Free Will vs Determinism: Who's Really in Control? Alex O'Connor vs Prof Alex Carter

[@a.i.l1074]

I went to a philosopher's party, and was told to either go and stand with the determinists or the libertarians. After some thought, I went with the determinists. A fella asked me why I was there, I said I chose to join them. They told me I was in the wrong group, so I went to stand with the libertarians. One of them asked me why I was there, I said "idk, someone sent me here"

[@growtocycle6992]

Someone chose to do some trolling. Lol 😂

[@Vincent_Upstate]

Brilliant

[@evianwahter]

It's funny but it's not complicated

[@ShaggyTea]

aint no way this is the funniest comment I've seen on youtube

[@user-fs1lc2cj5s]

@@evianwahterand your comment was unnecessary and unhelpful. so where does that leave us

[@starvedskits5716]

Surely we don’t have free will. O’ Connor could not have freely chose that Mustache

[@Mannyman.1988]

😂😂😂😂😂😂

[@sdog1234]

He had no choice

[@eugenehertz5791]

Who is this O' Connor? I only see Walmart Nietzsche.

[@archieese9176]

@@eugenehertz5791 Walmart? Maybe not. Gucci? Hmm probably (haha sorry i know the joke goes well with Walmart)

[@SMitch231]

Winner! 😂

[@JohnVandivier]

Alex really is a great speaker. Beyond arguing his side, he played the role of communicator and educator very well, even over domains held in common with the other fellow

[@hippykiller2775]

@@JohnVandivier Alex.... Got it, good joke.

[@Sinnbad21]

I don’t know who this “Will” guy is, but what I do know is that he appears to be causing some major controversy. It seems like half of humanity wants to free Will and the other half wants to fire at him. This guy must be important

[@ThePond135]

Free will, my boy did nothing wrong

[@uwu.-.5873]

We really need to get Ted to start talking about this shit

[@vitaly2432]

Leave Will alone!!! 😭😭😭

[@hamnchee]

He's an orca, and he escaped in the 90s.

[@UsmanKhan-coolmf]

The best. Ty.

[@ankanbads]

I must say Alex made some great points and I think he is correct.

[@lrvogt1257]

Yes. Alex sure showed Alex a thing or two.

[@bryanutility9609]

So if there’s a class of people who are always committing crime & nothing more, can we stop blaming racism?

[@NeutralMjolkHotel]

@@bryanutility9609um

[@Rostos1978]

Did you freely come to that conclusion after assessing both side of the argument?

[@_Sloppyham]

@@bryanutility9609???

[@japexican007]

Im free to do what I was preprogrammed to freely do

[@mohamedali2858]

The people of happiness will be made easy to do the work of the people of happiness, and the people of misery will be made easy to do the work of the people of misery. So what is your choice between these two?

[@crowlsyong]

I think @@mohamedali2858 is trying to say we lean towards what we're already geared up for, whether that’s being happy or miserable. It's like we tend to follow the path we're hitched to, be it smiling through the sun or moping through the mud. Yup, we mosey down the road we're set on, whether that's all sunshine and daisies or just a stretch of potholes and puddles. We just naturally herd ourselves towards what we're rigged for-grinnin' in the good times or bellyachin' in the bad. We stick to the grooves our boots are used to, be it dancing at the hoedown or dragging through the cow patties. Kinda like a tractor on autopilot, we plow right on through to whatever field we're tuned up for-be it fields of clover or nettles. It’s all about what you end up choosing. Anyone else think it’s not that simple, though? 🤔

[@paulburgess5111]

Hitchens eh

[@growtocycle6992]

@@japexican007 can you build a robot that can theoretically choose to do something you don't expect? To learn, and grow and become far better than it was originally programmed?

[@davidbell2547]

​@growtocycle6992 no, but also yes. Every endeavour we do has unexpected consequences. But that's not the point. Unexpected isn't always intended, because of mistakes, not improvements

[@Hans-qq7jd]

Regardless of the outcome of the debate, what a delight it is to listen to people who can articulate their thoughts well!

[@imacmill]

Did you freely _will_ that praise into existence?

[@Hans-qq7jd]

@@imacmill I had absolutely no choice but to write it.

[@JH-6g5]

Their thoughts huh?

[@l.m.892]

@@JH-6g5 Into the rabbit hole of thoughts as a personal manifestation of information or a revelation from an external source?

[@SamyasaSwi]

Most of what O'Connor said instantly made sense to me, while most of what the other Alex said confused me and i had to really try and understand what he meant. But it seemed like they were having different conversations because they still, even after having that little discussion about the the definition of free will, were talking about different things. Ultimately though I just do not understand how you'd get away from O'Connor's logic. Something in your brain causes you to choose one thing over another. There's just no free will there.

[@frankxu4795]

Because Alex Carter is just presenting a word salad. In the end, he just re-packaged and re-defined what free will is to fit his narrative. Completely pointless.

[@Yamikaiba123]

We are a cause and effect system. Saying "My brain made me do it" is just another way of saying "I chose to do it". I determine my actions, based on my feelings and my attention and my ideas and interests... I DETERMINE those actions, i.e I am determined... thus Determinism. Will is not compatible with Freedom. Freedom from my past, freedom from my feelings, freedom from my wants, my attention, my ideas... that would be Freedom, but it would not be Will.

[@gilesbradley162]

The something in your brain is the 'you'. Otherwise you'd be an it.

[@MS-fg8qo]

Nobody believes in an entirely free will. It is determined by me and some external facts and not by you. So what? This is freedom. Nobody could ever practically determine how my decision came about without being omniscient. It will remain a mystery, or would you seriously claim one could ever determine what anyone will do? What's more, there seems to be true randomness at the mort basic level, at least according to our current scientific paradigm. I see a log of freedom in the sheer impossibility of anyone knowing my will. This is just equivalent to having a "free will".​@@frankxu4795

[@totteahlborg5353]

@@Yamikaiba123 Well, the idea O'Connor is saying is the same as if you had a computer program, with input X it will always output Y, therefore the computer program never made a choice. input X in the human is their entire life and experiences + the last trigger cause. So in that sense if you replicate the "senario" again you will always get the same output, which means that there was never an option to do it differently and therefore never a choice made.

[@KieranLeCam]

Regarding Alex Carter's talking on stability in the Q&A. Alex OC wasn't saying people cared about stability. He was saying that people who happened to care about not murdering one another, would create more stable societies that would work better, and last longer than the ones where people were more prone to killing one another.

[@Nexxuxx]

I noticed this too. OC wasn't saying they deliberately chose to try to be more stable, just that it naturally happened

[@MrMurph73]

Alex is such a great communicator. Much more so than most philosophers

[@mckernan603]

Not a philosopher, KZbinr doing a Hitchens impression.

[@MrMurph73]

@@mckernan603 he did Philosophy and Theology at Oxford and now makes a living practicing it. So yes, he's a philosopher. The fact he does it on KZbin doesn't change that.

[@ketongu]

I'm gay

[@MrMurph73]

@@ketongu congrats , lol

[@CentralDawah33]

That's subjective. I have seen him making some of the most idiotic arguments. If this is the man defending atheism, then I suspect everyone will become theist in a year or two.

[@tonyaone2069]

Every decision we believe we make is actually only the effect of the greatest influences in our lives and before it. And it only ever changes when presented with a greater influence.

[@FlowDeFlowDrainage]

Does that apply to all people at all times? If so you must have done a lot of research to KNOW this? How did you do it?

[@tonyaone2069]

@@FlowDeFlowDrainage yes it applies to all people at all times, and I don't need to do a lot of research to know it, just like you don't need to do a lot of research to know any common fundamental characteristic about anything. But if you have any doubt please give me an example against my position and if I can't refute it, then I will happily correct it and publicly admit my error.

[@FlowDeFlowDrainage]

@@tonyaone2069 Your claim is to know the cause of every decision in every person at all times. So what are you asking me to show, that you are not omnipotent? OK I am thinking of a number what is it?

[@tonyaone2069]

@@FlowDeFlowDrainage that is not the claim I made and I'm pretty sure you know that. I clearly said, every decision we believe we make is actually only the effect of the greatest influences in our lives and before it. If you said really think about it you may realize that it, how could it be anything else? I never said anything about personally knowing what all those influences are . Therefore to answer your question I would need to know everything that has influenced you to this point in your life and to what degree. If you didn't understand that I suggest you read my original comment with the intent of comprehension and not refutation. and I know you originally had no choice but to answer as you did, but also my current reply may influence you enough in your next reply.

[@FlowDeFlowDrainage]

@@tonyaone2069 I understood it just fine. You have not yet grasped the nature of your claim. Had you said "Every decision that I believe I make" note the personal pronoun I inserted. Then I would have asked a different question. You would then have been making a personal statement. Once you say "We" you are implying knowledge outside yourself and I asked how you acquired this knowledge. If you can justify the use of "we" I would have a follow up question.

[@AlexKing-vg7vr]

This is a great debate all around! Alex O'Connor did a great job explaining the position and educating others, and Alex Carter provided some really thought-provoking insights into compatibility. They both came off very well

[@bokchoiman]

Saying we have free will is like saying that we can manipulate the chain of causation at will. This would imply being outside of the chain, sort of like how in Interstellar Matthew McConoughey can choose which slice of time to interact with.

[@Im_that_guy_man]

yes, but that will then also have it's own determinism/randomnes going on. which would mean it's still causally linked XD

[@lendrestapas2505]

@@Im_that_guy_man it‘s self-causation

[@Im_that_guy_man]

@@lendrestapas2505 in other words, randomness. Things just happen.

[@justanothernick3984]

​@@Im_that_guy_man That's obviously not the case. So we have degrees of free will. If you are more intelligent than not, you have more free will, arguably. If you have more resources, a more vivid mind/fantasy, all senses compared to people with hinderances... There are scales to this and yes, we can't decide what outer stimuli we get exposed to but we can adjust our reaction to said stimuli. So we have free will, and some more than others. This is factored in when making legal judgement on people and their responsibilities and holding them to account in "fair" courts.

[@Im_that_guy_man]

@@justanothernick3984 you say we can adjust our reaction to stimuli. Adjusting starts with a thought. Thoughts pop up randomly We have no control over our adjustments. Thus there is no freewill.

[@beliefisnotachoice]

The saying, I believe from Schopenhauer, that you are free to do what you want you just aren't free to want what you want seems to be reinforced in all of these free will debates.

[@_Sixthstep]

The thing I've never got about "Everything you do either because you want to, or you are forced to" is that the examples I hear of what being "forced" is sound like just more wants. "Somebody puts a gun to my head and tells me to drink the water", the decision you make to drink the water is your "want" to stay alive beating whatever lack of desire for water you might have. Sure there was a major external factor, but so is there in every decision you have ever and will ever make. The example I would use would be more like "someone forcefully grabs my arm, closes my fingers around the glass, lifts it to my lips and tips the water down my throat" for being forced to drink the water

[@erikarmstrong7474]

Sure there is different value differences between wants and being forced. But if you can't control what you want. Where is the freedom in that?

[@arpit.sharma]

You're right as ultimately it boils down to wants. But in this example, you still didn't want to drink water but your want to live is superseding the want to drink water. Hence, you chose one want over the other.

[@arpit.sharma]

Also, force can only come from an external agent.That agent could be a mental disorder but it's still external. So, in general we can use 'want' to describe things that we want & force if it has been pushed by an external agent

[@RT-kp8ed]

Ehhhh. I'd call that a poor analogy. As in it, you're not doing the action, someone else is. So you're not being forced to do it as you're not performing the action. But you make a good point about "wanting to be alive" being a want that could drive drinking the water under gunpoint. I think the idea is that under gunpoint, the choice is made under a pressure that wouldn't be present otherwise. Thus, forced. Imagine another scenario, though, where you don't want to be alive. As 99% of desires fall under wanting to be alive. So you act on that, make an attempt, then are caught mid-way through and prevented from passing. Whether it's with a naxolone kit or another treatment, brought to a hospital, and in there, actively prevented from performing harm to yourself. Then you are living because you're forced to and not want.

