I do think it is a type of will to think of a movie when asked. I don’t think Sam sounded silly. I think he helps illuminate a base lack of freedom in our will. I like his picking a movie section; it’s really low stakes. For me, this low stakes thought experiment demonstrated that my felt sense of control was not there how I thought it was. I have a hard time thinking that as the stakes get higher freedom will reveal itself. Also, from my personal experience, I get trapped cycles of thought that I really hate. Nothing too crazy: arguments form the past, thing people have done to me and such. They totally ruin my mood. But every day I find myself repeating the same stories messed up stories over and over again. I hate it, I want to stop; I can’t.

@fakejasonlawless

3 жыл бұрын

That last bit doesn't sound like it's related to free will, it's more like symptom of some kind of psychological trauma.

@runningbeard7380

3 жыл бұрын

Yes, thinking about our choice-making when we search our thoughts for the options. Why am I thinking Apocalypse Now (a film I've seen many times), as opposed to My Fair Lady (a film I'm aware of but not seen). Why am I attracted to the first film, of which I've gone back to watch over and over, yet have less openness to seeing the second film? We create patterns of experience, patterns of thought... which lead to patterns of decision-making which are predictable.

@tyronem.3413

3 жыл бұрын

@@fakejasonlawless it’s related in that I do not have the ability or freedom to stop that even though I’ve tried. my understanding of free will means this shouldn’t be the case. Psychological problems seem to undermine the possible existence of free will. If one has freedom of will, why would they then will more depressing thoughts into their mind as opposed to happy; I’m talking about depression. In 2016 someone very close to me attempted suicide they had been struggling with depression and suicidal thoughts. When it was talked about afterwards, it turned out that they cannot stop thinking those thoughts, and they that they have to struggle to keep those thoughts at bay. This sustains my disbelief in free will. But if this has nothing to do with free will, then what the hell is free will?

@mitchclark1532

Жыл бұрын

Just because you have habits and addictions doesn't mean you have a base lack of freedom. Really, how we define free will is really the crucial element to most of these debates. If free will is the negation of all other forces, past and present, as people like Sam Harris tend to define it, then of course there's no free will because many of the conditions under which we choose have already been determined. That's why compatibilism makes the most sense, because it accepts that determinism is a thing but that we also have the freedom to make choices within those limits. So there's free will and then there are mitigating factors like physical considerations, decisions other people have made, choices that you yourself have made in the past that you can't change. So there are a lot of things that are predetermined, and while those things restrict and influence every decision you make, that doesn't negate your ability to make those decisions however restricted you are in doing so.

@ignatz1967

Жыл бұрын

Totally agree. His point is quite easy to understand and these guys think that acting like it isnt is some kind of win lol

Shout to my homie Gregg Caruso, prolly only Ben will know who he is

@chaospet

3 жыл бұрын

Caruso is great, and has much more compelling arguments for skepticism about free will than Harris does.

Ugh, Sam Harris is not interested Trolley Problem's, he's interested in the free will of our daily decision-making. It might be a better use of your time to cut to the quick and just steel-man Harris argument rather than avoid it completely. He is talking about paying attention to the process of thinking when choosing. Why did we choose what we chose, and understanding the limits of choice-making based on what occurs to our minds, which in turn are corralled by dint of birth, experiences and the many modes of variability that limit choice-making. "Pick a movie" is a way to get out from underneath the usual dusty philosophical moral arguments that generally don't impact our daily lives (something to do with trolleys n Nazi's).

@mitchclark1532

Жыл бұрын

Yes there are limits to our ability to make choices but just because there are limits on free will that doesn't mean free will doesn't exist. The problem with Sam's argument here is that he sets an unreasonably high standard. And that speaks to the fundamental problem with the free will debate, that people are using different definitions of the term and it's pointless either way because if free will is the ability to make some decisions then of course we have it but if it's the freedom to affect every circumstance in your life, then of course we don't have it. So that's why I think the explanation here has to be a compatibilist one. We have to accept that many things are predetermined and that restricts our freedom, but it doesn't eliminate our freedom entirely. Now, if free will is just an "incredibly complicated biological processes that follow rules" (to use someone else's phrase), so be it. That's what life is. That just calls into question how meaningful our decision-making process is. It doesn't mean that we don't have a decision-making process or that literally everything has been predetermined. Some things have and some things haven't.

