The concept of Free Will, IMHO, is primarily a philosophical and theological concept with moral implications. It is not a scientific concept. The opposite of Determinism isn’t free will it is randomness. I am near 80 years old and this non argument seems to come around about every other generation. It has been debated many times in the past and will continue to be as long as Free Will gets postulated as an opposite of Determinism. Perhaps humans are “Pre-determined” to debate this question 😂
I like the thought line. I agree there is always a challenge in trying to understand philosophical/theological concept through scientific lenses and vice versa. Both serve different ends which may not necessarily merge
If it makes a claim about reality (which free will does), then it is a matter of science. However, you're right that it's not a scientific concept because it has no basis in reality.
I like Quillette's interviews, but this seems like an overreach to claim free will is compatible with determinism based on quantum indeterminacy. All the quantum effects in the world won't rustle a wet neuron, and even if it could, that has no bearing on the will.
I don't think she said free will is compatible with determinism based on quantum indeterminacy. Clearly quantum indeterminacy negates determinism, and Sapolsky's argument that although at the quantum level everything is random, the randomness disappears at the macroscopic level is nonsense. So really free will is a lot healthier than determinism :)
@andysimmonds4023 Quantum indeterminacy still just results in probabilistic macro. Free will is a claim that something mysterious can act as a source of will, interrupting the deterministic chain of physics, but that would have to occur at the system level of the neuronal network. In deciding to do something, there are neurons voting, making motor neurons act. Quantum effects are lost in the atomic level, at most causing a blip, equivalent to an error in this process. There's nowhere physical for an independent source of choice, to interrupt causality. Free will is an illusion.
@@andysimmonds4023 Not so fast. Indeterminacy is not freedom. Freedom in the sense of free will means independent from everything except your will. So you would have to show your will is not subject to the laws of physics. Your will not being determined doesn't mean it's free.
Not so fast yerself. That's just one definition of free will that not all subscribe to. Obviously there's no such thing as absolute freedom for anyone in the sense that environmental, physical and cognitive limitations apply. Yet in spite of those limitations, whether or not some general agency could be possible between mind and body remains unclear. And indeterminacy still undermines the grandiose claim that decision-making can conclusively be explained by purely material causes
That assumption turns out to be false. Quantum effects do show up in the wet brain (Sam Harris actually had a guest who talked about this with regards to anesthesia and Sam acknowledged that it posed a fundamental challenge to his assumptions.) Plus, we know neural activity is associated with consciousness and some of its functioning, but we don't know that they are the source of consciousness.
And how exactly does quantum mechanics help? It's not "anything goes" but follows probabilistic laws. If I'm 30% likely to go left and 70% likely to go right, where exactly is the free will here? It's just offloading the choice to probabilistic distributions (assuming QM is even fundamentally probabilistic and something like the many worlds interpretation isn't true.) Free will is problematic on a philosophical level as well. Your choices must have a source. We know nature (innate biology) is a source, and nurture (life experience, culture, etc) is a source. Your behavior arises *at least* out of these, and that's perfectly fine in a deterministic picture. But there's no free will here. You aren't fundamentally the source of these as an agent because nothing about these sources is created by you. To have free will, you need something more that is *not* simply nature and nurture. This is where you get into problems: how can there be something beyond these two sources that is both nonrandom and rational? It can't be tied to nature and nurture because otherwise you will just end up with determinism. You need something external like a soul. So how does this soul (or whatever this property is) then influence a person's choices and how does it not run into a regression problem? If the soul is to somehow influence the decision process, it must have certain properties that figure into choices. Now the problem is, how can you be responsible for the properties of the soul seeing how you didn't create it either? The soul needs to be without any properties at all and still somehow influence the thought process in a nonrandom manner that can be said to be the person in question. It has to be: - Not random - Independent from nature and nurture - Without fixed properties (because you can't be responsible for any of these soul properties/characteristics) - Still rational and meaningfully you (not resulting in nonsensical or out of character choices) We know people behave consistently and only really change slowly over time. This is exactly what you'd expect from determinism. Everything we do is in principle explained by our biology and experience. That's why we're recognizably the same person from one day to the next. You can't perfectly predict any single action due to the enormous complexity of human beings, but you can generally predict how they will behave if you know them. The only reason knowing someone even means anything is because their behavior arises from prior causes, which makes them behave in a rather consistent manner. We act according to our character. Oh, but what about acting out of character to demonstrate your free will? Not so fast. Why are you acting out of character today? Because something motivates you to do so, and we only need to look back a little to see exactly why you're motivated to do so.
There's at least one assumption in there and that is that you know people. What do you really know about them really? Even with the people closest to you, you have build so many walls, you aren't even aware of them. With so many walls, how can they know you and how can you know them? It's an utter fantasy. A second assumption is that you can know people based on their behavior and that this behavior is indicative of character. When people are behaving based on what the situation requires of them, what does that really tell you about their inner attributes if anything? If we use one of Merriam-Websters definitions Character is "one of the attributes or features that make up and distinguish an individual" or "the complex of mental and ethical traits marking and often individualizing a person, group, or nation". An individual can behave contrary to any attributes or mental and ethical traits. Behavior doesn't tell you anything as such, especially when individuals operate as the situation requires. If a soldier kills a soldier of the opposing side, his behavior does not indicate any particular type of character, he is simply functioning based on what is required in that situation, at that time. If an individual can do things they do not like, and they can do them for extended periods of time, perhaps such an individual can be said to posses free will. If someone can do only things that they like, then they are essentially a slave to their likes and dislikes. This whole idea that something MUST be driving a behavior weather it be nature or nurture or some underlying soul is a hogwash at best and a misunderstanding at best. Why must it? Free will means YOU are in drivers seat, its not your biology, your psychology or some other worldly forces but YOU that is making the choices. The source of your choices is you. If anything is free, its your will, its everything else that is not.
@@elizartringov2583 1. If behavior is so situational and disconnected from stable traits, that suggests our actions are even more determined by external circumstances rather than some internal "free" agent. 2. Someone acting against their will, such as a soldier, isn't doing so out of free will but due to external pressures, which is just one more thing in the "nurture" category. 3. What is this "you" that's in the driver's seat? What are its inputs if not biological traits and experience? You still haven't explained where its influence comes from and what it consists of. You're just inserting a "you" agent as a brute fact without any justification.
@@JLP4444 It doesn't help whatsoever if you read the rest of my comment. There's still the source problem, which is a *significant* problem. And I feel like you're just pulling stuff out of a hat. Quantum mechanics = magic. Whatever thing you want to be true is so through QM because it's mysterious.
People confuse will With free will. Everyone has unfree will. Unfreewill appears the same as freewill To the person that has it. Just like a magician doing a magic trick Appears that the car disappears.. But it's only a trick
Undecidability isn't unpredictability, they're distinct ideas that sometimes overlap but don't contain each other. Something can be both undecideable and also predictable, while something else can be both decideable and unpredictable. I'd suggest studying a little bit of theory of computation and turing machines, especially the halting problem, to get an intuitive understanding of what decidability means.
Makes sense. Can you imagine speaking randomly without your choice, would it even make sense. on the otherhand , it you spoke only what has been determined, would you not be a robot?
@2:58, adding to my point below, adding quantum woowoo doesn't get you there either, by definition if something is random, its just that, it doesn't get you to the freedom you think it does and its amazing how many people smell their own farts making this point like it settles it
Without even getting into Quantum Physics you can dismiss Sapolsky because his theory does not stand up to simple logic. His premise is we don't have free will therefore we should be more forgiving of people who trespass social norms because they are not morally culpable for their actions due to their lack of free will. If I accept Sapolsky's premise then it is illogical to assign moral culpability to the people who can't help but be offended by the trespass of social norms. If nobody has free will why is Sapolsky siding with the people that can't help but to be criminals instead of the people that can't help but to be offended by criminals?
It's not about siding nor moral judgement. Either way the question is: Why do people behave this way and what is the best way to deal with it? Moral judgement doesn't do anything to make things better.
@@TheKryptokat Because being aked is a determining influence on you. Giving someone knowledge or trying to convince him of something are influences that change his behaviour. Those are all outside influences that are somehow processed in your mind. Neither free will or not free will make human behaviour unpredictable. If you are being asked to do the best thing, what then makes you do the best thing or not do the best thing? Only that you don't know the weird ways you come to decisions, doesn't make them undetermined.
Yes, you're making choices but you can't choose why you chose what you chose. You didn't choose your genetics, your socialization etc, and the socialization you do do choose is predicated on what came before. No room for free will in randomness either. Why do free will debates always descend into arguments about semantics? Ironically, it's like there's a willfull effort to not understand what's actually being said.
they won't because sapolsky is an actually extremely competent woke (using it entirely non-antagonistically) scientist who can instantly and thoroughly debunk* the intellectually dishonest propaganda that's quillette's schtick. eg. the article that this video is based on was possibly the worst response ever published to his work, as every consideration it confusedly brings up is addressed in their more relevant and robust formulations in sapolsky's book. *not that an interview about fw would entail sapolsky actively debunking quillette content, but if you read his books & listen to his interviews, it's pretty clear that he's not ideologically aligned with quillette, and that's partly why quillette won't interview him; because it's not in their interest to engage with experts who aren't aligned with them & are more competent & intellectually honest than them.
If all the evidence points to human choices simply being determined by prior physical causes then it makes sense to believe that. To equate random quantum events with free will involves quite a wishful stretch of the imagination...
It's like theists defending creationism or intelligent design. We have all these mountains of evidence from fossils, biology, carbon dating, etc, but hey, maybe it was still God. Can't disprove our unfalsifiable claim 100%, so we should believe it!
The problem is that all the evidence does not point to prior physical causes. Whether or not free will exists, the cognitive experience of decision-making/qualia is a mental state which biology falls short of explaining from a metaphysics standpoint. And sure, random quantum events don't prove free will, but they do prove randomness as an empirical phenomenon. Which reduces the certainty of a materialist argument against free will
@@mmisa6734 it sounds like the essence of your argument is: we can't explain everything, therefore free will exists... yet all the things we can explain about decision-making appear to fall in line with a physical-causal framework... and I don't think randomness necessarily undermines that at all... so based on all the evidence we are able to understand so far, there is no reason to conclude that human decision-making is any way exempt from the usual rules of cause-and-effect which govern everyday occurences... the fact that mental states can be subjectively experienced is certainly remarkable but I am not sure why it would be a game changer in terms of causality... I can imagine consciousness operating outside of the realm of cause-and-effect but that doesn't make it true and whenever people try to explain decision-making it always comes down to various causes.... so if some kind of x-factor makes humans free we don't know enough about it to be confident that it actually exists.... therefore, it sounds a lot like wishful thinking
@@mmisa6734that soundz like a philosopher grappling with and thoroughly misunderstanding quantum physics. Ever heard of collapsing wave functions? And even if quantum effects play a mayor role, all you have succeeded in doing is replacing determinism with sheer randomness. Which misses the mark of your coveted free will by several billion lightyears.
