@logicalempiricist2 well I think logical positivism is false, and its certainly a good thing. The fall of logical positivism gave us the contemporary analytic philosophy as we know it today
Having viewed the whole workshop I'm drawn back regularly to just choose a spot randomly to stir up "the little grey cells" and enjoy the exchange. Thank you Sean.
I agree with Jerry Coyne that free will (defined as the ability to have made a different decision at any given point in the past) is incompatible with naturalism. It seems to me Daniel Dennett's argument for free will is simply based on the fact that for some decisions we can't follow the chain of causality: if in a given situation a person's actions aren't obviously constrained by something and there seems to be a large range of possible decisions for the person to make, then in that situation the person has free will. If in another situation, a person't actions are obviously constrained by something, then in that situation there's no free will. It sounds to me like he is arguing for partial free will which doesn't make any sense. Just because it seems that in some situations the decisions are less constrained than in others, that doesn't mean that's true. Instead of one or two factors (like a brain tumor making you desire to have sex with your daughter or a subliminal message in a cereal box) that constrain a person's choices in a big way and makes it easy to follow the chain of causality, you can have thousands of small factors that do the same thing. Just because it seems to you a person is more free to make decisions when is influenced by thousands of small experiences and environmental cues instead of one or two big ones doesn't means that is actually true.
A few years ago these videos had around 3k views and I would constantly re-watch them in order to better grasp everything that was said. It seems the trend has continued and people have studied these videos. The views are almost 19k now.
Fortunately over the winter months I do have the time to spare to watch these lengthy exchanges. I have watched the first days videos and part of the morning of the second day. I must admit that in a room full of ten-story ego's they are acting quite civil. I consider it quite a privilege that through youtube I am allowed to be the proverbial fly on the wall, but I must concur with Gary that there a few dry and word-windy stretches between the juicy bits.
The moment where Sean starts to rule and fixes all confusion up to that point: 57:20 and Janna, who appears to be one of few that appears to be actually interested in making progress, nods in agreement.
although he often listens to others with a look that suggests he might erupt in some sort of violence, Alex intellectually kicks ass when he chips in with all these debates
"There is no question that human beings can imagine and plan for the future, weigh competing desires, etc.-- and that losing these capacities would greatly diminish us. External pressures of various kinds can be absent while a person imagines, plans, and acts--and such pressures determine our sense of whether he is morally responsible for his behavior. However, theses phenomena have nothing to do with free will...but the actual explanation of my behavior is hidden from me." -Sam Harris
I'm disappointed weinberg was the only person whose comments hinted at the epistemological paradox of discussing free-will, and he didn't make his point very clear. That problem being, we can't even be sure if material around us actually exists or not, let alone know if it's 100% deterministic or not. However, we EXPERIENCE free will first hand... like Dan and Steven said, this should be more important to us than anything else. We should know that we are free agents with as much certainty as we know the people around us are not cyborg-clones. That certainty is not very high, but who gives a flying f**... it IS what matters.
1:06:40 best point in the video. We should get rid of this confusing label of "free will" that carries all kinds of fantastical dualistic connotations entirely. Call it something else! It's not free will, for you don't choose what you will; you just will! This semantic squabble between hard determinism/hard incompatibilism and compatibilism is beyond silly. We have two camps of rational naturalists here that agree with each other in almost every sense, and the quarrel is mostly of semantic nature. Thanks, Sean, for the upload. This was a joy to watch.
I do agree that on the micro level, the physical biological level; we do not have the ability to chose 'ourselves' if you know what I mean. For philosophical purposes however it is useful to name what we do have, whatever it may be 'free will' or at least the ability to make decisions freely.
We already know that there are things we don't know. We know there is something missing in our understanding when we look at the macroscopic world and the quantum world. I agree with Mr. Carroll when he says something along the line of "we have free will because that's our best theory of ourselves right now". I'm totally fine with accepting that there is still something missing in our understanding of "free will" and it seems some of the people here feels like we MUST have a definitive answer. Isn't it like saying "Yeah, string theory MUST be right because I need an answer to the quantum/relativity problem". ? Am I making any sense?
Also noticed how no one actually listens to one another? Sean just gave a beautiful account summarizes the talk so far in the clearest and most coherent sense yet, and the little skinny Irish guy does not even acknowledge anything he said and goes off on his on original thought. What a joke? A few of these people need to better their communication skills. and also some of them are just so dogmatic it's almost funny. There is some serious irony woven into this whole discussion.
Which is why it's important to acknowledge that religious people aren't crazy. We all have our own areas of dogma and ignorance. However that doesn't in any way invalidate the superior thought processes these participants have on the literal truth of religion.
Free will is a gradient, and stating that we don't have free will can more accurately be stated as "We do not have absolute free will", which of course is true, and which counters the significance of "free will" in the religious context.
Instinctive behavior is an example of a lack of free will (as is compulsive behavior). Cognitive behavior is an example of "free will", to a degree, depending on the circumstances.
The difference between the tic and a human when it comes to free will is not merely a difference of degree, there is a qualitative difference borne from the social/cultural differences?
On the Libet experiment, didn't we already know that our decisions will be caused at first by unconscious processes like everything else, like when I'm typing this comment, my actions are caused by an unconscious process initially etc. Don't think the experiment said much about freedom of the will though.
I always assumed that "free will" in the common vernacular could be summed up as the 'ability to have done other than you did', which I think is the mode that most people operate on on a daily basis, and almost assuredly anyone who is even remotely religious as it underpins the concepts of sin/morality, and the afterlife. Most people intuitively assign truly free agency to themselves and other individuals as though the final arbiter of thoughts and actions is somehow decoupled from the state of the universe, rather than a direct, emergent byproduct of it. The socio-political compatibilist argument given by Dennett reminds me an awful lot of when I was 5 years old, asking my catholic mother if the events in the old testament actually happened. Despite her knowing what I meant by "actually happened", she performed verbal gymnastics to the best of her ability to redefine it in order avoid conceding that point due to the potential side effects of admitting that the Bible is somehow unreliable. While she may have succeeded in her goal of side stepping the question, it also had the added side effect of making me realize that my mother was an unreliable source of information on such topics, and Dan's words here seem to be creeping him in that same direction. Secondly I'd say that the assumption that belief in free will is somehow a necessity for a functioning society is not a slam dunk argument. If one is able to dispel the supernatural concept of 'free will' (ability to have done other), then it can be an immensely powerful force for forgiveness, both for others as well as one's self. Unhelpful concepts of hate and retribution are no longer justified, and can be at least partially alleviated. (Not to mention personal wealth, reward, success, failure, etc.)
