Science and Society: Interview with Dr. Robert Sapolsky
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- Опубліковано 25 лип 2024
- Part of the Science and Society Initiative: A three-year collaborative project with the Hamid and Christina Moghadam Program in Iranian Studies and the Laboratory for Behavioral and Cognitive Neurology at Stanford University Medical School. Learn more: iranian-studies.stanford.edu/...
Professor Robert Sapolsky spoke at Stanford on October 24, 2017. Here he sits down with Dr. Josef Parvizi (Stanford School of Medicine) and Dr. Abbas Milani (Hamid and Christina Moghadam Program in Iranian Studies). Dr. Sapolsky is an extremely talented speaker and teacher whose course at Stanford University is one of the most popular classes on campus. He is the author of several works of nonfiction, including "A Primate's Memoir," "The Trouble with Testosterone," "Why Zebras Don't Get Ulcers," and his most recent book "Behave: The Biology of Humans at Our Best and Worst." He is a professor of biology and neurology at Stanford University and the recipient of a MacArthur Foundation genius award.
I see a new interview with Robert Sapolsky. I click.
Exactly
Always warms my heart to see others do the same.
So are you or are you not a simple man?
LITERALLY
ABSOLUTELY!!!
This man is one of the greatest thinkers of our day, he's an absolute titan of neurobiology, he will surly be revered in future generations as a man well ahead of his time. When they look back in horror at the way we treated people, political tribalism, the broken criminal justice system, the treatment of prisoners', social inequality, stigmatization of the mentally ill, incrassation rates of the poor/ minorities, racism and police violence etc... They will rightly ask of us, why we didn't listen to great men like this and we will stand indicted.
You truly have summarized my opinion on Dr Sapolsky with comment!!!
Thank you.
how do you think Sapolsky would answer this? Especially since he doesn't believe in free will...haven't there been great men/great women thinkers all throughout time?
@@Meloniraelewis Yes there has been and he is definitely one of them. Sapolsky doesn't abdicate accountability for the choices we make, there are still consequences but he highlights our predisposition to guilt and shame based on an erroneous perception of our individual ability to control our choices in the face of an overwhelming complexity of forces beyond our control that lead to the choices we make. As for being the 'great man' I think Sapolsky would say that he is lucky to be the man he is and not some horrendous serial killer or something instead.
"Well ahead of his time " surely that s the easiest way to put it into words . I would ask rather , whether ever a time will come , where his ideas will be understood by the majority of so called " scientist " ?
My exact same conclusion. I’m working on ways of propagation of this information, as we all should from reading his work.
Sapolsky should be on the same level of popularity as NDT and Carl Sagan.
He is not given half of the recognition he really deserves.
Popularity? Agreed. But despite his undeniable intellect and how much I enjoy watching him, NDT is not exactly a humble matter of fact type and not particularly political neutral. Science is all about facts and unification political preference is almost the polar opposite, more about division opinion and rhetoric.
Politics is not scientific in the slightest and this market based system is as anti scientific as you can get, hence all the problems we have at are disposal. If we were truly a science based society we wouldn't have any of the dogmas we experience today. FACT!
@@grayzytube Agreed, probably depends on a specific environment and social attutudes (pan troglodytes like proactive political games over status and offspring compared to pan paniscus society based on reactive socially functional same sex bonding and playful group bonding for reconciliation regardless of age). Or human society after the agricultural/pastoral revolution based on competitive possessiveness over private property (marriage, amatonormativity), inheritance, virginity and maximisation of birth rates according to antinatalism based on consent. Not sure about Melanesians, Trobrianders, !Kung, Mosuo and all the extinct undocumented egalitarian hunter-gatherer societies with partible paternity and alloparenting.
Agreed
A Statue should be built of this man
and then what would you do?
Admire the Statue all day?
Make sure others admire him as much as you do?
Force others to recognize Sapolsky the way you do?
If you understood Sapolsky you would figure that a statue of himself is the last thing he would want.
@@tomschneider7555 Chill out. Not everyone knows him as intimately as you.
@@tomschneider7555 it seems that you think building statues is useless and even bad
Why do you think that?
I would really love to hear your thoughts on this matter
If possible a detailed explanation
On it
@@tomschneider7555 No, it would allow Sapolsky after his time has come to still look down at complete wankers like you.
