Free Will Does Not Exist with Robert Sapolsky - Factually! - 246

[@TheAdamConover]

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[@felinefunk]

Does this apply outside US?

[@OblivionOdditiesProjectStudios]

Wow we could have been able to meet & have a conversation in person if I wasn't kicked out & forced to move to Florida because I had to leave my service dog at home while I arranged my mom's cremation. I have been wanting to meet you for a long time because I wanted to get your opinions on the company I have created.

[@lenardtoldi5780]

Hey Adam!

[@TheFriendlyAnarchist]

Hey Adam! Big fan, followed you for years. I’m only half through this so apologies if this comes up but if we don’t have free will, then we don’t have the ability to make changes to our society based on this knowledge. Whereas, if we have the ability to make changes to our society based on knowing that we don’t have free will, then we *DO* have free will. So in either case the question itself is kinda a nonsense question? I think the actual problem is we think that we’re separate and distinct entities from our environment (you spoke about a ghost “piloting” our bodies). I agree that people often think this but also think it’s ridiculous. Alan Watt’s buddhistic concept of the “Organism-Environment Field” puts this whole argument to rest. We aren’t a little me being pushed around by causality, we are literally the whole organism, ie: we are the universe experiencing itself in a particular way. We are the universe “I”ing. Anyway great discussion, I’d love to debate your guest on modern day debate sometime!

[@culther0r0]

stop looking so pained the DOG NEEDS TO BARK pay attention to the SMART MAN

[@alejandroherrera7582]

Sapolsky has his whole college course free here on youtube he is a great teacher and so happy Adam interviewed him

[@mikereisswolff4662]

Getting recommended his lecture by the YT algorithm was the best thing that happened to me during the pandemic. Oh man, the insights I got from it! Since then I've bought four of his books and am reading his last one on the topic of this discussion.

[@howtomeetwomen-]

it's AMAZING

[@howtomeetwomen-]

kzbin.info/aero/PLqeYp3nxIYpF7dW7qK8OvLsVomHrnYNjD Human Behavioral Biology - Sapolsky (Stanford)

[@ZedaZ80]

Watched it twice, I should watch it again!

[@rowdyriemer]

It's been a while since I've seen them, but I still think the Behavioral Biology course lectures are the most fascinating thing on the internet.

[@WobblyBits_X]

22:00 This is all exactly why rehabilitative justice systems consistently work so much better than punitive ones, only further helping prove his theory. Harsher sentencing doesn't prevent crimes and only worsens recidivism by making it harder for people to reintegrate. Nations with more focus on rehabilitation (and also better tackling the causal factors like poverty) have far more success in reducing crime and recidivism.

[@WobblyBits_X]

I also hadn't previously considered that determinism could be a foundation for human rights, though I have believed firmly for years now that free will is an illusion caused by causal factors far too numerous and complex for us to ever fully comprehend - like trying to model climate activity without knowing Africa exists or something.

[@jimalbi]

Studies sem to indicate that the risk of getting caught is a way better detering agent than the harshness of the penalty. That means competent police corps with good efficient investivative resources are more effective than an angry judge.

[@M_M_ODonnell]

@@jimalbi Are you aware of any work on the effects of the prospect of false applications of legal power, e.g. are people more likely to disregard the law if the people operating/"enforcing" it are corrupt and going to act against them regardless of what they've done? I could see that undermining the effectiveness, but that's not the same as me having data to support my hunch.

[@stickjohnny]

​@@jimalbi In the absence of consequences the human animal runs wild.

[@whysocurious7366]

@@stickjohnny”in the absence of consequences” is impossible. Actions always have consequences.

[@japaroads]

Sapolsky was spitting straight bars when he was talking about how society ought to do away with concepts of meritocracy and punishment. You don’t need to be a free will skeptic to get there, either.

[@ZiplineShazam]

There should have been no sequels to the original film "Rocky"

[@kangarumpy]

Aren't the praise and punishments part of the environment that shapes who we are and, thus, influence our actions?

[@zachmayer2288]

Yes, they are absolutely shaping factors. But the question is, are they good factors we want in a more ideal society? Determinism and change are not incompatible.

[@fredericklehoux7160]

Meritocracy is appropriate as people have wide variety of skills, free will has nothing to do with aptitude..

[@japaroads]

@@fredericklehoux7160 A. Meritocracy doesn’t exist. In real life, people are rewarded based on their privilege and their connections, not their intelligence or ability. B. Even if it did exist, it doesn’t make sense to reward or punish people who are able or not based upon factors outside their control. C. Therefore, we should structure society such that it is well-formed to help people build ability, because a more able population will lead to a society that functions better.

[@Ianms]

“Men make their own history, but they do not make it as they please; they do not make it under self-selected circumstances, but under circumstances existing already, given and transmitted from the past. The tradition of all dead generations weighs like a nightmare on the brains of the living.”

[@ZiplineShazam]

"There should have been no sequels to the original film 'ROCKY'." -Albert d. Xavier

[@bcasarotto]

I love quoting him without telling people I'm actually quoting him and seeing his most passionate opposers agree

[@radaro.9682]

Or a ladder along which to climb. We stand on the shoulders of giants, after all. It's actually really fucking unlikely that a chain as long as the one connecting you to the first life would last as long as it has. For you to exist as you are, the who you are now, every single lifeform before you along that path had to survive long enough to propagate.

[@riverbank2193]

@@radaro.9682 I was thinking about that recently and it's a very strange thing to think about. But as long as there are humans who are propagating there will be more humans on earth. So if some die, others will reproduce, so there will be people on earth as long as that happens. The fact that you are here and I am here is lucky for us, and unlucky for those that didn't get to be here. But someone was guaranteed to be here.

[@oyoyoyo7624]

who said this?

[@Dan-ud8hz]

"As mortals, we're ruled by conditions, not by ourselves." Bodhidharma

[@sincera6716]

I'm in this video, and I'm here for it. Every time Sapolski said "someone is listening to this and curious", it's me. I'm that person. Nearly every question I had was answered. Great episode, sending to all my friends. 👌

[@rinosanchez2150]

I’m right there with you. After watching his Stanford lectures for a Behavioral Biology class, I’ve been hoovering up every KZbin video featuring Sapolsky, and somehow I get a new insight from each one. He’s fully convinced me by this point, but past experience has taught me that my biology has led to me accepting a new life philosophy every few years. 😊 Still, I think that the increasing evidence of the neurological foundations of our behavior is slowly squeezing the concept of free will into an increasingly smaller corner, in the same way that general science keeps squeezing the existence of anything supernatural.

[@transsexual_computer_faery]

Spaloski

[@nathanirby4273]

I love Sapolsky, I watched his entire 25 part Stanford lecture series on KZbin and it really, profoundly changed my entire life...how I see the world and interact with it, and it really opened my eyes about how complex and intertwined everything is with everything else around it in really mind blowing ways...was almost like a religious awakening or something. The man is a Genius and I highly recommend anyone who has the time to check it out

[@tmjones7081]

Same here. And I just can't even get mad at a dumbass anymore. Lol

[@barefeetz4977]

​@@tmjones7081so true. Since I realized this stuff years ago, I've been more at peace with people in a way. Its been amazing honestly

[@Ioana.U]

I had a very similar experience, one of the best gems I found on KZbin

[@thekingoffailure9967]

This stuff meshes really well with buddhist philosophy, if you are willing to replace the magic explanations for some things with modern science that directly replaced it. (ie the things we eat balance different chakras and effect the mind and our mood -> the things we eat affect our gut microbiomes that produce neurotransmitter precursors which effect our mood and brain development)

[@falineistired]

same. my partner came across the lectures around 2012/2013 ish and went down a rabbit hole. the effect it's had on my worldview is almost unparalleled.

[@Peppermon22]

I always told my highschool students who struggled. “Sometimes we are disabled by our environment” I encouraged them to focus on a plan to leave a bad environment. Understand it’s not in their control but they can break away and grow into a beautiful butterfly.

[@brainfaucet]

Robert, your lectures on youtube changed my life for the better starting 10+ years ago! I relisten to them every few years. Thanks for continuing to say what you see as you best understand it! Adam, thanks for having such fantastic guests. Love the show :D

[@dieselphiend]

Why do you bother thinking if you believe you have no free will, and your thoughts just "arise"?

[@Lock484]

​@@dieselphiend because the way he is hardwired pushes him towards wanting self improvement 😇😂

[@jaqm7343]

Late teens I started thinking of people as flesh mecha that were controlled by the millions of gut+ bacteria. I'm in my 40's, and I just now found someone that doesn't look at me like I'm crazy when I talk about it. She's big on the 'there is no free will' so this episode is like a smash up of our two ideas

[@Ana-cc5jb]

I’m in my 40’s too, let’s be friends lol. It’s hard to find real life people who “get it”

[@markcalhoun8219]

I think there are some big systems that are interacting in concert in addition to the manifold influences from the outside. Our gut inputs, the right hemisphere and the left hemisphere of the prefrontal cortexes. Three impulse systems competing for control and if there exists a mechanism of will that is not purely deterministic it is acting on the balance at this specific point. Otherwise the illusion of will is just a post hoc internal justification for why the winner won at any given juncture.

[@thelemon5069]

Just don't become unempathetic about the flesh

[@GeahkBurchill]

Same. Watched Evangelion in 1995 and then the Standard Sapolski video lecture series in about 2013 I think. They both kinda oriented me to be a determinist. Though I probably tried to be a compatiblist for a period of time, it’s ultimately just a recursive loop. There is no fraction of a moment you can dig deep enough into and find free will at the beginning of.

[@rauldurand]

I am in my 40s too.. I have been thinking this way since my 20s.

[@MantasticHams]

I think Adam is slightly miswording what he means about his definition of free will there at the end in a way that is gumming up the communication a bit and prompting Robert to answer the same way. I've always come to the same conclusion as Adam, and i think we are both making a subtle semantic mistake in that we are talking about will, rather than free will. I can see why Robert takes umbrage there, even though it irritates me because i use adams explanation because people, like he says, find it easier to swallow. I think the middle ground between it is simply to tell people that its will, rather than free will. Its not really directed by us, it simply animates us, and the emergent perception of ourselves as free is the perception of our identity aligning with our will. For example when we feel "out of control", we arent really out of control, we never had control, instead, our idea of our selves has become misaligned with our will, the force that animates us, (history, biology, matter, physics) which is psychologically painful.