It looks like Ryan is justifying the meaninglessness of this example in which there is only one constrain (choosing one movie) by saying that in real life you have multiple constrains (making a good decision, not making one that causes you to end up in jail, etc...). Ben describes Sam's experiment as "paying attention to what movie POPS in your head" in a way that there is no will in it, but then describes the example of choosing what to eat for dinner in a completely different manner, as if it isn't possibilities of what to have for dinner POPPING into your head, in the same way that the movie does but with more constrains, and you having no control over which option will really move you in a more decisive manner. Also (I'm less familiar with compatibilism so I might not make it justice) compatibilists usually argue that even though mechanically there is no way to make sense of free will, it is the best way to make a description of our world - because of different levels of description (like Sean Carroll does) - but it looks like some compatibilists like Ryan move the goalpost from being the best way to describe what we do, but still recognizing the physics of things, to a kind of libertarian free will in which it looks like they really lose track of actually being governed by the physical laws in the same way that everything else is. This happens in such a way that they can find an argument like the one Sam Harris makes a nonsensical one when in theory they should agree with at least a big chunk of the point being made. At least this was the impression I got from him in this clip, I might be wrong about it. Also, in a deterministic world there is still a place for your decisions to reflect your character, even more than if your decisions were simply removed from the causal chain.

Ben you make a point about how free will has more to do with responding to reason or ones ability to respond to reason. I don’t really understand what free will is then. Can talk more about that? I’ve been in that camp that makes free will seem incoherent. Like I would need more control than I actually do; I need to be able to genuinely want what I currently don’t want and vice versa. This is not possible therefore I don’t believe in free will. But if free will has more to do with responding to reason, would all animal have some kind of free will then?

@mitchclark1532

Жыл бұрын

The way I would look at it is that we have a bunch of circumstances that we have no control over, and they restrict us and influence us and shape our decision-making process, but there's still a decision-making process however limited it is. Being able to "genuinely want" things you don't want doesn't make any sense. If that's what free will is, then of course we don't have it. But if free will is the basic ability to make choices, then we certainly do have it albeit within that very limited system. Freedom isn't something you either have or you don't. There are degrees and levels of freedom. Our freedom to act is real but it is severely restricted by conditions over which we have no control.

First thought... Free will is not about the ability to choose anything you want, it's about being able to make choices presented to you, and about being able to invent new ways of behaving.

@TheAstraeuss

3 жыл бұрын

Can you CHOOSE what you want? Can you CHOOSE what to believe?

@voxomnes9537

3 жыл бұрын

@@TheAstraeuss We can CHOOSE how we repond to certain reasons for and against a particular course of action.

@TheAstraeuss

3 жыл бұрын

@@voxomnes9537 Are you sure about that? Or is your choices just an illusion that you are actively choosing. Can you choose to believe the opposite of what you currently believe to be true? Try doing that and let me know how that goes.

@cykratzer3463

3 жыл бұрын

You can choose only from available options, of which you have no choice if influence, Belief, in my book, is not a choice but a window.

@jeremyn4397

3 жыл бұрын

@@TheAstraeuss This point is lost on most people, but I think it illustrates Sam's position well.

personally i think the free will debate is weird. i think the term itself is very limiting. If by free will do you mean we make choice and it isn't predetermined? Or do you mean that our "will" is somehow separate from the physical processes of our body and brain. It's obviously way more complicated than that, but I haven't really been convinced that there's a way for "free will" to exist in a way that our "will" isn't actually just a series of incredibly complicated biological processes that follow rules, without the required belief in some form on non-material supernatural spirit or soul or whatever. idk it just all seems rather silly. we clearly have the feeling of free will and even if it is just electrical signals and chemicals, it's good enough for me.

@michaelgj23

3 жыл бұрын

This question becomes more important when we’re judging others, and that’s why the free will debate is generally accompanied with moral responsibility. Many people think that if we’re determined then we can’t justly punish people for acting immorally and\or illegally, since they cannot do otherwise.

@Shtoops

3 жыл бұрын

@@michaelgj23 I think that's silly. It seems beyond our comprehension to truly understand how the actual physical stuff works. Just because all of our behaviors and thoughts are "determined" by a physical process doesn't mean we operate or perceive the world as that way. It seems like just another thing we know is true but doesn't actually change how we live. We don't act differently because the visible light we see is only a fraction of the electromagnetic spectrum. We don't change our behavior because solid objects arent actually solid on an atomic level. I see no reason why "freewill" is any different. The "illusion" of freewill is enough to act as though we have freewill. I don't see a way freewill can exist without adopting some sort of dualist perspective. As it is we can judge those processes that make a person based on their outcomes. Though we may not actually control our behavior in an abstract sense, the world functions as if we do.

