The Mystery of Free Will: Donald Hoffman

[@renatoalcides5104]

at 10:48 "I am probably wrong but at least I am precise... we can play with this and see where it leads us" , this is the mark that distinguishes an honest and sharp thinker such as Donald Hoffman

[@ogayatridevi1215]

This is what Indian philosophy teaches.karma yoga

[@jacek_poplawski]

The more I learn about DH the more I enjoy this view

[@DarioHaruni]

My God, as a Muslim I always thought about the paradox between predestination and free will, and I developed in my mind this model that is away from theological dogma, and it fits exactly with what Hoffman is explaining. I'm so happy I have a fulfilling answer to that question.

[@fenthedog]

so you are no longer a muslim then?

[@DarioHaruni]

@@fenthedog No I am exactly a Muslim.

[@robertjsmith]

@@DarioHaruni how are you judged if you have no free will ?

[@playerone3018]

It might be in this case that truth is transmitted not through belief but through self-enquiry? One may be able to drop all the other stuff sold/given/conditioned that one has acquired for this new teacher (truth). In this case, all dogma (religious or otherwise) would have to be emptied to taste the tea of this new teacher. This may be where one learns about attachment.

[@rfrantzt]

muslims always think their religion “fits exactly” with whatever good idea they come across.

[@somewherenorthofstarbase7056]

"Assuming causality and chance is just as much a miracle as assuming free will." Donald Hoffman. 🔥

[@carmellacandy509]

I just read an article written by a brain surgeon who states that free will does not come from the brain. In a nutshell, during his countless surgeries he could often make people do things when touching certain areas of the brain. However, his patients always knew when it was he and not the patient themself causing the reaction.

[@DJ-GASM]

Cite source?

[@marcosbatista1029]

@@DJ-GASM DR sam parnia

[@jimmuncy5636]

We are not morally responsible for our actions, but we are legally responsible, if we want to live in a decent society, because to live together, we need laws and to have those laws enforced. He's wrong in his ultimate conclusions. Cf. Quora on free will for better answers.

[@purpose6113]

Damn, that's wild...

[@MichaelDamianPHD]

@@jimmuncy5636 Yes we are morally responsible for our actions.

[@salmanel-farsi3744]

One of the most humble and aritculate scientists with a theory that has many implications and practical applications in our daily lives. His model I believe can explain or is at least consistent with Buddha's aim of breaking away from karmic cycles to how our thoughts shape out destinies. I use the plural form because the model to a certain degree implies a non-physical world of concious agents and who it so say that the agents cannot live on after the physical body ceases to function.

[@mrnoone3922]

The observer is the observed. The thinker is the thought. J Krishnamurti. 🙏😊

[@jeremygreer4039]

The commentor is the content creator.

[@mrnoone3922]

@@jeremygreer4039 👍🏼😊

[@moonwolf790]

Science has its place but l find wisdom more important than knowledge to live in this world.

[@carlhammill5774]

This falls in line with what many NDEs have been saying for while - that we recreate our own reality every second.

[@Ahldor]

@jonesman What is energy?

[@christopherchilton-smith6482]

Can't wait to hear Sam Harris interview this guy, these are the types of conversations i live for.

[@travislawrencemusic]

Me too!

[@travislawrencemusic]

Just got Hoffman's book in the mail today. Can't wait to see if I can find the holes in his theorem or if he can convince me beyond my favorable opinion of his videos so far. I'm not happy that Deepak Chopra offers the 1st praise on the back cover though...😞

[@christopherchilton-smith6482]

@@travislawrencemusic Gotta judge ideas based on their own merits and not who supports them but yeah, i feel you there.

[@travislawrencemusic]

@@christopherchilton-smith6482 agreed!

[@raz0rcarich99]

@@travislawrencemusic All this hate against Deepak Chopra is really born out of physicalist dogma, so I don't really see the problem there.

[@johnbrowne8744]

Very good. Its straight forward. The "consciousness only" model of reality requires "freewill" to work. No freewill.....no consciousness(self awareness). Even if what we percieve is a mirage in a house of mirrors, you choose. Consciousness must choose, right or wrong, good or bad, correct or incorrect. It doesn't matter to consciousness. Choosing matters to consciousness. Not control. Choosing. That's how consciousness explores itself. That's why you're here. That's why you chose to have this brief human experience. After this? Your freewill increases infinitely. Be kind. Have fun.😊

[@johnbrowne8744]

@@mattbabb. Not my experience. Consciousness itself requires the option to choose, right or wrong, good or bad, correct or incorrect, remember or not. Regarding automatic things, so called "unconscious" things, these too occur IN consciousness. Donald agrees and teaches this phenomena of consciousness. Memory is not consciousness. Many confuse the two. You forget most things you do but remain conscious. Like your breakfast last Tuesday, most of your dreams, and yes music popping into your head from nowhere. 😊

[@and4all706]

John Browne You have no idea why we are here! That conclusion you came to is from reading and spreading nonsense that you haven't vetted.

[@fenthedog]

Like Feynman said said, “If you think you understand quantum mechanics, you don't understand quantum mechanics.” You obviously don't understand this argument.

[@alexgoslar4057]

Thank you Donald for opening up thinking that is helpful in understanding our perseption.

[@feelingbetternaturally1099]

When we use our free will to free our minds, we will be free.

[@claudelebel49]

To truly have free will you would have to exist as a separate entity and you don't. We are riding on an ocean of Being out of which everything arises and to which everything is connected.

[@bundleofperceptions1397]

You are full of shit.

[@egodust11]

Yes. Reality 101.

[@xander1756]

The fact there's brain activity 7 seconds before conscious awareness of making a decision doesn't have to mean there is no free will. It can also mean a person lacks enough self awareness to consciously observe the thinking processes occuring at that time that is the beginning of decision making.