[@Nora-transspire]

thanks for the idea of feeling (free) will as a sort of fake control by the virtue of just being aligned and coming to terms with what you are determined to do and thinking you've done it. Haven't thought that one yet (I think :P) I tend to dislike evolutionary arguments being applied too broadly, but it's hard habit to ditch: I can imagine this alignment easily producing behavioral patterns that persist good enough for us to observe now. On the other hand, as you said, it's even easier to imagine being totally misaligned, feeling like kidnapped by your bodie's and maybe even mind's action would be disastrous. There must be some sort of agnosia that feels like this!

[@grumpyoldman6503]

that's a really good framing of the perception of agency and the reinforcement feedback loop that fuels both 'good behavior' (that which aligns identify with biological/historical/physical 'will') as well as cognitive dissonance.

[@gagrin1565]

"A man may do as he wants, but not want what he wants."

[@toughenupfluffy7294]

Having cPTSD, I have personal experience with what Dr. Sapolsky says regarding actions/decisions taken in the heat of the moment. When I get triggered I either have to become instantly aware of my dysfunctional brain reaction, thereby short-circuiting the flight/fight response, or I find myself-within milliseconds, it seems-in a seemingly dangerous situation that often leads to literally weeks of unwanted stimulation and late-night ruminations that greatly affect the quality of my life. I usually have no choice in the matter and I fall down the dark well of despair. I've only been able to succeed at instant awareness a few times in my life. I'm 63 and it's taken it's toll, believe me.

[@QazwerDave]

You act based on what you want. But you can't choose what you want! When "wants" conflict, the strongest want wins out.

[@zverh]

As Schopenhauer said, "You can do what you want, but you can't want what you want."

[@chadmichael_]

Even when you try to resist that want, you're only doing it because you're discovering in real time that proving you have free will was more important than what you thought you wanted. Like, people who say, "i can choose to do other than what i want, watch me" and its like they're only doing it because ultimately, unbeknownst to themselves, they discovered that they actually just want to feel in control and so ironically continue to prove the point that they don't have free will at all.

[@mmediocahyt1170]

@@chadmichael_🎯

[@woodsonchem]

One of the best discussions EVER! I feel getting Sapolsky on the podcast is a real feather in you cap.

[@cooperhough7583]

I'm grateful to have been changed by this conversation and that Robert always ties his findings back to positive social change

[@ZiplineShazam]

There should have been no sequels to the original film "Rocky"

[@rfree863]

Yes, but you had no choice but to be changed.

[@dieselphiend]

What's the least bit "positive" about an ideology that absolves you of all responsibility for the world you exist in? What does "positive" mean?

[@cooperhough7583]

every time Robert made a point about determinism he tied it back to how our justice system unfairly penalizes people for behaviors that are heavily influenced by things out of the individual's control. Trauma literally swells the brain and impedes your decision making process so why treat people so harshly/punitively instead of investing in early intervention and community health?@@dieselphiend

[@angelalewis4213]

Robert Sapolsky was my parents' tenant while he was doing post doctoral work at Stanford and I was in high school. I had wonderful discussions with him when I was about 17. He is very kind and rather humble. I was incredibly lucky to have had him in my life and he was a great influence on my thinking as an adult. I don't know if I completely agree with his position, but I do think that if we have free will, we have far less "free will" than we would like. I am just not certain that I am entirely at the full determinist camp.

[@kathydb613]

Wow what a gift.

[@Al_ate_my_soup]

I’m in that same camp with you, if we do have free will it’s just one small influence in the massive conglomeration of things that affect our decision making

[@discursion]

I feel like the real question here is: what's the difference between "a sense of agency" and "free choice", and the whole debate seems to stem from that epistemological issue.

[@andrewj22]

I've got the answer to that if you're interested. The expert in the video, Robert, apparently doesn't understand it because he couldn't adequately answer Adam's questions about it. Anyway, here it is: A sense of agency is just another way of saying that one has the experience of making decisions. The experience of making decisions is this: imagining alternatives and their consequences, assessing which alternative you prefer or feel is best, and acting according to that assessment. A compatibilist thinks that decision making is all there is to _free will,_ but the problem is that none of the aspects of this decision-making process are under our control. How we imagine alternatives and their consequences isn't under our control, our preferences aren't under our control, and our acting upon those preferences isn't under our control. If we don't have any control then there can be no metaphysically real responsibility for our actions. A compatibilist may or may not be willing to accept that conclusion. A non-compatibilist, on the other hand, defines _free will_ such that it would be the basis for attributions of metaphysically real responsibility (if it existed). Thus the denial of free will is simply the denial that there exists any faculty that bestows upon people metaphysically real moral responsibility. I personally don't care which way someone chooses to define free choice, but either way we must acknowledge that people do not have metaphysically real responsibility.

[@justbreathe8835]

​@@andrewj22can you explain metaphysical real responsibility?

[@andrewj22]

@@justbreathe8835 Sure. Let's start with the kind of responsibility that _isn't_ metaphysically real. It's possible that holding people responsible has instrumental value. That is, if we generally hold people responsible for their decisions, this may lead to people being inclined to make better decisions. So, someone could simply define "responsibility" as the relationship between a person who has decided to act, and the consequences of those actions. But, this kind of "responsibility" is more limited than the naïve understanding of responsibility in which we are warranted to hold someone responsible independently of any instrumental value of doing so. More specifically, the reasons we are warranted in holding someone responsible for an action could be limited to the instrumental, or there could also be an additional reason: that they are _actually_ responsible in some metaphysically real way. Metaphysically real responsibility seems to require the agent to be an uncaused cause. That is, we would have to say that their decisions weren't just predetermined events in a long chain of causes and effects. Does that help?

[@andrewj22]

​@@justbreathe8835 To state the argument a little more forcefully: If we simply define "responsibility" to mean the relationship a person has to the consequences of an action they decided to perform, but we also admit that decisions to act are wholly determined by forces beyond the decider's control, then there's no necessary connection between the *_descriptive_* proposition that a person is "responsible" and the *_normative_* claim that we ought to praise or blame the person for the action. One might claim that there is instrumental value in praising or blaming people for the actions they've decided to perform, but this fact is, at best, contingent. The way to determine the broad effects of praise and blame is with extensive experimental study. It doesn't follow from the fact that a person decided to perform an action (i.e. they found themselves preferring the expected consequences of that action over another) that praising or blaming that person for the action will necessarily produce the best sum of all consequences. This disagrees with the naïve understanding of responsibility according to which praising or blaming for a person who is responsible for an action is warranted even absent any instrumental value of doing so.

[@discursion]

@andrewj22 Fair enough, but this is no different from establishing that there is no proper "self" or "soul" or "identity" to begin with. That being said, in practice, we do treat one another as separate beings with separate identities and separate decision-making processes. And it is on the basis of our separateness (the discrimination between two perceived individuals) that we ascribe responsibility and intention, and not on the sense that, given a predictable, deterministic universe, all their actions could theoritically be fully explained in a cause-consequence fashion (and thus no "metaphysically real responsibility"). Perhaps that is where the debate becomes more ideological, in that we can choose to operate on the basis of a rational metaphysical explanation or on the basis of a phenomenal, experiential one - that is to say, we do experience a sense of self, and though we cannot explain how our thoughts arise and what made us settle on our decisions, there still seem to be that critical focal point in our mind with regard to which we can feel that we have various degrees of agency in undertaking actions (or "the illusion of free-will"). I guess the question can be paradoxically framed as such: isn't the illusion of free-will precisely what we mean by free-will? When you say "[from a compatibilist's perspective,] how we imagine alternatives and their consequences isn't under our control, our preferences aren't under our control, and our acting upon those preferences isn't under our control", the issue that I find is that the very concept of "control" here seems to suggest that it can only exist if being employed by an independant agent (like a "soul"), which feels like a circular reasoning, because that means that comptabilists don't actually believe there is such a thing as "control" anyway. A common definition of control is: "the power to influence or direct people's behavior or the course of events", but it seems that a comptabilist would think that, because there is no proper self to begin with, then there is no one actually exerting that power (because their decision was the sum of other influences), and thus control is impossible because the universe is deterministic and nothing can be altered from its course. Anyway, just to wrap this up, my current stance is that what we mean by free-will is "a sense in which we feel that we have control over our actions and decisions and which informs how we're able to take responsibility and learn to adapt, regardless of whether or not those decision are physically predetermined". I guess I am thus neither comptabilist nor non-comptabilist and I wonder how I should name that.

[@Spencergundersenmusic]

I feel like you hear a lot of arguments from the “no free will” side that frame free will as some sort of grand omnipotence where we rise above all our influences and nurturing etc. I believe in free will, but I will acknowledge we don’t have unlimited will. It really has restrictions but the ability to make a choice, and have a real outcome that influences your nurture creates it’s own feedback loop of free will. There’s no need to have a perfect concept of free will to still believe in some form of agency. It’s a false dichotomy of only one or the other.. we have limitations to our agency but we still make very true real decisions based on our values that really matter.

[@derekcase3463]

If our future decisions depend on past decisions that eventually depend on prior effects that shape that chain, then the best way to affect decision making on average across a population is to affect the circumstances. No feedback loop ever frees us from being circumstantially contingent. The best golfer chokes. The best thinker fails under sudden drops in glucose. The most pious make less empathetic choices under stress. But the fact that we can strengthen neuronal connections that lead to better decision chains does make it a lot cheaper to build a better society since circumstantial differences compound to larger effects over time. It also makes it more expensive to ignore that our personalities are contextual.

[@Spencergundersenmusic]

@@derekcase3463 your last paragraph is exactly what I’m trying to get at honestly.

[@Heazeh]

Decisions are made in an unconscious part of your brain, and the conscious part retroactively makes up a story of how/why it itself made the choice.

[@poochy]

I more or less agree with the OP here. Free will would not negate environmental factors and visa versa.

[@Steven-lg3zk]

A great book on free will is Mark Balaguer’s Free Will as an Open Scientific Problem

[@ethannolastname]

Sapolsky is humble but I genuinely believe he is the greatest lecturer alive today. His ability to convey information in such a simple, effective, and entertaining way. I loved watching his lectures online and everyone should look them up. Truly a great educator.

