I could listen to Sapolsky all day. I think he's certainly in the ballpark if not very close to 'truth' here. I certainly believe contextualising ones early life vis his ideas has helped me understand and be kinder to myself and others.
He is 100 percent on point. Everything you go through and experience in life can affect you. It’s no joke and he explains it in a way that is engaging and pulls you in. Sapolskyism!
As much as culture have an impact in our behaviour, It´s surprising how many people often forget (or choose to ignore) that our animal nature can still and in my opinion mostly is a variable for explaining so many behaviours, which makes them much more difficult to change.
most study show that both are just interdependent, our nature influence our culture and our culture influence our nature, it's like a while loop in coding with no begining and no end, they are not just denyer, they are totally missing the key point to make us change toward a better world
@@burningice1762i'm aware of that, that is why i said it's a loop, neuroplasticity allow us to adapt at our environnement, we also have an ability to improve our environnement, so in a sense there is no begining and no end (both are interdependent to each other, improving one affect the other), but i admit personnaly i mainly think all we do is natural because of this fact, however there is a dumb debate about what is natural and what is not and that is why people should learn that both are interdependent and affect each other
I believe the theory is correct. It is almost impossible to understand human behaviour due to the infinite factors, present and past, that contribute to the result. However we might get some results by using some data that might be of greater impact than other in the resulting behaviour.
The theory is correct on theoretical grounds but false on practical grounds; in a way the numberline is. There is a infinite value between 0 and 1, theoretically it's impossible to reach on 1 but practically you could in principle count 0 and further, bcz at macro level those very minute variables loose their significance or we can say converge with one another to give rise to emergent property. Thus you can actually predict someone's behaviour without even knowing his genetics and evolutionary history. That's what our brain does. If it bothers itself on every variable it can never give you answers and intutions, but you might have noticed that gaining knowledge improves quality of those answers and intutions. Thank you.
"We are complicated. So you better be really sure, really careful and cautious before you decide you understand why somebody did something, especially if that is something you are judging harshly"
It is your environment that made it feel as if it were common sense. People in the past believe that our behavior is from god, or Satan, or from the soul, whatever that is, and there are people who still do.
@@fourteen113 if the believes can shape on who we are on a better way then be it. Science only know what is already created so if you only belive in science's physical explanation then let them be your human god
@@burningice1762 Science is not a belief system as much as it is a truth seeking system. It is about facts, and the beauty of it is that it is essentially based on doubts and questions, so that you can forever keep on letting your ideas go whenever they are proven wrong.
Robert Sapolsky is an organism in space-time that brings together a confluence of information that is remarkably rich and informative, if not unique. The sheer amount of research and experience coming together is a human anomaly. There are hundreds if not thousands of spandrels of exploration to follow in any one of his collected works. Highly recommended reading.
I agree with this. There are so much we don't understand about behaviors right now and yet we are looking in the wrong direction for answers. People need to listen to more evolutionary psychologists/biologists than they do social scientists and the world would be a far less dishonest place. Great presentation! subscribed!
I'd say that the best place to look for why people behave the way they do is philosophy. Philosophy informs one's focused choices - ethics specifically. Every non-decision based action does have a place of study in biology and culture, but focused decisions are made based on one's ethics which is the realm of philosophy (epistemology, metaphysics, ethics politics and aesthetics). It's very complicated stuff. I know I wouldn't know to answer. I just know it's the place where one should look for the answers.
i view people as a mix bag of emotions, and emotions come in gradients not just binary of positive and negative emotions. Each emotion serves a purpose and helped our ancestors survive and reproduce. We are just a link in the ever changing evolutionary chain. So i agree with Robert Sapolsky's theory. it's like life is an a chemical reaction that keeps on going and going. like the Energizer Bunny.
There's no doubt about us being mere chemical reactions happening in an inconceivable amount of ways. I know thats what the video said but it seems like you just recently figured it out in your comment. I see people as robots made of soft tissue its an interesting outlook to have.
And we can use this to realize we construct the environment that then our nervous systems develop in. And apply science to build more mutually sustainable and secure communities, together
Sapolsky argues against the use of terminology referring to "wiring". Because we are not hard-wired for specific behaviors. This is where most evolutionary psychology goes wrong. They try to generate findings on human adaptedness, rather than exploring human adaptability. Notably absent from this summary of Sapolsky is his emphasis on propensity rather than hard-wiring. We are not naturally violent or greedy or anything in particular, but these propensities emerge when the factors described in the video come into alignment. Our social and cultural institutions have a lot to do with the ubiquity with which some propensities seem to emerge. So if, for example, you believe that humans are naturally greedy and that an economic system such as capitalism is the best way to leverage humanity's greedy nature, you can find numerous examples of greed everywhere you look, because the very environment has been carefully designed to exploit that propensity.
Yes being a psychologist, research amd professor is definitely humbling...it is a field that changes comstantly based on new research trimming and refining or outright DISCARDING old theories about how behavior.is caused,how minds operate. Spend an etire lifetime as I have and you know alot more than you did when you first started, but you never stop.learning. Only a few things s are settled science in our field but we know SO So much more than when I got my PhD in 1979. Saplosky,is one of our treasured minds....
Behavioral biology are so interesting. Maybe biology of the human itself it's not the full factor of a person behavior, since there'll another factor like nurture. Regardless, love the video!! 😃😃
Sapolsky revealed the truth which is too complex to use at a detail level, so to function we can only invent practical shortcuts that work nearly all of the time.
All sweet and wholesome, except when you remember two things. 1. You can't really offer everyone that much time to truly understand them, we have limited time in this world. Even if everyone were smart and educated enough to be capable of it, we'd still take short cuts. Most people are nothing but NPCs to us, or roles. Most often than not our primary concern is are they a threat to us. 2. We don't have to understand the whole process to understand it's bad. Just how you don't need to know how fire works to understand that you shouldn't put your hand in it, or burn your house down. Sadly, same is with humans, we don't need to know a whole ass backstory of a bum (since you put that as an example) for us to "judge" them. Because firstly and primarily we're not judging them in isolation, but in regard to our existence. You can quickly deduce what bums are drug addicts, what are alcohol addicts etc. The worse the addiction the more threat they represent, since heroin addict needs way more money than alcohol one, it stands to reason they ought to steal and rob more, therefore they're higher threat. We don't have to think they are bad people just for us to distance ourselves with a view that they're potentially bad for us, even if it's not true, better safe than sorry. We evolved to be better safe than sorry, because those who didn't got eaten by predators, evolution is VERY stingy about "benefit of the doubt" and moralism like that. People can sit in their ivory towers all they want talking about "everyone deserves a fair chance" etc. but once you get mugged by a bum with meth scabs all over them, you're NEVER going to give benefit of a doubt to anyone else who has meth scabs. First and foremost, my skin first, if you look like a threat, it's only smart for other people to stay away.