***** "But you've done a little sleight of hand by insinuating that Dennett was in any way supportive of that magical free will." I acknowledged Dan was a compatibilist, there's no sleight of hand. That said, If he's in any way supportive of magical free will, it's a byproduct of his inability to plainly answer "does free will exist?" on the terms under which it was intended. Libertarianism = "free will" as far as the general public is concerned, and when posed the question, Dan should answer accordingly instead of talking about cereal and Cameron Diaz. THAT is sleight of hand. "you suggest that free will is not a necessity for a functioning society" I said the belief in "free will" is not *necessarily* a necessity, as seems to be implied by Dan. Every member of that talk does not believe in the "free will" that the bulk of the civilized world does, and yet I'm assuming they don't renege on their contracts, or break their social contracts by deciding to rape and steal and claim 'no free will' as an excuse.
***** "you're the one falling into the trap of equivocation" Sorry, but that's not how language works. Common vernacular usage of the term "free will" is what takes precedence when folks like Dan are speaking to the public. Dan chooses to toy with semantics in order to side-step the debate and play comfortably into people's misconceptions. Harris chooses to use the common definition of the term in the context of his book, and he's wholly correct to do so given the audience. The fact that any study is showing anything close to 75% in favor of a compatibilist view speaks volumes about how muddy the waters must be when it comes to understanding just what the ramifications are from a deterministic view of "free will" and the universe. Compatibilism is entirely incompatible with any and every major religious denomination, even the most liberal of christians, so unless you're trying to argue that >75% of undergrads (never mind the general population) are, in fact, secular determinists, then the only thing made evident by that study is that the study was poorly worded or that undergrads have terrible comprehension.
***** Language works by having a common agreed upon usage of a word or phrase and without it you're left with confusion and worthless arguing like this very one we're having now. "Free will" in the common usage means exactly the libertarian view of free will, and academics whom opt to deviate from that definition when speaking on the public stage without flatly stating that the public's understanding of free will is nonsensical are willfully persisting this confusion. Harris: "Imagine that we live in a world where more or less everyone believes in the lost kingdom of Atlantis. You[Dennett] and your fellow compatibilists come along and offer comfort: Atlantis is real, you say. It is, in fact, the island of Sicily. You then go on to argue that Sicily answers to most of the claims people through the ages have made about Atlantis. Of course, not every popular notion survives this translation, because some beliefs about Atlantis are quite crazy, but those that really matter-or should matter, on your account-are easily mapped onto what is, in fact, the largest island in the Mediterranean. Your work is done, and now you insist that we spend the rest of our time and energy investigating the wonders of Sicily. The truth, however, is that much of what causes people to be so enamored of Atlantis-in particular, the idea that an advanced civilization disappeared underwater-can’t be squared with our understanding of Sicily or any other spot on earth. So people are confused, and I believe that their confusion has very real consequences. But you rarely acknowledge the ways in which Sicily isn’t like Atlantis, and you don’t appear interested when those differences become morally salient. This is what strikes me as wrongheaded about your approach to free will." I can't help you if you're resistant to the idea that the vast vast majority of the public fall into the libertarian view of it. There is no a la carte version of major religions that don't include some kind of libertarian, non-deterministic view of free will. Any religion that has any form of right/wrong moral teaching with the hook of an afterlife reward/punishment is incompatible with a naturalist view of free will. "Oh yeah, while I believe in baptism and transubstantiation, I don't believe that God cares about my thoughts and actions." -said no one ever.
***** It's not worth my time discussing this with you further as this is going in circles. If you can't concede that a majority of the western/"civilized" population adhere to a murky, ill-defined, indeterministic metaphysical view of "free will" (what would otherwise be classified as "libertarianism") than we're at an impasse. Your/Dennett's examples of other words that have changed definitions over time are examples of where society has done exactly that - they've learned and moved on. This circles back to my contention that society *hasn't* moved on with respect to libertarianist views of "free will". Perhaps you live a very privileged life such that you're not exposed to anyone who's not a naturalist, I don't know.
***** onlinelibrary.wiley.com/enhanced/doi/10.1111/j.1468-0017.2010.01393.x/ - pantheon.yale.edu/~jk762/cultural-universal.pdf Abstract: "...the majority of participants said that (a) our universe is indeterministic..." onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1468-0068.2007.00666.x/full "...Across conditions, nearly all participants (over 90%) judged that the indeterministic universe is most similar to our own..."
This whole talk about how free will exists in the coarse-grained world, or as Weinberg puts it, that it is the conscious part along the chain of causation, completely skirts the issue. The coarse grained phenomenon that we experience with the assumed emergence from particle physics (Laplace's demon) is exactly what people mean by the "illusion of free will". These guys are trying to redefine free will to mean the illusion of free will, which of course is compatible with determinism. If the theory of everything is deterministic, then by definition we don't have free will. The universe would be played out like a movie. Now, you can also have non-determinism and no free will (eg. the interaction between particles is a coin toss).To have FW the choices I make must be made by "me" and they must have some amount of non-determinism to others. But this is incompatible with the atomistic view / Eastern religious view / quantum many-worlds view because they treat the whole universe as one system where the notion of "me" is an illusion as well. There is a lot more to be said here: the contention of emergence, the bottom up direction of physics, the potential extrinsic universality of language (mathematics), etc... Finally, Dennett's point about society crumbling is completely besides the point. How society is affected by a widespread disbelief in free will is irrelevant to the philosophy. It's also tautological. Any argument that goes "I'm not responsible for my actions because I don't have free will" is meaningless because the judge and jury also don't have free will. The justice system itself is just an outcrop of evolution, which is a natural process of the universe.
It is so unnerving to hear Dennett go on about his compatibilism. Why can't someone just force him to go on the record and say "we don't have contracausal free will", since he implicitly admits it? He talks, and talks, and ends up dancing around the subject.