[@Peace_And_Love42]

I've been listening to a lot of religious apologists lately, and Dr Sapolsky uses a lot of the same techniques. When asked a question, he rephrases it as a binary option where it's either his perspective or one other option, and since nobody has proven the opposing option, he must be right. Example: his definition of free will was “a decision made independent of environment”(my paraphrase). That wasn't the claim Adam made. There are the environmental and historical factors, and I believe there is sometimes an additional factor, which is free will. I can agree with Sapolsky most of the way, most of our decisions are predetermined by history, our nature, our genes, etc. However, in this conversation, at least, he doesn't address the most important issue with his claim. In order to show his point, Sapolsky needs to eliminate the possibility of free will. He has not even attempted to address that logical leap. Scientifically, to move from a hypothesis to a theory, an idea needs to be testable. Without a multiverse, Sapolsky has presented merely a non-testable idea. (And solipsism, according to my roommate who also has a bachelor's in philosophy) In conclusion, whether it's your decision or not, I hope you choose to be kind, and Love those in your life. -Peace and Love

[@quinnleavitt4105]

The argument you bring up is interesting but wouldn't the burden of proof be on free will to prove whether or not it exists? I feel there is some amount of bias in saying that free will exists and that we need to prove that it doesn't. All the evidence so far has shown that free will isn't necessary to explain how we act. I'd argue it's unscientific to say free will does exist even though I'd personally like it to exist.

[@quinnleavitt4105]

@@loadishstone I'm saying that there is evidence that says that our material brains are the ones doing the processing and that there isn't evidence for a spiritual form that would equate to free will. If our brain material is what is in the driver's seat we don't have free will since your brain material is formed based on your environment and genetic material. Do you have an argument for free will that doesn't rely on the mystery of consciousness? If not it makes more logical sense to assume free will doesn't exist given the deterministic nature of how our brains are formed and grow.

[@magentarainbow2275]

I agree with this so much and have listened to a few of his interviews and it’s frustrating. He never addresses this in a satisfactory manner

[@Peace_And_Love42]

@@quinnleavitt4105 Each position (free will existing or not existing) is an extraordinary claim, and therefore requires extraordinary evidence. Sapolsky simply enters, makes a counter-intuitive claim and demands that his extraordinary position be disproved. It's like saying that romantic love doesn't exist, then claiming victory because nobody produces physical evidence of love. To conclude, I offer a Christopher Hitchens quote: "That which can be asserted without evidence, can be dismissed without evidence." Another similar truism: "Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence." We can't eliminate the possibility of free will until we have exhausted all other explanations, and we're a long way from being able to prove that.

[@bodeeangus9957]

The burden of proof rests upon the shoulders of those who seek to prove the existence of free will. If you can prove it, go right ahead, but so far all that Sapolsky has demonstrated was that proving the existence of free will doesn't seem to be possible within our current scientific frameworks. Sapolsky does not need to eliminate the possibility of free will to claim that something without evidence most likely doesn't exist.

[@japaroads]

Loved listening to Adam go through the stages of grief and get hung up on bargaining lmao. 😂

[@TheRoninteam]

aha that is sapolsky's job for years, to twist our factually personal realities.

[@rcbridii]

I went through a similar process as Adam. I began to notice that what I was doing to hang on to the idea of free will was very similar to how I hung to theism for a while. The whole "God of the Gaps" thing. There comes a point that the splinter of "free will" we try to hang on to is not at all what people mean when they are talking about "free will".

[@KRYSTYNDA]

My husband and I have been following his work for years! Thank you for having him on!

[@Richie2390]

What I love about discussions of free will, regardless of whatever conclusion you do or don't come to, is that they force you to stretch your mind, and engage with ideas that you might not have ever considered, and reconsider ideas which you've always taken for granted. I feel motivated after watching this, and I am encouraged to do something productive. And when I act on this motivation, maybe I can take comfort in knowing that I'm lucky enough to have been gifted this perspective, and with humility I can persue my goals, without the pride of feeling like I earned this life, but instead gratitude that this is the life I have. Perhaps accepting the loss of agency as a positive thing-- to say, "wow, I really am fortunate to have been born into a middle class family and exposed to the right education, etc"-- is the first step in understanding this perspective. It gives me humility, and allows me to be more compassionate to others in less fortunate situations.

[@Peace_And_Love42]

You excellently demonstrated my primary issue with the guest's perspective. I can choose to consider and possibly accept new, challenging information; I can choose to act as if I had never heard it. I believe I'll choose gratitude today. :)

[@grumpyoldman6503]

@@Peace_And_Love42 you missed the point of how is it that you arrived at that thought process in the first place. I get it, ego is a hell of a drug.

[@jamalcalypse]

I think where Conover was making a mistake was in insisting his "will"; that is his conscious experience, is also "free". He keeps trying to synonymize consciousness with free will without considering that very experience doesn't have to be free. I've always thought of consciousness as a delayed reflection of reality, like watching a TV broadcast where the real action is happening behind the scenes at the studio.

[@okiedokie2234]

Yeah, I’ve noticed that when compatibilists explain their position, they’re essentially just clarifying the concept of will. It seems unnecessary to add ‘free’ to it.

[@lyonsrawrs]

I'VE BEEN READING THROUGH DETERMINED AND I WATCHED THIS GUY'S ENTIRE STANDFORD LECTURE SERIES ON HUMAN BEHAVIORAL BIOLOGY!!!! I LITERALLY COULD NOT BE MORE SUPRISED OR MORE HAPPY TO SEE YOU INTERVIEW HIM :D :D :D

[@MichaelKilmanAuthor]

This was a fascinating discussion. I’m an anthropologist and have been teaching the topic for about ten years now. I’ve worked a few other cultures over the years, so I’ve been thinking about freewill. I’m honestly not a huge fan of western philosophy at this point, despite the fact that a huge amount of my own discipline is centered around it. I absolutely agree that the vast majority of what we do… maybe as much as 95% is predetermined. I often teach my students that almost all of your identity doesn’t come from you at all. Your language, the religion you were born into, the time in history, the social conditions of your birth, the power dynamics surrounding things like gender, skin color, and so on, already strip away most of your choices for you. But I guess I would be a compatibilist (a new term for me) in that in my own observations and admittedly subjective experiences, I’ve seen some really interesting points of choice for people. Of course, this could be the deceptive nature of my brain. I sincerely wonder if this is a western culture/English language problem. Several times in this video Adam seems to dance around something he can’t quite explain in rebuttal. There’s no way to articulate this feeling of free will. It would be interesting to see someone who has a command of say, Tibetan Buddhism in the original language who is bilingual have a discussion about free will, because I think one of the major limitations here, is language itself. We can’t always articulate everything we are feeling or thinking can we? Language is a really interesting neurological problem, and teaching linguistics and the impact of language on culture, I’ve also read a lot of interesting research about perception and culture. The question of if there is free will or not, is only possible in some languages. So what does that say about the discussion? Does it lend to more validity? Or less? It’s worth considering at least. I’m a Buddhist practitioner, approaching a decade of daily practice, and I also can’t help but wonder, that even if meditation is no different, than say a pill that changes the chemical make up of your brain, even though certain life conditions lead you to a space where you can learn such a thing, what’s the point of doing it, if not to willfully change your brain? What about therapy? Again, a willful attempt at changing your brain. I find it hard, even considering the biological determinism, to think that people will dedicate their entire lives to doing nothing but changing their brain. In the long ark of humanity, there isn’t really that many people who truly work to change their mind their whole life. There are plenty who do it to a point, but what does it say about someone who dedicates all their being to understand the nature of the mind and consciousness much in the way that Dr. Sapolsky has dedicated his life to the study of free will? Ultimately this is a problem of ignorance. We still know so little about the brain, and it’s certainly an important question to ask, but I don’t think the level of certainty by Dr. Sapolsky is justified yet. Until we know more about consciousness, and there are some interesting pieces coming together in the last year or so, I don’t think we can really say for certain if we have free will or not. I will say I think this discussion is really important. That free will is a question that should be at the center of the human experience, and not scoffed at. Good science is done through peer review, and while paradigms create barriers for change, books and discussions like this, will be tested in the long term and it will help us have a better understanding of the human experience. Thanks for a great discussion there is a lot to consider here.

[@dieselphiend]

What on earth is there to like about eastern philosophy?

[@a999-p1y]

​@@dieselphiendwhat do u prefer?

[@coupdetat7631]

I wish Adam had asked how Robert thinks we AUGHT act. Aught we act as though we have free will, or aught we act as though free will is an illusion? I mostly believe in determinism, but I also believe I SHOULD act as though I still get to make choices. A person embracing determinism could cause their thought processes to change in such a way that would make them act more destructively at pivotal moments. Think of a recovering addict who has spent the past 3 months clean, but they're still kinda teetering on the edge, then they hear that free will doesn't exist, and this is just the excuse they needed to hear to fall back off the wagon.

[@gabriel101x]

They briefly touched on it in the video when Robert mentioned that although free-will isn't real our ability to create change and affect the world around us still is very real. So you can embrace determinism while still having a wholesome outlook on life and striving to make the world around you a better place.

[@katmur7136]

Imagine you had a recipe book tailored exactly to your whole body/history and how it behaves in certain circumstances... it seems you could either avoid addiction in the first place or know exactly how to cure it. I feel like so much of life is wasted experimenting and this outlook proposes that outcomes are predictable if you can understand the influencial factors.

[@brendanhoffmann8402]

I've studied Sapolsky's work extensively. I think his debate with Daniel Dennett was very telling. Dennett a philosopher and Sapolsky a neurologist. It really shows where Sapolsky is lacking. Free will does exist, he just defines it as something different to most philosophers since he is not a philosopher. It's like the kind of scientific absolutism that toxified Richard Dawkins and Sam Harris. Atheists jump at it because it is very literal and provable. If you feel lost in your existential position in the world you would likely take comfort in 'proof' that we are not responsible for our own actions. But philosophically there is a plethora of material on harnessing the self and learning to take responsibility for your own consciousness.

[@katmur7136]

I hope there is a follow up, because i didn't find the question of free will as interesting as picturing a world where Determinism is full swing: would there be no sadness? No addiction? Would a person be able to express their full potential? Sounded very exciting and much more efficient and rewarding than the life i feel like I've had... Even with all the information available today i feel like so much hasn't been helpful to me. I'd find having an ever evolving personal road map to be an amazing life coach. Got to say that all the "free will" I've had up to this point hasn't made me a happier person. I'd rather know how to maximize my potential and keep all my systems running smoothly.

