The Freewill Delusion | Freedom, Determinism, and Compatibilism
Вставка
- Опубліковано 28 тра 2024
- Are we free? This is one of the oldest and largest questions in philosophy. So let's solve it all in this short UA-cam video. Most people in the debate around freewill online fall into two camps: Libertarians and Determinists. But a position that is often overlooked is Compatibilism - the idea that determinism is compatible with freewill.
Today we will dip our toe into this debate, question whether determinism is compatible with freewill, and ask whether our entire conception of freedom is deeply limited.
Sign up to my email list here: forms.gle/76bsCwWhKVryzPBR7
Support me on Patreon (you lovely person): patreon.com/UnsolicitedAdvice...
Alex O'Connor's excellent video: • Compatibilism Debunked...
00:00 The Freewill debate
01:16 Freewill and Determinism
05:56 Compatibilism and the Art of Compromise
12:41 "But we cannot choose our wills"
16:28 Pressure, Coercion, and Intimidation
19:43 The Gradability of Freedom
Picture of Sam Harris by Wikimedia commons under license C.C.2.0 commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fi...
LINKS AND CORRECTIONS:
If you want to work with an experienced study coach teaching maths, philosophy, and study skills then book your session at josephfolleytutoring@gmail.com. Previous clients include students at the University of Cambridge and the LSE.
Support me on Patreon here: patreon.com/UnsolicitedAdvice701?Link&
Sign up to my email list for more philosophy to improve your life: forms.gle/YYfaCaiQw9r6YfkN7
I signed up for your email list but I haven’t got anything yet?
I have level 2 Free Will. So, I have Free Will, but only on weekends, and weekdays between the hours of 6AM through to 8AM, and 4PM and 10PM.
I know this may be tongue-in-cheek but I think this is a great illustration of why we might need to ask the question of "what do degrees of freedom look like in determinism?" Because some situations seem like they are free-er than others
@@unsolicitedadvice9198 I agree. A conceptualization I once heard was that our free will is like that of a dog who is tied on a long rope to the back of a cart being pulled by a horse. The rope is long enough that we can roam fairly far away, but eventually we hit our limit and get dragged back to the trail.
We have free will and there is nothing we can do about it.
@@davidomeally6416or do we!?
My decision to click on your videos is always out of free wil! Great video, keep it up! 🥳
Thank you! I am glad you liked it
No, it isn’t.
If you’re a truth seeker, honest & authentic.
You had no other choice.
@@michahcc
You asking me?
If so, the context is the state of mind or the intentions/desires of the heart.
So, can one just choose out of that? Yes, possibly, but not very likely.
But then, something less or dissatisfying would be in control..
Or we get to choose by what we would rather be controlled by,
But not to be uncontrolled.
Not yet anyway.
@@peterwilson1295U clearly didn't watch the video. Refer to the 4th part
@@sigmachadtrillioniare6372
While true, I watched the whole video now, and nothing disturbed my initial reply. Trying to think thru free will/freedom is always a “chasing your tail” proposition. Did you wear a mask or take the vax during the coof? Freewil/ agency is not “free” without sacrifice to the individual. What context do you need? We are here in this world for a very short period of time..
That’s a context.
You will never fully escape control, or to quote some other great mind,
“Death is the end of illusion”.
babe wake up, new Unsolicited Advice video just dropped.
Haha! I am flattered to be featured in this text-format
Shut up nerd , I'm cheating on you with Jerome , he's a rapper.
I was programmed at birth to like these types of videos against my will, therefore I was destined to click on this wonderful video.
There's some truth in comedy😂😂
Or you built a tolerance through traumatic perception on them & now have habit for clicking on them for answers
must be nice I was pressured coerced and intimidated into watching this 😪
Massively underrated channel. One of the few I watch the instant I see a new video is up!
Thank you! That’s very kind
I know I'm physically helpless to resist watching this peak edutainment
amazing stuff man. this channel is definitely going to blow up more than it already has. thanks for “choosing” providing this content.
I stumbled upon this video without my will and I love your content,thankyou
I like your conclusion. I’ve also struggled with this debate (and the theory is mind-boggling for anyone who isn’t a devoted studier of philosophy). Not only are there gradual indicators in the relative ‘free-ness’ of individual decisions but there’s also the ‘strength of will’ in the individual facing the choice. Whereas one heroin addict may have the will to resist robbing a store to fund the addiction, another might not. We can debate on purely moral terms in the philosophical sense but there are practical psychological, sociological, and even anthropological lenses to this debate.
Ah a genuine scholar, not making it easy for algorythm's sake, well done sir.
I really like the idea that freedom depend on the person, like im not saying that someone can have infinite freedom, but things like your surroundings or even your religion and morality can affect your choices, I remember that one philosopher said that life is like a chain and some actions are just the results of other, previous actions, I think that is partially true (because then again there are some things that are out of control) but it can describe freedom really well, anyway amazing video as always and have a great day (or night)
Your work is the Definition of quality and content....
This video would have been a godsend to me when I wrote my AP Philosophy final in high school lol. I love the video, keep it up!!
Always been amaze by your voice and your detailed explanation. Im just obsessed on it😖😖.
Thank you! That’s very kind!
By the way, great video. I think this is one of the best treatments on the subject that I’ve seen on, UA-cam!
Thank you! I am really glad you enjoyed it
@@unsolicitedadvice9198 well it’s not just that I enjoy it. It’s that I think your communication style is very effective and makes it easy to or easier to pick up the nuances of these types of issues. Keep up the good work!
I hadn't heard the sliding scale approach to will, pretty interesting and more useful than the 'yes/no' question👍
I heard a comedian recently say that many of his decisions are 5-4 in his internal Supreme Court. That made so much sense, and I think harmonizes with your scale idea quite nicely.
Robert Sapolsky has also been making the podcast rounds explaining why he didn’t believe in free will, and yet encouraged people to not believe in determinism. It made me think quite a bit, and I landed where you landed here. I can’t see a way to resolve that contradiction for Robert outside of a nuanced look at how we use or misuse language
I watched this one over dinner. Thanks again!
