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I know this may be tongue-in-cheek but I think this is a great illustration of why we might need to ask the question of "what do degrees of freedom look like in determinism?" Because some situations seem like they are free-er than others
@@unsolicitedadvice9198 I agree. A conceptualization I once heard was that our free will is like that of a dog who is tied on a long rope to the back of a cart being pulled by a horse. The rope is long enough that we can roam fairly far away, but eventually we hit our limit and get dragged back to the trail.
@michahcc You asking me? If so, the context is the state of mind or the intentions/desires of the heart. So, can one just choose out of that? Yes, possibly, but not very likely. But then, something less or dissatisfying would be in control.. Or we get to choose by what we would rather be controlled by, But not to be uncontrolled. Not yet anyway.
@@sigmachadtrillioniare6372 While true, I watched the whole video now, and nothing disturbed my initial reply. Trying to think thru free will/freedom is always a “chasing your tail” proposition. Did you wear a mask or take the vax during the coof? Freewil/ agency is not “free” without sacrifice to the individual. What context do you need? We are here in this world for a very short period of time.. That’s a context. You will never fully escape control, or to quote some other great mind, “Death is the end of illusion”.
I really like the idea that freedom depend on the person, like im not saying that someone can have infinite freedom, but things like your surroundings or even your religion and morality can affect your choices, I remember that one philosopher said that life is like a chain and some actions are just the results of other, previous actions, I think that is partially true (because then again there are some things that are out of control) but it can describe freedom really well, anyway amazing video as always and have a great day (or night)
@@unsolicitedadvice9198 well it’s not just that I enjoy it. It’s that I think your communication style is very effective and makes it easy to or easier to pick up the nuances of these types of issues. Keep up the good work!
I really enjoy the idea of the conflicting will, with what we may call “degrees of freedom”. In practice, I do find that sometimes having more options, perhaps too many, can restrain my ability to act. Perhaps too much freedom is counterproductive.
I think Freeewill exists in a world with determinism depening on how we "define" free will. If one thinks we are truly independent with the thoughts/decisions we make, then I respectfully think they have the "illusion" of free will. However if we interpret Freewill as being "self-aware" I can agree with that. I firmly believe there is nothing "random" that drives our thoughts and nothign random in this universe. Rather there are variables/factors that are less well understood or unknown to us but doesn't mean those factos don't exist. A very simple example of my meaning is how Weather was random to us until we understood how it worked and now we can predict it's behaviour because we know there is a "cause and effect" which informs our weather forecasts. This cause and effect understanding is the same way we can use it to predict what would happen if we threw an object or what would happen when you put a fire under a pot of water or what would happen after star explodes. So long as we know the starting conditions and what formula to apply, you will get an accurate prediction on the outcome. This cause and effect approach is the same with our thought process. Each person's brain is like a playbook that has instructions saying if inputs "x" and based on conditions "y" then do Z. What this means is that if you had an infinite number of clones of yourself that all lived in parallel universes that were exactly the same as yours with events and conditions all being exactly the same, at no point would any clones decision be different. So in all those parallel instances the outcome would be the same because the conditions were precisely the same. In order for decisions to be different, it means a condition changed somewhere. Our brains is like a super computer and is crafted by enviromental and biological conditions that we do not control. If you knew all the conditions for how my brain worked and had a formula to apply, you can predict every decision I would ever make due to cause and effect. So me thinking my decision was "freewill" is an illusion beacuse freewill would mean nothing can predict my thought, it's all truly free, when in reality it's all determined by conditions that lead up to it. And those conditions were caused by previous conditions and so on to the start of the universe. So eveything after the bing bang be it the earth forming, dinosaurs getting extinct, man going to the moon, you jerking off, was always pre-determined to happen. If you knew thre right forumla to use and had all the right variables to apply to it at the start of big bang all these things and life events can be predicted accurately. So nothing is free, we are rather just part of the ride and are free to be aware of it rather than free to change it.
I like your conclusion. I’ve also struggled with this debate (and the theory is mind-boggling for anyone who isn’t a devoted studier of philosophy). Not only are there gradual indicators in the relative ‘free-ness’ of individual decisions but there’s also the ‘strength of will’ in the individual facing the choice. Whereas one heroin addict may have the will to resist robbing a store to fund the addiction, another might not. We can debate on purely moral terms in the philosophical sense but there are practical psychological, sociological, and even anthropological lenses to this debate.
The thought that is burning in me during this video is, how do we know someone could choose otherwise? We never choose anything other than.. what we choose. You can say you wanted to go to the cinema, but end up going to the zoo. Why are we assuming you ever actually had a choice to go to the cinema? To me this is the illusion of free will. There is no version of events where i want to go to the cinema, something happens, i go to the zoo, but i actually am at the cinema. I always end up at the zoo, to me theres no evidence i had a choice at all. How i think of free will (and our lack of it), putting a gun to my head forcing me to the cinema is no different than me having had a traumatic experience at a zoo as a child leaving me averse, or simply not having access to a zoo, or any other reason i dont go to the zoo. In all examples i dont go to the zoo simply because of a culmination of every moment of my life including present variables. Idk if this is outside the point of this video but i couldnt stop thinking about it lol
Let's suppose that you had free will, where you're able to generate your own causal chains independent of other factors. In practice the choices we have are influenced and limited by our environment and circumstances, but let's suppose that is in fact possible that, given the set of choices available to us, we are not causally bound into any of the available choices. Now let's go ahead and make a choice. What really happened here? We made a free choice, moved forward in time, and it was that free choice which was the initial cause that led to the chain of events in your experiences either at the cinema or at the zoo or whatever you so happened to choose. Now let's suppose that we rewound the clock back to your decision point, like save-scumming in video games. The free will position would mean that you would now create a different causal chain of events from the different choice. Whether or not you know the future and know that you went back in time to make the choice again would be irrelevant here, since your ability to make a free choice a la "free will" is not contingent upon future knowledge of the causal branches of the choices available to choose from.
But the will is determined, right? Our genetics, environment and personal history influence our worldview, actions and choices. I think these things determine our will in some way
@diegonesleite6249 if it’s determined, you have no free will, you couldn’t do otherwise, your behaviours and outcomes are determined by genetics, social norms in the environment you grow up in and past experiences among other things YOU DONT CONTROL whatsoever. This determines everything, leaving no room for free will / free choice as we currently understand it.
@@wangatshivhase8381 Well said. We are trees that orgnanically developed due to billions of environmentally aligned occurences and our leaves descend in the fall regardless of whether the tree believes that it wants to retain them. They grow once more in the spring and this again is predetermined. The tree also cannot affect being struck by lightning at the precise spot to set it alight and kill it even if it has provided shelter for birds and other wildlife.
we are married to the idea that we have free will in our egos. for others the dissonance of reward and punishment in a choiceless reality push them to believe in free will. I think the people who do not believe in free will are just frustrated, while those that believe in free will are threatened by this debate.
People who do not believe in free will, often determinists are also people without answers. They just Clinge to something to for intellectual satisfaction
the problem with this debate is neither side wants to argue in good faith about. on one side you have hardcore relgious funadmentalists who think your souls salvation is at stake if you dont believe in free will and nihilistic atheists who hypocritically want to replace one providence with another and yet claim they are the true "free thinkers" and also you have the right to choose your own values somehow. well if you really think determinism is true, how can you be a free anything? deterministic thinking is the catalyst for the worst authoritarian regimes imaginable. so at the face of it. to deny our freedom to choose is denying our own inner spark of humanity.
How is determinism responsible for authoritarian regimes? Determinism merely defends that every action we take, whatever it is, is determined by causes such as previous events and laws of physics, such causes influence both the thought that authoritarianism is good and the thought that democracy is good. There is no element in determinism that inherently validates authoritarianism.
@@ap6480 i guess its easier to recite what some other expert told you rather than actually engage your noggin. exactly the kind of spinelss NPC i would expect to no believe they have free will. because your being mind controlled.
I don’t see any animosity in Ap6480’s first reply, I see a point made and a question asked. Your reply is bluntly rude and full of assumptions - why that response and not just either engaging with a non-attitudinal answer or no response at all?
I heard a comedian recently say that many of his decisions are 5-4 in his internal Supreme Court. That made so much sense, and I think harmonizes with your scale idea quite nicely. Robert Sapolsky has also been making the podcast rounds explaining why he didn’t believe in free will, and yet encouraged people to not believe in determinism. It made me think quite a bit, and I landed where you landed here. I can’t see a way to resolve that contradiction for Robert outside of a nuanced look at how we use or misuse language
Glad someone with a decent internet presence said it. I don't know why Libertarian thinks free will is an absolute things and can't understand why determinist can say for sure that those predetermined factors will always leave you with only one choice. People are talking like we already know everything about law of physics and human psychology.
You’re a biological automaton. You are merely aware of your thoughts and emotions generated by your brain automatically based on previous experiences and how they’ve modified your brain structure.
My main issue with compatibilism is that our understanding of what is our will(according to its definition of free will) is continuously diminishing in the modern world. A few centuries back, society believed homosexuality was a choice but we now know for a fact that this is incorrect. Today, we still believe some things are in our control at the end of the day, but we truly have no idea which of these will get removed from our freedom. The study of psychology itself is setting up for the complete refutation of compatibilism. For example, an immoral person is treated as an immoral person and thus receives the punishment an immoral person should absolutely get, but people almost never actively choose to be immoral. That person could be who they are because of a bad upcoming, a negative experience, a psychological disorder or others. So, is it really up to that person to be immoral? This is one example, but we can also apply this for moral people. The same causes(general upcoming, experiences lived and mental health) can create a good person. Is it really up to that person to be moral?
Your content is insightful and thought-provoking! Thank you. I truly appreciate the exploration of degrees of freedom and the idea of freedom existing on a spectrum. This concept significantly enriches the ongoing conversation. Nevertheless, it could be argued that regardless of our choices, the degrees of freedom are causally determined. I lean towards the perspective that we are phenomenologically free but objectively determined. The notion of a "will-based cause" introduces a sense of cognitive dissonance for me. It seems to portray this "will" as something exceptionally special, untainted by causal factors (though admittedly influenced and determined by them), and essentially just "us." However, despite the subjective feeling of such uniqueness, objectively, this doesn't seem to be the case. The idea of a "will" representing the true "us," making choices without external factors, appears contradictory. Every choice we make is intricately connected to the causal matrix in which we are embedded. Our "will" is essentially born from this causal web, and our degrees of freedom are causally determined. The proposition that our wills are shaped by both internal and external causes, and that our degrees of freedom are not entirely within our control, while simultaneously suggesting that we are free when engaging our causally determined will that is not independent of external factors, seems perplexing. It challenges my understanding, and the idea of our freedom being constrained by causality makes my brain hurt, lol..
Here's a thought on the idea of free will... 1.Who chose your birth name? 2.Did you choose where you were born or the culture you were raised in? 3.How much of your daily thoughts and decisions are influenced by unconscious biases and social pressures? 4.Can you decide what you find enjoyable or distasteful, or are these preferences instilled in you by your genetics and experiences? 5.To what extent are your major life decisions (like your career or partner) truly free from the influence of your social environment and financial constraints? Reflecting on these questions, you can see that the canvas of our lives is pre-set in many ways. While we may paint within its bounds-sometimes even pushing at its edges-the initial outline is often not of our own making. This perspective doesn't wholly negate the concept of free will but suggests that the freedom we do has operates within a framework established by a myriad of uncontrollable forces.
While external factors like genetics, upbringing, and social influences shape our lives, they do not eliminate free will. Influence is not the same as determinism; people often make choices that defy their backgrounds or societal expectations. Human beings possess the capacity for self-reflection and critical thinking, allowing them to recognize and challenge biases, make complex life decisions, and exercise moral responsibility. free will is a divine gift that operates within the framework of life's influences, providing the context but not fully constraining the capacity to choose. Thus, free will exists within a complex interplay of internal and external forces.
@@TerryUniGeezerPeterson The fact that we are conscious beings capable of reflecting on our existence, purpose, and the vastness of the universe suggests a divine origin. Consciousness is not just a biological function, but it allows us to ponder abstract concepts like morality, beauty, and meaning, which seem to transcend mere survival. This unique ability to question, seek purpose, and understand the universe is evidence that our existence is not random, pointing to a divine source that endowed us with the capacity for such deep introspection and awareness.