Dang, after watching his whole Stanford neurobiology lecture series I coulda just watched this ;-) Nah, good to get down in the weeds. But this is a really nice summary IMO, thanks:) I wonder what Sapolsky would say about it?
I think he would be appalled that he is being credited with a theory that is the result of the behavioral science work of many people. He is a brilliant lecturer and biology scientist.
It's so "simple": we're born carrying all genetic informations of our ancestors. They can determine, more or less, our physical and beahiour depending on our relationship with the environment (education, culture, events, etc). Some of those characteristics are unavoidable. Others can be attenuated or powered depending on the degree of social repression ou stimulus, respectively.
There are also genetic differences between humans that affect behavior. Without that, natural selection could not even happen. It’s also the scientific consensus that personlity and intelligence are largely genetic.
This video didn’t really adequately cover Sapolsky’s views in my opinion. This was essentially a straw man video that oversimplifies his Human Behavioral Biology perspective from his Stanford course, and describes that. It was low key critical while pretending to be objective is my take.
Most people hate nuanced and complex answers. They want simple black and white dichotomies and our culture and education continue to feed into the laziness or simple hero or villain narratives.
Me, too. I rolled my eyes and thought oh boy, here we go. I do have to say, however… what’s with our consciousness and the old Greek concept of “Genius” which is the idea of a separate “soul” or Guardian Angel (not religious) idea that tries to guide us in the direction of either your intended fate, or its passion. I think, therefore it drives me crazy! 🤗
There's truth to it, but it's not the "end-all be-all." It doesn't explain the cultural patterns of behavior, nor obvious examples of human nature. I might not care much for his theory, but I really enjoyed this presentation.
Without doubt we are enormously complex organisms. "Understanding" behavior can occur at many levels. It is likely impossible to understand all the layers that drive behavior, nor is it necessary. We are embedded in social matrices. Social systems consist of a framework of behavioral expectations and a repertoire of behaviors. It's a dance. For whatever complex reason, some people are more adept at this dance than others.
Answer? Yes. Is it practical? No. We can never know the details of the entire movie. Judge, but not harshly, a helping hand is almost always better than even honest critique.
It's an interesting theory about human instinct, and about cultural indoctrination, but the human mind is far more malleable and it is not unusual for people to free themselves of both. In fact to be happy within society just must do both.
I don't think we can measure it in synapses in the brain and I'd like to see someone take another approach, through consciousness, what it means and what "built in features" it holds with the active neocortex and the subconscious, self-preservation and all of those things. I wouldn't know where to turn.
While it's all correct there are statistical approaches which can predict to quite a high degree likely behaviors especially with large groups of people and careful categotizations.
I would think Sapolsky would refer to it as an hypothesis and not a theory. A Theory in science is the highest form of knowledge i.e an explanation which is supported by all data and Laws pertaining to that science. As a 'Suggested Mechanism' the wordHypothesis should be the term used.
A little from column A, a little from column B. On the one hand I know what it is to be judged unfairly with no evidence but on the other I remember countless times I should have listened to my hunch and didn't.
@@matheusmarques7009 My qualm is with semantics, using words to illustrate an idea that which may easily be conflated by others of a certain bias: like Einstein using God.
Well first of all he said BE CAREFUL. He started from already taken assumptions. It does not mean that it is wrong it it self. Why humans behave like they do has more in it that it seams. Every one of us has their own prosesses in which we have a lot of freedom to choose most of the time. So human free choice is important. At the end we are more than just apes.
We have the wild behaviour & the civilized one. Being in a society means u have to constantly reiterate your wild nature into the existing rules. People in power don't have to. That's why when u r in power most people just choose to ignore the proprietary & do "horrible" shit. But it's just freedom of choice. We all have that animal kingdom nonsense. It's just u have to battle it out everyday. Most people fail or win on a particular day. It's add to the overall experience really. We r constantly trying to suppress an old & deep part of our nature. It's the madness within
The only thing that I don't like about Sapolsky, that he is exiting his biology nish and go into entirely different areas. E.g. law. When Sapolsky said that the sequence of neurons is deterministic (and how these sequences were former is determined by an endless amount of internal and external factors, etc blahblahblah) and so there is no free will and crime. These clames in particular are quite wrong, because: 1. We don't have a strong definition of the free will (so Sapolsky built a strawman for himself to fight with). But we observe the free will and it is not requiring any other proofs. 2. Sapolsky doesn't understand function of the law and the System of Justice. E.g. retaliation function of legal punishmemts. But within his biological field he is great.
There is no free will. Everything, in a way, is pre-determined. And here, you're messing law with biology. Law is very superficial to be contradicted with behavioral biology. Our bars of right and wrong are being determined by the current status of society. It ignores individual perspectives and a whole lot of philosophical debate.
@@johanliebert2601 and this is what I don't like about Sapolsky :) Sapolsky is very superficial outside of biology. Free will is a. empirically observable. b. Not a biological category, and not required to be. (Even the subject, even about his own definition of what free will is and how it could be displayed Said, that now we don't know for sure, but maybe rather soon blablabla we will know enough. I would say that until he has any solid prove all his "hungry-judges", "clean-hands-conservative" speculations, are premature). d. Potential implications like abandoning guilt and normality leads to yet another totalitarianizm, this time or will not empower working class, or saving the Earth, or minorities, but rather protecting stupid willless people from themself (by exaxtly willless people lol). So, trash.