I listen to Robert Sapolsky lectures before going to sleep in hope some of his brilliance manifests in my brain, wishful thinking on my part. Incredible human ahead of time.
Same here
Likewise
Me tooo😂
Robert Sapolsky is the greatest university lecturer I’ve ever seen. Learning from his lectures isn’t even work
I’ve learned more from Sapolsky and Jordan Peterson’s lectures than I’ve learned in years from school
yes exactly.
Man this guy is so calming at the same time as being so mentally stimulating. Cheers.
It's amazing listening to Robert Sapolsky
A brain asks to another brain: Why do we have brains?
i wish sapolsky was my dad...for purely selfish reasons
he looks like a guy who wouldnt start beating me up for stupid reasons since i was 2.5 years old
but regardless of my little remark, i must say sapolsky helped me think my way out of suiciding, made me realize humans can be wonderful creatures sometimes, gave me hope that the world is slowly getting better
I'm very sorry for your troubles man. I wish you all the best; And I hear you. Robert and Jordan Peterson have helped me insanely.
Hey dude, I feel so sorry about what happened to you. But I'm also cheered to learn that you've found your salvation by yourself. That's amazing. Wish you all the best!
Take care bro 🌸
I'm so sorry for what happened to you...
I wish you the best...keep listening/reading people like Sapolsky and heal
I see the name sapolsky I click
Exactly
a global treasure of a human. his lectures have so profoundly impacted me, for the better. endless gratitude.
Love Robert's mind and voice, respect his success and "choices" he has made.
It's all very humbling and at the same time unifies us with other animals.
The way he presents and illustrates these highly technical abstract explanations of human behavior is mesmerizing. I’d love to hear Dr Sapolsky in person. My idol.
Thank you, Robert. Thank you for fighting for the understanding and awareness of the insidious nature of depression.
I am in the agnostic/atheist camp and I ❤ the way Dr. Sapolsky implicitly thwarts religion and deities.
And, I simply ❤ Dr. Sapolsky.
It's nice to hear Sapolsky talk about the religious side a little bit more, you can tell he is holding back but it works with him
I'd really love to hear what Professor Sapolsky has to say about the autistic brain!
A lot of the societal stuff just doesn't work on us.
He does! in his lectures about Human Behavioral Biology
the simplicity of his statement between 6:58 and 7:29 is stunningly accurate, easy to understand nd yet seemingly impossible to change
I know right Robert is awesome! His wisdom and knowledge is mesmerising and the fact he shares this in a way that anyone can gain from is a real true gift!
Dr. Robert sopolsky also happens to be an exceptional writer. Thank you for the amazing work in science.
Now I know it's nice and appropriate to compliment someone on doing great work but at what point does it become negative, not criticizing I very much appreciate your work.
Love the God Gene eye roll
haha, "Oye...not gonna go anywhere near that one."
Thumbs up to any scholarly conversation that discusses- Large testicles, free will and god.
This is pure gold.
Great project
PL keep us in the loop
Love the way Robert sapolsky explains ...... 👌👌
Robert Sapolsky is wise and needs to be heard. It is truly painful knowing most will never hear of him, or have the knowledge to understand him. We are not long evolved from our ape ancestors over the “grand scale of time,” as we believe we know it, yet we deny our behaviors are considerably similar to theirs.
I like the display of *spandrels* in the background, very thematic.
The only people on this earth that i truly admire,are those who spent all their lifes studying,researching and passing on their knowledge for the better evolution of science and humanity itself
You mean, those that are blasted by people just having completed a 15min Google search?
"There is a biology to why some people have a lower threshold than others for how much evidence they demand before believing something, how critical they are in their thinking, how much random patterns are percieved by them as not being random and I think that's genetics of anxiety , of cognitive flexibility / things of that sort. Somewhere in there the difference between being capable of religious belief or not lurks . " Such a nice way of saying what's not PC to say.
Stanford has best minds of all. Thank you!
