It's like when you get an intrusive thought, like there's a part of your brain that says "jump off" when next to a high ledge and than there's another that gets disturbed and goes "NO!" it's all a big mess
My personal take is that if an observer went back in time repeatedly, assuming they don't affect anything, everybody would do the same thing and choose the same thing over and over again. So in that sense, we are bound and can't choose against that. However, that doesn't make those choices any less ours. We are the sum of our memories and experiences, but they're still our memories and experiences. It doesn't make our choices any less valid.
@@nazrarain1452 I like this idea in a way. Not that I think it’s good that is like that (if it is like that). I’m not sure if I agree with this but something I was thinking about is that surely there is a 100% chance that one thing is going to happen even if it doesn’t seem like that, because say for example I was going to catch a ball but then I missed it surely I was never going to catch it because I ended up not catching it. I’m sorry I have not worded this well at all and it may not make sense, if it doesn’t let me know and I’ll try again :).
I don't personally feel free will is a particularly useful concept to try and "prove" or "disprove". There are so many different definitions and philosophies on it that it almost loses its meaning. For example: assume free will is the ability to choose between multiple possible outcomes. If this is true, than the decision making process is either deterministic or some degree of random. If you decide to pick an ice cream flavour, you will always make the same choice in the same situation because if you reason it out you will make a decision based on things you already know about ice cream and will always come to the same conclusion so free will then necessitates determinism. On the other hand, if it is random, than you don't have control over the decision and thus _you_ aren't really "choosing" anything at all. So to me free will seems like a weird thing to debate in the first place since no one can agree on what it means. I think its more or less an outdated description of our _experience_ of control which clearly exists. Hence the perceived conflict between determinism and free will.
Yeah. We’re just really, really complex machines made out of organic material. But regardless of how complex it is, a machine is still a machine. There will always be an algorithm that determines every single thing it does. And I think this is not a negative thing at all. Personally, this idea helps me feel more connected to the universe. We are just like all the other beings in this universe - animate or inanimate. When you get deep into this topic, even concepts like “life” and “death” start to seem like an illusion.
I know this is a coincidence but I said Forrest Gump for the one previous and the one where you said Forrest Gump whilst smugly thinking to my self, 'I have free will, he'll never guess mine!'. Crazy how these things pan out.
A very interesting argument I’ve heard for why we don’t have free Will is essentially: we can control what we do and should be held responsible for it, but we can’t control what we want. For example, if I want some ice cream, I can’t control that. I can’t not want ice cream.
I would argue that we do have control over our emotions, but not in a direct way. We can effect our emotions with our actions, such as exercising to relieve anger. It’s like controlling a computer with a keyboard and mouse.
I'm not sure it's good to think like that. Because, let's say, a loved one dies and you could turn off the sad switch right away.. what the emotion will do is catch up with you in the long run and cause all kinds of physical stress symptoms. This pretty much happened to me, and my dokter says it's a common reaction for lots of people. Just not a good one.
Yes, but your attempt to control your emotions is still a result of your body trying to reach a certain goal, isn’t it? It is a natural reaction, not a result of free will. Even if you aren’t affected negatively by an emotion, it still affects you in some way. You act according to it.
There are some internal and external factors you have control over, others you don't. If you can figure out that certain habits lead to feelings of anxiety, you can *proactively* address then and aim for a better quality of life if your situation permits it. Whereas controlling your *reaction* to a situation requires training, practice and experience in order to reprogram your knee-jerk response. But most people aren't likely to prepare for suddenly finding a lion in their bathtub. We simply don't have infinite capacity to work on every aspect of ourselves. Humans tend to specialise in certain areas and rely on others to specialise in different areas. I don't consider that a lack of free will, just a lack of omniscience. :P
Here’s the thing. Everything you do, you do it because you want to do it. And you don’t have control over your wants. So if you do go and change your emotions you’re only doing it because you want to, and that’s something you don’t have control over
@Karat Kravat see that counter argument actually doesn’t work great. Because why would you stop indulging in fast food? Because you WANT to become healthier or spend less money whatever it is. Now you might prefer fast food more then getting healthy but in the bigger picture you want to get healthy rather then eat fast food. That’s the only possible reason you would stop. The only other reason would be to prove my theory wrong, but you would only do that because you WANT to prove me wrong. So that established that everything you do you do because you want to. And you obviously can’t control your wants. Like if in a certain moment you really want a glass of water you can’t change that want. Or if you really want to say something you can’t change that you want to
I've heard the analogy of life being a chess game with you playing against the world. They make a move, you make a response, they respond, etc. You still have free will, but life affects what kind of moves you do. Of course it isn't a perfect analogy, since interacting with people is like playing a chess game against them instead if playing against the world, but I'm sure you get the idea.
I think I get what you're saying. Free will is something hard to understand because it all depends on what someone thinks "free will" really is. For example, one person could say that free will is being able to make your own choices in life. They could also assume they don't have free will because some other factor prevents them from making the choice they wanted to make. Let's say they want to go to a party on a Thursday night, but they have a paper due at school on Friday and would fail the year if they didn't do the paper. They *could* go to the party (they have the free will to do so), but they feel they "have no choice" because they know the consequences of going. Another person could give their point of view, they say that they *do* have free will, but they just don't like the choices they've been given. As for the whole meditating thing, I'm not sure what X means because of course you don't choose what is going on around you, because not everything is in your control. (This isn't the best analogy, but I hope it gets the idea across.)
My takeaway is that this isnt necessarily an argument against free will, more like free will is constrained by outside factors beyond your control. With the anxious thing i think raw emotion can be controlled through free will like the example of meditating. The brain is just doing its job and making you anxious kind of like how free will doesn't mean u can just tell your heart to stop beating.
Xisuma, this is my favorite content you produce. It's niche, but there's something so satisfying about watching you play MC while discussing real world issues. It oddly fits. Keep up the good work!
@Siva Experiment 42.9320 yes but anxiety can become a disorder and be more negative than positive. when it overtakes your life and your mind and gets in the way of life it becomes a problem. I think thats what the person was talking about, not the emotion but the disorder.
Everything is influenced by everything No ideas are original Every piece of artwork was influenced by something else Heck even the first piece of artwork ever made was influenced by something else, like a landscape or a event Thats just how life is, a continuos cycle of influence
You are clearly incredibly intelligent and your videos on this channel have sculpted my philosophies on many subjects perhaps more than every school philosophy lesson combined.
"If we had free will we could choose not to feel anxiety, choose not to feel depressed" It's interesting to think just how many people actually believe those are real choices. "Why are you depressed all the time? Have you tried not being depressed?"