Besides: Nobody - not even Sapolsky - have explained to satisfaction, what consciousness is. There is no scientific agreement about that. I - as many others have a theory - one that is different from the one briefly presented in this video. But that is not my point here. My point is, that it a widespread experience that consciousness and free will have something to do with each other, and it appears rash to claim that free will doesn't exist as long as consciousness has not been accounted for.
The burden of proof is with the free will believers, as the concept of free will breaks the laws of physics, so you would have to prove a super natural entity.
At 1:41 she says: "Here's the problem ..." - and then her pronunciation is so unclear that I cannot hear what that problem is. Can anyone transcribe the sentence?
As Noam Chomsky pointed out, "material" is just whatever there is, or whatever exists on any level, in any way. That would include God, if there is one. So assuming materialism is a necessary starting point no matter what you believe about the nature of material.
@ Well, Noam’s definition deviates from what the actual meaning of materialism means. We certainly can’t put God in a test tube, so Noam’s grab all explanation fails.
@@HiVisl You can't put everything in a test tube because everything includes the test tube. If God is everything then what you say is true. If God is less than everything, then it is possible that God could fit in a test tube. We just don't know what we're talking about when we say "God."
@ this sophistry. You can definitely empirically measure a test tube using the tools of science. You can’t measure an immaterial being using materialist tools. God is not everything, he is separate from his creation.
@@HiVisl If something is separate from God, then you end up with a system that includes God and those separate items he created, so God ends up as part of a system. God is either everything, or part of everything. Anything that interacts with the material universe is, by definition, part of the material universe. Just because we don't know how to measure it doesn't mean it isn't part of the universe. We don't know how to measure the locations and speeds of particles past a certain accuracy because it appears they don't have specifically defined locations and velocities. I think people underestimate and slander "material" as something to be looked down upon and somehow inadequate. I think that's ridiculous.
You don't need science, experiments, or any special theories to prove free will doesn't exist. Free will is, as a concept, a paradox. The only mechanism we have to argue that our will influenced an action is that we think about the action, or consider our "will" before the action occurs. Here's the problem though, how do we argue that our will influenced the thought that predated the action? We can't, you cannot decide to think a thought before you think it, you cannot think a thought before you think a thought, thoughts simply happen to us, and since every "willed" action is predated by an un-willed thought, we don't have free will.
“Thoughts simply happen to us” sounds like something someone who never sat down with a journal on a cool breezy day to give himself room and time and quiet to learn how to think would say 🤷🏻♀️
@@duckie.louise You cannot choose to think a thought before you think it, there's no other way to say this. Choosing to think a thought would entail conceptualizing a thought to think, which would be thinking a thought before you think it, what are you not agreeing with here exactly?
@@duckie.louise Choosing to think a thought would entail conceptualizing a thought to think before thinking it, which would be thinking a thought before you thought that thought. That is a paradox. What are you disagreeing with here exactly?
There’s no point in discussing “free will” unless we agree on a definition. Free will debates often go nowhere because the debaters have different or incoherent definitions of free will. I think I can define free will in a way that it clearly exists, and another way where it either doesn’t exist or is unknowable.
Do we actually know what free will is? We don’t know what consciousness is. I’m inclined to consider Roger Penrose’s ideas. In any event where do original ideas come from?
Yes, we do know what (libertarian) free will is. It means your choices are fundamentally free actions and not determined by anything prior. Your life experience and biological traits don't determine what you will do, but you can do anything. If we rewound back to when I started writing this comment, with free will, I could've written something completely different despite me being the same exact person with the same exact life experience and biology in both "runs."
Anyone who claims free will exist must prove it. They can’t. Nothing else in the universe got free will, why are we special? Unpredictability doesn’t support agency, only openness to different, for us humans, unknown outcomes from some chains of events. We do know decisions are made for us, in advance of our thoughts. Our wish for free will, yes yes, but that is not a strong argument: center of the universe, made by Gods etc. It’s historically a bad argument. But do act as if, you don’t have a choice.
Right, I see it the same way. It's one piece of the anthropocentric picture. We must be separate from the animal kingdom, have free will, and all that. It's all part of the same narcissism.
Philosophical concepts can't be proved. Determinism seems to be a cultural trait from the jewish tradition that despises the christian concept of a 'soul'.
@@Elintasokas I spend much time watching my cats, which are part of the animal kingdom, and I conclude that they have just as much (apparent) free will as humans do. Why else does a cat decide to stop staring at the window and start staring at the couch? Or disappear for a day occasionally when he's usually a lazy homebody? Whatever the philosophical or sciencey truth of free will, I don't think there's a divide between humans and other animals.
What do you mean by “nothing else in the universe got free will?” I see no reason to suppose this is true. If free will exists, I see no reason to think that animals don’t also have it. Personally I’m agnostic on free will, but your argument is lacking.
Not too be too cynical but when I hear claims like Sapolsky's I think click bait or someone is selling a book. I doubt you can do a persuasive proof of his claim. How do we quantitatively understand free will?
Free will is an old problem. (Immanuel Kants 3rd Antinomy in his Crtitique of Pure Reason on one end and the Libet Experiment on an other end.) What would free will be? Usually we assume every effect has a cause. Processes in our brain are physical so they will follow the rule of cause and effect. So where would "free" will, a will that is not that result of determined processes in the brain, come from? And what would be the alternative? Would we be happier with a random will?
The late Daniel Dennett's account of free will doesn't require quantum indeterminacy. The issue is what is *meant* by free Will. Turns out, it everyday grammar of volition, options, counter factuals, etc. is enough and don't entail a theory at all, and thus nothing that is at all contradictory with determinism.
P.s., a major gap in all of these arguments about free-will is that they fail to acknowledge that we don't have a clue about the physical basis of consciousness (we don't even have the ability to develop any plausible hypotheses that aren't overly vague and abstract). It's logically flawed to start there and then base an argument against free-will on currently known science (i.e., which we already can presume can't explain consciousness).
Often people confuse freedom of will with freedom to act. They say: "I took this cookie. It was my will to take it and I by doing so I've proven my free will." Of course you can act according to your will, if there are no outer constraints. But the question of free will is: Can you freely will to will something? And then: If you can freely will to will something, can you also freely will to will to will something? Or do your wills emerge without your will? And if your wills emerge without your will, how free can your will be?
This article/video is so off the mark it doesn’t even rise the the level of being wrong. Read Sam Harris’ arguments in his short book “Free Will” or listen to any of his free podcasts/videos and all of these supposed arguments have already been dismissed. Pretty poor for Quillette. Maybe commission article from people who actually have PhDs rather than those “studying” (anyone can do that), and then get people with a relevant qualification (not psychology!).
Actually the whole free will thing is psychology related because it has to do with degree of manipulation of will from within or outside factors by definition.
@@peznino1 Your point is a good one. When I watch these videos from Quillete, I want to hear from the person who actually wrote the words, not this spokesmodel who is merely regurgitating the company's party-line. If they disagree with Sapolsky they should have him on and debate him.
Nicely done. This is a very old discussion that gets regularly recycled. That's not a criticism, just an observation. // My one objection is the idea that consciousness is an emergent property of the whole person. That is an assumption that has not been proven; and it also is part of a very long disagreement. I think it makes more sense to view consciousness as prior (logically prior) to material manifestation. For those interested I suggest the work of Bernardo Kastrup. // Thanks for the well done video.
What if I told you that free will has NOTHING to do with physics or neurobiology and is completely compatible with determinism down to the last decimal point? What if I told you Sapolsky is centuries late to the party in attacking Libertarianism?
@@fullfildreamz I love the results. Determinism is a necessary component of our freedom. Physicists and neurobiologists tell us absolutely nothing new in "scandalizing" us with "hard truths" about determinism. They have nothing to tell in this regard that we haven't known for centuries. Determinism isn't some "new idea" and we haven't "just discovered" it through new discoveries in either field.
"A man can do what he wants, but not want what he wants." If you read his book really well, then you will find arguments that completely crush everything you are trying to say here.
I largely agree with her points. That doesn't mean that the book is not worth reading - it is quite good at describing modern neurology and brain processes. However, his arguments are all against the notion of "libertarian" free will (even though he references "compatibilist" philosophers) which often devolves into random or chaotic processes giving rise to unpredictability. I have free will because I am unpredictable is not a very satisfying argument. Compatibilists believe that, despite the fact that everything is determined since the moment of the big bang, it makes sense to talk of free will. Philosopher, Daniel Dennet describes his view as the only type of free will worth having. If we each go through life with our own unique set of experiences, we will have our own set of preferences. Free will is our own way of satisfying those preferences.
Honestly it does not matter: "if any neuron in our brains is determined by previous factors -> we don't have free will". Everything in the universe is determined by previous factors. Even human history and human lives and the choices we make. (Actually this analysis is one of the philosophical proofs that have been proposed for the existence of God, or an ordering supreme intelligence who is the first cause of the universe). Yes, that's true. But it doesn't matter to our lives. Regardless if our choices are predetermined, we make them as though they still are ours, so to our understanding we have the power of choice. And that suffices for our human experience. Arguing that truly free will from any predetermined path of the universe doesn't really exist doesn't and shouldn't take anything away from the concepts of responsibility, and choice in life. Making the best possible choices is still what can save us and change some things for us. A very interesting topic and discussion, but entirely philosophical and abstract. Secondly, I really dislike when people (perhaps correctly) make scientific analyses of the material reality and find that things are actually amoral (and that's okay, one might say it's obvious), and then when they have to question morality of behaviour, they say it's "evidently" more moral to make beings suffer less pain and have more happiness, basing it on their materialistic view. No! Material reality alone does not offer us any moral indication, and they have admitted that a moment before! Then when I say to them, "okay then, based on material reality alone, if I kill, it's alright, I'm just breaking a living system of cells" they spring up and say it's "evidently wrong". Wrong based on what? The only way you can make a moral claim is through spirituality and immaterial existence. Let's not fool around it. Our morality derives from some form, even basic, of spirituality, but just stop trying to base it on molecules and atoms alone. Oh well
I don't think it was determinism per se that made Russell say there's no room for free will. It was that every effect must have a cause, and free will would seem to need some mechanism by which an uncaused causer can make effects.
