32:09 Yes, according to the Quran. We are inside of a movie and we have one choice. To accept the will of Allah, which is accepting there is no free will.
@Charity4Orphans23 сағат бұрын
23:16 This is you saying Surah Iklas There is only one deity. All are dependent upon it, but it is not dependent on anybody. It itself has power over everything. It is far above being from someone else and no one can bring it into existence.
@Charity4OrphansКүн бұрын
The Quran says that there is no freewill. That's my understanding, we have no power over, life, death, wealth, even the acts of kindness. Allah is one and Allah has 99 names. With each of the names the greatest form is Allah, and we have no part of Allah and no credit for what Allah has done. If we are Muslim at birth, which is defined as slaves to the will of Allah. Instincts to suckle, and everything positive and death and life belong to Allah, and claiming I did this is Shirk. InshaAllah, if Allah wills it. To say I will do this, without saying InshaAllah is Shirk, the highest level sin. With every single thought and statement you deny the existence of freewill but also make the effort to do the best actions. But you are promised hell for taking credit, because that's only from Allah, mashaAllah. Before the action, and after the action. Positive action and negative action. Then you are making the choice to bow to Allah. You have completed self jihad, and you have no freewill. The Angels have no free will, it says this directly. Then it says humanity is being tested for their actions and Allah knows the future and the past. 100% of everything you will ever do is known by Allah before you exist. Allah is just letting you play out your experience then judging the deviants, but there is no deviants ever. It argues the impossibility of free will from multiple points.
@aqua_2024Күн бұрын
Well thank you so much for the video. But I don’t think I’m one of the lucky ones just because I listened to the video. My life is shit , I’m broke, never had a gf, etc… But thank you for the lecture it made a lot of sense to me. 😊
@usuariouno330Күн бұрын
AS GURDJIEFF SAID: NOBODY DOES ANYTHING, EVERYTHING HAPPENS...
@theone3559Күн бұрын
Amor Fati
@georgesamaras2922Күн бұрын
its not my thoughts or the inputs that lead to thoughts, but the non predictable number of steps i can recurse/observe my thoughts that gives rise to 'free will'.
@FlylikeaКүн бұрын
Control doesn't determine free will. It defines the magnitude of its effects.
@scscyou2 күн бұрын
What does this have to do with free will? At most, it talks about environment that our free will functions within...
@rebeccasimmers93632 күн бұрын
So how do we deal with those who act out, are anti-social, uncooperative, violent, antagonistic, and fueled by hate? There are those who cannot be persuaded to be egalitarian no matter the repercussions. How do we remove those people from society?
@mollyhedgpeth89532 күн бұрын
I love your lectures and I “get” the principle of this book. :)🎉 cool
@jimbohaddon3 күн бұрын
In a world that is turning more and more selfish, we need this philosophy, we should all realise we have no control over our own life, but we are even more powerful then that, we are the environment of everybody else we meet, we should take up the responsibility of influencing people in the right direction through understanding and helping. Great video, thank you
@herrweiss258019 сағат бұрын
More powerful than* that. 💙
@matthew-jy5jp3 күн бұрын
Professor karlan is brilliant
@Jontheinternet3 күн бұрын
Like all sophists, he never really fully explains his definition of what it means to have free will
@Jontheinternet3 күн бұрын
Just because you can see what is going to happen, this doesn't necessarily imply there is no free will
@user-xy1er9wp1j3 күн бұрын
Between Us how culture creates emotion,Batja Mesquita.
@GBuckne4 күн бұрын
..I must be determined to advice a beard trim, it's not me it's just that I was determined to deter his image of free will, hahahah
@Tyler-qs3em4 күн бұрын
"Dad, I earned an A on my spelling test!" Dr. Sapolsky: "whoa, slow down kiddo, lets unpack what really happened. Earned is a presumptive word..." Hahaha I love this man, and even though his viewpoints were hard for me to accept at first, they've helped me grow into a kinder and more thoughtful person!!
@joelmichaelson21335 күн бұрын
KZread is not about free will. Unless you’re American consider yourself a Nazi. Don’t accuse an American of being a racist.