[@_Sixthstep]

​@@RT-kp8edBut from this definition of "being forced", you could also argue you are "forced" to go to the gym because there is an external societal pressure to look a certain way, and without that pressure, you wouldn't desire to look that way and hence your desire to stay still would beat out your desire to look good. I just think it's a weird and arbitrary place to draw the line, when the want that wins out is your want to stay alive. Why is that one special?

[@teawhydee]

interrupting a conversation by another completely unrelated conversation is a wild thing to do in this kind of video

[@oliverjamito9902]

Gratitude and Honor!

[@krumbergify]

”Free will” is ill-defined. What is it free from? Your experiences? Your knowledge? Your values? If having “free will” means being free from myself then I don’t want it. “Free will only works on a practical level, in regards to law etc.”. As a Pragmatist this is fine for me.

[@MusingsFromTheJohn00]

I agree, free will is often poorly defined or incorrectly defined. We have overwhelming observational evidence free will exists and without free will intelligent life does not make decisions and thus intelligence does not exist. So, for example, just because someone defines the Earth as flat and then we figure out the Earth is not flat, that does not mean the Earth does not exist, it means we did not define the Earth correctly. Similarly, when free will is defined as a decision made by an mind free of any influence from physical reality, that does not exist, but that fact the definition is wrong does not mean free will does not exist. Free will is the ability of a living intelligent system being able to make decisions is can make without an unreasonable degree of influence from outside that living intelligent system. Now, defining the boundaries of what living intelligent system we are talking about and what counts as unreasonable influence is a subjective decision made by whoever is deciding that question.

[@DiogenesNephew]

​@MusingsFromTheJohn00 That's certainly a compatibilist's way of describing free will. But of course, that way of describing free will is essentially like saying "this organism is doing all these complex things, and I'm simply going to call some of that behavior free will because there arent any overt constraints on the organism." I dont think thats what most people have in mind when they talk about free will. I think people have in mind the subjective, experiential sense that they are authoring their thoughts, intentions, and actions. And that clearly isnt so upon very simple reflection. I don't even understand how there are people who agree that free will doesnt exist who claim that it at least feels like it does. I think as long as one pays attention, they can notice firsthand that they don't experience free will.

[@itistrue101]

@@MusingsFromTheJohn00 give me you best example of observational evidence that proves free will exists. Be sure that it fits the parameters of observational evidence and not just personal perspective or personal experience

[@krumbergify]

@@MusingsFromTheJohn00 Philosophers will then press you about defining “unreasonable” and will make the case that it is not always clear cut; but guess what - our courts rely on similar wording and manage to sort out cases on a daily basis.

[@MS-fg8qo]

It is so childishly trivial to point to the logical impossibility of free will. Yes, we know, let's move on... It's the complex interaction of "I" and "the world" that "determines" everything. At least to our best knowledge within the given scientific paradigm. The equally trivial truth, however, is that it's so complex that there are (and there won't ever be any) practical implications of this "profound"​insight. @@DiogenesNephew

[@DaveMuller]

Premier Unbelievable? I don't like your channel but you keep making me watch it by having Alex as a guest.

[@tulpas93]

So there are things you like about it and things you don't - it doesn't have to be on or off! You are a gradient, not a knife switch! 😊

[@josephdantonio9187]

When I turned in this debate the last thing I expected was Alex O’Conor’s mustache.

[@kenhiett5266]

Deterrents are necessary for civilized societies, regardless of the fact that free will isn't a thing.

[@supernova9453]

I agree. Saying we shouldn’t punish people because they have no free will is like saying “we should not punish or destroy the murder robot, as it was programmed to do so and it’s not of it’s volition”. Sure, at the most fundamental level, it’s not at fault, but are you really going to let it kill another innocent family just because of that?

[@stevesmith4901]

We are determined to have deterrents. We have no free will not to.

[@kenhiett5266]

@@stevesmith4901 Are you saying individual people and therefore consensus in a society isn't subject to narrative? Just because we live in a society that a certain level of deterrents exist, doesn't mean there is no scenario that could lead to them being significantly degraded and even thrown out altogether. I'm not saying it's anywhere in the realm of likely, but it's certainly possible.

[@stevesmith4901]

@@kenhiett5266 I have no clue what you're trying to say. All I meant to say was, if the world is deterministic, the question whether we will have or not have deterrents will depend entirely on the determining factors. It will not be a matter of choice because in a deterministic world we have no free will to choose to have it or not have it. So if the universe has determined for us to have deterrents, we will have deterrents. There is nothing you and I can do about it.

[@poerava]

Deterrents don’t work. Consequences do. Punishment doesn’t work. Rehabilitation and support does.

[@danielfaller5617]

Compatibilism = lets just rename free choice to free will, that way i dont have to feel a bit uncomfortable

[@TeeheeTennessy]

No it's not. It's been an accepted philosophy, supported by a majority of philosophers. It's neuroscientists that hijacked the term free will to mean something it is not. For applicability's sake, it's a very redundant argument, hence a large majority of philosophers who believe in determinism support it.

[@danielfaller5617]

​​@@TeeheeTennessy what do you mean? There is a difference between having free will and having the opportunity to make a free choice, no?

[@TeeheeTennessy]

@@danielfaller5617 well yes and no. The argument is basically that we're free in our choices as them being extremely complex computations based on past experiemces and (albeit predetermined) our environment. A compatibilist would argue that for the fundamental questions of responsibility, there is a sliding scale of "could have done otherwise". A famous example is a (real) story about a guy (forgot the name) with a brain tumor, he told his doctor he had headaches for months, in the end he shot his wife, his mother and a bunch of fellow students from a tower before the police took him out. The tumor pressed against a part of his brain that caused the aggressive behaviour and thoughts. Philosophers then conclude that it's a fatal error to not consider this as mitigating circumstances, but that leaves something worth to call free will on the table. The only possible conclusion of hard determinism is that you can not ever hold anyone accountable, so we're basically all just tumors and neurons firing and therefor victims of our circumstances top to bottom, birth to death. The whole slew of free will deniers suddenly came along from the field of neuroscience and other hard sciences. They say free will doesn't exist, and then make the claim that because of that we should be more compassionate. Which is just rehashing some pretty basic ideas in philosophy. Some big names like Sapolsky argue that we should not hold people accountable at all, which is a pretty useless premise for anyone reading it. In the end he offers no workable solutions at all. Philosophers are trained for this, which he is clearly not. Harris wrote out a workable solution and basically just wrote out compatibalist arguments with some classic errors, but then he refuses to call it as such... Of course his book has to show two marionettes on the cover, because spoookyyyyy. They are so death set on calling it free will when in reality they're talking just about determinism. What they're doing is kinda like coming late for an appointment and then arguing that that was because time is relative. Free will and the compatibalist solution have been defined very well in philosophy. It's the reason why 60% of al philosophers and something like 90% of all determinists in philosophy accepted this. Those who call it disingenuous simply disagree with the term, which is just lame at this point and derails years of work already done over semantics.

[@TeeheeTennessy]

@@danielfaller5617 I think a much shorter reply and just as true would be "who really cares?" :D

[@danielfaller5617]

​@@TeeheeTennessy who cares? "You could have done otherwise!" Its just not true. It assumes things that are not there. "You did this." Suggests that there is one undivided self and every faulty(or good) decision represents it. It assumes that the thing producing the action is one with the thing that perceives the punishment. It can be a good basis for shaming others, because it gives more credit than due. One wrong decision means youre broken to the core, since "you had the free will to do otherwise"

[@danstoica2824]

The difference between determinism and free will is the fact that determinism emphasizes the belief that you know, but you can understand or not understand if what you know is true. And in free will you start to feel, to investigate reality in order to understand it, and maybe you will have the conviction that you know or don't know what is true. In the idea of ​​determinism, you end up falling into a psychological trap because you happen to know something but not understand, and strongly believe that what you know you really understand. Most of the time, the human mind will collect general information or like a pattern that is imprinted in the mind. Even if you are less intelligent or more, the tendency is of some limitation of the mind through standardization and the tendency to generalize. Through free will you feel that you are in control by choosing to investigate the phenomena with which we interact. Determinism "wants to know", but free will "feels in order to know", that is, it manifests itself and is then linked to determinism. But determinism in its form does not describe the evolution of choices in relation to the phenomena we want to understand. In my opinion, Prof. Alex Carter is right and tries to say something similar and much better explained, at least from the first 10 minutes that I watched.

[@hippykiller2775]

@@danstoica2824 Exactly, if we are not control of our own thoughts nothing can be right or true because none of us choose those opinions. If a flat earther never had a choice to not be one and we never had a choice to think he is wrong, who is to say he is the one who is wrong and not us? If our own thoughts are control by something completely outside of our control than nothing we think can be true, because we can't even know what true is due to the fact the the very idea of true is a thought put into out heads by something else other than us. And at that point how do we know anything about reality is not just made up crap that we were forced to think? You literally have no agency so any opinion you have is worthless. Yup hard determinism is a hard failure and is self defeating.

[@leoncitofilosofal3530]

@@hippykiller2775 ¿Y en qué consistiría exactamente ese libre albedrío? ¿Qué factor diferencial ha de poseer una elección para ser considerada libre? ¿A qué llamamos ser libre? ¿A ser causado por nuestra propia naturaleza? ¿No podríamos entonces decir con todo derecho que somos prisioneros de nuestra propia naturaleza y que por tanto no somos libres? Te agradecería que me pudieras contestar a esas preguntas que siempre han rondado mi mente, gracias y saludos :) PD: perdona que escriba en castellano, no manejo el inglés con la suficiente fluidez.

[@jo-mi4966]

Great discussion as always. The universe is all call and response.

[@sirmiba]

5:55: "if it's not random, it's determined, something made you raise your hand" Yes, I did.

[@tulpas93]

... and if you were to travel back in time to that exact moment (without any foreknowledge of what would happen afterwards) you could do nothing else but to "choose" to raise your hand! It's an illusion - that's all! 😊

[@sirmiba]

@@tulpas93 If time travel is possible, which it may not be, which means your hypothetical scenario is based on something that might be impossible. It's equally as valid to say that time travel is not possible because God doesn't allow it and free will is the only truly real thing you'll ever experience, because both scenarios are based on assumptions. But maybe it's true when you say your free will is an illusion, but I'm sure mine isn't.

[@lucasdarianschwendlervieir3714]

@@tulpas93 I could have not raised it.

[@tulpas93]

@lucasdarianschwendlervieir3714 You'd like to think so, but you can not demonstrate this, so it falls under mere conjecture. Lo siento.

[@LateNightVideozz]

The strongest points I have seen against a non- deterministic view of free will

[@brando3342]

Well that’s kind of sad, because Compatibilism doesn’t actually have any true freedom. At it’s core, it is just determinism.

[@Salmonboy5000]

⁠​⁠@@brando3342I think compatibilist is just a word for people who are uncomfortable with the idea of not having free will, but can’t rebut determinism.

[@davejacob5208]

@@Salmonboy5000 I have zero problem with not having free will but learned that there are several very plausible conceptualisations of "free will" while writing my bachelor thesis, for example the one offered by harry frankfurt within "Freedom of the will and the concept of a person".