[@welldonemovies]

I would bet that an optimist is more likely to draw a circle. And a pessimist more likely to draw an X. Similar to the fact that since humans literally favour right handedness, therefore right vs left already has an in-built bias. Most choices that seem trivial are still triggered by internal biases.

[@davidlavallee4118]

The "free will" that is worth having exists. That sense of "free will" is compatible with determinism. If by "free will" you mean the ability to make choices that are utterly undetermined, then what you call free will doesn't exist, because it doesn't make sense and it isn't worth having anyway.

[@derekcase3463]

If the will is determined, then it is in our interest to address those causal factors in order to improve outcomes in terms of individual and social wellbeing.

[@DenisLoubet]

DING DING DING! Exactly right!@@derekcase3463

[@aggies11]

This is truly the best response. If you had the ability to make "different choices" each time you rewound time, then what would that mean about identity and self? Who would you even be? If everything else was the same and you decided differently, then does that mean your decisions have a random element? And if it's random, how is that any more "willful"? If free will means the ability to make different choices, then I agree with you, it doesn't sound like something actually worth having or desirable. Just because your choice can be predicted, doesn't make the act of choosing any less valid or meaningful.

[@ernststravoblofeld]

People confuse "free will" with "will." You're welcome.

[@M_M_ODonnell]

I remain unconvinced that "free will" is a sufficiently well-defined concept to even answer the question of whether it exists in this particular reality.

[@travislyonsgary]

I generally have a similar view. The scale and definition of what choice is in it is often pretty variable when people discuss it. As is the scope of what exactly is free.

[@plastictouch6796]

Free will as a concept stems from a flawed understanding of reality as binaries. It doesn't exist because the mere idea stems from an outdated and defunct way of thinking in the first place. Asking whether we have free will is like trying to calculate how fast mars is orbiting the earth. You may come up with an answer, but it is wrong no matter what because the question itself is based on a worldview that is incorrect because mars doesn't orbit the earth, we all orbit the sun.

[@andrewj22]

There are two basic ways of defining free will: 1) as the ability to make decisions, or 2) as a faculty that would justify attributions of metaphysically real responsibility (if it existed). We definitely exhibit the former but not the latter. That is, if we employ the former definition free will exists, but if we employ the latter free will does not exist. Either way, metaphysically real responsibility does not exist.

[@M_M_ODonnell]

@@andrewj22 Neither of those two definitions is even close to enough to anchor a meaningful discussion about whether the proposed phenomenon (or whole family of phenomena related to various degrees) exists. Adding _more_ terms with similarly slippery definitions (e.g. "responsibility") doesn't change that issue and just makes descent into circularity more likely.

[@andrewj22]

@@M_M_ODonnell Does this make it more concrete?: A person can be said to be "responsible" (in a metaphysically real way) if praise or blame is warranted independently of the instrumental value of that praise or blame.

[@Tokanii]

Sapolsky is easily one of my favourite human beings.

[@adrianpintea9675]

I would have liked to know how the guest ruled out a probabilistic determinism, where your decisions are determined by everything he mentioned but the final choice is determined probabilistically by an errant electron or something.

[@derekcase3463]

Sapolsky covers this in his book with a whole chapter on indeterminism. Bc we don't control random outcomes by definition, they don't give us the freedom to dictate our actions to the universe. If we are caused, we aren't free to create those causes, and if we aren't caused, then we can't be our own cause. No combination of the two nets us self-causation.

[@adrianpintea9675]

@@derekcase3463 Thank you, it's good to know his conclusion, but I am not really pro free will, so his conclusion doesn't help me that much. From the interview he seems to think that, if we know all the conditions acting upon our being we will KNOW in advance how we will react. I am interested in this conviction, but it's probably in that chapter, right. :)

[@DenisLoubet]

What random events like atomic decay do is prevent the world from being entirely deterministic, in that you cannot trace a chain of cause and effect all the way back to the Big Bang. What that means is that the future is not written in stone. And that means our decisions make a difference regarding how the future unfolds. We are robots, and not puppets, because we make decisions -- mechanical as they are -- that make a difference to the future.@@derekcase3463

[@radaro.9682]

That wasn't ruled out. That is part of the "what is going on" that factors in. Where are the electrons in the cloud? That's what you're talking about about. What is the waveform doing? How has it collapsed.

[@radaro.9682]

​@@derekcase3463very near "I did it myself" while ignoring all the employees that contributed. Just on a physical level.

[@jeffersonian000]

Once I realized everything is determined (the delayed choice quantum eraser experiment), I stopped getting angry at people, my views on law enforcement and the penal system radically changing, and I stopped caring about the homeless problem or immigration or other distractions. It was world view changing.

[@kharyrobertson3579]

Whether free will is an illusion or not is generally a semantic question. Even if it is an illusion, it was so evolutionarily beneficial that we developed extreme behavioral responses to being denied our free will, so why are we debating it's validity? Why not explore where we draw the boundary between illusion and reality, because there seems to be a disfunction in the interaction of those ideas, if it's leading us to question our own agency in reality.

[@TheDilligan]

Exactly my thought. At a certain point this comes down to semantics. Whether free will is "real" or not doesn't really matter. There's still a thing that we observe and call "free will" and our ability to observe it is beneficial to our survival. It's like saying everything is actually invisible because light is just something our eyes perceive and our brain interprets. Like that doesn't mean anything is invisible, it just fits into our definition of visible.

[@mitkoogrozev]

As someone who is coming from not being aware of the free will concept, and there not being a word for it in my first language, and when trying to explain/understand the behavior of anything, I've first been exposed to scientific ways of understanding instead of folk ways or religious ways, when you take into account where I am coming from, the "semantics questions" for me is on the "free will" side . What the hell is it? That's the unusual and weird thing for me, instead of the other way around as it would be for people who were indoctrinated into the free will concept to begin with. At best, I understand it as a mis-understanding for the world and/or projections based on 'primitive' incomplete pre-scientific knowledge. So for me the default is that there's no such thing and is nonsensical. I learned of the concept's existence when learning about radical behaviorism from B.F. Skinner, while at the same time learning English. Stated in a over-simplified way I imagine it (the free will idea) could have occurred possibly in the following way : People notice that they affect things by pushing and pulling them. That you have to physically touch something and apply force in a direction for it to move, especially when it comes to in-animate objects. Now, people could see themselves also move, but they don't see anyone or anything physically making them. So they concluded "I must not be affected by anything, I move on my own!" . And over time , with the gradual evolution and complication of language and societies, it got philosophized and formalized as a verbal idea that was spread among some people. It got verbally codified. People might talk about it now in more complex ways, and try to rationalize it a lot, but this is still what it is in essence. But now we know that's an extremely naive and simple outlook. Since we know there's ultimately no distinction between an animate or in-animate objects. A so called in-animate object, like a rock, just has a stable chemical composition that to us appears relatively static. But a human or another animal, has constant transfer and release of energy between its molecules, the process of which is constantly fueled by the intake of food, sun, oxygen, water etc. And while the movement of a rock is directly caused by a singular obvious force, we are instead caused to move by multiple lines of force converging onto us, and they are in the form not visible/not understood without our modern knowledge of physics and chemistry. So this 'invisibility' of the forces, and their multiplicity , for naive perceptual understanding of how things work, it's hard to track and/or notice at all. And this outlook has survived to the modern day, while in parallel, more advanced and closer to reality explanations and understandings have developed with advancements in logic, philosophy, and the methods of science. And part of the reason I think of why it survived, is because it's formulated very similarly to some gods in religions. In an unfalsifiable way. That is, the more you understand about the world, instead of that disproving the god idea, the proponents of it just move the idea to some unexplained area and go "because of this unexplained area, it's still true". A God of the gaps fallacy as they call it. And in most conversations I've had with people defending or trying to explain the free will idea, they were doing the EXACT same thing, 1 to 1. So I made a new fallacy for the Free Will idea called "Free Will of the gaps fallacy" :D.

[@gmromy6138]

We should debate it's validity because it forces us to question why we do harmful or beneficial things.

[@falkorornothing261]

I agree that the boundary between illusion and reality is much more interesting. Have you ever had the feeling that someone was looking at you and instinctually turned and looked at the person staring at you. The feeling seems to be stronger if the person has a feeling about you. Like attraction or hatred. I call this the 6th sense. It's on a spectrum. Feeling someone looking at you is on the lower end. Maybe seeing dead people is at the other end. 😂 One thing that was very common back in the day was thinking about someone and the phone rings and it's that person. Me and a best friend used to call each other at the exact same time. And we were only talking every 2 months at the time. The you tuber Mr. Ballin has all the best evidence of aliens, ghosts, and other unexplained phenomenon. He has a voice recording of sasquatch. That is totally authentic.

[@shadowdeku6926]

Just because we evolved with a certain behavior/attribute, etc... does not mean it is necessarily ever beneficial, nor that it will always continue to be beneficial. Also the concept of free will has imeasurable impact on how we behave, treat ourselves and others, and outcomes.

[@supergub1]

The fact that we developed a sense of free will shows that it serves some sort of function to us, so even if the entire universe (including human brains) are deterministic, I don't believe that we as a society are prepared to accept that. I genuinely think that if a majority of humans truly internalized the thought that we don't have free will, enough of us would be driven to make massively negative decisions (the most common being abandoning the concept of morality or just committing suicide) that it would grind human society into extinction rather quickly.

[@bodeeangus9957]

Belief in free will exists in many animals besides humans, especially within primates. This suggests that perhaps believing in free will gives some sort of survival benefit to animals, but this does not mean that it is still useful to humans. Many of our traits that stem from the need to survive before now hurt us in this modern age. Anxiety, schizophrenia, bipolar, and many more mental health disorders that cause suffering are not seen as valuable to us, and yet they serve a primitive function. I don't think it's logical to value some trait just because it evolved at some point, without really considering it's affects on our species. Belief in free will might be the cause of mankind's self-inflicted suffering.

[@jfmangano]

I will accept that Liking this video was beyond my control. I had no choice but to Like it.

[@VCE4]

Arguably one of the best conversations with Robert I have seen on KZbin

[@FudgeYeahAmerica]

I think the definition of Free Will that Adam was getting at, is something like The story our brain tells itself, and projects onto our world. You can see Adam trying to revise his story to Sapolsky, but in the end, the truth isn’t a story. And that’s what’s scary.

[@theuniques1199]

The truth is the story that points to itself the truth or the book is the story that points to itself the book or the present is the story that points to itself the present including the story that points to itself the present, eternity always reprojects this same exact image of itself as proof of itself.