So, it's clear to me that compatibilism is just a way to rationalize the projection of subjective experience onto objective reality. In his justification of compatibilism, Sean Carroll says the discrepancy is merely a language problem; that we can't describe "free will" using atomistic determinism, because the term "free will" is a macro level term and the other is quantum level. But he claims these descriptions are compatible, and are just applicable at different levels of observation. He compares this to the second law of thermodynamics. But this comparison doesn't get at the heart of the real problem. Nobody is suggesting the second law of thermodynamics is a "person" with decision-making agency and responsibility. It isn't a vocabulary problem, it's a conceptual problem. The entire concept of assigning responsibility changes if we say that all actions are determined by the laws of physics, and that even human actions are just reactions to other physical events or constraints which they are never fully aware of. "Responsibility" rests upon the notion that causation for an event can be attributed to a specific thing, and should be attributed to a specific thing, even if there are other influences acting upon it. The reason why Sean's version of compatibilism doesn't make sense is, I'm willing to bet that Sean would say certain people in the world are responsible for their actions, while other people (let's say small children and the mentally deranged) are not really responsible for their actions. At the very least, I'm sure he would say that people have degrees of accountability for their actions. But distinctions like this would have to be arbitrary, because his compatibilist view is that it's totally consistent to assign responsibility to macro level entities even if their actions can be reduced to micro or quantum level events. In other words, if we say some macro level entities are responsible, while other macro level entities are not responsible, even though these distinctions do not follow at reduced levels, then his compatibilist logic becomes inconsistent. Sean's position *_requires_* him to assign responsibility to all macro level entities equally, or simply admit that his position is totally subjective. Dan Dennett says that free will is just as real as colors and dollars. He presents this as if it were a strong argument supporting the existence of free will, but it only undermines the "realness" of it. There are people who cannot perceive color, so to them, it's as real as an imaginary property. People who were born blind have no concept or real understanding of color; it is totally a product of subjective perception. Colors only exist as long as someone is there to perceive them. Dollars are the same thing; they only have value if people act as if they have value. But if people believe something is real, does that make it real? What about a society that acted as if God was real? Would that necessitate that God was real? C'mon, Dan. But he says we can describe colors in terms of objective physics. Yet if we do this, then we are no longer describing "colors"; we are describing electromagnetic radiation. These are two different things. Electromagnetic radiation exists in objective reality, colors only exist if people have eyes which can perceive electromagnetic radiation in a specific manner. His description of the manifest image shows how inconsistent the manifest image is: colors = subjective experience, living things = objectively definable, opportunities = subjective experience, free will = subjective experience, dollars = the *value* of dollars is subjective experience. The idea that free will is as real as we want it to be, just so long as we "keep a poker face" is total religiosity. What Dan Dennett is essentially saying, is that we can pretend reality is anything we want it to be, just as long as we *_all_* pretend the same thing. All the arguments made by compatibilists are very similar to arguments that theologians use to argue that religion is necessary to uphold moral behavior in society. It's so ironic. However, all this being said, compatibilists are justified in their fear of abolishing the concept of "free will" because this concept is intrinsic to our identity as "persons". They just don't speak about this topic in honest, or logically consistent, terms. My opinion is this: we are naturally predisposed to perceive ourselves and other people as decision-making agents. But as far as we know, this is purely a product of subjective perception. If determinism is true, we are not really decision-makers. This means we do not actually qualify as "persons" by our own definition of the term, and that "we" have no responsibilities, because "we" are compositions of matter and energy directed by the laws of physics. That is a serious problem, possibly the most serious problem human beings have ever encountered. I believe that our concepts and theories of the natural universe have exceeded our ability to perceive the natural universe, and the only way to maintain our perception of what we fundamentally are, is by deluding ourselves. A form of cognitive dissonance. Compatibilism is one of the delusions. However, even incompatibilists delude themselves, because they never actually draw the logical conclusion that determinism means we do not qualify as persons. In fact, if determinism is true, then no such thing as "persons" with agency can exist in the universe. If we want to reconcile the idea that human beings have agency with determinism, we have to concede that in many circumstances, our subjective perception of reality is more important to us than objective reality itself. If compatibilists just admitted this much, instead of trying to rationalize their incoherence and conflate their subjective experience with reality, then I would have more respect for their position. The truth is that we cannot escape our subjective nature. Since the dawn of humanity, every moral rule, every law, every policy, and every idea about what people should or shouldn't do, every value judgement, every desire and fear, and every conscious thought, has had correlation with subjective human experience. This is how we organize ourselves... through our subjective experience, and it is inescapable. It's okay to admit this truth without deluding ourselves by proclaiming subjective experience is reality. Is assigning responsibility and accountability to human beings totally subjective? Yes. Do we want to live in a society where this happens? Yes. From here, we can discuss who can be held responsible for what, and under which conditions, without pretending we are operating under unbiased and objective conclusions.
@@laertesindeed Wow, what a great argument... "Phil Barker, you're wrong". I guess I never considered that evidence before. Thank you for the constructive comment. You've enlightened me, and the rest of us.
@@laertesindeed Another incredible insight! Please keep these profound and revealing statements coming, oh wise Laertes indeed. I'm sure all the countless folks reading this are thoroughly enjoying the clear intellectual superiority which you are so generously displaying here over "us types".
@@laertesindeed "There you go, folks"... there you go indeed. And what more needs to be stated than that really? Nothing, obviously! And thus Laertes indeed spoke. Now, I am a bit concerned as to why Laertes indeed seems to be suggesting that praising his intellect is pathological. If any of the countless folks reading at home can answer that question, then this ignorant animal will greatly appreciate a response. Also, another question for the massive audience reading this... is it possible for an ignorant animal to actually induce continued glass tapping? That's just a tangent thought that crossed my mind; it probably doesn't mean anything. Anyway, all hail Laertes indeed!
1:12:40 Dennett FINNALY accepts that he is actually talking about something else that not free will, but "morally competent volition". Will anyone spread the word, specially to Sam Harris?
I found Dennett's assertions so elaborate and contingent he sounds uncertain. I'm sure he feels certain. But he sounds uncertain. Like building a hugely elaborate rail yard of tracks and switches, but every salient juncture in his proposal has a post it note that says : "to be determined. Check back later".
That's how he defines free will. The same way Harris defines it as the ability to do others (in the absolute sense) and to be the (absolute) author of one's actions.
I don't think you consciously make any choices or decisions because your consciousness is just an observer of the decision making process - it's not the real process in itself. Consider the way someone with blindsight can navigate a room - that takes choices that feel conscious but the person with blindsight has no conscious access to their visual information. The process goes on in basically a similar way whether observed or not by our consciousness.
Free will like mind body dualism come about because there are biological separations in our brains and nervous systems so we can observe differences and even time itself. Argument "comes about" because of limited understanding of brain at a higher systems engineering pov. In reality the brain is actually a social organ but we tend to dwell on it as an embodied organ of self.
I wish Patricia Churchland had been on the panel (apparently she was invited, but couldn't make it); she might have referred to some more up-to-date neuroscience to flesh out Coyne's position.
@@arletottens6349 Morally competent people will do the right thing regardless of whether or not we blame the psychopath. Does the psychopath have freewill? If not, he cannot be blamed.
"What makes consciousness such an important thing?" "What else is there?" - Steven Weinberg. Ha! What a wonderful answer. They should have just taken a break right there-- crack open some cold beers, go outside and enjoy the sunlight.
Natalie Darr // That's at 55:10. Actually I like Coyne's quick response to that. That conscious decision-making may be just following unconscious or biological signals. Your conscious mind just rationalizes decisions once they are made by the body like a press secretary rationalizes the actions of a brash impulsive president.
Of course consciousness is limited to the bounds of past experience, a blind man can not for example think about his favorite colour. That however does not mean that we can not use our reasoning skills and logic to make decisions on how we interact with our environment. I would argue that if we did have free will, we would interact exactly as we do, and we would think exactly as we do, therefor for all purposes we do in fact have the ability to freely make decisions.