[@RT-kp8ed]

@@davejacob5208 I think several different conceptualizations of "free will" would be a hindrance to the topic(s), and it would be much better to label and define them differently.

[@davejacob5208]

@@RT-kp8ed within academia, it is far from rare to have several definitions of a concept, especially philosophy, this only leads to a need to specific which one you are using/referring to within any given context.

[@jjjccc728]

A lot of talk by the philosophy professor Alex but what science can't do. I found it a little short on demonstrating that science will never be able to do it. He sort of waves his hand around that. He's going to say consciousness can't be explained by science in principle, I'd like to see more backup. Otherwise it's a textbook argument from incredulity on his part. I also found his idea of compatibilism to be a bit puzzling. Talking about as if it was a internal decision then he's going to call that free will. What? There's a whole bunch of brain chemistry, hormones etc. that go into formulating the desires and predilections behind making a choice. None of those are under the control of the chooser.

[@JNB0723]

I get where he was coming from on a linguistic and practical element, but ultimately, all he is doing is moving definitions and agreeing with Alex. It is why I think compatibilism is just a rewrapped Determinism.

[@frankxu4795]

Alex Carter is just presenting a word salad, but in the end he just re-package and re-define what free will is to fit his narrative. Completely pointless.

[@davejacob5208]

@@JNB0723 compatibilism literally includes determinism as a premise, so saying it was a "rewrapped determinism" is just... pointless. what you call "moving definitions" is extremely common within philosophy and in no way a bad thing... you can just give up terms as soon as it seems like they run into problems, or you can actually try and use your wits to make sense of them. the latter is obviously more constructive...

[@davejacob5208]

@@frankxu4795 so instead of asking questions or admitting you were unable to follow, you accuse him of presenting word salad? maybe rethink what you are doing? and what "narrative" do you think he has, where he needs to make things fit to it? and how is making sense of the difference between the responsibility of thiefs and cleptomaniacs "pointless" ?

[@chrisgreen1514]

Good discussion. Great that Alex O accepted the reality of his own conscience awareness and the possibility of free will existing in some form.

[@DanjunaDJ]

Great talk. I enjoyed listening to this. The hard part of consciousness is only hard because we are asking a question using undefined terms such as 'what is it like to be me'. When we haven't even defined what 'me' is. Taking perhaps a different or mid way point between the two Alex's in regards to the limitations of language to explain the emergent experience of agency... I think in order to explain free will and conciousness, we must first redefine 'I'. Because we are trying to fit a square peg into a round hole otherwise. It is analogous to a community coming to a unanimous decision and as a community they in synch yell out 'I have decided this'. Where and who is the 'I' in this situation? Noone. The 'I' is an emergent identity from the collective of individual 'I' 's. I believe our sense of self is the same. So if (I) have decided something of my own free will such as raising a hand, and, I, was not in control of that idea, it just arose to me and appeared in my head, and noone forced me to raise my hand, then it is logical to say it was determined or random, and was not chosen of freewill As (I) wasn't consulted during the decision process. That is taking the incorrect approach that there is a Homunculus inside my head, beyond body and mind that is me. The author or captain of my ship, observing possible choices and weighing them up and making a decision, yet the (I) in this scenario seems to be unaware of these decision making processes and outcomes until its decided. I argue that the self we identify with, our conscious identity that we cling to, is an emergent property of the collective intelligence of every cell and system in our body. That our identity is not a single static person, but rather a community of cells and organisms that are unified in their desire to keep our body alive and thrive. Our identity is actually the 95% of our subconscious that operates in the darkness and our perceived sense of identity is the sum total of their decisions fed into the 5% of our conscious waking life through working memory like a computer monitor, after the fact (which has been proven in tests, that our awareness of anything is preceded by neuronal firing 500 m/s prior) in a feed forward system.. So free will may exist but not in the sense that people want it to. , we just don't have control over it, because freewill, like consciousness, is an emergent property of the community of cells that make up an individual. Trust that these cells will do their best to keep you alive as that is what evolution as favoured. Trust that these cells collectively speak for the emergent single identity you assign to the sum total of decisions they make. To accept free will is the ability to act differently in the same situation is to accept that we have a Homunculus separate from the body and mind that is impartial to change, steering the ship. And that isn't the case. Accept that consciousness is a collect voice of every cell in your body doing their specific job, and there is no need to worry about free will. If we also stop saying 'I' and start referring to the self as 'we', then with that language change the mystery of who decided what and where the self is, disolves, and then asking the question again 'should we lift our arm', you start to think differently. What's the energy expenditure, what memories are stored about the benefits of lifting an arm VS not, is there something I can reach for to make the energy expenditure worth while, will moving out arm for no reason benefit our body. All there is is The experience of being alive, which is the sum total of processing information about reality in a discrete location, called your body and mind. The experience of consciousness and the identity of self is simply the community of cells that make up your body, physically and chemically reacting to the environment, to resist entropy and is evolutionarily designed to do so, to stay alive, and (you) identify and agree with those decisions (, thinking they are yours, not being able to pinpoint where they came from, because they didn't come from 1 place. They came from every cell in your body, 3 billion years of evolution that says 'no matter what comes into our body or what we face, we must endure', because any biological structure that isn't capable of reacting in a favourable way would not have stood the test of time.

[@robotic.justice]

We don’t have ABSOLUTE free will, we have free will to an extent, bound by our human nature and limitations.

[@Williamwilliam1531]

Professor Carter seems to be very adamant about doing science and not scientism, despite the fact that all of the relevant science can only be interpreted as supporting determinism. There is nothing even close to an established scientific explanation of free will, so how is his assertion of free will’s existence not a prime example of exactly the scientism he so passionately rebukes?

[@MS-fg8qo]

The present science we know might only accumulate to 0.00000000000000000001 of what there is to know. Fair enough? Well, think twice. Not even our best science, physics, is sure about determinism.

[@giacomoculcasi6331]

@@MS-fg8qo Not being sure about something does not prove the opposite, so far there is no scientific explanation for free will, philosophical explanations can be convincing but they lack of any proof. We can say that, so far, there is no free will.

[@tophersonX]

@@Williamwilliam1531 If you think he's arguing that determinism is false, you don't understand conpatibilism. Despite that, quantum mechanics denied hard determinism anyway. Free will is a concept like "life" or "consciousness", in the sense that we are signalling towards a complex phenomenon that explains things like moral responsibility, it can definely be further scientifically studied.

[@skepticmonkey6923]

Science cant prove metaphysical claims, lmfao.

[@TheOtherCaleb]

Cap

[@amirattamimi8765]

So interesting

[@cihanaslan6649]

Free will vs Determinism is the same as colours vs radiation. Determinism and radiation always trump their former counterpart because of scientific accuracy. The idea of a choice or a colour is reduced, flattened and then referred to as a 'useful illusion'. We stupidly submit our unique human conscious experience to the perspective of a collection of scientific measuring devices. I think its appropriate to be agnostic on these matters for neither side provides satisfactory answers.

[@bryanutility9609]

They believe in fate. Other than that, many people are not capable of “doing better” when they commit crimes etc.. & I reject any moral duty to “help them”.

[@lucasdarianschwendlervieir3714]

What scientific accuracy? Scientists have not been able to predict the will. All they found was correlations.

[@barryoldern1605]

o man - its like free will exists within a moral realm - Josh Rasmussen and Alex Carter needs to do a tag team on this

[@deshaebeasley]

Five topics to fix society via discussion: -Anti-natalism vs Natalism -The 3 basic needs/prenatal needs Three things necessary for human evolution that are provided while in the womb which are; food, shelter and medical care. -Platinum rule Do whatever makes one happier unless it interferes with another persons ability to do the same. -MBTI (research yours and connect with others) -Art (pick one and get better at it!)

[@dgjesdal]

For me, you have two determinists debating each other. Not really a debate. A real debate would be with a determinist vs LFW. Compatibilism is just a complicated version of determinism, or as I say it, determinism with perfume on it, is still the same. Just because determinism bounces around in your head doesn’t change anything. If a then b, then it’s all determined. FW is still not real. Substance dualism I think would be the best argument. If priors determine - then “you” do not choose to do it, no more than an alarm clock’s priors determine its actions.

[@radscorpion8]

yes...completely right. Compatibilism always seemed like such a silly position, its like they just play word games but in the end must agree that everything is determined because they have the same underlying philosophy of determinism

[@piotr.ziolo.]

@@radscorpion8 Most people, just like you, don't understand what compatibilists say. You wrote "but in the end must agree that everything is determined". That's the basic premise of compatibility - that everything is determined. So it's not that compatibilists agree to it in the end. They start with this assumption. And then it's pretty simple. In the end it's you who made a decision, sometimes without any external influences. You will say that you had internal influences which were influenced by the past and eventually by something external. It does not matter. It only means that who you are was determined. But your decisions are still yours, independent or partially independent of the environment (understood as everything in the universe outside of you).

[@dgjesdal]

@@piotr.ziolo.”it’s still yours?” Doesn’t make it free. Just because causation bounces around in your head doesn’t make it “yours” as in “you decide”, no more than a learning spell check “desires” and is a person that picks the right spelling. If a then b, then priors, however complicated you want the construct to be, is not free, and it isn’t even you, you are only a passive observer. You do not “decide” - it’s a trick of the brain. This is NOT free will, it’s a sleight of hand.

[@jimothy9943]

@@dgjesdal Kant called compatibilism a wretched subterfuge

[@hippykiller2775]

Then you don't comprehend what free will is or what compatibilism is.

[@npcla1]

Alex O'C is right. 'Free will' not only isn't true, it can't be true. It's incoherent as a concept. What could it even mean to have free will? It's just magical thinking. i wish more people saw this. And no, that doesn't mean we can't punish people, or praise people. It just mean when we do it, we know we're not really praising or blaming 'them.' That's another illusion, very stubborn, the illusion of 'self' that evolution has given to us (for survival purposes obviously).

[@IndianChristFollower]

Were you free to write this comment?

[@wishyouthebest9222]

Why should we survive?

[@daviddeida]

Bollocks.Thinking one as a self is in no way helpful to survival,it creates nothing but mindfk,guilt/shame,blame,resentment to name a few

[@lrvogt1257]

@@IndianChristFollower He wanted to write it so he did. There are reasons he wanted to write that and that reason was determined by some earlier experience which resulted from the previous etc etc. Nothing is done in a vacuum. Each moment is the direct result of the previous one.

[@MrsBridgette2012]

@@wishyouthebest9222We survive because we’re meant to, we will survive for as long as we are supposed to exist. We aren’t choosing to exist, we are meant to survive for a predetermined amount of time.

[@steverational8615]

So Alex is predetermined to be a determinist. Does that not then mean that his view has nothing to do with whether what he believes is true?

[@chad969]

Why would it mean that? Are you suggesting there can’t be a causal or explanatory relation between facts and beliefs if determinism is true?

[@itistrue101]

your comment is that of a teenager that smokes pot and thinks rearranging words is profound

[@harezothman31]

​@@itistrue101It is actually a very valid question. Don't resort to insults.

[@itistrue101]

@@harezothman31 cry harder

[@harezothman31]

@@itistrue101 I see that you're a child, i wish you the best.

[@Captain_MelonLord]

O'Connor's comment about how if a youtube debate has more views, it's most likely more 'exciting,' is quite accurate considering the amount of views this debate has. (I know I missed slightly his point, but it's still pretty true)

[@biedl86]

If the British distance is the furthest distance to stay apart, I want to live in Britain. But I am sure, Germany is up there too in terms of distance. It still feels too close sometimes. Thanks for hosting such a thought provoking debate. Alex got me, when he did his thing with his finger. And Alex got me, when he explained how consciousness is dynamic, when science only observes that which is paused and does exist in a moment.

