a person claims to have no need to eat food of any kind-rather, he can live on light. From time to time, an Indian yogi will make such a boast, much to the merriment of skeptics. Needless to say, there is no reason to take such claims seriously, no matter how thin the yogi. However, a compatibilist like Dennett could come to the charlatan’s defense: The man does live on light-we all do-because when you trace the origin of any food, you arrive at something that depends on photosynthesis. By eating beef, we consume the grass the cow ate, and the grass ate sunlight. So the yogi is no liar after all. But that’s not the ability the yogi was advertising, and his actual claim remains dishonest (or delusional). This is the trouble with compatibilism. It solves the problem of “free will” by ignoring it. Sam Harris Free Will, 2012

[@stefantherainbowphoenix]

So Sam Harris neither understood compatibilism nor his opponent's arguments and committed a straw man fallacy.

[@LuxeprivaeMedia]

Freewill as used in the bible(all 4 times) means voluntary. Not choice, not the ability to choose, not any variation of the word. The problem is people who claim that humans have such a power never validate their claim by presenting any actual evidence, instead what the do if make further claims about what it actually is. Again, making decisions/choosing is NOT free will. Even atheists do not understand this concept. Its all based on a belief, NOT evidence and knowledge.

[@allegrot438]

football joe Volunteering (in this context) is doing something of your own volition. I.e with no coercive factor present. The resultant forces at work within our brain comprise this coercive factor, in the same way that resultant forces on a rock will cause it to cease being a projectile and hit the ground.

[@lansan3430]

Explanation is confusing, he looks confused also! Maybe it is predetermined for him to be like that!

[@mertonhirsch4734]

And the deterministic/indeterministic argument against free will is a false dichotomy. It falls apart if we have any ability to determine the future and if our state is any amount not determined by prior inputs. The real uncertainty in your current state (though still very certain), as well as the real uncertainty in effect (though still very certain) matches this non-dichotomous reality.

[@jcandnp]

That was 6 minutes of absolute drivel. Dan is not even thinking philosophically here, let alone scientifically. He's playing word games at best.

[@jamesfleming1155]

jcandnp Agreed. For the life of me I don't understand what people see in Dennetts thinking. Every video I see of this man makes me want to slap him. I read his response to Harris' free will book and almost went into a rage. He's an intellectual midget.

[@hamnchee]

I agree he's playing word games, but his main point, and I think an important one, is that all this debate has EVER BEEN is a word game. Pretty much the entirety of this problem is NOT in whether or not we have free will, but what he damn term even means. So few people seem to ask the questions "free of what?" or "the will to do what" before they dive into defending one side or the other. It's the misnomer of misnomers, and it's been clogging up brains for millennia.

[@cpwm17]

James Fleming I don't think Daniel Dennett has ever written or spoken an interesting or original word about anything. He is very good at saying very little with many words. Try wasting your time ready his book: _Consciousness Explained._ It doesn't appear to be a subject he knows or really cares anything about, though he managed to write hundreds of pages on the subject.

[@pjmlegrande]

@@hamncheeThis! In other words, before we argue over the terms, come to agreement on what they mean. All DD is saying is that the only notion of free will that matters, to humans as organisms compelled by millions of years of evolution to survive and propagate, is the notion he describes. The rest is abstraction masturbation. It’s interesting to see the emotional attachment to other meanings of free will in these comments. Where’s Mr. Spock when we need him?

[@MrHPT3]

So if you can change what is determined to be, was not your change also predetermined? If that's the case, then no change occurred. All things would then be predetermined, even change. So there is no such thing as randomness or free thought. So was Dennett free to come up with this conclusion or were the chemicals in his brain reacting together, link to link, thought to thought, since his conception in his mother's womb, to bubble up this thought in this point in time, in which he thought this thought and it became known to him? If this is the case, no one is responsible for their thoughts or actions. There is no such thing as love, hate, right, wrong, good or evil. You're simply an unprogrammed meat robot, trudging along in the illusion of life, which is not life at all, but simply reacting to the environment, which is also unprogrammed and predetermined like a character in a video game going from scene to scene. Your life has no purpose or meaning and the only choice you have is death, which that too would be predetermined. So death is not a choice and life is not a choice, which means there are no choices at all. And how did nature create this video game called life with such a sophisticated, unguided, self-reacting, unprogrammed program? Nature could not have created it, because nature itself would be predetermined. Nature isn't creating. It too is part of the video game, so it could not have created itself. Therefore, there must then be something outside of nature, something beyond nature, which created nature. Something beyond the physical, not subject to space, time or matter and the laws of physics and entropy. It would be maximally great, all powerful, all knowing, eternal, all good and loving, completely moral and just, and personal. It did not need to create, but it choose to create. This maximally great thing would be the ultimate of all things and anything created by it would fall short of its greatness, which means the characters in its video game, would be subject to their creator. And no matter how one feels about this maximally great creator does not matter, because feelings are an illusion, but the creator is not part of the illusion. It is the only thing that is real. So by believing in determinism, you have admitted that a maximally great thing exists, who created you and all things. I believe the characteristics of this maximally great thing describes God and is worthy of praise and worship, because he created all things through him and for him, for his purpose. As the creation, subject to the creator, you can choose to worship the creator, but that is not your choice. It is the choice of the creator to reveal himself to you. He determines, who he chooses. And since he is the creator of all things, he can make that choose. He is the only being with free will, because he is not subject to his creation. He is outside of it. He rules over it and who are we to say to our creator that we deserve to be one of his chosen. Who are we to say, it is wrong for him to send people to a place of torment. He creates some for Heaven and some for Hell, places which he has also created. And if you believe what Dennett says, you believe you can change and choose to accept God, but it was not a choice at all. You were predetermined to accept him. Or you can choose not to accept him, but again, you were predetermined not to accept him and go to Hell.