[@bulhakov]

I like the word "story" much better than "illusion".

[@byaustingragg]

He's not really arguing for a lack of free choice or will, but rather that we cannot act outside of influence. He fails though to provide evidence those influences are so strong they are effectively predetermination of events.

[@gendissaray]

I've been talking about this kind of stuff for a while now and it becomes an interesting topic to dive into with friends.

[@mariacamilarivera1364]

I love Dr Robert Sapolsky, his work in neurology and behavior is fascinating.

[@FatherDraven]

Adam, can I sample this interview in a song? ( mostly Sapolsky's bits, but I might find uses for you too! ) I can't find a business inquiries email for you in the video description or your website to ask about licensing in a sensible fashion. I'm multiply disabled and currently trying to upgrade from tent life to van life so hopefully this wouldn't require mountains of licensing fees. I'm thinking something ethereal with lots of arps and resonance like old school Velvet Acid Christ, but I've been known to suddenly shift genres halfway through a song's production.

[@antondresucks]

Commenting to beef up the small chance they see your request. Go you, homie, and if nothing else, we know Adam is a hard leftist. There’s a decent chance he appreciates that sampling is not inherently negatively derivative. Different medias, different formats, all transformative. Might just go for it and find out later if they disagree

[@TheAdamConover]

Go straight ahead.

[@FatherDraven]

@@TheAdamConover Rad! Appreciate it. I quoted your post on Blue Sky about the show so my followers can bug me to finish the song ( and send a few more your way to watch it ). ฅ𝙐´ºᴥº𝙐☭ You should spend more time on there. It's where all the cool leftists queers and sex workers left twitter for. Come shitpost with us. ;-)

[@moxiebombshell]

​​@@FatherDravenso THAT'S where! *_takes notes_*

[@antondresucks]

@@FatherDraven can’t wait to hear it, I want in

[@iangull5184]

The lack of free will has been used for centuries to JUSTIFY the order of society, not to undermine it. I don’t get how he thinks this is some radical idea. It’s not a belief in free will that has comforted people for the last hundreds of years, that’s a relatively modern idea. It’s the religious fatalism of the past that was and is a greater source of comfort.

[@aramilalpha1]

I still think Christopher Hitchens said it best, when asked whether or not he believed in free will, he answered mechanically in a monotone, "I have no choice".

[@scrivner3902]

I enjoy listening to Robert Sapolsky talk about any subject and I have no free will in that matter.

[@NILgravity]

I like what the matrix says about free will “You’ve already made the choice. You’re here to understand why you’ve made it”.

[@PhilosopherScholar]

My big takeaway is the example you gave of someone not helping in a situation versus someone who can't help because they're tied up. Sapolsky is right: it's easier for us to understand the obvious physical limitation of being tied up, but it's not obvious that we should give the same weight to the numerous subtler forces that keep a person from helping. Great discussion, Adam!

[@edupunknoob]

I appreciate these discussions as a way to think more deeply about the topic. Entertaining and shedding light on different perspectives and philosophies. Thank you!!

[@dieselphiend]

Sapolsky is an absolutist.

[@wilwaricson]

The idea that if you had all the variables you could calculate everything that will ever happen is a very old concept. Kurzgesagt recently did a video describing this view of the determinist universe, where all of time already exists, the universe is static and everything that will ever happen has already been determined. The problem with that construction of time is that it ignores quantum uncertainty. The thing is that at any given moment, reality is the result of probabilistic interactions - and as such, at any given moment, something incredibly improbable could happen. In that uncertainty, we have "room for" free will - as Sapolsky puts it.

[@blueleader9697]

(I'm about to strongly disagree with him so I want to point out that I very much liked Sapolsky in this interview and agree with the points he makes about the practical "social justice" implications of the conversation) I really, truly, have never liked the "Free Will isn't real" argument because it reeks of "gotcha-ism" and terminal STEM brain. People tend to have strong urge to contradict the statement because (what I would call) the common understanding of free will is the ability to make choices. Sapolsky is, literally, 100% correct in his assertion that we all come down to being products of our environment and genetics and other things outside our control, but that doesn't matter to the crux of the argument. The points he makes only support the conclusion that human choices are far more complex than meets the eye. It's as if a group of travelers said "we made it to New York" and he responds "Actually, New York is just the last of several places you made it along the way as it is impossible to teleport somewhere". Like, yes, thank you for enlightening us about that but that doesn't actually say anything about the conversation at hand. I said terminal STEM brain earlier because there's a tendency among some to believe that declaring the mathematical/physical/chemical truth about something is the most important point to argue in any context. It implies that the nuances of human existence are not relevant because they cannot be measured. It's more fun to "gotcha" the normies with a fact that's backed up by science. It's preposterous to say that you shouldn't assign blame or praise to people or hold no one responsible for their actions because that simply isn't how human society works. Speaking of, from a STEM context the argument also reeks of poorly defined boundaries of a system. Any physics student will know that there are certain interactions/reactions that only make sense in a defined and closed system and when you expand your bounds too much, the actual thing you wanted to measure becomes harder and harder to determine. Just because your view point is from 1000 feet doesn't make it better, sometimes it really is better just to talk about the last 3 pages of the book, as he put it.

[@bodeeangus9957]

By studying the constituent parts that make up everything that we are, we can conclude that we must be deterministic as well. You can call this type of logic "STEM brain", but it's the most accurate view of reality that we currently possess. Right now, there is no solid proof that free will could exist in a deterministic universe, it's just not possible. To feel is not to understand, feeling like you have free will is not enough to prove that you do.

[@Alan_Duval]

I love Robert Sapolsky, a total intellectual hero, but I have always found myself disagreeing with certain aspects of this argument (possibly because Dennett is also an intellectual hero). For example, at 22:10, where he says "blame and punishment make no sense and praise and reward make no sense," etc., etc. But that's not the case. A social being that receives blame, punishment, praise or reward may alter their behaviour in line with those things if they are predetermined to value the social milieu from which those things come (and/or they have experience -- whether direct or indirect -- of the consequences of blame, punishment, praise and reward) and they find themselves in an environment that is conducive to doing otherwise. Bear in mind that the environment in question now contains the memory of blame, punishment, praise and/or reward, whether they (believe that they) value it or not. This all reduces down to the fact that the Free Will debate, to my mind, is (still) an artefact of dualism. Distinguishing between "me," a set of physical processes and/or "me," the sum of my experiences and/or "me," a set of aspirations to something greater than the sum of those things, or "me," a social construct that is both the essence of those processes and experiences and a surface that deflects assessment of those things to protect myself from the comparison between the 'IS' and the 'IF' (and probably the 'ID,' too 🤣). Ironically, Robert says more-or-less the same thing, at 37:14, so he has somewhat contradicted himself. Or maybe that's my 4.5 neurons misunderstanding 😏 So, picking up on what Robert's talking about at 54:00, intuitions are also the sum total of our experiences, including the experience of greater empathy for people who are not like us in any of a myriad ways. TL;DR: If I define "me" as the sum total of my physical body and its related processes, then it is me that is acting, whether I'm conscious of all of the reasons why or not; so it is me that is deciding, but on the basis of automated processes within "my" body. That's my version of compatibilism. So, I think I'm in about the same place as Adam. A fun thing about schizophrenia (seeing as it got mentioned a bit) is that some genes that correlate with schizophrenia in some societies do not correlate with schizophrenia in other societies, suggesting that schizophrenia is, at least in part, not just a predisposition, but one that will be differentially expressed, depending upon the societal environment you're in.

[@agbook2007]

That was surprisingly nuanced. Great job, Adam.

[@zalafinari]

I have a degree in comp sci and effectively a minor in philosophy and 20ish years ago I came to the same conclusion as Robert Sapolsky. But I admit I had not fully worked through all the logical end results as well as he explained here. I feel like I should check out his lecture series here on KZbin to see if there's other things I haven't yet figured out.

[@koihoshi]

I read Sapolsky's book "Determined" and it is a FASCINATING read.

[@SVK91]

I just ordered it while listening to the interview. I can't wait!

[@feralhomunculus]

I tried having this conversation with a co- worker in TX after seeing the Matrix. She told my other co-workers that I was crazy and believed the Matrix was real. 😂 Some people really don't get philosophical discussions.

[@Jeremy-hx7zj]

From what i could gather, compatibalism is basically, "you have free will if you learn about the concept of compatibalism"

[@yopyop5546]

Emotions are the answer to a lot of philosophy's questions, and vice versa. There is no free will in the confines of our experience. But then again, what would a universe look like without free will? At the very core, we live at the horizontal vertex of the eternal oscillation of energy. Love y'all!

[@DavidBraileyLive]

Perception is reality, no matter how much you may hate their perception. Isn’t he just explaining his own perception of reality? When he speaks of any other perception he gets uncomfortable.

[@alec5256]

I also share your view David. I agree with some things he mentioned but I also think he should see the bigger picture of what being human is about, we are certainly conditioned but we are not only biological beings. I wondered if he is actually actively engaged in his individuation process or if this extreme way of viewing life is an unconscious defense mechanism for him.

[@Flintknappingtips]

@@alec5256I think you and David are feeling more than thinking this stuff. I didn’t know individuation was a word. Seems like a self formed paradox there. We’re all different ages and cultures. Wisdom takes time. That’s a true statement that’s never read as a threat to the wisest 5 year old, or the dimmest fallen hero. Reality as perception takes teamwork. Those in our minds playing those parts are sometimes often parted.

[@eddie2dean]

I love Prof Sapolsky! His Stanford lectures on behavioral biology is highly recommended.

