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Prove special relativity to be incorrect and I'll believe in free will. Prove general relativity to be incorrect and I'll believe in free will. Prove quantum mechanics to be wrong and I'll believe in free will...

Alt Right Literally Exists Due to there Karma of Removing there Free Will Due to Exploiting.

This video really opened my mind. I used to think that freewill was impossible, and I couldn't make sense of it. I'm still not entirely convinced that it exists but I feel these arguments deepened my understanding of what it means to have freewill

16:14 here's another way of framing that exact same argument. You wanted to go to Spain, and you wanted to go to Italy, but your want to go to one outweighs your want to go to the other. I think it covers all of the same bases but in a more simple format

12:43 No, the reason someone might be enlisting it into the army to fight in a war, is an example of them being forced, either by cultural or social norms among many other situational factors, I don't think this makes the point well for you

10:00 I think it's funny how at this point in the video you've said that you don't think O'Connor's argument stands up because you've proven that free will exist under the constraints of your wants... So I don't think it's making the point you think it is, because your wants are still contraining that free will idea

You have a strong desire to believe in free will at all cost, no one's going to blame you for it, as you did not choose what you desire. Your fear of unknown chose it for you.

Literally all his alguments can still easily be explained using Alex's simple premises

Wanting to chess is a want, choosing moves to facilitate that are based on said want and picking a move between options is based on intuition which feels better and this is also a want.

You are free to be who you are and nothing else. Answers all sides and not reliant on definition. To expand, we hold you accountable for your actions because it helps you do better which matters more than moral responsibility after an action.

this is alex taking existing information and reframing it in a way that fits his view. “if you do something it’s because you wanted to” no, take the gym example - you can want to go the gym more than you want to stay at home but can’t bring yourself to do it - which *almost* is an argument for there not being free will; because you can’t bring yourself to do what you want - but if the “want” is the arbiter of what is and isn’t free will - then there would be no way to fight yourself from going to the gym; it’s not always want vs not-want that influences your decisions. sometimes it’s ability - and there is an inherent aspect of volition that exists that you need to activate when you “want” something long term that conflicts with your wants in the short term. that’s the clearest example to me of where free and will and volition come into play and it really can’t be articulated but we all experience it. Like breathing, it happens without you; but you can WILL your lungs on command; and then leave them back to themselves, then take the wheel/will again. ya dig

I would question premise 3 as well - whether you control your wants.. Even if you don't question your wants at the time of taking an option your wants could be questioned. Take an example - the "decision" at a point in time want to save money. You want to save money - where did this want come from? Your want to want to save money probably comes from your experiences and learnings in earlier life. For example perhaps you were broke at some stage, didn't like the experience and swore (i.e. you wanted) to never be in that position again. So saving money becomes part of what you do - it is the reason behind your want to save money. When you have an opportunity to save money or splash out you usually save - because that is your previous experience. Could you do otherwise? Absolutely. You could take the opportunity to completely re-evaluate you life choices for the current particular opportunity to save. That you don't is a convenience. To re-evaluate you life choices even on a single matter (let alone multiple options confronted daily) is not or should not be a quick decision. So for your flow of life you simply do what you previously decided. But it does not mean that you could not have questioned your want to save money and decided then and there not to. And anyway even if you don't question your wants at the time of the recent choice you still controlled what you wanted at the earlier time. The decision to want for what you want was just displaced in time. Supporters of determinism would still say that both decisions were determined - your initial decision to adopt saving as an approach and the current particular savings decision. They say this because they don't believe there is a Self to make a decision so they are left with either cause and effect or randomness (and this choice is clearly not random) as to why the option was taken. My opinion is that it is most likely that there is a Self that has free will though this can't be proven. Neither can the determinist position.

The argument is without merit. There currently is no way to demonstrate a universal metaphysical principle with local argument (even based on [necessarily local] empiricism. All one can reasonably do is attack the arguments; not the metaphysics.

You couldnt have chosen to go to Spain, if Spain never became a country.

If you are not the source of the action, it's implicit that you couldn't have acted differently. Or if you could, that would require something outside your control, so that would obviously not be free will. Your alternative motivations are weak. You do your duty, get convinced of religious beliefs and have moral values because you are either forced to or want to. You have to explain why that is not so if you disagree.