J'ai reçament découvert cette chaîne youtube et j'adore le travail présenté. Aussi t'est trop mignon 🥰
Absolutely absurd how you don’t have a larger audience. Your explanation on philosophical ideas and on novelist is so fluent and poetic
the problem with this debate is neither side wants to argue in good faith about. on one side you have hardcore relgious funadmentalists who think your souls salvation is at stake if you dont believe in free will and nihilistic atheists who hypocritically want to replace one providence with another and yet claim they are the true "free thinkers" and also you have the right to choose your own values somehow. well if you really think determinism is true, how can you be a free anything? deterministic thinking is the catalyst for the worst authoritarian regimes imaginable. so at the face of it. to deny our freedom to choose is denying our own inner spark of humanity.
Thank you outstanding essay 👏🏼👏🏽💯
Thank you!
Damn dude!!
You made me laugh so hard that I spit my coffee out all over my new rug when you mentioned Sam Harris as a thinker!!
This is my first youtube comment and I just wanted to say that you're my favorite youtuber bro! I look forward to your videos everyday!
Thank you! That’s very kind of you to say
Compatibilism seemed the most convincing to me personally.
The "while charming" cracked me up!
Haha! Thank you. I did want to clarify as otherwise it can get a bit confusing
No one had called me that before
I really enjoy the idea of the conflicting will, with what we may call “degrees of freedom”. In practice, I do find that sometimes having more options, perhaps too many, can restrain my ability to act. Perhaps too much freedom is counterproductive.
An ability to act and to enjoy life does not require any synthesis between determinism and free will. One can act with purpose or no purpose in a state of happiness without such philosophical solutions to every conflicting or disturbing thought we have. Excessive thought and excessive search for answers to the unknowable keeps as just as confused and ignorant, just on a higher plane. Do. Do without conscious deliberation at times. Don't just think. Belief habits go hand in hand with existence actions, or they do when you free yourself from things holding you back. The pursuit of philosophical solutions is a worthy pursuit. This guy is awesome, but most of you also need to turn off the webz and get out more and F more b i c h e z and p i s s on more bushes. Balance peeps. You got this.
best comment by far
For myself, I like the compatibilist world view, who would say, that the person choosing between the zoo or being dead, clearly was free in his choice. It is not arbitrary and he clearly was free, based on his value to live. Whether in each of those scenarios a judge would call this person free, is a moral debate and not one about free will.
I really like your videos and thank you for all the effort you put into scriptwriting and your editing and presentation. My one and only criticism would be to please slow down slightly in your speech to really let your sentences on these deep subjects sink in, if for nobody else but myself. Great videos all around.
word well said
Here's a thought on the idea of free will...
1.Who chose your birth name?
2.Did you choose where you were born or the culture you were raised in?
3.How much of your daily thoughts and decisions are influenced by unconscious biases and social pressures?
4.Can you decide what you find enjoyable or distasteful, or are these preferences instilled in you by your genetics and experiences?
5.To what extent are your major life decisions (like your career or partner) truly free from the influence of your social environment and financial constraints?
Reflecting on these questions, you can see that the canvas of our lives is pre-set in many ways. While we may paint within its bounds-sometimes even pushing at its edges-the initial outline is often not of our own making. This perspective doesn't wholly negate the concept of free will but suggests that the freedom we do has operates within a framework established by a myriad of uncontrollable forces.
Perhaps you could review The adolescent by dostoyevsky as i believe he explores this very topic, free will in a changing world.
I haven't read it myself i must confess, I'm duelling with the Brothers Karamazov at the moment.
I would love to! I hope to have a video on Svidrigailov out by Sunday, but I will look at it for perhaps a video in the next couple of months
To expand from your last point, there's a whole spectrum of free will, in the sense that people even if in economically different situations can have options that one another might not have. A CEO of a large company can't simply leave his company and visit a suburban city in fear of being robbed because of his position, the same way a man working a 9/5 can go hiking in the forest and not worry about his job once his shift is over.
That brings different levels of free will given external factors, not only a linear array of freedom. But in essence (from a deterministic perspective) that technically wouldn't classify as "true free will" in the sense that we're still limited by our financial/social/moral circumstances even if not physically restricted.
We all have some level of autonomy and choices but all bound to an equivalent level of responsibility or a set of rules within society, in that sense the only way to become truly free would be to abandon society and survive on your own, but that's still bound to the condition of being free as long as you fulfill your duties in order to stay alive.
I believe we're never truly free, we're all bound to what is and what isn't, around us and within ourselves, consciously or subconsciously.
자유의지는 존재한다고 생각해요.이 그림이 자유의지를 위한 길이라고 생각합니다.
I'm really interested in the further development of determinism, since there are convenient models to work around these days, and possibly to forge a theory that goes beyond "metaphysical" abstract arguments. To make determinism as epistemology of cause and effects, having the correct knowledge for decisions to determine outcomes by Intuition of these reasoning. The difference is turning a posteriori truth into disposal, arguably in prediction, it's the ultimate control of self oriented life and environment. More knowledge aids the cause of deterministic epistemology
the intellectual sword and the genius wielder of it will no longer concern the ontological implications of hard/soft determinism, because the definition in itself is built by constant and dynamic force beyond innate perception
Quality Videos 💯💯💯💯💯💯
Your content is insightful and thought-provoking! Thank you. I truly appreciate the exploration of degrees of freedom and the idea of freedom existing on a spectrum. This concept significantly enriches the ongoing conversation. Nevertheless, it could be argued that regardless of our choices, the degrees of freedom are causally determined. I lean towards the perspective that we are phenomenologically free but objectively determined.
The notion of a "will-based cause" introduces a sense of cognitive dissonance for me. It seems to portray this "will" as something exceptionally special, untainted by causal factors (though admittedly influenced and determined by them), and essentially just "us." However, despite the subjective feeling of such uniqueness, objectively, this doesn't seem to be the case. The idea of a "will" representing the true "us," making choices without external factors, appears contradictory. Every choice we make is intricately connected to the causal matrix in which we are embedded. Our "will" is essentially born from this causal web, and our degrees of freedom are causally determined.
The proposition that our wills are shaped by both internal and external causes, and that our degrees of freedom are not entirely within our control, while simultaneously suggesting that we are free when engaging our causally determined will that is not independent of external factors, seems perplexing. It challenges my understanding, and the idea of our freedom being constrained by causality makes my brain hurt, lol..