I have been taunted by an ethereal adversary since I can remember, that would approach me to instill a mishandling of my own choices. This I bounced out of my own determining and landed into a liminal space amongst the real world but with the fabrics of consciousness quite palpable.
Forgot to comment, the determinism is an opinion, bolster by the accuracy of the planetary movements (among other things) cold be argued that the variables in most events are so many that the future becomes more and more obscure, to the point of being unpredictable. Specially when dealing with living beings and complex systems. Cheers
I really like your videos and thank you for all the effort you put into scriptwriting and your editing and presentation. My one and only criticism would be to please slow down slightly in your speech to really let your sentences on these deep subjects sink in, if for nobody else but myself. Great videos all around.
Perhaps you could review The adolescent by dostoyevsky as i believe he explores this very topic, free will in a changing world. I haven't read it myself i must confess, I'm duelling with the Brothers Karamazov at the moment.
Still, I’m reminded of the Merovingian in the Matrix series. The discussion between him & Neo regarding the only decision factor vs choice, that being causality vs choice… Then a later discussion between agent Smith and Neo in a life and death struggle; “Why do you keep fighting , you’ve lost everything “ says Smith. “Because I choose to” said Neo Hmmm. Perhaps free will occurs after (only after) all attachments are released or lost.😮
It depends on what one would consider free will, Either one is free despite the inevitability of cause and causation or one is not free because of cause and causation.
Oh it is not that they always do. It is more that they do in some contexts (e.g., in political philosophy) but then this nuance is often forgotten when it comes to the debate around compatibilism, at least in practice
You're wrong about quantum theory though, it does influence the macro scale enough for the universe to not be considered fully deterministic. also there's the issue of infinite regress but thats a whole other beast anyway.
The way you frame the principle of alternative possibilities at the beginning of the video is *exactly* how many compatibilists understand the nature of freedom of action. As stated, the principle does not imply anything about human agency or source hood libertarianism as you say in this video.
You're right that I could have been more precise in distinguishing the principle of alternative possibilities simpliciter from the "conditional" version. But for pedagogical purposes I didn't want to get carried away with the distinction. I sympathise with your point though - ultimately if we were being strict I would want to define it in a modal logic (I am more of a logician by training anyway, and it is how I wrote it down in my notes for this video). It is just that I didn't end up drawing on the distinction between the two later in the video, so I felt it was appropriate to leave it out for streamlining purposes. I'm always trying to strike a balance between precision/detail and simplicity/understandability.
Been loving the videos! I've finally gotten around to reading Dostoevsky because of your videos. I think that since you are talking/staring directly into the camera, and thus, straight at me, gives the whole video a personal touch and easier (for me, at least) to follow along. Like two friends having a chat over a drink about something intelligent, complex and dear, instead of a lecture that I can't seem to keep up with, and take little away from. Oh, and could you leave the upper left corner *messages/caveats a few seconds longer? (cocks revolver) it is completely ruining my life, and soon yours, reading those bits in 3 seconds! Cheers!
It might sound as a cliche without giving it a thought and therefore it's a lazy answer but Marcus Aurelius once said that everything is matter of perspective .
For myself, I like the compatibilist world view, who would say, that the person choosing between the zoo or being dead, clearly was free in his choice. It is not arbitrary and he clearly was free, based on his value to live. Whether in each of those scenarios a judge would call this person free, is a moral debate and not one about free will.
I'm really interested in the further development of determinism, since there are convenient models to work around these days, and possibly to forge a theory that goes beyond "metaphysical" abstract arguments. To make determinism as epistemology of cause and effects, having the correct knowledge for decisions to determine outcomes by Intuition of these reasoning. The difference is turning a posteriori truth into disposal, arguably in prediction, it's the ultimate control of self oriented life and environment. More knowledge aids the cause of deterministic epistemology the intellectual sword and the genius wielder of it will no longer concern the ontological implications of hard/soft determinism, because the definition in itself is built by constant and dynamic force beyond innate perception
Past and future are things that only created things are subject to, God is eternal (outside of time), and as such he knows all things in their presentiality. This allows God to lend us part of his free will while at the same time knowing all things "past, present and future."
Free will is rooted in a certain conception of how the universe came about, putting the idea of 'free will' itself as a choice. That 'uncaused cause' that defines the basis of a free will is not rooted in the person who chooses it, but in that 'Uncaused Cause' i.e. God that makes reality possible. By choosing to align one's belief with this fundamental notion of reality's beginnings we recognize that we are unique since we can reject or accept the very motion of free will as can only be found in God. So determinism represents the material nature we all struggle against while the Spirit break free from it.
Great video! I’ve thought that free will is on a scale for some time too. I don’t think there are concrete answers that are binary to almost any question
I don't understand why an empiricist would necessarily presume determinism must govern our actions. We only observe such strict determinism in objects that possess no consciousness. Behavior of conscious beings is seldom if ever entirely predictable, or even close to it. As an empiricist I observe this fact, and cannot conclude directly from those observations that conscious beings exhibit behavior that is solely governed by the laws of physics.
This is the same old argument “what came first the chicken or the egg” But this determinant concept does point to God and His perfect use of it (holiness) vs man and his use of determinism. (Slave to sin) So this concept shows us where and by what God rules by. So where do you look for God if you want evidence of him? That question is for you big thinkers. Keep thinking long enough and it only will point to God.
This is a great video! You almost made compatibilism sound coherent ;P To be less snaky about it: I think the point about different gradations of freedom is useful for evaluating how we expect a given person to act, and thus how much of a danger they are to society, say, but I don't think it ultimately allows for the kind of "free" will that would allow us to maintain our colloquial-much less *legal*-use of the term. If someone murdered their lover in a jealous rage and regretted it immensely after, that's certainly much different than someone who murders their lover with glee and vows to do it to another. And as a society, we want for very good reason to treat them very differently. But are either of these individuals really more free than the other? Sure, the former was overtaken by the force of an acute passion in the moment, but is not the other being acted on by a kind of chronic passion at all times? If someone feels the urge to kill but resists it, if that act of resistance is also determined by all prior antecedent states of reality, then how can we really blame or praise someone for whether this "resist" action happened to come up for them as the last link in a chain of causes that started with the beginning of time? Compatibilism sometimes strikes me as looking at a long sequence of dominoes and circling, like, a section near the end where it wasn't obvious how the dominoes would fall and then saying about the last domino: "See! I couldn't tell exactly which domino was gonna hit it, so it must have had a choice! In other words, are we not, at any moment "m", doing what moment "m-1" led us to do? Obviously, this is in large part a restatement of determinism, so a compatibilist is theoretically committed to saying this state of affairs does not undermine their position, but I've still never heard a good reason (and I've suffered, btw, all the best attempts to try) why that's the case beyond playing semantics with the "free" part of free will (looking at you, Danny D). And appeals to the sense of control we *feel* when we take actions really doesn't amount to anything. Optical illusions work because we *feel* like we're seeing something which doesn't turn out to be there. Not to mention, that even the notion that we have a kind of homuncular, unitary self that could be the locus of this free will was more-or-less DESTROYED by the Buddha millennia ago-and modern science has only grown in support of this position. If the "self" is a story we tell our "selves", then how are the parts of that story that involve us actually being in control *not* part of this self-ifying narrative? Now, as a bit of a curveball, I'm a metaphysical idealist, so I think consciousness is the fundamental substrate of existence and the egoic "I" is really a pale inflection of the true "I" which is actually all there is and ever could be... but that still doesn't in any way allow space for free will of the kind that would justify most of the ways we use it! (I think Strawson's so-called "Basic Argument" does the best job of laying out a metaphysically-neutral denial of free will) To circle back, this is especially true of the legal system, at least in the US. If one really takes on the implications of the free will denier's position, then retributive punishment should obviously serve 0 percent of the function of law and yet, It's one of its major pillars. Sorry this is so long, and again, good work! But when it comes to compatibilism, just say *no*... not that you actually have a choice either way ;)
I take your point here and to a certain extent I agree. I think my motivation for compatibilism is not to get everything we want back from freewill, but rather to reconstruct as much freewill as possible within our normal system. My actual views are quite pragmatist, and so I tend to view the function of the concept of responsibility as mostly abstracted from an attempt to spot patternst o predict people's future behaviour, which for me makes the distinction between will-based and external causes a bit easier to cut. However, this comes with its own drawbacks (for instance, it becomes very difficult to talk about long-term psychosis on this view).
@@unsolicitedadvice9198 I definitely see your point! And I agree that we need to be able to make the kinds of distinctions you outlined for pragmatic reasons, even under incompatibilism. (And I, of course, also agree with the drawback you acknowledge there). "I think my motivation for compatibilism is not to get everything we want back from freewill, but rather to reconstruct as much freewill as possible within our normal system." This is precisely the problem for me. Our "normal systems" are implicitly based on the kind of free will that determinism makes impossible. In my earlier comment, I touched on how that pertains to the justice system-the punishment end of dessert-but I think it equally applies to the rewards side. The whole notion of our (ostensibly) meritocratic systems hinge on the fact that people are sorted and afforded access to resources by virtue of the "value" they produce for the society. In other words: that they *deserve* to have a claim on more of society's goods and services While there are more thoroughgoing critiques as to the validity of such an arrangement, most criticisms (fairly) point out how these systems fail to live up to their own tenets, rather than questioning the underlying assumptions of dessert that undergird them. I would argue that truly understanding the determinist position should, at minimum, make Rawlsian impositions towards inequality absolutely self-evidently necessary, and at maximum, should point us towards much more radical forms of societal equality. The compatibilist move IMO ends up effectively papering over these issues in favor of manufacturing legitimacy to a system built on false premises. In almost every debate/discussion Dennett has had on the issue, he will at some point lament that philosophers are going around telling people they don't have free will, fearing the impacts it could have on society. This is, of course, a wholly separate question from the truth of the argument itself. And it's ultra-ironic for him to put this forth, given that, as a vocal atheist, he would reject a theist's similar concerns wrt God-and yet he continually makes it a centerpiece to his compatibilist position. Not to mention that I think that there's a very strong case to be made (as I alluded to earlier) that society would *improve* under an acceptance of the incompatibilist position. In any case, it's not fair to use Dennett's arguments as a stand-in for all compatibilists, as it's never quite fair to reduce any philosophical tradition to any single thinker. But I do think in a kind of Kuhnian way, it'll be interesting to see what happens in all kinds of philosophical domains in a post-Dennettian world... I expect big (and positive IMO) changes specifically re consciousness and free will.
Having no free will is equivalent to saying choice is an illusion because the mind will always default to its most logical choice in any circumstance given the limited amount of information it has. This is fundamentally flawed. For instance, anytime someone makes a decision that goes against their better judgement, their mind didn't default to their most logical choice because their better judgement is for a fact their logical choice.
If our minds didn't make the most logical choice based on limited information then you would have to ask why that is the case. Thankfully, this has already been studied and answered. They found the reason to be that your mind has other factors to consider. For one, your emotions, for another, your memories, and finally, your senses. It isn't simply limited information, but limited processing ability too. It's essentially a flight, fight, or freeze kind of scenario in your head all the time. And depending on which of the three factors are processed at the highest rate, any of the three possible reactions to any circumstance, are possible. Better judgement is not a reasonable variable to consider because for one, the statement is far too broad. What makes your better judgement, 'better'? It's just a nonsensical idea that judgement can be better or worse in a world of free will, compatibilism, or determinism. I mean no offense but judgement is extremely relative in of itself so it cannot be used in an statement of non relativity. Your entire idea of itself is contradictory. If this 'better judgement' determines the logical choice then how isn't that considered part of said limited information that is available to you. Your statement is like the tale of Sisyphus, in the sense that you make a point and then it becomes worth nothing when because your mind doesn't remember the reason, and so you let go of your very own revelation, probably because of one of the three factors, and I guarantee it wasn't intentional.