I'm studying Philosophy of Mind and Cognitive Science in my own academic career and wondered if you can mention some of the ideas outside of the groupthink? I am extremely interested in finding new directions to explore in these fields.
So many Compatibilists.. if you're not talking about *LIBERTARIAN* free will, then just say "will". Leave the "free" part out. It works perfectly. All you accomplish by leaving the "free" part in, is making it needlessly confusing so as people conflate the issues, and don't see what really matters, which is the Libertarian free aspect. Dennett tries to introduce the "free" aspect, as being the difference between being tied up or not. As far as nefarious manipulative chips and stuff... that is problematic because you then can't act in accordance with your will (and introduces moral issues, which seems to poison the example a bit). But regardless, just saying "will", still works there. You didn't get tied up of your own desired will. So the "free" part is still redundant. Later in the video they seem to agree that Compatibilism could be replaced with "volition". Dennett liked: "Morally competent volition", if he has to. I'd much prefer they say that. Obviously it's currently a shit-show with them using the same term, when not referring to Libertarian Free Will.
How so? One does not have to believe in the supernatural to believe in the existence of color. Consciousness is an emergent property of the combined networking of the brain and so is the ability to make decisions based on projected out comes and consequences. I ask you, if we do not have free will, then what does free will look like? Because I can't think it would look very different.
The problem with this way of thinking is the same for the theist. They start with a proposition that they desire to be true, and then they contort and ignore reality to make it conform. One would hope this kind of thinking would be obvious to these people, who can so easily see it in others.
but that decision making is dependent on everything that has influenced you which has shaped that network. You make a decision that you were always going to make if you had all the influendes that you had uo to the point of making the decision. I dont get the colour argument. We distinguish different wavelengths of light and see that as colour. Free will would look like nothing, because the universe is deterministic by nature...hence Naturalism. Chin up - enjoy the ride
The solution to free will is easy, stop using it. I make decisions. I am not a dualist, when I say I make decisions that means me as a physical entity, brains and body with a particular history. What the decision will be depends on me, a brain and body with a particular history. I feel like I made the decision and I did but that would be true regardless how I feel. I am responsible for the decisions I make because I am the brain and body with a particular history that made the decision. How you or society should react to the decision I made should be informed by explanations that include the environment plus the brain body and particular history that is me. Problems solved without even mentioning free well. The problem with free will is it is useless.
Harris and other incompatibilists such as Pereboom needed to be in on this conversation. Hell, I wish I was there so I could interject in response to a whole lot of compatibilist nonsense. Disappointed Coyne didn't do the job he needed to do here. One of the most frustrating conversations I've watched in a long time, only because no one was correcting all of the complete misunderstandings being spouted.
I think all involved refuse to acknowledge the elephant in the room. What you are hearing is an argument over an outdated word that should be discarded. You can not redefine the term 'free will" so that it will no longer be weighted down with the idea of souls or ethereal agency. Until a more appropriate term such as volition is allowed to replace the term free will, you will not be able to sensibly examine the processes that effect human behavior.
ah now you are doing the dan dennett thing - well yes, you can play with words and use semantics....but the difference between you and I is probably just that I am a pragmatist. I agree you do just act as though we do have free will ...I do. Thats not the same as acknowledging that we actually have it in any physical sense
Prof. Dennett is a great story teller, but free will has nothing to do with having a "poker face". Free will is simply informed conscious deliberation. Where "informed" means in light of experience. Where "conscious" means with regard to self image. Where "deliberation" means step-wise shedding of alternatives until an action/choice becomes clear. Free will can be exercised in private. It doesn't matter whether an observer can anticipate your choice by reading your face.
I have never seen so much "e-peen", or may I say "peen", in one room before. Makes me hope I never become successful in my area, to think I'd become like this is a painful thing.
What if a tumor made you more moral than us all in a way that clearly demonstrated to that person, and only that person that our fundamental way of life is amoral? Would that then condemn all of humanity to prison?
well Ray, as best I can make out, like any self respecting Naturalist, he knows we dont have it, but he thinks us little people cant handle the truth. Gawd I hate Philosophers
In his Zagreb talk later Jerrey Coyne slams Dennet's referenced "cheating experiment" as no longer valid under the replication crisis. So its not good science anymore, sorry Dan. Love you anyway Uncle Darwin, D.A., NYC* *I had no other choice or free will than to write the above. Or have a beer NOW. ;-)
Jerry Coyne is a rather strange fellow, he spends half his time trying to convince people that the theory of evolution is true and then maintains we are just robots with no free will to choose or decide our actions or beliefs etc. Why bother trying to convince people who are just robots and can't decide one way or the other, everything is determined by "physical" law. I wish he would just reflect a bit more on the consequences of what he is saying.
They all believe everything is determined by physical law! It's just that Jerry Coyne doesn't think free will is a useful emergent concept to apply to human beings. He sees the glass as half-empty while most of the others see it as half-full. Convincing other people is of course perfectly compatible with determinism.
Jesus, this is gawdawful. This is what happens when you put a bunch of geniuses in a room and force them to debate philosophy - they're reduced to gibbering idiots. In a way it's comforting to the rest of us true idiots. But in another way, it's just very sad. Also, typically, the women hardly seem to be able to get a word in edgewise.
It seems Sean Carroll has been reading Wittgenstein. I think he sums up clearly how to think about "free will". I love these. Thanks for posting.
@logicalempiricist2 there no more logical positivistsmy friend
@logicalempiricist2 well I think logical positivism is false, and its certainly a good thing. The fall of logical positivism gave us the contemporary analytic philosophy as we know it today
@logicalempiricist2 wow that just made my day, thank you
Having viewed the whole workshop I'm drawn back regularly to just choose a spot randomly to stir up "the little grey cells" and enjoy the exchange. Thank you Sean.
I agree with Jerry Coyne that free will (defined as the ability to have made a different decision at any given point in the past) is incompatible with naturalism. It seems to me Daniel Dennett's argument for free will is simply based on the fact that for some decisions we can't follow the chain of causality: if in a given situation a person's actions aren't obviously constrained by something and there seems to be a large range of possible decisions for the person to make, then in that situation the person has free will. If in another situation, a person't actions are obviously constrained by something, then in that situation there's no free will. It sounds to me like he is arguing for partial free will which doesn't make any sense.
Just because it seems that in some situations the decisions are less constrained than in others, that doesn't mean that's true. Instead of one or two factors (like a brain tumor making you desire to have sex with your daughter or a subliminal message in a cereal box) that constrain a person's choices in a big way and makes it easy to follow the chain of causality, you can have thousands of small factors that do the same thing. Just because it seems to you a person is more free to make decisions when is influenced by thousands of small experiences and environmental cues instead of one or two big ones doesn't means that is actually true.