@qqqmyes4509

3 жыл бұрын

When philosophers use the term “free will”, they do not mean by that term that one’s choice is not predetermined, and they do not mean that there is some faculty called “the will” (which may be part of some nonphysical soul). I think the first part is especially important. Instead, philosophers might mean several things by free will: Sourcehood: that we are proper sources of our actions The Ability to do Otherwise: that we could have not done what we did So, combining these two elements gives us: If one acts freely (to exercise one’s “free will”), then it was genuinely their action, and they could have done otherwise. Another way to describe this: If you act freely, you get to choose which option you take among several genuinely open alternatives. Another way philosophers define “free will” is the control necessary for moral responsibility. It is generally thought that to be morally responsible for your action (for example, to deserve to be blamed for your wrong action), you must satisfy a control/freedom condition and an epistemic condition. You had the right kind of control over your action and you knew enough to be blameworthy. So, by “free will”, philosophers mean something like: the ability to choose among alternatives (each of which the person could take), or the control over our actions necessary for moral responsibility. Even philosophers who do think that acting freely requires that our actions are not determined by prior events do not define “free will” as “our choices not being predetermined,” because this definition confuses the meaning of “free will” with the correct account/analysis of it. It may be that the correct account of free will is indeterministic, but it is not helpful to include indeterminism in the very definition of free will. If you do so, then it’s just trivially the case that incompatibilists is correct. Similarly, someone may be referring to free will as “the control over our actions necessary for moral responsibility,” and they may think that such control requires that our choices are not determined by prior conditions beyond our control. However, they do not try to just define free will in a way that includes by stipulation that our choices are not determined. I think it’s helpful to frame the free will debate in terms of the control necessary for moral responsibility because it can help clarify exactly what is being disputed. Is there a deterministic possible world in which agents are morally responsible for their actions? Is there an indeterministic world in which agents are morally responsible for their actions? Is our world one in which some people are morally responsible for their actions? Of course, we should make sure to distinguish the free will condition and the epistemic condition for moral responsibility (moral responsibility is not the same thing as free will-free will may be thought of as a component to moral responsibility). Another way to frame these questions: What kind of freedom/control is possible in a deterministic world? What kind of freedom is possible in an indeterministic world? And what do these freedoms give us (the Significance question)-do they give us genuine accomplishment, genuine relationships; do they justify our moral practices of punishment? We should make sure that when we discuss free will, we are actually talking about the same thing (for example, the control necessary for some type of moral responsibility). Otherwise, there may be a worry that the two parties are talking past each other, where they are operating with different notions of freedom. Obviously, it is the case that a deterministic agent can have some control over their action-they have motor control over their body, their action is the result of their reasoning, they did what they wanted to do, etc. But it’s also obviously the case that a deterministic agent lacks some control over their action-holding fixed the exact way they are and the exact circumstance they are in, it is not possible that they act differently; when they performed their first putatively free action, they did control (were not responsible for) the character they had which caused that action. In order to not talk past each other, make sure you are actually talking about the same thing. This may require you eliminating the term in question (in this case “free will”) and replacing it with what you mean by it. And defining free will in terms of moral responsibility can help that. So don’t let yourself get bogged down in the term “free will” itself! And the problem of free will strikes me as a difficult, non-trivial one, because you’ve got to give up one of three options, each of which is attractive on its own. 1) It is possible that someone acts freely 2) If determinism is true, no one acts freely 3) If indeterminism is true, no one acts freely Support for 1): It seems that many of us act freely. We own our actions. We are authors of our lives. It seems like we, in many cases, could have been better people, we could have made different choices. And it seems obvious that we are often morally responsible for what we do-in the least, it is possible for someone to be morally responsible for their action-and this requires free will. Support for 2): Determinism seems to eviscerate sourcehood. In a deterministic world, there are sufficient causal conditions for your action that are beyond your control; every choice you make is the product of things-your genetic make up, your dispositions, your homeplace-which you did not make the case. You are not a robust originator of your action; you are a “wholly moved mover”, your choices had prior sufficient causes that don’t involve you. Determinism also seems to eviscerate the ability to do otherwise-how can it be that you can act differently than you in fact do if it’s the case that in order for you to act differently, something which you don’t have control over (the past, the laws of nature) need to be different than they in fact are? Support for 3): Indeterminism (regarding the laws of nature) seems like it does not enhance control over our actions. The best we can get is that our actions are caused by our reasoning, beliefs, desires, character, etc., (even if we cannot have caused all the sources of those things) and our environment. Adding indeterminism between our reasoning and our action seems to just add in chance and randomness-if it’s not determined by my reasoning/character that I will do A, then it’s chancy. It’s luck. If I could have acted differently, holding fixed the past and the laws of nature as exactly the same, then how can it be that I controlled which fork in the branching path I took? Further reading: plato.stanford.edu/entries/freewill/ plato.stanford.edu/entries/compatibilism/ plato.stanford.edu/entries/incompatibilism-theories/ plato.stanford.edu/entries/incompatibilism-arguments/

@Shtoops

3 жыл бұрын

@@qqqmyes4509 thanks! Very interesting. I think the point that defining what we mean by "free will" is essential. It seems to be an inherently confusing term.

@michaelgj23

3 жыл бұрын

@@qqqmyes4509 thank you for taking the time to share your views here. There’s plenty to chew on when I get off of work.

I thought of The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly. Do I win a prize? Does this scale up to why I was not free to choose to become a Leftist? I had reasons, y'know. Still do.

I think it would be more useful for you guys to have someone who would agree or undstands Sam's position would be more useful than just being like "This is silly". Thats not an argument...

@janosmarothy5409

3 жыл бұрын

except that's a gross mischaracterization because that's not at all what happens in the 23 min video

@jeremyn4397

3 жыл бұрын

@@janosmarothy5409 So what counter argument did they provide to his position here? I may have missed it.