@@johanliebert2601 scientific explanation how far the modern science from explaining anything about human brains in general and complex behavior in particular. ruclips.net/video/ZACJnu0XWZs/видео.html
@@alexeysaphonov232 >Free will has no strong definition >Empirically observable This makes no sense. What is free will then? Person do thing or person do not do thing? To say that we aren't purely ever changing biological machines is really silly. And yes, his theory should definitely be accounted for in law to at least focus on fixing the actual problems that cause people to do unethical things in the first place, as is shown in the video above. It would help us to pull out the weeds by the roots instead of clipping their leaves over and over. It's also nonsense to just think "this person just chose to do bad things because they just are a bad guy and we need to make them go bye bye" and actually try to psychologically and very importantly BIOLOGICALLY get to the root of why they are doing unethical things. Hell, not just the reason they want to do things but WANT to want to do unethical things. Some of most of it could be something crazy like incredible pressure on their spine, nervous system and brain stem from an undiagnoesed condition is putting them in a state of anxiety and extreme discomfort mixed with recurring manic psychosis, as just one very specific example. It is okay to understand that decisions are computated and deterministic. Because the trick about an illusion is that when you ARE the illusion itself, it makes very little sense for that to play a roll when making decisions.. I developed this understanding way before I ever knew someone made a theory out of it and I am not a willess person because I know I am capable of choice regardless of if it is determined. Making choices and deciding on actions to take is wonderful to do whether it be an illusion or not. And the theory definitely should not excuse willess people! But it does give us a chance to understand and help willess people.
at 11 second you say "natural selection" this is a technical mistake. Natural selection is one form of selection among many. I think its important to amend because evo psych haters use this exact mistake to straw man saploskys work.
Hmmm, maybe I've been behind the door. Can you offer some examples of selection working on human genome and/or phenotypes which aren't natural, or not of natural derivation? This is a sincere question, not rhetoric.
@@sprouts fair enough, only the most pedantic would notice “natural selection” is used colloquially to refer to any type of gene selection, but in evolutionary biology it means a very specific form of gene selection. I know you guys were probably using the colloquial term, because it is a “non technical” introduction to saplosky and that’s awsome. It’s just annoying see people using these semantic choices in bad faith to discredit absolute geniuses like saplosky.
@@bradsillasen1972 in evolutionary biology “natural selection” means a gene was selected for because it was advantageous for the environment. So thicker more insulated fur would be selected for in a cold environment but not a hot environment for example. Sexual selection is where a gene is chosen by mates, a male peacocks feathers is actually disadvantageous in regards to the environment, but that’s what females choose to mate with. There are other methods like “bottle necking” where a disaster kills a huge percentage of the population, and only some survive, no gene was advantageous it just happened by chance. For example if a meteorite killed all humans on earth and only a handful of red heads survived and then all humans where red haired in the future. There or other things like “drift”. Where populations seperate due to a flood or something and only some genes of the population are present in the separated group as well as selective selection like what we do with do with domestic animals and plants. All of this is “natural” it’s just in technical evolutionary science terminology “ natural selection” means something very specific.
True to some point…if we train an ai or infinite generations of that ai for millions of years and we would find the generation of ai smart enough to understand it self. And find purpose of it’s existence among infinite realities and may be help humans to become type 5 civilisation on this vast fabric of space&time. But for fast root now we must find a better way to comprehend this level of detail of complicated circuits and predict next best response for specific stimulus by that being and make a better npc for my GTA 😹.
This theory obviously does not apply to everyone. Psychopaths for example... some behaviours don't have a reason or "why" behind them... it's just based on a wild intuition or heat of the moment
Actually.. his theory does explain why psychopaths are the way they are.. check his lecture series on behavioural biology.. aggression part.. you will understand..
@Danur Kresna Murti yes I'm sure.. It's basically due to impaired functioning of some areas like the amygdala, prefrontal cortex, insula.. so the reason is biological
eh.. seems more sociology explained by generational priors than actual evolution of behavior (which would just describe how we have behaviors, not looking for motiviations).
Sapolsky makes a very good case, but can you ask is he right without putting forth another possibility other than, No, he's not right, not exactly? To say otherwise iws to offer nothing to counter, really. Soul, hmm, Didn't even that have the same beginning, as assuming the notion of what has no basis except as a speculation from perhaps religion?
*Sapolsky is an evolutionary biologist, not an evolutionary psychologist. World of difference. Ironically, it's the evolutionary psychologists who tend to over-explain behavior with biology, because they don't totally understand biology. Evolutionary biologists understand the limits of biology, and tend to look more to culture and environmental context to fill in the gaps. This is why you won't see an evolutionary biologist making blanket statements about, say, how men think vs how women think. It isn't that simple.
The belief in a soul does not imply biology has no affect on decision making. No one who believes in a soul would say anything remotely like that last sentence. This is a bigoted description of what many people believe. I came here to learn something about Evolutionary Psychology. Is bigotry a part of this theory?
Oof. Love y'all and the vid, but yikes does that mic sound bad. Laptop or phone mic I'm guessing? Either way, I would recommend a better mic or, in a pinch, some EQ and de-essing. It's really nasally and boxy.
I think Saplosky would be appalled that this video and all the comments I have read give him credit for the work of generations of past and current biologist. He is a charismatic lecturer and a scientist who conveys current understandings of the field. I suspect he would want the video taken down asap.
I don't really agree with the first part of the video. Understanding the human or any animal behaviour won't be completed by the knowledge of our neurons. Of course we need neurons for behaving but a psychological process is not equal to the biological process. That's in fact a reductionism very used in Psychology. Explaining psychology by only biological process can't really explain anything about psychology. For example, if you see someone walking and see the biological process you can see the person is using x muscles, have x hormones and etc but you can never explain why is that person walking. Maybe he is going to visit her mom, but neurons will never "tell"you so. That information doesnt exist in neurons. However it doesnt mean that we have to fall into dualism.