Damn Xisuma you really know how to make a man think. Good stuff brother. Good stuff. I think a lot of people correlate free will with freedom of choice. Some people might say something like "if free will exists why can't I kill someone?" I know it's a grim example but hear me out lol. You can't kill someone obviously because it's illegal but you can still choose to do it which is freedom of choice. In my mind free will would be the ability to want to choose that. I want something and the reason why I want it is because i decide of my own accord that I want it. On the other hand maybe there is a reason outside of my knowledge that would lead to me wanting that. Okay I've done enough thinking for now. My head hurts.
Interesting. I’m getting CBT right now and what I’m learning is how to be MORE in control of my thoughts and not to let my anxiety run rampant. So I guess you don’t have free will of your thoughts, but to an extent you CAN control / influence it.
We have free will over the conscious but not the subconscious, we do as a matter of fact have control over emotions and anxiety but it is only through active thoughts. The base machinery of the brain will necessarily be hard to modify.
I also think we don´t have free will. I see it like this: If you throw a ball you could know exactly where it will land if you know every variable that would affect the trajectory, The same goes for the entire universe. Once the big bang happened everything was set into motion. If we knew every single variable affecting the trajectory of the universe we could know what´s going to happen with everyone´s lives. This means that not only we are not free but our entire being was determined long ago. However, the amount of variables we would need to know it's so huge that we will never come close to predict the entire future. That´s why the feeling of freedom is real. I recognize I´m small, I´m just human and that´s why in my experience I feel free.
Group work is just better if you know what outcomes you get and what you have to or had done. That makes you observe yourself the same way you observe everything around. Then you can tell who made the decison to read this comment, you did, cause the you now exists and what else should it represent than you, the conscious being able and obligated to decide? (why group work tho? why would that work? well, everyone can do what they're best at)
this was like wathing another episode of the midnight gospel, the disconnection between the video and the audio and the feeling of not understanding shit after seconds of paying attention to what he is doing in minecraft is nuts
Sam Harris is one of my favorite thinkers, that podcast and his general thoughts on free will is pretty enlightening. There are some things I think he gets wrong of course, but he influenced my thinking on this subject in a major way
I believe in free will. While circumstances are often times brought before us and impact our memories, they do not impact our morality. Regardless of how anyone was raised there’s always a yes or no, a good or bad. Choosing to do the right thing even if it’s less convenient, or choosing to do what suits you. This choice is not affected by circumstance but the individual, you’ll have 2 twin brothers grow up in the same house with completely different personalities and mindsets.
So I decided to watch (The cat is no more, curiosity got the better of it.) Ostensibly free will is a no, although it does depends on your interpretation of the concept of free will - and there lies the biggest debate. When you said to think of a film, my head went through a myriad of titles with short bursts of footage, then decided there were just too many and it was such a momentous task to pick just one...started questioning the whole reasoning behind the request... before finally just shutting down and going totally blank - all in just milliseconds. In those milliseconds I had personal free will to chose through some of the films in my own memory - my own ability to memorize every film not being part of free will! However my derp of a brain that decided the need to question everything was more important, diminishing any free will that had been in my control. Then finally, everything just overheated and shut down before I was able to determine anything of much value, thereby totally eradicating will, free or otherwise ;-) Interestingly, what I can almost guarantee is the second time you asked the same question most of the audience would start by deciding whether to pick The Wizard of Oz or not, thus eliminating free will before there was even a chance.
The question should be "What *is* free will?". If you define "free will" as 100% complete control over your mental space, of course you're going to say "no, we don't have that".
It is my belief that we do exist in a deterministic universe, but free will still exists. Your actions, thoughts, and feelings are determined by the exact state of your brain and it's relationship with its surroundings, but that state is You. Unconscious actions and thoughts are still actions and thoughts, and they come about as a result of You. A good point was raised in the video about sensory inputs not being vountary, but not everything that occurs in the world results in a sensory input. We only see a limited spectrum of light (to use sight as an example), and not everyone sees that same spectrum, nor does everyone see it in the same way, indeed there is debate over wether any two people experience colour in exactly the same way. This comes down to slight differences in the rods and cones in our eyes, but the exact makeup of those cells is part of You. And if each entity, or person, perceives colour differently, than your exact response to that colour will be dependant on who You is, i.e. free will. So in my philosophy, determinism and free will coexist, but belief is the right word for it, since no evidence for it exist, nor would I trust any if it do exist.
I also belief in a deterministic universe. The term free will exists and it would be kinda wasteful to get rid of it, so what you just said would be a valid definition for sure. (i do however like the idea of this world being a simulation as well) And even if this world was pseudorandom we couldn't tell. As long as there would be one "layer" completly deterministic, the ones inside of it would be too, without the creatures inside of those being able to prove it.
Some people are actually incapable of feeling emotion, usually from having a gland in the brain responsible for sociopathy The media often portrays these people as monsters, but they're chill
Quite interesting, you can view your brain just like any other part of your body. It's not like you have any active choice when your white blood cells fight against a disease. Learning that emotions are just a function which you don't have a say in, can help you realise that you don't have to control your emotions, they can just be what they are.
I think this does ignore and undermine the fact that at any moment you are going to have different motives to choose between and weigh. I think considering free will as non-existent makes people more powerless, considering there are real choices we have to make. Obviously free will is constrained by both the outside world and our own experience but that doesn't mean it doesn't exist. A choice between 2 things is just as much a choice as a choice between infinite things.
IMHO free will is a nececery concept that must be applied to every human, otherwise cruel stuff will happen main idea of free will is that one individual cant directly influence another and the indirect influence of one individual on another does not directly conflict with free will, although, in theory, society should be prohibited from one individual to think over "fate" or its analogs for other individuals
Old vid but how can I get into meditation? I sont want some super spiritual hippy bs meditation just organizing thoughts like that. I have bad ocd and anxiety and I think it would help greatly
Sounds to me like the philosopher is Sam Harris. I would highly recommend his books on other topics. For example, in The Moral Landscape, he discusses ethics, relativism and axioms.
@@king_br0k But how do you decide which thoughts to agree with or which to disregard? Doesn't that require some kind of evaluation of those thoughts? And doesn't the process of evaluation require further thought?
@@echoes9856 I think there’s some thoughts that are an automatic disregard, kinda like a spam email. “I don’t need that and it won’t help me,” but some are like those coupon emails, “do I need that thing? Would I gain something from having that thing? Does that thing put me in danger?” And so on. To a degree, you can’t have an action without a thought, but if anyone acted on all of their thoughts, I think the world would be in a worse place. You don’t pick your thoughts all the time, but you pick your actions and choices. If I had a thought that said, “I must be in danger because there is a loud noise, I should avoid that danger,” but I pause for a moment, and think about it, “I live in a relatively safe area, and that was the birds jumping around in their cage,” I chose not to take off running. I didn’t chose the thought that I might be in danger, but I chose to not run from it.
I don't know, I personally have very different reasoning behind the various examples you gave. I'm not going to try and argue for or against the point though, since different people have different definitions of "free will" and that leads to many discussions being pointless.
