Full podcast episode: ruclips.net/video/Qyrjgf-_Vdk/видео.html Lex Fridman podcast channel: ruclips.net/user/lexfridman Guest bio: Sam Harris is an author, podcaster, and philosopher.
Which makes sense, because our common-sense experience makes it obvious that we have some level of control over some of our actions. We are responsible. You can't take that away from people and expect no push back. It's like saying "red doesn't exist", but even deeper.
Holy shit, I've had this before - Alot.. almost everyday to be honest, I sit and think of not moving, and not to think of thinking and let my mind go blank.
6:25 reminded me of Shawshank when he locks himself in with the record player, and later at lunch he talks about how they can never take that from him.
All it means to say something is "possible" is to say it doesn't violate our mental model of reality. It has no actual existance. It is simply a feeling that "this postulated circumstance/occurance accords with my model of reality."
Free will is often argued as incompatible with physical determinism, but I don't think that's the case. If you entertain dualism, multidimensionality and editable memory, it fits cleanly with the rest of the model. If it's a multidimensional reality wherein cause and effect is really a sphere of potentiality where all possible random causes /happen/ and all potential effects /happen/ and the limitation is the sophistication level of the observing consciousness -- your sensor (body & physical brain) -- then your free will can be accounted for by perception: the reality your limited consciousness follows, though alternative realities exist, is your 'free will' in action. If the soul is dualistic in nature, i.e. it is on 'your device' in the same way google is on 'your device', meaning it's really running off the cloud of the simulation so to speak, then your free will is determined by what you cultivate into your 'user' by means of collecting memory engrams that make up the ego; your free will is the project of building your localized ego. It's all a trick of perception. You decide, in a sense, which channel to watch on TV. Though the other channels all still exist, you are making a choice with your limited perception and inability to watch them all at once, to focus on one, thus exercising your free will. Your experience is other than it could have been based on a decision you made that has many multivariate factors, but is still a product of your decision. This also means, if you work the other way from that conclusion, your memory engrams are editable, they're no different materially from any other experience real or imagined you could feasibly accrue, your ego is editable, and so the reality you experience and the way you interact with that reality are controllable from your perception; even if "objective" reality, wherein in a multiversal model all things both happen and don't happen, doesn't change, you have the free will to determine a) which reality your consciousness follows; b) what you curate from that reality to form your formative experiences; and c) how you react to those experiences. To use the example from the video, you could delude yourself into imprinting memories of a fictional daughter on yourself and with no outside force to disprove those memories, they would be just as valid as any factually accurate set of memories. Biological and physical determinism have way too much chaos and random input to have any useful predictability, especially with quantum particles popping in and out of this dimension via rules we don't understand but definitely would affect the variables that underpin theories of an interpretation of determinism that convincingly disproves free will. That's my view anyway.
But in these types of debates “free will” is understood as “absolute free will”, which means to be able to consciously and intentionally choose the object(s) of your desire (and/or to be able to intentionally be without desire for any object whatsoever), and to be able to do it absolutely independently of any factors outside of your own conscious ego. So, we have “relatively free will”, but not “free will” per se.
Whether or not physicists from 500 years ago were able to calculate and predict where a rock lands after rolling down a hill doesn't mean the rock had free will
Is this what the song "Que Sera" whatever will be will be...we have no control over anything, not even ourselves...what is going to happen is going to happen because that is the way nature is unfolding?
It’s shocking how engrossed they were in Parmenidies, Aristotle and the nature of potential/change. I would encourage people to research it. Essentially change is potential that is actualized. So potential is a very real thing as Sam said.
Idk how Sam Harris hasn’t driven himself mad thinking about these things. Imagine always thinking about your thoughts and the effect those thoughts have on you 🤔. Ignorance is bliss
because he's a hypocrite. He's also a faker, and not nearly as smart as he likes people thinking he is. The more i see, the less i think of him. Not sure why lex even bothered with him.
"You are not in control. Everything is just happening." -- Exactly. And we observe mostly our own reactions within the environment, so we are totally biased in the same way that we thought the Earth was in the center.
So many questions about that. No free will means we shouldn't punish or reward anythinhg and no one. It means it makes no real sense to plan anything. To have hope or fear. And on the reality that only now matters and it's sufficient for everyone paying enough attention, that would mean a tasty beverage or plain water shouldn't change you in any way. No favorite dish or even favorite person. I have meditated before and i have felt the benefits of been less lost in thought. But these philosophical questions still bother me. It's far from obvious for me to reconcile lack of free will and individual responsability.
Sam says if you replay the tape up to a given instant, it is not possible that you could have chosen otherwise in that instant. Of course not, Sam, because you’re replaying the tape. Free will exists at the present instant. Replaying the tape does not explain or clarify anything.
Why is that funny? Dubiously saying there's no freewill is dangerous and all of his "no freewill" arguments have been disproven. What IS funny is how Sam once called the Quran a "plethora of bad ideas" when his own book is a REAL plethora of bad ideas.
@@ififif31 lmao it's not dangerous. He's right, but the truth makes you so uncomfortable that you reject it out of self preservation of your sanity. Your brain couldn't handle these complex notions.
I think free will does exist, just not as a solid state but a spectrum. I think in the study they forgot to account for autopilot vs lucidity/mindfulness. When you're mindful you're more likely to think out a decision before making it and think more critically. You're also more likely to remember things. I also think lucid dreaming is the perfect example of free will. You're able to realize you're in a dream with enough mindfulness in the waking state and once you're in a lucid dream you can practice controlling it. Once you do have controlling it down you can do and experience pretty much anything with no limits other than your own imagination. There's no more free state than this I think we all have different levels of free will at different points and depending on how much focus we put into being mindful
@1 1 I think almost if not any form of "free will" in this context is driven by your mind and body. You have a variety of choices based on what you know. Your knowing/imagination is largely formed by experience. Within that limited remembering/imaginary state, you can choose whatever you want. But is it truly free will? I mean free will suggest infinite number of possibilities which go beyond the knower/thinker. Your so-called free will is limited by what you know/experience(d).