A few years ago these videos had around 3k views and I would constantly re-watch them in order to better grasp everything that was said. It seems the trend has continued and people have studied these videos. The views are almost 19k now.
Fortunately over the winter months I do have the time to spare to watch these lengthy exchanges. I have watched the first days videos and part of the morning of the second day. I must admit that in a room full of ten-story ego's they are acting quite civil. I consider it quite a privilege that through youtube I am allowed to be the proverbial fly on the wall, but I must concur with Gary that there a few dry and word-windy stretches between the juicy bits.
The moment where Sean starts to rule and fixes all confusion up to that point: 57:20 and Janna, who appears to be one of few that appears to be actually interested in making progress, nods in agreement.
although he often listens to others with a look that suggests he might erupt in some sort of violence, Alex intellectually kicks ass when he chips in with all these debates
even though i lean towards incompatibilism, listening to coyne talk about free will is making my head hurt
"There is no question that human beings can imagine and plan for the future, weigh competing desires, etc.-- and that losing these capacities would greatly diminish us. External pressures of various kinds can be absent while a person imagines, plans, and acts--and such pressures determine our sense of whether he is morally responsible for his behavior. However, theses phenomena have nothing to do with free will...but the actual explanation of my behavior is hidden from me." -Sam Harris
I'm disappointed weinberg was the only person whose comments hinted at the epistemological paradox of discussing free-will, and he didn't make his point very clear. That problem being, we can't even be sure if material around us actually exists or not, let alone know if it's 100% deterministic or not. However, we EXPERIENCE free will first hand... like Dan and Steven said, this should be more important to us than anything else. We should know that we are free agents with as much certainty as we know the people around us are not cyborg-clones. That certainty is not very high, but who gives a flying f**... it IS what matters.
1:06:40 best point in the video. We should get rid of this confusing label of "free will" that carries all kinds of fantastical dualistic connotations entirely. Call it something else! It's not free will, for you don't choose what you will; you just will! This semantic squabble between hard determinism/hard incompatibilism and compatibilism is beyond silly. We have two camps of rational naturalists here that agree with each other in almost every sense, and the quarrel is mostly of semantic nature. Thanks, Sean, for the upload. This was a joy to watch.
Dont tell Sean Carroll et al that we managed to get to the bottom of it all with 3 youtube comments each
I do agree that on the micro level, the physical biological level; we do not have the ability to chose 'ourselves' if you know what I mean. For philosophical purposes however it is useful to name what we do have, whatever it may be 'free will' or at least the ability to make decisions freely.
We already know that there are things we don't know.
We know there is something missing in our understanding when we look at the macroscopic world and the quantum world.
I agree with Mr. Carroll when he says something along the line of "we have free will because that's our best theory of ourselves right now".
I'm totally fine with accepting that there is still something missing in our understanding of "free will" and it seems some of the people here feels like we MUST have a definitive answer.
Isn't it like saying "Yeah, string theory MUST be right because I need an answer to the quantum/relativity problem". ?
Am I making any sense?
Also noticed how no one actually listens to one another? Sean just gave a beautiful account summarizes the talk so far in the clearest and most coherent sense yet, and the little skinny Irish guy does not even acknowledge anything he said and goes off on his on original thought. What a joke? A few of these people need to better their communication skills. and also some of them are just so dogmatic it's almost funny. There is some serious irony woven into this whole discussion.
Which is why it's important to acknowledge that religious people aren't crazy. We all have our own areas of dogma and ignorance. However that doesn't in any way invalidate the superior thought processes these participants have on the literal truth of religion.
It's really a shame Sam Harris wasn't in on this discussion.
And R.Sapolsky
Free will is a gradient, and stating that we don't have free will can more accurately be stated as "We do not have absolute free will", which of course is true, and which counters the significance of "free will" in the religious context.
Instinctive behavior is an example of a lack of free will (as is compulsive behavior). Cognitive behavior is an example of "free will", to a degree, depending on the circumstances.
Oh, of course Ali. ALL religious people are right about everything, and any view counter to theirs is wrong. Especially if its based on science.
The difference between the tic and a human when it comes to free will is not merely a difference of degree, there is a qualitative difference borne from the social/cultural differences?
On the Libet experiment, didn't we already know that our decisions will be caused at first by unconscious processes like everything else, like when I'm typing this comment, my actions are caused by an unconscious process initially etc. Don't think the experiment said much about freedom of the will though.
I always assumed that "free will" in the common vernacular could be summed up as the 'ability to have done other than you did', which I think is the mode that most people operate on on a daily basis, and almost assuredly anyone who is even remotely religious as it underpins the concepts of sin/morality, and the afterlife. Most people intuitively assign truly free agency to themselves and other individuals as though the final arbiter of thoughts and actions is somehow decoupled from the state of the universe, rather than a direct, emergent byproduct of it.
The socio-political compatibilist argument given by Dennett reminds me an awful lot of when I was 5 years old, asking my catholic mother if the events in the old testament actually happened. Despite her knowing what I meant by "actually happened", she performed verbal gymnastics to the best of her ability to redefine it in order avoid conceding that point due to the potential side effects of admitting that the Bible is somehow unreliable. While she may have succeeded in her goal of side stepping the question, it also had the added side effect of making me realize that my mother was an unreliable source of information on such topics, and Dan's words here seem to be creeping him in that same direction.
Secondly I'd say that the assumption that belief in free will is somehow a necessity for a functioning society is not a slam dunk argument. If one is able to dispel the supernatural concept of 'free will' (ability to have done other), then it can be an immensely powerful force for forgiveness, both for others as well as one's self. Unhelpful concepts of hate and retribution are no longer justified, and can be at least partially alleviated. (Not to mention personal wealth, reward, success, failure, etc.)
***** "But you've done a little sleight of hand by insinuating that Dennett was in any way supportive of that magical free will."
I acknowledged Dan was a compatibilist, there's no sleight of hand. That said, If he's in any way supportive of magical free will, it's a byproduct of his inability to plainly answer "does free will exist?" on the terms under which it was intended. Libertarianism = "free will" as far as the general public is concerned, and when posed the question, Dan should answer accordingly instead of talking about cereal and Cameron Diaz. THAT is sleight of hand.
"you suggest that free will is not a necessity for a functioning society"
I said the belief in "free will" is not *necessarily* a necessity, as seems to be implied by Dan. Every member of that talk does not believe in the "free will" that the bulk of the civilized world does, and yet I'm assuming they don't renege on their contracts, or break their social contracts by deciding to rape and steal and claim 'no free will' as an excuse.
***** "you're the one falling into the trap of equivocation"
Sorry, but that's not how language works. Common vernacular usage of the term "free will" is what takes precedence when folks like Dan are speaking to the public. Dan chooses to toy with semantics in order to side-step the debate and play comfortably into people's misconceptions. Harris chooses to use the common definition of the term in the context of his book, and he's wholly correct to do so given the audience.
