Is FREE WILL an ILLUSION? | The Free will & Determinism Debate in Psychology

Do you have free will OR is your behaviour entirely determined by forces outside of your control?
This video explores the Free will and determinism in psychology as part of the Issues and Debates topic in the AQA A-level Psychology course.
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WHO AM I? Hi - I’m Tom. I’m a Psychology teacher based in the North of England. I've been teaching for over a decade and have numerous years of being an A-level examiner. I started Bear it in MIND to share my own passion for Psychology, and to provide people with content to help us better understand ourselves and others.
00:00 - Intro
00:23- Free will & Determinism Debate
01:13 - Free will
02:29 - Hard & Soft Determinism
04:42 - Types of Determinism
08:30 - Free will is an illusion
09:27 - Moral Responsibility
10:15 - Mental Health
11:15 - Determinism & Science
12:12 - Scientific Emphasis of Causal Explanations
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[@aimeeday2620]

not being able to watch ur videos will be the only sad part about finishing psych on Monday 💔💔💔💔

[@BearitinMIND]

Thank you Amy! That is a lovely comment. Hope today's exam went well for you.

[@BearitinMIND]

I am also planning to make videos that go beyond A-level psychology, so I would be very interested to know your thoughts on what videos you'd be interested me making on the channel that would help you?👇

[@Nimmyo000]

The last exam draws near... i want to say thank you for all your videos, they undoubtedly have helped many achieve highly with their easy to digest and immersive design. Hope the best for everyone!

[@BearitinMIND]

Wishing you all the very best for the final psychology exam tomorrow! Truly hope the videos have gone some way to helping you achieve your best.

[@livingdeaddoll.]

GOAT HAS POSTED

[@markt1964]

The reason that it is possible for us to have free will is that part of the process of human cognition applies rules of logic and mathematics, which do not strictly have to abide by any of physics (where we might assume that everything is predetermined). There are provably undetermined answers in logic and mathematics, and since human cognition can include conscious application of logic (which is not bound by physical laws) as part of a decision, including speculation about possible future outcomes of a decision which in turn can influence the decision, creating inherently nondeterministic self-referential thought, there is more than enough room in this indeterminacy for genuinely free will.

[@BearitinMIND]

Thanks Mark. Really appreciate the in depth comment, and thought provoking comment. How would you respond if someone asked the following: Can human cognition (which includes as you put it 'conscious application of logic') be determined by something other than 'physical laws'?

[@markt1964]

​@@BearitinMIND Of course it is, because logic cannot not bound by physical laws. Logic contains things like paradoxes, whose truth value cannot be determined (the simplest example being the liar paradox), showing that certain self-reflective concepts within logic provably do not correlate with any deterministic state that might otherwise be even theoretically predicted by physical laws, even if you knew 100% of the physical state leading up to that point. Since part of reasoning involves applying logic, and particularly when that logic is being self-reflective, it is intrinsically indeterminate. This is more than enough indeterminacy in here for free will. This does not mean we do not live in a purely deterministic universe, but suggests that non-determinism is an emergent property in something as complex as cognition, which even though the organ that it operates on operates on physical laws, the concepts which can exist within cognition do not have to be deterministic.

[@jammydodger1277]

Fantastic video

[@BearitinMIND]

Thank you 😊 Glad you enjoyed it!

[@EtoGodwin-je1ke]

Love your videos they are so helpful. Can you make videos on schizophrenia as well?

[@BearitinMIND]

Thank you very much 😊 Really appreciate the encouraging feedback. Will be working on Paper 3 topics, starting with Forensics.

[@ahmadsamir5866]

The Determinism vs Free Will topic is so intriguing. As it entices us to look deep within ourselves and our universe to determine the real causes. So rather than thinking i had the ultimate chocie to watch your video or not just becuase my motor cortex enable me to make conscious movements , i should think deeply about the biopsychosocial causes that led me to watch it. I am a bit confused. Are you trying tell me that on the surface of it i myself has the chocie to make a decision but *myself* that makes the decision is a mere product of my genteics and upbringing? But again sir which side of the argument are you on? Do you believe in ultimate free will or are you determinist and which kind?

[@BellaTheDogo]

Sigmund Freud Version 2

[@ahmadsamir5866]

@@BellaTheDogo ???