[@joannware6228]

"Thou hast made us for thyself, O Lord, and our heart is restless until it finds its rest in thee." - St. Augustine

[@lrvogt1257]

The idea of an omnipotent, omniscient god negates free will. If it created and knew your actions at the time of the big bang then your fate was sealed 13.8 billion years before you were born.

[@JamesMoore-uq5oi]

​@@lrvogt1257 If God exists outside time, knowing one's actions doesn't at all presuppose coercion. You're assuming that knowing something in advance forces it to happen, but that's not the case. You're imposing your time-limited restrictions onto God, who has a timeless perspective. If you want proof that Christians can actually attest to a timeless God per their theology, Psalm 90:4 "For a thousand years in your sight are like a day that has just gone by, or like a watch in the night."

[@lrvogt1257]

@@JamesMoore-uq5oi Without time there is no action. Knowing something ahead of time is not the same as creating it that way. That is responsibility. It's all nonsense anyway.

[@joannware6228]

@@lrvogt1257 Lame reply. You got slapped down. If you had good judgement you would have stayed there.

[@lrvogt1257]

@@joannware6228 you thinks so? :-)

[@francisco444]

"Connor, Briefly explain to us why you don't believe in free will" Alex proceeds down a determined pattern of his brain to explain it, the path is deep! I kept holding my laughter when I hear Alex *briefly* explain what free will is... Then I laughed out loud while realizing that this comment... up to this point was determined. Mind blowing

[@nemrodx2185]

"Then I laughed out loud while realizing that this comment... up to this point was determined. Mind blowing" That alone should make people think about how foolish it is to deny free will.

[@RahelJovani]

I'm for Alex.

[@samuelcharles7642]

@@nemrodx2185How? Please explain

[@Jamesgarethmorgan]

@@samuelcharles7642 Watch your thoughts. Then if you do that carefully enough you will see they appear on their own. You have no control over them. There is no free will. Decisions arrive in your mind already made up. It happens so fast most people don't see this. Either meditate or take some serious drugs and you will see this.

[@nemrodx2185]

@@samuelcharles7642 "How? Please explain" Of course, Alex would basically be making a knowledge claim that he cannot justify because he cannot think in any other way. He is refuting himself.

[@mayank78207]

It's obvious and I think everyone would agree that Alex won this debate.

[@Jamesgarethmorgan]

It's easy to win when you're right!

[@mayank78207]

@@Jamesgarethmorgan yep. Alex was right all along

[@daviddeida]

Nah it had nothing to do with Alex,it was determined without any volition on his part

[@lrvogt1257]

Of course. I too thought Alex was much better than Alex.

[@K.S_20087]

Yes Alex Carter wins debate

[@LexFrelsari]

I think this whole thing can be summed up just with the phrase "Hail Chaos."

[@MarcEsadrian]

O'Connor is, as always, a great speaker. His thought experiments are precise and valid. Carter just seems to ramble. I'm more than halfway through this debate and I still don't understand what he's attempting to convey, specifically.

[@guywalsh3283]

If Alex’s choice in footwear isn’t free will then he would probably be locked up. Only an agent of chaos would wear a jacket and white Reeboks at the same time!

[@IndianChristFollower]

😂

[@poerava]

It’s the trend in Australia

[@ArekDod]

Help this one is so funny.. Okay, Stop roasting my guy.

[@badreddine.elfejer]

Now we need Alex with Salpolsky

[@bryanutility9609]

Salpolsky uses determinism as a pretext for pushing communism. His entire project is “what we should do.. given no free will”, well I disagree on what we should do. I don’t owe anyone with bad luck my care.

[@theofficialness578]

It already exist look it up, it’s on his within reason podcast

[@stevesmith4901]

The problem with the Determinism-Freewill debate is that if in fact the world is deterministic, we can't help but debate whether the world is deterministic or not. And if we were to reach a conclusion that it was not deterministic and we had freewill all along, then even that would have been a determined conclusion. A deterministic world makes a mockery of our efforts to understand and answer this question.

[@raydosson2025]

How is that a problem?

[@daviddeida]

It makes a mockery of the ego who thinks its the doer and thinker

[@stevesmith4901]

@@raydosson2025 It's a problem because no matter what we do, we will never be sure whether we reached the conclusion of our debate and inquiry through free will, or were we determined to reach that conclusion. It's like that "Brain in a vat" problem. There is no way for us to know if we are experiencing the world as it is, or whether we're just a "Brain in a vat"

[@davidbell2547]

No, not really? Under that reasoning, anything can be deterministic. You can't even ask the question is there free will under determinism. Because you would not be free to make any choices, and thinking is what allows us to make choices. For example if you don't think, and act anyway, or flip a coin, you're not acting with thought, you're just doing things. A bit like once you start a car it'll run, the driver does not make it run, but is free to control it at will. We have free will, so you can give that up, just like if you have sight, you can close your eyes or blind yourself. Giving up free will is still an act of free will in itself, but any actions after that are not made with your will, but someone else's. You're putting someone else in the driver seat but it was your choice to do so. We also CAN control our wants, although Alex thinks we can't. You can decide to do it or not do it. We CAN control our tastes. There are many things I don't like but I eat them in small amounts, and over time I can mold my dislikes in that way. Much like Atheism, determinism assumes many things for it to even get off the ground. Once you analyze those, it becomes aparant the flaws

[@lrvogt1257]

@@davidbell2547 : Determinism doesn't mean we don't make choices. It's just that those choices are based on conditions we can't control... but we all interact with each other and gather more information that factor in our choices. All of these factors produce currents and trends in society about how we view the world, our place in it, and how to negotiate our well-being consciously and subconciously.

[@ZahraLowzley]

I know this isnt as exciting, but as a music teacher i am primarily teaching habit correction so although yes the initial path may be deterministic, there is also a review element which requires personal autonomy

[@wangatshivhase8381]

@ZahraLowzley is it not neuroplasticity that’s responsible for enabling humans to learn and unlearn this by forming new neural pathway connections ?

[@lrvogt1257]

The student would review if they wanted to improve a certain way and they'd want that because... of something which had a cause and so on and so on.

[@micosenor3148]

slips into waffle , most enjoyable , thankyou for sharing

[@Jamesgarethmorgan]

In case anybody is wondering - O'Conner is right and Carter is talking nonsense.

[@csmith9409]

Lol true

[@SamyasaSwi]

That was my opinion the entire video. Maybe i just didn't get what Carter was trying to say, but the entire time he was talking I had a raised eyebrow and thought "huh?"

[@Jamesgarethmorgan]

@@SamyasaSwi Carter just doesn't get it - so everything is says is just confusing because it's basically mental boll0cks. Amazing how he's a professor at Cambridge and yet he doesn't understand such a critical thing.

[@TheGiantMidget]

This is a clear case of a logical thinker vs a Dude who thinks about stuff

[@skepticmonkey6923]

Its unfortunate that all of O'Conners debates comment sections are filled with his uncritical fans, makes for a boring read.

[@chrisgreen1514]

The fallacy is that most of us can indeed control our wants, it’s called self-control, it is what we mean by free-will and also self-determination. It probably arises from our linguistic ability for self-talk and it presumably gives us a huge advantage over other creatures. CBT probably depends on our ability to train our wants. I’m not an expert but it seems obvious to me. I’m not saying that you would ever decide to do anything different if you traveled back in time, unless you could take back future information with you!

[@aidanmccarroll3782]

Why did you want to control your wants though? why did you want to want to control your wants? It regresses forever

[@Deifiable]

You can control your wants? Then why not simply decide to want absolutely nothing at all. You get to live your entire life in the purest happiness imaginable. Never experience a moment of pain or suffering ever again. Or why don't all alcoholics, drug addicts, obese people with food obsessions, et cetera, simply decide to stop wanting those things? Why are you not as healthy as you can possibly be? You surely would like to have slightly more muscle, slightly more strength, slightly less body fat, or slightly more cardiovascular fitness. Why have you not simply chosen to want to be maximally healthy and achieved those things already? It's just so easy, you see! You can actually just control your wants! Also, self control as a concept relies on the existence of free will. In reality, you can't "control" yourself at all once you look at things from the reality of a lack of existence of free will. You can't say "we have free will because we have self control". You're just begging the question.

[@giorgosab9986]

you can't control your want to control your wants

[@giorgosab9986]

you're missing the bigger picture every decision you take , even abstaining from something, is because your brain wanted to do that (or because it was forced to)

[@-R-H-]

A: Why did you exercise self-control? B: Because I was motivated to do so. A: What caused that motivation? B: Because … A: Infinite regression

[@Fingolfin456]

O'Connor's opening argument, situated in him defining these terms, is the one that he used in conversations with others. The problem is its a false dilemma, and obvious one. He uses deterministic language to prove determinism. It's best to use terms that both sides agree with. Claiming that actions are either random or determined is easily denied by the libertarian. Actions can be non-random and non-determined. Actions can be brought about freely. Now, my rebuttal here probably won't convince anyone. Why? Because I'm loading my terms with my arguments just as O'Conner is doing. He should say his argument this way: Actions are either determined or in-determined. The libertarian has to agree with this. Then he could make his argument to be: If actions are in-determinate, then they are random. Now, the libertarian must disagree with this. And, in accordance with the well-established literature, they do. His argument is an old argument that has been shown to be unsound. I like O'Connor, but he really needs to brush up on the free will debate. His argument here fell out of fashion in the 90's. Look at current Action Theorists like Al Mele and Randolph Clarke and their arguments to see why O'Connor's argument fails. Carter starts out with a good point, too. So, to see why indeterminate actions aren't necessary random, consider the three types of "because". You have the causal because, the logical because, and the psychological because. The window broke because I threw a rock. The conclusion follows because the argument is valid. I threw the rock because I was mad. O'Connor assumes the first and third are the same, but he needs to provide an argument for why they are the same. The libertarians argues that not all actions can be reduced to causal features. So, all of his causal language and evidence isn't helpful. He needs to show how that's the only factors. So, he'll need to argue that the will is determined, as well. The libertarian believes that a person's will can be lead to an action, but you can't quickly make assumption that the will was caused to an action. This is what O'Connor does. The libertarian claims that the antecedent conditions are not sufficient for determining the action taken. O'Connor needs to argue that it is sufficient. Now, there are plenty of philosophers who do argue against this things. My point is not that no one can. My point is that O'Connor is far out of his field on this discussion. It's like he found one argument he finds really compelling and that's as far as his research went.

[@Fingolfin456]

I do think his initial argument against compatibilism is a good one, though. Again, I think Alex O'Connor is a good thinker and I genuinely enjoy his videos.

[@chad969]

What do you think Alex means by "random"?

[@johnzhou4877]

Can you tell me exactly where O'Connor's argument goes wrong? He says, if some event isn't determined, then you can't possibly be in control of it. This part sounds plausible and doesn't have to involve any vague concept like randomness.

[@DerekMoore82]

​​@@johnzhou4877But what if it's this mysterious *conscious* that he admits is a thing, despite it being unexplainable on paper, this force that he can't explain which *is* the determinating factor? If so, problem solved. It's not that our actions aren't determined, it's simply that they are not limited to being predetermined. Consciousness is simply the *you* that takes the abstract of all the material and immaterial forces it is confronted with in the moment and makes a subjective determination in regards to that abstraction of influences, in the moment, not predetermined. That's what free will is to me.

[@ResevoirGod]

Complete word salad. Funny though

[@jgarciajr82]

This is why I believe that there is a Self and the Self looks like the Soul because those desires come from the soul. And the soul has multiple parts because it's attached to old generations coming through your body. ❤🙏✨

[@lrvogt1257]

Perhaps but with no quantifiable or falsifiable evidence for the supernatural soul it's just fanciful speculation.