Robert Sapolsky is an interesting chap. Really worth a read and listen. Great content. Thank you. Subbed.
he's a marxist douche bag , reducing the human to animals behaviour
I have been taunted by an ethereal adversary since I can remember, that would approach me to instill a mishandling of my own choices. This I bounced out of my own determining and landed into a liminal space amongst the real world but with the fabrics of consciousness quite palpable.
It depends on what one would consider free will, Either one is free despite the inevitability of cause and causation or one is not free because of cause and causation.
Great video! I’ve thought that free will is on a scale for some time too. I don’t think there are concrete answers that are binary to almost any question
It all comes down to definition, and compatibalists really do redefine the term.
One defines “free will” as an ability to make an uncaused choice vs the other as un-coerced choice.
Absolutely! It is all about whether you accept the next definition
@@unsolicitedadvice9198 I don’t see a difficulty in accepting the second definition in light of the first.
Coercion is just another aspect of the causal chain.
Imo Free will is always free will, even if the choice is non-existance, because free will doesn't include the actions of others. Even when coerced I can choose, at my own discretion to die. This is no different than choosing to freely self exit, because self exiting is often directly or indirectly coerced, too. In fact I'd go as far to say that, unless one is alone in a vacuum, one is being at least being indirectly coerced as far as every decision is being made 😅
One thing that humans do not have a choice about is being faced with choices.
And time limits are a compulsion factor behind all that we do or don't do.
You cannot deliberate for the next 4 weeks about what you will eat tomorrow. And you cannot deliberate for the next 12 hours about what you will do in 20 minutes from now.
There is always that voice of compulsion in your head saying : Make up your mind, make up your mind, make up your mind.
Time and tide wait for no man.
Whenever I listen to young philosophers, I’m always reminded of a book I once read by David Benatar called ‘Better never to have been’. I was astonished that someone in their right mind would want to argue that life is never worth living. I can certainly understand why some people reach a point in their lives, often tragically early on, when they decide that they have had enough and want to call it a day. But, for me, the idea that the experience of being alive is in some way intrinsically bad is incomprehensible.
Needless to say, I was keen to get his book and consider his arguments which I thought would at least be interesting. Sadly, I wasted my money because his explanation was nothing short of nonsense. In particular, his arguments centred around an absurdly simplified view of what life actually is. Are all philosophers as foolish as he is, I asked myself. Thankfully, they aren’t. But I regularly come across so called philosophers that are close runners up and one is, in my view, Professor Robert Sapolsky.
Now, my understanding of determinism is that, at the time when the planets were forming around our Sun four billion years ago, it was completely inevitable that I would be sitting here typing this comment. This is because the behaviour of every atom in the universe is subject to strict laws and that there is only one outcome at each successive second as to their relative positions and so on. Indeed, it is also the case that, although there is an uncertainty regarding the properties of sub-atomic particles as to their precise position and spin, this uncertainty evaporates as their combined positions are averaged out. In any event, it is something like that which doesn’t really interest me anyway. As a consequence, it could perhaps be possible for an experienced physicist to convince me that the universe was completely deterministic until the emergence of life. It is plausible, I suppose, that inorganic matter would have behaved strictly in accordance with fixed laws at all times.
However, the emergence of life brought about an explosion in a level of complexity that would challenge the capacity of physical laws to completely control not just every atom but every cell that goes to make up the biological world in which we live. Four billion years later, many living creatures on Earth have evolved brains that have trillions of synapses, billions of neurons and countless electrical charges between them which, in the case of human beings, has enabled us to conceptualise situations that we experience, to identify possible alternative responses, to consider the possible outcomes of pursuing those various responses and evaluate the impact that those responses might have upon our fellow human beings. This capacity, like consciousness itself, has evolved over billions of years in response to the development of ‘competences’ as described in Daniel Dennet’s book, ‘From bacteria to Bach and Back’. ‘Thinking’ is not merely a physical or mechanical process subject to physical laws. Thoughts are, of course, ‘carried’ by electrical charges, as I understand it, across synapses but the information contained within the thoughts themselves are not controlled by ‘physical’ laws.
Free will, in my view, is the innate capacity of most healthy human beings and, indeed, possibly some animals, to consider various available options for action and to make a judgement about what particular option to select. That selection is not, in my view, contingent upon physical laws and in this way, we are responsible, under normal circumstances for the choices that we make. Of course, there are plenty of influences on our decision-making that originate, as Sapolsky says, from our genetic endowment, our experiences in the womb and early childhood, the culture in which we grew up and the society in which we live and so on. However, they are ‘influential’. They do not determine our choices. We are capable of making choices based upon our own intellect.
In any event, the argument against determinism has been put much more succinctly than I ever could and much more authoritatively by other experienced scientists and philosophers.
you seem awfully confident in your views of the human consciousness, a field which is still highly contentious and probably will be for a very long time because it is difficult to study that which you cannot observe.
@@sorenkair Not at all. I was expressing my opinion based on the information that I have been presented with. I’ve explained why I believe that most human beings have the capacity for free will and why I find the case put by philosophers such as Professor Robert Sapolsky to be totally unconvincing. I say very little about consciousness itself beyond the obvious fact that it is an evolved capacity that most living creatures possess at some level. Incidentally, we are able to observe consciousness both our own and that of others.
Forgot to comment, the determinism is an opinion, bolster by the accuracy of the planetary movements (among other things) cold be argued that the variables in most events are so many that the future becomes more and more obscure, to the point of being unpredictable. Specially when dealing with living beings and complex systems. Cheers
Been loving the videos! I've finally gotten around to reading Dostoevsky because of your videos. I think that since you are talking/staring directly into the camera, and thus, straight at me, gives the whole video a personal touch and easier (for me, at least) to follow along. Like two friends having a chat over a drink about something intelligent, complex and dear, instead of a lecture that I can't seem to keep up with, and take little away from.
Oh, and could you leave the upper left corner *messages/caveats a few seconds longer? (cocks revolver) it is completely ruining my life, and soon yours, reading those bits in 3 seconds! Cheers!
