Neil. I'll tell you my biggest fear is that if someone is a determinist they are almost definitely an atheist, a democrat, and a technocrat. Surely you can realize how such underlying ideas can lead to a George Orwell book. Me, personally, I think the brain is a tool-- just like your hands, a drill, or a hammer. If you mess with any of those tools then the self will not be as able to effectively achieve the goals that the self wishes to achieve. Meaning both can be true: making a bad decision to take drugs is sawing off the tip of a pick axe. And, yes, bad decisions are more common among people of lower socio-economic status-- but the lower socio-economic status also correlates strongly with not having two parents in the home. Not having two parents in the home correlates with the parents not taking responsibility for their actions. I tend to lean toward prima facie arguments because they tend to be true. I think it violates Occum's Razor to undermine every decision you've ever made by insisting on determinism.
@@Darth_Niki4what's next? A bachelor who isn't married? They couldn't put the fourth dimension at 90 degrees and came up with a tesseract in an attempt to move from 3d to 4d. And even the that tassaract is only their best attempt at the projection of a 4d model in a 3d world, not a real 4d object which we can't perceive. And my friend you are telling me "appeared" for a circle that can be squared. Please!
A parenting book said "Remember that children are usually doing the best they can, and don't get mad at them." I told myself that so many times as my kids were growing, and it really helped me be patient and look at them as a whole process of learning, not just one moment of a mistake. Now, I realize it's not just children. Most people lead very complicated lives in their minds/bodies, and they really are trying, even if it doesn't seem like it.
I am certain that I was guided by God to this comment. My wife is recovering from a kidney transplant that didn't work....so she is dealing with the physical healing and the sadness of it happening at all. While this is a TOTALLY understandable situation, the fact that I do a lot for her before the surgery is not as beneficial as we try to get her back to the abilities she had before the surgery. The decision to push yourself to get back to what you were or accept the physical impairment as a potentially lifelong impairment is an absolute choice.... just as I will have to choose tough love or total comfort and understanding or a balance in between. How tough is tough enough is never as simple as are they doing the best they can....not when so much is at stake. But what is the right answer is always hard to know.
Yeah, I believe that. We can try to extrapolate to loving everyone for what they are (you never know what someone else is going through), but with innocents it is definitely more understandable. I believe that of animals, that they are perfectly performing the life given to them, because they have even less knowledge and self-consciousness, and work with instinct. I hate it when people are angry at dogs for just being what they are--and doing their best--better than humans, it seems. Your post reminds me of my friend and his kids, who I lived with for years. Sometimes when they were acting up, he just smiled and observed them until things calmed down. He just looked at them with love, not demanding that they immediately " toe the line". You may think that's permissive, but they became the greatest adults.
I've put some thought into that in the past as well, and I've uttered that on several occasions. It's a niggling consideration, but I wonder what it really means for one to be doing their best in any given circumstance. In reality, no matter what their performance is at any given moment relative to their theoretical maximum performance, they're simply doing what their life led up to in that moment and they couldn't have done otherwise. Do we just call it their best by definition because it's literally the only thing that could have happen, upon reflection? And in such a case, if you're TOO blasé about that fact, you (not YOU, but people in general) perhaps run the risk of undercorrecting children or others in general. I guess it's the unnecessary frustration that can go away without missing it. Sorry, I'm rambling lol
Probably the greatest playlist on UA-cam. These 30+ hours of lecture he have on the Standford channel are probably my best investment on this platform in years
THANK God? No... That Neil and his guests for enlightening the world toward a more civilized and advanced understanding of human nature. 'Free will' had always been garbage meant to uphold the power structure. Praise the powerful and indict the weak--all garbage.
you need to get around if you think you lucked out by being alive when these 2 thinkers were. you have no ideas what's out there. today, tomorrow, and before you entered this world lol.
and are they great thinkers??? if you are listening to this then they are great regurgitators of information that they were exposed to and then they automatically without freewill are saying what they have no control over saying....blah blaaa blahhh!!!! i do like neil degrasse tyson but this is a little much, as he said there is no way to prove this guy wrong, anything you propose he would say that proves his point.......