[@jgarciajr82]

@@lrvogt1257 it's just sad because there's a lot of reports of after death and we don't take that stuff serious. It reminds me of when we didn't take mushrooms or psychedelic series, let alone dreams.

[@lrvogt1257]

@@jgarciajr82 : I think that if there were any verifiable data on after death experience there would be a lot more serious research by legitimate scientists. Validating that would be Nobel Prize material.

[@jgarciajr82]

@@lrvogt1257 look at biology. The last Nobel prize in biology was Katalin Karikó and Drew Weissman in 2023 for their work on mRNA vaccines for COVID-19 😂. Herbert A. Simon and Daniel Kahneman have a Nobel prize in psychology but it involves economics 😂. We are not even close. Have you heard of Michael Levin, biologist?

[@pedazodeboludo]

Again with the “where’s the triangle…” Alex, read an intro to ANNs and dispel some of the magic 😅. Love you man.

[@raizan1526]

I don't think anyone is asking what causes consciousness, we know its the brain. its more of a "where" question. where does it exist, what you're experiencing right now, the triangle that you imagine.

[@pedazodeboludo]

@@raizan1526 presumably you need to have seen the triangle with your eyes first. The image, at whatever retinal resolution, is stored in your memory (presumably as neural connections/weights). You can access that memory even with your eyes closed, re-triggering similar neural pathways to those used to see it. This is not an account of how it actually works in the brain of course. I was just positing a possibility based on ANNs to consider a possible material mechanism, much like the Miller-Urey experiment shows a plausible explanation of abiogenesis without claiming that’s how it happens. But these possibilities help dispel the “magic” so to speak. Cheers.

[@thesecretplace1055]

Not so skeptic anymore I see.

[@bennyredpilled5455]

Alex has refuted himself by showing up for a debate. His position states that he has no control over what he thinks, says, and goes. Yet, he is convinced that his uncontrolled thinking is the most accurate. According to determinism, a determinist Alex was determined to believe in determinism. He might just as well have been determined to believe in free will or theism if the blind physical processes in his brain had worked out differently. He believes in the truthfulness of determinism via pure chance. He became a determinist by thinking from "premises" to "conclusion" in a completely random way. However, he believes that it is his randomness is the most accurate. As one philosopher says, the determinist functions as though he were an "angelic observer," somehow able to float above the determinist cage in which he locks everyone else. In other words, had the physical processes in his brain worked out differently, he would be defending free will or theism with the same zeal and verbosity. And British accent. The physical processes would have caused him to advocate free will or theism. (Instead of "free will" and "theism," you can put any belief or worldview. The argument will not change.) All of his reasoning and conclusions are the result of blind physical randomness. His subsequent answers to questions will also be random, devoid of any influence on his part. Why is Alex wasting our time? The question is rhetorical. A determinist may object: well, a computer gives us accurate answers purely deterministically. If determinism is true, can a determinist sometimes think correctly? Yes. The activity of a computer is a fully deterministic physical process that can produce a "4" to the question "What is two plus two?" Will the computer recognize that its answer is true? No, it won't. You can program a computer to produce a "4" to the question "What is two plus two?". But the computer will never KNOW that 4 is the correct answer. If you programmed it differently, it could just as easily produce "5" or "125" to the same question. In his deterministic worldview, Alex is a bio-computer, and his programmer is a blind material process that operates solely according to the laws of physics. The determinist will never know if he is programmed correctly or not. He cannot surpass and evaluate the algorithm from the outside, bypassing his complete conditioning or, to put it differently, determinism by this algorithm.

[@He.knows.nothing]

Information is a determining factor in beliefs. This is obvious, all of your issues here can be reduced to either your misunderstanding of the language, or your willful refusal to adopt a deterministic perspective for the sake of argument. Debates can expose, reinforce, challenge, or introduce information into a determinist's framework, allowing for the potential of self improvement. We can say that I'm about to argue against the points you've made, or we can just say that I'm introducing new information to potentially change your determined beliefs because our goals are more easily satisfied when we are in agreement and I am determined to work towards my goals. Dr Alex Carter is not a free will advocate and does not challenge the truth claims made by determinism in this debate. Both parties have perfectly reasonable solutions to your problems, not just the determinist. Being determined doesn't equate to being operated via a computer algorithm. There are all sorts of "programs" and processes that are constantly in states of change and reciprocally influencing each other along with ignorances and emotions and biases and uncertainties and even different relationships and identities that are also factored into the theoretically determined outcomes of thoughts and behaviors. Reducing determinists to having robot brains is just plain ignorance. You're almost on to it when you bring up the angelic observer. The understanding of "you" or "self" is necessarily recontextualized given the relevance of different perspectives. In the case of determinism, "you" aren't your identities, thoughts, or behaviors, those are phenomena "you" experience, yes, but the identity is abstracted to that which is aware of the experiences and not the experiences themselves. The identity shifts away from what we are conscious of and onto that which is conscious itself.

[@bennyredpilled5455]

​@@He.knows.nothing "Debates can expose, reinforce, challenge, or introduce information into a determinist's framework, allowing for the potential of self improvement. We can say that I'm about to argue against the points you've made, or we can just say that I'm introducing new information to potentially change your determined beliefs because our goals are more easily satisfied when we are in agreement and I am determined to work towards my goals." Yet, if "I" am exposed to new information, I can only change "my" mind if physical processes force me to do so. Equally, I may find this new information rationally unconvincing if physical processes force me to do so. That doesn't make me any less determined. Like I said, I will never have any control over what I think, say, and do. I don't get to choose truth over falsehood - I believe in what I am forced to believe. "Dr Alex Carter is not a free will advocate and does not challenge the truth claims made by determinism in this debate. Both parties have perfectly reasonable solutions to your problems, not just the determinist. " It is irrelevant to my initial comment about Alex's position and doesn't strengthen your argument. "Being determined doesn't equate to being operated via a computer algorithm. There are all sorts of "programs" and processes that are constantly in states of change and reciprocally influencing each other along with ignorances and emotions and biases and uncertainties and even different relationships and identities that are also factored into the theoretically determined outcomes of thoughts and behaviors. Reducing determinists to having robot brains is just plain ignorance" If a computer analogy displeases you (although the vast majority of determinists will gleefully embrace it) - you can use an analogy of a puppet. You, a puppet, dance to the music of physical processes (to paraphrase a famous saying by Dawkins). By pulling the strings, physical processes PROGRAM (same as "determine") "your" every move, "your" every thought, "your" identity, "your" experience. Yes, some other factors may play in - but all of them are outside your control and treat you as their puppet. They control YOU, not wise versa. Your argumentation proves my point. Thanks a lot for your comment!

[@richmondaddai-duah]

Yes you are right,but as a Materialist/naturalist/atheist it's is the only position that you can take, because Libertarian free-wil under materialism too does not make sense because there is nothing to separate us from nature (everything we are made of is present in other aspects of nature and we simple are matter/energy being arranged and rearranged in a different way.),and hence its causal links.

[@hippykiller2775]

@@He.knows.nothing You don't seem to comprehend that "beliefs" don't exist in a purely deterministic world, only uncontrolled conditions of the mind. None of which we have any control over, it is like saying "An NPC chooses to walk down the street," there is no actor in the equation for that to make sense. Or in other words, beliefs are completely just illusions without any significance, since we have no choice in making or having them.

[@He.knows.nothing]

@@hippykiller2775 your "choice" is another one of those words that needs to be defined. Choice in a deterministic perspective is the process of consciously applying reason to our desires, which is itself a derivative of the desire to rationalize our desires. There's nothing about it that necessitates anything other than a casual and effectual relationship. Beliefs also must be defined, and, as contextualized within a deterministic framework, can be considered as propositional knowledge that conforms enough to our experiences of reality such that we can effectively incorporate them into descriptive narratives. Whether that knowledge becomes a belief is entirely determined. You can't "will" yourself to believe something, just try willing yourself to believe the sky is red instead of blue.

[@authenticallysuperficial9874]

Forced actions and wanted actions are not a binary as Alex describes, but rather a spectrum.

[@robinsquares]

But that does nothing to refute his point. Any point in between won't give you more control than either extremes.

[@randomusername2761]

Yes--it's important not to confuse free will and maximal autonomy.

[@DavidJohn-ig4sy]

@@robinsquares What about the freedom to not want and want? genuine question, isn't the freedom to choose wants an example of free will?

[@Aphanvahrius]

​​​@@DavidJohn-ig4syThere is no such thing as choosing wants tho. It's just competing desires. For example, you may say that you choose not to want to eat fast food. But when you examine where that desire to not want comes from, it becomes clear that you simply have a competing desire to be healthy. So it's not as much as choosing to want or not want, but rather wanting different things that are incompatible with each other and picking one. And you can deconstruct any example or situation in this manner.

[@CMA418]

Evidence? Syllogism?

[@biomez8281]

alex explains the no free will argument better than anyone ive seen

[@rustymcrae7739]

Have you seen Sam Harris on free will?

[@biomez8281]

@@rustymcrae7739 Yeah he’s great too but alex is the one who truly convinced me

[@JoshuaDaratsianakis]

Beyond actions being determined by science or laws of nature, many actions are determined by love and fear which are only partially connected to logic and reward or punishment responses. I think this is where free will and the ability to will what we will or want our wants. I think we actually do have some ability to want what we want. I can want to be more responsible with my time. Likely I won’t become more responsible with my time unless I want that want bad enough and can actively assert my will to cause myself to develop those skills. I think that assertion of will exists beyond any scientific explanation or randomness. I think that’s where my free will comes in. But I think it has to do with fear and love and the active decision to listen and respond to or ignore a fear or love.

[@milesgrooms7343]

But where and what is this mechanism you speak of? This is seemingly a complete fabrication. There is not a single thread of evidence that shows any singular atomized, “it”, “you”, that has any causal effect in what we feel is “I” and “doing”, and “choosing”. Please, understand, I don’t think these concepts, and ideas about what we are, and the actual experiences we feel we are having can be reduced to any singular, “thing”, Like our brains, bodies, or environment….but, they are undeniably creating this experience, collectively. We seem to be the outcome of a process that has no direct causal beginning or end. We don’t like this explanation because it becomes far more difficult to make sense of our lives and the deeply philosophical questions that surround this understanding. Not to mention if you live in the “West”, that our capitalist consumerism is driven by this deep moral, merit based hierarchy that we all experience daily. I don’t think “you” are right either way. It seems to be a destructive way in which we believe and interact in the world. We could always attempt to live in a different way, for a “better” world, but I don’t think it would be “free”. It could happen though, and it wouldn’t matter whether free willed humans did so or not.

[@Penndreic]

Dr Carter is missing the point. Even though there is no free will, we still need to keep people accountable for their actions for society’s sake.

[@MusingsFromTheJohn00]

If there is no free will then no one is making any choices, thus ethical moral values have no meaning, and neither does intelligence, because if no one can make decisions then no one is intelligent, because they are not thinking.

[@03weeksago.77]

⁠@@MusingsFromTheJohn00I think you misunderstood the whole argument. We’re still making choices. But those choices are influenced by randomness or external factors which mean no free will

[@valkyrieloki1991]

Who is we? Are you free to write this comment or the chemicals in your brain signalled your hand to write these string of words like a bot. "Even though there is no free will, we still need to keep people accountable for their actions for society’s sake." Why?