[@888sk8er888]

If I cant choose which thought that will pop up in consciousness, how can I believe that I choose anything

[@xander1756]

@@888sk8er888 "If I can't choose which thought that will pop up in consciousness" If that were the case, you still have free will to choose to act on that thought or not; thus 'free will' still exists, regardless of how deep a person can or can't see into their subconscious where thought processing is theorized to occur. "how can I believe that I chose anything." Believing is easy to do. Take any phenomena and assign a truth label to the conclusions of the phenomena you align yourself with. For the act of believing is to assign the value of 'truth' to a matter without having any verifiable proof it is true. I.E., belief is accepting something is true without verifiable evidence. The current knowledge is no one can see how a thought is constructed within the human being. They have a machine that shows there's brain activity 7 seconds before conscious awareness of a thought, but they have no understanding of what that activity is or what is being constructed. Folks generally reside in two camps: Free will exists or it doesn't. And they can only believe at the moment because mankind hasn't yet devised a means to see thoughts being constructed, though I think everyone agrees the individual is the one creating those thoughts. (putting aside Nondualists who don't even believe an individual exists, and some other religious\spiritual folks like that) I have no idea why folks choose to believe or not in free will. What I found is imporant to me is the ability to control myself, to develop self mastery. I have no need to see my thoughts being initially created, for I regard free will as the ability to choose what I'll do with the thoughts I have. I regard free will as... "The last of the human freedoms - to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one's own way." - Viktor E. Frankl "Every human has four endowments - self awareness, conscience, independent will and creative imagination. These give us the ultimate human freedom - the power to choose, to respond, to change." - Stephen R. Covey "Our ultimate freedom is the right and power to decide how anybody or anything outside ourselves will affect us." - Stephen R. Covey If a researcher\philosopher wants to declare that's not free will, I have no need or desire to dispute what they think. My self mastery has developed to a high degree, thus I'm content with my definition of free will. EG: If a researcher\philosopher says there is no free will because we automatically get upset when insulted. I'll then share with this researcher that I'm no longer offended when insulted. I have mastered or developed my free will to include chooing to remain calm or joyful when insulted, and to have genuine compassion for the insulter instead of anger or hate\dislike. None of my business if a researcher\philosopher still claims there in no free will occurring in that situation. I used to instantly become offended when insulted. Bat as I continued my Know Thyself journey, I began to understand my self more and of human nature, of the seemingly instinctual and of course, uncontrollable responses we humans have to situations; that we instantly react to certain stimuli. My attitude has developed, thus I freely choose to remain calm or joyful when insulted. Sam Harris, the main person I know of that's convinced free will doesn't exist. He would find it impossible to convince me of his belief.

[@and4all706]

Xander17 You just said you have the ability to control yourself. Who thought the though that has to be controlled by you in the first place? If it was truly your thought, you would have no reason to create a thought you then have to control so you don't act on it. Who would do that to themselves? Almost every comment here eludes to the fact that we often have no idea where our own thoughts are coming from. It is almost like two entities in one body. So when you are able to control this thought after you have it, you seem to have the final authority. What if that changes and you get overruled? Ever think you are going to go straight home from work and end up stopping at the store? Who had that thought? Who popped that idea in the middle of your thought to go home? If you stopped at the store when you wanted to go home, you no longer have the final authority. Seven seconds, ten seconds, a minute..... Who cares how long it took for that thought to get there? Bottom line is you didn't want the thought or to go to the store, so why did you create that thought? I'm not trying to argue. It's just really hard to explain in writing. The written word doesn't cut it.

[@xander1756]

@@and4all706 Q1. My current judgement is if the thought is in my head, it is I that thought it. The issue about free will is the freedom to consciously think things through and consciously construct a conclusion, then a decision, then an action. While it's true I lack the self awarness to see many thoughts in their initial creation within me, I retain free will on what I wil do with that thought once I become aware of it. It is proposed that the bulk of our thinking is done in the subconscious, thus logically, we humans are unaware of what's occurring in there, but a devlopment of self awarness creates the ability to venture further into that arbitrary region, thus self control is increased. I don't know how many of my thoughts are created because I can't see 100% in to that regoin of my mind, but through experience I know that the power level of my free will is proprotional to the level of self awareness I have. So to me it's not about is there free will or not, but how much in control of myself am I. How much am I operating consciously as opposed to being on autopilot. Q2. I know a lot about my self, but I also know I don't know everything. But what I do know about the issue of free will is, it exists, and the issue is how much in control are we of ourselves. Just because I can't see the birth of a thought, is not proof free will doesn't exist, it simply means I lack the self awareness to see this birth. If free will is the ability to cconsciously choose one's actions, not knowing exactly how I generated a thught doesn't affect my ability to freely choose what to do with it. "It is almost like two entites in one body." It may look like that, but from my experiences over the decades as I delved in to know myself more, the parts of myself thay I lacked control over were not from not having free will, but from a lack of self knowledge. The simple example of asking someone why they're upset. An incident triggered an emotional response, with accompanying negative thoughts of the situation. I ask, why are you upset? Some folks may answer they don't know. They say this because as they scan themselves they cannot find any info to explain why they're upset. But, as I experienced over years, if you continue to look, if you willfully choose to return to a calm state and explore yourself, the potential exists that you'll eventually see why you chose to become upset, and in doing so, you've just learned more about how you function, of the inner workings usually hidden from superficial day to day levels of consciousness, and you can then consciously reprogram your responses so that type of incident will no longer upset you. Q3. Any overruling is self done, you just haven't seen the thinking going on in your subconscious that was occurring. Q4-5. The self had the thought, one just wasn't aware it occurred because it may have occurred in the subconscious, or as is often the case in busy modern lifestyles wrought with daily stresses, the thought to go to the store was inthe consciousness, but was quickly overlooked because the mind is overloaded with thoughts of all manner of issues. The issue is self awareness. The increase in self awareness increases the knowledge of oneself - the mechanisms that drive our behavior, be they emotions or thoughts. Q6. The self did. One may have consciously decided to go stright home, but subconsciously the mind is operating and considering this decision and may then send a message to the conscious part, to stop off at the store. I imagine one must know why one wants or needs to stop there. "If you stopped at the store when you wanted to go home, you no longer have the final authority." Only if you believe a thought you have is not yours. If you believe all your thought are your creation, then you are always the fianl authority. The problem is when we do things we don't want to. But this doesn't proof no free will. It does suggest a lack of self awareness of the underlying thinking and feeling mechanisms the produce the thought to go to the store. And if you can't see thse underlying mechanisms, you can conclude the thought wasn't produced by you. True it wasn't a conscious thought. It was a subconscious thought. But a subconscious thought is still one's thought. "Bottom line is you didn't want the thought or to go to the store, . . ." I think along the lines of, you weren't aware you formulated a reason to go to the store. And I don't understand the scenario; are you saying this person had a contradictory thought to go to the store, and once they got there they had no idea what they wanted there? I have never encountered this. I've always experienced it a such - that I may have decided to go straight home, but then a thought would arise to stop off at the store first, but this thought was accompanied by a reason to go there. For if there was no justifiable reason, I would ignor the thought and go straight home. The only thing I can think of choosing to go somewhere without understanding why suggests a really low level of self awareness.