Sounds pretty free to me
I believe that us life would be a lot different in another context, what they teach in school or what we see on internet can influence us, now if a person is really curious maybe can arrive at the point of have more awareness of world, but also a person that has learnt about every situation, will be influenced in choices because in life you need to do also things that you don t like.
So in the opinions you can became less and less influence by the context, in actions is a little more difficult because maybe some actions you have to start many years before or you need to survive
As a former determinist, the argument is quite compelling. However, it is actually deeply flawed.
The problem with determinism is that the entire argument rests upon the assumption that everything physical is predictable, and because of that “fact”, we could predict all of your behavior. There are a lot of issues with this.
1) We have no reason to believe that everything physical is predictable (quantum mechanics and complex systems)
2) The only proof that could be provided to prove a thing is completely predictable is to predict that thing with 100% accuracy.
3) The only scenario in which a determinist would claim to be able to predict human behavior (with 100% accuracy) is one in which they have complete information on all matter and forces in existence (Omnipotence)
In other words, the axioms of determinism are fundamentally unprovable, given the conditions needed to prove it are impossible to obtain.
You may also ask the determinist: “What can I do to prove to you that I have Free Will?” and their answer will logically be: “Nothing, because I could have predicted it”
So not only is their argument impossible to prove by their own admission, it is also unfalsifiable.
Some determinists often respond that we cannot disprove Free Will because it does not exist, therefore we cannot disprove a negative.
The issue with this is that you are not actually making a claim that Free Will does not exist. Rather, you are making the claim that because all physical matter is predictable, Free Will logically cannot exist. Claiming that all physical matter is predictable is by definition an empirical claim, meaning that determinists have the burden of proof to validate this claim, and, by proxy, “disprove” Free Will.
It sounds like we need to do away with the proposition that all that exists is physical material (matter and energy).
P1. Mere effects of physics can be neither true or false. (Is a tornado more true than an earthquake?).
P2. If determinism is true, all human evaluations, propositions, understanding, etc. are mere effects of physics.
C. If determinism is true, all human evaluations, propositions, understanding, etc. can be neither true or false (a problematic conclusion that is reached when determinism is assumed).
_________________________________
P1. My thoughts and actions are all predetermined, effects of physics from the big bang (once again assuming determinism to be true).
P2. Your thoughts and actions are all predetermined, effects of physics from the big bang.
C1. Your nor my statement could be either 'more true' or 'more false' than the other.
C2. If determinism is true, there is no such thing as true or false. (Is that true?)
I think you have completely misunderstood concepts of cause and effect in physics, although in filosofy you can just argument something without concrete evidence that's not the way physics is, you can absolutely define something as true or not like wether or not an atom has decayed or that the speed of light in a vacuum is constant.
If you wanna talk about the implications of a universe were everything is determined thats cool and very productive, but fuckin saying that nothing can be determined true or not in determinism is just an aneurysm inducing stupid, stupid statement
@@nomebom7140 is scientific verification the only way to truth?
@@jamespierce5355 Yes, in the objective lab it absolutely does that's the nature of the scientific method and when we base the discussion of determinism on a scientific observation it matters.
@@nomebom7140 I think what he means is that any value statement or ethical precept can no longer be considered true or false, or even have any meaning at all, because values and ethical precepts presupposes that things could have been a different way, which is impossible in a deterministic universe
@@mbmurphy777Not just ethics but epistemology is impossible under determinism.
I would kill to hear you discuss this with alex o connor, i think that would make it into my top 10 conversations to watch.
Im on the side of incompatibalism, and i think the redefinition of free will, that aligns with the idea that we can do what we will, but we cannot will what we will, is useful to describe how societally we should describe agency, given our need for accountability and such, but i dont think its necessarily valid in terms of proving agency in an objective sense.
If i am merely the product of my wills, and those wills are merely a product of the biocomputer we call my brain, and the machinations of that biocomputer are determined by the laws of physics and the causal chain stretching back to the big bang, then i am not free, i am simply another system of particles, a puppet of the laws of nature.
I think from a purely utilitarian perspective its rational that we should try and argue for the existence of free will. I dont think that the desperate logic liberates us from the fact that determinism (and, in my view, indeterminism) implies a lack of free agency.
If i can only do A, if, given the exact same initial condition, i would only ever do A, regardless of how far back you start, i am not free in any meaningful sense of the word.
Freedom, Justice. Pick one.
One is free to act just or unjust.
This is the same old argument “what came first the chicken or the egg” But this determinant concept does point to God and His perfect use of it (holiness) vs man and his use of determinism. (Slave to sin) So this concept shows us where and by what God rules by. So where do you look for God if you want evidence of him? That question is for you big thinkers. Keep thinking long enough and it only will point to God.
Still, I’m reminded of the Merovingian in the Matrix series. The discussion between him & Neo regarding the only decision factor vs choice, that being causality vs choice…
Then a later discussion between agent Smith and Neo in a life and death struggle; “Why do you keep fighting , you’ve lost everything “ says Smith.
“Because I choose to” said Neo
Hmmm. Perhaps free will occurs after (only after) all attachments are released or lost.😮
The second is actually from the Greek parable of the hawk and sparrow.. 'why do you struggle..
@@DJWESG1
👍
this channel reminds me of the old Philosophy Tube
we are married to the idea that we have free will in our egos. for others the dissonance of reward and punishment in a choiceless reality push them to believe in free will.
I think the people who do not believe in free will are just frustrated, while those that believe in free will are threatened by this debate.
People who do not believe in free will, often determinists are also people without answers. They just Clinge to something to for intellectual satisfaction
The sleeper was brought to the mountain, and the sleepers gotta sleep, but his bed is now far away, so he has been made the walker for a time. He didn't choose this, he is compelled
I liked this video. But I didn’t have a choice.
Past and future are things that only created things are subject to, God is eternal (outside of time), and as such he knows all things in their presentiality. This allows God to lend us part of his free will while at the same time knowing all things "past, present and future."
Haven’t watched this yet.
Don’t care if I don’t have free will. I’ll choose what I want, and if that choice was guaranteed from the start, what does it change? The choice was still made.
More power to you
My absolute favorite topic!! awesome content as usual!
I've been fascinated by this since learning about it in the late 2000s. Now writing a book on it!