"We have no free will" (Sam Harris) I absolutely disagree! We have free will, but it's probably more limited than people think! A lot of times, we are on the automatic pilot, but at other times, we can think about our options and there, our free will comes into play. 🤣 Once again, Sam Harris dealing in absolute: "we have no free will and that's it!". He should have said: I don't think we have free will for these reasons...
You're free to never have free will because never is forever and forever is never free of being forever including first believing you have free will, eternity is the origin story of eternity(itself) because eternity is a reproductive state which is also the origin story of itself as a reproductive state( eternity), eternity is repeat as repeat is eternity, therefore I always have and I always will rewrite this same exact comment verbatim by always first believing I am writing this comment.
Hi Lex Clips!! Hope you're well! It seems like the lack of having a common language is limiting the understanding. For example with the idea that what if only the *Actual* is possible -- well what if everything is actual all the time --- FOR ALL TIME -- because time is an illusion? Wondering if that the material/physical hardware that consciousness emerges with would need some continuity depending on the level of consciousness. For example -- dropping a cell phone off to a Neanderthal wouldn't achieve much -- Nor would boxing up a Model T Ford in perfect condition and sending it to a future that has advanced past such things mean anything. We like to presume possibility.. but no different than the sport of Basketball with Foul Lines, Boundaries, Backboards etc. There has to be some continuity. Maybe that's the mystery of it all. If Time is an illusion, then the weird thing is that we presume total agency when our individual selves act as nodes for consciousness to interface with the material/physical world we've been presented with -- no different than with NBA players in a basketball game. So there is a sense of free will... but that language is not accurate anymore? Better to say consciousness is emergent with the material/actual -- and our infinitesimally tiny individual nodes/personalities are the individual currents for Consciousness to experience all that is actual for all time and we're just in this specific material user interface that we call the current moment/present? So instead of free will, what we are actually doing is curating consciousness. This would fit into the idea of Love -- meaning curating and respecting everyone's conscious experiences with regard to what is perceived to be actual -- hence the importance to have as much as possible a common physical/material and linguistic reference point to understand how best to curate that -- since our brains can't comprehend much more than that at this point. (Giving a Model T Ford or to someone far in the future or a cell phone to someone far in the past wouldn't be much of an act of love. So in some sense a person wouldn't want all things to be literally actual all at once... this greatly reduces the idea of "Free Will" -- a single 1/Eight Billionth person doesn't get to make their own interface for all living creatures..... I would say that based on the observation of Basketball -- Last Dance on Netflix is a good example that there is something of what we call *Free Will* but it's not what anyone with a classical definition of that phrase would think that it is. Watching the consciousness of Phil Jackson, Dennis Rodman, and Scottie Pippin discover what is possible... is a thing of beauty. Watching the love they had for opening up their bodies and minds to what is possible was inspiring. So instead of free will what we do with consciousness is discover what is possible within a limited physical/material frame. Oui?
(Also noting that there is a deep need within us for things to be as they are, Whether it's Rules of Law, or foul lines in sports -- it's interesting that human consciousness deeply needs the world to facilitate an authentic experience that is meaningful)
Instead of Free Will, maybe Free Experience is a better word? It's interesting to me that Sam was defining his freedom of the illusion by his "choice" to not have a third child. Maybe there's not a lot of *freedom* in what was actual and what he discovered as actual, however he was presumably free to experience that thread in his life. Was there no other option? I doubt that -- Religious people often say that God has a plan for them -- well that would infer that there may be an optimal emergence of consciousness and experience. If humans are analogous to nodes in a network -- one could infer that some nodes gather more information/consciousness than other nodes? I don't know this is all interesting.
I'm wondering if -- to measure the idea of Free Experience -- if voting is a good indicator of just what we really mean by that. There is tons of conscious thought put into the issues -- they are distilled down but then a person has to go to a voting booth, or obtain a ballot by mail and then they have to physically fill out the ballot. The very act of voting seems to be focused on an experiential result. It's an experience that everyone is after. Within the framework of our physical world and the constraints from evolution and physics-- there's what's actual vs what's emergent. There may not be as much agency as we presume to have.. but take any of the hot issues.. and those seem to be measurable. It seems like we could scan brains on 2a and Abortion issues with people on both sides of the fence and figure out scientifically why one group of people votes one way and another votes the other and then by doing so could understand more precisely what *we're* actually *voting* for. Both sides are trying to curate an experience presumably. Where is the overlap?
An ism may point at analytics and declare it to be an unnatural human thought process, especially if the mode is thriving rather than surviving. In actuality one will say "I have no money", whereas the other will say "I have money". In the world of each moving concept one will be saying "I have enough money" and the other will be saying "I don't have any money". - From a collection of my living reality.
You know if you combine this with all of his other videos where he's so desperately trying to explain how he wasn't responsible for being wrong it becomes overwhelmingly easy to see how he has come to these beliefs.
His view on free will is derived from his training in Tibetan Buddhism, and is a fairly common one among Buddhists, experienced meditators, and even physicists (Sabine Hossenfelder's video on free-will gives u the basic view from physics). He studied with Tulki Urgyen Rinpoche in Tibet. He knows his shit.
For real. I'm horrified at the number of people who nash their teeth and thrash against this idea, but have no way to disprove it other than saying Sam Harris is a smug asshole 😂😂😂
Possibility exists simply because our alignment with reality is flawed. The fact that it is flawed is blindingly obvious but...so far...correctable only by what can only be described as astronomically extreme measures. Someday...hopefully that will change.