[@Penndreic]

@@valkyrieloki1991 Is this supposed to be a gotcha? It’s like you missed the entire point as well. Who is “we”? Really? Society of course, who else? We have the illusion of free will so it feels like I’m free to respond to you or not at the moment but the thing is it was inevitable. The way my brain works and all experiences I have had up until this moment make it so when presented with the decision I can’t but make this decision. Stop and think rather than trying to defend free will at all costs. You ask why? Simple, because society would be a mess if everyone was to go around doing whatever they want without repercussions. Most of us care about our lives and well being which is why we care about keeping our establishments in order.

[@valkyrieloki1991]

@@Penndreic You can't stop and think because it is already predetermined for you by external factors. How do you know that free will is an illusion? Are you predetermined to believe that or do you have any evidence? You really don't care about anyone or anything. It is just an illusion. You are here to just propagate your dna. You are just dancing to your dna. You are really acting like you are in control of your actions. What if a society wants to enslave a certain group of people? Is it wrong? Maybe they are just predetermined to do so. And whatever action you take against that society is also predetermined, not because it is wrong.

[@OBGynKenobi]

If you don't believe in free will then you had no choice in not believing in free will. No?

[@giorgosab9986]

sure

[@theuberlord7402]

And?

[@-R-H-]

Correct, and interestingly, most people (including hard determinists) will continue to make decisions and live as if they have agency. Fatalism, unlike determinism, which recognizes cause and effect and still values decision-making, says that our actions don't matter. This can lead to a sense of helplessness and inaction. Your comment reminds me of a similar argument made against naturalism/materialism- if our thoughts are just the predetermined interactions of neurons, how can we trust that they correspond to truth or arrive at valid conclusions?

[@giorgosab9986]

@@-R-H- As humans we are evolved to act a certain way. Sure you can say many times people act as if free will exists but that doesn't change anything on the truth of it's existence. It's perfectly fine to recognize free will doesn't exist and decide to "ignore" that fact in your daily life because it's simply not useful and makes things too complicated. We still consider the non existence of free will when it comes to prisons and punishment (and many subjects) as Alex talked about in the discussion

[@Jamesgarethmorgan]

@@-R-H- You can't. relax - it's all out of your control. Unless you're a psychopath you're not going to go out killing people.

[@goodquestion7915]

If Compatibilism is the case, lions and hurricanes have Libertarian Free Will.

[@10mimu]

Non sequitur…

[@He.knows.nothing]

Compatibilism, at least in this interpretation, refers to the relevance of language and theory, in which case reductive materialistic scientism holds no/little functional use when describing certain scenarios. Now, personally I think we can rework our ethical philosophies and deterministic language as Alex O'Connor posited in response to the responsibility question, but I think your comment still misses the point, it's obviously not relevant in respect to lions, gorillas (or is it? harambe.), hurricanes, or rivers.

[@goodquestion7915]

@@10mimu Your "no sequitur" comment is a non sequitur. My comment is a direct logical association between Carter's assertions and their absurd entailment in the real world.

[@goodquestion7915]

@@He.knows.nothing What you are saying is that a "poetic" interpretation of facts is necessary. If that interpretation stays in poems, AND away from legislation, ethics, and rules, then ok.

[@goodquestion7915]

@@He.knows.nothing And yes, if "having free will" means being the locus from which moral actions come WHILE those actions are 100% deterministically produced, THEN hurricanes can stand trial for their immoral actions, per your worldview.

[@jeremymr]

At the time of typing this I'm only 20 minutes into the video so I apologize if some of these same arguments/points were made later in the video. I just want to make sure they are pointed out because I'm a nerd and would like to help people understand this topic better, as I know it's confusing. But I think it has a conclusive and knowable answer, but it depends on how one defines free will. First of all, I think a more accurate title for this video would be something like "Free Will: Compatibilism vs. Hard Indeterminism - Alex O'Connor vs. Prof. Alex Carter". The thesis of compatibilism (the view that Carter says he supports and according to a PhilPapers survey is the stance on free will most philosophers defend) is that free will is compatible with the truth of determinism. According to compatibilists, determinism is not in conflict with free will, or at least how they define it. And it seems to me Alex's stance is more accurately described as hard incompatibilist rather than determinist. Because whether or not determinism is true, his arguments against free will still stand. To understand this, you have to understand what is meant by indeterminism and how it differs from determinism. If some events are truly random--they have no prior cause(s)--then there would be absolutely nothing constraining when and where they occur! But to believe true randomness happens and provides leeway for free will one must also believe random events occur in specific places, the brain (or soul) all the time. But how could this happen if indeterminism is true? How would the random events "know" to happen within brains/souls? I think there is no good reason or evidence to suppose that true randomness exists in the universe. Not even our weirdest quantum observations suggest anything more than, "we can't predict some events" and "we cannot know any of the cause(s) of some events". Even if some of our choices came from true randomness, we couldn't possibly be any more truly responsible for them than if they came from bajillions of causes that made us who we are that ultimately come down to luck. Philosophers such as 'Trick Slattery, Derk Pereboom, and Gregg Caruso have made strong arguments for the positive psychological and societal benefits of discarding belief in free will and ultimate moral responsibility. It sounds counterintuitive, but I believe free will has been disproven beyond a reasonable doubt and so is the notion that anyone can be morally responsible in the backward-looking basic-desert sense (truly blameworthy for things they've already done, or justified in thinking themselves truly better than anyone else in a certain sense because of what they've accomplished). And as Galen Strawson points out, everything people ever do happens because of the way they are, and the way someone is is a result of bajillions of factors outside their control. Nobody can "get back behind themselves" and pick their preferences and what kind of people they are going to be, and even if they could that would be an infinite regress. So it's impossible for anyone to be responsible for the way they are, thus impossible to be ultimately morally responsible for anything they do. Watch the new Lego Star Wars show "Rebuild the Galaxy" and I think it's a great illustration of Galen's argument. A lot of people have so many misunderstandings of what lack of free will entails. We do not need free will to exist for morality to exist, lack of free will does not imply nihilism, and it doesn't even imply fatalism. I'm glad this topic has gotten more attention in recent years. I think, as weird as it may sound, one of the fastest ways to improve society and get rid of some bad systems and attitudes would be to convince a lot of people that free will is an illusion--at least in the sense most people believe in. I think most people are not even compatibilists, they think they are the ultimate source of their actions and anyone can always truly have done other than what they did. Like, some people think they literally had the power to really jump off a cliff that one time when they walked near its rocky edge and peered at the jagged rocks below and then nervously backed away because they had absolutely no desire or intention of really jumping off. It may seem to some of us like we had the power to jump off a cliff, but I think most people are literally incapable of such things. And the ones that are capable and willingly jump off are not to blame for their tragic ends, they are victims. Because sad as it is, under their exact circumstances they could not have done otherwise. There's so many important moral implications related to realizing we don't have free will.

[@MrSkme]

I think the more interesting question about criminals going to jail and free will is whether it is fair or not? If it is not their fault per se, is it right to sacrifice some for the greater good? If not, what can be done about it?

[@lrvogt1257]

Robert Sapolsky has a good take on this. We shouldn't give people excessive credit or blame for anything but we still have to protect ourselves from bad actors so we punish bad behavior to minimize pain to the public. Knowing why people act can help modify the reason for the bad behavior. Likewise we reward people who provide service that helps others. We all affect each other so we are part of each other's determining factors.

[@AronHershkowitz-k4f]

@@lrvogt1257 But under a deterministic worldview aren't questions like what we should or shouldn't do irrelevant? After all if there is no free will then we cannot make a choice do the "right" or "wrong" thing but rather it is determined for us.Asking about what we should do presupposes that we can make a choice to do that thing in the first place.

[@lrvogt1257]

@@AronHershkowitz-k4f Learning is still part of determinism and we all interact so we’re each getting more information all the time. If we hear a good idea or are impressed by something, good or bad, that has an effect on what we want including sharing that information.

[@mohamedali2858]

It is not correct to say that man has free will or is driven, because he has free will and is driven. He is driven to what he was created for, and has free will, because God Almighty gave him a mind, hearing, and perception, so he knows good from evil and harmful from beneficial.

[@Iamwrongbut]

So man has free will because God gave him free will… like when God predestined all those who would be come his adopted sons…? (Ephesians 1:4-5)

[@andrettanylund830]

@@mohamedali2858 amen

[@Gruso57]

Yea if you ignore the mountains of evidence that we developed a mind, hearing etc from natural selection. "God" isn't an authority or proof of something sorry. Try again without a holy book.

[@-R-H-]

The Bible makes a distinction from the believer and the unbeliever. God, has revealed through Scripture that Romans 3:10-11 "… no one seeks for God". "unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God" (John 3:3) So until God has replaced the heart of stone of the unbeliever with a heart of flesh (Ezekiel 36:26-27), they will be unable to have ears to hear or eyes to see. True freedom is through Christ - "if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed" - John 8:36.

[@bokchoiman]

@@-R-H- The feeling of freedom you attribute to belief in Christ is the result of the stories of what Christ did and how because he's such a good role model, if you follow his example, then you will unburden yourself. Just like how we don't innately desire death and never had, even before God was conjectured, we also don't innately desire to be a miserable person. It just so happens that throughout time, enough patterns were identified to then be concretized within the scriptures that reflect on the innate desire to feel good within the framework of a society. So this idea of God materialized because human societies grew so large and diverse that they needed some unifying force to organize by.

[@MrKeen445]

Idk why people even try to refute determinism. Take one's life from birth to death and draw a line between the two. I ask libertarians or compatibalists to point to where on the line a decision was made outside of the persons history. Any argument against determinism is nonsense. Easy W for Alex

[@fellows9]

Compatibilists accept determinism, but reject that it is incompatible with free will

[@fabiofernandez1626]

W Alex. Idk which one, but W nonetheless

[@randomname8196]

⁠@@fellows9compatibilists also reject explaining how compatibilism makes any sense

[@francoislecot2549]

​​@@fabiofernandez1626easiest debate ever Alex wins lol

[@samuelcharles7642]

Idk why either. I was convinced after just a bit of introspection. I think people should truly ask themselves why they do the things that they do. The answer should be revealed

[@Sam_T2000]

even if one doesn’t believe in the soul or divinely-granted free will, the idea that everything we do is dictated by the specific arrangement of all the atoms in the universe at the moment of the Big Bang or whatever seems a little hard to believe 😑

[@CMA418]

If it were true, would you change anything?

[@giorgosab9986]

I mean it's pretty easy to believe imo

[@randomname8196]

Whether or not something is hard to believe is up to the person considering the belief. So, instead of saying it’s hard to believe and stopping there, why not explain yourself? Don’t commit the fallacy of personal incredulity.

[@bokchoiman]

It's easy to believe if you believe in the chain of causation.

[@Sam_T2000]

@@randomname8196 - free will seems much more simple than determinism, and therefore much more plausible. the latter just doesn’t ring true.

[@Needlestolearn]

The framework of wants and needs requires a self-aware, moral, and conscious individual who can evaluate actions by considering their desires, the potential consequences, and the likelihood of both positive and negative outcomes. Since Alex has already agreed that we are aware of our existence and the world around us, this self-awareness proves that we are always motivated by something. Just like a machine ranks actions based on programmed criteria of right and wrong, we internally rank our actions based on our own moral compass. However, unlike a machine, this process is guided by our personal judgments and values, allowing us to consciously decide what is right and wrong for ourselves. But ultimately we must first accept the “I”

[@lrvogt1257]

Your personal judgements are every bit as determined as anything else. It is in fact what O'Conner is arguing. We don't invent out judgements (a set of wants) out of nothing. They are formed from our experience and we only come to realize what they are. "this self-awareness proves that we are always motivated by something." And that is the point. IT motivates. WE become motivated.

