Is Free Will an Illusion? What Can Cognitive Science Tell Us?

[@nickreed60]

TL:DR A man with a wonderful and glorious beard explains that the chemical soup in our heads consists of what we believe to be consciousness or a soul but is really our soups making decisions in a very democratic and free way for us, as it is us. but this soup is in fact dead in a way we think it isn't. The soup looks after itself and also others making intelligent protective decision so no actions are truly selfless and sometime soups become very upset which in reality they have no control over, but we can blame them anyway because we all need to look after our own soups.

[@DarkskiesSiren]

Just to make sure this is out there; he concedes that we don't have free will in the sense that we can fully control our brains, he focuses on whether our Lack of "Free" Will actually means we can't be held responsible for our actions.

[@GUPTAYOGENDRA]

Ask three questions from yourself after waking from a dream. 1. The observer of my dream was conscious or unconscious? 2. The observer of my dream was in my dream or in the universe? Is the observer of my dream still conscious? If so then where? Answers of these questions will enable us to understand that there is no free will.

[@richardwatson1698]

In my opinion as a spiritual person free will absolutely does not exist. Unless you define free will as the ability to make choices, however choices do not occur in a vacuum and therefore are not free choices, they are contingent on previous experience. If one day you decided to step in for a class mate and confront a bully, but on that occasion the bully gave you a horrible beating it is going to affect the next time you see a class mate being bullied.

[@TheEladriel]

He is being swayed by his personal feelings on free will thus he is not acting freely but in a determined fashion. If only he understood that our crime and punishment society is also acting in a determined fashion in order to limit certain behavior. The argument for the absence of free will does not imply that there should be no punishment as punishment exists in an already determined society, world, universe.

[@JohnCena-hd4lq]

we are a ripple from the big bang.

[@AutodidacticPhd]

While there are some points that I certainly agree with, perhaps even the broadest ones... there are some massive problems in this talk. First, and more trivially, his habit of saying he isn't going to talk about something and then talking about it for the rest of the hour. But more importantly, I feel that many of his examples and "toy problems" do an end run around the questions they are meant to illustrate, and that they do so in a way that precisely destroys the point he hopes to make with them. And I think both of those problems come from a fundamental contradiction. He wants to change the foundational assumptions that constructed social reality (as apposed to socially constructed reality, a distinction upon which I agree with him) is built on whithout changing the reality that rests on them.

[@shaanangrey543]

people don't want to remove all punishment.. just the initial punishment system we are supporting.. rambled alot over this subject I'm not sure why.

[@danielvasilev9289]

We end up being just spectators of a uniquely interesting movie that is unfolding before us.

[@snap-off5383]

Love it when I'm right. If your body is responsible for your choices, our justice system should still punish your body, so there's no changes needed.

[@franknimal9966]

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

[@Pirsqed]

"Now do this!" What was it?! What did he have people do at 3:35?

[@andreanika4055]

What's about some one , has punished doing nothing wrong? Where is the free will from both sides?

[@Philopantheon82]

If free will is such a huge subject why Dennet is solely focusing on the subject from a neuroscientists point of view instead of taking the subject more holistically, namely speaking also about phenomenology?

[@jcwandemberg8293]

Dan should make it clear that there are two perspectives about "free will." One is relative and the other absolute. The relative takes place within the time/space dimension. From the absolute perspective there is no such thing as free will.

[@chooshchoosh]

The maxim stated around 40 minutes in of keeping your decision-making a secret may be questionable when playing Prisoner's Dilemma repeatedly. That game may be the most often played game of all in real life. Morality and one's PD strategy are close concepts.

[@earthjustice01]

That quote from a footnote of Austin's, may be misleading in that when he says "exactly the same conditions" if he had considered it the way Dennett puts he would have agreed that he meant "roughly the same conditions"

[@danielblack880]

There is no such thing as agent causation. Dan is using his silly jokes to appeal to folk psychology. Dan just doesn't want to live in a world where he doesn't have free will. There is something we can call "practical free will" for legal and practical purposes , but as Dan agrees there is no such thing as "ultimate free will". The problem is that the law and moral responsibility were created and exist AS IF "ultimate free will" exists. This is where Compatiablists like Dan Dennett get muddled and confused.

[@chris.michols]

Are there any objective proof that conscious thought have casual effects? Or is confabulation all we have?

[@truthfullparadox2811]

If you go against your own desires , will, knowledge and daily routines then you probably have free will.

[@epvoblio]

informative and convincing argument in this presentation & lecture

[@metakenben4332]

experiments are good for obliterating a hypothesis. thats almost all. well, and statistics may deliver an image that there is a certain chance, approx. of truth, but not truth itself. scietists since the late 1960ies tend to ignore that...

[@joshuabisson8888]

He admits free will does not exist then goes on to say he will ignore it because he doesn't like it...My opinion Sam Harris makes him look foolish.He should lecture on a different topic.

[@NoActuallyGo-KCUF-Yourself]

Sorry, Dan, but Sam Harris' arguments are much more convincing and logically sound. Dan is equivocating free will with free choice. He even explicitly admits that he is changing the definition in order to say that free will exists by showing that something else exists. It is a dishonest bait-and-switch.

[@GUPTAYOGENDRA]

There is free will subjectively and no free will objectively.

[@while_coyote]

Until society is starting everyone off with the exact same million dollar loan from daddy there is *no* actual moral justification for "punishment", only preening excuses for "in reality, might makes right, sorry bucko, here's a kick in the teeth though, enjoy"

[@elibugler755]

there's no way i'm watching this entire video, but i'll just leave my two cents regardless. determinism is the philosophy that everything is biased one way or another therefore everything will happen in an inevitable fashion right? in taoism, they emphasize balance in everything. when you meditate, you're removing your own bias, your own ego if you will. to walk the middle path is to have true free will.

[@TerriMcNeil]

Perhaps there may be even more than one big bang over - and such may only be found on the shores of the last eternity.

[@VA-ph2ml]

i think kthat conscienceness is fast its the body that is slower, big difference.

[@rustic35]

If there is no personal consequences (punishment) then there is no reason to not kill or do harm. The world would be chaos. Oh hang on, the world is already chaos. 🤣

[@VA-ph2ml]

also Denney needs to study linguistics a bit better although the man is still clearly a genius, "moist robots" for instance.

[@rickshafer6688]

AL Gore was #1. Best thinker. "Cognitive neuroscience can help us find out who are wired wrong and who are wired right". - wasn't that called the cleansing of the brain in China ? Mind washing. By scientists though, so the state is OK to do it. He contradicts himself. Great thinker. WOW! Go back to AL Gore. The best thinker. Aaaaaaahahaha !