Our world is simulated. Our so-called free will is by-and-large the inevitable effects, determined by the causes created long time ago within the real simulator--our Ayala-consciousness, which stores every little program/data called "bija" (seed) accumulated from our countless past lives. This is documented and explained abundantly since thousand years ago in ancient literature such as and . We are most of the time puppets and avatars through our entire life (not unlike Plato's cave metaphor). The real question is to get to know how this "operator" works (e.g. how it creates YOU and the universe) and change your destiny from there. That makes the real difference.
Basically what ever u said is the path of a seeker , this is what is called spirituality. Some have created technique to elevate themselves , it’s a state of mind only who is experiencing can feel even they cannot truly defined the state . What I gathered from my perspective cause I am not there , I can see that it’s a state where your mind is in full control and is at present and doing the best , knowing that u are not in control , which intern is gives u the final freedom . Bit tough to explain
So basically if we can’t roleplay god and do all the wacky shit we want we don’t have free will Cuz that’s all I’m hearing. He wants us to basically glitch out of the boundaries of a video game like come on! Boundaries have purpose! 👁👄👁
Causation is completely accepted by everyone as a fixed relationship between causes and effects until we consider the brain. Then it's time for some special pleading baby.
These people have too much time on their hands to talk about this nonsense. Your present moment can be affected by yesterday's actions. The present moment is dictated by hopes of the future and the history of your past mistakes or success. It's your free will to decide what you do next.
Free-will, categorically, is not a real phenomenon. Life 'divines' through it's experience towards whatever peace it has conjectured. There was so much grace lost in the adopted delusion of human exceptionalism that it made literal Hell. Patience be with us. #youarefactuallytheonlythingthatexists
I'll side with the nitwits on this one. I'm sure things are commonly ascribed to free will that can be proven to be predetermined (for example, deciding to reach for a water bottle,) but that doesn't rule out the normal common sense idea of will power. Similar to belief in God, there's little to no risk in being wrong about this.
Sam is a materialist, his materialism is absolute and as Prof. Richard Lewontin said: We cannot allow a Divine Foot in the door. Everything else follows
Welcome to my masterclass; talking without saying anything. I wonder how much time ole Sam spent staring into a mirror to perfect that eyebrow tilt, so profound.
But talking without saying anything is how you get to valuable discoveries. You just want to hear the good stuff without seeing any of the real work required to get there.
Sam’s take on this is pretty dumb. Yeah all of your chemicals are predisposed to react a certain way, but the choices you or you family make literally change your brain chemistry and the future decisions you make. So free will in that sense is definitely real.
agree with Ben, because this argument can be chopped down untill you reach higgs-boson levels of explanation about how things happen, but that doesn’t explain consciousness and why we act om certain things. What makes us special is that we divert from what basic chemistry tells us and others people behaviour gives us opportunities to choose.
Gathering Information to make choices is causal.....Information needed for decisions come from your experiences and things that happened to you and the information you have..which are all causal.
@@jonathanj2666 Did you hear the part where he said that noticing things is not willful? That's what I was referring to. How 'bout you? Do you think noticing is willful or random?
In ten seconds, imagine a blue cube rotating clockwise. Your capacity to do this demonstrates a kind of psychological freedom not eliminable by traditional physical-reductionist strategies; those that often work against bodily agency examples. It's still certainly the case that this ability depends upon, and is constrained by, physical operations, primarily in the brain, but the event isn't recognizably 'identical' with any physical operation. It's a higher order psychological phenomenon - focused, controlled, abstract imagination - not reducible to a particular physical chain of causation. Part of what seems to motivate such confusion around this issue is an insistence on a monistic view of causation, namely, one of physical operations only. If one doesn't make this strong assertion, that there is only one channel of causation allowable in our model of the world, the problem of volition becomes much less intimidating. Causal pluralism shouldn't be presumed without justification, but neither should causal monism. Deep issues here for sure. Cheers.
Lot of words you used there. I didn't choose to imagine a blue cube rotating clockwise, you typed the words and I read them. When I read them, the image appeared in my consciousness. I didn't choose it to, it appeared out of the abyss of my subconscious, like all thoughts. Cause and effect. Your example of obvious free will isn't very good.
I don't doubt that that was what happened when you read the words, which is why I specified a time interval. Any sort of immediate-reaction example will be vulnerable to the challenge you're posing - "it wasn't any sort of free control of my mind that did that, just the determined reaction of my mind to the event" - whether it's true or not. Generating examples that subvert that vulnerability are definitely difficult. It seems to me though that if a person can withhold the act of imagining the cube (or any imaginary object/scene) for a specified amount of of time, and then generate the image, that wouldn't be just the unfolding of reactive consciousness. It would be a genuine act of volitional cognition, what I called abstract manipulation before. Does that make more sense of the example? Thanks for the response human. Cheers.
Gage just gave us the perfect argument against free will, as mentioned above. Upon reading your comment, through no Free Will of my own I immediately imagined the blue cube. We could go back in time and run this same experiment a thousand times over and I guarantee that one thousand times I will not be able to exhibit any freedom of will to not imagine that cube. Run the experiment now by not thinking about a blue duck :)
@@GYPSYTALES You're absolutely right. In that specific sense, and many (maybe most) others, the contents of our minds are not chosen freely by us, and so are in some sense determined. The point isn't to say that 'all' cognitive events are freely chosen, or that any of them are 100% free, in some sort of mystical sense, but simply that we do have 'some' measure of freedom over 'some' cognitive states; in this case, time-lapsed imaginative abstractions. Again, if you perform the thought experiment while you're reading the text of my explanation of it, the sort of challenge you're posing is potentially valid. An honest engagement with the experiment would have you put your phone/device down, close your eyes, count to ten, then imagine the blue cube rotating. If you can do that, you have some measure of direct control over some kinds of cognitive events. Thanks for the reply my dude. Let me know what you think.
