Steven Pinker - The Philosophy of Free Will

[@firstandforever8294]

I would love to see a conversation between Steven Pinker and Robert Sapolsky.

[@kacperurbanczak3407]

Oh yeah! Tbh, I am so much closer to Sapolskys point of view :)

[@bobdillaber1195]

@@kacperurbanczak3407 So am I- by far.

[@Awibrahor]

Pinker is easily one of the world’s greatest public thinkers and an exceptionally clear communicator, yet he is also, it seems to me, a very humble and generous human being. Knowledge of him and his work can’t be spread wide enough!

[@deladonics]

"Well, I would think that given that I'm, by temperament, an anarchist." I enjoyed how calmly those words came.

[@ilikethisnamebetter]

Not being able to predict something does not equate to free will. Sometimes we do "control our own behaviour", sometimes we don't. Whether we do or not is - as far as anyone can tell - determined by prior causes.

[@codylee729]

You're just talking past the point.

[@Electronic424]

Thank god for this, I had watched every Pinker video on the web and run out lol

[@truthlivingetc88]

! thank ! pinky !

[@kichu912]

The way and simplicity with which he talks 💓 i could listen to him all day 💓

[@micchaelsanders6286]

Within the scope of your capacity, you have the ability to select between alternatives. You have the ability to choose to focus your mind or drift. Thats what free will is. Thats what we all possess.

[@brunamatic]

18:30 what a close up

[@dahliathereader2872]

The world is a richer place because of this man ❤️

[@richtomlinson7090]

I am confident that we don't truly have Freewill, because we are responding to stimulus and everything happens for a reason, but those reasons aren't all warm and fuzzy, they are all reasons in the uninterrupted chain of causality. Even though we don't have a God given Freewill, we do get to enjoy or suffer the deterministic choices we do make, and it is very much like we are responsible, because we are in this body and in the flow of the Universe. Criminals are still to be punished and or taken out of circulation, as if they were a broken machine.

[@caricue]

I have to take issue with some of your assumptions. I can't say they are wrong, but they are not principles or laws of nature. If we have any level of free will it would be to allow us to respond to whatever is going on around us, so it doesn't make sense to turn this around and say that the thing we are responding to is somehow controlling us (responding to stimulus). "Everything happens for a reason" is a truism that really brings nothing to the game. You can make up a reason but it is always subjective and basically an opinion. People use their memory to look backwards in time and concoct a "chain of causation" but this is little more than a compelling fiction. The word "determinism" is what Dan Dennett calls an intuition pump. Using this word can make nonsense seem sensible. Someone might say that the cake on the table determined that you would eat cake. It is an all-purpose concept that hides its emptiness. One last point, humans are organisms, not mechanisms. Other than that, your comment was fine.

[@richtomlinson7090]

@@caricue but the cake ended up on the table for a reason, and if someone picked up a special cake for a loved one, and they were terribly afraid of spiders 🕷, someone may make them drop the cake because someone found a dead spider and passed it around and then they remembered who had arachnophobia and thought it would be funny to wave it in front of the victim of the prank. So basically the special cake is dropped in an uncontrollable reaction to the real and serious fear of spiders. There is no magic, only reasons all the way back. I'm saying we are literally meat robots, because as far as I know, robots don't enjoy the illusion of performing the tasks and responding to stimulus.

[@caricue]

@@richtomlinson7090 So the first part of your response must be to demonstrate how silly it is to concoct a chain of causation? You could have put in any random event like the invention of cakes or the evolution of arachnids as a reason. It is just as subjective if you get more serious and look for causes. In the end, everything causes everything, so any distinction is going to be a judgement call at best. When people want to say that a person is a robot, I counter that with the same logic a horse is a motorcycle. You can list vague similarities in usage, but one is a device created for a particular purpose by a mind, and the other is an evolved organism that has no designer and no purpose other than the one it might make for itself. I imagine you are using the idea of a robot because it follows its programming and you think that humans are doing the same, but a program is the product of a mind, so unless you are a creationist, you should not be talking about such mysticisms.

