Appreciate the discussion and the opportunity to learn. Still a work in progress. Not sure about the concept we are all "machines". However, it depends on one's definitions. With AI coming on so strongly, I can only hope we can remain human. What good would it do to render humanity obsolete? Agree it's important to strive beyond the superficial. I can speak to Brent's challenge with those afternoon beers. Brief background on me: retired EMT, studied nursing, also some experience around the liquor business and from the "School of Life". I've played little gigs in college bars and local watering holes clear across the country and back. Also my dad was in the liquor business for a time. My mom had a little cafe for awhile as well where she served great food, beer and wine. Brent - between 5 and 7 pm after a long full day - you are hungry. You want to reach for a beer b/c you're hungry and tired. Your blood sugar's down if you've been busy and haven't eaten for awhile, and no doubt all the requisite neurochemical processes that go with it. I'm not knowledgable enough to know exactly what those would be. I had an instructor, a neuroscientist, who one day remarked that when we drink we are anesthetizing our frontal lobes. Maybe that helps dull the hunger. For sure a beer would alter your blood sugar. I've been told in Germany they call beer "liquid bread". Are you diabetic? At any rate, much moreso than wrestling with whether or not you lack will power (I'm sure you don't), you need to eat. The next time you have a craving for a beer like that, fix yourself a decent dinner and you should feel much better. Hope that helps -

How then people and societies change ? I wish to know more from Prof. R S.

Great questions, the greatest answers, but Robert is “my personal pope” anyway, so good talk, good conversation and so much to learn - to everyone! Thanx! 👍👌👋 (Robert is so authentic I know max only 2-3 more such persons in the scientific-public world teaching/living with this kind of deep authenticity and relevant experience as him)

I think that its safe to say that there are aspects of the free will / agencey question that we do not understand, i have heard several discussions with Stephan Wolfram talking about patterns of informatiin propogation that follow simple rules, yet the unfolding of the system is undeterminable. The only way to see what happens is to "play it out,". To me, this way of understanding the future supports a belief that an individual can steer their own trajectory through current context and that those decisions and intentions affect/effect future situations. At least I like to think so.

thanks.

14.40😢.Its feeling poor that is slowly gutting my children to pieces. I feel rich because my environment now provides not just access to material goods as compared to my younger years, but also from my age i have reaped the knowledge of how material wealth makes me a slave to life and that insight places me at an advantage. The challenge of change.

Great talk... Love this subject matter. One thing that became clear is feeling poor. If people that look like you are held up as problem people in political debates and media reporting, while people that look like you are regularly being murdered by the police; I doubt mindfulness is going to help change your circumstances as much as people who look like you two and me.

I tried emailing Prof. Robert Sapolsky and Prof. Daniel Dennett regarding how important it is that compatibilists & incompatibilists see eye to eye regarding teaching that 'our neighbor could not have done otherwise' , but their schedules are too busy and they are flooded with emails.

@winniethuo9736

6 ай бұрын

Todays statement. "Our neighbour could not have done otherwise"

@Xochitl-ii2cs

4 ай бұрын

Out of pure curiosity how did you find Robert sapolskys email it’s astonishing to me that that’s even possible

@michalleaheisig

4 ай бұрын

@@Xochitl-ii2cs its not a personal home mail, professors always have their university email, someone in another video asked how to reach him and was answered that his stanford email was used. i googled that.

Introduction: Our neighbors couldn’t have done otherwise (of their own accord) because we are all subject to logic and to the idea of time and to the logical dichotomy that: every 'event' must be either: caused- or- not. When an 'idea' is already internally logically incoherent (like the idea of a 'square-circle'), then there's no need to search for it in the physical world. As conscious beings we obviously can’t obtain “absolute knowledge” but this subject holds the same standard for knowledge we use for any & all other urgent moral practical issues. If someone is saving a life or entering data into excel for a cure for cancer, no one stops just to argue that '7=7 isn't absolute knowledge.' ******** Any idea of 'a cause' is also an idea in terms of an 'event', because the ‘idea’ of any 'cause' takes 'time'. Everything here is in terms of 'events'; a process. There’s no static, unmoving, beyond-time 'self' that creats the events within the universe. the 'self' is also a process. And our neighbors don’t have the ability to manifest a “first cause”; The fabric of our world is woven via the idea of causality. An idea of an indeterministic event can only either be one of the following: 1. via an idea of true randomness 2. via an idea of some specific real-probability. 3. only seems indeterministic to us due to lack of potential human knowledge, and so really via the idea of determinism/causality. this is a logical trichotomy of ideas. And none of these logical-options give any of our neighbors the ability of CHDO (Could Have Done Otherwise) of their own accord.

*Thanks so much for the great conversation. Can u plz tell me how can I contact with Robert Sapolsky to do a podcast with him? An Email or sth?*

@christiangrezola5027

6 ай бұрын

He uses his Stanford email .