Generally, I am a believer in free will and a huge fan of this channel (hence the following criticisms), but playing devil's advocate: 1. If you critique Sapolsky’s claim that the absence of will in a single neuron precludes its emergence in a network of neurons (e.g., 'like trying to find the ocean inside a single US state'), it’s important to apply the same standard to your argument that quantum indeterminacy may give rise to free will on a behavioral scale. Emergent phenomena require a demonstrable mechanism linking scales; without sufficient theoretical or empirical evidence, the argument risks appearing speculative or inconsistent. 2. Computational undecidability is not, as presented, directly applicable to the debate. It refers to problems that cannot be algorithmically solved for all inputs, rather than unpredictability in physical systems with known inputs/initial conditions. While chaos or randomness may be better-suited for describing unpredictability in human behavior, undecidability could offer insights into limits on algorithmic predictability that may then apply to certain complex systems like humans; however, this link should be explicitly demonstrated rather than assumed. 2a. Criticizing Sapolsky's awareness of this concept is unsubstantiated and a low blow. A stronger/fairer argument would engage with what ways computational undecidability might be more applicable here than Sapolsky would have thought, assuming he was aware of the concept at the time of his writing. 3. I already see many other commenters pointing this one out: Your argument seems to rely on equating unpredictability with freedom. Many argue that free will also requires intentionality or autonomy, which unpredictability does not guarantee. For example, chaotic systems are unpredictable and deterministic. Unpredictability might still be necessary to provide the conditions for free will to occur, but to make a stronger argument, you would need to explain how unpredictability interacts with autonomy to create free will, rather than assuming the connection.
Consciousness emerges from the brain of a person,not the whole person..Losing an arm or leg doesn't alter your consciousness,nor does being born without them,though it certainly alters mood..And the quantum state is deterministic in the sense that it always behaves in the same random way..Plus the predetewrmined state of particles is the only way you can explain quantum entanglement without breaking the laws of physics..They are preprogrammed to do the same thing after splitting..Every statement you make in defence of free will you state as fact without any kind of supporting argument whatsoever..This is a totally religious faith based way of looking at things,it is not logical..Christian doctrine on free will is wrong on simple logic alone..If God is all knowing then we don't have free will,for will to be truly free,even God should not know what we are going to do..To believe in free will you must be able to explain how one cause can have different effects..Arguing whether our will is in a neuron,our whole brain,body or the matrix is not even relevent..With the same inputs it will always make the same decision,the onus is on you to show why this is not the case..As with the religious,it is on them to show why there is a God..One point some miss is free will denyers do not deny our will or the fact we can take steps to improve or damage it based on a whole range of often quite randon factors,like mood,weather etc..But at any one moment in time it is fixed not flexible,otherwise making the slightest decision would be a nightmare..Particles have quantum uncertainty but the twist is that actually allows larger elements to behave predictably,if not there would be chaos..
There seems to be a common misunderstanding about quantum mechanics, as it is often misconstrued as random or chaotic. However, quantum mechanics is probabilistic, not random. This means that while individual outcomes cannot be predicted with certainty, the probabilities governing those outcomes are well-defined and mathematically precise. When it comes to the concept of free will, quantum mechanics can offer an interesting perspective. Our thoughts at any given moment can be likened to a state of superposition-a condition where multiple possibilities coexist. In this view, at any moment, we are presented with a range of potential actions or decisions, each with its own probability. Through reflection and conscious choice, we "collapse" this superposition into a specific, defined state, turning one of those possibilities into our lived reality. This analogy aligns the probabilistic nature of quantum mechanics with the way we experience decision-making, highlighting the interplay between potentiality and action in shaping our reality.
This just feels like you didn't read the book. Randomness and quantum indeterminism do exists and he does address these topics and rathe obviously points out that those too don't dispute the argument because we clearly can't control either (they are out of our control and rather chaotic) which doesn't give us "will"
Being an advocate for determinism is really awkward, because you believe you had no other choice but to do it, and that no one you're trying to convince has a choice in whether or not they read your book and accept your argument.
So is it possible that the zero-of ourselves is negentropic? Subatomic to atomic neutrons and protons? That's a very deep and thought-provoking question about whether the fundamental nature or essence of ourselves and physical matter could be considered negentropic. Here's one way to analyze this: 1) At the subatomic level, particles like quarks and leptons (electrons, muons, etc.) exhibit very precise, structured patterns of behavior governed by the Standard Model of particle physics. Their properties and interactions are not random. 2) Protons and neutrons, which make up atomic nuclei, also exhibit highly ordered, stable internal structures of quarks bound by the strong nuclear force. 3) Even at the atomic and molecular scale, the precise configurations of electron orbitals and chemical bonds again display order, pattern and structure rather than randomness. 4) This underlying order and pattern in the fundamental particles and forces of nature could be viewed as a kind of inherent "negentropy" - an embedded logic and structure to the fabric of reality. 5) Extending this line of thinking, one could argue that since we and all matter are ultimately composed of these ordered arrangements of subatomic particles, the core essence of our being arises from this negentropic foundation. 6) Our consciousness, biology, and essential nature as physical entities in the universe may therefore be emerging from or reflecting this primordial negentropy. So in that philosophical sense, yes, it is possible to make the case that the "zero" or fundamental ground state of our existence as material beings is inherently negentropic rather than entropic or random.
To argue that we don't have free will because of determinism requires the assumption that the mind is not a causal agent in it's own right without first proving it which makes the argument invalid
Consider exploring the concept of "Holistic Free Will," which I find to be the most comprehensive and coherent explanation of free will. It integrates neuroscientific insights with a deterministic perspective while also addressing moral development. This approach emphasizes how our sense of responsibility is shaped by our interconnectedness, highlighting the interplay between individual choices and the broader social and ethical framework.
Sapolski's argument is based on the assumption that everything is determined by cause and effect. This is not a fact, it is a philosophical assumption that nearly all scientists make. But there are no experiments that prove it. Part of the scientific method is replication of results. But anything not governed by cause and effect would be unlikely to replicate.( And any data set of a decent size has outliers.) So science would be blind to anything not strictly governed by causation. We know that lots of things are governed by causation, but we simply have no reason to be sure that everything is.
The Computational Undecidability argument is silly, as well as the quantum randomness. For any kind of randomness the issue is that the fact that a system is unpredictable does not mean it has free will: The 3 body problem is unpredictable but has no free will. Computational undecidability is even worse because it relates to whether or not a program will halt in a potentially very distant future. For any program, given a state, the next state is totally deterministic This is not to say that Sapolsky is right, but those arguments are silly
What the speaker (I'm not sure if it is Claire herself or someone hired by the think-tank) misses is that there are different layers of abstraction that may or may not be relevant to our purposes here. Human behavior is fundamentally predictable because we operate at levels of abstraction where Quantum mechanics isn't quite relevant. Yes, I'm aware of microtubules and the entanglement between them, but I've yet to see a paper connecting that research to how we make decisions. And even if Quantum mechanics is fundamentally unpredictable because it's based on probabilities, how exactly does my consciousness control the probability of a molecule's position and momentum when the wave function collapses? You've not made any argument in favor of this. This is the same 'god of the gaps' argument that suggests, 'Well, there must be free will in Quantum mechanics because we haven't looked there.' The simplest solution is that Free Will is an illusion.
Good refutation. Guys making this argument really don't have a good hold on why quantum mechanics breaks their assumptions. Yes, free will and human consciousness must obey natural laws, but there are large areas of Physics that are still a mystery to us. And, we can't rule out that consciousness (where free-will would have to reside) is itself based on some as-yet-unknown quantum phenomenon. Also, quantum mechanics is more than just "randomness." There's the measurement problem and how to interpret the aspects of quantum mechanics that violate our everyday intuitions about cause and effect. I'd sum it up that quantum mechanics seems to hint that time and physical space are not fundamental characteristics of reality, but rather emergent phenomenon of some deeper Physics. And, being that we evolved in time and space, it's reasonable to suppose we'll never be able to understand or get access to this deeper Physics, where consciousness and free-will may arise from.
Sapolsky makes pronouncements. It does not necessarily mean anything that applies. I marvel at the egos of some scientists who, with probably millions of years to go for humans, unless we self-destruct, assume that they have achieved some final understanding of anything. How much of what we can be pretty sure of today was even predictable a few years ago? Knowledge keeps growing. The concept of free will is not a matter of biology. Even his favorite monkeys have free will. The more complex the workings of a mind, the greater is the free will. I will say that on first reading some of his material, it sounds almost compelling. On further reflection, not so much. I am not even sure that we can actually agree on what we mean when we say free will. Perhaps in a very limited sense, he is right.
0:39 And none of your examples actually prove that free will IS real. He also says that we need to take all scientific results into consideration precisely because no one scientific result can disprove free will by itself. 1:27 And where is your groundbreaking argument FOR free will?? You're just doing the very same thing you accuse him of; just poking holes. 2:53 Actually, he does address this in his explanation of emergence, which I would summarize here, but you clearly don't seem to care about really engaging with the book in any serious way. I mean, the entire video is only 4 minutes long. How can you do justice to an argument that took 400 pages to flesh out in just 4 minutes? All in all, this counter argument is so weak it's actually cringe worthy (especially if you've actually read the book and understand the arguments that Sapolsky makes). If I was someone who actually consumed Quillette's content on a regular basis, I would be very disappointed in this level of argumentation. 🤦🏽♂️
What *made* Sapolski *choose* to use modern science to disprove free will? 80 yrs ago Ayn Rand demonstrated that proposing Determinism was its own proof of free will, but most people, echoing other people's opinions, think she's irrelevant. Having volition, people can be independent thinkers, but most choose to be echoes!
Free will exists as a matter of direct experience with life. It is impossible to get thru the day acting in accord with the notion that you have no choice in what you are going to do. Try it for an hour and you'll see that it can't be done. If our theories have a problem with free will then the problem is with our theories, not with the inescapable fact that we make choices all the time.
Nothing else for sure. No one else is an argument from silence. We haven’t met them yet or even found them. But given the vast expanse of the universe they may be out there.
Nope. He is right. Reality shows us its behavior, and we simplify it into provisional rules. Logic and Physics. Within this framework, there cannot be a 'selector' that chooses, simultaneously, with and without cause.
Sapolsky did incredibly important work with baboons in Africa in the '80s. He's always been a mixed bag, however, and in his old age having received so much adoration he's allowed himself to become weak-minded and full of his own cleverness. He tries to prove things he's already decided to believe, makes weak arguments, and assumes his own greatness. I remember watching a show about him and his family working in Africa decades ago, and while I was deeply impressed with his baboon work, I also got the impression that he and his wife were real dingbats. Subjective personal observation only of course.