No, my opinion is the opposite. ‘Better judgment’ as you call it is just a generalization of the three factors. I’m saying the most logical choice is relative also. You just refer to better judgment as if it is illogical, as if those morals weren’t made after making a logical choice to follow those beliefs.
@@chibihd6014 Your accusation of me referring to someone's better judgement as being illogical is irrefutably false. I can't continue having a rational conversation with you until you realize that.
It all comes down to definition, and compatibalists really do redefine the term. One defines “free will” as an ability to make an uncaused choice vs the other as un-coerced choice.
@@unsolicitedadvice9198 I don’t see a difficulty in accepting the second definition in light of the first. Coercion is just another aspect of the causal chain.
Hence determinists constant, tedious attempt to define freewill as a purely god-like ability able to pop things in and out of history without regard to anything. Boring.
I would kill to hear you discuss this with alex o connor, i think that would make it into my top 10 conversations to watch. Im on the side of incompatibalism, and i think the redefinition of free will, that aligns with the idea that we can do what we will, but we cannot will what we will, is useful to describe how societally we should describe agency, given our need for accountability and such, but i dont think its necessarily valid in terms of proving agency in an objective sense. If i am merely the product of my wills, and those wills are merely a product of the biocomputer we call my brain, and the machinations of that biocomputer are determined by the laws of physics and the causal chain stretching back to the big bang, then i am not free, i am simply another system of particles, a puppet of the laws of nature. I think from a purely utilitarian perspective its rational that we should try and argue for the existence of free will. I dont think that the desperate logic liberates us from the fact that determinism (and, in my view, indeterminism) implies a lack of free agency. If i can only do A, if, given the exact same initial condition, i would only ever do A, regardless of how far back you start, i am not free in any meaningful sense of the word.
You get to choose, then followed by consequences. You get not to choose due to various reasons and circumstances prohibiting you to make your own decisions, so other makes it for you or none at all. Regardless, there will still be consequences. You choose not to choose. Still, it will bear consequences none the less. What I see are these: there are options and there will always be a result based on the options available. Even if an individual makes an active choice or not, something will still happen at the end of it. Even if nothing happens, that too is a result. Causality is inevitable. If this is true, then the universe is governed by a "law" that is constantly occuring and is perpetually operating. It appears as if it was set by design. By whom? I believe that it is by the Cause. As far as anything observable in the universe is concerned, something must originate from something. Cause and effect. Beginning and End. Alpha and Omega. Interpret it as you may like. As we are all finite beings with expiration dates, the worst thing that you can do for yourself is to believe that the universe is the product of an accident.
The apparent inherent randomness in quantum mechanics does still leave the possibility for free will, also, I would agree that if we do have free will, it would be very very limited, but it has to only be a free choice between 2 options, like doing or not doing something.
Well, randomness or probabilistic mechanisms don’t really rescue free well unfortunately. It just means that instead of you making a decision, it was made randomly or ballistically
My absolute favorite topic!! awesome content as usual! I've been fascinated by this since learning about it in the late 2000s. Now writing a book on it! I think it has so much value for society.
Something was nagging in the back of my head as i was watching this: A lot of this confusion is because we're using two definitions of free interchangably. Definition 1: libertarian free: The ability to do otherwise Definition 2: colloquial usage of free: The ability to choose our actions I think the compatabilists raise great arguments about definition 2. The last section of the video about how free we are in certain situations does too. But i dont think any of this ever changes the fact that definition 1 remains unchanged. So the determinist won't be convinced
Did you ever think about uploading your stuff to Spotify. I like your Videos and the style you choose. But I also think that this kinda format would be good as a audio book.
People are forced to think and do the types of things that their type of genetics and their types of life experiences program them to think and do throughout their life. Who and how someone happens to be is an extremely unfair unjust lottery that is dependent on what type of genetics that they happen to have and depending on what types of life experiences they happen to have throughout their life.
If reason is ruled by outcome alone, emotional manipulation is a practical means to a goal. In that way, it is reasonable to do it. But it's unreasonable in the larger picture of interpersonal relationships and society. Like the Boy Who Cried Wolf (forgive me if I've got that wrong, but I remember it as attention-seeking behavioral) . So, which outcome has more value? The immediate of going to the zoo or maintaining the trust in the friendship and one's reputation?
@@donjindra If you reject metaphysics or don't have a way to give them coherence by grounding them free will becomes an difficult to prove idea. These issues are only issues for atheist empiricists
@@metrab8901 IMO, metaphysics is a vague term. One can't really reject it until one knows how you use the term, and then the rejection is of the definition, not of reality itself. I'd probably fall into your "atheist materialist" category but I believe in free will. So you're wrong about that.
@@donjindra meta-physical that which is not dependent upon material reality like the laws of logic and math. As an atheist materialist you cannot explain how free will is possible or where it comes from. It is more logical from your worldlview to adopt determinism that the world is changing since the big bang things are moving in a certain direction and we behave as we have been evolved to. Nothing we do is 'free' it only appears to be from our vantage point. Morality is evolving along with us and anything that is mind dependent like social constructs. In the future we cannot know what people will think or act like, we can only extrapolate that they will be 'more-evolved' than us.
@@metrab8901 "meta-physical that which is not dependent upon material reality like the laws of logic and math." So you define the metaphysical to be the supernatural, or at the very least a dualist "substance." That is not what I think of as metaphysics. Most philosophers define it as ways of thinking about reality. Everyone who thinks about reality -- which is most of us -- has a metaphysics. That's why I thought it strange that you claimed some people deny metaphysics. "As an atheist materialist you cannot explain how free will is possible or where it comes from." I don't need to explain how free will is possible. It simply is -- a brute fact. I experience will and choice and I have no reason to deny that experience. Nor do I need to explain where it comes from, although I think that's pretty obvious -- from processes in our brains. It is not more logical from my worldview to adopt determinism. Quantum physics has rejected determinism. So it's illogical to clutch onto a view of a deterministic universe. I say Sam Harris and other "determinists" have a religious worldview. They have an irrational faith in a determined fate. But I don't share that faith.
One thing that humans do not have a choice about is being faced with choices. And time limits are a compulsion factor behind all that we do or don't do. You cannot deliberate for the next 4 weeks about what you will eat tomorrow. And you cannot deliberate for the next 12 hours about what you will do in 20 minutes from now. There is always that voice of compulsion in your head saying : Make up your mind, make up your mind, make up your mind. Time and tide wait for no man.
Imo Free will is always free will, even if the choice is non-existance, because free will doesn't include the actions of others. Even when coerced I can choose, at my own discretion to die. This is no different than choosing to freely self exit, because self exiting is often directly or indirectly coerced, too. In fact I'd go as far to say that, unless one is alone in a vacuum, one is being at least being indirectly coerced as far as every decision is being made 😅
In 1 sentence: Whether or not we have free will depends entirely upon how we define what “free will” really is and the “who” to which it can be attributed. Buddhists for example view themselves as a continuation with the whole universe, never starting and never ending. Rather than the post-enlightenment western view of individualism.
What I wonder about, if we start with someone who does not believe in free will, is that he cannot prevent himself from changing his mind, should that happen beyond his control. But since it is obvious that people believe in free will in a world where we are not free, according to this person, how will he evaluate his new position? It must be, I now believe we are free, but since I can believe that despite the fact that we are not free, I somehow still believe that we are not free. The problem here is that the fact that those who do not believe we are free use arguments and reason to support their position refutes their own position. The reason for their position, if we take them seriously, is not some reasoning, but something beyond their control. They hold what they believe and don't quite know why they believe it. The moment they resort to arguments, reason and logic, they must also be able to evaluate, which requires freedom. E.g. if you ask a computer if we have free will, and it says no, it is because it has been programmed to give that answer. If we ask the computer if it is the right answer, it can only give answers that are also pre-programmed into it. That is the computer cannot evaluate the answer, because that requires precisely freedom. Which means, fundamentally, that free will is freedom to think or not to think, i.e. thinking does not work automatically, like other functions in our body, we have to turn it on and focus using our will. If we now go back to the man we started with, who beyond his control changed his mind, and given that we do not have free will, cannot reason as I outlined, whether he now really believes in free will or not. Because it is not something he controls, just like the computer mentioned above.
I’ve come to believe “Free Will” isn’t a black/white issue. I think it exists at times and doesn’t at others. For example, plan out tomorrow in your head; You wake up, do some chores, eat breakfast, watch TV, go to work…whatever. This would be an exercise in “Free Will”. It’s quite possible the day plays out exactly as you’d planned. However, on your way to work, you suddenly get a flat tire. Clearly, this isn’t part of how you “willed” the day to go, the day before. Your reaction to the unexpected event places you in a different frame of mind, the actions you take probably then become more “automated”; find a ride, fix the tire, alert work you’ll be late, etc.
What about in the case of a crime committed in the state of temporary insanity? Would compatiblism still accord with general common sense views of culpability? In this case, the crime is still committed via the will, it’s just that it was temporarily a different will. Based on compatibilism, the person could potentially be argued to have acted freely, but the legal system would not deem it so.
It's not about freewill, it's about having a true Sentient mind. The less sentient the mind the more outside forces can sway its decisions. The more sentient the mind the more it realizes it has no control of its decisions. This is a scale not of the physical world.
Well, even if we define a scale for freedom, the previous arguements still stand that ultimately no will is the person's own. I think we should stop trying to reconcile freedom with our idea of 'moral justice'. Justice could just be that people are locked away by society so society can function function properly. This could include any reason for proper functioning, even false accusations(though mostly that wouldn't be the case). It's got nothing to do with freedom. One might point out what if the person was forced into doing something wrong? Well, if he poses a threat to society still, he'll be punished, if he does not, then he would be spared. My arguement is that not only is there no freedom, but we don't necessarily need the idea of freedom.
I think to a certain extent this is quite a philosophically admirable line of thinking because it does “bite the bullet” of determinism and then says “now what?”
@@unsolicitedadvice9198 I would like to add that this isn't what I think 'should be happening' but rather, what 'is happening'. I think the very arguement that free will exists, or even compatibility is a result of humans trying to reconcile their broken morality with their beliefs that they are moral. Much like how cognitive dissonance and rationalization exist on an individual scale.
This is exactly what I've been thinking for a long time. If you use ethical pragmatism as a guide for how to define concepts and which discussions to focus on, it really exposes a lot of these conversations as detatched theoretical musings or even just virtue signalling. Some societies, like the US, are obsessed with a concept of "justice", a sort of metaphysical principle supported by free will, which is ultimately nothing more than a rationalized emotion of vengeance. Other societies, like Norway, prioritize a more humanist (and maybe unintentionally utilitarian) way of dealing with crime: rehabilitation. This is done with the understanding that 1. People can change for the better 2. Rehabilitation is more cost effective 3. Rate of recidivism is lower. One of these clearly leads to a happier society. But as a prerequisite, it requires that you discard this notion of "freedom" and "justice", recognize it as an instinctual emotional reaction that only leads to more harm and learn to let it go. Because knowing that the murderer of your father runs free is bad, but having him murder your mother too is worse.
So presumably if someone committed heinous crimes against another group in order to seize their resources for the benefit of his own, that would be a moral action because what he did was good for his society? This individual is not a harm to his own society, so under the laws of determinism he’s morally sound?
@@scrupulousscruplesI'm not saying that it is, by any means, moral. I'm trying to define justice, and it doesn't seem like morality is essential to the definition. The situation you state of, would be an act of justice from his society's perspective and an act of injustice from the society's perspective that has been harmed. I never said it is morally sound.
Behavior of living beings is based on the translation of physical events into perceptual phenomena. We know that phenomena himself , cannot cause or otherwise produce anything. There must be another instance that allows phenomena to become the basis of physically influential behavior. We call this instance intentionality or reasons. But reasons are also perceptual phenomena in the form of mental content. This is the guarantee of their freedom from causal determinism. The behavior of biological systems is only functionally physical, but not content-wise. Neurological brain states are identical with mental content and can therefore translate perceptual phenomena back into causal-physical events and actions.We call this total event freedom of action based on free will.This process does not at any time interrupt the causal chain or change it in an unnatural way..