23:55 shock experiment example

❤

If all we are is the "outcome of priors" (and thus, we have no free will), is there any way, through my actions, I can falsify this claim? What action can I perform that will either support or disprove this notion? Until I’m shown a way to falsify the claim that we have no free will, I will continue to presume, and live, as if *we do have free will* -despite how erudite Robert Sapolsky is. Not having the complete answer to the question: “How did I turn out to be the person I am, making a particular decision, at a particular moment in time?” (considering my brain one second prior, my hormones, my environment for decades, my fetal stressors, my genes, and the weather this morning), does not mean that the answer to the question: “What flavor of ice cream will I have today?”, is “God will make the decision” or “Someone in ancient Egypt having passed gas, after eating a bean burrito, will be the determining factor.” I have difficulty believing that the ice cream cone I was handed was not a consequence of any decision that I, myself, freely made-if by 'free', I mean I was able to make a different choice. If the claim is unfalsifiable, as I suspect it is, then I’m going to assume the correct answer is “I don’t know if I have free will or not”-at least until there is evidence presented one way or the other. And since the answer is “I don’t know”, I’m going to continue to live my life as if I, me, moi played a significant part in my enjoyment of a chocolate/swirl ice cream cone with my grandson, Daniel. Oh, and by the way, *Daniel chose strawberry with sprinkles* (I wasn't free, apparently, to pick sprinkles because my mother’s belly was scratched by our cat one evening when she was pregnant with me-I think it was during a waxing gibbous moon, but I don’t remember a lot except for the scratch and that it was very dark).

Was that a real person popping up behind Dr. Sapolsky's shoulder at around 3.00minutes? Wondering if it could be one of the background screen things!?

The Main Point: Both Compatibilists (like Prof. Daniel Dennett) and Incompatibilists (like Prof. Robert Sapolsky) agree that everything is determined. (with or without acausal events) And they both want to make the world a more just place regarding social circumstance and equal opportunity for children. But for doing so it's critical to specifically teach that 'our neighbors could not have done otherwise.' Because not being firmly grounded with this knowledge is hindering us. For example, it's difficult enough to help the greatly suffering as they will also naturally be irritable and difficult, so in order to better succeed one needs to be as focused as possible at every moment that this neighbor could not be doing otherwise. Or if a police officer needs to arrest a violent person who's hitting and spitting on them, the officer needs to be as aware as possible of "can not be doing otherwise" rational for to not lose control to emotion. When we don't teach it thoroughly, we get a world that's on emotional steroids. Instead of being well rooted by the knowledge and so being able to utilize the efficiency of rational and its forward looking consequential method, we continue as we have throughout history to be inefficiently swept by our emotions and by our baboon-like instincts to achieve the immediate relief of our distress by venting via violence that at times is even towards people that are just passersby. Prof. Sapolsky has talked about finding this behavior in baboons and researching it, and it's also what we see every day as: "the chef yells at the waiter that yells at the customer". Our false incompatibilist intuitions fuel a cycle of violent anger. Another terrible problem with our false intuition of incompatibilist free will is that it makes us all somewhat comfortable with social inequality. Where luck and luck alone determines who we were conceived to be. One baby born into abuse and heroine addiction and another baby born with a spoon of gold, and where society de facto has negligible effect in shifting the track that each baby is causally going down. I personally don't understand why there is so much emphasis about the judicial system's need to acknowledge "could not have done otherwise", when the crucial and urgent need is for its effect on our atrocious social construct of inequality. Because then we would be treating the root causes instead of only fumbling with symptoms. And it would be preventative of potential judicial-system encounters. The damage of not being clear (because instead we're arguing on the semantic of the term free will) is causing seventyfold more rage and violence (which in itself also maintains the inequalities), than any hypothetical future immorality that Compatibilists fear.

@TheKryptokat

2 ай бұрын

We are all 'neighbors' do you not see the hypocrisy in asking one group of people to adjust their involuntary reactions to another group of people's involuntary actions?

@michalleaheisig

2 ай бұрын

@@TheKryptokat but we know that "understanding" adjusts involuntary reactions. Like if someone stepped on my toe really hard then my instinct would be to get stressed/angered. But if i understand the causes, for example if i saw that this person was blind and that someone else had pushed him, then i will probably become less stressed/angered.

@TheKryptokat

2 ай бұрын

@@michalleaheisig Being blind or pushed is an accident and not relevant to the discussion. Now do the example where somebody angrily stepped on your toe because they are hungry and tired because they stayed up too late last night, slept in and missed breakfast.