The fact that any study is showing anything close to 75% in favor of a compatibilist view speaks volumes about how muddy the waters must be when it comes to understanding just what the ramifications are from a deterministic view of "free will" and the universe. Compatibilism is entirely incompatible with any and every major religious denomination, even the most liberal of christians, so unless you're trying to argue that >75% of undergrads (never mind the general population) are, in fact, secular determinists, then the only thing made evident by that study is that the study was poorly worded or that undergrads have terrible comprehension.
***** Language works by having a common agreed upon usage of a word or phrase and without it you're left with confusion and worthless arguing like this very one we're having now. "Free will" in the common usage means exactly the libertarian view of free will, and academics whom opt to deviate from that definition when speaking on the public stage without flatly stating that the public's understanding of free will is nonsensical are willfully persisting this confusion.
Harris: "Imagine that we live in a world where more or less everyone believes in the lost kingdom of Atlantis. You[Dennett] and your fellow compatibilists come along and offer comfort: Atlantis is real, you say. It is, in fact, the island of Sicily. You then go on to argue that Sicily answers to most of the claims people through the ages have made about Atlantis. Of course, not every popular notion survives this translation, because some beliefs about Atlantis are quite crazy, but those that really matter-or should matter, on your account-are easily mapped onto what is, in fact, the largest island in the Mediterranean. Your work is done, and now you insist that we spend the rest of our time and energy investigating the wonders of Sicily.
The truth, however, is that much of what causes people to be so enamored of Atlantis-in particular, the idea that an advanced civilization disappeared underwater-can’t be squared with our understanding of Sicily or any other spot on earth. So people are confused, and I believe that their confusion has very real consequences. But you rarely acknowledge the ways in which Sicily isn’t like Atlantis, and you don’t appear interested when those differences become morally salient. This is what strikes me as wrongheaded about your approach to free will."
I can't help you if you're resistant to the idea that the vast vast majority of the public fall into the libertarian view of it. There is no a la carte version of major religions that don't include some kind of libertarian, non-deterministic view of free will. Any religion that has any form of right/wrong moral teaching with the hook of an afterlife reward/punishment is incompatible with a naturalist view of free will.
"Oh yeah, while I believe in baptism and transubstantiation, I don't believe that God cares about my thoughts and actions." -said no one ever.
*****
It's not worth my time discussing this with you further as this is going in circles. If you can't concede that a majority of the western/"civilized" population adhere to a murky, ill-defined, indeterministic metaphysical view of "free will" (what would otherwise be classified as "libertarianism") than we're at an impasse.
Your/Dennett's examples of other words that have changed definitions over time are examples of where society has done exactly that - they've learned and moved on. This circles back to my contention that society *hasn't* moved on with respect to libertarianist views of "free will".
Perhaps you live a very privileged life such that you're not exposed to anyone who's not a naturalist, I don't know.
***** onlinelibrary.wiley.com/enhanced/doi/10.1111/j.1468-0017.2010.01393.x/ - pantheon.yale.edu/~jk762/cultural-universal.pdf
Abstract:
"...the majority of participants said that (a) our universe is indeterministic..."
onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1468-0068.2007.00666.x/full
"...Across conditions, nearly all participants (over 90%) judged that the indeterministic universe is most similar to our own..."
this is awesome! great topic with great people.
This whole talk about how free will exists in the coarse-grained world, or as Weinberg puts it, that it is the conscious part along the chain of causation, completely skirts the issue. The coarse grained phenomenon that we experience with the assumed emergence from particle physics (Laplace's demon) is exactly what people mean by the "illusion of free will". These guys are trying to redefine free will to mean the illusion of free will, which of course is compatible with determinism.
If the theory of everything is deterministic, then by definition we don't have free will. The universe would be played out like a movie. Now, you can also have non-determinism and no free will (eg. the interaction between particles is a coin toss).To have FW the choices I make must be made by "me" and they must have some amount of non-determinism to others. But this is incompatible with the atomistic view / Eastern religious view / quantum many-worlds view because they treat the whole universe as one system where the notion of "me" is an illusion as well. There is a lot more to be said here: the contention of emergence, the bottom up direction of physics, the potential extrinsic universality of language (mathematics), etc...
Finally, Dennett's point about society crumbling is completely besides the point. How society is affected by a widespread disbelief in free will is irrelevant to the philosophy. It's also tautological. Any argument that goes "I'm not responsible for my actions because I don't have free will" is meaningless because the judge and jury also don't have free will. The justice system itself is just an outcrop of evolution, which is a natural process of the universe.
I trust I'm wrong, but it appears that there's more "want" than "what is" about free will here. Almost a fear about it.
Exactly, no this is philosophy 😬
Yep
It is so unnerving to hear Dennett go on about his compatibilism. Why can't someone just force him to go on the record and say "we don't have contracausal free will", since he implicitly admits it? He talks, and talks, and ends up dancing around the subject.
So, it's clear to me that compatibilism is just a way to rationalize the projection of subjective experience onto objective reality. In his justification of compatibilism, Sean Carroll says the discrepancy is merely a language problem; that we can't describe "free will" using atomistic determinism, because the term "free will" is a macro level term and the other is quantum level. But he claims these descriptions are compatible, and are just applicable at different levels of observation. He compares this to the second law of thermodynamics.
But this comparison doesn't get at the heart of the real problem. Nobody is suggesting the second law of thermodynamics is a "person" with decision-making agency and responsibility. It isn't a vocabulary problem, it's a conceptual problem. The entire concept of assigning responsibility changes if we say that all actions are determined by the laws of physics, and that even human actions are just reactions to other physical events or constraints which they are never fully aware of. "Responsibility" rests upon the notion that causation for an event can be attributed to a specific thing, and should be attributed to a specific thing, even if there are other influences acting upon it. The reason why Sean's version of compatibilism doesn't make sense is, I'm willing to bet that Sean would say certain people in the world are responsible for their actions, while other people (let's say small children and the mentally deranged) are not really responsible for their actions. At the very least, I'm sure he would say that people have degrees of accountability for their actions. But distinctions like this would have to be arbitrary, because his compatibilist view is that it's totally consistent to assign responsibility to macro level entities even if their actions can be reduced to micro or quantum level events. In other words, if we say some macro level entities are responsible, while other macro level entities are not responsible, even though these distinctions do not follow at reduced levels, then his compatibilist logic becomes inconsistent. Sean's position *_requires_* him to assign responsibility to all macro level entities equally, or simply admit that his position is totally subjective.