[@richtomlinson7090]

@@caricue determinism is basically provable by the absence of magic. We are no more in charge of our fears than we are in charge of the endless chain of causality. We don't experience the meat robot experience because we don't know what is going to happen in the future, at least in any accurate way. If someone did get a magical download of the future, then and only then would the meat robot experience come into play. The idea that we are living in a deterministic universe, is relatively meaningless, but correct none the less.

[@caricue]

@@richtomlinson7090 Now we're talking the same language. As far as I can tell, the one actual piece of evidence for determinism is the fact that you can do the same experiment over and over and always get the same results. However, what this really shows is that we live in a universe that features reliable causation. Life couldn't exist if something different happened every time you tried to digest food or synthesize insulin. Reliable causation is demonstrable and reasonable. It is unreasonable to take this easily observed phenomenon and use it to justify the metaphysical claims of determinism. There is no evidence for chains of causation, reasons or any other human level concept related to cause and effect. It makes sense that living things use reliable causation to set up circumstances that allow them to choose and decide based on whatever is going on in the environment. This is what we observe and it fits with the empirical evidence.

[@markfennell1167]

Too complex. Free will is your abilities to choose. To act. And to affect the outcome. Of course other people and realities also influence. But you do have free will in most things. But then also if you agreed to a project voluntarily and agreed to let another person lead or guide you then that person will determine your choices on those areas.

[@PS108]

Free will is dreaming of past galiories and making them actual again we dream of mights and hope they will come true in the future free will is the desire to dream our most fanciful. Dreams not just for basic survival but for fanciful exsistance a care free life a list of problems to achieve a personal galory for oneself

[@NeoShaman]

"We can control our behavior" "single I is an illusion" "There are many selves" Free will is one of those selves? Freedom is relative!

[@helenbostock2350]

Hi hope you're well thanks. I know it's doesn't matter. Other people don't matter because we all one.

[@floydnelson92]

21:20, that seems teeth-grinding to me. Computers, especially with modern techniques, are fairly well at those tasks and improving. But then again, humans can multiply 5 digit numbers too.

[@afrodiameter]

Computers aren't nearly as fast as humans when it comes to those tasks. But it's only a matter of time before they match then exceed us, but that doesn't invalidate his point, given we're not there yet.

[@douglasauruss]

What is the original source of this?

[@johnellis7614]

CONSCIENCE --- Either we are born with a grateful conviction that we deserve less and give all we can give, or with an ingrate conviction that we deserve more and take all we can take. And so, do we have a freewill, such that at our pleasure we can switch from ingrate taker to grateful giver? The Bible has 40 Text that say no. For we are all born ingrate takers, as evidenced by 6,000 years of the more intelligent upper-half of society hoarding all the land, wealth and political power, while the lower-half does nothing to save the homeless, the starving or refugees.

[@richardouvrier3078]

So, we are a mosaic of "idiosyncratic quirks" and genes. That sounds like freedom to me.

[@maximilyen]

Handsome guy

[@micchaelsanders6286]

"Reason is the faculty that identifies and integrates the material provided by man’s senses. It is a faculty that man has to exercise by choice. Thinking is not an automatic function. In any hour and issue of his life, man is free to think or to evade that effort. Thinking requires a state of full, focused awareness. The act of focusing one’s consciousness is volitional. Man can focus his mind to a full, active, purposefully directed awareness of reality-or he can unfocus it and let himself drift in a semiconscious daze, merely reacting to any chance stimulus of the immediate moment, at the mercy of his undirected sensory-perceptual mechanism and of any random, associational connections it might happen to make." -Ayn Rand

[@LateButGreat]

It appears that you just drifted off by the topic.

[@franknimal9966]

A description of consciousness leads to a contradiction with the postulation from special relativity that there can be no connections between simultaneous event. This contradiction points to consciousness involving quantum level mechanisms. The Quantum level description of the universe is re- evaluated in the light of what is observed in consciousness namely 4 Dimensional objects. A new improved interpretation of Quantum level observations is introduced. From this vantage point the following axioms of consciousness is presented. Consciousness consists of two distinct components, the observed U and the observer I. The observed U consist of all the events I is aware of. A vast majority of these occur simultaneously. Now if I were to be an entity within the space-time continuum, all of these events of U together with I would have to occur at one point in space-time. However, U is distributed over a definite region of space-time (region in brain). Thus, I is aware of a multitude of space-like separated events. It is seen that this awareness necessitates I to be an entity outside the space-time continuum. With I taken as such, a new concept called concept A is introduced. With the help of concept A a very important axiom of consciousness, namely Free Will is explained. philpapers.org/rec/DESCAS