[@Sapheiorus]

As another determinist, the essential proof presented in this video was spot on. However, there are aspects of what we consequentially "should" deduce from the main revelation that I feel Dr. Sapolksy could have stood to hit the brakes on and really talk more through that sends potentially dangerous messages to others if they aren't, so I wish to interject. The matter of being rendered "unable to judge others" is a potential consequential belief that begins to rub shoulders with nihilism. If you consider yourself unable to judge others, they similarly are unable to judge you, and you need not judge yourself either by the permissions given by such a conclusion of determinism. Given this, there is an absent source of compulsion towards moral thought or ethical engagement with the world. This in turn may erase the notion of value in any existential state, which is reinforced by what we essentially say about the human condition in the course of proving determinism; if action is not something that can be subjected to judgment, then actors are of as much moral quality as rocks with equal significance to the workings of the universe as they are similarly determinable and unable to "choose" their states. This latter statement is the statement of nihilism, where nothing matters and your "decisions" are therefore of equivalent moral character whether it is charity or genocide. No action is more worthwhile than another action. Disregarding your subjective experience of things by accepting the nihilistic position, however, would not actually satisfy you. You get sad, angry, frustrated, nervous, happy, amused, etc. from particular kinds of things, showing that you have a value of some things over others. Neurologically, you will respond in more intense ways to certain phenomena and sensations associated with experiences, leading to an incentive to pursue or avoid those things; such experiences inform you that something about them are positive and negative values. While these values may not be things you freely willed yourself to have, YOU STILL HAVE THEM, so it behooves you, on account of yourself, to act for the sake of your values. This is will demand you to believe that your values matter, and, therefore, that SOMETHING matters, nullifying an adherence to nihilism as a truth. No matter what, the world is not meaningless to you, for you find meaning for something that can be expressed and manifested within it. There is an evolutionary and survivalist point to judging others: it is to protect what you value. Your judgment is a tool of defense of your subjectively evaluated state of good, not merely a moral practice of acknowledging another's free will and clashing with your own. Similarly, when you are a juror (as Adam asked to probe response for), apart from the fact that the context we regularly observe is wholly punitive and non-restorative to the point of not enabling a justice that serves all ANYWAY, your FUNCTIONAL position is not to morally evaluate a defendant's CHOICES, though you are rhetorically asked to judge them "innocent or guilty". It is to evaluate, on behalf of your civil community, whether or not the judge should DO SOMETHING about the defendant as if they were responsible for the crime. And that's a SOFT and ultimately powerless "should", because the judge may decide to overrule a jury's guilty verdict anyway in a "judgment notwhistanding verdict". AND you don't get to decide what happens. If you are certain of the enactment of a crime by someone and the options set forth are either "sending them to prison with little enough else materially changing for them over the years besides regret and having a criminal history to find a job with" or "let them free with little else materially changing for them such that whatever may be the determining factors of their crimes remain unchanged for them to resume their commitment of crime", you have to make a decision on the basis of NOT your perception of their ability to have chosen to do better, but on WHAT YOU THINK WILL HAPPEN NEXT in each case and how those outcomes will differentially affect what you or the community you purport to represent as a juror values. This is how a determinist attitudinally changes in a perception of justice: it's about the observation and resolution of the origin and outcome of crime itself more than about the blame an individual may take in having done a crime. Justice is meant to be a societal process of protecting social harmony and orderly function consequent of that harmony. We contemporarily do so through the establishment, enforcement, and adjudication of law. It's just a rhetorical matter that we will declare the guilt of a defendant for a crime committed as a way to rub salt in the wound we are about to inflict by using that word "guilty" to shame them publically. It's not an essential part of the justice system. We could instead have the jurors decide "we demand the judge to spare the defendant of any state-prescribed consequence" or "having determined the defendant to be the perpetrator of the crime, we plead the judge to deliver justice to the defendant", but these aren't catchy, iconic one-word declarations, and they make the judge the center of attention as much as the defendant, which would all at once put the position on a pedastal and call to question far more often the legitimacy of the position when things go south in the justice system. Ultimately, not as much as is implied in this conversation "has to" change under a framework of determinism. Determinism instead informs a different understanding of what a person and a society should be considering to be important and purposeful in the judgment of others as well as the judgment of oneself. You could accept less blame for what you have done, OR you could, knowledgable of how your past experiences and conditions shape you, attempt to reconsider more critically and less personally what models of being you'd prefer to engage with to better achieve your goals and preserve your values. These are possibilities, of course, rather than choices you will make, but being presented with the notion of diverging courses of action at least presents your mind with a tool to arrive at a decision that helps you more than hinders you. This applies both to individual and collective scales of "you", I should mention. In all this, I hope you can take away the idea that your values and aspirations are not nullified in their legitimacy by determinism. If you want to be compassionate and build a world where we all live in harmony and peace, for instance, determinism doesn't discourage that at all. Sure, it says that this is how you were going to be from the moment the universe began... as the mystics might have said "it was written in the stars", but, more to the point, it can help inform how best to acheive that kind of goal. Knowing and accepting determinism as a fated element of what you are going to be has the potential to enhance the efficacy of things you want to do further along when you can approach other people with a greater sensitivity to what their circumstances are and how that informs their character and action. As for Adam's attempt to assert a "compatibilist" argument towards the end, I think compatibilists would be mad with him. He sounded as if he was basically saying that "free will is a word and notion that exists because we consciously experience it, so IT technically exists alongside a deterministic reality, thereby making free will and determinism compatible". That's not what compatibilists actually assert. I bring this up this because, were it otherwise, compatibilists would not be in arguments with pure free will believers OR determinists at the capacity they are. They believe a free will consequential to real outcomes exists that makes human activity lie outside of the realm of causality, but that there are things they do that are determinable as well at the same time. Adam is merely moving goalposts too far for compatibilism to mean much of anything as an objection to determinism. There are other aspects of the arguments made that are being directly challenged. I encourage people to take a gander at the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy to get an idea what the deal is with compatibilism.

[@lordwolf89]

"You could accept less blame for what you have done, OR you could, knowledgable of how your past experiences and conditions shape you, attempt to reconsider more critically and less personally what models of being you'd prefer to engage with to better achieve your goals and preserve your values." if i have no Free will, they aren't MY goals/values. I would be in no position to choose them "If you want to be compassionate and build a world where we all live in harmony and peace, for instance, determinism doesn't discourage that at all." i do fail to see how what I want have any meaning if there is no such thing as Free Will, without any agency over my actions what i want is irrelevant, i could want as much as possibly could but nothing would deviate from the set path, there would litterally be nothing i could possibly do to change the outcome. in that sense......maybe its more like "We all have a fixed, unchanging Destiny, and our Fate have ben decided for us, and nothing we do will change it" ..........coming at it from THAT angle.....i do find it easier to grasp....and....actually a bit freeing and comforting...knowing the path have already been laid before me....... Before starting to write this i was very against the concept of no free will... sat through the interview just feeling my mind rejecting everything about it, kinda gave me a headache...... Thank you for your comment, and sorry for the Ranty/rambly reply to it, i had some stuff to work through regarding this

[@mildlydisastrous7818]

That is absolutely brilliant, thank you for writing this. It precisely formulates most of my thoughts and counterarguments I had while I watched this interview. It’s a shame this comment is buried deep under the video.

[@steve7231]

Love Robert’s work. I think people who are offended by this idea should consider why they’re so offended by it. You’re still you… you just didn’t choose to be you… which you already knew and a criminal is still a criminal and may still need to be kept away from society, but now we can understand the truth of why criminals are criminals… so maybe we can start building a society with fewer criminals. This is a call to provide better services and environments for children, this is a call to make a better world.

[@OskarHartmannsson]

I think believing that we don’t have free will is harmful for us as individuals. And regardless off if we have free will or not we all can understand that our surroundings and events in our lives mold us into the person we are.

[@falineistired]

if you weren't able to watch the whole video you may want to check out the 35-45 ish minute mark, especially if you're coming from the perspective that people will use this as a justification to avoid accountability.

[@Ritual_Gaze]

I love when he was borderline making fun of Adam while giving an example of his lack of free will. I can see a lot of people getting offended by something like that.

[@discursion]

I came to similar conclusions around the same age (15 years old) that a lot of hard existential questions we debate over and over again are ultimately self-referential and irrelevant to anything. The soul, free will... these are essentially empty concepts that have found practical use in religion, often to justiy humanity's dominion over other species or peoples.

[@amybutcher6827]

Well put.

[@Shinigami13133]

Some hard existential questions, but not all. The question of free will is an empty one because if it doesn't exist, then there's no use in doing anything about it because you are incapable of truely changing or making a decision. If the answer is no then it isn't a useful answer philosophically because the implications preclude any form of coping. But examining your place in the world or a search for a greater meaning can be enlightening because there are useful answers to be found there that can be uplifting and empowering.

[@discursion]

@@Shinigami13133 Right, thus "a lot", but definitely not all. The process of inquiring, of thinking deeper about existence and finding an answer for yourself (even if it's just: "that's all bs") is the true value of these questions.

[@Matty002]

i remember learning about entropy in highschool and thinking 2 things: 'ohh thats what the big bang means' and 'wait, a computer could predict the future if it could simulate our universes entropy since the big bang 1:1, which means free will isnt real because this means the past literally makes the future'. hearing people starting to catch on to this now has been crazy. and yes it doesnt help people want to mystify our minds as separate when they clearly exist in the same universe so how could they not be connected???? like brain waves and neurons are things we can measure and with the right technology read like a book

[@brettito]

This was at once fascinating and hard to watch. Real rollercoaster of an episode!

[@Jose_Da_Hype]

Terrifying and informative

[@fuzzie000]

I've argued exactly this for YEARS. Of course I'm a nobody who has spent most of my career in factories. Glad to have this video to share with family & friends who dismissed my conclusions over the fact that I don't know what I'm talking about lol

[@katieandnick4113]

You’re not a nobody. Nobody is a nobody.

[@jared8411]

Thanks for having this conversation. I am right in line with what I keep hearing from Robert. I am sick of having to watch the content creators I loath watching just to hear him. It is interesting to see some of them try to rephrase and adjust their conclusions when they talk to him but it was much better watching this conversation.

[@thinkrtank991]

Science will need to redefine free will, awareness, and in turn consciousness. The sooner we can understand how we make decisions, the sooner we may start making better ones. Otherwise, I'm going to strongly agree that free will (in the traditional/cultural/religious sense) is misunderstood and requires way more research that starts in understanding the relationship between the brain and its surrounding environment, and how the two give us consciousness and alas decision making.

[@geelee1977]

There has been a great deal of research on this front in neuroscience. Also, physics has a lot to say about it. Right now, the evidence is pointing directly to the idea, that yes, free will as thought of traditionally, is fantasy. Only a new conception of free will can survive if this keeps turning out to be true.