Like the thing is you can train to overcome these "no free will stuff" like emotions, pain, etc. there are things like depression where it is chemically, but lets not talk about that now. And I think we have different definitions of free will... I wouldn't say that hearing, seeing or thinking of(like random flashes that you can't control) something is proof that we have no free will... The things I see, hear, think of, the fact that I can talk to myself, argue with myself (in my head) and then decide based on previous experiences what should I do, that tells me I have free will. The problem then is that people chose not to think and just goes on "autopilot" (muscle memory like playing guitar, skating, etc. but for the brain) that is why some people got this wrong 2+2*2=? Not because they are stupid, but because they were on autopilot. So I think when I am on autopilot I do not have free will, because I am controlled completely by my previous experiences and inherited instincts. However, when I "turn off" the autopilot I am only affected by those experiences, but not controlled by them and I think that as a free will.
I wonder if we have free will but haven't taken the time to exercise it. Like, when you learn a new thing, you use your prefrontal cortex as you have to really concentrate on it, but when you have done it enough, it becomes procedural memory and you don't have to concentrate on it. Maybe by practicing meditation, it can help access if not all, at least a part of your memory, thus increasing your free will. And who don't do this are exercising the free will to have a lazy brain that just reacts to stimuli.
the argument is essentially the brain makes decisions not the person, But I don't think that breaks free will. Free will relies on a decision to be made with full control from the chooser but the options your have to choose from does not affect whether or not you have free will. Just because the ice cream van only has two flavours doesn't mean I don't freely choose the one over the other. In the same way just because my brain only brought a handful of movies to mind doesn't mean I didn't choose which one of those movies to be my answer. I think the argument made is not particular persuasive.
Okay but I don’t normally like to think about free will because if we don’t have it dose that mean we don’t have control of our bodies and actions It would scare the shit out of me if we didn’t.
I like these videos alot. heaing your philosophical thoughts is great. so my take away from this video is that Free Will isnt just your concsious mind at work but instead both your conscious and subconsious mind at work. both influence your choices and actions. It's like we are on a raft in a river. Our Subconscious is the river and raft and our conscious is the paddle. idk if thats a good metaphor but i think it works
Or our conscious minds are merely witnesses to fragments of our subconscious minds. In that case, we're on a raft without a paddle. Indeed, there are studies that have shown that our brains make decisions anywhere from a fraction of a second up to several seconds before we're even consciously aware that we've made a decision.
I will have to disagree with you here. I personally can't spontaneously choose to fly into the air or pass through solid walls using my free will, because the laws of physics act upon my physical being. But just because I'm not omnipotent and omniscient doesn't mean I don't have _any measure_ of free will at all, it doesn't mean free will is non-existent. Everything exists in a balance. Conversely, if criminals don't choose their crimes, how is there justice in punishing them? They literally could not have chosen differently. Why attempt to reform them? Either they will be or they won't be reformed and you have no choice and they have no choice. Did you have no choice but to post this video edited precisely as you edited it? You made no even somewhat arbitrary decisions during that process? Having free will doesn't mean a complete freedom to do anything you like absent any external influences. If I get hungry, I must eat or I will die, but _what I choose_ to eat is my choice, and I am not subject to the insistent urging of my flesh body to consume fats and sugars, I can use my free will to consume healthier options, if I choose. However, if I insist on not eating anything ever again, I can't also choose to go on living, physical laws will curtail my free will. But they do not eliminate it entirely. Without free will, societal structure is meaningless. Why make laws that people can't choose whether or not they'll break? Why be polite or impolite? You have no say in it. Why be offended if someone punches you? They couldn't help it. I can imagine you've been angry enough to want to punch someone before, why didn't you do so? What if someone copied all your videos and claimed them as their own, why pursue resolving that? They had no free will in the matter, no choice but to follow the insistent urgings of their fleshly body to steal your property. Yeah, I've known of people who live that way... But I _choose_ to live differently, using my free will. I may not be able to choose to fly or phase through walls or go without eating indefinitely, but I can choose the course of my life, and thinking otherwise is dangerous and can lead to various dark and destructive outlooks on life.
having A.D.D or A.D.H.D is nkt amd eacuse to not meditate..i habe adhd and bipolar...and depression...amd i meditate 4 hrs a day..and it helps SoOOO much..it took me aome time to be able to really meditate..but i do and its great
Hmm, so i think X is making a bunch of really good points here, but i dont honestly think they actually support his underlying conclusion that free will does not exist. Yes, there are external and internal forces that influence the way we think, but that is all they are, influences. He also makes the point that if we had free will, wouldnt we choose not to have anxiety, which is honestly a bit of a strange argument, given that that is much like questioning free will on the basis that humans still get sick. As for the argument of determinism, in our current understanding of physics, this is simply not the way the universe works, for further reading i recommend Laplace's Demon and the butterfly effect, as well as the work of Werner Heisenberg, specifically the uncertainty principle. The final argument i would like to address is that of the brain being a seperate entity to "you", which is a good point in some ways given there are plenty of things going on in our brains at any given time that we have no control over, like someone in the comments mentioned these sorts of intrusive thoughts that you dont want, but at the end of the day you still have the concious choice to refuse that impulse. Your brain can be considered a complex function with occasional random variables in it, that can change and adapt to the enviroment, but does that give the function less agency? i would argue no.
With all due respect and admiration (lots of it), I do find this argument somewhat oversimplified. "I can't control everything, hence I don't have free will." You of all people are torturing yourself with a cold shower every morning. That is not an instinctive craving that one happens to have, that is an act of will and a solid decision to subject yourself to discomfort to wake up. That is as free will as it gets. You decided to not drink alcohol anymore, even though your friends are going to the pub (and it's easy to give in to peer pressure). Our brains and our conscious and subconscious experience are ridiculously complex mechanisms, feelings will come up, cravings or longings or emotions like rage or despair will come up as a result of our daily experience, our upbringing, our traumas, etc. And yes, we indeed are often not able to control them coming up, however, we DO have control over IF and HOW we react to those emotions. One of my favourite quotes is: "You are free to decide, but you are not free from the consequences of your decisions." If per your argument it would be true that we don't have free will and we are subject to our emotions as they come up then there would be a lot of crime, death and other consequences on this planet. Sometimes I'm getting really mad or sad about something, yet I take the decision to not act upon those feelings. I don't walk up to a guy I really like and kiss him, just because I have that emotion of attraction or love inside of me and I don't go slap someone in the face, who caused me to go into a rage. I also don't eat for 16 hours a day, and am staying away from all the delicious cakes, ice creams, bread and other goodies. And those sugar cravings do come up sometimes, but I decide to not give into them. You are also not eating chocolate gelato every day, even though it's your favourite ice cream flavour, you consciously decide that you want to be healthy. Or not eat that pudding with your family, even though everyone eats it right in front of you and you know exactly how delicious it is. You argument is like "I'm either doing ALL the exercise or none at all" and if I'm able to only do half of "everything" then I don't do exercise. We can have free will and still be influenced by other people, events and emotions in our lives, our free will is to decide how much we let those things control us and our lives. With all that discipline you have built up over the years to achieve the health and professional goals you have reached that many admire, where do you think that is coming from? Purely instinct, it's all super easy and just comes to you? Or willpower?