@janosmarothy5409

3 жыл бұрын

@@jeremyn4397 no, not "may," you definitely and clearly missed it. his argument is banal and misunderstands the issue and they spent 23 minutes explaining why

@jeremyn4397

3 жыл бұрын

@@janosmarothy5409 How is Sam misunderstanding the issue? I would say that Ben and friends are the ones misunderstanding Sam's position here. Unlike you I can actually provide an explanation of why. They say Sam's thought experiment doesn't prove a lack of free will. They seem to be implying that Free Will isn't relevant to his example because its so banal and that free will only matters when there is value to the decisions being made; however, they provide no reason why this is a necessary attribute. They seem to agree you have no control over a mundane decision, yet all of a sudden you do when it isn't mundane. How does Free Will suddenly emerge when you now have constraints on why you should make one decision versus another?? If anything doesn't that restrict your Will if you are "not suppose" to make certain decisions? Please explain how this inverse relation somehow gives you the freedom to choose what you think or feel about a situation.

@janosmarothy5409

3 жыл бұрын

​@@jeremyn4397 "They seem to be implying that Free Will isn't relevant to his example because its so banal and that free will only matters when there is value to the decisions being made" No. That's not what the objection is. Their objection is that the first thing that pops into your head isn't a choice at all, it's a chance operation. This is about making decisions with consequences in the real world, hence their repeated insistence that Harris misses the point because that's not at all the kind of example that philosophers actually deal with when discussing free will vs determinism. Furthermore, compatibilists and voluntarists already take for granted that material constraints exist so pointing that out won't get you to a determinist conclusion.

We don't need to have perfect information in order to have free will

Most of these debates come down to diverging definitions of free will. If free will is the negation of all other forces, past and present, as people like Sam Harris tend to define it, then of course there's no free will because many of the conditions under which we choose have already been determined. But that's an extremely unreasonable standard. That's why compatibilism makes the most sense, because it accepts that some things are predetermined, and that limits us, but that we also have the freedom to make choices within those limits. So there's free will and then there are mitigating factors like physical considerations, decisions other people have made, choices that you yourself have made in the past that you can't change. And you can even get into existential limits like time and space. How can we have free will if we have limited time to act? That reasoning is absurd but that's the logical conclusion of Harris's argument. There are a lot of things that are predetermined, and while those things restrict and influence every decision we make, that doesn't negate our ability to make those decisions. We do have the freedom to act but it is limited by all kinds of forces that we have no control over. As a casual observer and not a philosopher, I think that's the best way to think about free will.

as you stated i think it just comes down to what you define as free. determinism is determinism, but as mark said about his kids, it would be disappointing to know that decision was determined before he was even born, that very understandable, but it doesn’t really matter if the reasons/circumstances/emotions he vmade the choice based on is real as well, the circumstances doesnt need to be marks creation at all for him to be satisfied that he made the choice, only that he as he is believes it and he felt like himself doing it, out of his love or whatever, for example it would be pretty weird if he made the choice to meet his wife in a planned out way before meeting her, creepy even maybe. i think in terms of absolute choice humans are in a pretty good spot between planning ahead with methodical novelty and creativity, and not being in control, we wouldn’t have a nice time if we actually had to make every choice in a non instinctual way.

@mitchclark1532

Жыл бұрын

I think you hit it on the nose. That last sentence sums it up nicely.

he is simply talking about a small aspect of free will, namely the source of choices/the causation involved. the very crucial thing he misses as you say is that all the features of cognition we call free will actually exist regardless of determinism, the only real difference is that the process is on rails in a very complicated way, all the reasons for making choices and the experience of being able to do stuff of pick a movie you like or whatever else is there, otherwise we would be pretty crappy humans. he is right tho that if the brain is deterministic there is no such thing as a choice that is not in some sense on rails, otherwise i agree with you guys.

@mitchclark1532

Жыл бұрын

"if the brain is deterministic there is no such thing as a choice that is not in some sense on rails" Yes but then what is "choice" in this sense? Do we have to be off rails in order to make choices? I say no because I agree with compatibilism. Even though there are circumstances that we have no control over that restrict and influence and shape our decision-making process, that decision-making process is still there, however limited it is. And look, as you said, those are "the features of cognition we call free will". When people start defining free will as the negation of all forces other than your own decision-making process, of course it won't hold up. But when it's defined as the basic ability to make decisions, even within an extremely limited system, then we clearly do have some semblance of it.

@mitchclark1532

Жыл бұрын

Ryan Lake said this in another comment here: "on the ground floor (if by that you mean the world described at the level of fundamental physics, or even at somewhat higher levels described in terms of neurons etc), it would be a category mistake to talk about free will - it isn't a concept that applies at that level of discussion. Free will as a concept can only be meaningfully questioned at the level of discussion where we are talking about humans engaged in the world making choices."