What a pretty and flattering red dress. Too bad it wasn't your idea to choose it, wear it, take care of it, be proud of how it makes you look, or enjoy how you feel when it looks good on you, huh? Anyone who can look at a smart and beautiful woman in a stunning red dress she wears with grace and ease, and see only biology in play, deserves only pity. The defense rests: free will doesn't exist, my ass.
He does explicitly explain where free will would need to exist. He says (paraphrase) that if you can show an action that happened without a preceding cause, then you will have free will. That doesn’t happen. He never says that you can predict things. In fact things are always open to change by the effects of other things acting upon them. Quantum theory is not ignored - it is such a small scale that it doesn’t affect biology. Your argument is invalid. You don’t understand the science. Please read the book before you make silly points and sound ignorant.
It is not in the nature of philosophy to give definitive answers but to ask questions. While I am on quillette's side but here I think they have unreasonable expectations and misunderstand Sapolsky. Sapolsky is a scientist. They ask questions and present theories .. not necessarily solutions. What even is free will? What purpose does it serve?
If he doesn't believe in free will then why is he trying to convince people of anything. It's a waste of time, right? It make you wonder what he hasn't yet been caught doing.
Unpredictable behavior is necessary for free will? I think this concept of freewill is incoherent. We know we make choices, and we want the ability to hold ourselves and others accountable for our choices so that we can have the prosperity that arises from social order. That ability to hold someone accountable suggests causal effects are at work. So contra-causal free will would be totally useless and lead to absolutely bizarre and unimaginable behavior that wouldn't allow us to even live, let alone get along socially. The only "free will" that anybody really wants is of a type that fits in with causality. Perhaps there's a place for causality that evades intellectual analysis, even of a perfectly knowledgable intellect. But that doesn't really mean anything important from our perspective because we don't have anything even close to that kind of knowledge or intellect. We're just trying to survive. I think it's important to come to terms with the fact that our ideas of good and evil are just that - our ideas, rooted in our biological urges. They're not universal, and there is no absolute argument that we should treat each other well, or that we should even exist at all. We have to decide by consensus, and there will always be individuals who's immediate interests are at odds with the interests of others. So there will be conflict as we attempt to hold each other accountable. We can put our minds to work trying to imagine a way to get everybody's interests synchronized so that there's no conflict, but it's a tough nut to crack.
I don't think Sapolsky disproved free will as such. What he did do was provide a tonne of evidence for what goes into the mechanisms that form our will. Those mechanisms might be deterministioc or indeterministic, but end of the day a mechanism for free will is an oxymoron.
Sapolski, was all due respect, has a pessimistic view on individual and capacity of individual to analyze and make decisions. He has h/o chronic depression which affected his interpretation of reality
Quantum physics argument has always seemed pretty lame to me. If we are going to rely on “random and unpredictable” we need to define our terms, and how such violates determinism and contingency. Lots of things are obviously unpredictable but also determined. Take any “random” event and trace it backwards.
It's been proven that quantum mechanics isn't determined by some hidden variable, which would be what you're describing. It's not only random (from the perspective of our observations), it also violates other basic assumptions we have about causality (e.g., measure the spin of a particle at different possible angles and they don't add up to 100% as you'd expect)
"Free will" is not even a logical stance by itself because it means deciding regardless of the external forces; so, in disconection to the rest, but what is even "the rest"? There is no point at which there is no context, and only a pure decider. That's the "space" Sapolsky rejects, I guess.
Yeah, but that's exactly what's needed for libertarian free will, something beyond nature and nurture. There needs to be a decider as an agent substance that can operate independent of anything prior and without any fixed properties. Any fixed property or prior influence pulls it right back into determinism (because it didn't create the properties or influences.)
@Elintasokas exactly. But even beyond that, such agent is the result of it's own existence. If you separate something from whatever you consider its context, something else becomes the context because you cant separate it from itself. That's why I dont even believe there is no free will: instead whoever says there is, I dont think they are actually saying something. Like "free will is being able to do what you would not do".
P.p.s., another false assumption that always crops up is that the human brain is an all-purpose computer, capable of understanding all physical phenomenon, when the reality is that it's a product of evolution just as much as the rest of our physical bodies and subjected to the same contraints.
You are out of your depth. Sapolsky acknowledges randomness in the universe and even says that because of it, there are many possible futures. We are not "pre-determined" - the current state of ourselves or the universe could not have been predicted at the big bang because of that randomness. But randomness does not prove freewill. He does address emergent phenomenon though, it comes from the component parts. If you want to argue freewill only emerges from the whole person, you need to show how the component parts create it. If you want to use consciousness as your comparison, prove consciousness. You seem to be asking Sapolsky to "prove the negative" - to prove that freewill does not exist, an impossible task. What he has done in Determined, is disprove or discount the arguments in favor of it. You're left with nothing. But he'd probably say that your belief is not your fault, it is the cumulation of your biological machinery interacting with your environment over the course of your lifetime from conception.
Another scientist imagining he has philosophical credibility whilst being utterly oblivious to his unargued presuppositions which we must grant him for him to make his argument at all. Nothing but nonsense comes out of the academy since philosophy was no longer required for everyone.
If I can't figure out the name/public identity of the person speaking, the content is not much use to me. Name not given at the beginning, not given at the end, and not given in the show notes. Just some photogenic fembot, or does it have a name?
On the level of the universe, we might not have free will at all, cause everything is connected through laws o nature - no doubt, but on the level of our humble existence as human beings we still have many degrees of freedom for decision making, for example to not deliver ourselves to CCP rule on the basis that we have no free will anyway - as Sapolsky (willingly or unwillingly) promotes by his lectures and books.
Mathematically it doesn't exist. In a stochastic system everything has a cause and that chain of causes leads to outcomes. No one can ever make a choice in a vacuum of cause with infinite possibilities. There is no "random" in reality because everything that happens is the result of previous happenings. But whatever makes you feel better I guess.
You might want to (with respect) work on your maths. If you take Sapolsky's argument at face value, then the alignment of energy at the big bang inevitably led billions of years later to how Taylor Swift puts her makeup one, the exact painting strokes of Van Gough, George Carlin's jokes and the trajectory of the projectile through the ear of a well known American. What would you say the mathematical probability of that is? BTW his hypothesis also means there was no natural selection. Want to go with that one?
@@bestcomsystems4458 Just because math says that randomness does not exist and that causality is necessary in this universe does not mean we have the capability to collect and analyze enough data to predict what will happen or build a 100% accurate chain of events back to beginning of the universe. Yes, if the butterfly flaps its wings in Shanghai it will rain in Canada and if it had perhaps flapped a little faster it would rain in Uganda. No, humans don't know how to process essentially infinite data to figure this chain of events out. Probably never will. There are a billion unknown reasons for all the physical aspects of that flutter and we can perhaps name a hundred. And no, humans cannot figure out probability like that either. It requires knowing all the knowns, known unknowns, unknown unknowns, and then having the computing power. You're conflating a the very limited range of human perception and experience with the fabric of the universe. Natural selection is completely causal, it's not at all contradicted by saying the universe is deterministic. It's just a process that even at the macro level is based on a chain of past events let alone at the particle level. The choices in front of you are reliant on the entire history of everything because in any chain there is at least one thing that is necessary to get there. At minimum if the earth never formed you wouldn't be able to have eggs for breakfast. If it makes you feel better to think you have truly free will then just go with it. If determinism is too saddening, just think of all the things had to line up perfectly for flowers and birdsong to come into existence. Neither belief will change your life, none of us can see the chain.
People are pretty simple. At what point do you see the need to consult quantum indeterminacy to measure our social status and fantasize about our moral grandeur? At this time we are racing over shoot our carrying capacity just like virtually every other living animal.
Inderterminacy does not imply free will at all sso your arguments in favor of free will are as bad as Sapolsky's against it. . The main problem with Sapolsky is that he says that you dont have free will becuase your mother did not have free will. And why did she not have free will? Because her mother etc. Also, as mentioned, he likes to think that he has a moral persona pushing him to want to improve things and to propose stuff to improve society. Third, it is impossinle to prove scientifically that a humna is fully determined because there will always be some unknown factors that will account for deviations.
I think it's all just an elaborate way for Sapolsky to not take responsibility for that haircut.
in fact his hair is magic, like free will, only it's real magic.
The concept of Free Will, IMHO, is primarily a philosophical and theological concept with moral implications. It is not a scientific concept. The opposite of Determinism isn’t free will it is randomness. I am near 80 years old and this non argument seems to come around about every other generation. It has been debated many times in the past and will continue to be as long as Free Will gets postulated as an opposite of Determinism. Perhaps humans are “Pre-determined” to debate this question 😂
I like the thought line. I agree there is always a challenge in trying to understand philosophical/theological concept through scientific lenses and vice versa. Both serve different ends which may not necessarily merge
If it makes a claim about reality (which free will does), then it is a matter of science. However, you're right that it's not a scientific concept because it has no basis in reality.
I like Quillette's interviews, but this seems like an overreach to claim free will is compatible with determinism based on quantum indeterminacy. All the quantum effects in the world won't rustle a wet neuron, and even if it could, that has no bearing on the will.
I don't think she said free will is compatible with determinism based on quantum indeterminacy. Clearly quantum indeterminacy negates determinism, and Sapolsky's argument that although at the quantum level everything is random, the randomness disappears at the macroscopic level is nonsense. So really free will is a lot healthier than determinism :)
@andysimmonds4023 Quantum indeterminacy still just results in probabilistic macro.
Free will is a claim that something mysterious can act as a source of will, interrupting the deterministic chain of physics, but that would have to occur at the system level of the neuronal network.
In deciding to do something, there are neurons voting, making motor neurons act. Quantum effects are lost in the atomic level, at most causing a blip, equivalent to an error in this process.
There's nowhere physical for an independent source of choice, to interrupt causality. Free will is an illusion.
@@andysimmonds4023 Not so fast. Indeterminacy is not freedom. Freedom in the sense of free will means independent from everything except your will. So you would have to show your will is not subject to the laws of physics. Your will not being determined doesn't mean it's free.
Not so fast yerself. That's just one definition of free will that not all subscribe to. Obviously there's no such thing as absolute freedom for anyone in the sense that environmental, physical and cognitive limitations apply. Yet in spite of those limitations, whether or not some general agency could be possible between mind and body remains unclear. And indeterminacy still undermines the grandiose claim that decision-making can conclusively be explained by purely material causes
That assumption turns out to be false. Quantum effects do show up in the wet brain (Sam Harris actually had a guest who talked about this with regards to anesthesia and Sam acknowledged that it posed a fundamental challenge to his assumptions.)