Yeah but all of your decisions are based on your personality and your mentality, which are at least partially shaped by things out of your control, meaning those decisions were not truly free will, just thoughts that you have acted on, that would not exist if not for factors outside of your control
Great argument against free will but I think there’s a better one. So let’s say you have a choice between chocolate and vanilla ice cream, and let’s say you pick chocolate. Why would you pick the chocolate ice cream? Because in that moment you simply wanted it more right. And can you control your wants? No. That’s the basis of the argument. Everything you do is based off what you want to do (or someone forcing you). And since you can’t control you wants you don’t have free will. There’s one objection to this argument though. you can say well if I have the choice between the gym and watching TV what if I choose the gym instead of TV, which I want more? Well you might prefer watching TV to the gym but that doesn’t mean you want it more. You might prefer TV, but in that moment you do in fact want to go to the gym because the benefits outweigh TV. So essentially if you do something you don’t prefer that doesn’t mean you don’t want to do it at all. You still want to
Conceptually, free will isn't really a black or white thing. I think you can have a degree of free will. Sure you can't control what your emotions are, but you can (at the very least it APPEARS that you can) control the way your body moves. In that sense you would have a certain level of free will that doesn't extend into the emotional landscape. Free will inherently doesn't make sense to me because I FEEL like I have it. I FEEL like I make decisions that I could've made differently if I had so chosen. Sure I can't control what emotions I experience, but I feel like I can choose things for myself. This doesn't make sense because we are - regardless of spirituality - physical beings governed by physical rules. My thoughts, my feelings, my emotions, they're all processes occurring in my body, determined by chemical and electrical concentrations. We KNOW this, since we can watch emotions and thoughts be formed using MRI scans and analyzing blood hormone levels. If there is more dopamine in my body, I will feel happier. This is a purely physical chemical affecting my mental state. When you look at it that way it doesn't make sense that free will exists; the human psyche is like an incredibly complex set of Dominoes falling in a way determined by certain starting conditions.
Interesting arguments, but I partially disagree with the comclusion, I'd say we have free will in a limited way, because I can let's say raise my hands in a way that doesn't make any sense other than me caunsiously moving my hands, but I can't really "have complete free will." The only examples would be found in religion, for example Buddah and in a way Jesus did if you think about it.
Free will has always been a weird concept to me. Most people seem to pick a definition of it that is deliberately chosen to not be possible. Which is just weird to me. My thoughts might not always come from the conscious parts of my brain, but that brain is still part of me, so why wouldn't that be free will? Edit: judging by the last two minutes of this video I think you intuitively get this. though you may not define it as such.
Abrahamic religions do not have free will, their god is all knowing meaning it knows literally every outcome of any action they take, including creating humans
IMO the subconscious existing is not really a good argument against free will. I prefer to argue that the brain is like a really complicated machine and all your decisions are in some way based on your past experience. Adding to that I have a really un-scientific hypothesis that what we experience as decisions or consciousness are just a side effect of natural selection giving us the ability to learn
Another very interesting discussion, X! I notice you are coming at all of this from an evolutionary perspective (and, I think, a naturalist perspective, i.e. the physical is all there is). From that perspective, yes, we wouldn't have free will; and, if that is true, trying to do anything meaningful is then useless, because there is no meaning; there logically cannot be meaning in that worldview, if you take it to its rational conclusion. Thus, there is no comfort, there is no empowerment in that. There is a certain amount of self-deception that we humans like to do, and often I am just as guilty of it as anyone else. I think this idea of "the material world is all there is but there is still meaning in life" is a self-deceiving idea. If there is nothing more than this world around us, then logically there is no meaning. In fact, nothing would exist if the physical was all. But that's a different debate.
I honestly don't think that's a very good argument. Your mind obviously has to have a system to think of a random movie, since it can't go over every single movie in your memory. Also, that doesn't really have anything to do with consciousness and decision-making? Humans are very clearly conscious, and very clearly can make decisions, so I don't really think you can argue that people don't have free will. You can say that your brain does things that you don't have control over, like causing your heart to beat or thinking of a random movie, but that still means you have free will.
I'm sorry X, but that thing you said about using meditation was the most Neurotypical shit I've ever heard lmao. No hate at all, just as a person with ADHD, I got a good laugh out of it
It's like when you get an intrusive thought, like there's a part of your brain that says "jump off" when next to a high ledge and than there's another that gets disturbed and goes "NO!" it's all a big mess
why do all of you people have the same pfp
@@KicksPregnantWomen character creator
@@veljkoadzic1734 damn they automating bad pfps
I don’t have a voice that says “no” in a bad situation it just says “what”
Free Anxiety, basically school in a nutshell
yeah, that was the first thought that came to my mind when i read this
As if school is free
Not if you go to college lol
@@janhetjoch Fr dude. Until education is actually free its gonna suck
@@janhetjoch in majority of european countries it is
Even I haven't thought of Wizard of Oz despite my username.
My personal take is that if an observer went back in time repeatedly, assuming they don't affect anything, everybody would do the same thing and choose the same thing over and over again. So in that sense, we are bound and can't choose against that.
However, that doesn't make those choices any less ours. We are the sum of our memories and experiences, but they're still our memories and experiences. It doesn't make our choices any less valid.
ive been trying to tell my friends the same thing for so ling but i just couldnt find the words
Very well put
I think we are all just extremely predictable. Even if we have free will, it's so easy to guess what we'll do that it seems that we have fate
@@nazrarain1452 I like this idea in a way. Not that I think it’s good that is like that (if it is like that). I’m not sure if I agree with this but something I was thinking about is that surely there is a 100% chance that one thing is going to happen even if it doesn’t seem like that, because say for example I was going to catch a ball but then I missed it surely I was never going to catch it because I ended up not catching it. I’m sorry I have not worded this well at all and it may not make sense, if it doesn’t let me know and I’ll try again :).
@@jamiemagrath7528 I get the gist of what you're saying
I don't personally feel free will is a particularly useful concept to try and "prove" or "disprove". There are so many different definitions and philosophies on it that it almost loses its meaning. For example: assume free will is the ability to choose between multiple possible outcomes. If this is true, than the decision making process is either deterministic or some degree of random. If you decide to pick an ice cream flavour, you will always make the same choice in the same situation because if you reason it out you will make a decision based on things you already know about ice cream and will always come to the same conclusion so free will then necessitates determinism. On the other hand, if it is random, than you don't have control over the decision and thus _you_ aren't really "choosing" anything at all. So to me free will seems like a weird thing to debate in the first place since no one can agree on what it means. I think its more or less an outdated description of our _experience_ of control which clearly exists. Hence the perceived conflict between determinism and free will.