If our beliefs and reasoning processes are predetermined, we cannot independently verify the truth of our beliefs, as our belief in the truth would also be predetermined and not necessarily linked to actual evidence or reasoning. Any argument for the truth of determinism itself would be suspect, as the belief in determinism would also be a predetermined outcome, leading to a form of epistemic circularity. Meaning determinism is circular and self-defeating
I believe that us life would be a lot different in another context, what they teach in school or what we see on internet can influence us, now if a person is really curious maybe can arrive at the point of have more awareness of world, but also a person that has learnt about every situation, will be influenced in choices because in life you need to do also things that you don t like. So in the opinions you can became less and less influence by the context, in actions is a little more difficult because maybe some actions you have to start many years before or you need to survive
the issue with describing freeness as a scale is that it only further obscures the illusion. saying one action is more "free" than another is really just saying that its causes are more complex, or that we don't understand it. free will is an illusion. but illusions are real phenomena, we must not necessarily reject them; it's only important that we understand them.
@@sorenkair noun: phenomena 1. a fact or situation that is observed to exist or happen Illusions are NOT real phenomena🤣🤣 I don't have an airhead bubble buddy
@@aiya5777 3. PHILOSOPHY the object of a person's perception; what the senses or the mind notice. perhaps it was too difficult for you to understand that I'm not talking about the truth behind the illusion, but the nature of the illusion itself. centrifugal force is not a real force, but within a rotating frame of reference, it is useful and apparent.
Scales you say .......but the problem is never of the scales....there are only two possibilities in any given situation either what you did was determined or random, both means no free will... what you are describing is the diffrent kinds and intensities of will in different situations......diversity in the types of will does not mean it is now more or less freewill...it is still just will in different proportions. What I see is people always seem to confuse will with freewill in these debates....no matter what is the strength, you are still only feeling your will not Freewill...freewill doesn't even make any sense unless you call your will as freewill but then it defeats the meaning itself, bcs your will is not free, it just is.
I find changing the definition of free will pretty unsatisying as i think when most people, who aren't steeped in philosophical ideas, reference free will they're refering to the 'I could have done otherwise'. That being said one of the biggest problems i have (maybe 'uneasy feeling' is closer to what i mean than 'problem') with determinism is that it seems to retroactively use outcomes to demonstrate that there was no ither option. (Well you did x, therefore you were always going to do x or x was always going to happen).
I am curious on how much our understanding of free will relies on our conception of time. If our fundamental assumptions of time are wrong, then does that logic we use for determinism unravel? The other thought I had is if multiverses exist, and there are infinite multiverses, if randomness (refering to a non casual structure in physics) does exist. Then there would be infinite universes within the multiverse where physics would randomly play out as if it was casual based, even if it's not. So in this instance if randomness can exist then the idea of 'I could have done otherwise' could still exist. Of course I have no way of proving any of that, and it heavily relies of speculative ideas about a multiverse and the seemingly fiction idea that maybe physics might not be casual in nature.
The sleeper was brought to the mountain, and the sleepers gotta sleep, but his bed is now far away, so he has been made the walker for a time. He didn't choose this, he is compelled
He means that 'will' comes from the brain - which is a physical entity (as opposed, maybe, to something 'spiritual' that exists _outside_ of the brain....which, I guess would be what some people call a 'soul')
Synopsis: "Free Will" is defined as "a Will which is not restrained by Nature, something more, above, special". "Will" is "the ability of a machine to make autonomous decisions (acting on its own without simply repeating one or a set of actions, or being an instrument through which another machine exercises its will) upon given inputs (sensory and also memory converging on the processing unit)". From the given data we have available up to this point in time we live in a universe which is absolutely Deterministic, Fatalistic, but not because of magical words from a god, but because if Laplace's Demon were real, it would be absolutely able to function. >> The sparse important points, put in tl;dr :
@@ZARK0_ Language can not be completely free and made up, it HAS to be useful, and to be useful it needs to be able to describe things consistently. Things (be them real like cats or fake like dragons) first have their essence, then their description (minimum description is defined by accurately describing the subject) and then the name. The name is the ONLY part of this whole language system which CAN be absolutely arbitrary. The definition of Free Will depends FIRST OF ALL on the definition of Will, therefore it can not be the same thing by the PAINFULLY OBVIOUS reason that they should be different things. The definition I've written is the most accurate way to describe Free Will consistently, without leaving any poorly defined corner of the concept to be exploited by people ready to WASTE 5 days of your life instead of admitting "yeah, this thing makes no sense, let's go build a new hospital now or do anything which actually makes life better" as anyone with an IQ above 80 WHOM IS NOT EVIL can.
@@ZARK0_ From Will's function. To deny that Will is a machine's autonomous ability to make choices is to deny reality on the emotional bases of "boh oh I learned in primary school that we are not machines because... BECAUSE WE ARE NOT OK!? Therefore machines can not have will!!! 😭😭😭". From simple robot arms with a camera, tasked to discard factory cakes which do not fit the minimum requirement for the circular shape, to the more powerful AIs of the late 2010's capable not only to map 3D objects, but also put them in categories, machines which are not flesh, plant, or fungi, or biological at all DO. HAVE. WILL. YOU are a machine! I AM a machine! WE ARE ALL MACHINES! We are "objects with at least enough components to carry out at least one task/job", and we are autonomous because "we are capable of maintaining ourselves".
@Italian_Isaac_Clarke to deny that definition is actually just to deny a definition at odds with the definition that is used in the actual debate. Words are for meaning. Once you have the meaning, you can forget the words (Zhuangzi). You seem to think you can forget meanings once you have words. Amusing. My body may be a machine, but I am more than my body. Why do you foolishly think otherwise? Because you were told in primary school that believing so was the way of truth? Sad. Will is simply the faculty of choice and decision. It alone says nothing of autonomous choice and decisions. And Free Will is more than just autonomous will. Autonomous Will just means the action was exercised by the agents own will and not the will of another. Free will is that the agent could have willed another autonomous action altogether. Computers do not have will (let alone autonomous or free will) because will is the faculty for choicing or deciding (inherently conscious acts) and machines alone can't consciously act (it needs a mind to do that) unfortunately your naive physicalism is blinding you into fatalistic determinism.
The way you explain stabby as it would be his will but sleeper shooter not his will would seem like being conscious means you have free will. But you can only sleep so much. Most days I rather be unconscious but to sleep 24 hrs a day 365 would mean to be dead. So what I'm saying is if shabby is guilty and sleepshooter I'd not what makes it still his will maybe he'd rather have slept in. Suicide goes against the will yet just because sleepshooter wasn't conscious means it wasn't his will. He had the disease so in a deterministic world he'd be doing his will because that's who he is sleepshooter.
Have you heard of Robert Sapolisky..? I assume so. Because he is a neurologist, he looks at what a brain does mostly after the fact but we're getting to the point where we can watch a brain cognate in real time. If we have a Will, it's likely a bounded one I think. We can't chose to do *anything* our choices are a subset of what is possible. Mostly it involves continuing what we are doing, or doing something else. We rarely do anything exceptionally unexpected. I really like the metaphor of a monkey riding a tiger. The tiger is determined {sometimes the unconscious or the ID}, the monkey is our consciousness. The tiger does whatever it likes. The monkey tells itself, "I meant to do that." . It may be that we have a magic homunculus on the quantum level. When the event horizon of now collapses the probability field of spacetime into the past, we have a nano-pico-fecto second of choice. {I saw an interview with a old brit, physicist I think, talking about this} I wonder if "free will" is a binary where you either have it or you don't, and I'm including degrees of freedom as having it. Could it be that what we think of as "free will" is an emergent property of packing enough neurons into a small space in just the right configuration, and... Bang! Sentient Consciousness. We think some animals have it. I think most babies do not, which is why we don't have memories of that time of our lives. Object permanence develops near the end of the first year. Does a chicken have free will..? How did you choose your parents? Oddly, I don't have a dog in this fight, because nihilism. Like finding out there was microbial life in our solar system, the answer to the question of free will would not affect my day to day life in a meaningful way. Funny old world
Cool vids . Keep them coming 😁. 🤔Our actions probably dont have free will, coming from physical chemical reactions , but what if our learnt / chosen wants do ? Eg- i want to eat right, act right etc.. As in, us being a self-overseeing, top down consciousness ( or awareness of ourselves through collected, processed & aligned, internal & external senses data ) & being the driver in gross motor actions, based on what our brain has learnt, works. With the ability to SOMTIMES pick the best course of action. Having the ability to have "superpositional" ( just meant descriptively not literally ) thoughts on choices, likes etc. ( 🤔 Sorta like having photos of places you would LIKE to be right now, but you can only ever BE where your now step & next step leads you.) But in the end we can only ever work witbin our bodys learnt "safe" actions/ reactions.. So we may learn/ decide we will airy-fairily WANT to choose something, but unless our brain has learnt HOW to take that action in that particular situation, AND that it will physically serve us best in the moment, we just dont have that option open.. 🤔Our dreams probably help with "practicing" taking wanted actions in those specific situations, when you can't actually "practice" if it will work, in real life.. ( could have explained my meaning better if it wasnt 6 in the morning 😋) 😁☮️🌏
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I have level 2 Free Will. So, I have Free Will, but only on weekends, and weekdays between the hours of 6AM through to 8AM, and 4PM and 10PM.
I know this may be tongue-in-cheek but I think this is a great illustration of why we might need to ask the question of "what do degrees of freedom look like in determinism?" Because some situations seem like they are free-er than others
@@unsolicitedadvice9198 I agree. A conceptualization I once heard was that our free will is like that of a dog who is tied on a long rope to the back of a cart being pulled by a horse. The rope is long enough that we can roam fairly far away, but eventually we hit our limit and get dragged back to the trail.
We have free will and there is nothing we can do about it.
@@davidomeally6416or do we!?
Are you saying you are married?
babe wake up, new Unsolicited Advice video just dropped.
Haha! I am flattered to be featured in this text-format
Shut up nerd , I'm cheating on you with Jerome , he's a rapper.
Massively underrated channel. One of the few I watch the instant I see a new video is up!
Thank you! That’s very kind
please can you mention your name. Nowhere I can find what’s your name is. Many thanks
So who is the speaker of ‘unsollicitated advice’?
@@toondesmarets3033hes called Joe
My decision to click on your videos is always out of free wil! Great video, keep it up! 🥳
Thank you! I am glad you liked it
No, it isn’t.
If you’re a truth seeker, honest & authentic.
You had no other choice.
@michahcc
You asking me?
If so, the context is the state of mind or the intentions/desires of the heart.
So, can one just choose out of that? Yes, possibly, but not very likely.
But then, something less or dissatisfying would be in control..
Or we get to choose by what we would rather be controlled by,
But not to be uncontrolled.
Not yet anyway.
@@peterwilson1295U clearly didn't watch the video. Refer to the 4th part
@@sigmachadtrillioniare6372
While true, I watched the whole video now, and nothing disturbed my initial reply. Trying to think thru free will/freedom is always a “chasing your tail” proposition. Did you wear a mask or take the vax during the coof? Freewil/ agency is not “free” without sacrifice to the individual. What context do you need? We are here in this world for a very short period of time..
That’s a context.
You will never fully escape control, or to quote some other great mind,
“Death is the end of illusion”.
I was programmed at birth to like these types of videos against my will, therefore I was destined to click on this wonderful video.
There's some truth in comedy😂😂
Or you built a tolerance through traumatic perception on them & now have habit for clicking on them for answers
must be nice I was pressured coerced and intimidated into watching this 😪
Agreed
amazing stuff man. this channel is definitely going to blow up more than it already has. thanks for “choosing” providing this content.
This is my first youtube comment and I just wanted to say that you're my favorite youtuber bro! I look forward to your videos everyday!
Thank you! That’s very kind of you to say
I really like the idea that freedom depend on the person, like im not saying that someone can have infinite freedom, but things like your surroundings or even your religion and morality can affect your choices, I remember that one philosopher said that life is like a chain and some actions are just the results of other, previous actions, I think that is partially true (because then again there are some things that are out of control) but it can describe freedom really well, anyway amazing video as always and have a great day (or night)
By the way, great video. I think this is one of the best treatments on the subject that I’ve seen on, RUclips!