[@and4all706]

Xander17 Thank you! That was a really nice response. I think it was in Q2 that I finally understood. When you talked about someone not knowing why they were upset and if they continued to look and be honesty, they could get to the bottom of what was making them upset and learn more about one aspect of themselves that had been unknown. I was being a little sarcastic and naive with my first comment, but I learned something. I will have to go read more about free will, but I think once we understand how much of our thinking is done by our subconscious mind, it becomes like a big puzzle. Like the Creator has a sense of humor and just made the game harder. Now how do I solve this one?..... If you had had some arrogant response like many would have given me, you would have not stimulated my thought and I might have lost my desire to ever learn about this. Thank you again.

[@smashhimmungo5798]

WHAT HE SAID AT 6.34 JUST BLEW MY MIND !! WOW !!!

[@travislawrencemusic]

As a fiction writer, I've coined the phrase "polysolipsism" to describe the structure of the world of one of my stories, and I've loosely believed that it may not be a fiction in our world as well. In an infinite universe, we each could have our own private universe while simultaneously participating in everyone else's own private universes.

[@TheSaffronasha]

Yes....Hugh Everett was veering in the right direction. Look up the Many Minds Interpretation. " The many-minds interpretation of quantum mechanics extends the many-worlds interpretation by proposing that the distinction between worlds should be made at the level of the mind of an individual observer"

[@travislawrencemusic]

@@TheSaffronasha: I'm familiar with that interpretation but not well-versed

[@n-xsta]

Oh 🤯

[@kdub9812]

I love that word Ima use that

[@cmvamerica9011]

I like his humbleness about his beliefs.

[@phildorge2052]

Ya as soon as things start to contradict each other, you're close to the truth. When you find yourself in a paradox, you have found it!

[@weareallinthis3668]

Lol, honestly 😭

[@alastairpaisley6668]

If you're dealing with probabilities (which Hoffman's framework is) , then you're dealing with chance. No amount of sophistry will change that.

[@michaeldavis6890]

Best argument that I have encountered, and i suspect I have looked at them all.

[@matthewmurdoch6932]

Let me throw this out as an agreeable starting point... Experience should be our starting point. Questions are not valid conclusions. Let us agree on these two points and then move forward in our investigations of reality, no?

[@miguelthealpaca8971]

Sometimes we need to conclude that there is a still a question. When people say that consciousness and free will are explained by neurons etc. we need to point out that their explanations don't cover everything (or even make sense, perhaps) and that there's still a question of how it works.

[@movme]

All that one can do is experience. Experience experience. To experience can be to question. And, as I have been saying for many years:.... + "Every answer generates new questions." + "Question everything, including the questions." That leaves us with an endless supply of questions. No question is a conclusion, but rather an opening/beginning because.... + Any question will always generate new questions. + A conclusion is a dead end unless it is questioned.

[@binali2775]

In the beginning I thought a human being has full free will. With my personal growth and time, it sounded untrue and felt silly and wrong so I thought we have mostly free will. But with time the amount of free will that I know or think we have shrinks and lately I’m starting to think that we have very little insignificant amount of free will or not at all.

[@suzanneyoung1729]

Hmmm...that needs long thought....

[@kephalopod3054]

Years of observation of people's behaviour leads me to believe that there is not much free will, if any.

[@goodwill-y3d]

Every one has as much free will as he has ethics norms. In case some one has no clue about ethics he is following his instincts as an animal does

[@michaeldavidson1909]

Omniscience is a real phenomenon. However, I don't think that in that state there can be a 'someone/personality'' there to ask any questions. The most important thing is always to figure out the right question. A scientist 100 years from now will hopefully have a wider field of view and will be 100 years more able/well equipped to ask the right/better question. It is also said, the answer is in the question.

[@engelbertus1406]

in defining “what is free” I like to state only anything that doesn’t refer to anything else to be true can be true and therefore free. Consciousness only refers to itself to exist, and hence, consciousness can only be observed with consciousness. This statement of course makes it hard to study consciousness or any decision making entity in a scientific way, for tho we see a choice being made, that choice is only present in relation to itself.

[@filmjazz]

I say this with the utmost humility, but I came up with my own “consciousness is fundamental via conscious agents” theory independently of Hoffman close to 15-20 years ago in the wake of a large number of carefully controlled experiments with ketamine. My theory is personal and involves no mathematics so I’m nobody and have nothing important to publish, but my insights are exactly the sort that would lead someone with Hoffman’s skills and training to develop this type of theory. When I listen to his lectures my reaction is “holy sh*t someone took the same idea and formalized it.” I “get it” on a very deep level and I’m thrilled that this man exists and is doing what he’s doing. The first question I would ask him is if he was inspired by psychedelics.

[@jonathanwoodvincent]

Thomas Metzinger was similarly influenced by ketamine. Perhaps you already know of his work

[@filmjazz]

jonathanwoodvincent I had not, but I will look him up!

[@niji_no_saki]

me too. I was astonished how this man can precisely articulate the idea formed in my head through reading about quantum physics and spiritual traditions from all around the world. Aside from his academic background, in another talk he said he meditates.

[@lorraine5800]

Same! Only I’ve never dabbled with psychedelics, I just think deeply about things a lot, which might mean nothing but then again it’s interesting to see the same ideas I “toy” with formalized like you said here.

[@gettoefl]

ask him, he is active on twitter

[@JJRed888]

Just because you can predict from the neural signals (in unconsciousness) what your conscious self will do, does not necessarily mean there is no free will. There is a lot of activity within the unconscious, including unconscious analysis and decision-making. The unconscious is as much a part of the self as the conscious. So we are still making choices (unconsciously).

[@fenthedog]

You haven't understood the argument mate

[@johnmartin2813]

Much of what we do is routine. But the important decisions are not. Those whose will is the most free are the teachers and the leaders. But even a follower and a student can choose not to follow and not to learn.

[@JJRed888]

@@fenthedog You probably do not understand the complex decisions that the unconscious makes. We are more than our currently conscious activities. Global Workspace Theory sheds some light on this.

[@fenthedog]

@@JJRed888 LMFAO

[@khaliffoster3777]

Before looking at the video, free will is consist of past consciousness that you learn and like it as experiences so it becomes a memory that you desire so it will activate the future 7 seconds later in the road, so when you choose that so it will activate in the brain so a signal which you will pick that or not pick that, so that means those 7 seconds is 14 second in a section of the total that is 7 second of the first section and 7 seconds of the second section so base on your desire or it will be only one 7 seconds alone that you prefer so that means 7 second is the true controller of you in future that you will pick that you will not alter, so since it is base on desire so that means free will is the desire to be altered in future. So an experience, so it is same as the above video that is a feedback from the primary starting decision which has a lower level of desire which is a hierarchy that builds up to a higher level of a decision of hierarchy, so same as a baby will desire to touch knife but an adult will not touch knife since it is sharp so it will not enter within a 7-second section of decision because it is negative, so the decision level change like a hierarchy in real life from baby to an adult.