24:38 - pair bond vs tournament species, fascinating
Agreed. When he was asked about bonobos once then he said that it's enterely something out of ordinary as far as I can remember. Probably depends on a specific environment and social attitudes (pan troglodytes like proactive political games over status and offspring compared to pan paniscus society based on reactive socially functional same sex bonding and playful group bonding for reconciliation regardless of age). Or human society after the agricultural/pastoral revolution based on competitive possessiveness over private property (marriage, amatonormativity), inheritance, virginity and maximization of birth rates according to antinatalism based on consent. Not sure about Melanesians, Trobrianders, !Kung, Bafia people, Mosuo and all the extinct undocumented egalitarian hunter-gatherer societies with partible paternity and alloparenting.
We need another update on the "Zebras" book, please.
@2:20 when coughing around people wasn't a mortal sin
What are you talking about ? 😏
ikr lol
Ever since the guy coughing next to me on a plane gave me the flu the very next day, I haven't liked people coughing next to me. That was before SARS-CoV-2. I still wish I would find him and strangle him.
The baboon beh change was an eye opener thanks excellent Q's and straight answers
I in the last 2 + years , Dr Sapolsky has coughed in interviews
hope he is OK. He is A good .man
i imagine he speaks constantly while teaching and being interviewed and regular conversation, probably wears on his voice, especially as he ages
The closed caption could use a combing over.
i love this man ..
I'm reading the closed captions while I listen and it is HILARIOUS !
plus it is a damned good and interesting program on it's own.
How did I miss this!
hey, Nichole, I missed this right up until February 2021.
You were focused on your weight loss? ; )
I don't espouse the theory of evolution, but I'm impressed by its ability to explain in words and reasons everything about the nature of life. It is a twisting turning versatile explainer for just about everything, though it be in the end hyperbole.
Terimakasih banyak atas informasinya
"decreasing anxiety and pain" ~ "opium of the masses"
amazing scholar....shame the interviewers were so clueless!
The more I learn, the more I tend to think we’re a transition species. The question in my mind is, do we destroy the planet before a species less ruled by its limbic system, can evolve?
YES I LOVE SAPOLSKY YESSSSS
عالی مرسی
What's going on here?
No ancient hatred or mention of the Man's Jewish up bringing.
Congratulations to all the open minds that wrote in this comment section.
The world's on the up.
I am very impressed.
Jesus loves me this I know, for the Bible tells me so"
Yep he’s beyond genius
am 61 I search for mentors and info... thank you so much.....
Evolution of the specialisation of adapted, integrated spices
Does anyone know who said the quote about art within the first few minutes of this podcast?
Viktor Shlovsky is the origin of defamiliarisation. That it is a quote may be a misattribution of him explaining his thesis.
Is there a Robert Sapolsky gene and where can it be purchased?
You can purchase a poster of this man on the website Red Bubble!
Great discussion. Just thought I would say the pop filters in front of the SM7Bs are not necessary, especially at the distance you are using them, and are visually distracting and detract from the sound.
1st world problems
@@andrew348 yes, it is, he didn't say it wasn't
Standford Iranian Studies? wow!
After reading and listening to Sapolski over the last several years, I find him fascinating, and I am in agreement with most of his assertions. I struggle with the free will part as I think that we have a limited ability to focus our attention. In this talk, he referred to what would be good parenting etc. Isn't that admitting to some free will? I would love to hear Sapolsky and Yuval Noah Harari in conversation. I suspect, our free will is tied into humans' ability to cooperate around fictional stories. Yes, they are illusions but powerful, nonetheless... Maybe the most powerful force currently shaping life on our planet.
he doesn't believe free will exists because he understands the function of the human brain+body on a molecular level, where it becomes clear that every action a person takes is the result of information transfer through the body that we ultimately have no control over, just a tremendously large series of "if-then" statements (his terminology from his lectures). i think if you want to engage with his argument against free will, you have to start by convincingly describing why that isn't the case.
Sapolskyyyyyyy 🥰🥰🥰🥰🥰🥰🥰🥰🥰🥰
It amazes me that the interviewers are also academics.
Sapolsky is eldering fast. I hope his health is good.
Most of all the lectures that are on UA-cam were 10 years ago, that may be why he seems so much older. But hope he is healthy too, wonderful professor and human being, wonderful mind ❤️
I think he has been “the same, long” - and shall remain so ❤
@@eugeniebreida1583 Yes, me 2. He is very intelligent. Intelligence = healthy
That is why everybody should read George Orwell's book " 1984 ". We already live in an Orwellian age.