@@JohnLee-or9im Sure, we can only use the words we learned, anything we might say in the future is a combination of the past. This fact changes nothing. People keep delusionally believing what they "discovered" will fundamentally change society if people just "follow" the example they set. In fact it has little to no effect, although he is mostly correct (logically), no matter what words we say, what tools we discover, we keep repeating the same patterns over and over again. The scale changes, new tools are invented and behaviours repeat
Dr. Sapolsky’s books- like “why zebras don’t get ulcers” and his online lectures from Stanford Uni are life changing! One of my favorite scientists! Great to see him
@kavorka8855 that's ridiculous... zebras DO have to deal with, but not limited to: -constant weather -lack of health-care -constant bug infestations -constant fear of poaching -constant feeling of just blending in with the crowd, no feeling of real independent identity (spots, etc.)
He's done loads,I've got the audiobook too. I'm not sure if he's saying we should ditch things like pride, while they don't make sense there's still utility in it even if you don't believe in free will cause you can't totally escape the notion.
Dr. Sapolsky has long been one of my favorite scientists. He makes many of his phenomenal lectures free to the public online, which is something I greatly appreciate. Thanks for having him on!
I’ve got so much love and respect for Professor Sapolsky! Life is such a runaway snowball, rolling downhill and once you get that concept, you grow so much empathy towards people that have less or are in worse situations.
So true. It’s so easy to take for granted why someone acts the way they do and are the way they are but as soon as you appreciate it the entire idea of hating anyone or thinking anyone intrinsically deserves more or less than anyone else goes out the window.
Wow, that's spot on. In my musings on this subject it occurred to me that understanding the nature of time would be a prerequisite to any scientific examination of free will. For example, if we accept the "block universe" concept of spacetime there is no room for free will as it is generally understood. Which brings up another important point, we need a more precise definition of free will before we can begin to discuss it meaningfully. Just because something is an illusion doesn't mean it's not real
I'm glad yall exist because the things you're saying here basically is similar to my personal experience where people told me I just didn't want to do things, or I was making excuses because I couldn't/can't do a thing in school. Only to learn years later I'm autistic with adhd, and suddenly all my failing at life made sense to me and the guilt and shame I had melted away. Please continue to bring awareness to all these issues because it's still very hard! I'm glad that there are professionals that understand things like this!
Amen to this thought! I, too, found a great sense of relief and life finally made sense when I was 74 years old and found out I am on the autism spectrum!!!!! Whew. Life is suddenly much easier👏👏👏👏
@@xrgiok That is the natural conclusion to reach when you know nothing. Entertain me with your 55 IQ and explain how awareness, reality, and self are "non-proven beliefs"
@@yourlogicalnightmare1014if you have to resort to insults when questioning the validity of a “god” figure and put another (just as conscious and aware person) down…i really don’t think you have the grounds to be arguing about “intelligence”. those whom are defensive of their beliefs live in glass houses. your, nor any human being’s anecdotes are above any others. i suggest you calm down, humble yourself - and treat those how you want to be treated - just like the “god” you oh so dearly have faith in commands you to do…according to your books “he” wouldn’t be very proud of your little temper tantrum you just threw…now would “he”?
@@LostTemplate 🫵😂 Two things can be true at the same time. For example, a more hawn could make a claim about something they know nothing about, and a deeply informed, tremendously well studied individual who knows the subject at hand better than 99% of the population, could correctly assert that the more hawn is in fact a more hawn. I have 20 years studying the nature of awareness, consciousness, self, reality, and god, and I have very low tolerance for more hawns who male false and 'ignant' claims about them
Lol he didn't say he's a good person with no fault, he mentioned a few things that he wouldn't do even if they're not enforced by law. And what you define as a good or bad person is subjective or I would say relative
The fact that Sapolski can sit up immediately after a 2 hour couch nap and still be this coherent while having the interview on the same couch is quite amazing.
He is amazing but, why is there no mention of feedback loops. Memory as it is formed in both biological and computing logic system need feedback loops. The brain creates it's internal monolog, which gets fed back into the system stimulates new concepts, memories and emotions, and that gets turned into the words of the internal monolog, repeat. Eventually the monolog produces something from which the network stabilizes into a state where the decision is made. I think there is more complexity to discuss in this, there is a conscious part of the brain that is listening to the monolog and has some parameters about what kind of solution it is looking for (direction of thought).