[@santanukumaracharya3467]

If the key word is Mystery then I may claim to have taken in the purport of this wonderful talk as helpful to me in interpreting my experiences of a vey long life that I have already lived. Thank you.

[@rmcd823]

Dr. David Hoffman left a legacy in spirituality, including free will for superior frequencies.

[@marcosgalvao3182]

Its not a mystery , consciousness is the ultimate reality .

[@daithiocinnsealach1982]

It's your ultimate reality. It's all you know. You don't know what happens when you die and from for all you know your consciousness is an emergent property of your brain which ceases at death.

[@OneEmanation]

Far too cocky of an assertion to take seriously.

[@JesusChrist2000BC]

@@daithiocinnsealach1982 3rd party confirmed Reincarnation studies prove this is nonsense. Plenty of people's consciousness come back to this world. However you slice it it's a FACT and this happens. Mostly likely through Quantam Physics.

[@KingNast]

@@JesusChrist2000BC wtf are you even talking about.

[@robertjsmith]

you say consciousness i say awareness,somebody else says,experience, pantheists say God is everything

[@lajosbaranyi7333]

Free will is the understanding of necessity! Understanding is the non-algorithmic essence of reality, the substance not unlike energy.

[@timothylanders3189]

Ok, I love listening to Hoffman's clips. One thing I'd like explained by the smart. How can one tell their body part to heal & it obeys them? Tell a disease to go & it obeys them? When a learned individual can explain this phenomenon. Then, I'll take heed of that one that can offer up an answer. Was that crickets I hear in the background?....

[@AsgersWeb]

Just because we aren't responsible for our will doesn't mean we aren't responsible for our actions. "Man can choose to do as he wants but he cannot choose what he wants"

[@johnellis7614]

Our will is controlled by a conscience, which tells us when we are harming ourselves or harming others. And so, if our conviction is that we deserve more, we will always strive to take more even if it harms others. On the other hand, if our conviction is that we deserve less, that we will always give all we can give even if we get harmed in the process.

[@shermannegotiators586]

What if I believe we "deserve" the same?

[@svl-103]

Your choices in this life are a result of the intents of your last life. You have free will only when you. realise ‘who are you ?’ Once YOU are separate from this body and mind, then every choice is a free will

[@ACIMwithJodie]

Thank you for providing science to support what I have been learning in ACIM.

[@suzanneyoung1729]

Pls elaborate, thank you

[@theotormon]

At 13:00 he speaks of the darkness. Years ago, wishing to answer the question of free will for myself, I sat in a chair, closed my eyes, and stared hard into the darkness at the root of my thoughts. It was not calm meditation. It was a hard, intense fight, trying to wedge my awareness into the flickers that my thought originated from. After several minutes of this I had the sudden sensation of falling deep into myself. I fell through a tunnel into a world of angels and demons, and for a few minutes it was like I was really there. I am not saying it has no rational explanation, but it was not a dream.

[@samharper5881]

Try as you might, you have no way of knowing. You put in a new set of inputs; the outputs were different.

[@1Skeptik1]

My free will disappeared with one bite of wedding cake.

[@hershchat]

😂

[@RIMJANESSOHMALOOG]

that guy is making some very interesting research, he's bridging science and spirituality.

[@rmcd823]

I don't see how it's possible any link spirituality with classical physics. Eventually, Quantum Physics could do it.

[@RIMJANESSOHMALOOG]

@@rmcd823 true they won’t b linked as one science. But for people who can manage linking both, these talks make a lot of sense

[@RIMJANESSOHMALOOG]

@@rmcd823 physics is so slow as an epistemological tool

[@brud1729]

In other words, he's bridging science and hocus pocus. Don't see the purpose, but maybe that's just me.

[@RIMJANESSOHMALOOG]

@I dunno But Keep an open mind. Not everything that exist can be tested or measured. Some of these need thought experiments to make progress towards their truths.

[@Achrononmaster]

(1) Hoffman is nuts on the "evolution cannot lead to truth perception" crap (his models take too many false assumptions and ignore subtleties about how we evolve), BUT (2) this is by far the best talk by a leading scientist on free will that I've seen so far. A consciousness-primacy view is in fact compatible with objective physical reality, and his vague hierarchy diagram shows this! But the degrees of consciousness it implies is not the correct interpretation. Rocks just aren't conscious --- it is a total distortion of the meaning of the word to say so, and leads to vacuous panpsychism. If everything is consciousness we have not explained one single thing about consciousness. So the way to interpret the hierarchy is as a set of levels of something (for now undefined) like "spirit". It is a "degree of" or "grades of spirit" picture. Elementary interactions in physical spacetime are like the most primitive grades of spirit, which we study through objective science, and we've been quite successful uncovering a lot of this grade of spirit, so much so we baulk at labelling it "spiritual" since it is so simplistic we prefer to think of it as banal and mindless. Well it is! And so higher degrees of spirit cannot emerge without causal efficacy at a higher level. I will not expand much on this in a KZbin Comment, but there is a way to show how causal efficacy can emerge for macroscopic objects composed of the "mindless" physical substrates, and that's via Planck scale closed time-like curves. The macroscopic future can effect the microscopic past. Note that this does not "explain" human conscious at all, all we get out of such atemporal dynamics is an escape from physical determinism into free will possibility. How exactly our free will/consciousness gains conscious control over matter is still a mystery, and probably has to involve thinking about how irreducible uncertainty propagates, which has something to do with the spacetime boundary, since it (uncertainty) as a resource for a free will cannot come from anywhere else, it has to come from outside spacetime, and can only thus be a resource of creatures within spacetime if it originates at the boundaries (at singularities and infinite horizons).

[@flux9433]

(1)-What if the awereness we have today wasnt the same in the future what if evolution progress might be needed to force stop in the near future because of the ways it continues!?in order to save the mind?

[@ubivermiscerritulus195]

You're getting warmer. Be not afraid all will be revealed to those with eyes to see and ears to hear.

[@Cheesesteakfreak]

Funny trick, opt out of the conversation and just assert you're right. (Slow clap) Have fun teaching Jesus to five year olds and uneducated people.