Is actuality not just the past? The past is actual. You can’t change the past. The past is the past. But this makes it sound like you can’t change the future. That is entirely false.
You can change the future with information you have now...that information came to this point from the past. So this is a continuum from past to present to future...
I feel like accepting you do not have free will is dangerous. Gives weak people an out to not be disciplined. Maybe I’m misunderstanding this. Please let me know if I am. I believe I have full control over my life and everything that happens to me.
@@shy5088 the duality you have constructed between there being a separate viewer (you) and situation to view (other) is an illusion. It's all your own doing.
@@IAn0nI dude am spiritual I read and am aware of energy in a person - not everyone is for the greater good - there is negative energy in the world 🌎 get a grip.
It seems to me like a lot of people white people especially live outside of there body and watch and themselves walk around. I experience free will every second of my life I’m fully inside of my body. Except when I smoke weed lol
@@7DAYSOFOPENINGNIGHTS hey little fella, 6 people agree with me. Looks like no one sides with your delusive perspective this time ✌I feel special now 🤣 that's all the reason I need 😃
Mindfulness is also known as Mindlessness. And they both are an accurate description of what the experience, in fact is: The Experience of the Physical Senses to the very Limit of those Senses within an amount of Time that cannot be measured by the Senses of the Experiencer.
Sam seems to reason without nuance and believes in absolutes. He believes in his opinion so strong and faithfully It's inseparable from a religion. "Only a sith deal in absolutes" Obi-Wan Kenobi
Lol wdym “without nuance”? The man gave numerous examples to explain his point 7 different ways. He’s written a whole book about the topic of this clip. Meanwhile you’re here taking an overgeneralized jab at him with 0 specifics. Talk about no nuance lol
@@IAn0nI I mean, I got that much. It was just a lot of words to support something that can't be proven or disproven, neither way of which would have any impact on daily human life.
Full podcast episode: ruclips.net/video/Qyrjgf-_Vdk/видео.html
Lex Fridman podcast channel: ruclips.net/user/lexfridman
Guest bio: Sam Harris is an author, podcaster, and philosopher.
wow a lotta people seem bothered by the idea they dont have free will. i wonder how much of a choice that emotion is
We all have illusionary free will..
@@ash9x9so we have none
Yes, but that illusionary free will is a requirement for the ego...
Which makes sense, because our common-sense experience makes it obvious that we have some level of control over some of our actions. We are responsible. You can't take that away from people and expect no push back. It's like saying "red doesn't exist", but even deeper.
@@Scynthescizor cOmMon-sEnsE
I know I have no free will every time I get my hands on a sleeve of Oreos
I just had a kebab.
Lol
Will power is what you lack
@@notchback93 Great take, Einstein
@@craigrussell3062 don’t be rude, I also enjoy Oreos
I’ve never seen Sam Harris laugh
See him with Bill maher
I have with Ricky Gravis
Yet I already know he’s 10x funnier than you 😃
He's gonna be all we laugh at soon with his anti intellectual non rhetoric about not debating Bret.
He did with his wife
Welcome to the mind of a meditator! A foreign land to most people
Holy shit, I've had this before - Alot.. almost everyday to be honest, I sit and think of not moving, and not to think of thinking and let my mind go blank.
6:25 reminded me of Shawshank when he locks himself in with the record player, and later at lunch he talks about how they can never take that from him.
All it means to say something is "possible" is to say it doesn't violate our mental model of reality. It has no actual existance. It is simply a feeling that "this postulated circumstance/occurance accords with my model of reality."
is that all he means. i can't figure it out. you're saying he just means he forgot what the word possible means?
This better be good, Sam. I acquired the tool known to many as the “dab pen” for this
You do realize this is Lieutenant Gregory Stevens you're talking with
Awesome
Good that you like the conversation or good that you like not to like the conversation?
Taking Dabs and listening to Sam Harris sounds awful
Free will is often argued as incompatible with physical determinism, but I don't think that's the case. If you entertain dualism, multidimensionality and editable memory, it fits cleanly with the rest of the model. If it's a multidimensional reality wherein cause and effect is really a sphere of potentiality where all possible random causes /happen/ and all potential effects /happen/ and the limitation is the sophistication level of the observing consciousness -- your sensor (body & physical brain) -- then your free will can be accounted for by perception: the reality your limited consciousness follows, though alternative realities exist, is your 'free will' in action. If the soul is dualistic in nature, i.e. it is on 'your device' in the same way google is on 'your device', meaning it's really running off the cloud of the simulation so to speak, then your free will is determined by what you cultivate into your 'user' by means of collecting memory engrams that make up the ego; your free will is the project of building your localized ego. It's all a trick of perception. You decide, in a sense, which channel to watch on TV. Though the other channels all still exist, you are making a choice with your limited perception and inability to watch them all at once, to focus on one, thus exercising your free will. Your experience is other than it could have been based on a decision you made that has many multivariate factors, but is still a product of your decision.
This also means, if you work the other way from that conclusion, your memory engrams are editable, they're no different materially from any other experience real or imagined you could feasibly accrue, your ego is editable, and so the reality you experience and the way you interact with that reality are controllable from your perception; even if "objective" reality, wherein in a multiversal model all things both happen and don't happen, doesn't change, you have the free will to determine a) which reality your consciousness follows; b) what you curate from that reality to form your formative experiences; and c) how you react to those experiences. To use the example from the video, you could delude yourself into imprinting memories of a fictional daughter on yourself and with no outside force to disprove those memories, they would be just as valid as any factually accurate set of memories.
Biological and physical determinism have way too much chaos and random input to have any useful predictability, especially with quantum particles popping in and out of this dimension via rules we don't understand but definitely would affect the variables that underpin theories of an interpretation of determinism that convincingly disproves free will.
That's my view anyway.
You are one smart esoteric mofo.