@silviaalejandragutierrezhe56485 күн бұрын
2:15
@user-xx5gx6ql3y5 күн бұрын
Of course biology and environment have everything to do with how we are influenced in our formative years. No one would deny that. To the extent of the formation of our brains down to the cellular level serves as a cautionary line we can obtain in not judging people and circumstances harshly. To have empathy for people with limited choices should not be construed with free will. Many of us may have had few choices to pick from in life given the hand we were dealt, but it is our free will of morality that we use to determine how we perform in that choice.
@user-ge9lu6xd1c5 күн бұрын
How can twins have different life choices?
@boxshreeg10795 күн бұрын
This guy is 100% a vegan propagandist
@just2share6 күн бұрын
Free will is related to contextual experience and to contextual construction. It exists because consciousness is not informationally bound. Our actions are not entirely determined by past experiences, suggesting a level of autonomy in our decision-making process. Free will is tied to our cognitive abilities, particularly in processing information and responding to new or unfamiliar situations. The simplistic computational models of the brain do not accurately represent this complex phenomenon. Lastly, discussions about free will should be grounded in scientific evidence rather than justified using logic, religion, or intuition.
@D_Stray6 күн бұрын
Guys I can’t find the fffs even when I pause
@disprag6 күн бұрын
On a practical level, I think all of this boils down to compassion and empathy. It is incumbent on us who know free will to be illusory to treat those in less fortunate positions with compassion and do what we can to help them overcome the conditions they were born into. We should also exercise humility when we experience our own success.
@skiphoffenflaven80044 күн бұрын
Indeed!
@D12Min6 күн бұрын
Absolute garbage. Imagine saying none of the evil crimes in human history were actually evil. How do people follow this trash?
@yalincaglaroncel78936 күн бұрын
Sapolsky reis ne derse dogrudur ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️
@gabriellethe.greatt6 күн бұрын
Wow!!! So glad I found you again!!!! Thank you
@pattimichellesheaffer1036 күн бұрын
Rob - equivocation arises because I think most folks aren't talking about *unbounded* free will, as your book does... what they're talking about is whether, for example, the PFC "wins" in a particular instance in preventing the amygdala cluster from doing something aggressive and stupid. If it had failed in its struggle to regulate the limbic system in that instance, then an argument could be made that that person needs to improve their PFC/limbic connections (and possibly regret/apologize for not having done this already). As you point out, these brain connections are *not* static, just biased, in some cases overwhelmingly, from "everything that came before." Of course, as you also point out, there are many folks who don't have a ghost's chance of regulating their amygdala, and so are 3-sigma (or more) outliers. So I wonder if it's worthwhile to talk, instead, about *outliers* in the name of being humane to those outliers as well as fair to most folks who are likely within 1- or 2-sigmas of some norm? (for example) Considering only proximal/distal free will doesn't capture, for instance, the effects of SES or TBI (the latter being quite common).
@specialeeffexx6 күн бұрын
I recently read Robert Saltzman's books. When he proposed there was no free will i threw the book down and thought 'This is absurd!" Then I thought about it awhile and this huge weight fell off me! I let go of ALL guilt and shame for my past actions and thoughts and I forgave ALL who I felt had wronged me! It is SO freeing!
@Charity4OrphansКүн бұрын
The Quran says this same thing and I am finding the kufirun only the one understanding and accepting.
@weston.weston6 күн бұрын
Why do I ❤ Robert Sapolsky?
@Hancockjohn-pl9cm6 күн бұрын
we have and make choices. isn't that freewill?
@mchauhan47 күн бұрын
That 13-year old is going places!
@fearfulpvp39787 күн бұрын
Bro's life is a series of epic side quests
@waofactor.graphic7 күн бұрын
Am I the only one here that don't agree? How do one have free will uninfluenced by any standard? We are only products of the society playing the descendant game, we didn't choose to be born we can choose not to play and that is free will, deterministic probabilities is not fate. This notion is uncreative BS.
@twertyto7 күн бұрын
I'm here because KZread recommended this to me and I don't know why. Anyway, congrats!