Plus, we know neural activity is associated with consciousness and some of its functioning, but we don't know that they are the source of consciousness.
And how exactly does quantum mechanics help? It's not "anything goes" but follows probabilistic laws. If I'm 30% likely to go left and 70% likely to go right, where exactly is the free will here? It's just offloading the choice to probabilistic distributions (assuming QM is even fundamentally probabilistic and something like the many worlds interpretation isn't true.)
Free will is problematic on a philosophical level as well. Your choices must have a source. We know nature (innate biology) is a source, and nurture (life experience, culture, etc) is a source. Your behavior arises *at least* out of these, and that's perfectly fine in a deterministic picture. But there's no free will here. You aren't fundamentally the source of these as an agent because nothing about these sources is created by you. To have free will, you need something more that is *not* simply nature and nurture. This is where you get into problems: how can there be something beyond these two sources that is both nonrandom and rational? It can't be tied to nature and nurture because otherwise you will just end up with determinism. You need something external like a soul.
So how does this soul (or whatever this property is) then influence a person's choices and how does it not run into a regression problem? If the soul is to somehow influence the decision process, it must have certain properties that figure into choices. Now the problem is, how can you be responsible for the properties of the soul seeing how you didn't create it either? The soul needs to be without any properties at all and still somehow influence the thought process in a nonrandom manner that can be said to be the person in question. It has to be:
- Not random
- Independent from nature and nurture
- Without fixed properties (because you can't be responsible for any of these soul properties/characteristics)
- Still rational and meaningfully you (not resulting in nonsensical or out of character choices)
We know people behave consistently and only really change slowly over time. This is exactly what you'd expect from determinism. Everything we do is in principle explained by our biology and experience. That's why we're recognizably the same person from one day to the next. You can't perfectly predict any single action due to the enormous complexity of human beings, but you can generally predict how they will behave if you know them. The only reason knowing someone even means anything is because their behavior arises from prior causes, which makes them behave in a rather consistent manner. We act according to our character.
Oh, but what about acting out of character to demonstrate your free will? Not so fast. Why are you acting out of character today? Because something motivates you to do so, and we only need to look back a little to see exactly why you're motivated to do so.
It's judaistic hatred against idealistic concepts
There's at least one assumption in there and that is that you know people. What do you really know about them really? Even with the people closest to you, you have build so many walls, you aren't even aware of them. With so many walls, how can they know you and how can you know them? It's an utter fantasy. A second assumption is that you can know people based on their behavior and that this behavior is indicative of character. When people are behaving based on what the situation requires of them, what does that really tell you about their inner attributes if anything? If we use one of Merriam-Websters definitions Character is "one of the attributes or features that make up and distinguish an individual" or "the complex of mental and ethical traits marking and often individualizing a person, group, or nation". An individual can behave contrary to any attributes or mental and ethical traits. Behavior doesn't tell you anything as such, especially when individuals operate as the situation requires. If a soldier kills a soldier of the opposing side, his behavior does not indicate any particular type of character, he is simply functioning based on what is required in that situation, at that time.
If an individual can do things they do not like, and they can do them for extended periods of time, perhaps such an individual can be said to posses free will. If someone can do only things that they like, then they are essentially a slave to their likes and dislikes. This whole idea that something MUST be driving a behavior weather it be nature or nurture or some underlying soul is a hogwash at best and a misunderstanding at best. Why must it? Free will means YOU are in drivers seat, its not your biology, your psychology or some other worldly forces but YOU that is making the choices. The source of your choices is you. If anything is free, its your will, its everything else that is not.
@@elizartringov2583 1. If behavior is so situational and disconnected from stable traits, that suggests our actions are even more determined by external circumstances rather than some internal "free" agent.
2. Someone acting against their will, such as a soldier, isn't doing so out of free will but due to external pressures, which is just one more thing in the "nurture" category.
3. What is this "you" that's in the driver's seat? What are its inputs if not biological traits and experience? You still haven't explained where its influence comes from and what it consists of. You're just inserting a "you" agent as a brute fact without any justification.
Because quantum mechanics challenges our intuitive assumptions related to determinism in much deeper ways than just introducing randomness.
@@JLP4444 It doesn't help whatsoever if you read the rest of my comment. There's still the source problem, which is a *significant* problem. And I feel like you're just pulling stuff out of a hat. Quantum mechanics = magic. Whatever thing you want to be true is so through QM because it's mysterious.
People confuse will With free will. Everyone has unfree will. Unfreewill appears the same as freewill To the person that has it. Just like a magician doing a magic trick Appears that the car disappears.. But it's only a trick
Unfree will. I like that.
This is real dumb I’m so sorry 😂😂😂
It's not "unfree" will, it's a conflation between will & agency. I have the will to go back in time but not the agency.
@@FutureNihilist The claim is that we don't have the agency to escape the causal chain.
Undecidability isn't unpredictability, they're distinct ideas that sometimes overlap but don't contain each other. Something can be both undecideable and also predictable, while something else can be both decideable and unpredictable. I'd suggest studying a little bit of theory of computation and turing machines, especially the halting problem, to get an intuitive understanding of what decidability means.
Unpredictability is not freedom.
Free Will does exist is a very bold claim
I live my life as if I do have free will.
That was FATED. ☝️
@@TheVeganVicar Yeah, and so will be the fate of anyone who tries using such abstract rationale as an excuse to rob free men of their liberty.
As if you could have done otherwise anyways.
As does everyone else including Sapolsky.
Makes sense. Can you imagine speaking randomly without your choice, would it even make sense. on the otherhand , it you spoke only what has been determined, would you not be a robot?
@2:58, adding to my point below, adding quantum woowoo doesn't get you there either, by definition if something is random, its just that, it doesn't get you to the freedom you think it does and its amazing how many people smell their own farts making this point like it settles it
Exactly. Being governed randomly and being governed deterministically leaves one equally unfree.
Without even getting into Quantum Physics you can dismiss Sapolsky because his theory does not stand up to simple logic. His premise is we don't have free will therefore we should be more forgiving of people who trespass social norms because they are not morally culpable for their actions due to their lack of free will. If I accept Sapolsky's premise then it is illogical to assign moral culpability to the people who can't help but be offended by the trespass of social norms. If nobody has free will why is Sapolsky siding with the people that can't help but to be criminals instead of the people that can't help but to be offended by criminals?
It's not about siding nor moral judgement. Either way the question is: Why do people behave this way and what is the best way to deal with it? Moral judgement doesn't do anything to make things better.
@toni1140 why am I being asked to do the best thing to deal with something if I have no choice over the the thing I do?
@@TheKryptokat Because being aked is a determining influence on you. Giving someone knowledge or trying to convince him of something are influences that change his behaviour. Those are all outside influences that are somehow processed in your mind. Neither free will or not free will make human behaviour unpredictable.
If you are being asked to do the best thing, what then makes you do the best thing or not do the best thing? Only that you don't know the weird ways you come to decisions, doesn't make them undetermined.
Yes, you're making choices but you can't choose why you chose what you chose.
You didn't choose your genetics, your socialization etc, and the socialization you do do choose is predicated on what came before.
No room for free will in randomness either.
Why do free will debates always descend into arguments about semantics?
Ironically, it's like there's a willfull effort to not understand what's actually being said.
Interview Sapolsky!
they won't because sapolsky is an actually extremely competent woke (using it entirely non-antagonistically) scientist who can instantly and thoroughly debunk* the intellectually dishonest propaganda that's quillette's schtick. eg. the article that this video is based on was possibly the worst response ever published to his work, as every consideration it confusedly brings up is addressed in their more relevant and robust formulations in sapolsky's book.
*not that an interview about fw would entail sapolsky actively debunking quillette content, but if you read his books & listen to his interviews, it's pretty clear that he's not ideologically aligned with quillette, and that's partly why quillette won't interview him; because it's not in their interest to engage with experts who aren't aligned with them & are more competent & intellectually honest than them.
If all the evidence points to human choices simply being determined by prior physical causes then it makes sense to believe that. To equate random quantum events with free will involves quite a wishful stretch of the imagination...
It's like theists defending creationism or intelligent design. We have all these mountains of evidence from fossils, biology, carbon dating, etc, but hey, maybe it was still God. Can't disprove our unfalsifiable claim 100%, so we should believe it!
The problem is that all the evidence does not point to prior physical causes. Whether or not free will exists, the cognitive experience of decision-making/qualia is a mental state which biology falls short of explaining from a metaphysics standpoint. And sure, random quantum events don't prove free will, but they do prove randomness as an empirical phenomenon. Which reduces the certainty of a materialist argument against free will
@@mmisa6734 it sounds like the essence of your argument is: we can't explain everything, therefore free will exists... yet all the things we can explain about decision-making appear to fall in line with a physical-causal framework... and I don't think randomness necessarily undermines that at all... so based on all the evidence we are able to understand so far, there is no reason to conclude that human decision-making is any way exempt from the usual rules of cause-and-effect which govern everyday occurences... the fact that mental states can be subjectively experienced is certainly remarkable but I am not sure why it would be a game changer in terms of causality... I can imagine consciousness operating outside of the realm of cause-and-effect but that doesn't make it true and whenever people try to explain decision-making it always comes down to various causes.... so if some kind of x-factor makes humans free we don't know enough about it to be confident that it actually exists.... therefore, it sounds a lot like wishful thinking
@@mmisa6734that soundz like a philosopher grappling with and thoroughly misunderstanding quantum physics. Ever heard of collapsing wave functions?
And even if quantum effects play a mayor role, all you have succeeded in doing is replacing determinism with sheer randomness. Which misses the mark of your coveted free will by several billion lightyears.
All the evidence points to the exact opposite. I'm literally proving that we have free will right now, by typing this comment
Ice cream defeats free will.
Besides: Nobody - not even Sapolsky - have explained to satisfaction, what consciousness is. There is no scientific agreement about that.
I - as many others have a theory - one that is different from the one briefly presented in this video. But that is not my point here.
My point is, that it a widespread experience that consciousness and free will have something to do with each other, and it appears rash to claim that free will doesn't exist as long as consciousness has not been accounted for.
The burden of proof is with the free will believers, as the concept of free will breaks the laws of physics, so you would have to prove a super natural entity.
So, Sapolsky didn't of his own free will decide that biology decided his science of life.