[@nolliemccain6642]

Man has the ability to choose or make choices, we always have, I believe that’s why the knowledge of good & evil had to be a part of our existence and experience, even if we choose not to choose it’s still a choice....such is the human realm perfectly imperfect ☺️

[@smartcatcollarproject5699]

Some people don't have the good grace to know what is right and what is wrong... and others are plain evil, malefic. In fact, those strategies can be more efficient, if they are smart enough to remain covert ! Search for the dark triad, psychopaths, narcissists, machiaviellians... they are everywhere, at the top of the ladder ! Is it a choice ? For many of them, it is, clearly ! Also many people are directed by their unconscious, and it rules a good part of everyone's lives anyway. Consider yourself lucky to have this light, although good people often suffer the most, being victims of the bad grain... you need to be strong.

[@theuniques1199]

If you had free will you wouldn't need the concept of evil and good at the same time, the illusion of free will creates the energy of our determined universe which is a set of finite time, the universe can never change or it wouldn't be real for itself. By believing we can observe ourselves we can create the energy of memory which allows us to recreate the illusion of free will. The point of existence is to infinitely exist as is, the point of obseving is to believe you exist which allows you to recreate yourself as the energy of memory. No energy without the illusion of duality and no universe without the reality of non duality, time is an illusion of change(duality) and space is the illusion of a static universe(non duality), every point in the universe is the same point of one infinite point of energy.

[@SimplifiedTruth]

@@theuniques1199 So am I determined to disagree with you?

[@nolliemccain6642]

Smart Cat Collar Project 🙏❤️

[@nolliemccain6642]

lizzyann 76 Awesome...

[@mikeharper3784]

We have all been given the same human bodies and brains and use them in the way our consciousness wants to and chooses to, experience the adventure here in the material world in the material universe, all with a non-material consciousness. And free will is equivalent to a couple choosing the movie to watch and why we always end up watching the Hallmark Channel, because we have the free will to always let our wives and girlfriends choose the movie. That’s both free will AND the secret to a long and happy relationship. 🖖

[@peteryip947]

In order to investigate the subject of free will, we shall compare ourselves as physical human beings to other living species, an animal, an insect or a tree. What are the features that we share with them and what differs us from them, by asking these questions, we have been, are and will continue to able to revolutionize our view on consciousness, philosophy and etc. never try to peak the truth through only one hole, because it is destined to fail.

[@binali2775]

Short condensed answer; we are consciousness and consciousness is God.

[@kirstinstrand6292]

Much too tidy!

[@daithiocinnsealach1982]

No way to ever prove this. It's just a hypothesis, and Hoffman admits he's probably wrong, but wants to see where it will take him. Perhaps he's just being humble for the sake of his colleagues who don't take him seriously, but he admits we are in darkness on every side. It's comforting to think we are God or from God, and claim this or that experience as evidence, but this is very poor evidence indeed. Taking as a whole it's clear that humans don't have any real idea about our metaphysical origins. It's just too far beyond our limited scope. That's a scary thought for many though. More comforting to imagine a universe infused with special meaning for me...

[@ianclarke3627]

@@daithiocinnsealach1982 well put

[@mrroberts9230]

Another thing is everyone uses the word God to mean something different. Why should it be comforting to think we are God? Only thing I can think of is that you don’t mean the same thing as I do when you use the word. Some people use it to mean “old man in the clouds with beard” and they seriously believe anyone would ever argue against that not existing? Obvious conclusion. Not sure why they might suspect the other person means something different.

[@JesusChrist2000BC]

@@daithiocinnsealach1982 Every single comment you've left has been super materialist and you refuse to acknowledge any evidence that you are wrong.

[@judyhart7628]

Awesome work. Absolutely credible critical thought brought forth. Thank you [all] for your research and and it's presentation here. You guys rock!

[@baguire1311]

" either our will are determined and we are not responsible for them " but who are we here ???

[@rituaals9344]

I started thinking about observer effect today, I thought that space, stars and even the universe do not actually exist If we don’t look at it. There is only a sea of possibilities and probabilities Where everything and nothing exists at the same time

[@_Allen_Holmes_]

Sent me down a huge rabbit hole today, look into the double slit experiment and the affect that observation has on its outcome

[@carollambert6369]

We are each given a number of choices and we make decisions based on those numbers, but because we don’t have an an unlimited number of choices , our will is not unconditionally FREE . What as LOVE got to do with it ??

[@sngscratcher]

"Free will" is the engine that drives the evolution of consciousness. Free will creates "conscious mutation events" that are different from ordinary instinctual "choices." As consciousness recognizes and embraces novel choices, it evolves in complexity. Without free will, consciousness cannot evolve.

[@alanross2243]

Open-minded Skeptic not sure I agree. I assume you are referring to “enlightened” FW choices leading to that evolution. Unfortunately that does not prove free will. How do you know they were really free will. Just because you think there “wholesome”. Our bodies have evolved for millions of years. To the “positive”. Is that free will. I don’t think it proves anything.

[@tajzikria5307]

Actually the opposite.

[@jeronimobeta]

Nietzsche predicted this kind of thinking. Amazing how powerful a philosopher he is!

[@arpitthakur45]

can you explain me how and where? i want to know...

[@arpitthakur45]

and i dont think nietzsche himself believed in free will...he says it doesn't exist

[@jeronimobeta]

@@arpitthakur45 hello, yes. I’m sorry I was lazy with my comment. I don’t recall what part of the video triggered me to say that. I agree with you, Nietzsche did not believe in free will hence the theory of eternal return. I guess, maybe, I was thinking about the postmodernist thinking and my comment was meant as a critique for the video.

[@Dialogos1989]

Nietzche stole it from Schopenhauer

[@arpitthakur45]

@@Dialogos1989 what steal man...people can have similar ideas...

[@stephenkerensky710]

If there was no free will, no-one would ever be able to give up tobacco, alcohol, drugs or salty/ sugary foods. The trouble with experiments is they only offer choices that don`t engage with real existential need.

[@ricliu4538]

Incorrect. That's exactly why they give us those things... because we would choose those things automatically.

[@JanSandahl]

Donald Hoffman, Bernardo Kastrup & Tom Campbell.

[@whitleyblaine4017]

Yes!!! you've found the trio lol. well, i'm new to hoffman. but isn't the internet amazing, how we all find these ideas together?

[@JanSandahl]

@@whitleyblaine4017 Following the trails, like detectives. :) There are more I think, but these are the first ones that comes to mind as they all have a consciousness based view. A nice triad indeed.