Dan Dennett says that free will is just as real as colors and dollars. He presents this as if it were a strong argument supporting the existence of free will, but it only undermines the "realness" of it. There are people who cannot perceive color, so to them, it's as real as an imaginary property. People who were born blind have no concept or real understanding of color; it is totally a product of subjective perception. Colors only exist as long as someone is there to perceive them. Dollars are the same thing; they only have value if people act as if they have value. But if people believe something is real, does that make it real? What about a society that acted as if God was real? Would that necessitate that God was real? C'mon, Dan.
But he says we can describe colors in terms of objective physics. Yet if we do this, then we are no longer describing "colors"; we are describing electromagnetic radiation. These are two different things. Electromagnetic radiation exists in objective reality, colors only exist if people have eyes which can perceive electromagnetic radiation in a specific manner. His description of the manifest image shows how inconsistent the manifest image is: colors = subjective experience, living things = objectively definable, opportunities = subjective experience, free will = subjective experience, dollars = the *value* of dollars is subjective experience.
The idea that free will is as real as we want it to be, just so long as we "keep a poker face" is total religiosity. What Dan Dennett is essentially saying, is that we can pretend reality is anything we want it to be, just as long as we *_all_* pretend the same thing. All the arguments made by compatibilists are very similar to arguments that theologians use to argue that religion is necessary to uphold moral behavior in society. It's so ironic.
However, all this being said, compatibilists are justified in their fear of abolishing the concept of "free will" because this concept is intrinsic to our identity as "persons". They just don't speak about this topic in honest, or logically consistent, terms. My opinion is this: we are naturally predisposed to perceive ourselves and other people as decision-making agents. But as far as we know, this is purely a product of subjective perception. If determinism is true, we are not really decision-makers. This means we do not actually qualify as "persons" by our own definition of the term, and that "we" have no responsibilities, because "we" are compositions of matter and energy directed by the laws of physics. That is a serious problem, possibly the most serious problem human beings have ever encountered. I believe that our concepts and theories of the natural universe have exceeded our ability to perceive the natural universe, and the only way to maintain our perception of what we fundamentally are, is by deluding ourselves. A form of cognitive dissonance. Compatibilism is one of the delusions. However, even incompatibilists delude themselves, because they never actually draw the logical conclusion that determinism means we do not qualify as persons. In fact, if determinism is true, then no such thing as "persons" with agency can exist in the universe.
If we want to reconcile the idea that human beings have agency with determinism, we have to concede that in many circumstances, our subjective perception of reality is more important to us than objective reality itself. If compatibilists just admitted this much, instead of trying to rationalize their incoherence and conflate their subjective experience with reality, then I would have more respect for their position. The truth is that we cannot escape our subjective nature. Since the dawn of humanity, every moral rule, every law, every policy, and every idea about what people should or shouldn't do, every value judgement, every desire and fear, and every conscious thought, has had correlation with subjective human experience. This is how we organize ourselves... through our subjective experience, and it is inescapable. It's okay to admit this truth without deluding ourselves by proclaiming subjective experience is reality. Is assigning responsibility and accountability to human beings totally subjective? Yes. Do we want to live in a society where this happens? Yes. From here, we can discuss who can be held responsible for what, and under which conditions, without pretending we are operating under unbiased and objective conclusions.
@@laertesindeed Wow, what a great argument... "Phil Barker, you're wrong". I guess I never considered that evidence before. Thank you for the constructive comment. You've enlightened me, and the rest of us.
@@laertesindeed Another incredible insight! Please keep these profound and revealing statements coming, oh wise Laertes indeed. I'm sure all the countless folks reading this are thoroughly enjoying the clear intellectual superiority which you are so generously displaying here over "us types".
@@laertesindeed "There you go, folks"... there you go indeed. And what more needs to be stated than that really? Nothing, obviously! And thus Laertes indeed spoke. Now, I am a bit concerned as to why Laertes indeed seems to be suggesting that praising his intellect is pathological. If any of the countless folks reading at home can answer that question, then this ignorant animal will greatly appreciate a response. Also, another question for the massive audience reading this... is it possible for an ignorant animal to actually induce continued glass tapping? That's just a tangent thought that crossed my mind; it probably doesn't mean anything. Anyway, all hail Laertes indeed!
1:12:40 Dennett FINNALY accepts that he is actually talking about something else that not free will, but "morally competent volition". Will anyone spread the word, specially to Sam Harris?
I found Dennett's assertions so elaborate and contingent he sounds uncertain.
I'm sure he feels certain.
But he sounds uncertain.
Like building a hugely elaborate rail yard of tracks and switches,
but every salient juncture in his proposal has a post it note that says :
"to be determined. Check back later".
That's how he defines free will. The same way Harris defines it as the ability to do others (in the absolute sense) and to be the (absolute) author of one's actions.
I don't think you consciously make any choices or decisions because your consciousness is just an observer of the decision making process - it's not the real process in itself. Consider the way someone with blindsight can navigate a room - that takes choices that feel conscious but the person with blindsight has no conscious access to their visual information. The process goes on in basically a similar way whether observed or not by our consciousness.
Free will like mind body dualism come about because there are biological separations in our brains and nervous systems so we can observe differences and even time itself. Argument "comes about" because of limited understanding of brain at a higher systems engineering pov. In reality the brain is actually a social organ but we tend to dwell on it as an embodied organ of self.
I wish Patricia Churchland had been on the panel (apparently she was invited, but couldn't make it); she might have referred to some more up-to-date neuroscience to flesh out Coyne's position.
We need not blame the psychopath in order to isolate the psychopath from the population.
@@arletottens6349 Morally competent people will do the right thing regardless of whether or not we blame the psychopath. Does the psychopath have freewill? If not, he cannot be blamed.
@@arletottens6349 Having consequences for doing harm is not the same as blaming. Do we blame a rabid dog for causing harm?
Can someone tell me if and when they address how information fits or not into naturalism?
Why not watch it?
"What makes consciousness such an important thing?"
"What else is there?" - Steven Weinberg. Ha! What a wonderful answer. They should have just taken a break right there-- crack open some cold beers, go outside and enjoy the sunlight.
Natalie Darr // That's at 55:10.
Actually I like Coyne's quick response to that.
That conscious decision-making may be just following unconscious or biological signals.
Your conscious mind just rationalizes decisions once they are made by the body like a press secretary rationalizes the actions of a brash impulsive president.
Of course consciousness is limited to the bounds of past experience, a blind man can not for example think about his favorite colour. That however does not mean that we can not use our reasoning skills and logic to make decisions on how we interact with our environment. I would argue that if we did have free will, we would interact exactly as we do, and we would think exactly as we do, therefor for all purposes we do in fact have the ability to freely make decisions.
The good news for me is that won't happen, and simultaneously the bad news.
Why do they all have Macintoshes?
Avsz Efst they are good laptops.
I'm studying Philosophy of Mind and Cognitive Science in my own academic career and wondered if you can mention some of the ideas outside of the groupthink? I am extremely interested in finding new directions to explore in these fields.
Someone should ask Jerry what he means when he says the word "Physical".