[@VenusLover17]

Love this

[@hellfrost333]

*I don't think this video does a good job of explaining Freewill to those confused on the topic, but in contrast it is nice to see a Mason as appose to a Templar on here. Aristotle > Plato Einstein > Bohr Masons > Illuminati ~For those who get the reference ;)

[@johnellis7614]

Satan, Adam and Eve, they wanted a free will to choose the sinful knowledge, even though God warned that their spirit, “shall surely die.” And so, the purpose of planet earth is to show that when sin kills your living spirit, the idea that you can choose salvation at your pleasure, surely it is fiction, fantasy and fairytale. There are 40 Text which state that the elect are predestined to be saved, but not one Text to prove that we have the freedom to choose salvation. There are 12 text which state that sinners must desire to choose salvation, but not one stating that God has given any sinner the desire or will to endure the pain of carrying the cross. ELECT He predestined us for adoption as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will, Eph 1:5 For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. And those whom he predestined he also called, and those whom he called he also justified, and those whom he justified he also glorified. Ro 8:29 No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him. And I will raise him up on the last day. Jo 6:44 You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit and that your fruit should abide, so that whatever you ask the Father in my name, he may give it to you. Jo 15:16 And if the Lord had not cut short the days, no human being would be saved. But for the sake of the elect, whom he chose, he shortened the days. Mk 13:20

[@williamwhite999]

Are there false equivalency offrered here ?

[@stanleycates1972]

Interesting much. On genetic mutation with multiplying benefits not necessarily being beneficial ? Maybe he is talking about sex based only on air head beauties ? Homely women have kids too. Seems best mutations drive natural selection.

[@eduardoillingworth7383]

What are your thoughts about 9/11......???? , critically thinking.

[@ig2098]

/thumbs-up for Pinker! /thumbs-down for the macro head shot! Kinda creepy...

[@timonsanchez3347]

1.5x speed pls, my adhd didnt have time for his slow wisdom.

[@kennethmarshall306]

He says that "we are free in the sense that we couldn't predict anyone's behaviour", but that is no freedom at all. I can't predict where my golf ball is going to come to rest after I have hit it, but does that mean that the ball is, in ANY sense, free to behave as it wants?

[@kosmos6467]

A golf ball does not have wants but you do. A golf ball can't change its trajectory but you can change yours. In comparison to a golf ball you compute, you have an inner process that runs on literally trillions of connections. In any given moment you can ask yourself what you want and then proceed to try to implement that want. In perfect compatibility with the laws of physics that fundamentally very well may be deterministic.

[@kennethmarshall306]

Kosmos “Wants” are chemical reactions in our brains. These reactions are governed by general principles (we call them the laws of physics).So, in principle, human behaviour can be explained down to the last detail by completely understanding its physiology. However, even if someday we can discover all that there is to know about the physiology of behaviour, we will not always be able to predict a person’s behaviour on a particular occasion. In applying the physical laws governing behaviour, we would have to know EVERYTHING that is presently going on in a person’s body in order to predict what they will do next. I think that we actually agree?

[@kosmos6467]

@@kennethmarshall306 It does seem like we agree on how the world works. But I inferred from your original post that you didn't think we are free to do do what we want in any meaningful sense. That's what I objected to. I'm a compatibilist like Steven Pinker and Daniel Dennett etc. I think our freedom is absolutely real as opposed to those that argue that (libertarian) free will is a necessary illusion. I have no problem viewing myself as a part of a causal chain or as fundamentally deterministic. It would be hubris to demand of the universe that we have the godly power to do the logically impossible, which libertarian free will would imply. We are REAL conscious biological robots with high degrees of freedom.

[@kennethmarshall306]

Kosmos Perhaps we don’t quite agree. I think that TREATING Free Will as if it is real is meaningful and useful, even although it doesn’t exist, if viewed objectively. The subjective sensation of Free Will evolved because it helped our ancestors reproduce the DNA that built them. Like the subjective sensation of pain or sound.