But in these types of debates “free will” is understood as “absolute free will”, which means to be able to consciously and intentionally choose the object(s) of your desire (and/or to be able to intentionally be without desire for any object whatsoever), and to be able to do it absolutely independently of any factors outside of your own conscious ego. So, we have “relatively free will”, but not “free will” per se.
Even the flip of a coin isn't random. It's all predetermined by the initial conditions.
Exacly. Everything is.
quantum theory says otherwise@@drquantum6548
This is great, especially the "possibilities" thing. Sam is still sharp.
If free will is an illusion then everything can be predicted, to see free will as an illusion could be a greater illusion
Whether or not physicists from 500 years ago were able to calculate and predict where a rock lands after rolling down a hill doesn't mean the rock had free will
@@nws6146 your mind isn't a rock
Is this what the song "Que Sera" whatever will be will be...we have no control over anything, not even ourselves...what is going to happen is going to happen because that is the way nature is unfolding?
It’s shocking how engrossed they were in Parmenidies, Aristotle and the nature of potential/change. I would encourage people to research it. Essentially change is potential that is actualized. So potential is a very real thing as Sam said.
Idk how Sam Harris hasn’t driven himself mad thinking about these things. Imagine always thinking about your thoughts and the effect those thoughts have on you 🤔. Ignorance is bliss
Yes, stupid people are happier. The tradeoff is you're stupid. I'll take intelligence any day.
Perhaps he's correct in this context and your judgements are "mad" 🤔
INTP mind is madness
To him it’s clear that there’s no one to be driven mad in the first place. That’s what meditation does to you. Some sick shit
@@quebueno8822 illusion of self
so if mediation facilitates negative emotion brevity, why does harris hold onto grudges so long...not to mention deeply?
because he's a hypocrite. He's also a faker, and not nearly as smart as he likes people thinking he is. The more i see, the less i think of him. Not sure why lex even bothered with him.
Probability in "English". The best predictor of future events, are past events.
"You are not in control. Everything is just happening." -- Exactly. And we observe mostly our own reactions within the environment, so we are totally biased in the same way that we thought the Earth was in the center.
Is worrying a choice? Seems like a tendency more than a voluntary behavior to me.
Only when you stop seeking physical and mental excitement, can you transcend this world 😮
If we don't have free will. How can be someone be mindful and do meditation
So many questions about that.
No free will means we shouldn't punish or reward anythinhg and no one.
It means it makes no real sense to plan anything. To have hope or fear.
And on the reality that only now matters and it's sufficient for everyone paying enough attention, that would mean a tasty beverage or plain water shouldn't change you in any way. No favorite dish or even favorite person.
I have meditated before and i have felt the benefits of been less lost in thought. But these philosophical questions still bother me.
It's far from obvious for me to reconcile lack of free will and individual responsability.
Yo gabba gabba
@@XEra404 Go, go, go!
Sam has transcended.
Transcended what?
@@IAn0nI reality
@@simnan1827 🤡
Extremely intelligent individual, has an aura
"the moment the thought arises YOU CAN DECIDE..." says Sam. While claiming there is no free will.
this reminds me of what Jim Newman talks about, where the only thing that's real is whatever 'is', everything else is just a story.
I feel like this truth should be used to help my uncle beat his murder case
Sam says if you replay the tape up to a given instant, it is not possible that you could have chosen otherwise in that instant. Of course not, Sam, because you’re replaying the tape.
Free will exists at the present instant. Replaying the tape does not explain or clarify anything.
Funny how this upset a lot of people.
Why is that funny? Dubiously saying there's no freewill is dangerous and all of his "no freewill" arguments have been disproven. What IS funny is how Sam once called the Quran a "plethora of bad ideas" when his own book is a REAL plethora of bad ideas.
@@ififif31 lmao it's not dangerous. He's right, but the truth makes you so uncomfortable that you reject it out of self preservation of your sanity. Your brain couldn't handle these complex notions.
@@pnut3844able What's his best argument then? Let's see how good your brain can handle his "complex notions" ;)
@@ififif31 whom you take yourself to be doesn't actually exist. Your identity is an illusion. Hence there is no will to be free or not free.
Like “ha ha” funny?
If there is no free will is everything pre determined?
I think free will does exist, just not as a solid state but a spectrum. I think in the study they forgot to account for autopilot vs lucidity/mindfulness. When you're mindful you're more likely to think out a decision before making it and think more critically. You're also more likely to remember things.
I also think lucid dreaming is the perfect example of free will. You're able to realize you're in a dream with enough mindfulness in the waking state and once you're in a lucid dream you can practice controlling it. Once you do have controlling it down you can do and experience pretty much anything with no limits other than your own imagination. There's no more free state than this
I think we all have different levels of free will at different points and depending on how much focus we put into being mindful
Very interesting comment! 👍👍
We first need to define "free will". What do you mean when you say "free will"?
@1 1 I think almost if not any form of "free will" in this context is driven by your mind and body. You have a variety of choices based on what you know. Your knowing/imagination is largely formed by experience. Within that limited remembering/imaginary state, you can choose whatever you want. But is it truly free will? I mean free will suggest infinite number of possibilities which go beyond the knower/thinker. Your so-called free will is limited by what you know/experience(d).
@@questionmark8046 The POWER to CHANGE the probabilities of choices is what we call "freewill" and it's definitely not an illusion.
That's a good point I think. But how much do we really know about consciousness to be able to say that?
"We have no free will" (Sam Harris) I absolutely disagree! We have free will, but it's probably more limited than people think! A lot of times, we are on the automatic pilot, but at other times, we can think about our options and there, our free will comes into play. 🤣
Once again, Sam Harris dealing in absolute: "we have no free will and that's it!".
He should have said: I don't think we have free will for these reasons...