The funniest part of this is these four Monday morning KZreadrs thinking they got Harris in some kind of gotcha because of his simplified example lol. Simply put he doesnt think there is any free will that involves different decisions being made if you run back the clock. If you want agree with that but want to call those decisions free will anyway then yes there is "free will"...of the kind that only one decision can be made under the circumstance.

I'm still trying to figure out the disagreement. It seems like everyone agrees that at the ground floor, free will doesn't exist, but at some emergent levels, it's not useful to discuss it in such fundamental terms because the way we act in the world is with "as if" free will? Does it go to more how we decide responsibility, both in every day decisions and how we prosecute people?

@chaospet

3 жыл бұрын

I wouldn't describe it in quite this way. It's not that on the "ground floor" free will doesn't exist, but rather that on the ground floor (if by that you mean the world described at the level of fundamental physics, or even at somewhat higher levels described in terms of neurons etc), it would be a category mistake to talk about free will - it isn't a concept that applies at that level of discussion. Free will as a concept can only be meaningfully questioned at the level of discussion where we are talking about humans engaged in the world making choices. A really good and accessible recent book I'd recommend that explores this point in detail is Christian List's "Why Free Will is Real"

@darishennen898

3 жыл бұрын

@@chaospet Much appreciated. That is what I meant about ground floor. I'll be interested to hear your discussion with Ben on the societal implications of compatablism and the Harris school of free will.

Is the Sam Harris poster in the back of Lake's room edited in lol?

Okay, when Sam told me to pause I paused and started looking up all the movies ever created to choose from .... it's been a month, and that was a lot of work, but I selected 'The Wizard of Oz'!! How did I do?

I think you have free will over what you choose to focus on. I think that's all that matters.

@TheAstraeuss

3 жыл бұрын

Do you have free will on what you want? Do you have free will in what you believe? Can you choose to believe in the opposite of what you currently believe or want?

@cykratzer3463

3 жыл бұрын

I've been taught "the only thing you can control is how you react:... which seems true a certain percentage of the time. More often than not on a good day.

@jonm7888

3 жыл бұрын

@@TheAstraeuss Maybe not, but I don't think that means we have no free will. You can change your beliefs and desires, that happens all the time.

@TheAstraeuss

3 жыл бұрын

@@jonm7888 Yes your beliefs can change over longer periods of time but you can't just DECIDE to change your beliefs over a cup of coffee at breakfast, you know what I mean, the same goes for your wants or desires. You can't just from one minute to the next change these things, you have no control over it.

@jonm7888

3 жыл бұрын

@@TheAstraeuss true, I just don't think that's the same as not having free will. I can't choose to fly like superman, but I'm choosing between things that are possible.

I've uploaded two videos today .A couple of shetland reels and Two tunes about ships . Circustance and my past life caused it to happen .

I haven't felt the need to read anything by Sam Harris. So I'll just base what I say (which doesn't even need to be said quite frankly) on what Sam says in this clip. I mean firstly, Sam to me is like the Idealist and Rationalist Descartes, but without the radical scepticism. But in terms of the framing of his question about free will, he is only considering 'potential' rather than 'actual' - i.e. the ideal rather than the material, because basically Sam Harris (and everyone else in the dark web) are not materialists... I if they say they are materialists or give arguments based on some kind of material fact then it is because they are using a 'common sense' form of materialism that is the opposite (i.e. idealistic) of philosophical materialism... Which would make such a 'common sense' form of materialism similar to the way Ayn Rand from the Objectivist school of 'philosophy' - under-pinning the ontology of NeoLiberalism for example - would consider the material world (a philosophy descredited by most serious academics). Sam Harris is basically being a sophist of similar proportions as zeno with his arrow paradox that supposedly shows that motion is an illusion - think here that 'motion' and 'free will' are refering to similar phenomena. Again, 'motion' (and time) refer to the material world, which Sam Harris is completely ignoring. The best way I've seen of looking at the issue of free will I think comes from Albert Camus and his Myth of Sisyphus (concerning the question of suicide). We're given the example of Sisyphus who has been cursed by the gods, for cheating death, to repeatedly roll a heavy boulder uphill only for it to roll back down hill again once he reaches the top. Before getting into whether Sisyphus choses to do such a pointless task of his own free will (which he does). I think it's important to consider what this example is trying to show us: - The difference between up hill and down hill draws a distinction between the 'ontical' and the 'ontological' - for example from Martin Heidegger's 'Being and Time' where the ontical refers to just looking at a hammer, compared with the ontological which refers to actually using the hammer (i.e. potential vs actual). There is a similar distinction in neuroscience from the Dorsal Ventral Brain Hypothesis: Dorsal activity concerns engagements with the 'material world' and so includes working memory (in the dorsal lateral prefrontal cortex), while Ventral activity concerns engagements with the 'ideal world' and so includes short term memory and REM dream states (in the ventral medial prefrontal cortex). In the ventral stream of the brain is also the hippocampus and amygdala concerning emotional responses, pattern recognition and long term emotional memory. Unlike procedural memory and motor-sensory functions in the motor-sensory cortex of the dorsal stream. Interesting here is that memory in the ventral stream tends to be 'explicit' rather than the 'implicit' memories of the dorsal stream. Sam Harris is clearly invoking ventral stream activity when using his example of thinking of a film from memory - completely ignoring dorsal stream activity. Evidence suggests that people doing a lot of strenuous physical activity have an inlarged hippocampus - an indication of the link to explicit memories, and explicit consciousness more generally in the ventral stream of the brain. So in the Myth of Sisyphus example we can say that the effort of pushing the boulder up hill is very much like using ventral activity in the brain. The example is supposed to be of someone straining at almost a stand still with the effort to show how static it is - i.e. how idealistic it is, and how purely about potential rather than actual it is, i.e. that it is ontical and rational rather than ontological and irrational... because free will is 'irrational', because it is not bound by the rules of rationality (hence it's use by existentialist philosophers who rejected the kind of essentialism that Sam Harris is putting forward). Philosophers such as Heidegger and Derrada class the irrational as 'the nothing' or the 'absence of something'. While the rational is 'something'. These distinctions are related to the question of why anything exists in the first place - why the universe exists? An existentialist considers the universe as having no initial first cause - the universe was actual and material from its very beginnings and required no 'prime mover', no potential from a separate idealistic god to give it a reason to exist. The existentialist applies such an approach to the issue of free will, that will is actual and becuase it requires no first cause it is free and doesn't have to play by any rules. I'm a compatibalist myself, which means I recognise that we exist in an absurd tension caught between the rational and the irrational - as indicated by the example of the dorsal ventral brain hypothesis I described. None of what I have been saying is anything new. It's at least decades old stuff. Sam is just presenting a willfully ignorant picture of human nature and reality. Disagreement between Sam Harris and Jordan Peterson is artificial: they only disagree on terminology - basically style of presentation - their underlying philosophy and ideology is basically the same... anti-materialist and anti-Marxist and anti-Communist. This is just an unbiased observation.