Recently learned about this person like a month ago. Headliner for the article that appeared in my news stream that, "After 40 years of studying microbiological behavior along with the assistance of other academic disciplines, he concludes free will doesn't exist." This is probably why the video subtly mentions faith and souls in relation to this theory at the last microbiological nanosecond just before it ends. Which made me 😂🤣. Honestly? It's just refreshing to hear something that we all knew but couldn't actually present it as a fully developed and communicable explanation of .... well, everything up to now. For me, it's like I can feel a little better about failing my whole life and was granted permission to continue to fail at it. 😊
Our present world is SO artificial. Why are women only half as strong as men? Could it be that they make bad choices, so that enforced mating with the strongest men usually produces better results than whatever women decide to do? Further, in a naked society, women can visually "shop" for the most desirable looking genitals - which are probably on the oldest men, and age is THE best indicator of genetic fitness. We would be better off returning to roots that actually improve the species and created us, than to try to hypothesize the basis of behavior in our VERY artificial and dysfunctional society. Fix the society, rather than trying to "fix" the people.
This type of theory is antithetical to free will. This is the kind of thing people who hold the philosophy of Determinism always go to. If that were true and you could predict the future by analyzing the entirety of data means there is no free will thus making ethics irrelevant because ethics deal with choices which subsequently means there is no point to ever discuss politics or do anything for that matter. It's true that we are shaped by our biology and the culture surrounding us. Nature and nurture. But if you believe in free will (you have to if you have any ethical standards) then there is also the individual and the choices they make - you shape yourself. What they decide to focus on. Who they decide to listen to. Who they are. To learn that, you need to talk to that person and hope that they express themselves well enough, which requires you to be able to ask questions well (which is a nifty skill to have). So I agree with the conclusion that there is more than meets the eye with a person, but it's not just data that is missing. It's the will of the person. And no amount of data can determine that :] A note in advance to those who want to argue against free will with linear cause and effect: There is no metaphysical law that requires cause and effect to be linear. If you believe in free will then the metaphysics underlying it require there to be a branching type of cause and effect. The only way we have ever seen it manifest is in the human brain and in an extremely small subset of super smart animals. It's possible that when a certain complexity is reached in a neural network, that this branching effect of matter can occur and thus realize free will. This is a matter of philosophy and it's not something one can ignore when making any decision ever. That's why Determinism is so toxic. You literally devolve as a human being into non-action because by making an active decision and being aware of that fact, you have to suppress it which leads to a huge contradiction every time you make a decision. Free will is not the outcome (choosing the shirt you'll wear to work). It's the focus (the choice to focus on what shirt to wear) The subconscious mind making the final calculation and thus the outcome (a green patterned shirt). When you don't focus it's called drifting. For example "day dreaming" or mindlessly consuming entertainment is drifting. Side note: I noticed everyone else in the comments (as of making this comment) not only agree with the theory but are ecstatic about it, which is honestly a little disappointing to me :/
Everything is logical - cause and effect. Great discovery - too bad The Matrix already raised this dilemma... and a number of philosophers before Sapolsky. But he manages to take the credit making interesting lectures arguing that to understand the human behavior, you can never go deep enough thus nothing can be totally explained. Raising questions and giving no answers while talking about stuff makes you popular I guess.
SPOLASY IS NOT A PHILOSOPHER..HE IS A SCIENTIST. I SUSPECT HE WOULD BE APPALLED AT THE VIDEO AS WELL AS THE WHOLE THREAD OF COMMENTS GIVING HIM CREDIT FOR THE CURRENT UNDERSTANDING OF BEHAVIOR SCIENTISTS...HE IS A CHARISMATIC LECTURER ON THE TOPIC.
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So far, Sapolsky’s theory is the one that allow us to understand better the origin of our behavior. The guy is brilliant.
And he doesn't get half of the credit he really deserves :(
I could listen to Sapolsky all day. I think he's certainly in the ballpark if not very close to 'truth' here. I certainly believe contextualising ones early life vis his ideas has helped me understand and be kinder to myself and others.
He has his point, but it blocks the progress. I mean humans can't properly explore their brain, that's why it's good, but useless.
I’ve been thinking of this theory my whole life without knowing Sapolsky. But college has to be so damn expensive.
Sapolsky's videos on RUclips taught me more about people than the rest of my life did
That is why people should read and understand philosophy and all.
He is 100 percent on point. Everything you go through and experience in life can affect you. It’s no joke and he explains it in a way that is engaging and pulls you in. Sapolskyism!
As much as culture have an impact in our behaviour, It´s surprising how many people often forget (or choose to ignore) that our animal nature can still and in my opinion mostly is a variable for explaining so many behaviours, which makes them much more difficult to change.
most study show that both are just interdependent, our nature influence our culture and our culture influence our nature, it's like a while loop in coding with no begining and no end, they are not just denyer, they are totally missing the key point to make us change toward a better world
@@sampajam6256 actually there's an end of it and that is by the change of the environment that affects neuroplaticity and create new type pf evolution
@@burningice1762i'm aware of that, that is why i said it's a loop, neuroplasticity allow us to adapt at our environnement, we also have an ability to improve our environnement, so in a sense there is no begining and no end (both are interdependent to each other, improving one affect the other), but i admit personnaly i mainly think all we do is natural because of this fact, however there is a dumb debate about what is natural and what is not and that is why people should learn that both are interdependent and affect each other
In dutch they say “het aard van het beestje veranderd niet” you cannot change a animal, you can train it
He says there is no free will, so how can we change.
I believe the theory is correct. It is almost impossible to understand human behaviour due to the infinite factors, present and past, that contribute to the result. However we might get some results by using some data that might be of greater impact than other in the resulting behaviour.
Yes.
The theory is correct on theoretical grounds but false on practical grounds; in a way the numberline is. There is a infinite value between 0 and 1, theoretically it's impossible to reach on 1 but practically you could in principle count 0 and further, bcz at macro level those very minute variables loose their significance or we can say converge with one another to give rise to emergent property. Thus you can actually predict someone's behaviour without even knowing his genetics and evolutionary history. That's what our brain does. If it bothers itself on every variable it can never give you answers and intutions, but you might have noticed that gaining knowledge improves quality of those answers and intutions. Thank you.
"We are complicated. So you better be really sure, really careful and cautious before you decide you understand why somebody did something, especially if that is something you are judging harshly"
I didnt know there was a theory for it! I thought all this was just common sense.
It is your environment that made it feel as if it were common sense. People in the past believe that our behavior is from god, or Satan, or from the soul, whatever that is, and there are people who still do.