[@kosmos6467]

@@kennethmarshall306 We agree that we don't have contra-causal libertarian free will, that is any free will that is not compatible with determinism since randomness won't give you anymore control. So let's define free will that way and agree that we don't have free will (although compatibilistic definitions of free will have existed for thousands of years). When you say that treating free will as if it is real is useful you seem to take the ”free will is a necessary illusion”-stance, which I disagree with. We don’t need to pretend that we have any powers that we don’t have, and I can’t personally see how I could live like that without having cognitive dissonance. What I argue is that the capacities we have to reason, analyze and make decisions to further our interests, are absolutely real and compatible with determinism. We don’t need to pretend that we have any powers we don’t have in order to have meaningful lives. In the words of compatibilist Daniel Dennett: ”We have the ’free will’ worth wanting.”

[@MrBlues113]

So the answer is no, there isn’t such a thing as free will

[@MrBlues113]

If you really don´t understand why your argument is flawed, then please think a little bit, if you still can´t, let me know ill explain to you.

[@alex_roivas333]

Gabriel Concha, if you could show that my argument was flawed, you would have done it already instead of telling _me_ to do it XD

[@MrBlues113]

Espurr I see you understand ;)

[@queleimportapene6582]

Explain to him Gabriel, There is no such thing as destiny, but there isn´t such a thing as free will either. Determinists believe every particle in the universe is subject to the laws of physicists and every particle is moving in a way determined by the previous state of the universe, the present is just the tip of this domino of events that have inevitable lead us here, you comment attacking Gabriel is just the result of all your life getting to that point, could you have held yourself? well, even if you take decisions thinking before on all the possibilities, the present only converges to the real inevitable one possibility, free will is an illusion, and important illusion, but an illusion nonetheless.

[@MrBlues113]

Thanks, good explanation btw. I think he understands though, Espurr knows free will is just an illusion.

[@RedWinePlease]

Do you/I have a free will? Can't be answered unless you assume you do have a free will to perform the proof. No , you don't have a free will--- proof not possible since "proof" assumes I have a free will to think, remember, integrate, observe, and all other willful actions required to do a proof. Yes, you do have a free will--- no need to prove it. It's un-provable. It's an axiom. Move on.

[@mouwersor]

No it's not. You don't need free will to 'proof' something. You don't need free will to think, remember, integrate and observe. It's free will, not 'free action'.

[@RedWinePlease]

Meowmeow Did you CHOOSE to read, evaluate, and then to reply to my post? What faculty did you rely upon to choose these actions in that specific order? Why didn't you choose to ignore my post? Was it predetermined or the result of a free, unhibited, undirected agency, your free will? You can't prove one or the other is true.

[@mouwersor]

Determinism, thus no free will. I did choose to do that, and that choice was already predetermined because that's how the universe works, cause and effect. The only way out of that if you want to stay scientific is claim that some quantum events appear to happen randomly but 1. the macro-events still all look pretty deterministic, 2. you can't know if it's truly random because we don't understand everything about it yet and 3. if it is random then your choices are determined by random events, still not free. If you want to be unscientific and claim there is a soul/spirit outside of this world of cause and effects you'd have to prove that first (and it still would be weird because that soul does interact with and is affected by this world so you could also just see it as an extension of this deterministic world).

[@RedWinePlease]

Meowmeow You went down the rabbit hole. Maybe your entire paragraph was predetermined. My point is one can't prove something is predetermined or not. Since any attempt to prove it wasn't predetermined requires one to assume that the their thoughts and words, such as your post, were not predetermined. Hence, it's an axiom.

[@mouwersor]

I really do not get your point. My viewpoint is: world is prolly deterministic -> depending on your definitions there is no free will. You don't need to be able to prove wether a specific event was predetermined or not because the laws of nature which we consistently see all around us and haven't been disproven say they must (cause and effect, conservation of energy). Could you explain your viewpoint and the problems you have with mine a bit more?

[@Raging_Granny_Gamer]

He says that we are free because we cannot predict precisely our actions. This is bull dodo. Our scientific ignorance of all of the variables/causes that cause us to act as we do does not give us free will. We are never free from the causal laws of physics, never. The laws of physics apply to all matter of the universe. Humans are pieces of matter. Therefore all of the actions of humans are subject to the laws of physics. Quantum randomness does not give one free will. Random events are not free they are random.