@vickirushrush80357 күн бұрын
It feels like I have free will, but it's only a point of focus for my emergent consciousness. Free will feels great. But it is a feeling, not a reality. Humanity is on the epigenetic brink of losing empathy. Empathy, alone, is what makes us human. Only bonobos and humans share with strangers. Chimpanzees cannot. Chimpanzees commit infanticide. Chimpanzees were bonobos the had to adapt to cons=ditions of scarcity. They learned to be selfish. It bred empathy out of their genes. A chimpanzee has no capacity to share with strangers. Recently humans started being selfish and murdering also. Only very recently, with the advent of the patriarchy and husbandry of animals and women. Agricultural man and chimpanzees both divided the females from their power (each other) and enslaved them to serve a single man. The only job of a bonobo is to play. Tribes are female led and there is no aggression. No need for rules. This is the same culture and mode of behavior as our purest hunter-gatherer selves of our first 250,000 years. Female led by bands of women. Love the ruling narrative of the culture. Before we became a male dominated agricultural society no one was aggressive. We have neanderthal genes for a reason. Agricultural (modern) man will lead humanity down the same epigenetic road to hell as went the patriarchal chimpanzee. A chimpanzee can no longer share with strangers. But they murder. A bonobo lacks the capacity to murder. For bonobos and hunter-gatherers, all touch was an expression of love. Chimpanzees on the other hand, are raped and rape. They have mean unhappy lives because they lost what made them human. They deprive one another of loving touch by establishing females as slaves and insisting on nuclear families. Modern agricultural man is chimpanzee behavior. Marriage is not a way for humans to get their needs for love on demand met. Humans are not naturally monogamous. Modern humans have turned the "other" into a thing. As chimpanzees did. To be pursued, purchased, psychologically enslaved, and legally declared off limits to others. A thing to be possessed. In our most natural state that doesn't meet the human needs for love. Or our need for belonging. Today we. live in an atomized state not natural to us. We feel we need to earn the right to belong. How unnatural. And how cruel to do to a pure hunter-gatherer. The hunter-gatherer inside us deserves free love on demand. And a full share of the resources just by being them. Patriarchy creates scarcity of love, and creates scarcity in other markets. It makes love a thing. The limiting of free love creates a scarcity of the sense of "belonging." Knowing you belong is vital to the well being of any human. But we grow up feeling we need to earn it. Breeding the capacity to share with strangers out of our genes, Patriarchy gets more work for them, done by us if we feel inadequate. As hunter-gathers we treated everyone as ourselves. We all belonged. That's who we naturally are. There was no shortage of love or touch. No one had to earn it. Everyone was of equal importance. For our first 250,000 years we treated the other as ourselves -actually. Not just mouthed it. Bonobos can't feel selfish. Humans have learned selfishness. They worship it as capitalism. Humans will lose the capacity to share with strangers if we allow patriarchy to be the dominate, default, internal landscape. Humans will epigenetically lose what makes us human. Chimpanzees did.
@user-lt5no1xt1z7 күн бұрын
Nice speech!
@thewiseturtle7 күн бұрын
I love Sapolsky, but sometimes he gets stuck in the competitive academic mindset and looses the larger perspective. I read the whole book, and was so sad and frustrated with him for most of it. As I see it "free will", just like every other word or term, is a human generated symbolic representation of something meaningful we humans actually experience in the world, as compared to other things. Therefore, free will must exist in some form. The question then becomes what is this "free will" and what does it compare to that is "not free will" in the universe. Yes, if the universe is deterministic then free will still exists! We just need to clarify what folks actually mean when they talk about "free will". We could define free will as some measure of variability. A plant can grow up and out, but it can't walk around like humans do. So, maybe a plant has less free will than a mammal, but more than a rock, which can't move at all under its own power, except for situations like crystal growing, perhaps. An AI image generation program has a ton of freedom when it comes to generating novel images, but, again, nothing like the level of freedom a human creator has (which is why AI requires inputs (prompts) from us living beings, as well as requiring original living-being-made/selected material during training). Relatedly, we could also define free will as generally unpredictable intent, motivation, goal-seeking, need-fulfillment, and similar concepts of having internal programming for some particular type of change. My personality (governed by genes) might limit my behavior to be less predictable, but only if you know me really well, as I'm very different from most other humans, personality-wise). Or, free will could simply mean any system with chaotic behavior. Or even just any system that's not stable.
@sjoerd12396 күн бұрын
Sapolsky uses a common understanding of free will. Most people believe it exists, but Sapolsky says it doesn't exist (and so do I). If it does not exist, then there are consequences on how we should behave, and that is the point. Redefining that commonly understood meaning of free will into something else, and into existence, does not negate what Sapolsky has written or discussed. Perhaps you were frustrated because you do not like the idea of not having free will. However, you are being unreasonable to expect the definition of free will to suit you.