I love how Xisuma is like a therapist, father you never had, and a friend. Thank you for doing what you do X!!
Yeah. We’re just really, really complex machines made out of organic material. But regardless of how complex it is, a machine is still a machine. There will always be an algorithm that determines every single thing it does.
And I think this is not a negative thing at all. Personally, this idea helps me feel more connected to the universe. We are just like all the other beings in this universe - animate or inanimate. When you get deep into this topic, even concepts like “life” and “death” start to seem like an illusion.
You really should start a podcast, dude
I would pay for that
I know this is a coincidence but I said Forrest Gump for the one previous and the one where you said Forrest Gump whilst smugly thinking to my self, 'I have free will, he'll never guess mine!'.
Crazy how these things pan out.
Anxiety has been my burden for the last 4 months
A very interesting argument I’ve heard for why we don’t have free Will is essentially: we can control what we do and should be held responsible for it, but we can’t control what we want. For example, if I want some ice cream, I can’t control that. I can’t not want ice cream.
best explanation for why people are different in streams/videos
Agreed
I didn't know you watched Xisuma! Love your content
I would argue that we do have control over our emotions, but not in a direct way. We can effect our emotions with our actions, such as exercising to relieve anger. It’s like controlling a computer with a keyboard and mouse.
I'm not sure it's good to think like that. Because, let's say, a loved one dies and you could turn off the sad switch right away.. what the emotion will do is catch up with you in the long run and cause all kinds of physical stress symptoms.
This pretty much happened to me, and my dokter says it's a common reaction for lots of people. Just not a good one.
Yes, but your attempt to control your emotions is still a result of your body trying to reach a certain goal, isn’t it? It is a natural reaction, not a result of free will. Even if you aren’t affected negatively by an emotion, it still affects you in some way. You act according to it.
There are some internal and external factors you have control over, others you don't.
If you can figure out that certain habits lead to feelings of anxiety, you can *proactively* address then and aim for a better quality of life if your situation permits it. Whereas controlling your *reaction* to a situation requires training, practice and experience in order to reprogram your knee-jerk response.
But most people aren't likely to prepare for suddenly finding a lion in their bathtub. We simply don't have infinite capacity to work on every aspect of ourselves. Humans tend to specialise in certain areas and rely on others to specialise in different areas.
I don't consider that a lack of free will, just a lack of omniscience. :P
Here’s the thing. Everything you do, you do it because you want to do it. And you don’t have control over your wants. So if you do go and change your emotions you’re only doing it because you want to, and that’s something you don’t have control over
@Karat Kravat see that counter argument actually doesn’t work great. Because why would you stop indulging in fast food? Because you WANT to become healthier or spend less money whatever it is. Now you might prefer fast food more then getting healthy but in the bigger picture you want to get healthy rather then eat fast food. That’s the only possible reason you would stop. The only other reason would be to prove my theory wrong, but you would only do that because you WANT to prove me wrong. So that established that everything you do you do because you want to. And you obviously can’t control your wants. Like if in a certain moment you really want a glass of water you can’t change that want. Or if you really want to say something you can’t change that you want to
I've heard the analogy of life being a chess game with you playing against the world.
They make a move, you make a response, they respond, etc.
You still have free will, but life affects what kind of moves you do.
Of course it isn't a perfect analogy, since interacting with people is like playing a chess game against them instead if playing against the world, but I'm sure you get the idea.
I think I get what you're saying. Free will is something hard to understand because it all depends on what someone thinks "free will" really is. For example, one person could say that free will is being able to make your own choices in life. They could also assume they don't have free will because some other factor prevents them from making the choice they wanted to make. Let's say they want to go to a party on a Thursday night, but they have a paper due at school on Friday and would fail the year if they didn't do the paper. They *could* go to the party (they have the free will to do so), but they feel they "have no choice" because they know the consequences of going. Another person could give their point of view, they say that they *do* have free will, but they just don't like the choices they've been given. As for the whole meditating thing, I'm not sure what X means because of course you don't choose what is going on around you, because not everything is in your control. (This isn't the best analogy, but I hope it gets the idea across.)
Just to clarify, I have nothing against Xisuma or his decisions, I just wanted to share my point of view.
No worries. That's what we all want to do :P
My takeaway is that this isnt necessarily an argument against free will, more like free will is constrained by outside factors beyond your control. With the anxious thing i think raw emotion can be controlled through free will like the example of meditating. The brain is just doing its job and making you anxious kind of like how free will doesn't mean u can just tell your heart to stop beating.
Agreed. I mean we are not gods that can control everything. However you can choose to do anything you want (physically)
Why are they against Free Will, what did he do to deserve prison ;-;
This reminds me of that south Park episode lol.
"FREE HAT!"
"Can I get a baby real quick?"
"GIVE THAT MAN A BABY!"
Xisuma, this is my favorite content you produce. It's niche, but there's something so satisfying about watching you play MC while discussing real world issues. It oddly fits. Keep up the good work!
anxiety is an emotion and part of being human
@Siva Experiment 42.9320 yes but anxiety can become a disorder and be more negative than positive. when it overtakes your life and your mind and gets in the way of life it becomes a problem. I think thats what the person was talking about, not the emotion but the disorder.
X: think of a movie
me:
i though of a movie as the thing of it self, something blur on a screen with a story and i'm sitting there and watching it.
Everything is influenced by everything
No ideas are original
Every piece of artwork was influenced by something else
Heck even the first piece of artwork ever made was influenced by something else, like a landscape or a event
Thats just how life is, a continuos cycle of influence
So there is no beginning?
My free will to fly is constrained by physical limitations, such as my inability to fly.
You are clearly incredibly intelligent and your videos on this channel have sculpted my philosophies on many subjects perhaps more than every school philosophy lesson combined.
imagine having free will
what a disgusting idea
"If we had free will we could choose not to feel anxiety, choose not to feel depressed"
It's interesting to think just how many people actually believe those are real choices. "Why are you depressed all the time? Have you tried not being depressed?"
Well true free will is to just choose “I won’t have a mental defect, I am normal.” And boom you’re fine.
Damn Xisuma you really know how to make a man think. Good stuff brother. Good stuff.
I think a lot of people correlate free will with freedom of choice. Some people might say something like "if free will exists why can't I kill someone?" I know it's a grim example but hear me out lol. You can't kill someone obviously because it's illegal but you can still choose to do it which is freedom of choice. In my mind free will would be the ability to want to choose that. I want something and the reason why I want it is because i decide of my own accord that I want it.
On the other hand maybe there is a reason outside of my knowledge that would lead to me wanting that.