I think it has so much value for society.
Do you mean the idea/belief of free will is valuable to society?
You get to choose, then followed by consequences.
You get not to choose due to various reasons and circumstances prohibiting you to make your own decisions, so other makes it for you or none at all. Regardless, there will still be consequences.
You choose not to choose. Still, it will bear consequences none the less.
What I see are these: there are options and there will always be a result based on the options available. Even if an individual makes an active choice or not, something will still happen at the end of it. Even if nothing happens, that too is a result.
Causality is inevitable. If this is true, then the universe is governed by a "law" that is constantly occuring and is perpetually operating. It appears as if it was set by design. By whom? I believe that it is by the Cause. As far as anything observable in the universe is concerned, something must originate from something. Cause and effect. Beginning and End. Alpha and Omega.
Interpret it as you may like. As we are all finite beings with expiration dates, the worst thing that you can do for yourself is to believe that the universe is the product of an accident.
Did you ever think about uploading your stuff to Spotify. I like your Videos and the style you choose. But I also think that this kinda format would be good as a audio book.
Learn to fight, so you don't look like scrawny intellectual. Great video.
Free will is rooted in a certain conception of how the universe came about, putting the idea of 'free will' itself as a choice. That 'uncaused cause' that defines the basis of a free will is not rooted in the person who chooses it, but in that 'Uncaused Cause' i.e. God that makes reality possible. By choosing to align one's belief with this fundamental notion of reality's beginnings we recognize that we are unique since we can reject or accept the very motion of free will as can only be found in God. So determinism represents the material nature we all struggle against while the Spirit break free from it.
Cool vids . Keep them coming 😁.
🤔Our actions probably dont have free will, coming from physical chemical reactions , but what if our learnt / chosen wants do ?
Eg- i want to eat right, act right etc..
As in, us being a self-overseeing, top down consciousness
( or awareness of ourselves through collected, processed & aligned, internal & external senses data )
& being the driver in gross motor actions, based on what our brain has learnt, works.
With the ability to SOMTIMES pick the best course of action.
Having the ability to have "superpositional" ( just meant descriptively not literally ) thoughts on choices, likes etc.
( 🤔 Sorta like having photos of places you would LIKE to be right now,
but you can only ever BE where your now step & next step leads you.)
But in the end we can only ever work witbin our bodys learnt "safe" actions/ reactions..
So we may learn/ decide we will airy-fairily WANT to choose something,
but unless our brain has learnt HOW to take that action in that particular situation,
AND that it will physically serve us best in the moment, we just dont have that option open..
🤔Our dreams probably help with "practicing" taking wanted actions in those specific situations, when you can't actually "practice" if it will work, in real life..
( could have explained my meaning better if it wasnt 6 in the morning 😋)
😁☮️🌏
I dreaded a video determinism.
What about in the case of a crime committed in the state of temporary insanity? Would compatiblism still accord with general common sense views of culpability? In this case, the crime is still committed via the will, it’s just that it was temporarily a different will. Based on compatibilism, the person could potentially be argued to have acted freely, but the legal system would not deem it so.
This is a great video! You almost made compatibilism sound coherent ;P
To be less snaky about it: I think the point about different gradations of freedom is useful for evaluating how we expect a given person to act, and thus how much of a danger they are to society, say, but I don't think it ultimately allows for the kind of "free" will that would allow us to maintain our colloquial-much less *legal*-use of the term.
If someone murdered their lover in a jealous rage and regretted it immensely after, that's certainly much different than someone who murders their lover with glee and vows to do it to another. And as a society, we want for very good reason to treat them very differently. But are either of these individuals really more free than the other? Sure, the former was overtaken by the force of an acute passion in the moment, but is not the other being acted on by a kind of chronic passion at all times? If someone feels the urge to kill but resists it, if that act of resistance is also determined by all prior antecedent states of reality, then how can we really blame or praise someone for whether this "resist" action happened to come up for them as the last link in a chain of causes that started with the beginning of time? Compatibilism sometimes strikes me as looking at a long sequence of dominoes and circling, like, a section near the end where it wasn't obvious how the dominoes would fall and then saying about the last domino: "See! I couldn't tell exactly which domino was gonna hit it, so it must have had a choice!
In other words, are we not, at any moment "m", doing what moment "m-1" led us to do? Obviously, this is in large part a restatement of determinism, so a compatibilist is theoretically committed to saying this state of affairs does not undermine their position, but I've still never heard a good reason (and I've suffered, btw, all the best attempts to try) why that's the case beyond playing semantics with the "free" part of free will (looking at you, Danny D).
And appeals to the sense of control we *feel* when we take actions really doesn't amount to anything. Optical illusions work because we *feel* like we're seeing something which doesn't turn out to be there. Not to mention, that even the notion that we have a kind of homuncular, unitary self that could be the locus of this free will was more-or-less DESTROYED by the Buddha millennia ago-and modern science has only grown in support of this position. If the "self" is a story we tell our "selves", then how are the parts of that story that involve us actually being in control *not* part of this self-ifying narrative?
Now, as a bit of a curveball, I'm a metaphysical idealist, so I think consciousness is the fundamental substrate of existence and the egoic "I" is really a pale inflection of the true "I" which is actually all there is and ever could be... but that still doesn't in any way allow space for free will of the kind that would justify most of the ways we use it! (I think Strawson's so-called "Basic Argument" does the best job of laying out a metaphysically-neutral denial of free will) To circle back, this is especially true of the legal system, at least in the US. If one really takes on the implications of the free will denier's position, then retributive punishment should obviously serve 0 percent of the function of law and yet, It's one of its major pillars.
Sorry this is so long, and again, good work! But when it comes to compatibilism, just say *no*... not that you actually have a choice either way ;)
I take your point here and to a certain extent I agree. I think my motivation for compatibilism is not to get everything we want back from freewill, but rather to reconstruct as much freewill as possible within our normal system. My actual views are quite pragmatist, and so I tend to view the function of the concept of responsibility as mostly abstracted from an attempt to spot patternst o predict people's future behaviour, which for me makes the distinction between will-based and external causes a bit easier to cut. However, this comes with its own drawbacks (for instance, it becomes very difficult to talk about long-term psychosis on this view).