What's your thoughts on" How many times can a life generating planet produces space traveling entity (Gaia the name of the Earth's liveing/spiritual thing/energy as in Mother Earth/Nature and humanity having the abilities/ potential to learning/earn qualities/protocols Space travel/ multi planetary specie) ? People use to think the Earth is flat.
PRESENT
Reason why "pure numbers" of Neurons stands significant is called/termed "Network Effects". I still hold that many Cetaceans are smarter/more intuitive/computationally complex than Humans'. Humans are unique in their tool making and pernicious influence.
That bards 🐻d looks fuzzier.
At the end of the day, it clicks.
The problem with the negation of free will is that it doesn't account for the difference between actions which are determined by someone else and those which aren't. They seem to be profoundly different, at least perception-wise, and if there is no free will, there still is the difference between one's own will and the will of someone else. If there is no freedom to one's own will, why should there be any perceived differences between actions carried out by oneself and actions carried out by someone else? Despite being a great admirer of the work of Dr. Sapolsky, the case for (or against) free will must be thought through more thoroughly.
for your own actions you know your plans and expectations and you're prepared for a specific result. but you never know what other people might do.
@@ritchie2905 Right, although I am quite sure that I might not always know consciously why I am doing a certain thing. (I don't think, nobody does, for that matter). However, the degree to which I know about the intent of my actions is, of course, far greater than with anybody else.
I think Sapolsky's position is more that we have no control over the things that ultimately drive our decision making process, biological factors impacting neurological function that occur during formation in the womb for example or genes affecting brain chemistry that are switched on or not switched dependent on environmental factors. If you happen to have the right neurological and biological factors with the right environmental conditions to make you a psychopath that kills people rather than one that becomes President then you're unlucky. You didn't choose any of those other factors without which you wouldn't have been a psychopath in the first place. ... You still get locked away but without brutalization and shame.
Think of your brain as a machine that reacts to a set of inputs. Any action determined by you or any other person, or any external factor are just inputs. In the real world the inputs are always very complicated and will never be exactly the same. You also have internal states in the machine, aka blood pressure, hormones, the state of your synapses (or the premeditation of this incoming action given all the previous brain states), which are also very complicated and will never be exactly the same. But for argument's sake, if by some way we can keep all those inputs and states exactly the same, and we test your reaction for a "identical" situation over and over again, given how your particular brain is wired, you will choose the same action every single time. That's what he means. Of cause then if you go even deeper we have the indeterminism in quantum mechanics, but one might argue that it has nothing to do with free will, it's just one layer of how we define the physics and the states which we haven't figured out
😲😲😲 👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼
From a computer science point of view you also know there's no free will if you've worked on neural networks, we can already simulate how the brain works, on a very simple level but never the less it's one of those things / realizations you can't unsee.
Many scientists have a hard time believing in a God, but only a few are assertive about it, Richard Dawkins for example. Sapolsky goes very gently and respectfully on it. A religion needs to be looked at in terms of what it contributed to a society. There should be little question that religion has mixed outcomes on this.
There are no gods except the ones we make for ourselves.
I tend to agree with him about how powerfully biology influences and even drives what we do. However I suspect the idea that morals are meaningless doesn't give them the biological attention they deserve. I suspect morality is an adaptation for surviving in groups. Evolutionarily reciprocal altruism has this baked into it.
Foundation of morality starts from our biological ability to feel pain and pleasure. We embrace pleasure and we try to avoid pain as individuals and generally as a society.
It gets more complicated than that but this is the basic idea
Pattern seeking can lead to good and bad outcomes.
He kind of confirmed DARPA and mind wave control in the end. Scary stuff.
Free Will: Have you ever been on one of those broken bumper car rides where you spin the wheel left and right and press the pedal and you still have no control over the car? It just spins in circles and sometimes flies off for a moment in a random direction. IF we have a “free will”, that is how effective it really is.
I’m wondering what Dr. Sapolsky’s definition is of free will. If I choose to put strawberry jam on my toast this morning rather than grape jelly, am I not exercising free will?
Flora in your gut already decided for you.
It means that your brain makes the choice first before you realize it.
I wanna feel his hair...