[@VYDZ]

I like Carroll's take: " Does baseball exist? It’s nowhere to be found in the Standard Model of particle physics. But any definition of “exist” that can’t find room for baseball seems overly narrow to me. It’s true that we could take any particular example of a baseball game and choose to describe it by listing the exact quantum state of each elementary particle contained in the players and the bat and ball and the field etc. But why in the world would anyone think that is a good idea? The concept of baseball is emergent rather than fundamental, but it’s no less real for all of that."

[@Raging_Granny_Gamer]

@@VYDZ if we are discussing what objectively exists we must apply physics. If we are merely talking about practical subjective truths then we can agree to limit our discussion to baseball. When people apply physics to free will... They are seeking an objective truth. Yes, subjectively and practically it may be helpful to discuss choosing and choices.... But if one wants to know what actually objectively is the truth we must refer to physics not practical definitions

[@VYDZ]

@@Raging_Granny_Gamer This is a resolutely practical question - who gets thrown in jail? Criminal law has the concept of mens rea, guilty mind. We don’t find people guilty of crimes simply because they committed them; they had to be responsible, in the sense that they had the mental capacity to have known better. In other words: we have a model of human beings as rational agents, able to gather and process information, understand consequences, and make decisions. When they make the wrong ones, they deserve to be punished. People who are incapable of this kind of rationality - young children, the mentally ill - are not held responsible in the same way. Scientists slowly break down the illusions created by our biased human perception, revealing what the universe might actually look like. In an incremental progress, each study adds a tiny bit of insight to our understanding. But while the magic of science should make our eyes twinkle with excitement, we can still argue that the findings from every scientific experiment ever conducted are wrong, almost by necessity. They are just a bit more right (hopefully) than preceding studies.

[@Raging_Granny_Gamer]

@@VYDZ Practical does not mean true. When I walk down the street it may be useful to think of the ground as not moving.. in terms of truth.. that assumption is false. We know that the earth is actually spinning... but for all practical purposes it seems to be still. In the case of criminals and free will... the people that rob banks etc.. are not truly responsible. They could not have done otherwise... It's like a rabid dog who bites people... it's not the dogs fault BUT we will still take the dog to the dog pound. We can have consequences for behavior that is anti-social or criminal... we can put people in jail not for punishment but for the greater good of society... Criminals aren't responsible for their actions.. but we can uphold consequences for behavior.

[@VYDZ]

@@vids595 simple question: if I don't have free will, then I carefully consider all the arguments for and against free will, researching every study and philosophical paper ever written on the topic, is it possible for me to come to a conclusion other than the one I'm predestined to arrive at? If not, why bother? If so, does that disprove the presumption that I don't have free will? If I take the "no free will" side of a debate and win, and everyone agrees with me, did I lose?

[@tommore3263]

This is so disappointing. Gheesh! I'm 52 seconds in and he's already confused our freedom of will, ..how we choose to direct our lives with our ability to actually act out or even fully articulate these choices. Aristotle where are you? I have no quarrel at all with evolutionary psychology as a legitimate science and our biological natures .. as far as that goes... but... it is painfully obvious in experience and logically that our free wills.. which everyone on earth knows we have .. cannot be reduced to matter using either quantum probabilities or more classical Newtonian principles. As professor Ed Feser and others show with their analysis of change.. something all of us experience inescapably, the metaphysical principles of existence and change again, unavoidably arrive at a ground of existence.. Aristotle's "Final Cause", the Unmoved Mover necessary to explain the fact of our existence, and such a final cause cannot possibly be finite or limited. An active power that is not reducible to matter or physics .. is what the word "spiritual" means as we abstract essence from our sense based experience. I could go further and show how only this non material or spiritual view can explain a cosmos like ours that forms bodies like ours out of strardust, and how the universal drive toward 'person' is best explicable by PERSON.. or even a community of Persons causing a community of Persons.. or Trinity, but I will indicate some of the evidence better explicated by philosophers like Ed Feser , or physicist Stephen M Barr . You can imagine a triangle. Literally draw up a figure, color it.. change the angles.. etc. This uses our faculty of imagination... our ability to take sense memories and somehow.. freely play with them. So when I ask you to imagine a blue triangle I am asking you to largely do something reducible to the physical. However .. If I ask you to define triangularity... .I am now calling upon your intellectual power to abstract. or take from literally the physical the essence,, the identity of all trinangles and it is fully determinate in a way no triangle can be. The mind does non material things like working with logic and number. How much does number 17 weigh? What color is an "irrational" number and how are they even possible? Pinker is a very good scientist and I pay quite a bit of attention to his science, but as Albert Einstein warned of phsyicists as they age, they start to see themselves as "metaphysicists".... and like Richard Dawkins or Stephen Hawkings , they are usually not good at it at all. What the good professor is doing here is just pushing a frankly naive 17th century materialism. And materialism is incoherent. It requires free will to freely judge if you have free will . So Check out Professor Ed Feser's site on free will , or the existence of God if you like , and see what cold hard reason has to say on these things based upon the universal nature of change, the actualizations of potentials towards ends. Cheers.