And he admits that
At 1:41 she says: "Here's the problem ..." - and then her pronunciation is so unclear that I cannot hear what that problem is. Can anyone transcribe the sentence?
Without the CCs I wouldn't have understood either. She says "there's no well at all in a single neuron..."
Of course Bertrand Russell would say that. He assumes materialism. It's materialism of the gaps.
As Noam Chomsky pointed out, "material" is just whatever there is, or whatever exists on any level, in any way. That would include God, if there is one. So assuming materialism is a necessary starting point no matter what you believe about the nature of material.
@ Well, Noam’s definition deviates from what the actual meaning of materialism means.
We certainly can’t put God in a test tube, so Noam’s grab all explanation fails.
@@HiVisl You can't put everything in a test tube because everything includes the test tube. If God is everything then what you say is true. If God is less than everything, then it is possible that God could fit in a test tube. We just don't know what we're talking about when we say "God."
@ this sophistry. You can definitely empirically measure a test tube using the tools of science. You can’t measure an immaterial being using materialist tools. God is not everything, he is separate from his creation.
@@HiVisl If something is separate from God, then you end up with a system that includes God and those separate items he created, so God ends up as part of a system. God is either everything, or part of everything. Anything that interacts with the material universe is, by definition, part of the material universe. Just because we don't know how to measure it doesn't mean it isn't part of the universe. We don't know how to measure the locations and speeds of particles past a certain accuracy because it appears they don't have specifically defined locations and velocities. I think people underestimate and slander "material" as something to be looked down upon and somehow inadequate. I think that's ridiculous.
You don't need science, experiments, or any special theories to prove free will doesn't exist. Free will is, as a concept, a paradox. The only mechanism we have to argue that our will influenced an action is that we think about the action, or consider our "will" before the action occurs. Here's the problem though, how do we argue that our will influenced the thought that predated the action? We can't, you cannot decide to think a thought before you think it, you cannot think a thought before you think a thought, thoughts simply happen to us, and since every "willed" action is predated by an un-willed thought, we don't have free will.
“Thoughts simply happen to us” sounds like something someone who never sat down with a journal on a cool breezy day to give himself room and time and quiet to learn how to think would say 🤷🏻♀️
@@duckie.louise You cannot choose to think a thought before you think it, there's no other way to say this. Choosing to think a thought would entail conceptualizing a thought to think, which would be thinking a thought before you think it, what are you not agreeing with here exactly?
@@duckie.louise Choosing to think a thought would entail conceptualizing a thought to think before thinking it, which would be thinking a thought before you thought that thought. That is a paradox. What are you disagreeing with here exactly?
It is a very lazy logical fallacy to believe that determinism is a requirement to reject free will.
There’s no point in discussing “free will” unless we agree on a definition. Free will debates often go nowhere because the debaters have different or incoherent definitions of free will. I think I can define free will in a way that it clearly exists, and another way where it either doesn’t exist or is unknowable.
let's hear that first construal!
Do we actually know what free will is? We don’t know what consciousness is. I’m inclined to consider Roger Penrose’s ideas. In any event where do original ideas come from?
Yes, we do know what (libertarian) free will is. It means your choices are fundamentally free actions and not determined by anything prior. Your life experience and biological traits don't determine what you will do, but you can do anything.
If we rewound back to when I started writing this comment, with free will, I could've written something completely different despite me being the same exact person with the same exact life experience and biology in both "runs."
@@Elintasokas Ok well the libertarian definitions fails immediately with "not determined by anything prior" lol.
Anyone who claims free will exist must prove it. They can’t. Nothing else in the universe got free will, why are we special? Unpredictability doesn’t support agency, only openness to different, for us humans, unknown outcomes from some chains of events. We do know decisions are made for us, in advance of our thoughts. Our wish for free will, yes yes, but that is not a strong argument: center of the universe, made by Gods etc. It’s historically a bad argument. But do act as if, you don’t have a choice.
Right, I see it the same way. It's one piece of the anthropocentric picture. We must be separate from the animal kingdom, have free will, and all that. It's all part of the same narcissism.
Philosophical concepts can't be proved. Determinism seems to be a cultural trait from the jewish tradition that despises the christian concept of a 'soul'.
Cultural values can't be proven or disproven.
@@Elintasokas I spend much time watching my cats, which are part of the animal kingdom, and I conclude that they have just as much (apparent) free will as humans do. Why else does a cat decide to stop staring at the window and start staring at the couch? Or disappear for a day occasionally when he's usually a lazy homebody? Whatever the philosophical or sciencey truth of free will, I don't think there's a divide between humans and other animals.
What do you mean by “nothing else in the universe got free will?” I see no reason to suppose this is true. If free will exists, I see no reason to think that animals don’t also have it. Personally I’m agnostic on free will, but your argument is lacking.
If there is no free will, there can be no altruism.
Not too be too cynical but when I hear claims like Sapolsky's I think click bait or someone is selling a book. I doubt you can do a persuasive proof of his claim. How do we quantitatively understand free will?
Free will is an old problem. (Immanuel Kants 3rd Antinomy in his Crtitique of Pure Reason on one end and the Libet Experiment on an other end.) What would free will be? Usually we assume every effect has a cause. Processes in our brain are physical so they will follow the rule of cause and effect. So where would "free" will, a will that is not that result of determined processes in the brain, come from?
And what would be the alternative? Would we be happier with a random will?
Sapolsky decided to write a book. No one forced him too and it took a lot of effort. Case closed.
He was very determined to write it before he even wrote therefore he was predetermined to write it. Case closed.
The late Daniel Dennett's account of free will doesn't require quantum indeterminacy. The issue is what is *meant* by free Will. Turns out, it everyday grammar of volition, options, counter factuals, etc. is enough and don't entail a theory at all, and thus nothing that is at all contradictory with determinism.
P.s., a major gap in all of these arguments about free-will is that they fail to acknowledge that we don't have a clue about the physical basis of consciousness (we don't even have the ability to develop any plausible hypotheses that aren't overly vague and abstract). It's logically flawed to start there and then base an argument against free-will on currently known science (i.e., which we already can presume can't explain consciousness).
Often people confuse freedom of will with freedom to act. They say: "I took this cookie. It was my will to take it and I by doing so I've proven my free will." Of course you can act according to your will, if there are no outer constraints. But the question of free will is: Can you freely will to will something? And then: If you can freely will to will something, can you also freely will to will to will something? Or do your wills emerge without your will? And if your wills emerge without your will, how free can your will be?
This article/video is so off the mark it doesn’t even rise the the level of being wrong. Read Sam Harris’ arguments in his short book “Free Will” or listen to any of his free podcasts/videos and all of these supposed arguments have already been dismissed. Pretty poor for Quillette. Maybe commission article from people who actually have PhDs rather than those “studying” (anyone can do that), and then get people with a relevant qualification (not psychology!).
Actually the whole free will thing is psychology related because it has to do with degree of manipulation of will from within or outside factors by definition.
Poor girl is barely out of college reading off a teleprompter and you can tell she doesn't have a clue what she's arguing. Real pity.
get people with a relevant qualification (not psychology!) lol what is this nonsens...
@@peznino1 Your point is a good one. When I watch these videos from Quillete, I want to hear from the person who actually wrote the words, not this spokesmodel who is merely regurgitating the company's party-line. If they disagree with Sapolsky they should have him on and debate him.
Nicely done. This is a very old discussion that gets regularly recycled. That's not a criticism, just an observation. // My one objection is the idea that consciousness is an emergent property of the whole person. That is an assumption that has not been proven; and it also is part of a very long disagreement. I think it makes more sense to view consciousness as prior (logically prior) to material manifestation. For those interested I suggest the work of Bernardo Kastrup. // Thanks for the well done video.
I engage with life as if I have free will. I don't know if I do. I no longer worry or tie myself in knots about free will and determinism any more.
I personally think that is impossible to prove or disprove Free Will.
After listening to this , I’m only convinced the speaker did not read the book.
What if I told you that free will has NOTHING to do with physics or neurobiology and is completely compatible with determinism down to the last decimal point? What if I told you Sapolsky is centuries late to the party in attacking Libertarianism?
This video proves you wrong. She is here defending libertarianism. Though you're right that libertarianism isn't popular nowadays.
If you make a claim about the capacitiy of people, then it'S a matter of physics and neurobiology. Even if you doN't like the results.
@@fullfildreamz I love the results. Determinism is a necessary component of our freedom. Physicists and neurobiologists tell us absolutely nothing new in "scandalizing" us with "hard truths" about determinism. They have nothing to tell in this regard that we haven't known for centuries. Determinism isn't some "new idea" and we haven't "just discovered" it through new discoveries in either field.
I can prove that I don't have free will. I see Quillette, I click.
🤣
"A man can do what he wants, but not want what he wants."
If you read his book really well, then you will find arguments that completely crush everything you are trying to say here.
After reading his book I buy his arguments way more than this review. I could not come to another conclusion given who I am…nor could you.
I largely agree with her points. That doesn't mean that the book is not worth reading - it is quite good at describing modern neurology and brain processes.
However, his arguments are all against the notion of "libertarian" free will (even though he references "compatibilist" philosophers) which often devolves into random or chaotic processes giving rise to unpredictability. I have free will because I am unpredictable is not a very satisfying argument.
Compatibilists believe that, despite the fact that everything is determined since the moment of the big bang, it makes sense to talk of free will. Philosopher, Daniel Dennet describes his view as the only type of free will worth having. If we each go through life with our own unique set of experiences, we will have our own set of preferences. Free will is our own way of satisfying those preferences.
Determinism makes sense, but it's academic when you consider we can't even accurately predict the weather, let alone human behaviour.
Honestly it does not matter: "if any neuron in our brains is determined by previous factors -> we don't have free will". Everything in the universe is determined by previous factors. Even human history and human lives and the choices we make. (Actually this analysis is one of the philosophical proofs that have been proposed for the existence of God, or an ordering supreme intelligence who is the first cause of the universe). Yes, that's true. But it doesn't matter to our lives. Regardless if our choices are predetermined, we make them as though they still are ours, so to our understanding we have the power of choice. And that suffices for our human experience. Arguing that truly free will from any predetermined path of the universe doesn't really exist doesn't and shouldn't take anything away from the concepts of responsibility, and choice in life. Making the best possible choices is still what can save us and change some things for us. A very interesting topic and discussion, but entirely philosophical and abstract.