@instructivesilence3597 күн бұрын
I do have self compassion it would be noce if another living creature on esrth would have a little compassion for me too.
@MohammadAbumaash8 күн бұрын
but professor you said that the prefrontal cortex will discourage you from doing things suggested by your impulses and biological history. but isn't this a proof of a freewill? also when you say that we have to push against our sense of pleasure of punishment, how can we do that if we dont have some freewill and control?
@KarminsLynn6 күн бұрын
I dont think it proves free will. There are a lot of system in our body that works antagonistically to each other to sustain a balance. Brain is no exception. We have desires and ability to predict consequences. That means our brain needs to have a balance system to get what we want while reducing the bad outcomes that comes with it. It is a system of optimisation. Which "voice" you will listen to at a given case is going to be determined by your genetics, history and social situation you are in. So thats another story.
@heikkileivo8 күн бұрын
The concept of free choice basically implies that every cause has an action, except when someone chooses otherwise. In my opinion that is just silly.
@NazGR9 күн бұрын
A small addition to this great video. I live in Ukraine and have many friends and relatives in Poland. And they are really scared because of the possibility of russia winning and a new war in Poland. They are so scared that some of them already bought apartments in other countries in western Europe to have a plan B. When I speak to them I understand that many people in Europe will be ready to negotiate with russia (and China) and do anything to avoid a new war. And I bet it will lead to a huge political changes in EU because of the growth of people who will vote for politics who will make a new peace with russia (and China). And it's really hard to predict the consequences for EU-US relationships but I think pro-russian and pro-China EU is not what US would like to have. My understanding of this situations is having Ukraine not occupied by russia is good for all democratic countries.
@Finarphin9 күн бұрын
You make a good case. I'm wondering about a few things. There were quite a few statements of the kind: "We need to do..." and "We have to do..." Who are these people? The educated elite, such as yourself, and potentially your students, once they become operatives within the system? They'll need funding, so presumably that means a relationship with the financial elites; and since the problem is worldwide, does that mean this line of thinking is a steppingstone to a globalist technocracy...by necessity? Efficiency: this was related to pollution. That's one way of looking at it. But I'm thinking of EROEI. In the good old twentieth century energy abundant days, the EROEI of oil was between 100:1 and 10:1. Now it is less. What is the EROEI of these alternatives, such as wind and hydro? I can't help thinking it's less than twentieth century oil, and probably less than current oil. Oil might even be subsidizing these alternatives; if that's the case then they aren't alternatives, they're wishful thinking. The future, then looks to be energy poor. Is that why 15 minute cities and travel permits are being introduced, to conserve energy by preventing unauthorized travel? What about population levels? EROEI of 10:1 can support billions. What if the near term overall EROEI is close to 1:1? Does that mean we need less people? How much less? 10%? 90%? Is that what think-tanks concern themselves with these days?
@LongDefiant10 күн бұрын
Nothing is free under capitalism
@constantine_posted10 күн бұрын
Thanks for everything you taught me professor 🙏🏻
@Vulture40210 күн бұрын
Remember to do the following six things each time someone puts you in the spot. Brilliant. Edit: Okay most of this stuff is actually pretty good.
@NarjisseSarehane11 күн бұрын
This is so enlightening. Thank you for this precious knowledge.
Пікірлер
32:09 Yes, according to the Quran. We are inside of a movie and we have one choice. To accept the will of Allah, which is accepting there is no free will.
23:16 This is you saying Surah Iklas There is only one deity. All are dependent upon it, but it is not dependent on anybody. It itself has power over everything. It is far above being from someone else and no one can bring it into existence.
The Quran says that there is no freewill. That's my understanding, we have no power over, life, death, wealth, even the acts of kindness. Allah is one and Allah has 99 names. With each of the names the greatest form is Allah, and we have no part of Allah and no credit for what Allah has done. If we are Muslim at birth, which is defined as slaves to the will of Allah. Instincts to suckle, and everything positive and death and life belong to Allah, and claiming I did this is Shirk. InshaAllah, if Allah wills it. To say I will do this, without saying InshaAllah is Shirk, the highest level sin. With every single thought and statement you deny the existence of freewill but also make the effort to do the best actions. But you are promised hell for taking credit, because that's only from Allah, mashaAllah. Before the action, and after the action. Positive action and negative action. Then you are making the choice to bow to Allah. You have completed self jihad, and you have no freewill. The Angels have no free will, it says this directly. Then it says humanity is being tested for their actions and Allah knows the future and the past. 100% of everything you will ever do is known by Allah before you exist. Allah is just letting you play out your experience then judging the deviants, but there is no deviants ever. It argues the impossibility of free will from multiple points.