It certainly feels like it’s there, but with scrutiny I can’t find a place where those “decisions” are really freely made
He’s laid out those reasons at nauseam. He even a short book on it.
Possibility wouldn't be possible if everything were fact.
You're free to never have free will because never is forever and forever is never free of being forever including first believing you have free will, eternity is the origin story of eternity(itself) because eternity is a reproductive state which is also the origin story of itself as a reproductive state( eternity), eternity is repeat as repeat is eternity, therefore I always have and I always will rewrite this same exact comment verbatim by always first believing I am writing this comment.
Hi Lex Clips!! Hope you're well!
It seems like the lack of having a common language is limiting the understanding. For example with the idea that what if only the *Actual* is possible -- well what if everything is actual all the time --- FOR ALL TIME -- because time is an illusion? Wondering if that the material/physical hardware that consciousness emerges with would need some continuity depending on the level of consciousness. For example -- dropping a cell phone off to a Neanderthal wouldn't achieve much -- Nor would boxing up a Model T Ford in perfect condition and sending it to a future that has advanced past such things mean anything. We like to presume possibility.. but no different than the sport of Basketball with Foul Lines, Boundaries, Backboards etc. There has to be some continuity. Maybe that's the mystery of it all. If Time is an illusion, then the weird thing is that we presume total agency when our individual selves act as nodes for consciousness to interface with the material/physical world we've been presented with -- no different than with NBA players in a basketball game. So there is a sense of free will... but that language is not accurate anymore? Better to say consciousness is emergent with the material/actual -- and our infinitesimally tiny individual nodes/personalities are the individual currents for Consciousness to experience all that is actual for all time and we're just in this specific material user interface that we call the current moment/present? So instead of free will, what we are actually doing is curating consciousness. This would fit into the idea of Love -- meaning curating and respecting everyone's conscious experiences with regard to what is perceived to be actual -- hence the importance to have as much as possible a common physical/material and linguistic reference point to understand how best to curate that -- since our brains can't comprehend much more than that at this point. (Giving a Model T Ford or to someone far in the future or a cell phone to someone far in the past wouldn't be much of an act of love. So in some sense a person wouldn't want all things to be literally actual all at once... this greatly reduces the idea of "Free Will" -- a single 1/Eight Billionth person doesn't get to make their own interface for all living creatures..... I would say that based on the observation of Basketball -- Last Dance on Netflix is a good example that there is something of what we call *Free Will* but it's not what anyone with a classical definition of that phrase would think that it is. Watching the consciousness of Phil Jackson, Dennis Rodman, and Scottie Pippin discover what is possible... is a thing of beauty. Watching the love they had for opening up their bodies and minds to what is possible was inspiring. So instead of free will what we do with consciousness is discover what is possible within a limited physical/material frame. Oui?
(Also noting that there is a deep need within us for things to be as they are, Whether it's Rules of Law, or foul lines in sports -- it's interesting that human consciousness deeply needs the world to facilitate an authentic experience that is meaningful)
Instead of Free Will, maybe Free Experience is a better word? It's interesting to me that Sam was defining his freedom of the illusion by his "choice" to not have a third child. Maybe there's not a lot of *freedom* in what was actual and what he discovered as actual, however he was presumably free to experience that thread in his life. Was there no other option? I doubt that -- Religious people often say that God has a plan for them -- well that would infer that there may be an optimal emergence of consciousness and experience. If humans are analogous to nodes in a network -- one could infer that some nodes gather more information/consciousness than other nodes? I don't know this is all interesting.
I'm wondering if -- to measure the idea of Free Experience -- if voting is a good indicator of just what we really mean by that. There is tons of conscious thought put into the issues -- they are distilled down but then a person has to go to a voting booth, or obtain a ballot by mail and then they have to physically fill out the ballot. The very act of voting seems to be focused on an experiential result. It's an experience that everyone is after. Within the framework of our physical world and the constraints from evolution and physics-- there's what's actual vs what's emergent. There may not be as much agency as we presume to have.. but take any of the hot issues.. and those seem to be measurable. It seems like we could scan brains on 2a and Abortion issues with people on both sides of the fence and figure out scientifically why one group of people votes one way and another votes the other and then by doing so could understand more precisely what *we're* actually *voting* for. Both sides are trying to curate an experience presumably. Where is the overlap?
"We have free will because we have no other choice"
Yeah wow
I don't use twitter and never will care about twitter. It's a dumpster of hot garbage.
An ism may point at analytics and declare it to be an unnatural human thought process, especially if the mode is thriving rather than surviving. In actuality one will say "I have no money", whereas the other will say "I have money". In the world of each moving concept one will be saying "I have enough money" and the other will be saying "I don't have any money". - From a collection of my living reality.
All transient concepts which only exist arbitrarily.
@@IAn0nI same thing but without the lyrical meander? boooo to grey worlds!!!
@@missh1774 K.I.S.S
@@IAn0nI🤺 Iron Swan - The Sword
You know if you combine this with all of his other videos where he's so desperately trying to explain how he wasn't responsible for being wrong it becomes overwhelmingly easy to see how he has come to these beliefs.
His view on free will is derived from his training in Tibetan Buddhism, and is a fairly common one among Buddhists, experienced meditators, and even physicists (Sabine Hossenfelder's video on free-will gives u the basic view from physics). He studied with Tulki Urgyen Rinpoche in Tibet. He knows his shit.
I really feel Sam's frustration trying to explain this to all the monkeys.
For real. I'm horrified at the number of people who nash their teeth and thrash against this idea, but have no way to disprove it other than saying Sam Harris is a smug asshole 😂😂😂
Possibility exists simply because our alignment with reality is flawed. The fact that it is flawed is blindingly obvious but...so far...correctable only by what can only be described as astronomically extreme measures. Someday...hopefully that will change.