@@unsolicitedadvice9198 I definitely see your point! And I agree that we need to be able to make the kinds of distinctions you outlined for pragmatic reasons, even under incompatibilism. (And I, of course, also agree with the drawback you acknowledge there).
"I think my motivation for compatibilism is not to get everything we want back from freewill, but rather to reconstruct as much freewill as possible within our normal system."
This is precisely the problem for me. Our "normal systems" are implicitly based on the kind of free will that determinism makes impossible. In my earlier comment, I touched on how that pertains to the justice system-the punishment end of dessert-but I think it equally applies to the rewards side. The whole notion of our (ostensibly) meritocratic systems hinge on the fact that people are sorted and afforded access to resources by virtue of the "value" they produce for the society. In other words: that they *deserve* to have a claim on more of society's goods and services While there are more thoroughgoing critiques as to the validity of such an arrangement, most criticisms (fairly) point out how these systems fail to live up to their own tenets, rather than questioning the underlying assumptions of dessert that undergird them. I would argue that truly understanding the determinist position should, at minimum, make Rawlsian impositions towards inequality absolutely self-evidently necessary, and at maximum, should point us towards much more radical forms of societal equality.
The compatibilist move IMO ends up effectively papering over these issues in favor of manufacturing legitimacy to a system built on false premises. In almost every debate/discussion Dennett has had on the issue, he will at some point lament that philosophers are going around telling people they don't have free will, fearing the impacts it could have on society. This is, of course, a wholly separate question from the truth of the argument itself. And it's ultra-ironic for him to put this forth, given that, as a vocal atheist, he would reject a theist's similar concerns wrt God-and yet he continually makes it a centerpiece to his compatibilist position. Not to mention that I think that there's a very strong case to be made (as I alluded to earlier) that society would *improve* under an acceptance of the incompatibilist position.
In any case, it's not fair to use Dennett's arguments as a stand-in for all compatibilists, as it's never quite fair to reduce any philosophical tradition to any single thinker. But I do think in a kind of Kuhnian way, it'll be interesting to see what happens in all kinds of philosophical domains in a post-Dennettian world... I expect big (and positive IMO) changes specifically re consciousness and free will.
the issue with describing freeness as a scale is that it only further obscures the illusion. saying one action is more "free" than another is really just saying that its causes are more complex, or that we don't understand it.
free will is an illusion. but illusions are real phenomena, we must not necessarily reject them; it's only important that we understand them.
Illusions aren't real🤣🤣🤣
Look, my hand is bigger than the moon, it could easily cover the moon in the sky
@@aiya5777 that's not that i said buddy
@@sorenkair you literally said, illusions are real🤣🤣🤣
@@sorenkair noun: phenomena
1.
a fact or situation that is observed to exist or happen
Illusions are NOT real phenomena🤣🤣 I don't have an airhead bubble buddy
@@aiya5777
3. PHILOSOPHY
the object of a person's perception; what the senses or the mind notice.
perhaps it was too difficult for you to understand that I'm not talking about the truth behind the illusion, but the nature of the illusion itself. centrifugal force is not a real force, but within a rotating frame of reference, it is useful and apparent.
"As mortals, we're ruled by conditions, not by ourselves."
Bodhidharma
Quite different from determinism. Most determinists disagree with the idea of self being real
@@sigmachadtrillioniare6372would you mind doing an eli5 about that? I am new at philosophy and id like to know, if you want to explain of course
@@sigmachadtrillioniare6372 Then that actually makes it the same as Buddhism.
Well, even if we define a scale for freedom, the previous arguements still stand that ultimately no will is the person's own. I think we should stop trying to reconcile freedom with our idea of 'moral justice'. Justice could just be that people are locked away by society so society can function function properly. This could include any reason for proper functioning, even false accusations(though mostly that wouldn't be the case). It's got nothing to do with freedom. One might point out what if the person was forced into doing something wrong? Well, if he poses a threat to society still, he'll be punished, if he does not, then he would be spared. My arguement is that not only is there no freedom, but we don't necessarily need the idea of freedom.
I think to a certain extent this is quite a philosophically admirable line of thinking because it does “bite the bullet” of determinism and then says “now what?”
@@unsolicitedadvice9198 I would like to add that this isn't what I think 'should be happening' but rather, what 'is happening'. I think the very arguement that free will exists, or even compatibility is a result of humans trying to reconcile their broken morality with their beliefs that they are moral. Much like how cognitive dissonance and rationalization exist on an individual scale.
This is exactly what I've been thinking for a long time. If you use ethical pragmatism as a guide for how to define concepts and which discussions to focus on, it really exposes a lot of these conversations as detatched theoretical musings or even just virtue signalling.
Some societies, like the US, are obsessed with a concept of "justice", a sort of metaphysical principle supported by free will, which is ultimately nothing more than a rationalized emotion of vengeance. Other societies, like Norway, prioritize a more humanist (and maybe unintentionally utilitarian) way of dealing with crime: rehabilitation. This is done with the understanding that
1. People can change for the better
2. Rehabilitation is more cost effective
3. Rate of recidivism is lower.
One of these clearly leads to a happier society. But as a prerequisite, it requires that you discard this notion of "freedom" and "justice", recognize it as an instinctual emotional reaction that only leads to more harm and learn to let it go. Because knowing that the murderer of your father runs free is bad, but having him murder your mother too is worse.
So presumably if someone committed heinous crimes against another group in order to seize their resources for the benefit of his own, that would be a moral action because what he did was good for his society? This individual is not a harm to his own society, so under the laws of determinism he’s morally sound?
@@scrupulousscruplesI'm not saying that it is, by any means, moral. I'm trying to define justice, and it doesn't seem like morality is essential to the definition. The situation you state of, would be an act of justice from his society's perspective and an act of injustice from the society's perspective that has been harmed. I never said it is morally sound.
My will is determined by what I want . What I want is determined by the way I feel and by the way I think . If your will comes against my will one of us must die . And the one surviving will call it divine justice .
and what determines the way you are?
@@sorenkair My primordial nature . The material that I'm made of .
@@cristig243 and your primordial nature began the same time the universe did, as did every atom in your body.