@@fourteen113 if the believes can shape on who we are on a better way then be it. Science only know what is already created so if you only belive in science's physical explanation then let them be your human god
@@burningice1762 Science is not a belief system as much as it is a truth seeking system. It is about facts, and the beauty of it is that it is essentially based on doubts and questions, so that you can forever keep on letting your ideas go whenever they are proven wrong.
Common sense explained using the scientific method is kinda what a theory is, right?
@@321sarahbob Yeah, and we call that a hypothesis, that's right before it becomes a theory!
I love him. Dr. Sapolsky is an absolute treasure
Robert Sapolsky is an organism in space-time that brings together a confluence of information that is remarkably rich and informative, if not unique. The sheer amount of research and experience coming together is a human anomaly. There are hundreds if not thousands of spandrels of exploration to follow in any one of his collected works. Highly recommended reading.
This is the best theory until now. I really satisfied by his theory
I agree with this.
There are so much we don't understand about behaviors right now and yet we are looking in the wrong direction for answers.
People need to listen to more evolutionary psychologists/biologists than they do social scientists and the world would be a far less dishonest place.
Great presentation! subscribed!
Agree!!!
I'd say that the best place to look for why people behave the way they do is philosophy. Philosophy informs one's focused choices - ethics specifically. Every non-decision based action does have a place of study in biology and culture, but focused decisions are made based on one's ethics which is the realm of philosophy (epistemology, metaphysics, ethics politics and aesthetics). It's very complicated stuff. I know I wouldn't know to answer. I just know it's the place where one should look for the answers.
i view people as a mix bag of emotions, and emotions come in gradients not just binary of positive and negative emotions. Each emotion serves a purpose and helped our ancestors survive and reproduce. We are just a link in the ever changing evolutionary chain. So i agree with Robert Sapolsky's theory. it's like life is an a chemical reaction that keeps on going and going. like the Energizer Bunny.
Viewing Emotions as Gradient.. Thanks for this tip 😊
There's no doubt about us being mere chemical reactions happening in an inconceivable amount of ways. I know thats what the video said but it seems like you just recently figured it out in your comment. I see people as robots made of soft tissue its an interesting outlook to have.
And we can use this to realize we construct the environment that then our nervous systems develop in. And apply science to build more mutually sustainable and secure communities, together
Sapolsky argues against the use of terminology referring to "wiring". Because we are not hard-wired for specific behaviors. This is where most evolutionary psychology goes wrong. They try to generate findings on human adaptedness, rather than exploring human adaptability. Notably absent from this summary of Sapolsky is his emphasis on propensity rather than hard-wiring. We are not naturally violent or greedy or anything in particular, but these propensities emerge when the factors described in the video come into alignment.
Our social and cultural institutions have a lot to do with the ubiquity with which some propensities seem to emerge. So if, for example, you believe that humans are naturally greedy and that an economic system such as capitalism is the best way to leverage humanity's greedy nature, you can find numerous examples of greed everywhere you look, because the very environment has been carefully designed to exploit that propensity.
Good point.
I really loved what u have written, truly great
Best little summary of Behave 👌
Absolutely well done and definitely keep it up!!! 👍👍👍👍👍
thank you for including transcript!
Pretty much everything is more complex than we think. The closer we look, the more details emerge.
Yes being a psychologist, research amd professor is definitely humbling...it is a field that changes comstantly based on new research trimming and refining or outright DISCARDING old theories about how behavior.is caused,how minds operate. Spend an etire lifetime as I have and you know alot more than you did when you first started, but you never stop.learning. Only a few things s are settled science in our field but we know SO So much more than when I got my PhD in 1979. Saplosky,is one of our treasured minds....
I am a simple human when I see Robert Sapolsky Name I click Like!
I came here for the drawing of Sapolsky. This guy is great.
Behavioral biology are so interesting. Maybe biology of the human itself it's not the full factor of a person behavior, since there'll another factor like nurture.
Regardless, love the video!! 😃😃
i want to know how they made these sorts of videos. with the aminations, the voice over and all. it was easy to understand
I'm the first one here!
Always like your content!!!!!
His book Behave is brilliant, a must read.
came for the information, stayed for the art
Sapolsky revealed the truth which is too complex to use at a detail level, so to function we can only invent practical shortcuts that work nearly all of the time.
What software did you used on this video?
All sweet and wholesome, except when you remember two things.
1. You can't really offer everyone that much time to truly understand them, we have limited time in this world. Even if everyone were smart and educated enough to be capable of it, we'd still take short cuts. Most people are nothing but NPCs to us, or roles. Most often than not our primary concern is are they a threat to us.
2. We don't have to understand the whole process to understand it's bad. Just how you don't need to know how fire works to understand that you shouldn't put your hand in it, or burn your house down. Sadly, same is with humans, we don't need to know a whole ass backstory of a bum (since you put that as an example) for us to "judge" them. Because firstly and primarily we're not judging them in isolation, but in regard to our existence. You can quickly deduce what bums are drug addicts, what are alcohol addicts etc. The worse the addiction the more threat they represent, since heroin addict needs way more money than alcohol one, it stands to reason they ought to steal and rob more, therefore they're higher threat. We don't have to think they are bad people just for us to distance ourselves with a view that they're potentially bad for us, even if it's not true, better safe than sorry. We evolved to be better safe than sorry, because those who didn't got eaten by predators, evolution is VERY stingy about "benefit of the doubt" and moralism like that. People can sit in their ivory towers all they want talking about "everyone deserves a fair chance" etc. but once you get mugged by a bum with meth scabs all over them, you're NEVER going to give benefit of a doubt to anyone else who has meth scabs. First and foremost, my skin first, if you look like a threat, it's only smart for other people to stay away.
Dang, after watching his whole Stanford neurobiology lecture series I coulda just watched this ;-) Nah, good to get down in the weeds. But this is a really nice summary IMO, thanks:) I wonder what Sapolsky would say about it?
I think he would be appalled that he is being credited with a theory that is the result of the behavioral science work of many people. He is a brilliant lecturer and biology scientist.
@@lindakautzman7388 Very good point which I missed although I know better. Thanks for pointing out what Sapolsky himself often acknowledges.
great content! hi can i know what software you use?