Our world is simulated. Our so-called free will is by-and-large the inevitable effects, determined by the causes created long time ago within the real simulator--our Ayala-consciousness, which stores every little program/data called "bija" (seed) accumulated from our countless past lives. This is documented and explained abundantly since thousand years ago in ancient literature such as and . We are most of the time puppets and avatars through our entire life (not unlike Plato's cave metaphor). The real question is to get to know how this "operator" works (e.g. how it creates YOU and the universe) and change your destiny from there. That makes the real difference.
Basically what ever u said is the path of a seeker , this is what is called spirituality. Some have created technique to elevate themselves , it’s a state of mind only who is experiencing can feel even they cannot truly defined the state . What I gathered from my perspective cause I am not there , I can see that it’s a state where your mind is in full control and is at present and doing the best , knowing that u are not in control , which intern is gives u the final freedom . Bit tough to explain
Didnt notice will was locked up. I guss im on board FREE WILL
So basically if we can’t roleplay god and do all the wacky shit we want we don’t have free will
Cuz that’s all I’m hearing. He wants us to basically glitch out of the boundaries of a video game like come on! Boundaries have purpose! 👁👄👁
Causation is completely accepted by everyone as a fixed relationship between causes and effects until we consider the brain. Then it's time for some special pleading baby.
Just surrender to the consciousness ___ Aadi Shankara
Seems like a conversation between two very bright stoners.
Whatever happens is the only thing that can happen; the past is the proof😂
The merger between biology and mechanics is inevitable! Why not be better?
Will and Ariel Durant
Potential daughter has an abstract ontology?
These people have too much time on their hands to talk about this nonsense. Your present moment can be affected by yesterday's actions. The present moment is dictated by hopes of the future and the history of your past mistakes or success. It's your free will to decide what you do next.
Free-will, categorically, is not a real phenomenon. Life 'divines' through it's experience towards whatever peace it has conjectured. There was so much grace lost in the adopted delusion of human exceptionalism that it made literal Hell. Patience be with us.
#youarefactuallytheonlythingthatexists
This is very deep!!
It means everything and is the core of the pending global nervous breakdown. Patience be with us.
Yes but Sam is there life after death? Otherwise we're all dead men walking while viewing our past tense in the making
I'll side with the nitwits on this one. I'm sure things are commonly ascribed to free will that can be proven to be predetermined (for example, deciding to reach for a water bottle,) but that doesn't rule out the normal common sense idea of will power. Similar to belief in God, there's little to no risk in being wrong about this.
Elon was to Sam as Rogan is to Lex
Sam is a materialist, his materialism is absolute and as Prof. Richard Lewontin said: We cannot allow a Divine Foot in the door. Everything else follows
Sam's right.
Debating wether free will exists or not is possibly the dumbest thought experiment. Sam Harris is such a hack.
ok
Your brain isn't capable of handling the ideas, so you deny them in preservation of your sanity.
@YY-ln1olhow did you realize
@@pnut3844able you’re IQ has to be under 100 if you think there’s anything complex about it. The implication are obvious
religion really is everything, in my opinion.
Welcome to my masterclass; talking without saying anything. I wonder how much time ole Sam spent staring into a mirror to perfect that eyebrow tilt, so profound.
But talking without saying anything is how you get to valuable discoveries. You just want to hear the good stuff without seeing any of the real work required to get there.
@@PlayerKVexactly. Look at all the world famous books he has written. I wonder how many best sellers the original comment has made
Nope, the conversation seems to be tracking just fine. Guess you just need more time to digest.
Sounds like Harris keep bumping up against "predestination"
Sounds like you weren't paying attention.
All we have is TIME in the end not attention. And you have to be wise with how you use it
How much value does that time have if your mind isn’t present and paying attention?
Your Attention is the use of your time. Attention is more accurate as the “only thing we have”
does sam harris have a sense of humor? he seems kind of miserable.
Things I've yet to see Sam Harris say: I was wrong or I don't know
Sam admits to "not knowing" or "being uncertain" all the time. You aren't looking hard enough.
19:06 “I might be out of my depth…”
You’re not actively searching
Self aware NPCs Lex, played by themselves as parts of the universe-computer.
Play the fool!
Why do people use the term "meat-space"? What a gross, dehumanizing phrase to throw around
Meat-spin
Sam’s take on this is pretty dumb. Yeah all of your chemicals are predisposed to react a certain way, but the choices you or you family make literally change your brain chemistry and the future decisions you make. So free will in that sense is definitely real.
Doesn't your brain chemistry and neurology determine the choices you make? If not, where else do those choices come from?
agree with Ben, because this argument can be chopped down untill you reach higgs-boson levels of explanation about how things happen, but that doesn’t explain consciousness and why we act om certain things. What makes us special is that we divert from what basic chemistry tells us and others people behaviour gives us opportunities to choose.
@@nrght your brain chemestry is still you
Gathering Information to make choices is causal.....Information needed for decisions come from your experiences and things that happened to you and the information you have..which are all causal.
I think Sam Harris is a. Authoritarian
Sam Harris: Philosophy for Boomers
🤦🏼♂️🤦🏼♂️🤦🏼♂️🤦🏼♂️🤦🏼♂️🤦🏼♂️
sounds like Sam's trying to deny the existence of feelings as part of the self
Sounds like you weren't paying attention.
@@jonathanj2666 Did you hear the part where he said that noticing things is not willful? That's what I was referring to. How 'bout you? Do you think noticing is willful or random?
Can't answer the question because you have free will
What happened happened
In ten seconds, imagine a blue cube rotating clockwise. Your capacity to do this demonstrates a kind of psychological freedom not eliminable by traditional physical-reductionist strategies; those that often work against bodily agency examples. It's still certainly the case that this ability depends upon, and is constrained by, physical operations, primarily in the brain, but the event isn't recognizably 'identical' with any physical operation. It's a higher order psychological phenomenon - focused, controlled, abstract imagination - not reducible to a particular physical chain of causation.