i dont see why choices and the experience of free will even if deterministic couldn’t be as complicated and rich in conscious experience as you like in principle, if matter can form experience at all, so when we are really arguing about the features of cognition we call free will, and not free will free from causation then thats a reasonable assumption to make i think. i wouldn’t say sam os actually wrong about experience being on rails in a certain sense, but its quite a boring sense i agree with that.

I love you guys. I really do. But holy shit I can tell you all have live incredibly sheltered lives. Now, I don't align with Harris in much about anything in life. But on this particular subject, I don't think you can even begin to argue we have free will, unless of course you take the ridiculous position that human beings are divine creatures, and thus have separate thought processes and bio chemical processes than other mammals, like dogs, dolphins, whales, elephants, primates etc. Our choices we make at any moment, are us being conditioned to make that choice, from past experience and very often that choice is not a conscious one. So why do I accuse you having sheltered lives? Because *anyone* who has been through drug addiction knows we *utterly* have no free will. Literally, every, single, "choice" we make is the result of conditioning over a long/longer period of time. The choice you make today, depend entirely on choices you made 6 years ago, or 6 months ago, or since you were a child. You've been conditioned, to be you, the you, that you see in the mirror today, because of the experience you've had over the course of your life. Of course the example of the movie is pretty ridiculous on it's face as well, but it starts to dig at what I am trying to say here. We have about as much free will, as a schizophrenic has. Why do some schizophrenics murder children because the voices in their heads told them so and why does others not do that? A personal friend of mine's brother, actually killed a 6 year old boy, in the most tragic way possible, because he was schizophrenic. Well, this guy also had the unfortunate bad luck of being born into a situation where some of the people he grew up around, did drugs. This obviosuly did not make his mental illness better. But did he have free will there? To stop doing drugs when his schizophrenia took over during episodes? This is an extreme example, but it is to begin at the very *end* of the argument against free will. So let's go to the other side of the spectrum. What hinders Ben Burgis from suddenly becoming a Ice Hockey enthusiast, following every NHL game played? Is his lack of interest in hockey, perhaps him being conditioned by the fact he grew up in a jewish household, where hockey necessarily isn't the most popular sport? Or did he actively choose to be interested in other things? I was a drug addict and criminal, for quite some time of my teens and half through my 20's, some 10-12 years. How did I stop becoming a drug addict? Did I one day choose not to be one? No. I was sentenced to prison, yet with the grace of Swedish criminal justice system, I was sentenced to contract care. Did I choose contract care because I wanted to be free from drugs? Or did I choose contract care because I was scared of going to prison, so that would send me to a rehab facility, under a bunch of strict conditions (I could possibly be sent to prison, serve the full sentence if I broke the contract at any point in time) instead? I mean we can go on here. I was not conditioned, for a criminal life style like a lot of my friends were, who came from broken households (and I'll touch on shortly why it is the case then, that I ultimately became a drug addict), I didn't possess a lot of the same capital for violence, a lot of the drug dealers I associated with did. Could I *choose* to be as violent as them? I could maybe condition myself to be as violent, by swallowing 10 2mg Xanax bars and blacking out, but I certainly couldn't do it by _my_ free will. If we define free will as this meta subject, then sure, I suppose we have free will. But as soon as you try to actually make sense of what free will _is_, and how it works in a pragmatic way, then no. We don't have free will. We are conditioned by our past experiences to choose what we choose today. If we had different past experiences, we would choose differently. That's not free will. That's me being constrained by my old, idiotic self. Which in turn was constrained by his old idiotic self and so on. And all of this while having Asperger's which is one of the most major parts of me becoming a drug addict - drugs literally solved every problem I faced on a personal level, was that free will, or was I conditioned to more easily become a drug addict? So can I *free will* my way out of having that? No I can't. Sam Harris focuses way too much on simple decisions with that thought experiment, but he goes into it in far better detail when he talks about treating mentally ill people who commit crimes, to no fault of their own and therefore what would be most appropriate in how to punish/rehab them. I love that people who are so *obviously* atheist (like myself), still find new and interesting ways to describe human beings in these majestically divine ways. As though we are not slaves to the same biochemical processes as any other organism on earth. We're no more special than the chimpanzee or the dog. We can condition ourselves to *possibly* make different choices in the future, but right here and now, no, we do not have free will. And seeing as how humans are social creatures, it's not within our own power to actually have free will (which is the perfect argument for me, for the more collectivist idea of organizing society a la democratic socialism, is the most superior way to organize society). Our surroundings condition us, other people condition us, and to a certain extent we condition ourselves. But for us to have true free will, our surroundings could *never* have an effect on us. Essentially, free will *requires* everyone to be Superman, you will have to be a flawless human being with super powers, because otherwise, the character traits and flaws that you possess, will ultimately drive you do sometimes do things you don't want, or would be ashamed of otherwise. We are not divine. Our thought process is not special, only our capability for language is and that's it. But maybe I am wrong, maybe I don't understand the terminology or the theory behind this discussion, but I've yet to ever hear good arguments for free will, that doesn't some how *allude* to us being this majestic organism that somehow does things *no other mammal on earth* can do, which is essentially break free (at any moment) from the conditioning it's gone through, throughout it's/one's life.