It's so "simple": we're born carrying all genetic informations of our ancestors. They can determine, more or less, our physical and beahiour depending on our relationship with the environment (education, culture, events, etc). Some of those characteristics are unavoidable. Others can be attenuated or powered depending on the degree of social repression ou stimulus, respectively.
I live Saposkys series on behavior @ the Stanford youtube channel.
I think there is a problem with scope. What exactly does the video mean by "explain"?
As Yuval says, our world is too complicated for our primate brains to understand
There are also genetic differences between humans that affect behavior. Without that, natural selection could not even happen. It’s also the scientific consensus that personlity and intelligence are largely genetic.
I 100% agree with Sapolsky.
Sir , make a video on how to be energetic all times
Drink and eat coffee 😅
Cocaine
This video didn’t really adequately cover Sapolsky’s views in my opinion. This was essentially a straw man video that oversimplifies his Human Behavioral Biology perspective from his Stanford course, and describes that. It was low key critical while pretending to be objective is my take.
Most people hate nuanced and complex answers. They want simple black and white dichotomies and our culture and education continue to feed into the laziness or simple hero or villain narratives.
The soul ideology at the end made me snicker 😆😂
Me, too. I rolled my eyes and thought oh boy, here we go. I do have to say, however… what’s with our consciousness and the old Greek concept of “Genius” which is the idea of a separate “soul” or Guardian Angel (not religious) idea that tries to guide us in the direction of either your intended fate, or its passion. I think, therefore it drives me crazy! 🤗
I don’t know if he’s making any new claims but his philosophy is vital to maintaining intellectual curiosity
That sketch w/him looking at the primates world be a good tshirt
There's truth to it, but it's not the "end-all be-all." It doesn't explain the cultural patterns of behavior, nor obvious examples of human nature.
I might not care much for his theory, but I really enjoyed this presentation.
Without doubt we are enormously complex organisms. "Understanding" behavior can occur at many levels. It is likely impossible to understand all the layers that drive behavior, nor is it necessary. We are embedded in social matrices. Social systems consist of a framework of behavioral expectations and a repertoire of behaviors. It's a dance. For whatever complex reason, some people are more adept at this dance than others.
Behavior is probably a result of complex systems, what makes almost impossible to validate Sapolskys' points. But his theory sounds cool anyway.
Answer? Yes. Is it practical? No. We can never know the details of the entire movie. Judge, but not harshly, a helping hand is almost always better than even honest critique.
Agreed. An all counts.
It's an interesting theory about human instinct, and about cultural indoctrination, but the human mind is far more malleable and it is not unusual for people to free themselves of both. In fact to be happy within society just must do both.
I don't think we can measure it in synapses in the brain and I'd like to see someone take another approach, through consciousness, what it means and what "built in features" it holds with the active neocortex and the subconscious, self-preservation and all of those things.
I wouldn't know where to turn.
While it's all correct there are statistical approaches which can predict to quite a high degree likely behaviors especially with large groups of people and careful categotizations.
Always love your videos....2nd view...2nd comment
Yay! Thank you!
Problem is, selection/adaptation is only one of the mechanisms of evolution. There are more mechanisms through which mutations and genes pass on.
Sapolsky also argues this. It seems the person who created this video didn’t include this.
@@timeisup3094 he makes it look as if sapolsky is a "evolutionary psychologist" which he is not
@@Daniel-uk6yr Yes! If anything he finds evolutionary psychology contemptuous. 😂
Great thinker.
I would think Sapolsky would refer to it as an hypothesis and not a theory. A Theory in science is the highest form of knowledge i.e an explanation which is supported by all data and Laws pertaining to that science. As a 'Suggested Mechanism' the wordHypothesis should be the term used.
A little from column A, a little from column B. On the one hand I know what it is to be judged unfairly with no evidence but on the other I remember countless times I should have listened to my hunch and didn't.
What i think about his theory being solid. hell yes. I had this theory in my head since 8th grade.
U always have nice content
Why was the soul notion even mentioned at the end?
It’s still used to explain behavior by some, isn’t it?
@@matheusmarques7009 My qualm is with semantics, using words to illustrate an idea that which may easily be conflated by others of a certain bias: like Einstein using God.
Superb
If anyone should start a cult... And can embody the term "cult following"... ROBERT SAPOLSKY IS THE ANSWER. PERIOD
Sociobiology= evolution through natural selection shapes proximate and ultimate mechanisms that modulate behavioral responses
How does a trauma to frontal lobes and being comatose for a month at 5 years cause personality changes?
Freud.
Well first of all he said BE CAREFUL. He started from already taken assumptions. It does not mean that it is wrong it it self. Why humans behave like they do has more in it that it seams. Every one of us has their own prosesses in which we have a lot of freedom to choose most of the time. So human free choice is important. At the end we are more than just apes.
Pretty solid
The voice is like Pam(Jenna fisher) from 'the office'
We have the wild behaviour & the civilized one. Being in a society means u have to constantly reiterate your wild nature into the existing rules. People in power don't have to. That's why when u r in power most people just choose to ignore the proprietary & do "horrible" shit. But it's just freedom of choice.
We all have that animal kingdom nonsense. It's just u have to battle it out everyday. Most people fail or win on a particular day. It's add to the overall experience really. We r constantly trying to suppress an old & deep part of our nature. It's the madness within
It's all about the BIG BANG！
The only thing that I don't like about Sapolsky, that he is exiting his biology nish and go into entirely different areas. E.g. law. When Sapolsky said that the sequence of neurons is deterministic (and how these sequences were former is determined by an endless amount of internal and external factors, etc blahblahblah) and so there is no free will and crime. These clames in particular are quite wrong, because:
1. We don't have a strong definition of the free will (so Sapolsky built a strawman for himself to fight with). But we observe the free will and it is not requiring any other proofs.
2. Sapolsky doesn't understand function of the law and the System of Justice. E.g. retaliation function of legal punishmemts.
But within his biological field he is great.
Thanks for your insightful comment!
There is no free will. Everything, in a way, is pre-determined.
And here, you're messing law with biology. Law is very superficial to be contradicted with behavioral biology. Our bars of right and wrong are being determined by the current status of society. It ignores individual perspectives and a whole lot of philosophical debate.