Okay I've done enough thinking for now. My head hurts.
Interesting. I’m getting CBT right now and what I’m learning is how to be MORE in control of my thoughts and not to let my anxiety run rampant. So I guess you don’t have free will of your thoughts, but to an extent you CAN control / influence it.
We have free will over the conscious but not the subconscious, we do as a matter of fact have control over emotions and anxiety but it is only through active thoughts. The base machinery of the brain will necessarily be hard to modify.
I also think we don´t have free will. I see it like this: If you throw a ball you could know exactly where it will land if you know every variable that would affect the trajectory, The same goes for the entire universe.
Once the big bang happened everything was set into motion. If we knew every single variable affecting the trajectory of the universe we could know what´s going to happen with everyone´s lives. This means that not only we are not free but our entire being was determined long ago.
However, the amount of variables we would need to know it's so huge that we will never come close to predict the entire future. That´s why the feeling of freedom is real. I recognize I´m small, I´m just human and that´s why in my experience I feel free.
Group work is just better if you know what outcomes you get and what you have to or had done. That makes you observe yourself the same way you observe everything around. Then you can tell who made the decison to read this comment, you did, cause the you now exists and what else should it represent than you, the conscious being able and obligated to decide? (why group work tho? why would that work? well, everyone can do what they're best at)
this was like wathing another episode of the midnight gospel, the disconnection between the video and the audio and the feeling of not understanding shit after seconds of paying attention to what he is doing in minecraft is nuts
Sam Harris is one of my favorite thinkers, that podcast and his general thoughts on free will is pretty enlightening. There are some things I think he gets wrong of course, but he influenced my thinking on this subject in a major way
To deny free will is to say that an axiom of the brain is inaccurate, nothing good can arise from questioning axioms of the brain.
What is reality? An illusion? The matrix? Am I even real? Are you real? Is your best friend real? Is your spouse real? I can be confusingly curious
if you cant tell the difference does it really matter?
@@KicksPregnantWomen wise words
I believe in free will. While circumstances are often times brought before us and impact our memories, they do not impact our morality.
Regardless of how anyone was raised there’s always a yes or no, a good or bad. Choosing to do the right thing even if it’s less convenient, or choosing to do what suits you. This choice is not affected by circumstance but the individual, you’ll have 2 twin brothers grow up in the same house with completely different personalities and mindsets.
So I decided to watch (The cat is no more, curiosity got the better of it.) Ostensibly free will is a no, although it does depends on your interpretation of the concept of free will - and there lies the biggest debate. When you said to think of a film, my head went through a myriad of titles with short bursts of footage, then decided there were just too many and it was such a momentous task to pick just one...started questioning the whole reasoning behind the request... before finally just shutting down and going totally blank - all in just milliseconds. In those milliseconds I had personal free will to chose through some of the films in my own memory - my own ability to memorize every film not being part of free will! However my derp of a brain that decided the need to question everything was more important, diminishing any free will that had been in my control. Then finally, everything just overheated and shut down before I was able to determine anything of much value, thereby totally eradicating will, free or otherwise ;-) Interestingly, what I can almost guarantee is the second time you asked the same question most of the audience would start by deciding whether to pick The Wizard of Oz or not, thus eliminating free will before there was even a chance.
I thought of the bee movie
The question should be "What *is* free will?".
If you define "free will" as 100% complete control over your mental space, of course you're going to say "no, we don't have that".
On the other hand, if you define it as the ability to act in any way, without instructions, yes we have that.
It is my belief that we do exist in a deterministic universe, but free will still exists. Your actions, thoughts, and feelings are determined by the exact state of your brain and it's relationship with its surroundings, but that state is You.
Unconscious actions and thoughts are still actions and thoughts, and they come about as a result of You.
A good point was raised in the video about sensory inputs not being vountary, but not everything that occurs in the world results in a sensory input. We only see a limited spectrum of light (to use sight as an example), and not everyone sees that same spectrum, nor does everyone see it in the same way, indeed there is debate over wether any two people experience colour in exactly the same way. This comes down to slight differences in the rods and cones in our eyes, but the exact makeup of those cells is part of You. And if each entity, or person, perceives colour differently, than your exact response to that colour will be dependant on who You is, i.e. free will.
So in my philosophy, determinism and free will coexist, but belief is the right word for it, since no evidence for it exist, nor would I trust any if it do exist.
I also belief in a deterministic universe. The term free will exists and it would be kinda wasteful to get rid of it, so what you just said would be a valid definition for sure. (i do however like the idea of this world being a simulation as well) And even if this world was pseudorandom we couldn't tell. As long as there would be one "layer" completly deterministic, the ones inside of it would be too, without the creatures inside of those being able to prove it.
i actually don't know the MOVIE wizard of oz, I only heard about it as a theatre thing.
I say not constrained but efficient, we can access all of our brain we just are not programmed to be able to remember it
Some people are actually incapable of feeling emotion, usually from having a gland in the brain responsible for sociopathy
The media often portrays these people as monsters, but they're chill
Quite interesting, you can view your brain just like any other part of your body. It's not like you have any active choice when your white blood cells fight against a disease.
Learning that emotions are just a function which you don't have a say in, can help you realise that you don't have to control your emotions, they can just be what they are.
I think this does ignore and undermine the fact that at any moment you are going to have different motives to choose between and weigh. I think considering free will as non-existent makes people more powerless, considering there are real choices we have to make. Obviously free will is constrained by both the outside world and our own experience but that doesn't mean it doesn't exist. A choice between 2 things is just as much a choice as a choice between infinite things.
Free will is how you react to things that you cant control
you cant really control how you react to things
what was the podcast that you were referencing?
I assume it was Making Sense with Sam Harris. I've heard Harris use that movie example before.
This sounds interesting
I'll bet it is
it was interesting
@@eduardmeiring8383 it really was!
should look into William Glasser's Choice Theory on the topic of free will and control of emotions.
IMHO
free will is a nececery concept that must be applied to every human, otherwise cruel stuff will happen
main idea of free will is that one individual cant directly influence another and the indirect influence of one individual on another does not directly conflict with free will, although, in theory, society should be prohibited from one individual to think over "fate" or its analogs for other individuals
Old vid but how can I get into meditation? I sont want some super spiritual hippy bs meditation just organizing thoughts like that. I have bad ocd and anxiety and I think it would help greatly
Sounds to me like the philosopher is Sam Harris. I would highly recommend his books on other topics. For example, in The Moral Landscape, he discusses ethics, relativism and axioms.
I think you don't have control over your thoughts, but your actions are almost always under your control
What determines your actions if not your thoughts? How can you choose an action without thinking it?
@@echoes9856 I have chaotic, uncontrolled thoughts, but I choose which ones I agree with and which I act on, and which to disregard
@@king_br0k But how do you decide which thoughts to agree with or which to disregard? Doesn't that require some kind of evaluation of those thoughts? And doesn't the process of evaluation require further thought?