Well thank you so much for the video. But I don’t think I’m one of the lucky ones just because I listened to the video. My life is shit , I’m broke, never had a gf, etc… But thank you for the lecture it made a lot of sense to me. 😊
AS GURDJIEFF SAID: NOBODY DOES ANYTHING, EVERYTHING HAPPENS...
Amor Fati
its not my thoughts or the inputs that lead to thoughts, but the non predictable number of steps i can recurse/observe my thoughts that gives rise to 'free will'.
Control doesn't determine free will. It defines the magnitude of its effects.
What does this have to do with free will? At most, it talks about environment that our free will functions within...
So how do we deal with those who act out, are anti-social, uncooperative, violent, antagonistic, and fueled by hate? There are those who cannot be persuaded to be egalitarian no matter the repercussions. How do we remove those people from society?
I love your lectures and I “get” the principle of this book. :)🎉 cool
In a world that is turning more and more selfish, we need this philosophy, we should all realise we have no control over our own life, but we are even more powerful then that, we are the environment of everybody else we meet, we should take up the responsibility of influencing people in the right direction through understanding and helping. Great video, thank you
More powerful than* that. 💙
Professor karlan is brilliant
Like all sophists, he never really fully explains his definition of what it means to have free will
Just because you can see what is going to happen, this doesn't necessarily imply there is no free will
Between Us how culture creates emotion,Batja Mesquita.
..I must be determined to advice a beard trim, it's not me it's just that I was determined to deter his image of free will, hahahah
"Dad, I earned an A on my spelling test!" Dr. Sapolsky: "whoa, slow down kiddo, lets unpack what really happened. Earned is a presumptive word..." Hahaha I love this man, and even though his viewpoints were hard for me to accept at first, they've helped me grow into a kinder and more thoughtful person!!
KZread is not about free will. Unless you’re American consider yourself a Nazi. Don’t accuse an American of being a racist.
2:15
Of course biology and environment have everything to do with how we are influenced in our formative years. No one would deny that. To the extent of the formation of our brains down to the cellular level serves as a cautionary line we can obtain in not judging people and circumstances harshly. To have empathy for people with limited choices should not be construed with free will. Many of us may have had few choices to pick from in life given the hand we were dealt, but it is our free will of morality that we use to determine how we perform in that choice.
How can twins have different life choices?
This guy is 100% a vegan propagandist
Free will is related to contextual experience and to contextual construction. It exists because consciousness is not informationally bound. Our actions are not entirely determined by past experiences, suggesting a level of autonomy in our decision-making process. Free will is tied to our cognitive abilities, particularly in processing information and responding to new or unfamiliar situations. The simplistic computational models of the brain do not accurately represent this complex phenomenon. Lastly, discussions about free will should be grounded in scientific evidence rather than justified using logic, religion, or intuition.
Guys I can’t find the fffs even when I pause
On a practical level, I think all of this boils down to compassion and empathy. It is incumbent on us who know free will to be illusory to treat those in less fortunate positions with compassion and do what we can to help them overcome the conditions they were born into. We should also exercise humility when we experience our own success.
Indeed!
Absolute garbage. Imagine saying none of the evil crimes in human history were actually evil. How do people follow this trash?
Sapolsky reis ne derse dogrudur ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️
Wow!!! So glad I found you again!!!! Thank you
Rob - equivocation arises because I think most folks aren't talking about *unbounded* free will, as your book does... what they're talking about is whether, for example, the PFC "wins" in a particular instance in preventing the amygdala cluster from doing something aggressive and stupid. If it had failed in its struggle to regulate the limbic system in that instance, then an argument could be made that that person needs to improve their PFC/limbic connections (and possibly regret/apologize for not having done this already). As you point out, these brain connections are *not* static, just biased, in some cases overwhelmingly, from "everything that came before." Of course, as you also point out, there are many folks who don't have a ghost's chance of regulating their amygdala, and so are 3-sigma (or more) outliers. So I wonder if it's worthwhile to talk, instead, about *outliers* in the name of being humane to those outliers as well as fair to most folks who are likely within 1- or 2-sigmas of some norm? (for example) Considering only proximal/distal free will doesn't capture, for instance, the effects of SES or TBI (the latter being quite common).