Thank you! I am really glad you enjoyed it
@@unsolicitedadvice9198 well it’s not just that I enjoy it. It’s that I think your communication style is very effective and makes it easy to or easier to pick up the nuances of these types of issues. Keep up the good work!
Always been amaze by your voice and your detailed explanation. Im just obsessed on it😖😖.
Thank you! That’s very kind!
I really enjoy the idea of the conflicting will, with what we may call “degrees of freedom”. In practice, I do find that sometimes having more options, perhaps too many, can restrain my ability to act. Perhaps too much freedom is counterproductive.
This video would have been a godsend to me when I wrote my AP Philosophy final in high school lol. I love the video, keep it up!!
I think Freeewill exists in a world with determinism depening on how we "define" free will. If one thinks we are truly independent with the thoughts/decisions we make, then I respectfully think they have the "illusion" of free will. However if we interpret Freewill as being "self-aware" I can agree with that.
I firmly believe there is nothing "random" that drives our thoughts and nothign random in this universe. Rather there are variables/factors that are less well understood or unknown to us but doesn't mean those factos don't exist. A very simple example of my meaning is how Weather was random to us until we understood how it worked and now we can predict it's behaviour because we know there is a "cause and effect" which informs our weather forecasts. This cause and effect understanding is the same way we can use it to predict what would happen if we threw an object or what would happen when you put a fire under a pot of water or what would happen after star explodes. So long as we know the starting conditions and what formula to apply, you will get an accurate prediction on the outcome.
This cause and effect approach is the same with our thought process. Each person's brain is like a playbook that has instructions saying if inputs "x" and based on conditions "y" then do Z. What this means is that if you had an infinite number of clones of yourself that all lived in parallel universes that were exactly the same as yours with events and conditions all being exactly the same, at no point would any clones decision be different. So in all those parallel instances the outcome would be the same because the conditions were precisely the same. In order for decisions to be different, it means a condition changed somewhere.
Our brains is like a super computer and is crafted by enviromental and biological conditions that we do not control. If you knew all the conditions for how my brain worked and had a formula to apply, you can predict every decision I would ever make due to cause and effect. So me thinking my decision was "freewill" is an illusion beacuse freewill would mean nothing can predict my thought, it's all truly free, when in reality it's all determined by conditions that lead up to it. And those conditions were caused by previous conditions and so on to the start of the universe. So eveything after the bing bang be it the earth forming, dinosaurs getting extinct, man going to the moon, you jerking off, was always pre-determined to happen. If you knew thre right forumla to use and had all the right variables to apply to it at the start of big bang all these things and life events can be predicted accurately. So nothing is free, we are rather just part of the ride and are free to be aware of it rather than free to change it.
Absolutely absurd how you don’t have a larger audience. Your explanation on philosophical ideas and on novelist is so fluent and poetic
Ah a genuine scholar, not making it easy for algorythm's sake, well done sir.
I like your conclusion. I’ve also struggled with this debate (and the theory is mind-boggling for anyone who isn’t a devoted studier of philosophy). Not only are there gradual indicators in the relative ‘free-ness’ of individual decisions but there’s also the ‘strength of will’ in the individual facing the choice. Whereas one heroin addict may have the will to resist robbing a store to fund the addiction, another might not. We can debate on purely moral terms in the philosophical sense but there are practical psychological, sociological, and even anthropological lenses to this debate.
The thought that is burning in me during this video is, how do we know someone could choose otherwise? We never choose anything other than.. what we choose. You can say you wanted to go to the cinema, but end up going to the zoo. Why are we assuming you ever actually had a choice to go to the cinema? To me this is the illusion of free will. There is no version of events where i want to go to the cinema, something happens, i go to the zoo, but i actually am at the cinema. I always end up at the zoo, to me theres no evidence i had a choice at all. How i think of free will (and our lack of it), putting a gun to my head forcing me to the cinema is no different than me having had a traumatic experience at a zoo as a child leaving me averse, or simply not having access to a zoo, or any other reason i dont go to the zoo. In all examples i dont go to the zoo simply because of a culmination of every moment of my life including present variables. Idk if this is outside the point of this video but i couldnt stop thinking about it lol
Let's suppose that you had free will, where you're able to generate your own causal chains independent of other factors. In practice the choices we have are influenced and limited by our environment and circumstances, but let's suppose that is in fact possible that, given the set of choices available to us, we are not causally bound into any of the available choices. Now let's go ahead and make a choice.
What really happened here? We made a free choice, moved forward in time, and it was that free choice which was the initial cause that led to the chain of events in your experiences either at the cinema or at the zoo or whatever you so happened to choose.
Now let's suppose that we rewound the clock back to your decision point, like save-scumming in video games. The free will position would mean that you would now create a different causal chain of events from the different choice. Whether or not you know the future and know that you went back in time to make the choice again would be irrelevant here, since your ability to make a free choice a la "free will" is not contingent upon future knowledge of the causal branches of the choices available to choose from.
But the will is determined, right? Our genetics, environment and personal history influence our worldview, actions and choices. I think these things determine our will in some way
@diegonesleite6249 if it’s determined, you have no free will, you couldn’t do otherwise, your behaviours and outcomes are determined by genetics, social norms in the environment you grow up in and past experiences among other things YOU DONT CONTROL whatsoever. This determines everything, leaving no room for free will / free choice as we currently understand it.
@@wangatshivhase8381 Well said. We are trees that orgnanically developed due to billions of environmentally aligned occurences and our leaves descend in the fall regardless of whether the tree believes that it wants to retain them. They grow once more in the spring and this again is predetermined. The tree also cannot affect being struck by lightning at the precise spot to set it alight and kill it even if it has provided shelter for birds and other wildlife.
we are married to the idea that we have free will in our egos. for others the dissonance of reward and punishment in a choiceless reality push them to believe in free will.
I think the people who do not believe in free will are just frustrated, while those that believe in free will are threatened by this debate.
People who do not believe in free will, often determinists are also people without answers. They just Clinge to something to for intellectual satisfaction
I stumbled upon this video without my will and I love your content,thankyou
the problem with this debate is neither side wants to argue in good faith about. on one side you have hardcore relgious funadmentalists who think your souls salvation is at stake if you dont believe in free will and nihilistic atheists who hypocritically want to replace one providence with another and yet claim they are the true "free thinkers" and also you have the right to choose your own values somehow. well if you really think determinism is true, how can you be a free anything? deterministic thinking is the catalyst for the worst authoritarian regimes imaginable. so at the face of it. to deny our freedom to choose is denying our own inner spark of humanity.
How is determinism responsible for authoritarian regimes? Determinism merely defends that every action we take, whatever it is, is determined by causes such as previous events and laws of physics, such causes influence both the thought that authoritarianism is good and the thought that democracy is good. There is no element in determinism that inherently validates authoritarianism.
@@ap6480 i guess its easier to recite what some other expert told you rather than actually engage your noggin. exactly the kind of spinelss NPC i would expect to no believe they have free will. because your being mind controlled.
@@thenightwatchman1598 Yeah instead of blabberin' nonsense how about you explain how determinism has anything to do with "mind control"?
@@ap6480 i would if you would stop being an arrogant little prick. otherwise i have better things to do.
I don’t see any animosity in Ap6480’s first reply, I see a point made and a question asked. Your reply is bluntly rude and full of assumptions - why that response and not just either engaging with a non-attitudinal answer or no response at all?
I heard a comedian recently say that many of his decisions are 5-4 in his internal Supreme Court. That made so much sense, and I think harmonizes with your scale idea quite nicely.
Robert Sapolsky has also been making the podcast rounds explaining why he didn’t believe in free will, and yet encouraged people to not believe in determinism. It made me think quite a bit, and I landed where you landed here. I can’t see a way to resolve that contradiction for Robert outside of a nuanced look at how we use or misuse language
Glad someone with a decent internet presence said it. I don't know why Libertarian thinks free will is an absolute things and can't understand why determinist can say for sure that those predetermined factors will always leave you with only one choice. People are talking like we already know everything about law of physics and human psychology.
J'ai reçament découvert cette chaîne youtube et j'adore le travail présenté. Aussi t'est trop mignon 🥰
Damn dude!!
You made me laugh so hard that I spit my coffee out all over my new rug when you mentioned Sam Harris as a thinker!!
The "while charming" cracked me up!
Haha! Thank you. I did want to clarify as otherwise it can get a bit confusing
Your work is the Definition of quality and content....
You’re a biological automaton. You are merely aware of your thoughts and emotions generated by your brain automatically based on previous experiences and how they’ve modified your brain structure.
My main issue with compatibilism is that our understanding of what is our will(according to its definition of free will) is continuously diminishing in the modern world. A few centuries back, society believed homosexuality was a choice but we now know for a fact that this is incorrect. Today, we still believe some things are in our control at the end of the day, but we truly have no idea which of these will get removed from our freedom. The study of psychology itself is setting up for the complete refutation of compatibilism. For example, an immoral person is treated as an immoral person and thus receives the punishment an immoral person should absolutely get, but people almost never actively choose to be immoral. That person could be who they are because of a bad upcoming, a negative experience, a psychological disorder or others. So, is it really up to that person to be immoral? This is one example, but we can also apply this for moral people. The same causes(general upcoming, experiences lived and mental health) can create a good person. Is it really up to that person to be moral?
Your content is insightful and thought-provoking! Thank you. I truly appreciate the exploration of degrees of freedom and the idea of freedom existing on a spectrum. This concept significantly enriches the ongoing conversation. Nevertheless, it could be argued that regardless of our choices, the degrees of freedom are causally determined. I lean towards the perspective that we are phenomenologically free but objectively determined.
The notion of a "will-based cause" introduces a sense of cognitive dissonance for me. It seems to portray this "will" as something exceptionally special, untainted by causal factors (though admittedly influenced and determined by them), and essentially just "us." However, despite the subjective feeling of such uniqueness, objectively, this doesn't seem to be the case. The idea of a "will" representing the true "us," making choices without external factors, appears contradictory. Every choice we make is intricately connected to the causal matrix in which we are embedded. Our "will" is essentially born from this causal web, and our degrees of freedom are causally determined.
The proposition that our wills are shaped by both internal and external causes, and that our degrees of freedom are not entirely within our control, while simultaneously suggesting that we are free when engaging our causally determined will that is not independent of external factors, seems perplexing. It challenges my understanding, and the idea of our freedom being constrained by causality makes my brain hurt, lol..
"Stripey, carnivorous fiend"
Brilliant!
Here's a thought on the idea of free will...
1.Who chose your birth name?
2.Did you choose where you were born or the culture you were raised in?
3.How much of your daily thoughts and decisions are influenced by unconscious biases and social pressures?
4.Can you decide what you find enjoyable or distasteful, or are these preferences instilled in you by your genetics and experiences?
5.To what extent are your major life decisions (like your career or partner) truly free from the influence of your social environment and financial constraints?
Reflecting on these questions, you can see that the canvas of our lives is pre-set in many ways. While we may paint within its bounds-sometimes even pushing at its edges-the initial outline is often not of our own making. This perspective doesn't wholly negate the concept of free will but suggests that the freedom we do has operates within a framework established by a myriad of uncontrollable forces.
Using that logic, because you can't will yourself to fly, or grow 2 feet taller, or win the lottery, that it somehow proves we don't have free will. 😂
While external factors like genetics, upbringing, and social influences shape our lives, they do not eliminate free will. Influence is not the same as determinism; people often make choices that defy their backgrounds or societal expectations. Human beings possess the capacity for self-reflection and critical thinking, allowing them to recognize and challenge biases, make complex life decisions, and exercise moral responsibility. free will is a divine gift that operates within the framework of life's influences, providing the context but not fully constraining the capacity to choose. Thus, free will exists within a complex interplay of internal and external forces.
@@ComedyMatrixTV "Devine gift"? Please cite empirical, verifiable evidence for your baseless assertion.
@@TerryUniGeezerPeterson The fact that we are conscious beings capable of reflecting on our existence, purpose, and the vastness of the universe suggests a divine origin. Consciousness is not just a biological function, but it allows us to ponder abstract concepts like morality, beauty, and meaning, which seem to transcend mere survival. This unique ability to question, seek purpose, and understand the universe is evidence that our existence is not random, pointing to a divine source that endowed us with the capacity for such deep introspection and awareness.