@@johanliebert2601 and this is what I don't like about Sapolsky :)
Sapolsky is very superficial outside of biology.
Free will is
a. empirically observable.
b. Not a biological category, and not required to be. (Even the subject, even about his own definition of what free will is and how it could be displayed Said, that now we don't know for sure, but maybe rather soon blablabla we will know enough. I would say that until he has any solid prove all his "hungry-judges", "clean-hands-conservative" speculations, are premature).
d. Potential implications like abandoning guilt and normality leads to yet another totalitarianizm, this time or will not empower working class, or saving the Earth, or minorities, but rather protecting stupid willless people from themself (by exaxtly willless people lol). So, trash.
@@johanliebert2601 scientific explanation how far the modern science from explaining anything about human brains in general and complex behavior in particular.
ruclips.net/video/ZACJnu0XWZs/видео.html
@@alexeysaphonov232
>Free will has no strong definition
>Empirically observable
This makes no sense.
What is free will then? Person do thing or person do not do thing?
To say that we aren't purely ever changing biological machines is really silly. And yes, his theory should definitely be accounted for in law to at least focus on fixing the actual problems that cause people to do unethical things in the first place, as is shown in the video above. It would help us to pull out the weeds by the roots instead of clipping their leaves over and over. It's also nonsense to just think "this person just chose to do bad things because they just are a bad guy and we need to make them go bye bye" and actually try to psychologically and very importantly BIOLOGICALLY get to the root of why they are doing unethical things. Hell, not just the reason they want to do things but WANT to want to do unethical things. Some of most of it could be something crazy like incredible pressure on their spine, nervous system and brain stem from an undiagnoesed condition is putting them in a state of anxiety and extreme discomfort mixed with recurring manic psychosis, as just one very specific example.
It is okay to understand that decisions are computated and deterministic. Because the trick about an illusion is that when you ARE the illusion itself, it makes very little sense for that to play a roll when making decisions.. I developed this understanding way before I ever knew someone made a theory out of it and I am not a willess person because I know I am capable of choice regardless of if it is determined. Making choices and deciding on actions to take is wonderful to do whether it be an illusion or not. And the theory definitely should not excuse willess people! But it does give us a chance to understand and help willess people.
When?!?
at 11 second you say "natural selection" this is a technical mistake. Natural selection is one form of selection among many. I think its important to amend because evo psych haters use this exact mistake to straw man saploskys work.
Thanks. Unfortunately we can’t anymore. RUclips doesn’t allow editing.
Hmmm, maybe I've been behind the door. Can you offer some examples of selection working on human genome and/or phenotypes which aren't natural, or not of natural derivation? This is a sincere question, not rhetoric.
@@sprouts fair enough, only the most pedantic would notice “natural selection” is used colloquially to refer to any type of gene selection, but in evolutionary biology it means a very specific form of gene selection.
I know you guys were probably using the colloquial term, because it is a “non technical” introduction to saplosky and that’s awsome.
It’s just annoying see people using these semantic choices in bad faith to discredit absolute geniuses like saplosky.
@@bradsillasen1972 in evolutionary biology “natural selection” means a gene was selected for because it was advantageous for the environment.
So thicker more insulated fur would be selected for in a cold environment but not a hot environment for example.
Sexual selection is where a gene is chosen by mates, a male peacocks feathers is actually disadvantageous in regards to the environment, but that’s what females choose to mate with.
There are other methods like “bottle necking” where a disaster kills a huge percentage of the population, and only some survive, no gene was advantageous it just happened by chance.
For example if a meteorite killed all humans on earth and only a handful of red heads survived and then all humans where red haired in the future.
There or other things like “drift”. Where populations seperate due to a flood or something and only some genes of the population are present in the separated group
as well as selective selection like what we do with do with domestic animals and plants.
All of this is “natural” it’s just in technical evolutionary science terminology “ natural selection” means something very specific.
@@doaimanariroll5121 Well taken and thanks for the elaborate clarification.
I think we could, but it takes time
If he’s right...are we all just a complicated machine-?
Yes.
True to some point…if we train an ai or infinite generations of that ai for millions of years and we would find the generation of ai smart enough to understand it self. And find purpose of it’s existence among infinite realities and may be help humans to become type 5 civilisation on this vast fabric of space&time.
But for fast root now we must find a better way to comprehend this level of detail of complicated circuits and predict next best response for specific stimulus by that being and make a better npc for my GTA 😹.
This theory is right. No denying it especially if you don't have helicopter parents.
This theory obviously does not apply to everyone. Psychopaths for example... some behaviours don't have a reason or "why" behind them... it's just based on a wild intuition or heat of the moment
Actually.. his theory does explain why psychopaths are the way they are.. check his lecture series on behavioural biology.. aggression part.. you will understand..
@@chandrakanthchandrakanth8208 You beat me to it! I concur. That series is fascinating.
are you sure about that? Psychopaths have their own reason .
@Danur Kresna Murti yes I'm sure.. It's basically due to impaired functioning of some areas like the amygdala, prefrontal cortex, insula.. so the reason is biological
Nice
Mr sapolsky, is he alive...from the contents seen i believe we share some common beliefs.. I'd love to meet him
That guy is a science rockstar.
You find a lot of content from him here.
I met Mr. Sapolsky when he was a guest lecturer in Oklahoma. He’s wonderful! He took a photo w me and even gave me some career advice when I asked :)
@@sweetstuff772 can I ask you for some advice to become successful?
I'd love to take darshan in his exalted presence :D))
Trying to explain the behavior of a single individual misses the point. Society is a herd of dumb animals that respond to stimuli.
The characteristics of people is nature.
1:15 Neuroplasticity
Well made vid but at the end I think there’s a false choice between his ideas and free will
eh.. seems more sociology explained by generational priors than actual evolution of behavior (which would just describe how we have behaviors, not looking for motiviations).
Sapolsky makes a very good case, but can you ask is he right without putting forth another possibility other than, No, he's not right, not exactly? To say otherwise iws to offer nothing to counter, really. Soul, hmm, Didn't even that have the same beginning, as assuming the notion of what has no basis except as a speculation from perhaps religion?