@chaospet

3 жыл бұрын

Hi Simon, just a couple of quick points. First, I think it's usually not good form to make assumptions about the backgrounds of people you're disagreeing with on topics like this. Second, if you think that issues like addiction are objections to the kind of free will we're talking about, then I don't think you have understood our view. If you look at the most recent Philosophy Friday episode, Ben and I get into our view of the kind of free will we think people can (in most cases, but with plenty of exceptions, as in cases of addiction) have. I think that the kind of free will we have (which I think, but certainly there is room for disagreement, is enough to ground moral responsibility) is perfectly compatible with a deterministic and naturalistic view of the world, and involves nothing divine or magical whatsoever.

Free will...A perennial rabbit hole . What would happen If Harris used all his zen energy to philosophize about Solidarity instead ?

Hate Harris but he's spot on about free will. Compatibilism is a silly waste of time.

@johnnytwotimes7854

3 жыл бұрын

I mean free will probably really exist, but his example was still laughably stupid Edit: doesn't really*

@jeremyn4397

3 жыл бұрын

@@johnnytwotimes7854 Explain why Free Will probably exists? Is it because you feel like it does, or because it only makes sense rationally?

@johnnytwotimes7854

3 жыл бұрын

@@jeremyn4397 whoops, I meant to type probably doesn't exist was pretty drunk

@michaelrch

3 жыл бұрын

I know. I really don't get what the guys are going on about here. The universe has rules. We follow them like a ball falls to Earth. You can have other conversations about how much moral responsibility we can have for our actions and that's interesting. My take is that this will vary but the end goal of moral consequences is a well functioning society so we should load more responsibility on people when they chose something bad when other options were open to them (even in a determinative framing) and less responsibility when they had no choice. Harris (who I used to like and now very much dont btw) uses an example of a guy who went on a murder spree due to a brain tumor. He had very little choice and so deserves less moral responsibility. But here, moral responsibility is a social tool, not a free floating abstract concept that exists without society and its goals. It's worth remembering that Harris' viewpoint here is actually in many ways a reaction to religious concepts of metaphysical free will. These exist in Christianity for example to give God an excuse for condemning people (that he made) to hell, and them deserving it. In that sense, it's important to puncture that conceit and point out that we don't author our nature or circumstances and so we don't ultimately author ourselves. I don't get why people go on about compatibalism. I could well be missing something but it doesn't seem to say anything interesting. Yes, our brains make choices. Obviously. Could they have made other choices? Well, unless there is a magic ghost in the machine, then no. Which does really expose how mechanical our existence is. People are going to do what they are going to do. Imagining that they aren't is meaningless magical thinking.