@@echoes9856 I think there’s some thoughts that are an automatic disregard, kinda like a spam email. “I don’t need that and it won’t help me,” but some are like those coupon emails, “do I need that thing? Would I gain something from having that thing? Does that thing put me in danger?” And so on. To a degree, you can’t have an action without a thought, but if anyone acted on all of their thoughts, I think the world would be in a worse place. You don’t pick your thoughts all the time, but you pick your actions and choices. If I had a thought that said, “I must be in danger because there is a loud noise, I should avoid that danger,” but I pause for a moment, and think about it, “I live in a relatively safe area, and that was the birds jumping around in their cage,” I chose not to take off running. I didn’t chose the thought that I might be in danger, but I chose to not run from it.
@@echoes9856 the random out of control thoughts are in the same realm as songs stuck in my head, everything above that seems in my control
I don't know, I personally have very different reasoning behind the various examples you gave. I'm not going to try and argue for or against the point though, since different people have different definitions of "free will" and that leads to many discussions being pointless.
Like the thing is you can train to overcome these "no free will stuff" like emotions, pain, etc. there are things like depression where it is chemically, but lets not talk about that now. And I think we have different definitions of free will...
I wouldn't say that hearing, seeing or thinking of(like random flashes that you can't control) something is proof that we have no free will... The things I see, hear, think of, the fact that I can talk to myself, argue with myself (in my head) and then decide based on previous experiences what should I do, that tells me I have free will.
The problem then is that people chose not to think and just goes on "autopilot" (muscle memory like playing guitar, skating, etc. but for the brain) that is why some people got this wrong 2+2*2=? Not because they are stupid, but because they were on autopilot.
So I think when I am on autopilot I do not have free will, because I am controlled completely by my previous experiences and inherited instincts.
However, when I "turn off" the autopilot I am only affected by those experiences, but not controlled by them and I think that as a free will.
I wonder if we have free will but haven't taken the time to exercise it. Like, when you learn a new thing, you use your prefrontal cortex as you have to really concentrate on it, but when you have done it enough, it becomes procedural memory and you don't have to concentrate on it. Maybe by practicing meditation, it can help access if not all, at least a part of your memory, thus increasing your free will. And who don't do this are exercising the free will to have a lazy brain that just reacts to stimuli.
I’m high and this rocks my brain
the argument is essentially the brain makes decisions not the person, But I don't think that breaks free will.
Free will relies on a decision to be made with full control from the chooser but the options your have to choose from does not affect whether or not you have free will.
Just because the ice cream van only has two flavours doesn't mean I don't freely choose the one over the other.
In the same way just because my brain only brought a handful of movies to mind doesn't mean I didn't choose which one of those movies to be my answer.
I think the argument made is not particular persuasive.
I think there's far more to it than that, but I can't really summarize it in a youtube comment
Okay but I don’t normally like to think about free will because if we don’t have it dose that mean we don’t have control of our bodies and actions
It would scare the shit out of me if we didn’t.
This was an interesting and cool topic
I thought of a movie that I'm not sure even exists. Not one I've seen and vertainly not one I like.
I like these videos alot. heaing your philosophical thoughts is great. so my take away from this video is that Free Will isnt just your concsious mind at work but instead both your conscious and subconsious mind at work. both influence your choices and actions. It's like we are on a raft in a river. Our Subconscious is the river and raft and our conscious is the paddle. idk if thats a good metaphor but i think it works
Or our conscious minds are merely witnesses to fragments of our subconscious minds. In that case, we're on a raft without a paddle. Indeed, there are studies that have shown that our brains make decisions anywhere from a fraction of a second up to several seconds before we're even consciously aware that we've made a decision.
I will have to disagree with you here. I personally can't spontaneously choose to fly into the air or pass through solid walls using my free will, because the laws of physics act upon my physical being. But just because I'm not omnipotent and omniscient doesn't mean I don't have _any measure_ of free will at all, it doesn't mean free will is non-existent. Everything exists in a balance.
Conversely, if criminals don't choose their crimes, how is there justice in punishing them? They literally could not have chosen differently. Why attempt to reform them? Either they will be or they won't be reformed and you have no choice and they have no choice. Did you have no choice but to post this video edited precisely as you edited it? You made no even somewhat arbitrary decisions during that process?
Having free will doesn't mean a complete freedom to do anything you like absent any external influences. If I get hungry, I must eat or I will die, but _what I choose_ to eat is my choice, and I am not subject to the insistent urging of my flesh body to consume fats and sugars, I can use my free will to consume healthier options, if I choose. However, if I insist on not eating anything ever again, I can't also choose to go on living, physical laws will curtail my free will. But they do not eliminate it entirely.
Without free will, societal structure is meaningless. Why make laws that people can't choose whether or not they'll break? Why be polite or impolite? You have no say in it. Why be offended if someone punches you? They couldn't help it. I can imagine you've been angry enough to want to punch someone before, why didn't you do so? What if someone copied all your videos and claimed them as their own, why pursue resolving that? They had no free will in the matter, no choice but to follow the insistent urgings of their fleshly body to steal your property. Yeah, I've known of people who live that way... But I _choose_ to live differently, using my free will.
I may not be able to choose to fly or phase through walls or go without eating indefinitely, but I can choose the course of my life, and thinking otherwise is dangerous and can lead to various dark and destructive outlooks on life.
having A.D.D or A.D.H.D is nkt amd eacuse to not meditate..i habe adhd and bipolar...and depression...amd i meditate 4 hrs a day..and it helps SoOOO much..it took me aome time to be able to really meditate..but i do and its great
Hmm, so i think X is making a bunch of really good points here, but i dont honestly think they actually support his underlying conclusion that free will does not exist. Yes, there are external and internal forces that influence the way we think, but that is all they are, influences. He also makes the point that if we had free will, wouldnt we choose not to have anxiety, which is honestly a bit of a strange argument, given that that is much like questioning free will on the basis that humans still get sick. As for the argument of determinism, in our current understanding of physics, this is simply not the way the universe works, for further reading i recommend Laplace's Demon and the butterfly effect, as well as the work of Werner Heisenberg, specifically the uncertainty principle. The final argument i would like to address is that of the brain being a seperate entity to "you", which is a good point in some ways given there are plenty of things going on in our brains at any given time that we have no control over, like someone in the comments mentioned these sorts of intrusive thoughts that you dont want, but at the end of the day you still have the concious choice to refuse that impulse. Your brain can be considered a complex function with occasional random variables in it, that can change and adapt to the enviroment, but does that give the function less agency? i would argue no.