[@zachvanslyke4341]

Totally agree with sapolsky. We don’t choose what we want, we simply choose what we choose. Always. “Free will” is merely an illusional concept to raise another illusion of higher self esteem which in turn quells our death anxiety. “We tranquilize ourselves with the trivial.” Ernest Becker

[@Ermys]

The conclusions are something that have some larger implications if we can accept especially in possible applications for societal reforms. The accepting that intuition is not always right and often wrong still leaves room for questioning about how those intuitions emerge, and the parallel that must have in our understandings of consciousness as its own emergent property. Great video keep up the great work

[@Beltalowda55]

There's a major flaw in Sapolsky's logic. If a people don't have free will, then they can not "choose" to behave differently. If a criminal didn't have free will and didn't "choose" to commit the crime, then another person doesn't have free will to "choose" how or if to punish/restrain the criminal. Saying, we don't have free will so we should "choose" to treat other people differently doesn't make any sense. If there is no free will then that's the end of the discussion. The criminal doesn't have any choice or responsibility for their actions then therefor the victim also has no choice or responsibility for their actions.

[@TomMinnow]

If there's no free will then we are simply stumbling onto new ideas which either change our trajectory or they don't. If you were convinced by Sapolsky, you may act on it based on what influence you have on the world. No free will doesn't mean that we can't enact change. I don't know that I fully agree that we have zero free will, but I do think you may have misinterpreted the argument.

[@Beltalowda55]

@@TomMinnow - Yeah, that's an interesting point that I didn't consider. This topic really depends on the definitions and per-conceptions of what's being discussed. I agree that an interaction, like listening to this interview, might have some impact and result in a change of behavior. That begs the question though - Is a change in behavior or making a "choice/decision" evidence of free will? My car is really impressive with it's autonomous driving. It is constantly making decisions. Does it have free will then? If it's just programming with no free will, then I think humans are the same. (if it's true that there is nothing beyond the physical world)

[@TheOneLostkin]

"It just fuckin' is." The ultimate philosophy of life.

[@dooplisss]

Absolutely. It’s the core of Buddhism too lol

[@tonyhinderman]

Although "Free Will" is a Symantec argument I do think a lot of this interview is important! Every field is related, and determinism doesnt mean there isnt choice, but to ME it reminds me of the discovery of subparticles. We seek a reason for something to happen that is the most base, the lowest "real"ist thing. Robert has a lot of real good points that dont negate conscious choice but does incorporate probabilistic reality to the circumstances that define our lives. Wonderful conversation!

[@johnyoung6680]

Quitting alcohol 4 years ago, and still being sober, wasn't anything that I did. It was just deterministic inertia from the Big Bang.

[@mikes333]

Adam asked Sapolsky that assuming we accept his position on free will not existing, "How would our society change, and how should people treat each other differently?" Sapolsky's response was that the "only possible conclusion" is that "Blame and Punishment make no sense... and ... Praise and Reward make no sense." I find this to be completely conflicting with his argument altogether. Since his position is essentially that 'Your future choices in life are completely influenced by all of your prior experiences' then would it not make sense for a society to praise the accepted actions of its population and punish the unacceptable actions of its population which in the long run would have influence on each individual's future actions to help guide the society towards a more desireable outcome that benefits all in the end? I also found that Adam tried several times to get Sapolsky to agree that his definition of free will is not necessarily the definition that a majority of society has given the term, and Sapolsky stood his ground essentially taking the stance that free will as believed by society, is not what free will actually is. The man has some interesting thoughts, but in the end, my takeaway is that he could easily have not tried to redefine the term free will and come up with a completely new term of his own that expresses his point of view. I see this as nothing more than a means to stir up an emotional reaction within the industry for nothing more than pure attention, and I find this to be a sneaky and insincere means of trying to express his point of view that in the end makes people less willing to accept his perspectives.

[@Ritual_Gaze]

This seems like another way of describing systems thinking and even process philosophy. We are systems nested in systems nested in a continuum of systems all the way out. If he would mention the feedback connections and complex systemic stuff that would give it more weight imo. Some philosophers will talk about how using vague terminology can cloud up a topic and prevent coherent answers or hard science based on it. Maybe this applies to the question of free will, just as people like Marvin Minsky have said about "consciousness", too vague and divergent to have much meaning or what Timothy Morton has said about "nature".

[@brandond.7768]

The argument that freewill exists is less interesting than why it would even matter.

[@teelo12000]

I'm biologically preprogrammed to argue that you're wrong and we do have free will.

[@Pikachu2Ash]

Ha ha cleaver.

[@joeparker7825]

And, I am biologically preprogrammed to see what you did there. 😂

[@ryennery6857]

The proof of free will is in the states of quantum randomness. The macro world is awesomely deterministic but the micro world is full of randomness.

[@Crankypantz420]

@@ryennery6857wat

[@Turdfergusen382]

@@ryennery6857thank you this is what I’m saying. Wasn’t his conclusion forgone like 3 decades ago?

[@brendanhoffmann8402]

Free will does exist. It is not incompatible with determinism however. Watch Daniel Dennett vs Robert Sapolsky debate.

[@SapphireFaden]

These conversations always frustrate me, because it seems like the goal post is always moving. "Free will" is rarely defined in detail, and often the working definition isn't that useful. Is talking about actions being "free from any influence or causation" really a helpful way of framing it? I think it's nonsensical to talk about being "a slave to your unconsciousness" because that's still you! Can free will only exist if our actions are random and causeless? Still watching, hoping this is better than other Sapolsky interviews I've read...

[@kalasue7]

To promote the social justice outcomes Adam was talking about, I think it’s easier to take away the free from the will and just focus on the will part. What can and can’t humans will themselves to do. When we think of it like that, through the history of understanding ourselves we have discovered more and more that will has very little to do with our material outcomes. One cannot will themselves to have a larger frontal cortex and be capable of higher complexity thought if they never had the environment to develop the frontal cortex in the first place.

[@AlexMMathews]

"I think it's nonsensical to talk about being "a slave to your unconsciousness" because that's still you!" Most people do not view themselves in this way. Many believe they are making choices consciously, at the point they make them. But really, your brain makes a choice and your consciousness justifies that choice after the fact. Certainly I agree that "you are you" regardless, but your actions are deterministic. The nonsensical nature of the framing of free will is precisely because it doesn't exist.

[@ghostnoodle9721]

Do you think an ant has free will? Or an electron? It makes decisions as far as we can tell but it cannot break from it's inherent capabilities

[@travislyonsgary]

@@AlexMMathews In general it makes sense people don't fully view themselves as such given we have cognitive biases to have us ignore statistical chances that our actions are unlikely to succeed or possibly irrelevant. But yeah the concept of free will as people say it often seems to just be a nebulous rationalization of the veracity of our actions being correct. Fits well into a lot of the brains other energy saving mechanisms considering rethinking things is quite expensive.

[@ReivecS]

I haven't gotten too far into the interview yet but it does feel like he is working backwards from his conclusion (which is basically admitted from the start). I am not convinced that we have free will but I have heard far more compelling arguments than what he has presented so far.

[@Maurolombriz]

I read Sapolsky's A Primate's Memoir years ago and loved his writing right away. Very brilliant person, I like to think of it as severely constrained will, but I do think psychologically, we need to believe in free will to some extent or otherwise we are overwhelmed with apathy and cynicism.

[@ReclaimedDasein]

Really great and interesting. Not that I could have thought so either way.

[@Edimarlon.]

In this case, human justice is also determined, just like feelings such as hatred or compassion. Feelings do not make sense, just like all other things.

[@jasonbrault5273]

Got half way. Have to comment to justice. The act of "justice" is both for societal examples (to change neurons in observers), as well as a method to move people to different in and out groups. (Even shaming can be a form of "justice") This is a survival instinct in a social animal, where perceived safety of a group is a factor in organizing the group. I think we feel different about a murderer if we remove "freewill", but we also feel different if we believe they are targetting your family next. We might also feel different if they are targetting "bad guys" (the "good" rogue cop architype). I think we, as a species, with the tech we now have, are at a crossroads. We have the understanding of the world and systems where we know there cannot be "freewill", but we are awash with feelings concerning safety, security, acceptance, fear and redemption. How many people will lock up a murderer for life even if we know that we have fixed the chemical cocktail in their brains where such action is repugnent to them? And converselly, how may people developing such "cure", will increase the "safety margins" to the extent where someone is no longer the same person. If they are on medication, can they even be considered the same person. And what is old is new again. Facts have become less and less in dispute as we gather reproducable evidence in science. But the outcry becomes how "clinical" that is, and how our gut feelings (which are also the result of evolution) are a better "spirit". *so wrong* And now we are into Nietize (and why masking during a pandemic is a feeling issue rather than an expert fact issue. Infact, people "feel" the expert (the one with more time and research) is wrong because X reason) We both have no free will in our actions, as well as in our feelings (minus what we "allow" to be examined). I am so glad to know that I have no free will in the feeling that I must know more or the real shape of the world. I think this genetic variation has propelled us as a species.

[@bodeeangus9957]

I also find the notion of forgetting free will very liberating. Evidence shows that we are extremely complex biological computers, there is no reason for use to believe otherwise unless free-will can be proven scientifically. How many times must humans repeat the same mistakes before we realize that we cannot trust the motivations that drive us, lest we perpetuate suffering further?

[@ralhamami]

Love Doctor Sapolsky. What a great interview. Kudos to Adam for being a fantastic interviewer as well.

[@nighthiker]

This discussion is often unecessarily boggled by the complete ignorance of a very important point: there's no truth without context. We can only start to understand the universe by way of making models of it, models which have varying degrees of complexity depending on what we need or want to accomplish. Like it makes no sense to say "Einstein has shown that Newton was wrong", for example, because Newton had a very specific context to work with, which was the limits to his capacity for observation plus the total sum of prior knowledge at his disposal. And his calculations are still perfectly fine for 99.9% of the contexts into which we find ourselves today. So, we can only say, for example, that Newton was "wrong", if we provide the context of taking into account very large masses over very large distances, and on such context Einstein's ideas have a better fit - I say better fit, because Relativity is still a model, and we may find a new context (to us) where it breaks down. So, circling back to the discussion about whether there is something like "free will" or not: well, it depends on the context. If we look at the issue from the context of the chains of physical and biological events that lead to what we call "decisions", then sure, we'll find out there's really no free will. But if we look at the issue from the perspective of a single individual, then it's patent that free will does exist. Which one is correct? Both and neither, at the same time, depending on such contexts. Why does this realization matters? Because if we understand we cannot dissociate context from whatever truth we're dealing with, then we'll see that it doesn't matter if there is no free will when we observe the phenomenon from the bottom up - we still can perfectly behave as if it did exist, because all our every day decision making and value propositions actually come from the perspective, or context, of the individual, and not their component atoms and cells. It doesn't matter if one ultimately had control over their acti0ons or not, the actions were originated by them as individuals and have or had effects on other individuals, so whatever reward or punishment we deem fit (whether rightly or wrongly so) are still relevant. Cheers! P.S.: Oh, just to make it clear: I didn't mean to say that we should completely ignore the things which are out of our control when "deciding" about punishment and reward - to the contrary, we definitely ought to do that - we may very well, for example, understand an individual has a compulsion to behave as a serial killer, even decide he's not ultimately responsible for their actions, but we have also to protect the integrity of other people. So, it's justifiable to isolate such individual from society. What is not justifiable is to blame poor people for being poor or think rich people got rich only by their own merits. Even though the line between the contexts where we experience free will and the context of the deterministic view may be hard to navigate, I'd say we have no choice (if you pardon the pun) but to do our best to aknowlege it.