[@tommore3263]

Incidentally, even Oxford's brilliant physicist mathematician Roger Penrose has acknowledged that physics as it is known and understood , is incapable of explaining anything to do with human understanding, but can only run through algorithms like a computer or toaster.. which are of equal "intelligence". The non material nature of some intellectual objects is obvious.

[@freandwhickquest]

Sir! 17th century was not materialist! Atheism had even been considered a crime in britain until 1690s. In 18th century, so many philosophers were fired from universities for not believing in god. At the onset of 19th century vast majority of scientists, as well as general european population, used to be christians. Materialism started to become mainstream among high academics between 1830s and 1860s. In in early 1900s so many philosophers denied evolution. According to philpapers survey, only 14.6% of the current professional philosophers consider themselves as theists and also vast majority of modern philosophers of mind consider themselves as phsyicalists. So please don't mispresent the past and modern consensus in philosophy.

[@freandwhickquest]

@@tommore3263 Sir! 17th century was not materialist! Atheism had even been considered a crime in britain until 1690s. In 18th century, so many philosophers were fired from universities for not believing in god. At the onset of 19th century vast majority of scientists, as well as general european population, used to be christians. Materialism started to become mainstream among high academics between 1830s and 1860s. In in early 1900s so many philosophers denied evolution. According to philpapers survey, only 14.6% of the current professional philosophers consider themselves as theists and also vast majority of modern philosophers of mind consider themselves as phsyicalists. So please don't mispresent the past and modern consensus in philosophy.

[@djacob7]

Steven, you can't have it both ways. If we don't have free will, how are we responsible for our actions? Total waste of time!

[@MrAndrew535]

This man's cadence, absence of complexity and condescending tone sounds more like he is grooming a child than offering anything remotely resembling well-considered insight into the "human" "mind". I don't blame Pinker for his intellectual underdevelopment as he is very much a creature of his era. I do, however, blame those who help perpetuate this hero worship social climate in which those like he and his peers are mistakenly accepted as authorities on such subject matter as this. The first questions to be addressed in the humanities and to this day remains unresolved, is what constitutes an authentic human as well as authentic mind, and consciousness. Without answering this, all questions of human consciousness are without meaning.

[@Inverified]

You would think the "authenticity" (whatever that means, but lets grant there's an explicit definition) would be one of the least important questions to answer about consciousness. Consciousness, apart from all its subjective implications, is an information processing architecture; questions about how it functions in this capacity are very useful and very important, totally independent of subjective meaning.

[@MrAndrew535]

Inverified. I am guessing what you actually meant by your username is "unverified". But that aside, not only is your response breathtakingly devoid of anything remotely resembling originality but is also extremely poor in its lack of curiosity. The standards of both consciousness and authenticity are clearly beyond your grasp as curiosity is one of the defining features of both. Anyone can read and regurgitate but clearly, not everyone has the capacity for originality and if such are the standards of universal consciousness, mind and intelligence, equating to the authenticity I referred to, then you are fucked. Granted, with any qualifications you may have been awarded for jumping through hoops and as a result rise a little above the minimum wage, in reality, you will actually (in the strictest definition) know nothing. This is what your teachers ought to have told you but, as the saying goes " those who can, do, and those who cannot, teach". So in effect, you were educated by those who cannot. So your woeful inability to make a meaningful contribution to this thread is to be expected. But you went ahead anyway, thinking it would be a really, really good idea.