[@whitleyblaine4017]

@Ruby Badilla did you write this out just for us?

[@janhradecky3141]

Never heard of Kastrup and Campbell, I'll check them out 🙂

[@nathaniel4969]

I'd LOVE to see those three together in the same room and discuss.

[@sajanlucian]

The real question is not if there is free will or not. But Who actually has free will? There is no free will for a separate entity, for an individual me. But there is total free will for Conciousness itself. Which is actually what we are. The separate me is itself mistaken identity. Free will feels like something primal to us. It feels true. Like the feeling of freedom, of happiness. You can't deny that, it doesn't make sense. It is true, but it is actually the flavour of Conciousness, not a posesion or quality of an individual. In thoughts, as we represent ourselves as separate entities, althought the feeling of freedom is there (from Conciousness itself) the sense of limitation, of the lack of free will is also there. The separate 'me' idea gives that lack effect. For this idea, there is no free will, just imagined will. But because the separate self is not actually there, it can't have or not have free will. When it is belived, all this unending and ultimately not solvable quest is there. And all conclusions are irrelevenant in the end, because they stand on false (apparent) ground. When explored succesfully, the ground is revealed to be just Conciousness - simple, empty, independent of thought. (Rupert Spira has some very beautiful explorations on this subject) While I was watching, it became so clear it boils down to identity in the end. Solve your identity and you solve the free will question.

[@therealabelmagwitch]

To say that a sense-impression-based model of reality is produced in the mind does not mean we create reality; it only means your model does cannot perfectly represent reality. Kant could have explained this to Hoffmann in a more lengthy German fashion.

[@robotaholic]

I didn't take this guy very seriously until his recent book

[@SimplifiedTruth]

I have no choice but to believe I have choices?

[@kinngrimm]

Like ending a statement with a questionmark? Also believe is a choice.

[@truthseeker2275]

@@kinngrimm "believe is a choice"? Is it possible to believe something you know is not true? Pick something you know is not true (the moon is made of cheese), then choose to believe it. The best you would get is lying about what you believe. You can only believe that of which you are convinced, you can be convinced for good reasons or for bad reasons. Maybe, maybe you have a choice on what you accept as evidence. Maybe, you have a choice in resisting peer pressure when considering the evidence. But ultimately you can only believe what convinces you.

[@kinngrimm]

@@truthseeker2275 If what you said would be true then there could hardly be any religions. Reality is screaming in their faces and yet they choose to believe in some stuff written down thousands of years ago from people trying to explain things to the masses without evidence. Now i wasn't on the moon so you may think it likely that someone could choose to believe it is 'made/created' out of cheese, just like others believe humans were never there, even though lots of people told their stories from first hand experience, video materials which back then maybe harder to be facked than today and science which sofar has brought marvelous advancement because of what was learened by aiming to get to the moon and learning what space does to materials. If you believe what convinces you, it is still a choice to be convinced. I didn't say it was a good choice or a bad choice. From my opinion i would say if a believe helps you survive and master life so you could be happy, then it is good enough for yourself, but generalized and objectivly speaking only those things which are closer to reality have in the long run a chance to help survival. Also i am not convinced that indoctrination leaves a lot of room for choices. A mind formed in an environment where believe is higher up the gratification ladder than the scientific method seems to me is therefor predestined for choosing believes over facts. It still is a choice, but within a narrower spectrum of choices.

[@i6mi6]

You can choose not to believe

[@truthseeker2275]

@@i6mi6 Your epistemology determines your means for determining what is convincing, you can change your epistemology, once you do, you can reevaluate your beliefs and change them. If you change your epistemology to something like that of a 4-year-old child then you may be able to choose beliefs (positive or negative) - Many people do not even have an epistemology - they will believe whatever the last person they spoke to tells them.

[@johnmartin2813]

Excellent! Without free will there can be no such thing as morality. These people are just seeking for a way to be immoral. If everything is determined then I am no longer responsible for my actions. And I can be as irresponsible as I choose to be. No. Sorry. As I want to be. No. Sorry as God wants me to be. No. Sorry. As the Devil wants me to be. How can choose between God and the Devil if I am not free? How can I choose between good and evil if I am not free?

[@gloriahallelujah1118]

If I speak in the tongues of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing. Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when completeness comes, what is in part disappears. When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me. For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known. And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.

[@1lyndaenglish1]

"I doubt if physicists in the 1920s were concerned about the psychological activity of atoms, molecules, or particles, although it seems that Heisenberg came close to Seth’s idea when he considered the free behavior of an electron emitted by a light ray. Albert Einstein, whose own work was rooted in strict causality, found a notion like the free will of an electron untenable, even though much earlier (in 1905) he had laid the foundation for quantum mechanics in his special theory of relativity." -The Individual and the Nature of Mass Events Chapter 4: Session 823 (Seth) "These opportunities exist theoretically, and yet for particular personalities do not exist for all practical purposes. Within certain limits there is free will. Yet these limits themselves were set, or if you prefer, chosen, by the entity itself for any given present personality; and at the entity level free choice or free will is much more extensive, and really has much more meaning." -The Early Sessions Book 1 Session 36 (Seth)

[@KipIngram]

Just because we don't "intend" brain activity and are "unaware" of brain activity does not in any way show that the brain activity is not itself an effect of our free choices. We just don't know yet how it works. Also, if you want to believe that "no free will" idea, then you have to let go of judging people. No matter what people do, how they treat you, what you read that they've done - you can't regard them as a villain or as a saint. Because they didn't *choose* it - it would be wrong to assign them any credit or any blame.

[@priyakulkarni9583]

Mind is wave and matter is particle!! Consciousness is in between wave and particle and quantum mechanical ! When you are aware of matter the mind disappears and vice versa ! Matter is there when we see only!

[@CalendulaF]

Freedom, also in this framework, remains a problematic (self-contradicting?) concept. Hoffman boils it down to some probabilities P,D & A; but where exactly can freedom be found within the concept of probability? There are different ideas of how to interpret probabilities (mainly frequentist vs. Bayesian) but none of them leave room for freedom. The concept of freedom basically pertains to continuations of a given situation. For freedom to be, there need to be (1) more than one continuation (choice-condition) but (2) the choice between them must not be random (authorship-condition). Probabilities, OTOH (also in Markov-chains) violate (2), for there is always randomnes or chancines involved and frankly, it seems that no one has come up (yet) with a good idea of how to fulfill (2).

[@pxlmnk3179]

Great work Hoffman.

[@jasonmathias5343]

I still cant see freewill in this. He is describing a self reinforcing strange loop, in which case we are still not free.