@@sorenkair Yes, and I wasn't talking mainly about the visible atoms . Only God knows how to deal with this primordial matter, because it is self contradictory, chaotic and destructive .Glory to God !
Can you do one on Marcel Proust please!!!!
Scales you say .......but the problem is never of the scales....there are only two possibilities in any given situation either what you did was determined or random, both means no free will... what you are describing is the diffrent kinds and intensities of will in different situations......diversity in the types of will does not mean it is now more or less freewill...it is still just will in different proportions.
What I see is people always seem to confuse will with freewill in these debates....no matter what is the strength, you are still only feeling your will not Freewill...freewill doesn't even make any sense unless you call your will as freewill but then it defeats the meaning itself, bcs your will is not free, it just is.
The probability version can also be seen as free in another way. Because we can do random things, we can learn new things. We can be creative that way. Without the randomness there is no true creativity, just something building on a past cause.
randomness is antithetical to creativity. what you're probably referring to is the inability to pinpoint our inspirations.
@@sorenkair if the creativity is based on external inspiration it is a reassembling of some existing things. If it is a totally new idea than where does it come from? If stemming from Newtonian mechanics it is not truly creative.
@@daanschone1548 every snowflake can be said to be new, as no two are identical. but not necessarily different in an interesting way, which is what creativity seeks to do. our brains are not quantum computers, and that's the only source of true randomness in our universe.
our ideas only seem random because of the incredible complexity of our brains, like the tiny atmospheric variations that create unique snowflake.
@@sorenkair our brains are not quantum computers. But QM seems to have function in the brain. ua-cam.com/video/R6G1D2UQ3gg/v-deo.htmlsi=0vfhQoEklYdVc7Vh And I think if QM random/probability is real than it might just be the reason every snowflake is unique.
@@sorenkair the reason every snowflake is unique might be just QM. And if you interpret QM as non deterministic than our brains are neither.
The problem of free will is only for those who reject metaphysics or have no way to absolutely ground them.
What?
@@donjindra If you reject metaphysics or don't have a way to give them coherence by grounding them free will becomes an difficult to prove idea. These issues are only issues for atheist empiricists
@@metrach8901 IMO, metaphysics is a vague term. One can't really reject it until one knows how you use the term, and then the rejection is of the definition, not of reality itself. I'd probably fall into your "atheist materialist" category but I believe in free will. So you're wrong about that.
@@donjindra meta-physical that which is not dependent upon material reality like the laws of logic and math.
As an atheist materialist you cannot explain how free will is possible or where it comes from. It is more logical from your worldlview to adopt determinism that the world is changing since the big bang things are moving in a certain direction and we behave as we have been evolved to. Nothing we do is 'free' it only appears to be from our vantage point. Morality is evolving along with us and anything that is mind dependent like social constructs. In the future we cannot know what people will think or act like, we can only extrapolate that they will be 'more-evolved' than us.
@@metrach8901 "meta-physical that which is not dependent upon material reality like the laws of logic and math."
So you define the metaphysical to be the supernatural, or at the very least a dualist "substance." That is not what I think of as metaphysics. Most philosophers define it as ways of thinking about reality. Everyone who thinks about reality -- which is most of us -- has a metaphysics. That's why I thought it strange that you claimed some people deny metaphysics.
"As an atheist materialist you cannot explain how free will is possible or where it comes from."
I don't need to explain how free will is possible. It simply is -- a brute fact. I experience will and choice and I have no reason to deny that experience. Nor do I need to explain where it comes from, although I think that's pretty obvious -- from processes in our brains. It is not more logical from my worldview to adopt determinism. Quantum physics has rejected determinism. So it's illogical to clutch onto a view of a deterministic universe. I say Sam Harris and other "determinists" have a religious worldview. They have an irrational faith in a determined fate. But I don't share that faith.
Your just saying that.
People are forced to think and do the types of things that their type of genetics and their types of life experiences program them to think and do throughout their life. Who and how someone happens to be is an extremely unfair unjust lottery that is dependent on what type of genetics that they happen to have and depending on what types of life experiences they happen to have throughout their life.
It's not about freewill, it's about having a true Sentient mind. The less sentient the mind the more outside forces can sway its decisions. The more sentient the mind the more it realizes it has no control of its decisions. This is a scale not of the physical world.
I am not aware of any possible mechanism by which something called "free will" can happen.
Have you heard of Robert Sapolisky..? I assume so. Because he is a neurologist, he looks at what a brain does mostly after the fact but we're getting to the point where we can watch a brain cognate in real time. If we have a Will, it's likely a bounded one I think. We can't chose to do *anything* our choices are a subset of what is possible. Mostly it involves continuing what we are doing, or doing something else. We rarely do anything exceptionally unexpected. I really like the metaphor of a monkey riding a tiger. The tiger is determined {sometimes the unconscious or the ID}, the monkey is our consciousness. The tiger does whatever it likes. The monkey tells itself, "I meant to do that."
.
It may be that we have a magic homunculus on the quantum level. When the event horizon of now collapses the probability field of spacetime into the past, we have a nano-pico-fecto second of choice. {I saw an interview with a old brit, physicist I think, talking about this} I wonder if "free will" is a binary where you either have it or you don't, and I'm including degrees of freedom as having it. Could it be that what we think of as "free will" is an emergent property of packing enough neurons into a small space in just the right configuration, and... Bang! Sentient Consciousness. We think some animals have it. I think most babies do not, which is why we don't have memories of that time of our lives. Object permanence develops near the end of the first year. Does a chicken have free will..? How did you choose your parents? Oddly, I don't have a dog in this fight, because nihilism. Like finding out there was microbial life in our solar system, the answer to the question of free will would not affect my day to day life in a meaningful way. Funny old world
While free will is Impossible, because it is contradictory, the thoughts and believes in and about it are possible, albight being wrong, because necessarily contradictory.
methhead take right here.
But the will is determined, right? Our genetics, environment and personal history influence our worldview, actions and choices. I think these things determine our will in some way
I find changing the definition of free will pretty unsatisying as i think when most people, who aren't steeped in philosophical ideas, reference free will they're refering to the 'I could have done otherwise'.