@@ComedyMatrixTV nice word salad gish-galop, but you didn't answer my question. Arguments from ignorance don't cut it.
I have been taunted by an ethereal adversary since I can remember, that would approach me to instill a mishandling of my own choices. This I bounced out of my own determining and landed into a liminal space amongst the real world but with the fabrics of consciousness quite palpable.
Forgot to comment, the determinism is an opinion, bolster by the accuracy of the planetary movements (among other things) cold be argued that the variables in most events are so many that the future becomes more and more obscure, to the point of being unpredictable. Specially when dealing with living beings and complex systems. Cheers
I really like your videos and thank you for all the effort you put into scriptwriting and your editing and presentation. My one and only criticism would be to please slow down slightly in your speech to really let your sentences on these deep subjects sink in, if for nobody else but myself. Great videos all around.
Perhaps you could review The adolescent by dostoyevsky as i believe he explores this very topic, free will in a changing world.
I haven't read it myself i must confess, I'm duelling with the Brothers Karamazov at the moment.
I would love to! I hope to have a video on Svidrigailov out by Sunday, but I will look at it for perhaps a video in the next couple of months
An excellent book discussing free will is, “What Is Man”, by Mark Twain. Twain was definitely in the camp of no free will, and his book convinced me.
Still, I’m reminded of the Merovingian in the Matrix series. The discussion between him & Neo regarding the only decision factor vs choice, that being causality vs choice…
Then a later discussion between agent Smith and Neo in a life and death struggle; “Why do you keep fighting , you’ve lost everything “ says Smith.
“Because I choose to” said Neo
Hmmm. Perhaps free will occurs after (only after) all attachments are released or lost.😮
The second is actually from the Greek parable of the hawk and sparrow.. 'why do you struggle..
@@DJWESG1
👍
자유의지는 존재한다고 생각해요.이 그림이 자유의지를 위한 길이라고 생각합니다.
Robert Sapolsky is an interesting chap. Really worth a read and listen. Great content. Thank you. Subbed.
he's a marxist douche bag , reducing the human to animals behaviour
I watched this one over dinner. Thanks again!
Sounds pretty free to me
Your fitst request is to ask someone to imagine something. How can someone decide to imagine or not if they have no free will?
It depends on what one would consider free will, Either one is free despite the inevitability of cause and causation or one is not free because of cause and causation.
Honestly, I'm unwilling to believe that this entire time people have seriously been treating freedom as binary as you suggest, that is NUTS to me
Oh it is not that they always do. It is more that they do in some contexts (e.g., in political philosophy) but then this nuance is often forgotten when it comes to the debate around compatibilism, at least in practice
You're wrong about quantum theory though, it does influence the macro scale enough for the universe to not be considered fully deterministic. also there's the issue of infinite regress but thats a whole other beast anyway.
The way you frame the principle of alternative possibilities at the beginning of the video is *exactly* how many compatibilists understand the nature of freedom of action. As stated, the principle does not imply anything about human agency or source hood libertarianism as you say in this video.
You're right that I could have been more precise in distinguishing the principle of alternative possibilities simpliciter from the "conditional" version. But for pedagogical purposes I didn't want to get carried away with the distinction. I sympathise with your point though - ultimately if we were being strict I would want to define it in a modal logic (I am more of a logician by training anyway, and it is how I wrote it down in my notes for this video). It is just that I didn't end up drawing on the distinction between the two later in the video, so I felt it was appropriate to leave it out for streamlining purposes. I'm always trying to strike a balance between precision/detail and simplicity/understandability.
Been loving the videos! I've finally gotten around to reading Dostoevsky because of your videos. I think that since you are talking/staring directly into the camera, and thus, straight at me, gives the whole video a personal touch and easier (for me, at least) to follow along. Like two friends having a chat over a drink about something intelligent, complex and dear, instead of a lecture that I can't seem to keep up with, and take little away from.
Oh, and could you leave the upper left corner *messages/caveats a few seconds longer? (cocks revolver) it is completely ruining my life, and soon yours, reading those bits in 3 seconds! Cheers!
It might sound as a cliche without giving it a thought and therefore it's a lazy answer but Marcus Aurelius once said that everything is matter of perspective .
"As mortals, we're ruled by conditions, not by ourselves."
Bodhidharma
Quite different from determinism. Most determinists disagree with the idea of self being real
@@sigmachadtrillioniare6372would you mind doing an eli5 about that? I am new at philosophy and id like to know, if you want to explain of course
@@sigmachadtrillioniare6372 Then that actually makes it the same as Buddhism.
For myself, I like the compatibilist world view, who would say, that the person choosing between the zoo or being dead, clearly was free in his choice. It is not arbitrary and he clearly was free, based on his value to live. Whether in each of those scenarios a judge would call this person free, is a moral debate and not one about free will.
This video taught me a quick way to get my friends to go to the Zoo with me. Thanks!
Thank you outstanding essay 👏🏼👏🏽💯
Thank you!
I'm really interested in the further development of determinism, since there are convenient models to work around these days, and possibly to forge a theory that goes beyond "metaphysical" abstract arguments. To make determinism as epistemology of cause and effects, having the correct knowledge for decisions to determine outcomes by Intuition of these reasoning. The difference is turning a posteriori truth into disposal, arguably in prediction, it's the ultimate control of self oriented life and environment. More knowledge aids the cause of deterministic epistemology
the intellectual sword and the genius wielder of it will no longer concern the ontological implications of hard/soft determinism, because the definition in itself is built by constant and dynamic force beyond innate perception
Past and future are things that only created things are subject to, God is eternal (outside of time), and as such he knows all things in their presentiality. This allows God to lend us part of his free will while at the same time knowing all things "past, present and future."
Free will is rooted in a certain conception of how the universe came about, putting the idea of 'free will' itself as a choice. That 'uncaused cause' that defines the basis of a free will is not rooted in the person who chooses it, but in that 'Uncaused Cause' i.e. God that makes reality possible. By choosing to align one's belief with this fundamental notion of reality's beginnings we recognize that we are unique since we can reject or accept the very motion of free will as can only be found in God. So determinism represents the material nature we all struggle against while the Spirit break free from it.
this channel reminds me of the old Philosophy Tube
Great video! I’ve thought that free will is on a scale for some time too. I don’t think there are concrete answers that are binary to almost any question
I don't understand why an empiricist would necessarily presume determinism must govern our actions. We only observe such strict determinism in objects that possess no consciousness. Behavior of conscious beings is seldom if ever entirely predictable, or even close to it. As an empiricist I observe this fact, and cannot conclude directly from those observations that conscious beings exhibit behavior that is solely governed by the laws of physics.
This is the same old argument “what came first the chicken or the egg” But this determinant concept does point to God and His perfect use of it (holiness) vs man and his use of determinism. (Slave to sin) So this concept shows us where and by what God rules by. So where do you look for God if you want evidence of him? That question is for you big thinkers. Keep thinking long enough and it only will point to God.
This is a great video! You almost made compatibilism sound coherent ;P
To be less snaky about it: I think the point about different gradations of freedom is useful for evaluating how we expect a given person to act, and thus how much of a danger they are to society, say, but I don't think it ultimately allows for the kind of "free" will that would allow us to maintain our colloquial-much less *legal*-use of the term.
If someone murdered their lover in a jealous rage and regretted it immensely after, that's certainly much different than someone who murders their lover with glee and vows to do it to another. And as a society, we want for very good reason to treat them very differently. But are either of these individuals really more free than the other? Sure, the former was overtaken by the force of an acute passion in the moment, but is not the other being acted on by a kind of chronic passion at all times? If someone feels the urge to kill but resists it, if that act of resistance is also determined by all prior antecedent states of reality, then how can we really blame or praise someone for whether this "resist" action happened to come up for them as the last link in a chain of causes that started with the beginning of time? Compatibilism sometimes strikes me as looking at a long sequence of dominoes and circling, like, a section near the end where it wasn't obvious how the dominoes would fall and then saying about the last domino: "See! I couldn't tell exactly which domino was gonna hit it, so it must have had a choice!
In other words, are we not, at any moment "m", doing what moment "m-1" led us to do? Obviously, this is in large part a restatement of determinism, so a compatibilist is theoretically committed to saying this state of affairs does not undermine their position, but I've still never heard a good reason (and I've suffered, btw, all the best attempts to try) why that's the case beyond playing semantics with the "free" part of free will (looking at you, Danny D).
And appeals to the sense of control we *feel* when we take actions really doesn't amount to anything. Optical illusions work because we *feel* like we're seeing something which doesn't turn out to be there. Not to mention, that even the notion that we have a kind of homuncular, unitary self that could be the locus of this free will was more-or-less DESTROYED by the Buddha millennia ago-and modern science has only grown in support of this position. If the "self" is a story we tell our "selves", then how are the parts of that story that involve us actually being in control *not* part of this self-ifying narrative?
Now, as a bit of a curveball, I'm a metaphysical idealist, so I think consciousness is the fundamental substrate of existence and the egoic "I" is really a pale inflection of the true "I" which is actually all there is and ever could be... but that still doesn't in any way allow space for free will of the kind that would justify most of the ways we use it! (I think Strawson's so-called "Basic Argument" does the best job of laying out a metaphysically-neutral denial of free will) To circle back, this is especially true of the legal system, at least in the US. If one really takes on the implications of the free will denier's position, then retributive punishment should obviously serve 0 percent of the function of law and yet, It's one of its major pillars.
Sorry this is so long, and again, good work! But when it comes to compatibilism, just say *no*... not that you actually have a choice either way ;)
I take your point here and to a certain extent I agree. I think my motivation for compatibilism is not to get everything we want back from freewill, but rather to reconstruct as much freewill as possible within our normal system. My actual views are quite pragmatist, and so I tend to view the function of the concept of responsibility as mostly abstracted from an attempt to spot patternst o predict people's future behaviour, which for me makes the distinction between will-based and external causes a bit easier to cut. However, this comes with its own drawbacks (for instance, it becomes very difficult to talk about long-term psychosis on this view).
@@unsolicitedadvice9198 I definitely see your point! And I agree that we need to be able to make the kinds of distinctions you outlined for pragmatic reasons, even under incompatibilism. (And I, of course, also agree with the drawback you acknowledge there).
"I think my motivation for compatibilism is not to get everything we want back from freewill, but rather to reconstruct as much freewill as possible within our normal system."
This is precisely the problem for me. Our "normal systems" are implicitly based on the kind of free will that determinism makes impossible. In my earlier comment, I touched on how that pertains to the justice system-the punishment end of dessert-but I think it equally applies to the rewards side. The whole notion of our (ostensibly) meritocratic systems hinge on the fact that people are sorted and afforded access to resources by virtue of the "value" they produce for the society. In other words: that they *deserve* to have a claim on more of society's goods and services While there are more thoroughgoing critiques as to the validity of such an arrangement, most criticisms (fairly) point out how these systems fail to live up to their own tenets, rather than questioning the underlying assumptions of dessert that undergird them. I would argue that truly understanding the determinist position should, at minimum, make Rawlsian impositions towards inequality absolutely self-evidently necessary, and at maximum, should point us towards much more radical forms of societal equality.
The compatibilist move IMO ends up effectively papering over these issues in favor of manufacturing legitimacy to a system built on false premises. In almost every debate/discussion Dennett has had on the issue, he will at some point lament that philosophers are going around telling people they don't have free will, fearing the impacts it could have on society. This is, of course, a wholly separate question from the truth of the argument itself. And it's ultra-ironic for him to put this forth, given that, as a vocal atheist, he would reject a theist's similar concerns wrt God-and yet he continually makes it a centerpiece to his compatibilist position. Not to mention that I think that there's a very strong case to be made (as I alluded to earlier) that society would *improve* under an acceptance of the incompatibilist position.
In any case, it's not fair to use Dennett's arguments as a stand-in for all compatibilists, as it's never quite fair to reduce any philosophical tradition to any single thinker. But I do think in a kind of Kuhnian way, it'll be interesting to see what happens in all kinds of philosophical domains in a post-Dennettian world... I expect big (and positive IMO) changes specifically re consciousness and free will.