Nice video! i also like how you presented your ideas wish a debate would happen between you two :)❤

Joining the army due to feeling like it's your duty would come under being forced. You have been conditioned over years of your life to feel that you had to do it. That's not free will

Hard determinists' goal is to do away with morality, personal responsibility for one's actions, good or bad, praise for achievement and no accountability for failure. If this ever came to pass, it would be total anarchy on a global scale.

You ARE your brain. There is no "ghost" in there, making choices for you. If you are driving at 65 mph and have to suddenly swerve or brake to avoid an accident, you are consciously making these choices. If it's something trivial like which sock to put on first, where you're not even thinking about it, then your subconscious may make that choice a few milliseconds before you're aware of it. But not for important decisions or choices or actions.

Very well put! Also, during their Convo, Jones (IP) put it to O'Connor along your very same conclusive lines: if you attest that something is actually the opposite of how I naturally, subjectively perceive it, then you have to present a very strong proof to set it as truth. If my subjectively experienced perception is that the sun moves in the sky while the earth stands still, you got to bring convincing and undeniable proofs in order to convince me that what I experience is a mere illusion. Idem with Liberum Arbitrium. And also: I think that the latin serves better the understanding. In fact, Arbitrium means "that pertains to an arbiter"; an Arbiter (can be translated as judge, referee...a decision-maker of some sort) acts inside a given set of possibilities, be it the Law, the rules of the game, the present contingencies. In my experience, often the objection is that "if Will is not absolutely free, than it's not free at all"...but the arbiter moves inside a set of possible choices, hence "Arbitrium" already circumscribes the need for plausibility and physical feasibility of the array of choices I'm given, more than the term "will" (voluntas, in latin) does. Just a tought, do what you like with it, trash it if it's useless. 👍

Best Frege content on RUclips?

Honestly, while I respect him as a philosopher and as someone who is contributing to the philosophical debate, I cannot help but feel that this video is just weak. If I as a total lay person in philosophy, can easily dissect and disprove every single one of your arguments without having to put too much work in, then you should be doing better

You’re not reducing enough when it comes to breaking down the mental experience of choosing. Why did u prefer beaches and architecture over wind? Perhaps it’s amusing? why do you think its amusing? Now it becomes absurd. Like nietzche once point out that we do not really will our thought into existence but rather just appear.

The problem with your idea of the choice of reasons being an act of pure will is that that choice itself is also a decision made by prior reasons, which themselves are made based on prior reasons which ultimately end in a causal chain back to factors you don’t control, like your genetics and upbringing, so this idea fails to prove free will exists

Neh, you dont have free will. People usually come up with a definition that perfectly copes with how illusionary the concept of free will even is. I remember at some point, some dude said that the fact that he thinks that he has free will, is perfectly enough to consider him having free will. So naturally I asked him if thinks he's a genius...

47:22 the graphic here makes no sense as an argument for free will. granted you could have done otherwise given an alternative world, but that otherwise is one specific alternative outcome associated with the alternative world. this seems to essentially be 'if you like vanilla ice cream, you will get vanilla, but in an alternate world where you like chocolate, you'll get chocolate', which is really stretching the definition of free will imo

I can’t help but comment on how dumb the free will debate is. It’s impossible to prove anything other than reality (done different argument) and it’s impossible to pinpoint where the “self” is (source argument). This is the reality: some of the choices we make are conscious and others are not. Any discussion beyond this is basically nonsense and wasteful Let’s put this debate to rest, stop feeding the trolls, and discuss more interesting things like the preservation of our ecosystem or the advancement of technology 😂 🤦

Do you have the free will to change your position and be convinced of Alex's?

Why does it matter whether or not the state of the universe could be sufficiently described with language?

I wanted to agree with what was said in the video but it was impossible because I don't have free will

You need more reach! The first part of your critique reminds me of the „philosophy of freedom“ by Rudolf Steiner - more of an esoterist than a philosopher but the argument is similar: according to him we have three soul qualities: thinking, feeling and willing. And only in thinking we are truly free. But through thinking we can influence the other two aspects.