I recently read Robert Saltzman's books. When he proposed there was no free will i threw the book down and thought 'This is absurd!" Then I thought about it awhile and this huge weight fell off me! I let go of ALL guilt and shame for my past actions and thoughts and I forgave ALL who I felt had wronged me! It is SO freeing!
The Quran says this same thing and I am finding the kufirun only the one understanding and accepting.
Why do I ❤ Robert Sapolsky?
we have and make choices. isn't that freewill?
That 13-year old is going places!
Bro's life is a series of epic side quests
Am I the only one here that don't agree? How do one have free will uninfluenced by any standard? We are only products of the society playing the descendant game, we didn't choose to be born we can choose not to play and that is free will, deterministic probabilities is not fate. This notion is uncreative BS.
I'm here because KZread recommended this to me and I don't know why. Anyway, congrats!
It feels like I have free will, but it's only a point of focus for my emergent consciousness. Free will feels great. But it is a feeling, not a reality. Humanity is on the epigenetic brink of losing empathy. Empathy, alone, is what makes us human. Only bonobos and humans share with strangers. Chimpanzees cannot. Chimpanzees commit infanticide. Chimpanzees were bonobos the had to adapt to cons=ditions of scarcity. They learned to be selfish. It bred empathy out of their genes. A chimpanzee has no capacity to share with strangers. Recently humans started being selfish and murdering also. Only very recently, with the advent of the patriarchy and husbandry of animals and women. Agricultural man and chimpanzees both divided the females from their power (each other) and enslaved them to serve a single man. The only job of a bonobo is to play. Tribes are female led and there is no aggression. No need for rules. This is the same culture and mode of behavior as our purest hunter-gatherer selves of our first 250,000 years. Female led by bands of women. Love the ruling narrative of the culture. Before we became a male dominated agricultural society no one was aggressive. We have neanderthal genes for a reason. Agricultural (modern) man will lead humanity down the same epigenetic road to hell as went the patriarchal chimpanzee. A chimpanzee can no longer share with strangers. But they murder. A bonobo lacks the capacity to murder. For bonobos and hunter-gatherers, all touch was an expression of love. Chimpanzees on the other hand, are raped and rape. They have mean unhappy lives because they lost what made them human. They deprive one another of loving touch by establishing females as slaves and insisting on nuclear families. Modern agricultural man is chimpanzee behavior. Marriage is not a way for humans to get their needs for love on demand met. Humans are not naturally monogamous. Modern humans have turned the "other" into a thing. As chimpanzees did. To be pursued, purchased, psychologically enslaved, and legally declared off limits to others. A thing to be possessed. In our most natural state that doesn't meet the human needs for love. Or our need for belonging. Today we. live in an atomized state not natural to us. We feel we need to earn the right to belong. How unnatural. And how cruel to do to a pure hunter-gatherer. The hunter-gatherer inside us deserves free love on demand. And a full share of the resources just by being them. Patriarchy creates scarcity of love, and creates scarcity in other markets. It makes love a thing. The limiting of free love creates a scarcity of the sense of "belonging." Knowing you belong is vital to the well being of any human. But we grow up feeling we need to earn it. Breeding the capacity to share with strangers out of our genes, Patriarchy gets more work for them, done by us if we feel inadequate. As hunter-gathers we treated everyone as ourselves. We all belonged. That's who we naturally are. There was no shortage of love or touch. No one had to earn it. Everyone was of equal importance. For our first 250,000 years we treated the other as ourselves -actually. Not just mouthed it. Bonobos can't feel selfish. Humans have learned selfishness. They worship it as capitalism. Humans will lose the capacity to share with strangers if we allow patriarchy to be the dominate, default, internal landscape. Humans will epigenetically lose what makes us human. Chimpanzees did.
Nice speech!