*Sapolsky is an evolutionary biologist, not an evolutionary psychologist. World of difference. Ironically, it's the evolutionary psychologists who tend to over-explain behavior with biology, because they don't totally understand biology. Evolutionary biologists understand the limits of biology, and tend to look more to culture and environmental context to fill in the gaps. This is why you won't see an evolutionary biologist making blanket statements about, say, how men think vs how women think. It isn't that simple.
The belief in a soul does not imply biology has no affect on decision making. No one who believes in a soul would say anything remotely like that last sentence. This is a bigoted description of what many people believe. I came here to learn something about Evolutionary Psychology. Is bigotry a part of this theory?
Oof. Love y'all and the vid, but yikes does that mic sound bad. Laptop or phone mic I'm guessing? Either way, I would recommend a better mic or, in a pinch, some EQ and de-essing. It's really nasally and boxy.
Is this pam frome the office talking?
I think Saplosky would be appalled that this video and all the comments I have read give him credit for the work of generations of past and current biologist.
He is a charismatic lecturer and a scientist who conveys current understandings of the field. I suspect he would want the video taken down asap.
Why do you say this? I think this video accurately reflects what he says in his lectures on human behavior.
Ok Karen
I don't really agree with the first part of the video. Understanding the human or any animal behaviour won't be completed by the knowledge of our neurons. Of course we need neurons for behaving but a psychological process is not equal to the biological process. That's in fact a reductionism very used in Psychology. Explaining psychology by only biological process can't really explain anything about psychology.
For example, if you see someone walking and see the biological process you can see the person is using x muscles, have x hormones and etc but you can never explain why is that person walking. Maybe he is going to visit her mom, but neurons will never "tell"you so. That information doesnt exist in neurons. However it doesnt mean that we have to fall into dualism.
Yes. Good point
Recently learned about this person like a month ago. Headliner for the article that appeared in my news stream that, "After 40 years of studying microbiological behavior along with the assistance of other academic disciplines, he concludes free will doesn't exist."
This is probably why the video subtly mentions faith and souls in relation to this theory at the last microbiological nanosecond just before it ends.
Which made me 😂🤣.
Honestly? It's just refreshing to hear something that we all knew but couldn't actually present it as a fully developed and communicable explanation of .... well, everything up to now.
For me, it's like I can feel a little better about failing my whole life and was granted permission to continue to fail at it. 😊
Take it to it's conclusion and no one is guilty of anything?
Just like cells, soon one nation will rise and we're going to acumulate each and every problem in this universe as one.
9x out of 10 I can tell if a movie is crap in the first 30 seconds.
verey nice veidos can I translate them to Arabic ?they will be a huge benifit to ahuge population there .
You lost me at 3:12 when you brought the term 'soul' into the video which is about Sapolsky's evolution theory. That's how Indian media would put it 😂
Our present world is SO artificial. Why are women only half as strong as men? Could it be that they make bad choices, so that enforced mating with the strongest men usually produces better results than whatever women decide to do? Further, in a naked society, women can visually "shop" for the most desirable looking genitals - which are probably on the oldest men, and age is THE best indicator of genetic fitness. We would be better off returning to roots that actually improve the species and created us, than to try to hypothesize the basis of behavior in our VERY artificial and dysfunctional society. Fix the society, rather than trying to "fix" the people.
This type of theory is antithetical to free will. This is the kind of thing people who hold the philosophy of Determinism always go to. If that were true and you could predict the future by analyzing the entirety of data means there is no free will thus making ethics irrelevant because ethics deal with choices which subsequently means there is no point to ever discuss politics or do anything for that matter.
It's true that we are shaped by our biology and the culture surrounding us. Nature and nurture. But if you believe in free will (you have to if you have any ethical standards) then there is also the individual and the choices they make - you shape yourself. What they decide to focus on. Who they decide to listen to. Who they are. To learn that, you need to talk to that person and hope that they express themselves well enough, which requires you to be able to ask questions well (which is a nifty skill to have). So I agree with the conclusion that there is more than meets the eye with a person, but it's not just data that is missing. It's the will of the person. And no amount of data can determine that :]
A note in advance to those who want to argue against free will with linear cause and effect:
There is no metaphysical law that requires cause and effect to be linear. If you believe in free will then the metaphysics underlying it require there to be a branching type of cause and effect. The only way we have ever seen it manifest is in the human brain and in an extremely small subset of super smart animals. It's possible that when a certain complexity is reached in a neural network, that this branching effect of matter can occur and thus realize free will. This is a matter of philosophy and it's not something one can ignore when making any decision ever. That's why Determinism is so toxic. You literally devolve as a human being into non-action because by making an active decision and being aware of that fact, you have to suppress it which leads to a huge contradiction every time you make a decision. Free will is not the outcome (choosing the shirt you'll wear to work). It's the focus (the choice to focus on what shirt to wear) The subconscious mind making the final calculation and thus the outcome (a green patterned shirt). When you don't focus it's called drifting. For example "day dreaming" or mindlessly consuming entertainment is drifting.
Side note:
I noticed everyone else in the comments (as of making this comment) not only agree with the theory but are ecstatic about it, which is honestly a little disappointing to me :/
Found nothing here..its just an intro for his theory 😞
“Sapolski’s theory”? Lol. He did not invent the idea that behavior comes from the biology of the brain, he only wrote e popular book about it
Everything is logical - cause and effect. Great discovery - too bad The Matrix already raised this dilemma... and a number of philosophers before Sapolsky. But he manages to take the credit making interesting lectures arguing that to understand the human behavior, you can never go deep enough thus nothing can be totally explained. Raising questions and giving no answers while talking about stuff makes you popular I guess.
The difference is other philosophers are not as interested in motivating people to apply it.
SPOLASY IS NOT A PHILOSOPHER..HE IS A SCIENTIST. I SUSPECT HE WOULD BE APPALLED AT THE VIDEO AS WELL AS THE WHOLE THREAD OF COMMENTS GIVING HIM CREDIT FOR THE CURRENT UNDERSTANDING OF BEHAVIOR SCIENTISTS...HE IS A CHARISMATIC LECTURER ON THE TOPIC.
TAKES decisions? .....you mean MAKES decisions?