[@michaelobrien5891]

This is dumb. He just changes the definition of free will and changes the argument

[@gideonwaxfarb]

@0:18 - This guy is a philosopher, right? Has he ever heard of the null hypothesis?

[@markwilson2421]

Dennetts arguments are ridiculous

[@b3u3g3g3y]

"avoiding" something is just a behavior like any other behavior. I don't see how it's special, or helps clarify the free will issue.

[@daviddeida]

@@bavafan2236 With the faculties that dismiss gods existence one has to dismiss free will.Yes the point then is who am I?.Many Atheist dont seem to ponder such things.Hitch dawkin all avoid it.That witness ,that consciousness is that what is pervading everything ,its what people have referred to as god.

[@rstevewarmorycom]

What horseshit. That's all unrelated to the problem of free will. Prediction is entirely unrelated to the problem of free will. It wouldn't matter if we knew everything or nothing, what we do is what we were always going to do because all real outcomes are unary, there is only one future, and whatever one you wind up in, that was the one that was always going to happen for you. This is also why QM uncertainty gives us no help either. Whatever happens, it was always going to happen by definition, and whether it was random or not this is still true. Multiple possible futures are not real, they are just ideas. And likewise, you are fully Determined because whatever you decide you were always going to decide, and for the same exact reasons. You can see this at work regarding "changing your mind". You don't change your mind, other circumstances do, and once changed you are no more able to change it back on a whim than you were to change it before it changed on its own. We do NOT think our own thoughts, rather our thoughts think US!! If you cannot change even the tiniest thing you truly believe, without lying and just claiming you did, then in what sense do you have any "free will"?? The thing people never get is that the very definition of the Self is that which the Self cannot change, it can't change itself. Everything that changes the Self is Other, "outside" the Self, even later cogitation that causes us to change our mind is a mental process we have no control over. They operate on their own. We change each other, but even then, we can't help doing it to each other, what we say and do is beyond any control, but we do not and cannot change ourselves. This is the secret definition of Self and Others. If we could decide what we think we could decide to think we were somewhere much nicer than here, and if we could decide to believe that we would believe it beyond any contradiction, and then while we were in our other psychotic world of imagination we might die or be harmed, and we wouldn't know it. This life is a movie, a thrill ride, an adventure to assuage the inherent boredom implicit in infinity.. Enjoy the ride!

[@rstevewarmorycom]

+Rodrigo Gallinari You're VERY confused about emotions. Emotions are just thoughts that evoke a physical reaction, and most thoughts do, of one kind or another. They are ALL Determined by your nature, your past experiences, and you do not get to choose WHAT you choose, you only get to choose it because these factors make you choose it. Whether you're an addict or not, you can't change that, others and other experiences may change you, but you cannot change you, that IS the definition of You-ness. The Other is what changes us. We ARE our self, we cannot change our self, even though our self changes from Other causes. And no, belief in Determinism is NOT where drug addiction comes from.

[@rstevewarmorycom]

+The Shaolin And so you can't do any better than that. Pitiful.

[@jamesruscheinski8602]

Nature looks more random than determined on the big picture. Don't see a cause-effect driving nature; particles and physical objects operate freely according to laws of nature. Guess the dispute is whether laws of nature are determined or freely operate.

[@KasiusKlej]

Almost all laws of nature are deterministic. Like the motion of an atom. Atom's path is determined by this law, so if we had all the information of where this atom is now, we could predict it's future location. Except this law of radioactivity, there is genuine randomness going on when an atom decays. So the universe is not exactly deterministic, it would be better to describe it as probabilistic. But then, if you still want the dispute to be reduced to the question weather laws of nature operate freely or are determined, you wish to know what is probabilistic then. Can probabilistic be put in the same category as deterministic? In a way it can, if you define both future outcomes "determined", each with 50% probability. In many worlds interpretation, both outcomes actually happen in separate universes, and one of those universes, the one we happen to find ourselves in, we can then say that our present was "determined". If there was no radioactivity, we would say the future is strictly determined, accounting for this radioactive randomness, we can say "determined". But the dispute cannot be here. It is elsewhere we must look for where the laws of nature operate freely. Particles and matter and energy all operate "deterministicaly", but our mind and our will operate freely. We shape our world with our will, as everybody can see. Somebody would say free will is still just an illusion, but it is not, it operates freely.

[@jamesruscheinski8602]

@@KasiusKlej the laws of nature operate according to free will, and everything operating according to the laws of nature has free will

[@PyroShredder982]

This is like porn for the mind

[@beingsshepherd]

All porn's for the mind.

[@fireballfitness170]

3:22... Capacity to see... 4:03 5:16... blame 5:49..

[@nenirouvelliv]

Dennett is a strange creature. He doesn't believe in subjective consciousness but believes in free will instead.

[@lancetschirhart7676]

Dennett doesn't believe in subjective consciousness? Will you please tell me your source for this?

[@allegrot438]

Lance Tschirhart He wrote an entire book that asserts this. It's called: "Consciousness Explained."

[@Archie.Fisher]

You clearly haven't read it.

[@cmvamerica9011]

There are many more unknown forces in the universe than known forces. If you knew all the forces that cause your behavior it wouldn’t change the feeling that you acted freely.

[@Praying_ManTas]

How do you know there are?

[@bakarenibsheut12]

@@Praying_ManTas That's a great question.