[@Needlestolearn]

@@lrvogt1257 You're correct in observing that we are governed by something, but I believe that what truly governs us is ourselves. We are shaped and directed by our own principles and morals, which we accept and hold ourselves accountable to. Consider this: when I feel hunger, it's my body signaling a need, compelling me to seek nourishment. However, it is my mind, informed by knowledge and my own understanding of right and wrong, that decides how to respond. For instance, if I aim to gain weight, I might choose to override my body's immediate signals, forcing myself to eat more, despite any discomfort, because I believe that doing so aligns with a higher goal I've set for myself. This process reveals a deeper truth-our actions are not merely reactions to physical needs or external stimuli but are guided by the principles and beliefs we consciously choose to embrace. Ultimately, it all comes back to the self-the "I"-which stands as both the architect and the enforcer of the rules we live by. This "I" is not just a passive observer but an active participant in shaping our destiny, revealing the intricate dance between knowledge, will, and the self's authority over the body.

[@lrvogt1257]

@@Needlestolearn : I would say you're describing agency rather than free will. Your morals and values are determined by your childhood, culture, health, circumstances, etc. They are as determined as anything. We are all active participants negotiating with each other based on everything that came before us. One moment is the result of the previous.

[@dayannahkali]

Absolutely, determinism implies that there is no self, that the ego is a representation without any substance or reality. Oriental philosophy call this "anatmanism" and that bio-algorithm that "I" is think it's accurate.

[@lrvogt1257]

@@dayannahkali : We're all just ripples in the cosmic wave function but sentient beings do have a sense of self. I think therefore I am.

[@eristic1281]

1. When a child lightly trips and falls, they might look to our reaction to learn the proper response. But if the child falls down a flight of stairs, they'll cry even if you're shouting delightful cheers. 2. People with congenital insensitivity to pain and anhydrosis (CIPA) don't feel pain because there's a physical problem that severed the connection between the pain receptors and the different areas of the brain responsible for pain perception. Their Paul Revere got shot by the enemy and doesn't get to shout, "The British are coming!" 1 and 2 are not the same. O'Connor read Robert Sapolsky's works and interviewed him but didn't venture too far from his own field. Much respect for such intellectual humility.

[@OneLine122]

Alex pretty much proves he is wrong in the first 5 minutes. His belief is that if we could know everything, then nothing would be random. Then he assumes we can know everything and therefore nothing is random. His claim that he can know everything is totally unproven and it's pretty easy to check that he doesn't. Only God can know everything theoretically but he denies there is a God, so he looses the debate before it's even started. Also of course science disagrees with him as well, it's proven and commonly accepted that there is a fundamental randomness to the Universe, usually called quantum foam, but more experimentally, radioactive decay cannot be predicted and is not caused by anything external to the atom. That's one experimental evidence and there are many more. It's not even debated as far as I know and nobody claims we can know everything, not anymore. As for his infinite regress argument, it's also a fallacy. Something can cause itself. It's what life is, self-driven creatures. He needs to deny life altogether for his belief to be right, and he doesn't. He keeps pushing for animal rights and that's because he knows they are alive. A brain can easily make decisions from internal causes, like looking at memories, then using the executive function to pick and choose one over the other. It's how computers work, and how databases work. Denying this in this day and age is silly to say the least. When you start a computer, it will run infinitively as long as it has juice, but the juice is not the cause in a formal sense. The BIOS is the formal cause of it. Take it out and keep the electricity going, it will stop. I like the guy, but he clearly is not a good faith actor in this. He even takes arguments of infinite regress he would otherwise deny if it was used to promote something else, like God (which is the ultimate determinist cause). I can't believe he hasn't figured this out in the last five or so years he has been a public figure. He affirms and denies the same thing at the same time all the time, so he just flips back and forth around his contradiction. Once you know the trick, the grift is obvious.

[@lrvogt1257]

In your first paragraph you completely missed OConnors point and your analysis fails from there.

[@lexaray5]

He wasn't at all claiming that we can know everything. He was talking about how things that are seen as random on a macro-scale aren't actually random. This might not be universally true, for example quantum randomness might scale up in chaotic systems like weather patterns, but it is true for the coin flip example he gave. He acknowledges quantum randomness in this conversation and says that if something is truly random, then that's not free will either because that means you don't have any control over it. Edit: for the record, the first sentence in this video is O'Connor acknowledging that true randomness can exist and doesn't constitute free will

[@leonardu6094]

Alex presents a classic false dichotomy

[@screwuk]

I disagree with this - He is explicitly stating that it is a true dichotomy - Until we find out more - And that it's not false at all, those are the two possible sources. It's not a logical fallacy, it's precisely the worldview he is describing. If I say 'a non nullable boolean is true or false', it's not a false dichotomy.

[@digitalincomeinsight]

Alex?

[@leonardu6094]

@@screwuk Yes, i'm aware he believes it's a true dilemma. He's still wrong.

[@leonardu6094]

@@digitalincomeinsight Yes, between causative desires and external coercion.

[@Williamwilliam1531]

@@leonardu6094 if the dichotomy is false, what are the other options? How do you do something you don’t want, and weren’t forced, to do?

[@andrettanylund830]

If we evolvef to not murder then what happened. The most murderest generation just happened

[@giorgosab9986]

You can't deny that, for the vast majority, murder isn't "fun". That doesn't mean that people won't murder under specific conditions just means that they're not inclined to

[@francoislecot2549]

What does that have to do with free will ?

[@oliverjamito9902]

Beautiful will say, remember!

[@SourceCod33]

From this I’ve gathered “compatabilism is determinism with no free will except I just say it’s free will” Like, no person would call what he describes free will. You are free in your actions, yes, but your will behind those actions are not free. Can you say it effectively works as free will, and maybe the debate on whether you have free will or not is useless? Yes. But that doesn’t make us have free will, it just makes us willfully ignorant.

[@lrvogt1257]

Compatibilism is calling "agency". " free will." Determinism goes back a step further to explain why we want anything.

[@SourceCod33]

@@lrvogt1257 I just can’t imagine calling uncontrolled agency “free” It is *a* will, yes, but it seems like a baseless leap to call it free will in any way a normal person would think of free as It goes against the point of why people care about the idea of free will in the first place. The sense of control in their actions, the sense of responsibility, especially in religious contexts the sense of determining your eternal judgement None of this follows from free will as “free agency”

[@nemrodx2185]

The only reasons people believe there is no free will (almost): blind faith, feelings and hope that materialism/atheism is true!

[@TheFloridaBro]

Given the facts, free will just doesn't seem real to me. The seeming lack of free will is sad to me actually, definitely not due to hope that atheism is real lol.

[@nemrodx2185]

@@TheFloridaBro "Given the facts, free will just doesn't seem real to me. The seeming lack of free will is sad to me actually, definitely not due to hope that atheism is real lol." Interesting... what facts make libertarian free will seem like an unlikely option to you?

[@Muffln]

Not really, no. Most people, even those who believe in free will, still admit that the arguments aren't just out of blind faith or hope. I, for one, certainly don't want materialism to be true, I'd much prefer the alternative. I really don't think that most materialists are materialists because they want that to be reality, they just find that it is logically a better explanation of reality. Although, there are some really strong arguments as to why even with a god (an omni-god specifically) we still can't have free will. Either way, determinism is a respected viewpoint and it certainly doesn't rely on "blind faith, feeling, and hope that materialism is true" for both of the reasons I listed above.

[@TheFloridaBro]

@nemrodx2185 really....you just want me to paraphrase Alex or Robert Sapolsky? Not interested, I just wanted to point out that blind faith isn't the only reason.

[@nemrodx2185]

@@TheFloridaBro "really....you just want me to paraphrase Alex or Robert Sapolsky? Not interested, I just wanted to point out that blind faith isn't the only reason." The idea is precisely to see what your reasons are, whether they correspond to those of Alex, others or your own. If there are no clear reasons, it is certainly because of blind faith. In my particular case, I don't even understand how arguments like Alex's can be convincing... that's why I try to see what convinces people.

[@ZyroZoro]

I'm 30 minutes in to listening to this and Carter is driving me insane. He really is just playing word games. You can't redefine free will into existence, or else you won't be talking about the thing that people actually care about. Compatibilism is the biggest cope in all of philosophy.

[@davejacob5208]

so you do not care about the difference between the responsibility of a thief with cleptomania and a thief without cleptomania? interesting...

[@ZyroZoro]

@@davejacob5208 Nice straw man 👍

[@davejacob5208]

@@ZyroZoro so how do you make sense of the difference? without using SOME concept that differentiates the sense in which the one is "more free" than the other one?

[@ZyroZoro]

@@davejacob5208 You said the difference. The difference is one has kleptomania and the other doesn't. So one has a neurological/psychological condition which causes them to compulsively steal, and the other deliberately steals. It is exactly analogous to the difference between someone who yells obscenities because they're an asshole and someone who yells obscenities because they have Tourette syndrome. One does it deliberately and the other does it because of a neurological condition.

[@davejacob5208]

@@ZyroZoro how do you differentiate "deliberation" from "the outcome of whatever neurological condition someone has"? we either take "neurological condition" to mean the same as "neurological state", which would deconstruct the categorical differentiation, or we take "neurological conditions" of the sort we are talking about (those who make people be less responsible or not at all responsible) to be of the kind that influence how people deliberate. but then how would a patient zero or the doctor who is the first to describe this pathology be able to differentiate such a symptom from the way any neurological state influences (/shapes) our deliberation? you do not necessarily need to be able to answer these questions. they are just supposed to make you aware of the fact that those questions all relate to our intuitions about what it means to be truly free, which makes it usefull to have a name for the relevant type of freedom that we would expect from someone before we make that someone responsible for their actions. and that is certainly a job that has always been reserved for the concept called "freedom of the will". free will never just meant "being in the state where you could have done differently" - that is just the libertarian conceptualisation of free will.

[@SocraticBeliever]

Alex O'Connor seems to ignore the possibility of "controlling" desires being rooted in something deeper than themselves---like, the value judgments that we make through a rational, deliberate process. Why not think that we desire what we have first judged to be good, rather than it being the other way around?

[@RandomYTubeuser]

Is this "rational, deliberate process" determined or random? Your solution just pushes the problem back.

[@Iamwrongbut]

How did you just judge something to be good if not based on prior experiences, etc. that are external to you?

[@Williamwilliam1531]

But which specific value judgements you tend prefer and at which times you tend to prefer them, the particular angles of a certain situation that happen to seem most salient to you and at which times certain angles become more noticeable, your capacity to yield to some judgements and not to others - all of these are beyond your control. You didn’t pick your parents or your genes, or the environment in which you grew up. If you believe in a soul, you didn’t pick that either. And beyond all of that, the final output of these value-weights and judgements are just spontaneously delivered to you from the same darkness that is delivering the information from these symbols into your awareness. Notice how, if you, say, restrain yourself from ordering cookie-cake after dinner.. notice how every aspect of your restraint is presented to you in a totally spontaneous way. You saw the cookie-cake on the menu and immediately you found yourself wanting it. And in the next instant you find yourself getting a mental slap on the wrist that happens to be more captivating than the wave desire that just hit you a second ago. And as you argue with yourself over the next minute or two (more realistically, your pre-frontal cortex is getting conflicting inputs from older, deeper structures like the hippocampus and nucleus accumbins and thus this conflict resolves in the conscious feeling of arguing with yourself), the whole time the thoughts are presented to you spontaneously, totally from the darkness, and yet you feel identified with them the entire time. In some way, you feel like the author of both sides of that argument, working on conclusively picking a side. But in another way, if you can just pay close enough attention, you’ll notice that “you”, whatever “you” are, are not the author, but more like an audience. You are a ship that is convinced it’s the one making the waves

[@SocraticBeliever]

@@RandomYTubeuser Neither. I am locating freedom, precisely, in our rational process. I reject O’Connor’s dichotomy.