How in the world are you guys not laughing during that Sam Harris initial bit??? Lmao

@michaelgj23

3 жыл бұрын

Harris sounded reasonable to me there.

@johnnytwotimes7854

3 жыл бұрын

@@michaelgj23 oof

@TheAstraeuss

3 жыл бұрын

I had no problem with it.

@johnnytwotimes7854

3 жыл бұрын

@@TheAstraeuss What movie did you think of?

@michaelgj23

3 жыл бұрын

@@johnnytwotimes7854 I think the example was purposefully banal. He’s not trying to get us to consider something as hairy as our moral choices, but something more basic-choice in general. If we don’t freely make small decisions, how can we say we make moral ones?

What if I choose to see a film I've never seen before? Choosing to watch a film I like is proof that there is no free will? Sam is just silly. Sorry, I've only watched Sam's part, so far.

@TheAstraeuss

3 жыл бұрын

Did you choose to choose? Can you choose every word that comes out of your mouth or does it just happen organically?

@jonm7888

3 жыл бұрын

@@TheAstraeuss maybe, maybe not. Sam's thought experiment didn't prove anything.

@TheAstraeuss

3 жыл бұрын

@@jonm7888 I don't think it's possible to prove it. It's just meant to provoke thought. It's kind of like the hard problem of consciousness. Not easy to explain, nobody has really come up with a good way to explain it. It's fun to think about it though.

@jonm7888

3 жыл бұрын

@@TheAstraeuss true, I just don't think Sam added anything interesting. It's funny to argue about free will, if you don't think free will exists, though.

@johnnytwotimes7854

3 жыл бұрын

Sam's bit here was incredibly silly, to the point where it's difficult to even respond to it

Anyone in this comment section that doesn't think free will exists(I also don't). Do you think jail should exist? Seems wrong to punish people for actions they had no control over right?

@chaospet

3 жыл бұрын

Some free will skeptics (Gregg Caruso, Derk Pereboom, etc) have been developing thoughtful and nuanced replies to this problem. They tend to favor a move to alternatives to criminal justice that are more akin to quarantine and rehabilitation. I think their ideas are attractive in some ways, and I would also like to see us move away from retributive approaches to justice, but I think (and I know Ben does too) that there are some fundamental problems with their approach. Maybe there can be a future GTAA episode that explores those issues in more detail

@johnnytwotimes7854

3 жыл бұрын

@@chaospet For me, even without factoring in free will, the current structure of criminal justice, seems horrific. I think criminal justice should be completely focused on rehabilitation, the only reason to lock people up is if they are a danger to others.

@ark-L

3 жыл бұрын

Fellow free-will skeptic here! I do think jails should exist. Or at least, some kind of analogous institution which serves to separate/confine those who we can't trust to co-exist with others in broader society. However, the nature of these institutions should be MASSIVELY overhauled from what is currently in place, particularly in the US. It's despicable what we do to people who we deem "deserving" of the punishments they receive, as if they were the ultimate architect of their circumstances. And that's without even considering the perverse concept of private prisons. Absolutely unconscionable. Bare minimum would be a move to more Scandinavian-style systems (and beyond) which aim for rehabilitation as the primary goal, with specific mechanisms in place to prevent institutionalization and further criminal enculturation. Proven to reduce recidivism, more humane, and more practical...should be an easy win buuut a mixture of toxic belief in strong free-will and perverse profit motives keep such a change from being realized. Elsewhere, Ben and co. have rejected the idea that free-will skepticism could lead to better societal well-being but I think this whole topic could serve as grounds to the contrary. I really don't see how treating wrongdoers as unfortunate happenings of the universe (akin to a tiger on the loose, or a hurricane) rather than some ex-nihilo source of evil could do anything but disabuse us of the intoxicating power of hate and serve to open us up to a deeper level of compassion and understanding. And even if you have misgivings about the idea that you are not ultimately the causative source of certain especially meaningful choices-like, say, the decision to become a parent, as Mark invokes here- that is 1) mere sentiment and and in no way approaches an actual argument towards the pro-free-will position, and 2) not really something that grafts on to what really makes these things meaningful in the first place. We don't seem to consider love, either parentally, platonically, romantically, or otherwise, meaningful by dint of the "reasons" we have for experiencing it. Loving someone is not a matter of evaluating the pros and cons of doing so. On the contrary, the value and meaningfulness of love is most often ventured as antithetical to any sort of rational, deliberative process. Thus, extricating freedom of will from these sorts of questions should in no way invalidate our appreciation for them.

@johnnytwotimes7854

3 жыл бұрын

@@ark-L I really appreciate this comment. This is exactly how I feel about the criminal justice system but you articulated it so much better than I could have. Good shit!

@ark-L

3 жыл бұрын

@@johnnytwotimes7854 Glad you enjoyed it! Thanks for opening up the discussion. ...of course, you had no choice *but* to start the discussion and I no choice but to reply ;) ...and yet, good shit all the same haha

Sam Harris is perfect on the topic of Free Will.