[@jameseverett9037]

If you meditate [think about] the meaning and implications of the words "self evident" for long enough, it will eventually dawn on you that consciousness [awareness of awareness] is essentially the same as agency, and that there can be no awareness without a corresponding agency. Another [slightly different] route is to simply notice, over and over, that you are aware, and then try to be aware of being aware. If done sincerely, or for long enough, it will bring up more questions, and more awareness of problems with a strictly material and automatic existence. Also you will see that automaticity and meaning are mutually exclusive: A wholly automatic response can have no meaning or intention behind it - it does what it does by reason of mechanical setup, not in response to anything outside of it's program. If you are only a machine, then you can only respond to your own program, not to another person, and the same goes for them. So there can not really be any [meaningful] conversation between the 2 of you.

[@travislawrencemusic]

I wonder what he would think of Ken Wilber's idea of "holons" in his book "A Theory of Everything"?

[@lindltailor]

We are a retrospective agent of our past experiences, our interpretations of and introspections into our past actions, inform our future choices subconsciously. We are therefore free will agents in the future but not necessarily in the present, but it is still "us" doing the action and choice, irrespective of moment in time. This is the most obvious lay definition of freewill, once one examines the definitions of self, action, causality and time. The freewill definition presented by Sam Harris and the recent physicalist tagline "how could I have done otherwise" is therefore a strawman, nobody, anywhere, ever agrees with. You could have done otherwise by having different introspective states of mind about past experiences that resemble the current one you are experiencing

[@IceglacierArnar]

My biggest dream is that Howdie Mickoski and Donald Hoffman would take a interview.... One is spirutal and one scientist ....still they are both talking about Simulation

[@thomassmith-yu8tz]

Q: How did Helen Keller's parents punish her? A: By rearranging the furniture. Edit: Apparently, there wasn't any furniture in Helen's world.

[@AngelaBee_13]

Donald explains things well although his theories sound similar to those of Tom Campbell from 20 years ago (albeit without the math). I would love to see these great minds discuss their theories. Sadly, Mr Campbell seems to have been ignored by the academic world.

[@andrewstallard6927]

I am not so sure why an "anti-realist" approach to chance would seem so hard to accept. It strikes me as almost common sense. Probability is logic; it's not physics. Probabilities depend on your state of mind, and not just the physical properties of the system. How else do you explain the Monty Hall problem?

[@8mad0manc8]

God presents us with choices we take the choice and God determines the outcome of the choice. We have free choice but it's god that judges and determines the outcome of those choices. Simple

[@TonOfHam]

You can't remove the consequences of a decision and still call it free will. If god steps in and takes over, we are not free do do as we will. That is my humble PK opinion.

[@okanhoruz758]

until now, we reconstruct our reality in every time ..but we have to reconsider in this issue what ı mean that there are other conception in behind of our perceptions that we cannot perceive

[@bournazianvahan]

Freedom means increased probabilities for free will; subjugation means restriction on the probabilities for free will.

[@gamezswinger]

External influences don't have an easy time steering me because of my ADHD!!! LOL! 😄 Conforming? Let's just say it's not my strong suit. Every time I hear Donald Hoffman, I get the impression he doesn't understand the topic he writes and talks about. I love the Einstein quote, "If you can't explain it simply, you don't understand it well enough."

[@cmvamerica9011]

You can do what you want, but you can’t want what you want.

[@ezioberolo2936]

Donald says at one point that we create reality, ( if we do not look at the chair, it does not exist), but the next moment his model includes the world (W). Where did this world come from? Did we not just create it, according to him, via our perception? Loop de loop?

[@nospoon17]

You know those kids who keep asking “why” to everything? Just give them the book “The book of why.”

[@HomewithAurora]

I have that book :-D

[@Jesus-is-my-LORD-and-SAVIOR]

Bold of you to assume they are “kids”.

[@rkraja6603]

You are free to act depending on your necessity which comes from inside or your desire which comes from outside. Your belief of free will comes from your conviction that you control the outcome of your action. If the outcome is to your liking, you have free will, if not then you come up with hundreds of theories why your free will may be a suspect! Man is the biggest storyteller; when you live nothing happens, it is only when you recount even a trivial incident, you embellish as much as you can get away with, in actual fact nothing happened. Never read people's autographies.

[@marcobrigliadori7382]

You really are a great lawyer !!!

[@truthseeker2275]

15:37 "Do you want to start with ...." - reality does not care where you want to start. Even if reality leads to "darkness" it is irrelevant. Nowhere here does he propose a mechanism of free will, all he does is criticize determinism. Even if every argument against determinism was 100% valid, it would not prove we have free will. To prove we have free will, you have to prove we have free will.

[@MrCastleJohnny]

did you have free will to write that?

[@truthseeker2275]

@@MrCastleJohnny No, I wrote it because I had reasons to write it. I used the words I did because of the grammar I was taught, I expressed the Idea because of the information I read, I write it here because this is the video that popped up in my feed, and the words in the video prompted me to write. In exactly the same way, when you wrote the question, you wrote because you have seen it asked before and you had been told it is a smart question. I ask you, do you consider yourself a reasonable person? Either you do things for a reason, in which case you are reasonable, or you do things without a reason in which are you are unreasonable. It is a dichotomy, There is no third option.

[@truthseeker2275]

@Ekalabya Mohanty Read my original comment, Calling me names or claiming something is a brute fact does not make it so. If you do want to understand you should maybe see if you can steelman the argument against free will. i.e. switch sides, understand why, then see if you can switch back.

[@BygoneT]

@@truthseeker2275 A world where free will exists and one where it doesn't are not distinguishable by observation. I don't think there's any use in debating the issue of free will if you can't settle it.

[@truthseeker2275]

@@BygoneT That is an interesting claim, I am not sure if you are correct or not; Do you have any reasoning behind why you say it is unobservable?

[@blackhat856]

If you’re looking at it with a mortal’s view…if perfect and eternal

[@yoso585]

It all depends on the perspective you view it from. Notice I did not say “choose to” view it from. I was watching a documentary a while back, Muslims in a mid eastern country being asked what they would do if they became aware a sibling was an atheist. Those answers varied, but I was fascinated with how it seemed no one could grasp the concept of no Allah. It’s as with some aboriginal tribes that have no word for war. You are your environment it seems. Shit to think on.

[@cmvamerica9011]

A miracle is something you don’t understand but seems to defy the laws of physics;

[@ElectricQualia]

Plantiga’s evolutionary argument against naturalism is pretty much the same.