Having no free will is equivalent to saying choice is an illusion because the mind will always default to its most logical choice in any circumstance given the limited amount of information it has. This is fundamentally flawed. For instance, anytime someone makes a decision that goes against their better judgement, their mind didn't default to their most logical choice because their better judgement is for a fact their logical choice.
If our minds didn't make the most logical choice based on limited information then you would have to ask why that is the case. Thankfully, this has already been studied and answered. They found the reason to be that your mind has other factors to consider. For one, your emotions, for another, your memories, and finally, your senses. It isn't simply limited information, but limited processing ability too. It's essentially a flight, fight, or freeze kind of scenario in your head all the time. And depending on which of the three factors are processed at the highest rate, any of the three possible reactions to any circumstance, are possible. Better judgement is not a reasonable variable to consider because for one, the statement is far too broad. What makes your better judgement, 'better'? It's just a nonsensical idea that judgement can be better or worse in a world of free will, compatibilism, or determinism. I mean no offense but judgement is extremely relative in of itself so it cannot be used in an statement of non relativity. Your entire idea of itself is contradictory. If this 'better judgement' determines the logical choice then how isn't that considered part of said limited information that is available to you. Your statement is like the tale of Sisyphus, in the sense that you make a point and then it becomes worth nothing when because your mind doesn't remember the reason, and so you let go of your very own revelation, probably because of one of the three factors, and I guarantee it wasn't intentional.
@@chibihd6014 It's your opinion that someone's better judgement isn't the better choice.
No, my opinion is the opposite. ‘Better judgment’ as you call it is just a generalization of the three factors. I’m saying the most logical choice is relative also. You just refer to better judgment as if it is illogical, as if those morals weren’t made after making a logical choice to follow those beliefs.
@@chibihd6014 Your accusation of me referring to someone's better judgement as being illogical is irrefutably false. I can't continue having a rational conversation with you until you realize that.
I went to jail I was temporarily insane. My lawyer fucked up my case. I was on psych meds they gave me more now I'm dying.
It all comes down to definition, and compatibalists really do redefine the term.
One defines “free will” as an ability to make an uncaused choice vs the other as un-coerced choice.
Absolutely! It is all about whether you accept the next definition
@@unsolicitedadvice9198 I don’t see a difficulty in accepting the second definition in light of the first.
Coercion is just another aspect of the causal chain.
Hence determinists constant, tedious attempt to define freewill as a purely god-like ability able to pop things in and out of history without regard to anything. Boring.
@@custos3249 determinist or indeterminist?
I would kill to hear you discuss this with alex o connor, i think that would make it into my top 10 conversations to watch.
Im on the side of incompatibalism, and i think the redefinition of free will, that aligns with the idea that we can do what we will, but we cannot will what we will, is useful to describe how societally we should describe agency, given our need for accountability and such, but i dont think its necessarily valid in terms of proving agency in an objective sense.
If i am merely the product of my wills, and those wills are merely a product of the biocomputer we call my brain, and the machinations of that biocomputer are determined by the laws of physics and the causal chain stretching back to the big bang, then i am not free, i am simply another system of particles, a puppet of the laws of nature.
I think from a purely utilitarian perspective its rational that we should try and argue for the existence of free will. I dont think that the desperate logic liberates us from the fact that determinism (and, in my view, indeterminism) implies a lack of free agency.
If i can only do A, if, given the exact same initial condition, i would only ever do A, regardless of how far back you start, i am not free in any meaningful sense of the word.
Facts. I fucks with this philosophy type shit heavy fr.
You get to choose, then followed by consequences.
You get not to choose due to various reasons and circumstances prohibiting you to make your own decisions, so other makes it for you or none at all. Regardless, there will still be consequences.
You choose not to choose. Still, it will bear consequences none the less.
What I see are these: there are options and there will always be a result based on the options available. Even if an individual makes an active choice or not, something will still happen at the end of it. Even if nothing happens, that too is a result.
Causality is inevitable. If this is true, then the universe is governed by a "law" that is constantly occuring and is perpetually operating. It appears as if it was set by design. By whom? I believe that it is by the Cause. As far as anything observable in the universe is concerned, something must originate from something. Cause and effect. Beginning and End. Alpha and Omega.
Interpret it as you may like. As we are all finite beings with expiration dates, the worst thing that you can do for yourself is to believe that the universe is the product of an accident.
The apparent inherent randomness in quantum mechanics does still leave the possibility for free will, also, I would agree that if we do have free will, it would be very very limited, but it has to only be a free choice between 2 options, like doing or not doing something.
Well, randomness or probabilistic mechanisms don’t really rescue free well unfortunately. It just means that instead of you making a decision, it was made randomly or ballistically
@@mbmurphy777Randomness does not save free will, but there is a possibility for that randomness to not be random, the possibility of choice.
But you need to have previous data about those two options to be able to choose .
My absolute favorite topic!! awesome content as usual!
I've been fascinated by this since learning about it in the late 2000s. Now writing a book on it!
I think it has so much value for society.
Do you mean the idea/belief of free will is valuable to society?
Something was nagging in the back of my head as i was watching this:
A lot of this confusion is because we're using two definitions of free interchangably.
Definition 1: libertarian free: The ability to do otherwise
Definition 2: colloquial usage of free: The ability to choose our actions
I think the compatabilists raise great arguments about definition 2. The last section of the video about how free we are in certain situations does too. But i dont think any of this ever changes the fact that definition 1 remains unchanged. So the determinist won't be convinced
Did you ever think about uploading your stuff to Spotify. I like your Videos and the style you choose. But I also think that this kinda format would be good as a audio book.
People are forced to think and do the types of things that their type of genetics and their types of life experiences program them to think and do throughout their life. Who and how someone happens to be is an extremely unfair unjust lottery that is dependent on what type of genetics that they happen to have and depending on what types of life experiences they happen to have throughout their life.
Learn to fight, so you don't look like scrawny intellectual. Great video.
If reason is ruled by outcome alone, emotional manipulation is a practical means to a goal. In that way, it is reasonable to do it. But it's unreasonable in the larger picture of interpersonal relationships and society. Like the Boy Who Cried Wolf (forgive me if I've got that wrong, but I remember it as attention-seeking behavioral) . So, which outcome has more value? The immediate of going to the zoo or maintaining the trust in the friendship and one's reputation?
The problem of free will is only for those who reject metaphysics or have no way to absolutely ground them.
What?
@@donjindra If you reject metaphysics or don't have a way to give them coherence by grounding them free will becomes an difficult to prove idea. These issues are only issues for atheist empiricists
@@metrab8901 IMO, metaphysics is a vague term. One can't really reject it until one knows how you use the term, and then the rejection is of the definition, not of reality itself. I'd probably fall into your "atheist materialist" category but I believe in free will. So you're wrong about that.
@@donjindra meta-physical that which is not dependent upon material reality like the laws of logic and math.
As an atheist materialist you cannot explain how free will is possible or where it comes from. It is more logical from your worldlview to adopt determinism that the world is changing since the big bang things are moving in a certain direction and we behave as we have been evolved to. Nothing we do is 'free' it only appears to be from our vantage point. Morality is evolving along with us and anything that is mind dependent like social constructs. In the future we cannot know what people will think or act like, we can only extrapolate that they will be 'more-evolved' than us.
@@metrab8901 "meta-physical that which is not dependent upon material reality like the laws of logic and math."
So you define the metaphysical to be the supernatural, or at the very least a dualist "substance." That is not what I think of as metaphysics. Most philosophers define it as ways of thinking about reality. Everyone who thinks about reality -- which is most of us -- has a metaphysics. That's why I thought it strange that you claimed some people deny metaphysics.
"As an atheist materialist you cannot explain how free will is possible or where it comes from."
I don't need to explain how free will is possible. It simply is -- a brute fact. I experience will and choice and I have no reason to deny that experience. Nor do I need to explain where it comes from, although I think that's pretty obvious -- from processes in our brains. It is not more logical from my worldview to adopt determinism. Quantum physics has rejected determinism. So it's illogical to clutch onto a view of a deterministic universe. I say Sam Harris and other "determinists" have a religious worldview. They have an irrational faith in a determined fate. But I don't share that faith.
One thing that humans do not have a choice about is being faced with choices.
And time limits are a compulsion factor behind all that we do or don't do.
You cannot deliberate for the next 4 weeks about what you will eat tomorrow. And you cannot deliberate for the next 12 hours about what you will do in 20 minutes from now.
There is always that voice of compulsion in your head saying : Make up your mind, make up your mind, make up your mind.
Time and tide wait for no man.
Imo Free will is always free will, even if the choice is non-existance, because free will doesn't include the actions of others. Even when coerced I can choose, at my own discretion to die. This is no different than choosing to freely self exit, because self exiting is often directly or indirectly coerced, too. In fact I'd go as far to say that, unless one is alone in a vacuum, one is being at least being indirectly coerced as far as every decision is being made 😅
In 1 sentence: Whether or not we have free will depends entirely upon how we define what “free will” really is and the “who” to which it can be attributed.
Buddhists for example view themselves as a continuation with the whole universe, never starting and never ending. Rather than the post-enlightenment western view of individualism.
What I wonder about, if we start with someone who does not believe in free will, is that he cannot prevent himself from changing his mind, should that happen beyond his control. But since it is obvious that people believe in free will in a world where we are not free, according to this person, how will he evaluate his new position? It must be, I now believe we are free, but since I can believe that despite the fact that we are not free, I somehow still believe that we are not free.
The problem here is that the fact that those who do not believe we are free use arguments and reason to support their position refutes their own position. The reason for their position, if we take them seriously, is not some reasoning, but something beyond their control. They hold what they believe and don't quite know why they believe it. The moment they resort to arguments, reason and logic, they must also be able to evaluate, which requires freedom.
E.g. if you ask a computer if we have free will, and it says no, it is because it has been programmed to give that answer. If we ask the computer if it is the right answer, it can only give answers that are also pre-programmed into it. That is the computer cannot evaluate the answer, because that requires precisely freedom. Which means, fundamentally, that free will is freedom to think or not to think, i.e. thinking does not work automatically, like other functions in our body, we have to turn it on and focus using our will.
If we now go back to the man we started with, who beyond his control changed his mind, and given that we do not have free will, cannot reason as I outlined, whether he now really believes in free will or not. Because it is not something he controls, just like the computer mentioned above.
I’ve come to believe “Free Will” isn’t a black/white issue. I think it exists at times and doesn’t at others.
For example, plan out tomorrow in your head; You wake up, do some chores, eat breakfast, watch TV, go to work…whatever. This would be an exercise in “Free Will”. It’s quite possible the day plays out exactly as you’d planned.
However, on your way to work, you suddenly get a flat tire. Clearly, this isn’t part of how you “willed” the day to go, the day before. Your reaction to the unexpected event places you in a different frame of mind, the actions you take probably then become more “automated”; find a ride, fix the tire, alert work you’ll be late, etc.
word well said
What about in the case of a crime committed in the state of temporary insanity? Would compatiblism still accord with general common sense views of culpability? In this case, the crime is still committed via the will, it’s just that it was temporarily a different will. Based on compatibilism, the person could potentially be argued to have acted freely, but the legal system would not deem it so.
It's not about freewill, it's about having a true Sentient mind. The less sentient the mind the more outside forces can sway its decisions. The more sentient the mind the more it realizes it has no control of its decisions. This is a scale not of the physical world.
Well, even if we define a scale for freedom, the previous arguements still stand that ultimately no will is the person's own. I think we should stop trying to reconcile freedom with our idea of 'moral justice'. Justice could just be that people are locked away by society so society can function function properly. This could include any reason for proper functioning, even false accusations(though mostly that wouldn't be the case). It's got nothing to do with freedom. One might point out what if the person was forced into doing something wrong? Well, if he poses a threat to society still, he'll be punished, if he does not, then he would be spared. My arguement is that not only is there no freedom, but we don't necessarily need the idea of freedom.
I think to a certain extent this is quite a philosophically admirable line of thinking because it does “bite the bullet” of determinism and then says “now what?”