Does a chess playing computer executing a program have free will? The decision of the computer obviously has a rational explanation. Once the program is loaded and runs, all of the decision making is located within the computer. Was the decision made within the computer? Yes. If the compter program includes monitoring the environment, or perhaps a Monte Carlo simulation to model the effects of a given choice (in this case, the exthernal input can be a series of random numbers, which could be provided by monitoring Brownian noise in another electronic component of the computer). it could have done otherwise. It is obvious to me that it does not have free will. But how is this different than the chess player that does have free will? It seems to me that the only difference is that we don't have a clear understanding as to how the wetware Baysean inference engine between our ears work. We can even use proper functional programming, so that every decision by the program is determined by the inputs to the program, so that the program is analogous to the laws of physics. Now all the decisions are the result of functions of state and a random number generator, all of which are contained 'within the computer'.

Free will is an illusion and this has been proven scientifically with for example fMRI-scans.

Good luck with this channel! It’s an educational breath of fresh air, esp. compared with the ghoulish Alex O’Connor and whatever Ben Shapiro thinks he’s doing.

I think you missed his point.

Interesting. Was there a response indirectly or otherwise I wonder.

Hello. Do children have freewill, at what age do we get/ have freewill?

Kastrup wrote in his paper about postmortem survival that the large-scale structure of the universe mirrors a neural network. If this is true, i’m not sure why such a network wouldn’t be meta-conscious

Can't we just say: surely, the prophecy "You will drown." is either true or false, but we have no way of knowing (yet) what it is? Where's the problem? Even in math we have conjectures that are believed to be true, but there's no proof (yet). And it could nevertheless be useful, like in "If the Goldbach conjecture holds, then …"

The concept of free will is absurd.

Could you make a video about reference vs denotation. What do "refer" and "denote" mean as common words and what is their technical meaning. And perhaps explain which philosophers have meant which things when they used these words? As a non-native speaker it is hard to get a grip for the difference.

I would like to throw my hat in the ring. Kastrup takes a large portion of his thinking on meta consciousness and phenomenal consciousness from Jung. In Jungs Answer to Job Jung observes that God is only phenomenally conscious but not Meta conscious, this is why God is unconscious because He is unable to reflect and understand His actions and state. This is also why He is unable to use his Omnipotence, as he is not self reflective and thus not conscious. We developed meta cognition due to us being mortal, and thus needing it to grow and evolve, whereas God does not because he is perfect and complete. This I think is his view on this particular point. We are a dissociation of God that developed meta cognition due to our inherent smallness and mortality. We are, in a sense, bringing God to metacognition through us by existing and allowing God to incarnate in us. This is mainly taken from Jung and Kastrups book on Jung, so I am be wrong. But yeah, hope to hear from the creator!

I have a degree in philosophy and have been revisiting and deepening my understanding of math, logic, and the more analytical side of the discipline. I've watched many videos on Russell's Theory of Descriptions and have read his essay "On Denoting" multiple times. However, I always felt like I never fully grasped it-until now. This is, without a doubt, the best video on the subject I have found after years of searching. If anyone ever asks me where to go to fully understand it, I will send them here. Keep making these great philosophy videos!

If you want your heart to keep beating and it stops, then can you freely will it to begin beating again?

quote alex- you will either do something if you want to or are forced to, Jesus said- can this cup be lifted from me, (Jesus,s will / want) none the less let your will be done, Jesus chose Gods will , He didnt want it and wasnt forced to do it. He chose Gods will, I dont want to do the dishes (my moms will) im not forced to do them, I choose to do them.

34:00 You recognize that in order for could have to make any sense you need to hold certain facts fixed and others variable, and which ones you hold fixed depend on the _relevance_ to a problem situation. In other words, it's entirely subjective. Objectively speaking, you could NOT have done otherwise. 46:40 Once you understand the argument, it's a no shit sherlock indeed. Precisely nothing could have been otherwise. This is determinism. Nothing more. If you call this trivial, it makes determinism trivially true! I guarantee you this is all alex means with determinism. I don't know what else you expected determinism to mean but yeah whatever you imagined it to be is probably contradictory. All counterfactual reasoning is a (very) useful fiction. Does that mean free will doesn't exist? Not in the same way as I used to believe it does. We can still make decisions and choices. As humans we tend to see useful fictions as objective realities. Understanding determinism is simply recognizing this isn't the case. 55:50 Whether you buy a sword indeed depends on your decision. However, your decision depends on your beliefs and preferences of the concequences. Like you say, precisely because the future is somewhat predictable, you can have _reasons_ to make decisions. Which I would interpret as those reasons having caused your decision.

I saw this in the comments also "I feel most of your criticisms might be misunderstandings. ", This is the great problem we have in our life