[@SlickSimulacrum]

This is like taking postmodernism and then using it to claim that nothing is true... It's the stupid version. Sapolsky has data, and science. He has the context that you ignored. And you clearly know absolutely nothing of what he discusses. You're too ignorant to read his book or watch any of his lectures aren't you?!?

[@ChibiRuah]

I kind of wish that adam also had on a philosopher too because although im a materialist and agree with determinism, there is alot more to free will then Metaphysical libertarianism. which this seems to be the main type of free will that is being addressed. There are ideas and attempts to change our view of what "free will " is to better work with hard determinism or try to add a little grey in the issue (though I dont really prescribe to any of them and find some really lack luster) I am not going to say a bad interview, just maybe if you are going to tackle a philosophy topic, check a few different schools of thought as on it, and maybe ask a fwe questions on the guest thought on the vailidy of the different schools.

[@AFeblowitzFilms]

I just listened to this for an hour, and I'm still not convinced that I heard any compelling arguments that we don't have free will. I know we are brain chemistry, but I just chose to type this, and then I poked my cheek just to double check that I can still make random decisions, then I also did my best to spell check this. Yes it's all brain chemistry, and yes my decisions resulted from that brain chemistry, but they still are decisions made by me as an individual organism, and yes I think it's acceptable to be angry at someone if their decisions potentially risk the survival of me as an organic individual that has resulted from evolution

[@Ana-cc5jb]

It’s a mighty strong illusion of free will, more so for some than others it seems, perhaps that’s also a result of biology and how it interacts with environment, neither of which anyone is in control of

[@AFeblowitzFilms]

Right, but I feel like the argument is "We don't have free will because we are our physical brains", but I feel like we can flip that to "We have free will BECAUSE we are our physical brains" The brain, a physical object reacting to the environment, has control over how it reacts to things, which is what we are

[@Ana-cc5jb]

No the brain absolutely does not have control over its reactions, your perception that it does is an illusion. Does your heartbeat have agency, is it controlled by a “you”? No, it’s not. Same thing applies to our Brian.

[@justinstevens2351]

It's not a massively new or controversial theory. Many societies the world over subscribed to determinism, or a form of it, and would have thought the present concept of free will childish at best. It just happens to fit with the present society, even going back as little as a few hundred years we didn't have this "intuitively obvious" notion of free will.

[@SextonHardcastle85]

While agree with the fact we don’t have libertarian free will and most things are deterministic, I found his arguments to be a bit hollow. It almost comes off as thinly vailed incredulity. Good show Adam!

[@SlickSimulacrum]

The physical nature of the causes are thinly veiled and incredulous? Your bias is a bit desperate on this take.

[@bmeht]

Yeah after the whole "When I was 14 years old I decided this was true, so I mostly just look for evidence to prove my 14 year old self right" thing, I couldn't really take him seriously.

[@lunaumbra5179]

Try reading the book. It's better than he interviews even though he still mentions his 14 year old self.

[@TechyBen]

I choose not to accept his arguments. If he is correct and free will doesn't exist, then he can't complain, because I have no free will to change my decision.

[@lunaumbra5179]

@@TechyBen your comment is so valuable and insightful 😋😇

[@H3xx99]

This is one of those discussions that people always dive into without doing something very important first. WHAT IS FREE WILL? Define your terms. What exactly are you arguing? It seems to me that he's arguing that our decision making process is 100% defined by a vast rube-goldberg-esque machine that is the world with everyone else and the random forces of nature all interacting and influening us. Which, if you put it like that, it's 100% true. But that's usually not how people define free will.

[@ramshaka]

The real problem we run into with determinism, at the individually granular scale, is that it's indeterminable. Such that the illusion/presumption of free will is practically/functionally necessary. Because determinism doesn't really change our end conclusions/consequences for "wrong think". Irrespective of what caused a murderer, we still have to deal with said murderer. Maybe we can lower the statistical quantity of murderers, in general, but presumably, some set of circumstances, at some point produces, irreversibly, a murderous individual. So, what a just system, based on deterministic considerations becomes at its most extreme logical end is a kind of very complex eugenics program. But, again, the problem is we have no way to determine any of these outcomes concretely, based purely on preexisting circumstances. Because any of the tiniest of unconsidered things could essentially produce a butterfly effect that completely reverses actual outcomes.

[@RickyTannith]

I'm very glad you said this. determinist's seem to try to avoid talking about this but the real end state of the change they are looking for is a society the uses eugenics and brainwashing to prevent "bad behavior" there is no practical way to implement policy or behave socially based on determinism. I don't understand how they think this idea can really help anyone. What if not for direct intervention in peoples brain chemistry to align peoples actions with a specific life outcome do they expect to happen? I understand wanting a society that removes meritocracy and punitive justice, but it just seems like pie in the sky nonsense to assume that debunking free will on its own will somehow achieve that.

[@ramshaka]

@@RickyTannith Yeah, I'm just juxtaposing a sort of 'is' realism, with an 'ought' pragmatism. I think, at base, Daniel Dennett's argument is not true, or even all that concerned with actual truth, but it makes a really sound point about practical reality. Which is to say, that I think reality 'is' deterministic in nature, but I think we still 'ought' to rely on some presumption of free will as a practical matter. And largely, I don't really see how we have much choice in the matter (pun intended).

[@RickyTannith]

I agree. determinism like nihilism is incompatible with a live-able human values. they don't give us practical action to take. Nor really inform moral decision making. the idea of a society where we consider that could not have acted otherwise is nice on paper. However it doesn't change the material reality of needing to be able to make judgements about human actions or values. @@ramshaka

[@ramshaka]

@@RickyTannith I disagree with that framing. I don't think it's beyond human capability, and indeed human values, to compartmentalize truth, and practicality. Which is to say that I think it's perfectly compatible with livable human values, I think it just requires a social/cultural revolution in the valuation of philosophy, and nuances in general. Which is to say that the road to "truth" is infinite, and not narrow. But our traversal is a wave form, rather than a line, and we should never let the fact that we'll never reach the destination deter us from the fact that there is a 'correct' path.

[@Ali-e5h1b]

7:20 - so basically, my preference for chocolate instead of bismuth crystals isn't because of my "free will." No shit. It's a matter of co-evolution, biology, anatomy, economics, and other factors that A) caused me to have a multicellular body distinct from coco B) previous human efforts to extract coco and commodify it C) having and maintaining teeth capable of chewing it D) having ready access from a store, rather than having to make it myself. Each argument he creates is only reinforced by increasingly absurd "facts." When really it's a perspective on reality that he calls facts, in those cases.

[@intellektualPoet]

Hmm I think his argument is a bit shallow in that, yes most of who we are is determined by our social circumstances that help us form a specific intent, however, that's deemed from a process of growing under guidance from a child to adult. Take what you eat: your tastes are influenced by the cuisine you're most introduced to and/or forced to eat as a child. But that doesn't mean you won't choose to eat completely differently based on a fact-based decision later in life.... one that you chose to adhere to! Maybe I'm not understanding his argument completely.

[@Fractured_Unity]

But how much do “you” control what other food you’ll encounter during your life? We are constantly influenced by our surroundings, very little comes from within.

[@intellektualPoet]

@Fractured_Unity I think that depends on "availability" which isn't necessarily a product of a lack of free will. Exercising choices, even in a limited capacity, is still an exercise of free will.

[@lunaumbra5179]

Part of what he has to fight through when discussing this is helping people appreciate how much is taught or given to us from environment. But these informed don't stop from a young age. We are continually influenced by our environment and on turn shape or environment. We are all part of a cosmic one. The universe. This all gets very meta very fast.

[@Fractured_Unity]

@@lunaumbra5179 And there is still individual experience as well. The mind is a dimension of the universe we all have as our own. We are both terribly alone as well as connected in a different way to everything. We are a fractured unity.

[@Fractured_Unity]

@@intellektualPoet You are not simply influenced with choices though, you are influenced with information to make those choices. Depending upon what information you’ve come across in the world up to the point of making that choice vastly affects which choice you’ll make.

[@steve_jabz]

Having just watched the debate with dennett and an interview with him and alex o'connor, it was disappointing to hear sapolsky kinda blindly spam the same pre-prepared responses around when they didn't actually fit 90% of adam's questions. It's something everyone does when they're doing their rounds on podcasts or doing standup routines or going on the news or whatever, so I'm not blaming sapolsky specifically, I think the reason is probably the same thing that causes everyone doing public speaking to do it, but I can't help but be a bit more skeptical about the softer argument he never addressed since it made him look not very switched on. I don't think dennett has it right either, but I think adam is closer to the mark. I'm happy to put the softer argument down to linguistic confusion. We're really just disagreeing on semantics that ultimately end up at the same place. I think we're all little pockets of the universe and the decisions can often be contained in the atoms that make up the squishy stuff inside that skull, however external the prior causes, and that can be a definition of "free will" if people wanna call it that. It's probably more accurate to say free will is really just some religious nonsense that doesn't make sense now that we know the soul doesn't exist, but colloquially and phenomenologically speaking, who cares? If it works in day to day life, great, fine, whatever, that doesn't matter, but yes, we need to abandon the feudal ass concepts of earning, responsibility, punishment and retribution and just try to optimize people's environments to get the best outcome for their set of circumstances. Machine learning is perfect for this because it's a classification problem with a lot of seemingly disparate datapoints (big data) we can't compute the relative connections to in our head or by any hardcoded algorithm or absolutist philosophical rules that ignore the particulars.