Part of what seems to motivate such confusion around this issue is an insistence on a monistic view of causation, namely, one of physical operations only. If one doesn't make this strong assertion, that there is only one channel of causation allowable in our model of the world, the problem of volition becomes much less intimidating. Causal pluralism shouldn't be presumed without justification, but neither should causal monism. Deep issues here for sure.
Cheers.
Lot of words you used there. I didn't choose to imagine a blue cube rotating clockwise, you typed the words and I read them. When I read them, the image appeared in my consciousness. I didn't choose it to, it appeared out of the abyss of my subconscious, like all thoughts. Cause and effect. Your example of obvious free will isn't very good.
I don't doubt that that was what happened when you read the words, which is why I specified a time interval. Any sort of immediate-reaction example will be vulnerable to the challenge you're posing - "it wasn't any sort of free control of my mind that did that, just the determined reaction of my mind to the event" - whether it's true or not. Generating examples that subvert that vulnerability are definitely difficult. It seems to me though that if a person can withhold the act of imagining the cube (or any imaginary object/scene) for a specified amount of of time, and then generate the image, that wouldn't be just the unfolding of reactive consciousness. It would be a genuine act of volitional cognition, what I called abstract manipulation before. Does that make more sense of the example? Thanks for the response human. Cheers.
To clarify, the thought experiment works best if you perform it independently of reading my explanation of it. Again, thanks for the engagement.
Gage just gave us the perfect argument against free will, as mentioned above. Upon reading your comment, through no Free Will of my own I immediately imagined the blue cube. We could go back in time and run this same experiment a thousand times over and I guarantee that one thousand times I will not be able to exhibit any freedom of will to not imagine that cube. Run the experiment now by not thinking about a blue duck :)
@@GYPSYTALES You're absolutely right. In that specific sense, and many (maybe most) others, the contents of our minds are not chosen freely by us, and so are in some sense determined. The point isn't to say that 'all' cognitive events are freely chosen, or that any of them are 100% free, in some sort of mystical sense, but simply that we do have 'some' measure of freedom over 'some' cognitive states; in this case, time-lapsed imaginative abstractions. Again, if you perform the thought experiment while you're reading the text of my explanation of it, the sort of challenge you're posing is potentially valid. An honest engagement with the experiment would have you put your phone/device down, close your eyes, count to ten, then imagine the blue cube rotating. If you can do that, you have some measure of direct control over some kinds of cognitive events.
Thanks for the reply my dude. Let me know what you think.
I like Sam Harris, but I think sometimes he makes things too complicated. Our world and we as a species, are much more simpler.
I agree with you. Not a problem of Sam Harris alone though. People like to think social problems are much more complicated than they really are
Is actuality not just the past? The past is actual. You can’t change the past. The past is the past. But this makes it sound like you can’t change the future. That is entirely false.
You can change the future with information you have now...that information came to this point from the past. So this is a continuum from past to present to future...
I feel like accepting you do not have free will is dangerous. Gives weak people an out to not be disciplined. Maybe I’m misunderstanding this. Please let me know if I am. I believe I have full control over my life and everything that happens to me.
Sam Harris = bad energy
The bad energy is caused by yourself
@@IAn0nI not at all I am the viewer and view his motives in certain opinions as incorrect and forceful with agenda.
@@shy5088 the duality you have constructed between there being a separate viewer (you) and situation to view (other) is an illusion. It's all your own doing.
@@IAn0nI dude am spiritual I read and am aware of energy in a person - not everyone is for the greater good - there is negative energy in the world 🌎 get a grip.
@@shy5088 you haven't realized Truth. More reading won't help you, though it may eventually make it clearer for you. Sleep well.
It seems to me like a lot of people white people especially live outside of there body and watch and themselves walk around. I experience free will every second of my life I’m fully inside of my body. Except when I smoke weed lol
This doesn't mean anything
To u . You’re most likely an observer
Anyone who disagrees that free will exists shouldn't be taken seriously.
Does it make you feel insecure?
@@IAn0nI Does it make you feel better about not taking any accountability for your actions?
@@7DAYSOFOPENINGNIGHTS troglodyte assumption.
@@IAn0nI Big word so smart feel special for no reason at all.
@@7DAYSOFOPENINGNIGHTS hey little fella, 6 people agree with me. Looks like no one sides with your delusive perspective this time ✌I feel special now 🤣 that's all the reason I need 😃
Mindfulness is also known as Mindlessness. And they both are an accurate description of what the experience, in fact is:
The Experience of the Physical Senses to the very Limit of those Senses within an amount of Time that cannot be measured by the Senses of the Experiencer.
Anyone ever heard Sam Harris laugh?
As smart as Harris is, he is a terrible communicator.
He's smart?
@@IAn0nI lol that's what I've been told
Bill Maher says Harris is the best orator 😂
I understand why Sam has to meditate; if the voice in his head talks as much as He does ……..😂
Sam seems to reason without nuance and believes in absolutes. He believes in his opinion so strong and faithfully It's inseparable from a religion.
"Only a sith deal in absolutes"
Obi-Wan Kenobi
Lol wdym “without nuance”? The man gave numerous examples to explain his point 7 different ways. He’s written a whole book about the topic of this clip.
Meanwhile you’re here taking an overgeneralized jab at him with 0 specifics. Talk about no nuance lol
@@nutinmyassha! Got him
That Obiwan quote is an example of an absolute.
Come on Lex, don’t be stingy
what.
No free will.
@@IAn0nI I mean, I got that much. It was just a lot of words to support something that can't be proven or disproven, neither way of which would have any impact on daily human life.
@@chriskramer9311 can be proven experientially and directly.
@@IAn0nI source me
@@chriskramer9311 🤣 YOUR SELF