That being said one of the biggest problems i have (maybe 'uneasy feeling' is closer to what i mean than 'problem') with determinism is that it seems to retroactively use outcomes to demonstrate that there was no ither option. (Well you did x, therefore you were always going to do x or x was always going to happen).
I am curious on how much our understanding of free will relies on our conception of time. If our fundamental assumptions of time are wrong, then does that logic we use for determinism unravel?
The other thought I had is if multiverses exist, and there are infinite multiverses, if randomness (refering to a non casual structure in physics) does exist. Then there would be infinite universes within the multiverse where physics would randomly play out as if it was casual based, even if it's not. So in this instance if randomness can exist then the idea of 'I could have done otherwise' could still exist. Of course I have no way of proving any of that, and it heavily relies of speculative ideas about a multiverse and the seemingly fiction idea that maybe physics might not be casual in nature.
Hello there,I'm new to Philosophy and struggling find which book to choose.Stoicism caught my mind then,but is it it good though as a starter?Or other suggestions to read or read next?Thank you!
Plato and Epictetus are great places to start.
@@ElonMuskrat-my8jy okay thanks
Please share your personal philosophy in a video!
marcus aurelius some how made me a Calvinist
That's really interesting. How did that happen?
Thing that Marcus Aurelius made you calvinist is already confusing. But maybe you're not calvinist in the traditional sense and your “god’ is different. Even so I'll be happy to hear how
@@sigmachadtrillioniare6372 not exactly a Puritan but believe in predetermination. Marcus Aurelius briefly speaks on god in the mediations if I remember right(calls it root cause or something) and from there it is some what of a pragmatic argument (at first). Then you eventually kinda mingle the determinism and christianity and get predetermination. I get the compatibillism but it seems like a giant cope atheist or the theistic especially once you consider free will and determinism a false dichotomy in which the subjective or objective view is taken. My understanding of calvinism is not that deep but its kind of the easiest thing to self identify as ig. The epicurean paradox was also relevant not for disproving god but instead free will(evil exist because God found it necessary to some extent). From there it was what god would i want to have faith in and Christ is based. So Marcus lead to determinism led to god led to predetermination led to calvinism i guess
How about the buddhist approach. Everything has a cause and effect, being interdependent. Every thought, compulsion and emotion. Causality of the mind.
I think the one thing I can’t agree with the determinist belief is that thoughts and decisions are physical. My brain might be physical but the thoughts it producers and the decisions those thoughts come to are not physical. They’re intangible and physics doesn’t really apply or matter to things that are intangible.
you have physical neurons firing physical electrical signals. your brain simply interprets them as thoughts and actions. the fact that we are aware of this is what gives rise to the illusion of free will.
The will can chose between A and B, but it has no say whatsoever about the content of A and B.
The apparent inherent randomness in quantum mechanics does still leave the possibility for free will, also, I would agree that if we do have free will, it would be very very limited, but it has to only be a free choice between 2 options, like doing or not doing something.
Well, randomness or probabilistic mechanisms don’t really rescue free well unfortunately. It just means that instead of you making a decision, it was made randomly or ballistically
@@mbmurphy777Randomness does not save free will, but there is a possibility for that randomness to not be random, the possibility of choice.
But you need to have previous data about those two options to be able to choose .
Do you have discord? I’d love to discuss this with you
compatibalism seems like a neat concept, though obviously not without its flaws as all human undertakings are. we are inherently irrational creatures trying to make sense of a world, that simply put, doesn't. personally, I find the notion that determinists think everything can be explained outside of certain subatomic particles to be rife with human error and contradiction. we are already aknowledging that we don't understand certain aspects of the world, but then we want to claim we have this deterministic understanding of our own consciousness? I find that premise pretty silly. if the world is truly deterministic, then there should be no exceptions in the logic. those particles or whatever are not exceptions that act outside of the framework, they are clearly working within it just outside of our current scope of knowledge. the exceptions that exist only come down to our lack of understanding of the world itself, which will always be flawed and incomplete. to think that it won't be is idealistic and hopeful at best, and downright arrogant at worst. having forces outside of our control act upon us doesn't inherently contradict the concept of freewill. is our free will not determined by our ability to reason in spite of these forces? I sympathize with both sides of the free will vs determinism debate, but ultimately it seems like a frivolous argument to place definitions upon inherent truths all humans know to be self evident. this isn't even to say that definitions are a bad thing, in fact I believe very much the opposite. having a clear understanding of a dialectic we can all agree on is fundamental to having meaningful discussions on any topic, and I think the lack of such a thing (or rather a very intentional decinstruction of it over the last few generations) is one of the biggest problems in the west today. I guess, all I am saying is, don't get bogged down by the minutia of things too much and waste away your time arguing over semantics. definitions are important, but they can be a double edged sword if misused. there is just something about this particular branch of philosophy that rubs me the wrong way from both of the commonly accepted frameworks, and the arguments used in both favor for and opposition of them. still, always an interesting exercise of the mind, I suppose.
ironically, in a postmodern world, people use their freedom to explore every possible thought and position - you can only reject free will because you have the freedom to.
The universe would be 90% Determinism and 10% Freewill, in the form of choice. Example would be throwing a stone. Determinism already has worked out how the stone will be thrown, but not where. There are innumerable places the stone could be pitched, but only one place it would end up.
But according to the laws of physics, the end position of the stone is determined by the position of atoms in the water, rock and air, the forces acting upon the masses (wind, gravity and etc). So it may seem like it could end up in many positions, but when taking these factors into account, it is theoretically possible to predict where it would land. We just don’t have the knowledge or technology to do this.
And another funny thing - we do not have free will, but we still have full responsibility for our decisions. Oh yes, God works in mysterious ways ...
PS Imagine it like a chess game. We are bound to play after the rules, but our actual decisions decide if we win or lose.
Our free will is only excercised in decideng to take part on the game.
Without free will there is no just deserts for our actions. The god of Calvin is false. We have free will given by God. Nothing can take it away.
Honestly, I'm unwilling to believe that this entire time people have seriously been treating freedom as binary as you suggest, that is NUTS to me
Oh it is not that they always do. It is more that they do in some contexts (e.g., in political philosophy) but then this nuance is often forgotten when it comes to the debate around compatibilism, at least in practice