With all due respect and admiration (lots of it), I do find this argument somewhat oversimplified. "I can't control everything, hence I don't have free will." You of all people are torturing yourself with a cold shower every morning. That is not an instinctive craving that one happens to have, that is an act of will and a solid decision to subject yourself to discomfort to wake up. That is as free will as it gets. You decided to not drink alcohol anymore, even though your friends are going to the pub (and it's easy to give in to peer pressure). Our brains and our conscious and subconscious experience are ridiculously complex mechanisms, feelings will come up, cravings or longings or emotions like rage or despair will come up as a result of our daily experience, our upbringing, our traumas, etc. And yes, we indeed are often not able to control them coming up, however, we DO have control over IF and HOW we react to those emotions. One of my favourite quotes is: "You are free to decide, but you are not free from the consequences of your decisions."
If per your argument it would be true that we don't have free will and we are subject to our emotions as they come up then there would be a lot of crime, death and other consequences on this planet. Sometimes I'm getting really mad or sad about something, yet I take the decision to not act upon those feelings. I don't walk up to a guy I really like and kiss him, just because I have that emotion of attraction or love inside of me and I don't go slap someone in the face, who caused me to go into a rage. I also don't eat for 16 hours a day, and am staying away from all the delicious cakes, ice creams, bread and other goodies. And those sugar cravings do come up sometimes, but I decide to not give into them. You are also not eating chocolate gelato every day, even though it's your favourite ice cream flavour, you consciously decide that you want to be healthy. Or not eat that pudding with your family, even though everyone eats it right in front of you and you know exactly how delicious it is.
You argument is like "I'm either doing ALL the exercise or none at all" and if I'm able to only do half of "everything" then I don't do exercise. We can have free will and still be influenced by other people, events and emotions in our lives, our free will is to decide how much we let those things control us and our lives. With all that discipline you have built up over the years to achieve the health and professional goals you have reached that many admire, where do you think that is coming from? Purely instinct, it's all super easy and just comes to you? Or willpower?
Yeah but all of your decisions are based on your personality and your mentality, which are at least partially shaped by things out of your control, meaning those decisions were not truly free will, just thoughts that you have acted on, that would not exist if not for factors outside of your control
From my childhood movie I like space jam my favorite movie spider man I love Spy ninjas
i thought of the wizard of oz... that's so weird?!??!
Great argument against free will but I think there’s a better one. So let’s say you have a choice between chocolate and vanilla ice cream, and let’s say you pick chocolate. Why would you pick the chocolate ice cream? Because in that moment you simply wanted it more right. And can you control your wants? No. That’s the basis of the argument. Everything you do is based off what you want to do (or someone forcing you). And since you can’t control you wants you don’t have free will. There’s one objection to this argument though. you can say well if I have the choice between the gym and watching TV what if I choose the gym instead of TV, which I want more? Well you might prefer watching TV to the gym but that doesn’t mean you want it more. You might prefer TV, but in that moment you do in fact want to go to the gym because the benefits outweigh TV. So essentially if you do something you don’t prefer that doesn’t mean you don’t want to do it at all. You still want to
👍
Conceptually, free will isn't really a black or white thing. I think you can have a degree of free will. Sure you can't control what your emotions are, but you can (at the very least it APPEARS that you can) control the way your body moves. In that sense you would have a certain level of free will that doesn't extend into the emotional landscape. Free will inherently doesn't make sense to me because I FEEL like I have it. I FEEL like I make decisions that I could've made differently if I had so chosen. Sure I can't control what emotions I experience, but I feel like I can choose things for myself. This doesn't make sense because we are - regardless of spirituality - physical beings governed by physical rules. My thoughts, my feelings, my emotions, they're all processes occurring in my body, determined by chemical and electrical concentrations. We KNOW this, since we can watch emotions and thoughts be formed using MRI scans and analyzing blood hormone levels. If there is more dopamine in my body, I will feel happier. This is a purely physical chemical affecting my mental state. When you look at it that way it doesn't make sense that free will exists; the human psyche is like an incredibly complex set of Dominoes falling in a way determined by certain starting conditions.
Can we make a religion out of this?
Return of the king
My friend, you bow to no-one
Discussion aside, what on earth is happening in the gameplay?
Sky news modded minecraft
Sky bees
Converting cobblestone into gravel, then sieving the gravel into bits of ore.
Interesting arguments, but I partially disagree with the comclusion, I'd say we have free will in a limited way, because I can let's say raise my hands in a way that doesn't make any sense other than me caunsiously moving my hands, but I can't really "have complete free will." The only examples would be found in religion, for example Buddah and in a way Jesus did if you think about it.
Free will has always been a weird concept to me. Most people seem to pick a definition of it that is deliberately chosen to not be possible. Which is just weird to me. My thoughts might not always come from the conscious parts of my brain, but that brain is still part of me, so why wouldn't that be free will?
Edit: judging by the last two minutes of this video I think you intuitively get this. though you may not define it as such.
Religion kinda debunks the “no free will” theory.
Abrahamic religions do not have free will, their god is all knowing meaning it knows literally every outcome of any action they take, including creating humans
Sam Harris woop wooop!
IMO the subconscious existing is not really a good argument against free will. I prefer to argue that the brain is like a really complicated machine and all your decisions are in some way based on your past experience. Adding to that I have a really un-scientific hypothesis that what we experience as decisions or consciousness are just a side effect of natural selection giving us the ability to learn
I imagine you'll probably never talk about the Israeli Palestinian problem but it seems like it'll never end, hard to live this way
i would love to see Xisuma and Hasanabi collab, so intelligent people talking omg
lot of flawed arguments smh
Hi
Another very interesting discussion, X! I notice you are coming at all of this from an evolutionary perspective (and, I think, a naturalist perspective, i.e. the physical is all there is). From that perspective, yes, we wouldn't have free will; and, if that is true, trying to do anything meaningful is then useless, because there is no meaning; there logically cannot be meaning in that worldview, if you take it to its rational conclusion. Thus, there is no comfort, there is no empowerment in that.
There is a certain amount of self-deception that we humans like to do, and often I am just as guilty of it as anyone else. I think this idea of "the material world is all there is but there is still meaning in life" is a self-deceiving idea. If there is nothing more than this world around us, then logically there is no meaning. In fact, nothing would exist if the physical was all. But that's a different debate.
Well, you can have the chocolate. Tasty, right? At least we can feed the deception with things deceived would find positive.
I honestly don't think that's a very good argument. Your mind obviously has to have a system to think of a random movie, since it can't go over every single movie in your memory. Also, that doesn't really have anything to do with consciousness and decision-making? Humans are very clearly conscious, and very clearly can make decisions, so I don't really think you can argue that people don't have free will. You can say that your brain does things that you don't have control over, like causing your heart to beat or thinking of a random movie, but that still means you have free will.
I'm sorry X, but that thing you said about using meditation was the most Neurotypical shit I've ever heard lmao. No hate at all, just as a person with ADHD, I got a good laugh out of it
From 10:10 ?
man I admire xisuma sm!! :D