I love Sapolsky, but sometimes he gets stuck in the competitive academic mindset and looses the larger perspective. I read the whole book, and was so sad and frustrated with him for most of it. As I see it "free will", just like every other word or term, is a human generated symbolic representation of something meaningful we humans actually experience in the world, as compared to other things. Therefore, free will must exist in some form. The question then becomes what is this "free will" and what does it compare to that is "not free will" in the universe. Yes, if the universe is deterministic then free will still exists! We just need to clarify what folks actually mean when they talk about "free will". We could define free will as some measure of variability. A plant can grow up and out, but it can't walk around like humans do. So, maybe a plant has less free will than a mammal, but more than a rock, which can't move at all under its own power, except for situations like crystal growing, perhaps. An AI image generation program has a ton of freedom when it comes to generating novel images, but, again, nothing like the level of freedom a human creator has (which is why AI requires inputs (prompts) from us living beings, as well as requiring original living-being-made/selected material during training). Relatedly, we could also define free will as generally unpredictable intent, motivation, goal-seeking, need-fulfillment, and similar concepts of having internal programming for some particular type of change. My personality (governed by genes) might limit my behavior to be less predictable, but only if you know me really well, as I'm very different from most other humans, personality-wise). Or, free will could simply mean any system with chaotic behavior. Or even just any system that's not stable.
Sapolsky uses a common understanding of free will. Most people believe it exists, but Sapolsky says it doesn't exist (and so do I). If it does not exist, then there are consequences on how we should behave, and that is the point. Redefining that commonly understood meaning of free will into something else, and into existence, does not negate what Sapolsky has written or discussed. Perhaps you were frustrated because you do not like the idea of not having free will. However, you are being unreasonable to expect the definition of free will to suit you.
I do have self compassion it would be noce if another living creature on esrth would have a little compassion for me too.
but professor you said that the prefrontal cortex will discourage you from doing things suggested by your impulses and biological history. but isn't this a proof of a freewill? also when you say that we have to push against our sense of pleasure of punishment, how can we do that if we dont have some freewill and control?
I dont think it proves free will. There are a lot of system in our body that works antagonistically to each other to sustain a balance. Brain is no exception. We have desires and ability to predict consequences. That means our brain needs to have a balance system to get what we want while reducing the bad outcomes that comes with it. It is a system of optimisation. Which "voice" you will listen to at a given case is going to be determined by your genetics, history and social situation you are in. So thats another story.
The concept of free choice basically implies that every cause has an action, except when someone chooses otherwise. In my opinion that is just silly.
A small addition to this great video. I live in Ukraine and have many friends and relatives in Poland. And they are really scared because of the possibility of russia winning and a new war in Poland. They are so scared that some of them already bought apartments in other countries in western Europe to have a plan B. When I speak to them I understand that many people in Europe will be ready to negotiate with russia (and China) and do anything to avoid a new war. And I bet it will lead to a huge political changes in EU because of the growth of people who will vote for politics who will make a new peace with russia (and China). And it's really hard to predict the consequences for EU-US relationships but I think pro-russian and pro-China EU is not what US would like to have. My understanding of this situations is having Ukraine not occupied by russia is good for all democratic countries.
You make a good case. I'm wondering about a few things. There were quite a few statements of the kind: "We need to do..." and "We have to do..." Who are these people? The educated elite, such as yourself, and potentially your students, once they become operatives within the system? They'll need funding, so presumably that means a relationship with the financial elites; and since the problem is worldwide, does that mean this line of thinking is a steppingstone to a globalist technocracy...by necessity? Efficiency: this was related to pollution. That's one way of looking at it. But I'm thinking of EROEI. In the good old twentieth century energy abundant days, the EROEI of oil was between 100:1 and 10:1. Now it is less. What is the EROEI of these alternatives, such as wind and hydro? I can't help thinking it's less than twentieth century oil, and probably less than current oil. Oil might even be subsidizing these alternatives; if that's the case then they aren't alternatives, they're wishful thinking. The future, then looks to be energy poor. Is that why 15 minute cities and travel permits are being introduced, to conserve energy by preventing unauthorized travel? What about population levels? EROEI of 10:1 can support billions. What if the near term overall EROEI is close to 1:1? Does that mean we need less people? How much less? 10%? 90%? Is that what think-tanks concern themselves with these days?
Nothing is free under capitalism
Thanks for everything you taught me professor 🙏🏻
Remember to do the following six things each time someone puts you in the spot. Brilliant. Edit: Okay most of this stuff is actually pretty good.
This is so enlightening. Thank you for this precious knowledge.