If there is no free will but we have as a culture socially constructed elements, then those must logically originate biologically as well. Therefore we can only conclude that our ideas of good and evil somehow originate deep within our biology too. I admire Dr. Sapolsky, but he should know that we can't attribute everything to social constructionism , I would expect from him as a scientist to investigate what are the sources of concepts like good and evil and how do they emerge from a biological persepctive
You should ask him, I’d bet he has a studied answer.
When was this recorded? The coughing is distressing given the current circumstances lol.
chill out
2017
@@AlwaysbeLovingkindandcaring Thank you for the insightful comment. That most have strained your prefrontal cortex.
Is there a pakistani study program too?
If a/some $$$ Pakistani Stanford grads funded it, ya sure - ya betcha! All it takes.
Stanford likes study programs and it likes funders/founders of them.
35:38 = WWE VIRGIL FINALLY GOT OVER!?!?!?!?!
Bro just coughed into my amygdala.
Since there is no free will, should we mind if our 'non' free will was taken away? And accept that we are at basics acting robots, reacting responding from countless sources of information.
Love Prof. Sapolsky, hate those two other men.
2:20 lol
🦠
If Nietzsche became a neuroendocrinologist.
i have listened to a lot of compelling Sapolsky, including the whole course and interviews like this one when they crop up.
This morning i was listening to 2020 TSC session with Sir Roger Penrose, and I really want to see the cross-pollinated synthesis of Sapolsky and Stuart Hameroff's quantum microtubules. Six years ago, this interview was on solid ground, but it feels like Sapolsky is not aware of Hameroff's ideas.
Of course, maybe he is, since Leonard Susskind also seemingly disregards Penrose unless asked directly, and then dismisses him.
Some non-human primates feature leaders that take interest in the common good. Some chimp alphas are very bullying, and sometimes coalitions kill the bully alpha. Sometimes chimp alphas have there position based on benevolent leadership (sharing, peace making, consoling), supported by a large coalition of the group. There's a continuum of bullying/benevolence. Bonobo are more motivated by the common
good than chimps, so I expect this would apply to the alpha female.
We're a mix between a chimpanzee and a bonobo.
@@Andre-hm5vo Hard to say really. Humans and chimpanzees are said to be more prone to proactive aggression which gets resolved with fight or flight response, while bonobos are said to be more prone to reactive agresion which gets resolved with sociosexuality. Since humans are said to be generalist species then it probably depends on a specific environment and social attutudes (pan troglodytes like proactive political games over status and offspring compared to pan paniscus society based on reactive socially functional same sex bonding and playful group bonding for reconciliation regardless of age). Or human society after the agricultural/pastoral revolution based on competitive possessiveness over private property (marriage, amatonormativity), inheritance, virginity and maximisation of birth rates according to antinatalism based on consent. Not sure about Melanesians, Trobrianders, !Kung, Mosuo and all the extinct undocumented egalitarian hunter-gatherer societies with partible paternity and alloparenting. So far it seems like the ones behaving more like a bonobo are gone due to widespread influence of Yamnaya culture where warriors are treated as heroes and others all over the world.
I find it so difficult 😂 to say I !I am 55 years and (I) has no meaning
The only thing that never changes is the inevitability of change. Cliche, I know.
Fascinating about baboons!
An epileptic friend took an anger management class because he was mad about stupid stuff. He was not ordered to do it by the courts. He stopped having epileptic fits. For the first time in his life he is driving a car. He insists that anger management did it. MAMS and MAWS of Marin County, CA... Magic?!?
His face when they asked about god 😅😅😅😅 05:39
Some people really believe it's Yahweh or the Highway! I can hear old Moses screaming up in Heaven "Hey you get offa my cloud" LOL This the promised land er Cloud!
I wonder what his diet consists of.
I am very sry,... But Y is Uncle Leo sitting there ?😂😂😂😂
"Our brains have evolved for gossip and backstabbing and...etc, etc." Now it is confirmed... the flaw in my thinking. There is no such thing as the noble beast.
Interestingly I made up a tee shirt with back stabbing red cuts symbolism with the words, "Et Tu Brute, Et Tu" and wear it through the community room in the old age building I lived in. LOL You talk about some gossip hump there it is!!
why does Sapolsky keep thanking him for the compliments? Sapolsky could not possibly have been responsible for all that led to the writing of this book
Persians have the "Cat Gene" Meow. I wonder if Genealogy can relate Professor Sapolsky directly to Charles Darwin.