@@unsolicitedadvice9198 I would like to add that this isn't what I think 'should be happening' but rather, what 'is happening'. I think the very arguement that free will exists, or even compatibility is a result of humans trying to reconcile their broken morality with their beliefs that they are moral. Much like how cognitive dissonance and rationalization exist on an individual scale.
This is exactly what I've been thinking for a long time. If you use ethical pragmatism as a guide for how to define concepts and which discussions to focus on, it really exposes a lot of these conversations as detatched theoretical musings or even just virtue signalling.
Some societies, like the US, are obsessed with a concept of "justice", a sort of metaphysical principle supported by free will, which is ultimately nothing more than a rationalized emotion of vengeance. Other societies, like Norway, prioritize a more humanist (and maybe unintentionally utilitarian) way of dealing with crime: rehabilitation. This is done with the understanding that
1. People can change for the better
2. Rehabilitation is more cost effective
3. Rate of recidivism is lower.
One of these clearly leads to a happier society. But as a prerequisite, it requires that you discard this notion of "freedom" and "justice", recognize it as an instinctual emotional reaction that only leads to more harm and learn to let it go. Because knowing that the murderer of your father runs free is bad, but having him murder your mother too is worse.
So presumably if someone committed heinous crimes against another group in order to seize their resources for the benefit of his own, that would be a moral action because what he did was good for his society? This individual is not a harm to his own society, so under the laws of determinism he’s morally sound?
@@scrupulousscruplesI'm not saying that it is, by any means, moral. I'm trying to define justice, and it doesn't seem like morality is essential to the definition. The situation you state of, would be an act of justice from his society's perspective and an act of injustice from the society's perspective that has been harmed. I never said it is morally sound.
Behavior of living beings is based on the translation of physical events into perceptual phenomena. We know that phenomena himself , cannot cause or otherwise produce anything.
There must be another instance that allows phenomena to become the basis of physically influential behavior. We call this instance intentionality or reasons. But reasons are also perceptual phenomena in the form of mental content. This is the guarantee of their freedom from causal determinism. The behavior of biological systems is only functionally physical, but not content-wise.
Neurological brain states are identical with mental content and can therefore translate perceptual phenomena back into causal-physical events and actions.We call this total event freedom of action based on free will.This process does not at any time interrupt the causal chain or change it in an unnatural way..
Being your own 'uncaused cause' is just the ammunition we Christians need to debunk free will. God is sovereign over every thing.
If our beliefs and reasoning processes are predetermined, we cannot independently verify the truth of our beliefs, as our belief in the truth would also be predetermined and not necessarily linked to actual evidence or reasoning.
Any argument for the truth of determinism itself would be suspect, as the belief in determinism would also be a predetermined outcome, leading to a form of epistemic circularity.
Meaning determinism is circular and self-defeating
I believe that us life would be a lot different in another context, what they teach in school or what we see on internet can influence us, now if a person is really curious maybe can arrive at the point of have more awareness of world, but also a person that has learnt about every situation, will be influenced in choices because in life you need to do also things that you don t like.
So in the opinions you can became less and less influence by the context, in actions is a little more difficult because maybe some actions you have to start many years before or you need to survive
the issue with describing freeness as a scale is that it only further obscures the illusion. saying one action is more "free" than another is really just saying that its causes are more complex, or that we don't understand it.
free will is an illusion. but illusions are real phenomena, we must not necessarily reject them; it's only important that we understand them.
Illusions aren't real🤣🤣🤣
Look, my hand is bigger than the moon, it could easily cover the moon in the sky
@@aiya5777 that's not that i said buddy
@@sorenkair you literally said, illusions are real🤣🤣🤣
@@sorenkair noun: phenomena
1.
a fact or situation that is observed to exist or happen
Illusions are NOT real phenomena🤣🤣 I don't have an airhead bubble buddy
@@aiya5777
3. PHILOSOPHY
the object of a person's perception; what the senses or the mind notice.
perhaps it was too difficult for you to understand that I'm not talking about the truth behind the illusion, but the nature of the illusion itself. centrifugal force is not a real force, but within a rotating frame of reference, it is useful and apparent.
Scales you say .......but the problem is never of the scales....there are only two possibilities in any given situation either what you did was determined or random, both means no free will... what you are describing is the diffrent kinds and intensities of will in different situations......diversity in the types of will does not mean it is now more or less freewill...it is still just will in different proportions.
What I see is people always seem to confuse will with freewill in these debates....no matter what is the strength, you are still only feeling your will not Freewill...freewill doesn't even make any sense unless you call your will as freewill but then it defeats the meaning itself, bcs your will is not free, it just is.
I find changing the definition of free will pretty unsatisying as i think when most people, who aren't steeped in philosophical ideas, reference free will they're refering to the 'I could have done otherwise'.
That being said one of the biggest problems i have (maybe 'uneasy feeling' is closer to what i mean than 'problem') with determinism is that it seems to retroactively use outcomes to demonstrate that there was no ither option. (Well you did x, therefore you were always going to do x or x was always going to happen).
I am curious on how much our understanding of free will relies on our conception of time. If our fundamental assumptions of time are wrong, then does that logic we use for determinism unravel?
The other thought I had is if multiverses exist, and there are infinite multiverses, if randomness (refering to a non casual structure in physics) does exist. Then there would be infinite universes within the multiverse where physics would randomly play out as if it was casual based, even if it's not. So in this instance if randomness can exist then the idea of 'I could have done otherwise' could still exist. Of course I have no way of proving any of that, and it heavily relies of speculative ideas about a multiverse and the seemingly fiction idea that maybe physics might not be casual in nature.
The sleeper was brought to the mountain, and the sleepers gotta sleep, but his bed is now far away, so he has been made the walker for a time. He didn't choose this, he is compelled
reminds me of how Sartre began to reduce his radical freedom
Can you please elaborate on what you meant when you said that our wills are physical?
He means that 'will' comes from the brain - which is a physical entity (as opposed, maybe, to something 'spiritual' that exists _outside_ of the brain....which, I guess would be what some people call a 'soul')
Synopsis:
"Free Will" is defined as "a Will which is not restrained by Nature, something more, above, special".
"Will" is "the ability of a machine to make autonomous decisions (acting on its own without simply repeating one or a set of actions, or being an instrument through which another machine exercises its will) upon given inputs (sensory and also memory converging on the processing unit)".
From the given data we have available up to this point in time we live in a universe which is absolutely Deterministic, Fatalistic, but not because of magical words from a god, but because if Laplace's Demon were real, it would be absolutely able to function.
>>
The sparse important points, put in tl;dr :
Where did you get that definition of free will?
@@ZARK0_ Language can not be completely free and made up, it HAS to be useful, and to be useful it needs to be able to describe things consistently.
Things (be them real like cats or fake like dragons) first have their essence, then their description (minimum description is defined by accurately describing the subject) and then the name.
The name is the ONLY part of this whole language system which CAN be absolutely arbitrary.
The definition of Free Will depends FIRST OF ALL on the definition of Will, therefore it can not be the same thing by the PAINFULLY OBVIOUS reason that they should be different things.
The definition I've written is the most accurate way to describe Free Will consistently, without leaving any poorly defined corner of the concept to be exploited by people ready to WASTE 5 days of your life instead of admitting "yeah, this thing makes no sense, let's go build a new hospital now or do anything which actually makes life better" as anyone with an IQ above 80 WHOM IS NOT EVIL can.
@@Italian_Isaac_Clarke where are you getting your definition of will?
@@ZARK0_ From Will's function.
To deny that Will is a machine's autonomous ability to make choices is to deny reality on the emotional bases of "boh oh I learned in primary school that we are not machines because... BECAUSE WE ARE NOT OK!? Therefore machines can not have will!!! 😭😭😭".
From simple robot arms with a camera, tasked to discard factory cakes which do not fit the minimum requirement for the circular shape, to the more powerful AIs of the late 2010's capable not only to map 3D objects, but also put them in categories, machines which are not flesh, plant, or fungi, or biological at all DO. HAVE. WILL.
YOU are a machine! I AM a machine! WE ARE ALL MACHINES!
We are "objects with at least enough components to carry out at least one task/job", and we are autonomous because "we are capable of maintaining ourselves".
@Italian_Isaac_Clarke to deny that definition is actually just to deny a definition at odds with the definition that is used in the actual debate. Words are for meaning. Once you have the meaning, you can forget the words (Zhuangzi). You seem to think you can forget meanings once you have words. Amusing. My body may be a machine, but I am more than my body. Why do you foolishly think otherwise? Because you were told in primary school that believing so was the way of truth? Sad. Will is simply the faculty of choice and decision. It alone says nothing of autonomous choice and decisions. And Free Will is more than just autonomous will. Autonomous Will just means the action was exercised by the agents own will and not the will of another. Free will is that the agent could have willed another autonomous action altogether. Computers do not have will (let alone autonomous or free will) because will is the faculty for choicing or deciding (inherently conscious acts) and machines alone can't consciously act (it needs a mind to do that) unfortunately your naive physicalism is blinding you into fatalistic determinism.
The way you explain stabby as it would be his will but sleeper shooter not his will would seem like being conscious means you have free will. But you can only sleep so much. Most days I rather be unconscious but to sleep 24 hrs a day 365 would mean to be dead. So what I'm saying is if shabby is guilty and sleepshooter I'd not what makes it still his will maybe he'd rather have slept in. Suicide goes against the will yet just because sleepshooter wasn't conscious means it wasn't his will. He had the disease so in a deterministic world he'd be doing his will because that's who he is sleepshooter.
The will can chose between A and B, but it has no say whatsoever about the content of A and B.
Have you heard of Robert Sapolisky..? I assume so. Because he is a neurologist, he looks at what a brain does mostly after the fact but we're getting to the point where we can watch a brain cognate in real time. If we have a Will, it's likely a bounded one I think. We can't chose to do *anything* our choices are a subset of what is possible. Mostly it involves continuing what we are doing, or doing something else. We rarely do anything exceptionally unexpected. I really like the metaphor of a monkey riding a tiger. The tiger is determined {sometimes the unconscious or the ID}, the monkey is our consciousness. The tiger does whatever it likes. The monkey tells itself, "I meant to do that."
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It may be that we have a magic homunculus on the quantum level. When the event horizon of now collapses the probability field of spacetime into the past, we have a nano-pico-fecto second of choice. {I saw an interview with a old brit, physicist I think, talking about this} I wonder if "free will" is a binary where you either have it or you don't, and I'm including degrees of freedom as having it. Could it be that what we think of as "free will" is an emergent property of packing enough neurons into a small space in just the right configuration, and... Bang! Sentient Consciousness. We think some animals have it. I think most babies do not, which is why we don't have memories of that time of our lives. Object permanence develops near the end of the first year. Does a chicken have free will..? How did you choose your parents? Oddly, I don't have a dog in this fight, because nihilism. Like finding out there was microbial life in our solar system, the answer to the question of free will would not affect my day to day life in a meaningful way. Funny old world
Cool vids . Keep them coming 😁.
🤔Our actions probably dont have free will, coming from physical chemical reactions , but what if our learnt / chosen wants do ?
Eg- i want to eat right, act right etc..
As in, us being a self-overseeing, top down consciousness
( or awareness of ourselves through collected, processed & aligned, internal & external senses data )
& being the driver in gross motor actions, based on what our brain has learnt, works.
With the ability to SOMTIMES pick the best course of action.
Having the ability to have "superpositional" ( just meant descriptively not literally ) thoughts on choices, likes etc.
( 🤔 Sorta like having photos of places you would LIKE to be right now,
but you can only ever BE where your now step & next step leads you.)
But in the end we can only ever work witbin our bodys learnt "safe" actions/ reactions..
So we may learn/ decide we will airy-fairily WANT to choose something,
but unless our brain has learnt HOW to take that action in that particular situation,
AND that it will physically serve us best in the moment, we just dont have that option open..
🤔Our dreams probably help with "practicing" taking wanted actions in those specific situations, when you can't actually "practice" if it will work, in real life..
( could have explained my meaning better if it wasnt 6 in the morning 😋)
😁☮️🌏