So many Compatibilists.. if you're not talking about *LIBERTARIAN* free will, then just say "will".
Leave the "free" part out. It works perfectly. All you accomplish by leaving the "free" part in, is making it needlessly confusing so as people conflate the issues, and don't see what really matters, which is the Libertarian free aspect.
Dennett tries to introduce the "free" aspect, as being the difference between being tied up or not.
As far as nefarious manipulative chips and stuff... that is problematic because you then can't act in accordance with your will (and introduces moral issues, which seems to poison the example a bit).
But regardless, just saying "will", still works there. You didn't get tied up of your own desired will. So the "free" part is still redundant.
Later in the video they seem to agree that Compatibilism could be replaced with "volition".
Dennett liked: "Morally competent volition", if he has to.
I'd much prefer they say that. Obviously it's currently a shit-show with them using the same term, when not referring to Libertarian Free Will.
@58:00 great summary Sean.
How so? One does not have to believe in the supernatural to believe in the existence of color. Consciousness is an emergent property of the combined networking of the brain and so is the ability to make decisions based on projected out comes and consequences. I ask you, if we do not have free will, then what does free will look like? Because I can't think it would look very different.
I think it's interesting to watch people decide if they have free will.
It's the topic of the workshop.
They have to try to decide.
They have no choice.
wonderful wonderful wonderful, both brilliant and blunderful.
How did I just see this now?
And where the fuck is Sam Harris?
The problem with this way of thinking is the same for the theist. They start with a proposition that they desire to be true, and then they contort and ignore reality to make it conform. One would hope this kind of thinking would be obvious to these people, who can so easily see it in others.
Yeah that's the bias problem. No one can fully get rid of it. All we can do is do our best. Indecision gets you nowhere anyways.
but that decision making is dependent on everything that has influenced you which has shaped that network. You make a decision that you were always going to make if you had all the influendes that you had uo to the point of making the decision. I dont get the colour argument. We distinguish different wavelengths of light and see that as colour. Free will would look like nothing, because the universe is deterministic by nature...hence Naturalism.
Chin up - enjoy the ride
The solution to free will is easy, stop using it.
I make decisions. I am not a dualist, when I say I make decisions that means me as a physical entity, brains and body with a particular history. What the decision will be depends on me, a brain and body with a particular history. I feel like I made the decision and I did but that would be true regardless how I feel. I am responsible for the decisions I make because I am the brain and body with a particular history that made the decision. How you or society should react to the decision I made should be informed by explanations that include the environment plus the brain body and particular history that is me.
Problems solved without even mentioning free well. The problem with free will is it is useless.
@@laertesindeed What I am arguing against is "free will" means something. It doesn't. It is useless concept we could do without.
Harris and other incompatibilists such as Pereboom needed to be in on this conversation. Hell, I wish I was there so I could interject in response to a whole lot of compatibilist nonsense. Disappointed Coyne didn't do the job he needed to do here. One of the most frustrating conversations I've watched in a long time, only because no one was correcting all of the complete misunderstandings being spouted.
I think all involved refuse to acknowledge the elephant in the room. What you are hearing is an argument over an outdated word that should be discarded. You can not redefine the term 'free will" so that it will no longer be weighted down with the idea of souls or ethereal agency. Until a more appropriate term such as volition is allowed to replace the term free will, you will not be able to sensibly examine the processes that effect human behavior.
Free will is predictable ,you can count on it
free will, most people don't have it, you only have it when you reach a certain level of concouisness
ah now you are doing the dan dennett thing - well yes, you can play with words and use semantics....but the difference between you and I is probably just that I am a pragmatist.
I agree you do just act as though we do have free will ...I do. Thats not the same as acknowledging that we actually have it in any physical sense
whenever steven weinberg bald guy to the extreme right starts to speak everybody seems to look slightly, worried, awkward or bored lol
Prof. Dennett is a great story teller, but free will has nothing to do with having a "poker face". Free will is simply informed conscious deliberation. Where "informed" means in light of experience. Where "conscious" means with regard to self image. Where "deliberation" means step-wise shedding of alternatives until an action/choice becomes clear.
Free will can be exercised in private.
It doesn't matter whether an observer can anticipate your choice by reading your face.
"they're just students anyway", lol, classic.
Intellectual arrogance ?
That probably a good thing. Too much philosophy can ruin any good mind.
I have never seen so much "e-peen", or may I say "peen", in one room before. Makes me hope I never become successful in my area, to think I'd become like this is a painful thing.
What if a tumor made you more moral than us all in a way that clearly demonstrated to that person, and only that person that our fundamental way of life is amoral? Would that then condemn all of humanity to prison?
Is it me or does Jerry Coyne seem to be constantly irritated?
when hell freezes over, cos I'd have to believe in the supernatural before I did :)
The free will debate would have been even better with Robert Sapolsky there
most ppl have a low level of concouisness an the there action are just habits, or what they say is predetermined phrases.
Cringed so hard through Jerry Coyne's bit...
well Ray, as best I can make out, like any self respecting Naturalist, he knows we dont have it, but he thinks us little people cant handle the truth.
Gawd I hate Philosophers
In his Zagreb talk later Jerrey Coyne slams Dennet's referenced "cheating experiment" as no longer valid under the replication crisis. So its not good science anymore, sorry Dan. Love you anyway Uncle Darwin, D.A., NYC*
*I had no other choice or free will than to write the above. Or have a beer NOW. ;-)
This doesn't make much of a difference.
Dr. Harris or Professor Sapolsky is the perfect cure of this nonsense....
Absolutely. Harris or Sapolsky, I would have loved to see in this.
39:56 flashing cash
Dawkins, terrible way to finish... you just got a dose of practical reality from Nicholas Pritzker and you dump back into your own narrow outlook....
Jerry Coyne is a rather strange fellow, he spends half his time trying to convince people that the theory of evolution is true and then maintains we are just robots with no free will to choose or decide our actions or beliefs etc. Why bother trying to convince people who are just robots and can't decide one way or the other, everything is determined by "physical" law. I wish he would just reflect a bit more on the consequences of what he is saying.
Baza Coyne is trying to push his audience's brain-electrons in the right direction to agree with him.
They all believe everything is determined by physical law! It's just that Jerry Coyne doesn't think free will is a useful emergent concept to apply to human beings. He sees the glass as half-empty while most of the others see it as half-full. Convincing other people is of course perfectly compatible with determinism.
free will is a thing. those who say otherwise just make me highly suspicious of their extracurricular behaviors. especially the men.
Jesus, this is gawdawful. This is what happens when you put a bunch of geniuses in a room and force them to debate philosophy - they're reduced to gibbering idiots. In a way it's comforting to the rest of us true idiots. But in another way, it's just very sad. Also, typically, the women hardly seem to be able to get a word in edgewise.