Secondly, I really dislike when people (perhaps correctly) make scientific analyses of the material reality and find that things are actually amoral (and that's okay, one might say it's obvious), and then when they have to question morality of behaviour, they say it's "evidently" more moral to make beings suffer less pain and have more happiness, basing it on their materialistic view. No! Material reality alone does not offer us any moral indication, and they have admitted that a moment before! Then when I say to them, "okay then, based on material reality alone, if I kill, it's alright, I'm just breaking a living system of cells" they spring up and say it's "evidently wrong". Wrong based on what? The only way you can make a moral claim is through spirituality and immaterial existence. Let's not fool around it. Our morality derives from some form, even basic, of spirituality, but just stop trying to base it on molecules and atoms alone. Oh well
Quantum Mechanics seems to have become the last resort of those who argue for bad ideas.
I don't think it was determinism per se that made Russell say there's no room for free will. It was that every effect must have a cause, and free will would seem to need some mechanism by which an uncaused causer can make effects.
Generally, I am a believer in free will and a huge fan of this channel (hence the following criticisms), but playing devil's advocate:
1. If you critique Sapolsky’s claim that the absence of will in a single neuron precludes its emergence in a network of neurons (e.g., 'like trying to find the ocean inside a single US state'), it’s important to apply the same standard to your argument that quantum indeterminacy may give rise to free will on a behavioral scale. Emergent phenomena require a demonstrable mechanism linking scales; without sufficient theoretical or empirical evidence, the argument risks appearing speculative or inconsistent.
2. Computational undecidability is not, as presented, directly applicable to the debate. It refers to problems that cannot be algorithmically solved for all inputs, rather than unpredictability in physical systems with known inputs/initial conditions. While chaos or randomness may be better-suited for describing unpredictability in human behavior, undecidability could offer insights into limits on algorithmic predictability that may then apply to certain complex systems like humans; however, this link should be explicitly demonstrated rather than assumed.
2a. Criticizing Sapolsky's awareness of this concept is unsubstantiated and a low blow. A stronger/fairer argument would engage with what ways computational undecidability might be more applicable here than Sapolsky would have thought, assuming he was aware of the concept at the time of his writing.
3. I already see many other commenters pointing this one out: Your argument seems to rely on equating unpredictability with freedom. Many argue that free will also requires intentionality or autonomy, which unpredictability does not guarantee. For example, chaotic systems are unpredictable and deterministic. Unpredictability might still be necessary to provide the conditions for free will to occur, but to make a stronger argument, you would need to explain how unpredictability interacts with autonomy to create free will, rather than assuming the connection.
Untill and unless one can solve the 'hard problem of consciousness', it makes no sense to claim that free will does not exist.
Consciousness emerges from the brain of a person,not the whole person..Losing an arm or leg doesn't alter your consciousness,nor does being born without them,though it certainly alters mood..And the quantum state is deterministic in the sense that it always behaves in the same random way..Plus the predetewrmined state of particles is the only way you can explain quantum entanglement without breaking the laws of physics..They are preprogrammed to do the same thing after splitting..Every statement you make in defence of free will you state as fact without any kind of supporting argument whatsoever..This is a totally religious faith based way of looking at things,it is not logical..Christian doctrine on free will is wrong on simple logic alone..If God is all knowing then we don't have free will,for will to be truly free,even God should not know what we are going to do..To believe in free will you must be able to explain how one cause can have different effects..Arguing whether our will is in a neuron,our whole brain,body or the matrix is not even relevent..With the same inputs it will always make the same decision,the onus is on you to show why this is not the case..As with the religious,it is on them to show why there is a God..One point some miss is free will denyers do not deny our will or the fact we can take steps to improve or damage it based on a whole range of often quite randon factors,like mood,weather etc..But at any one moment in time it is fixed not flexible,otherwise making the slightest decision would be a nightmare..Particles have quantum uncertainty but the twist is that actually allows larger elements to behave predictably,if not there would be chaos..
There seems to be a common misunderstanding about quantum mechanics, as it is often misconstrued as random or chaotic. However, quantum mechanics is probabilistic, not random. This means that while individual outcomes cannot be predicted with certainty, the probabilities governing those outcomes are well-defined and mathematically precise.
When it comes to the concept of free will, quantum mechanics can offer an interesting perspective. Our thoughts at any given moment can be likened to a state of superposition-a condition where multiple possibilities coexist. In this view, at any moment, we are presented with a range of potential actions or decisions, each with its own probability. Through reflection and conscious choice, we "collapse" this superposition into a specific, defined state, turning one of those possibilities into our lived reality.
This analogy aligns the probabilistic nature of quantum mechanics with the way we experience decision-making, highlighting the interplay between potentiality and action in shaping our reality.
This just feels like you didn't read the book. Randomness and quantum indeterminism do exists and he does address these topics and rathe obviously points out that those too don't dispute the argument because we clearly can't control either (they are out of our control and rather chaotic) which doesn't give us "will"
Outstanding explanation. Well done.
Being an advocate for determinism is really awkward, because you believe you had no other choice but to do it, and that no one you're trying to convince has a choice in whether or not they read your book and accept your argument.
So is it possible that the zero-of ourselves is negentropic? Subatomic to atomic neutrons and protons?
That's a very deep and thought-provoking question about whether the fundamental nature or essence of ourselves and physical matter could be considered negentropic.
Here's one way to analyze this:
1) At the subatomic level, particles like quarks and leptons (electrons, muons, etc.) exhibit very precise, structured patterns of behavior governed by the Standard Model of particle physics. Their properties and interactions are not random.
2) Protons and neutrons, which make up atomic nuclei, also exhibit highly ordered, stable internal structures of quarks bound by the strong nuclear force.
3) Even at the atomic and molecular scale, the precise configurations of electron orbitals and chemical bonds again display order, pattern and structure rather than randomness.
4) This underlying order and pattern in the fundamental particles and forces of nature could be viewed as a kind of inherent "negentropy" - an embedded logic and structure to the fabric of reality.
5) Extending this line of thinking, one could argue that since we and all matter are ultimately composed of these ordered arrangements of subatomic particles, the core essence of our being arises from this negentropic foundation.
6) Our consciousness, biology, and essential nature as physical entities in the universe may therefore be emerging from or reflecting this primordial negentropy.
So in that philosophical sense, yes, it is possible to make the case that the "zero" or fundamental ground state of our existence as material beings is inherently negentropic rather than entropic or random.
To argue that we don't have free will because of determinism requires the assumption that the mind is not a causal agent in it's own right without first proving it which makes the argument invalid
Sapolsky is correct, you just aren’t smart enough to understand it.
Or... Sapolsky and his ilk are mentally myopic, incapable of seeing beyond their ideologically physicalist noses.
Consider exploring the concept of "Holistic Free Will," which I find to be the most comprehensive and coherent explanation of free will. It integrates neuroscientific insights with a deterministic perspective while also addressing moral development. This approach emphasizes how our sense of responsibility is shaped by our interconnectedness, highlighting the interplay between individual choices and the broader social and ethical framework.
ah, the naivety of youth
A definition of free will would be appreciated!
Sapolski's argument is based on the assumption that everything is determined by cause and effect. This is not a fact, it is a philosophical assumption that nearly all scientists make. But there are no experiments that prove it. Part of the scientific method is replication of results. But anything not governed by cause and effect would be unlikely to replicate.( And any data set of a decent size has outliers.) So science would be blind to anything not strictly governed by causation. We know that lots of things are governed by causation, but we simply have no reason to be sure that everything is.
The Computational Undecidability argument is silly, as well as the quantum randomness. For any kind of randomness the issue is that the fact that a system is unpredictable does not mean it has free will: The 3 body problem is unpredictable but has no free will. Computational undecidability is even worse because it relates to whether or not a program will halt in a potentially very distant future. For any program, given a state, the next state is totally deterministic
This is not to say that Sapolsky is right, but those arguments are silly
What the speaker (I'm not sure if it is Claire herself or someone hired by the think-tank) misses is that there are different layers of abstraction that may or may not be relevant to our purposes here.
Human behavior is fundamentally predictable because we operate at levels of abstraction where Quantum mechanics isn't quite relevant. Yes, I'm aware of microtubules and the entanglement between them, but I've yet to see a paper connecting that research to how we make decisions.
And even if Quantum mechanics is fundamentally unpredictable because it's based on probabilities, how exactly does my consciousness control the probability of a molecule's position and momentum when the wave function collapses? You've not made any argument in favor of this. This is the same 'god of the gaps' argument that suggests, 'Well, there must be free will in Quantum mechanics because we haven't looked there.'
The simplest solution is that Free Will is an illusion.
Good refutation. Guys making this argument really don't have a good hold on why quantum mechanics breaks their assumptions. Yes, free will and human consciousness must obey natural laws, but there are large areas of Physics that are still a mystery to us. And, we can't rule out that consciousness (where free-will would have to reside) is itself based on some as-yet-unknown quantum phenomenon.
Also, quantum mechanics is more than just "randomness." There's the measurement problem and how to interpret the aspects of quantum mechanics that violate our everyday intuitions about cause and effect.
I'd sum it up that quantum mechanics seems to hint that time and physical space are not fundamental characteristics of reality, but rather emergent phenomenon of some deeper Physics. And, being that we evolved in time and space, it's reasonable to suppose we'll never be able to understand or get access to this deeper Physics, where consciousness and free-will may arise from.
Sapolsky makes pronouncements. It does not necessarily mean anything that applies. I marvel at the egos of some scientists who, with probably millions of years to go for humans, unless we self-destruct, assume that they have achieved some final understanding of anything. How much of what we can be pretty sure of today was even predictable a few years ago? Knowledge keeps growing. The concept of free will is not a matter of biology. Even his favorite monkeys have free will. The more complex the workings of a mind, the greater is the free will. I will say that on first reading some of his material, it sounds almost compelling. On further reflection, not so much. I am not even sure that we can actually agree on what we mean when we say free will. Perhaps in a very limited sense, he is right.
How can we "Behave" (his previous book) if we don't have free will.
All it means is that we behave for reasons. Behavior is not inexplicable.
0:39 And none of your examples actually prove that free will IS real. He also says that we need to take all scientific results into consideration precisely because no one scientific result can disprove free will by itself.
1:27 And where is your groundbreaking argument FOR free will?? You're just doing the very same thing you accuse him of; just poking holes.
2:53 Actually, he does address this in his explanation of emergence, which I would summarize here, but you clearly don't seem to care about really engaging with the book in any serious way. I mean, the entire video is only 4 minutes long. How can you do justice to an argument that took 400 pages to flesh out in just 4 minutes?