[@SocraticBeliever]

@@Iamwrongbut How can experience be external to a subject?

[@macdougdoug]

What freewill Alex is saying is : compassion demands that we treat people according to how they feel, not just according to neurology or philosophy. (Freewill doesn't exist but we shouldn't shove people around) - He's also saying that agnosticism (or being somewhat free) towards our own free will is a form of intelligence (so arguing a bit against his own camp there : don't be a slave to your own free will)

[@lrvogt1257]

Robert Sapolsky put is something like... Society should encourage good behavior and discourage bad behavior as a practical matter but it should not impose excessive credit or blame just for being who they are.

[@alejandrovallejo4330]

I would actually argue that being forced to do something is wanting to do something more than the alternative and therefore, in a way, you actually only ever do something because you want to.

[@tulpas93]

Or perhaps it's "not wanting" to do something more than "not wanting" to do the other thing. If we were debating and you leaned on this, I'd suggest to the audience that you were dodging. All I mean here is that given the opportunity, don't "actually argue that being forced..." as it seems rather intellectually dishonest. Good heath to you!

[@alejandrovallejo4330]

@@tulpas93 could be considered that way too. I’m afraid you are misunderstanding me quite a lot here. I wasn’t leaning on that or refuting anything, wether what I said is true or not has no bearing on either Alex’s argument, it’s an entirely different topic, is not dodging anything. The only thing I was doing was communicating the idea that perhaps saying “you never do something unless you want to or are being forced” is a bit redundant since being forced to do something could qualify as you being compelled to chose the option you want to happen the most out of things you don’t want to happen. It’s not a rebuttal or answer to any question.

[@andrettanylund830]

Why debate free will if you don't believe there is free will?

[@phill234]

because you're determined to do so ;)

[@legendary3952]

That’s a dumb thing to say. It’s perfectly possible and consistent that there is no free will yet people without debate that there is and also that there isn’t. Stop being uncharitable

[@Williamwilliam1531]

I guess he just feels like it, despite not choosing to feel like it

[@jaisalrw3494]

If he doesn't have free will then it's the deterministic causal chain that made him debate this topic. He didn't have a choice!

[@normalguy4548]

Having no free will does not equal having no desires or reasons to fulfill those desires (such as having a desire to debate).

[@Dulc3B00kbyBrant0n]

having a debate about free will seems absurd

[@51elephantchang]

A debate or any activity only requires the wills of the participants not their free wills.

[@andrettanylund830]

Why are you listening then?

[@HonestlyAtheist]

Tell me you don't understand the free will debate without telling me you don't understand the free will debate.

[@gilgamesh2832]

You were determined by God to believe in free will or not.

[@Williamwilliam1531]

Well they’ve only been going on for, I don’t know, 2500 years.. so it seems to be a pretty good debate I’d say

[@antoniusgrave1348]

There is no will. There is simply determination or randomness in the actions taken and in thoughts. For example, you could take the path toward pizza or Chinese food and what ever path you take will be either a determined one based of factors that led up to that path or its completely random, meaning you just pulled it from a hat. Even if you decide to not take the random path and end up taking the other path, its determined to be so based in that factors that led to it.

[@davejacob5208]

so what is the difference between the responsibility of a thief with cleptomania and a thief without it?

[@Yamikaiba123]

You cannot have Will and Freedom at the same time, any more than you can eat your cake and have it still.

[@forstig]

I think you could simplify the argument that you only act because you want to or you are forced to act. If you think about it, we really only act because we want to. Being forced to do something always translates to a desire being threatened. For e.g. there is a gun to your head and you are forced to give away your money. But in reality you are not really forced, you are just faced with a decision which is as well driven by what you want. Do I want to live or do I want to keep my money?

[@tamjammy4461]

Just on the "where to get started in philosophy" qiestion -- and im not a professional philosopher-- I think that the novel Sophie's World by Jostein Gaarder is a great introduction to the subject for kids and adults alike.

[@fernandoformeloza4107]

Still trying to determine whether the moustache of Alex is caused from his free will, or that he had no control in choosing his moustache. Also looking at how many times the other two have looked at his facial hair. Very disturbing from the two. You could tell by their body language that they wanted to use his moustache as an analogy to drive home their point. How far some people will go to exploit such a trivial thing. Dastardly. Truly dastardly

[@thejoin4687]

I agree with Alex.

[@lrvogt1257]

and they appreciate it.

[@TeePee-t9z]

Free will simply means we have first cause power in determining our choices.

[@iain5615]

I learnt a long time ago that my brain is not reliable, I have poor memory, so I have to think things through from first principles on multiple issues. If I switch off thinking about driving and think about something else I can only do this if I have driven that way hundreds of times before. I also find if I want stop off to buy something along the way I will drive right past the shop if I am thinking of something else, I can only stop if I am paying attention and decide to stop. My brain won't do what I want unless I am paying attention or I have done it so many times that my brain has the "muscle memory" to run by itself.

[@DonswatchingtheTube]

Free will is the conscious mind to assess and alter.

[@brgulker]

Why does cognitive behavioral therapy work for either of these two Alex’s? A patient receives treatment by a therapist, and the therapy involves the patient changing thought and behavior patterns. Why does this work? Who or what is changing? Who or what is the change agent? Etc.

[@vortigon2519]

In therapy you have two people talking to one another, that experience changes the patient. It's two physical systems interacting, changing one another. But just because this kind of change is possible, it doesn't mean it's "free", the patient was compelled to vhange due to what was said in the therapy.

[@lrvogt1257]

Since our wants are determined by external factors, a therapist can provide new factors to produce new wants.

[@brgulker]

@@lrvogt1257 I think I need to be convinced that "determined" is the right word here.

[@brgulker]

@@vortigon2519 I'm not sure my experience is consistent with that, although I understand what you're saying. For example, I've had a therapist prescribe certain meditation and breathing exercises, and I was extremely skeptical they would work, to the point I argued over several sessions that they wouldn't and refused to do them. Eventually, I agreed to try them and over the course of several weeks of doing these exercises at the prescribed dosage and duration, I found they helped. IMO, your description of what I just described is very reductionistic. I think words like influence or interact are much more accurate than compel.

[@KylewithaHat]

hmmm :) I can't over seeming contradiction of believing in determinism and not believing in materialism simultaneously

[@ldlework]

Compatiblism so obviously the correct analysis of volitional agency. If we build intelligent robots and they raise up and replace us, when a robot commits a crime will they not arrest and seek restitution from the criminal? Will they not need to model each others character and dispositions, their beliefs and their trends of behaviors? Who else could be responsible other than the agent who committed the crime? Determined or random, it hardly matters, what matters is the gestalt of our individual natures and tendencies, a hugely parametric function taking in all we are and know and perceive and producing action. The evolving function that determines our behavior is unique to us and is where our will and responsibility is derived. Compatibilists should simply clarify that what we have, is will. Not metaphysically free - but we are a dizzyingly large collection of values, beliefs, circumstances, memories, preferences, relationships and so on which culminate in a machine who’s function is characterized by knowing, recognizing, reasoning, feeling, planning and acting. We are reasoning agents, materialism doesn’t preclude such objects. And those agents still need ethics and law.

[@ldlework]

Alex’s accounting of responsibility is lamentable. The wave is not a self-modeling reasoning agent of society.

[@ldlework]

I don’t agree with the compatibilist that will is not an empirical target for scientific inquiry. Free will exists the same way that ribsosomal peptide synthesis exists. It’s an artifact of emergent grammar that’s hard to grasp with a depiction limited to particle positions and momenta

[@batboy12394]

This is one of the hardest ideas to grapple with. On one hand, i totally see the argument of determnism having merit...evn our decisions are informed by countless variables, but maybe there is a future that those things could be mapped, amd therefore we'd be able to accurately model consciousness and our decisions. On the other hand, the day to day experience of everyone reflects the acknowledgement that at some level people are accountable for their actions, or that they have free will. Is something more true to say "we believe that theoretically we could show deterministic reasons behind everything", or we have free will because we feel, act, and require it for society to function as if we do have it. That's reductive, but I don't think we can ever really know

[@AaronMartinProfessional]

Get Brett Hall to speak about Free Will! He and David Deutsch are the most scientific thinkers who rationally defend the notion of free will.

[@lrvogt1257]

Include Robert Sapolsky and Sabine Hossenfelder for the determinist arguments.

[@MaxFoster-ni3op]

Here's my working definition of consciousness: "Consciousness exists as the summative effect of the great number of bodily processes, where perceptual prominence is relative to the necessitation of physical requirements, evolving - and having evolved - much like our other characteristics to our environments." Is there a term for this kind of perspective?

[@fatalheart7382]

You will always win the argument whose foundation is your initial assumption. When assuming that all there is is the physical world, because all that can be experienced is physical, you discard any possibility that something could be beyond your sensory. Take the example of a change in personality due to brain changes. The assumption is that the person is their brain because the brain changed. An incorrect assumption, but understandable if one's belief is that everything is only physical. One with such a belief would not naturally ask whether the person changed or their ability to physically function changed because they do not see them as possibly separate. But if the ship I use to see and interact with the world is changed, of course my experience and expressions would change. This does not inherently conclude that all there is is the physical world. A fish experiences and expresses itself within the parameters of the natures of its existence. If, given higher faculties, it would be expected that they would function differently as well. This does not mean that the fish itself is its faculties. In fact, no one person has ever been determined by their disability except through what we know as bigotry. We do this inherently. And, while it is only anecdotal, it is still worth mentioning that the natural reaction to a disabled person is one of acknowledging something akin to a soul.

[@fabiofernandez1626]

How does existence of non-material things relate to O'Connor argument about breaking down causes to determined or random and the impossibility of choosing what you want? They seem like the points he spends the most time on and I don't think they presuppose materialism. They might very well be wrong, I just don't think they are grounded in materialism

[@lrvogt1257]

"When assuming that all there is is the physical world, because all that can be experienced is physical, you discard any possibility that something could be beyond your sensory." It's not that what you call "beyond the sensory" is theoretically impossible. It's that with no evidence for it, it's irrational to claim it's real let alone the cause of anything. To take it seriously you have to show it exists and then describe a mechanism for it to have an effect on the natural world.

[@fatalheart7382]

@@lrvogt1257 Are you telling me that a fish is justified for believing that the sea is all there is or that he would be irrational for considering something beyond his own world? XD

[@lrvogt1257]

@@fatalheart7382 The fish would not be irrational… but he would exceptional.

[@Elizabeth0913]

I’ve done things I didn’t want to or forced to.

[@MycerDev-eb1xv]

Alex makes the same point as Bernardo Kastrup, arguing there is no causal middle ground between indeterminacy (randomness) and determinism. However, this is only if you say every event has a causal boundary which requires another external system, process or event produce its current state. However, there is another perfectly valid model (self determinacy) which does not have such a causal boundary. This is also a pretty good model for understanding quantum processes. If I make the argument that a process is not random so then it must be the way that it is due to some causal event, in no way can that be used to eliminate the possibility of an internal cause rather than an external cause. Not sure if this is clarified. This would also be far more general a causal philosophy than pure determinism, since pure determinism can be understood as influences crossing an external boundary between self-determined systems, this is something that works well with quantum mechanics also and is supported by Alfred North Whitehead. Further, an issue I have with determinism is that it requires a fix set of degrees of freedom of a system, a finite action space. It doesn’t seem at all as if reality abides by those rules.

[@oliverjamito9902]

Hosts will say, many will try to find blame to shame nor to point fingers!