[@Inverified]

I mean “inverified”. It intentionally sounds like a word but isn’t. The traditional considerations toward consciousness are that of free will, spirituality, god, and “self”, among other more grandiose applications, not its function (emergent or otherwise) as an information processing unit. So, if I am to be accused of towing the line of unoriginal thought, then it is an esoteric school of thought to which I subscribe, and it seems strange to label this extreme minority perspective as blind adherence to academic authority. Indeed, I’d say anyone who approaches consciousness from more grandiose, dare I say, mystical notions, are the ones most suspect of vomiting unoriginal thought. I think positions like mine (thus far anyway), which are more pragmatic, albeit pedestrian, forays into the role of consciousness, can be accused of being human-centric and maybe short-sighted, but these curiosities can exist in parallel with more ambitious attentions. My position, to the extent that you know it, is merely to say that trying to understand consciousness need not have a prerequisite of “authenticity”. For instance, I may want to know how to computer code works without understanding the nuance of transistors. Your claim that knowing the “authentic” nuance must first be approached before considering these topics is a much stronger attack on curiosity than my position. Additionally, your hostility to these earth-bound approaches to consciousness suggests that you have a view on it, and that these approaches encroach upon your view. Might it be that this “view”, whatever it may be, is without sufficient evidence to be able to claim that other approaches are useless?

[@MrAndrew535]

My hostility (as you call it) has in most part, direct towards tradition and institutionalized ways of thinking and the peer pressure which perpetuates the hero worship of, I say again, so-called authorities on subjects for which there is a complete absence of definitions and is the content of this video. Authenticity can be claimed, as I have maintained for many years by the absence of individual components which are clearly not authentic, ie, such as artificial laughter ( in fact, real laughter is uncomfortably rare) in social settings and the kinds of smiles employed to put people at ease, and indeed, the term personality itself is by its very definition, artificial as in, not an authentic face. It is in such an artificial social environment that hero worship gains such an all-pervasive and persistent purchase within social and academic institutions, defended as they consistently are by those who have an emotional investment in them and the solace of familiarity and predictability they provide. There is absolutely no excuse for neither a lack of curiosity nor originality and certainly no excuse for not challenging the dogma upon which you seem readily open to suckle. 99.x% of the global adult population who claim to be educated is absolutely disingenuous when claiming to be curious about the "world" they inhabit. I have yet to encounter anyone who furnishes a career out of pure, authentic and consistent curiosity. If my criticism was slightly in error then an education system based on the original 3R's would have been obsolete long ago, along with competition and perverted understandings of "survival of the fittest". You must recognize that you replied (unsolicited) to my original post which has enormous context behind it and of which you demonstrated no interest. I evaluated you accordingly which you have struggled to change.

[@Inverified]

Curiosity itself is inexorably attached to our apeish pursuits of status, resources, and sex. Your definition of being authentic appears to be “not human”. On the surface it would be nice if the pursuit of truth existed independent of the corruption of social and institutional pressures, but then there’d be no truth to be had. The fact that new ideas must be negotiated within the artificial, and “fake” institutions that humans have constructed will remain to be as inevitable as breathing (Ideas that give a competitive advantage obviously are not held to such shackles). Whatever alternative you muster will simply adhere to another set of rules, but a set of rules nonetheless. I think perhaps, what you are actually taking issue with is this need to appeal to the dumb “voting class” (or “normies”). I think, to continue my digression, this is a symptom of the following: Groups have power; only people dumb enough to think their allegiance or tribute to a group will benefit them will produce groups; therefore, the only way to court power is to court dumb people and curate one’s messages to normies accordingly. So pervasive is the above syllogism that it underlies almost every word spoken that seeks to change minds. But yes at least, in the above video, Pinker said absolutely nothing thought provoking or even meaningful. I don’t think that his tone of voice or “artificial” social signals would exclude him from saying something provoking though. I think he’s capable of much deeper insights, but the situation in which he’s in does not demand such.