All in all, this counter argument is so weak it's actually cringe worthy (especially if you've actually read the book and understand the arguments that Sapolsky makes). If I was someone who actually consumed Quillette's content on a regular basis, I would be very disappointed in this level of argumentation. 🤦🏽♂️
What *made* Sapolski *choose* to use modern science to disprove free will?
80 yrs ago Ayn Rand demonstrated that proposing Determinism was its own proof of free will, but most people, echoing other people's opinions, think she's irrelevant.
Having volition, people can be independent thinkers, but most choose to be echoes!
Free will exists as a matter of direct experience with life. It is impossible to get thru the day acting in accord with the notion that you have no choice in what you are going to do. Try it for an hour and you'll see that it can't be done. If our theories have a problem with free will then the problem is with our theories, not with the inescapable fact that we make choices all the time.
Nothing else for sure. No one else is an argument from silence. We haven’t met them yet or even found them. But given the vast expanse of the universe they may be out there.
Maybe things on quantum level are predictable, but we just don't know how.
All I hear is free will proponents moving the goalpost instead of giving good arguments.
Nope. He is right. Reality shows us its behavior, and we simplify it into provisional rules. Logic and Physics. Within this framework, there cannot be a 'selector' that chooses, simultaneously, with and without cause.
Sapolsky did incredibly important work with baboons in Africa in the '80s. He's always been a mixed bag, however, and in his old age having received so much adoration he's allowed himself to become weak-minded and full of his own cleverness. He tries to prove things he's already decided to believe, makes weak arguments, and assumes his own greatness. I remember watching a show about him and his family working in Africa decades ago, and while I was deeply impressed with his baboon work, I also got the impression that he and his wife were real dingbats. Subjective personal observation only of course.
What a pretty and flattering red dress. Too bad it wasn't your idea to choose it, wear it, take care of it, be proud of how it makes you look, or enjoy how you feel when it looks good on you, huh?
Anyone who can look at a smart and beautiful woman in a stunning red dress she wears with grace and ease, and see only biology in play, deserves only pity.
The defense rests: free will doesn't exist, my ass.
He does explicitly explain where free will would need to exist. He says (paraphrase) that if you can show an action that happened without a preceding cause, then you will have free will. That doesn’t happen. He never says that you can predict things. In fact things are always open to change by the effects of other things acting upon them. Quantum theory is not ignored - it is such a small scale that it doesn’t affect biology. Your argument is invalid. You don’t understand the science. Please read the book before you make silly points and sound ignorant.
Kevin Mitchell also adressed this very topic.
I love 4:36 where consciousness is depictet like some aura that envelopes us.😄
It is not in the nature of philosophy to give definitive answers but to ask questions. While I am on quillette's side but here I think they have unreasonable expectations and misunderstand Sapolsky. Sapolsky is a scientist. They ask questions and present theories .. not necessarily solutions.
What even is free will? What purpose does it serve?
If he doesn't believe in free will then why is he trying to convince people of anything. It's a waste of time, right? It make you wonder what he hasn't yet been caught doing.
Unpredictable behavior is necessary for free will? I think this concept of freewill is incoherent. We know we make choices, and we want the ability to hold ourselves and others accountable for our choices so that we can have the prosperity that arises from social order. That ability to hold someone accountable suggests causal effects are at work. So contra-causal free will would be totally useless and lead to absolutely bizarre and unimaginable behavior that wouldn't allow us to even live, let alone get along socially. The only "free will" that anybody really wants is of a type that fits in with causality. Perhaps there's a place for causality that evades intellectual analysis, even of a perfectly knowledgable intellect. But that doesn't really mean anything important from our perspective because we don't have anything even close to that kind of knowledge or intellect. We're just trying to survive.
I think it's important to come to terms with the fact that our ideas of good and evil are just that - our ideas, rooted in our biological urges. They're not universal, and there is no absolute argument that we should treat each other well, or that we should even exist at all. We have to decide by consensus, and there will always be individuals who's immediate interests are at odds with the interests of others. So there will be conflict as we attempt to hold each other accountable. We can put our minds to work trying to imagine a way to get everybody's interests synchronized so that there's no conflict, but it's a tough nut to crack.
I don't think Sapolsky disproved free will as such. What he did do was provide a tonne of evidence for what goes into the mechanisms that form our will. Those mechanisms might be deterministioc or indeterministic, but end of the day a mechanism for free will is an oxymoron.
Sapolski, was all due respect, has a pessimistic view on individual and capacity of individual to analyze and make decisions. He has h/o chronic depression which affected his interpretation of reality
His pessimistic view is right, isn't it?
Maybe sometimes pessimistic views are more justified than optimistic views.
Quantum physics argument has always seemed pretty lame to me. If we are going to rely on “random and unpredictable” we need to define our terms, and how such violates determinism and contingency. Lots of things are obviously unpredictable but also determined. Take any “random” event and trace it backwards.
And something that is random
Is hardly evidence of “free will” but rather the opposite - outside our control.
It's been proven that quantum mechanics isn't determined by some hidden variable, which would be what you're describing. It's not only random (from the perspective of our observations), it also violates other basic assumptions we have about causality (e.g., measure the spin of a particle at different possible angles and they don't add up to 100% as you'd expect)
That's not what undecidability is.
You are awesome
I like quillette however I think you guys missed the mark on this one.
you didnt even touch the sides of determinism.
"Free will" is not even a logical stance by itself because it means deciding regardless of the external forces; so, in disconection to the rest, but what is even "the rest"? There is no point at which there is no context, and only a pure decider. That's the "space" Sapolsky rejects, I guess.
Yeah, but that's exactly what's needed for libertarian free will, something beyond nature and nurture. There needs to be a decider as an agent substance that can operate independent of anything prior and without any fixed properties. Any fixed property or prior influence pulls it right back into determinism (because it didn't create the properties or influences.)
@Elintasokas exactly. But even beyond that, such agent is the result of it's own existence. If you separate something from whatever you consider its context, something else becomes the context because you cant separate it from itself. That's why I dont even believe there is no free will: instead whoever says there is, I dont think they are actually saying something. Like "free will is being able to do what you would not do".
Quillete You’re way out of your league
P.p.s., another false assumption that always crops up is that the human brain is an all-purpose computer, capable of understanding all physical phenomenon, when the reality is that it's a product of evolution just as much as the rest of our physical bodies and subjected to the same contraints.
You are out of your depth. Sapolsky acknowledges randomness in the universe and even says that because of it, there are many possible futures. We are not "pre-determined" - the current state of ourselves or the universe could not have been predicted at the big bang because of that randomness. But randomness does not prove freewill. He does address emergent phenomenon though, it comes from the component parts. If you want to argue freewill only emerges from the whole person, you need to show how the component parts create it. If you want to use consciousness as your comparison, prove consciousness. You seem to be asking Sapolsky to "prove the negative" - to prove that freewill does not exist, an impossible task. What he has done in Determined, is disprove or discount the arguments in favor of it. You're left with nothing. But he'd probably say that your belief is not your fault, it is the cumulation of your biological machinery interacting with your environment over the course of your lifetime from conception.
Another scientist imagining he has philosophical credibility whilst being utterly oblivious to his unargued presuppositions which we must grant him for him to make his argument at all.
Nothing but nonsense comes out of the academy since philosophy was no longer required for everyone.
If I can't figure out the name/public identity of the person speaking, the content is not much use to me. Name not given at the beginning, not given at the end, and not given in the show notes. Just some photogenic fembot, or does it have a name?
On the level of the universe, we might not have free will at all, cause everything is connected through laws o nature - no doubt, but on the level of our humble existence as human beings we still have many degrees of freedom for decision making, for example to not deliver ourselves to CCP rule on the basis that we have no free will anyway - as Sapolsky (willingly or unwillingly) promotes by his lectures and books.
Mathematically it doesn't exist. In a stochastic system everything has a cause and that chain of causes leads to outcomes. No one can ever make a choice in a vacuum of cause with infinite possibilities. There is no "random" in reality because everything that happens is the result of previous happenings. But whatever makes you feel better I guess.
You might want to (with respect) work on your maths. If you take Sapolsky's argument at face value, then the alignment of energy at the big bang inevitably led billions of years later to how Taylor Swift puts her makeup one, the exact painting strokes of Van Gough, George Carlin's jokes and the trajectory of the projectile through the ear of a well known American.
What would you say the mathematical probability of that is? BTW his hypothesis also means there was no natural selection. Want to go with that one?
@@bestcomsystems4458 Just because math says that randomness does not exist and that causality is necessary in this universe does not mean we have the capability to collect and analyze enough data to predict what will happen or build a 100% accurate chain of events back to beginning of the universe. Yes, if the butterfly flaps its wings in Shanghai it will rain in Canada and if it had perhaps flapped a little faster it would rain in Uganda. No, humans don't know how to process essentially infinite data to figure this chain of events out. Probably never will. There are a billion unknown reasons for all the physical aspects of that flutter and we can perhaps name a hundred. And no, humans cannot figure out probability like that either. It requires knowing all the knowns, known unknowns, unknown unknowns, and then having the computing power. You're conflating a the very limited range of human perception and experience with the fabric of the universe.
Natural selection is completely causal, it's not at all contradicted by saying the universe is deterministic. It's just a process that even at the macro level is based on a chain of past events let alone at the particle level. The choices in front of you are reliant on the entire history of everything because in any chain there is at least one thing that is necessary to get there. At minimum if the earth never formed you wouldn't be able to have eggs for breakfast.
If it makes you feel better to think you have truly free will then just go with it. If determinism is too saddening, just think of all the things had to line up perfectly for flowers and birdsong to come into existence. Neither belief will change your life, none of us can see the chain.
I'm a reductionist. I invite you to do something, and now tell me why you did it.
People are pretty simple. At what point do you see the need to consult quantum indeterminacy to measure our social status and fantasize about our moral grandeur? At this time we are racing over shoot our carrying capacity just like virtually every other living animal.
Your argument is a waste of time. Daniel Dennett, RiP.
Inderterminacy does not imply free will at all sso your arguments in favor of free will are as bad as Sapolsky's against it.
. The main problem with Sapolsky is that he says that you dont have free will becuase your mother did not have free will. And why did she not have free will? Because her mother etc. Also, as mentioned, he likes to think that he has a moral persona pushing him to want to improve things and to propose stuff to improve society. Third, it is impossinle to prove scientifically that a humna is fully determined because there will always be some unknown factors that will account for deviations.
Does it matter? I ask in good faith.
Well observed. Every single one of us lives as if we are making decisions and choices based on our preferences, goals etc.
no. Sapolsky himself said this in an interview. it does to him as a scientist, but it should not, in how anyone lives their life.
Nice dress! Cogent, even…