[@ashmeadali]

Choose an experiment to safely explore personal consciousness: Sing *HU* daily. Search how to sing *HU* . (This was predicted 7 seconds before you were conscious of making the choice).

[@paulden3158]

Interestingly he says his theorem is probably wrong. It's just the best one he has.

[@kephalopod3054]

I suspect "free will" and "subjective consciousness" will always be unsolvable mysteries. While "free will" might turn out to be an illusion, saying that "subjective consciousness" might be an illusion would be circular since an illusion is itself a "subjective experience"!

[@ramaraksha01]

I SAW IT! I SAW IT! A Hindu symbol shown with RESPECT! wow! In Hindu India it is no big deal to say - God is Rama, Allah, Jesus, the Buddha and so on I have been here in the US for 30 years and every time something Hindu comes on I cringe because I know what is coming, something abusive, mocking, a "joke", a putdown & it has never failed

[@egodust11]

If we exchange the word "will" with "desire" (they *are* exchangeable) we'll have a shot at clarifying this whole mess... because if we consider that Schopenhauer said "You can do what you will, but you cannot will what you will,"...well, the point is made much clearer, thus: "You can do what you desire, but you cannot will what you desire." IOW, *our desires aren't the result of our choosing* . (Desires aren't the result of our volitional will to choose.) If anything, it could be said that our desires are the result of nature and nurture, our genetics representing nature, while nurture comes from our past experiences, how we reacted to them, and what we came to understand from them. Therefore desire is not something we choose. Therefore, we have to conclude that it is virtually impossible for us to make a free will choice that runs contrary to our desire in any given moment of time.

[@yoso585]

frank xaidam Yes, and then there is the word “free.”

[@egodust11]

@@yoso585 .. Yes, of course...the central point of the whole concept. IMO, the ideas of free and will are incompatible. One interpretation of being free is freedom *from* the responsibility of having to chose. Another is that choice or no choice has no bearing on our essential nature, which can be seen as innately free since it is unbound by any thought process or ego-Mind contrivance.

[@erikjensen4183]

read this mans book! highly recommend

[@asarubeats1959]

Free will is the coin of the realm!

[@noisepuppet]

16:40 this is a crucial point. Why is freedom of action (of the experimenter) a constitutive assumption of experimental science? Because: if the decision to impose experimental vs controlled conditions is a caused or strictly determined phenomenon, as opposed to freely chosen (even if the basis for choosing is a randomly generated number), then the relationship between the experimenter's action and the result is mere correlation, which is to say that the experimenter (and by extension, anyone who wishes to replicate their result) is not causing anything. This reminds me of Liebniz's idea that the First Cause (God, basically) determined everything for all time in the first instant of Creation, and all apparent causation afterward is basically mere coincidence. That's how it strikes me, but I'm not a professional philosopher.

[@ericreilly7669]

didn't mathematics evolve from our experience of the sensory world? so how we do know this mathematical proof is true?

[@realcygnus]

imo a VR model where mind at large is the computer(metaphor) is the correct metaphysical pillar. We're not even conscious, by ANY sensible definition lol

[@BygoneT]

Depends on what you mean by conscious.

[@realcygnus]

@@BygoneT Well thats for shit sure. Even leaving metacognition out of it, Lets just go with: There is something that it is like, to be me / have experience.

[@GetMeThere1]

Great presentation. Glad this was posted. From my perspective, I know what determined causation is (notwithstanding the real doubts presented in the video): you remove a brain from the head, and the body no longer does the stuff it used to do. I know what "random" is (I suppose) -- when I believe that quantum mechanics assures me that there is no possible way (now or ever) for it to be known which atom, among a collection of many, will undergo nuclear decay first. But, if "free will" is neither caused nor random, then I'm currently unable to CONCEIVE of that -- and I haven't heard anyone explain what it is, except to say that it's not determined and not random. I can't join of discussion of "free will" unless it can be explained what it actually is. I've never heard of, and can't imagine, an event which was neither "caused" by previous events, or caused "randomly."

[@GetMeThere1]

And, of course, people don't actually mean "free will." They mean that the cause was "me," and it's the "me" which can cause things where the chain of causation ends in "me," and "me" can never be understood by anyone or anything (except, PERHAPS, "me" itself) to the extent that the actions of "me" could neither be predicted, NOR be shown to be random. People mean "free will ends with me," and "me" is something which can never be described or defined. Thus...I can't imagine what a "me" is, either.

[@MidiwaveProductions]

@@GetMeThere1 On materialism only a determined brain exists. On dualism and idealism a determined brain plus a non-determined conscious rational mind exists. Hence if materialism is false every event is not necessarily a determined response produced by non-rational universal causation, but can be a non-determined response produced by conscious rational mind. On dualism and idealism, the "me", "I" (the Self) is a non-determined conscious rational mind existing outside the deterministic system; hence not determined by the deterministic system. Metaphor: I have a body. The body is a determined aspect within the system. I (conscious rational mind) is not a determined aspect. My body is determined to need water. I am free to choose to give or not to give my body water.

[@GetMeThere1]

@@MidiwaveProductions Sorry, I don't understand you. It seems to me that "rationality" is one of the most strictly "determined" states of mind one can have.

[@MidiwaveProductions]

@@GetMeThere1 Rationality can only exist if free will is true: **Rationality cannot exist on determinism P1. Rationality is when a non-determined agent has the causal ability to 1. make decisions based on logic and evidence and 2. choose to believe that which is true and choose to not believe that which is not true P2. According to determinism non-rational universal causation (the Big Bang plus the laws of physics) is the only existing causal agent P3. Human brains are not causal agents P4. Human brains execute the instructions of non-rational universal causation C. Rationality cannot exist on determinism

[@GetMeThere1]

@@MidiwaveProductions I'm not going to get into this sort of unproductive (from my perspective) back and forth. "Rationality" generally means that the facts and logic produce the conclusion -- that's a "deterministic" process, at least in the natural way that I use the word "determine." The conclusion is "determined" by rules. That's my last post on this, sorry.

[@staciesheppard2048]

Oh, to be a pigeon!

[@downhillphilm.6682]

i always saw 'free will' metaphorically as a pin ball machine. a pin ball (thought, decision, etc) is launched, it bounces around (cognition) and the results (points, etc) is chance. then the ball is returned to the launch position.....but who launched the pin ball? who/what crafted the pin ball? who built the machine? and who created the entity who built the machine, etc? arrrgh....

[@levimark548]

Everything just happens. Reality just is. Our thoughts experiences decisions just happen. That's everything what "is". No need for causality or free will or something else