@michalleaheisig

2 ай бұрын

@@TheKryptokat will u pls read something i pre-wrote🙏(its the other half of comment you replied to) and please also tell what u thought: Our neighbors couldn’t have done otherwise (of their own accord) because we are all subject to logic and to the idea of time and to the logical dichotomy that: every 'event' must be either: caused- or- not. When an 'idea' is already internally logically incoherent (like the idea of a 'square-circle'), then there's no need to search for it in the physical world. As conscious beings we obviously can’t obtain “absolute knowledge” but the matter at hand holds the same standard for knowledge we use for any & all other urgent moral practical issues. If someone is saving a life or entering data into excel for a cure for cancer, no one stops just to argue that '7=7 isn't absolute knowledge.' ******** Any idea of 'a cause' is also an idea in terms of an 'event', because the ‘idea’ of any 'cause' takes 'time'. Everything here is in terms of 'events'; a process. There’s no static, unmoving, beyond-time 'self' that creates the events within the universe. the 'self' is also a process. And our neighbors don’t have the ability to manifest a “first cause”; The fabric of our world is woven via the idea of causality. An idea of an indeterministic event can only either be one of the following: 1. via an idea of true randomness 2. via an idea of some specific real-probability. 3. only seems indeterministic to us due to lack of potential human knowledge, and so really via the idea of determinism/causality. This is a logical trichotomy of ideas. Hence they are mutually exclusive and map out all and any possible idea a mind is able to consider. And none of these logical-options give any of our neighbors the ability of CHDO (Could Have Done Otherwise) of their own accord.

@TheKryptokat

2 ай бұрын

@@michalleaheisig The idea of 'a first cause' is a low resolution red herring it would be much more accurate to speak in terms of influences. The fact that behaviours are influenced by actors and events external to the self is not mutually exclusive to the idea that behaviours are also influenced by the self or the idea that your current self has been influenced by your past self. Sopolsky is very aware of the idea of proportional blame in a legal sense (Determined Chapter 6 -Wrong Conclusion #2 a Causeless fire) but makes the exact same wrong conclusion and ignores the idea of proportional influence to further his social justice agenda and attempts to hypocritically remove blame away from transgressors while increasing the blame he places on people who react to transgressors.

Would humans act differently if they did have free will? If so, how?

I wonder if baboons are better off because they don't do politics or religion?😊

Robert Sapolsky, no question, you are a highly educated scientist, and you see man as a biological animal with an intelligent potential. However, man is more than a physical thing. You are so right in thinking about man doesn’t have free will. Spinoza, a 17th century philosopher, explains in his Ethics the nature of man, the mind, freedom from emotional bondage, and his relationship with Nature. Spinoza understood that all animals are governed, influenced, and are determined by laws. The law of necessity, the law of self-preservation, the law of inertial, and the law of cause and effect. Lastly, the brain is not the mind. The brain is a physical thing that is the storehouse of information such as memory, and which helps regulate all the systems of the body. The mind is a non-tangible thinking thing. Its nature or essential nature is knowledge comprised of clear and confused ideas. Spinoza explains that when our thinking is clear and true, that God constitutes the essence of our mind. We are not separate from the whole of Nature or God. Spinoza’s God is Nature, a non-anthropomorphic being.

Incredible how this mindfulness is pushed and pushed and pushed front and center and people trying to pull it out of scientists' words, praying that, oh, yes, mindfulness is indeed working and is the key to everyhting and so on. I think Prof. Sapolsky is polite and doesn't want to rain on anyone's parade but his answer here is not at all partial to mindfulness per se. It's more about 'knowing yourself' and knowing how you work so you know how behavior happens (you know, CBT does work!!!), and know how environment and society work so you can have predictability and control over your environment and society. Please leave these New Age-isms and eastern terminology (mindfulness, meditation, etc.) when you interview a scientist. These are words - empty words. I'd say it's no mindfulness or meditation or any so called 'spiritual' stuff whatsoever. Instead, I think it's self-knowlegde, it's learning lots of things about you and your world, it's behavioral therapy, it's social contact - so... it's ultimately learning, learning, learning. It's GOOD OL' SCIENTIFIC WISDOMFULNESS, not cheap NewAge-ist mindfulness. Don't bore a scientist with your spiritual stuff when he has so much to say about his scientific stuff.

@PaigeSquared

6 ай бұрын

There are plenty of scientific studies that have defined and measured both mindfulness and meditation.

@PaigeSquared

6 ай бұрын

I agree there are a lot of presumptions about mindfulness in the public sphere, and a different term entirely would be better to convey the message specifically with those who are likely to carry that stigma. But then we would have more of the phenomenon where people are agreeing with each other but don't realize it while they argue. 😂

@rustyshimstock8653

6 ай бұрын

Somehow, I've formed a belief that mindfuless and CBT where substantially overlapping behaviors.

@johnthompson478

6 ай бұрын

The competition between science and spirituality as a modes of observation is redundant so much semantics to forage. Many ways to skin a cat is a reality of nature, who is really in a position to judge? All we have to look at are outcomes, time may tell, but do we have the time in one lifetime anyway?

@bernardofitzpatrick5403

6 ай бұрын

Words ….Language games … Wittgenstein 😅

thanks.