@@haylekm Some people have no inner monologue, but I can't remember which Consciousness science podcast i heard this from...But he essentially said that your thoughts arise out of preceding thoughts to a small degree...but the decisions are basically a vote between neurons. the strongest signal produces your choice. that signal strength is effected by genetics, memory, learning, positive and negative experience, words that other brains transmitted about it etc. so your thoughts try to standardize about things, but can change with new plastic forces which alter the neurons to produce a different signal strength.
I would have appreciated a longer discussion about what his definition of "free will" is. I contend he's discussing circumstances and biological processes rather than free will.
I totally agree - free will is not really discussed, and it could be so well addressed by a physics expert - the impact of relativity (pretty obvious) and quantum mechanics (devilishly difficult).
@MedXOR this is nonsensical. What is the mechanism for free will? It cannot be described. How are humans any more than deterministic physical systems? Saying that yet to be understood quantum phenomena are where free will comes from is a "free will of the gaps" argument. Before we knew about hormones and neurons, we believed humans were magical beings with souls and vital forces. Before we knew what atoms and molecules were, we believed in all sorts of absurd models for what matter is made of. Now there are still unexplained phenomena, but you think the seeming randomness of subatomic particles grants us free will? At best that means it's a random, non-deterministic system, which is hardly free will any more than basing your decisions on dice rolls would constitute free will.
I think you just pulled the best Sapolsky interview. Sapolsky is always fun, but the energy in this scientific approach to the line of questions put to him to break his theory down was better than anyone else has managed .
he was on a political podcast here in the uk.. (the rest is politics) a good programme and he was just so fascinating.. talking mostly about primate behaviour (and of course linking back to politicians lol)
Not that fun, really. Telling people they don't have free will and that accountability doesn't make sense. I recall Dr. Huemer roasting Sapolsky on this debate.
I love when Tyson says that in modern-day, junkies aren't arrested. Nice and Sapolsky are spot on. Tyson can be out of touch. Nice is the perfect balance for Tyson: Nice is more approachable, and though also highly intelligent, not as arrogant.
"It's not a matter of punishment, it's a matter of nurturing and understanding" 100% yes! And beyond that, creating the environment and context that produces prosocial behavior and provides the opportunity for people to thrive.
And awareness that the prosocial is found in the motivation for the behaviour employed by an individual. One culture/individual's rudeness is another culture/individual's display of respect. 😅
I read the primate’s memoire in undergrad! It was my primatology class and we had a book discussion. When I tell you we were SHOCKED at the ending! I never thought I would cry over baboons. That book has stuck with me for years. Such beautiful writing!
Yes, I Love Neil but he really has a bad habit of interrupting people. I believe he has all the right intentions of wanting to add some info or humor to the conversation and he usually has some valuable information or insight to add but he tends to overdo it.
@@ignorasmusit's funny, I talk very similarly to Neil, and I have to fight against interupting, because my brain is in a constant struggle to go off on tangents and adding stuff in while someone else is talking is the only way I can keep myself focused on what they say .... I have fairly extreme add and I would guess it's a similar explanation. May just be an interrupter though.
"Most of what we are is non physical, though, our lowest form is physical. All life on our planet has the lowest form, the Body. Our Body is an Animal and the other type of Body on our planet is a Plant. Bodies are bound absolutely to Natural Law, which is the lowest form of true Law. Natural Law is a localised form of Law and is derived from the Laws of Nature. Natural Law is the finite and specific foundational control structure ordering the actions and interactions of species, members of species, and the material sources of a planet. The lowest non physical form of what we are is the Mind, which is a Process. There are other forms of life on our planet that have both a Body and a Mind, however, so far as we currently know, there are no Plants and only some Animals that have a Body and a Mind. The lowest forms of Mind, Instinct and Emotion, are predominantly bound to Natural Law. The next higher form of Mind is Intellect which is bound predominantly to the Laws of Nature. Intuition, the highest form of Mind, can be bound or not to both Natural Law and the Laws of Nature separately or together, or to higher forms of Law altogether. Intuition is the truest guide for our Selves. The next non physical form of what we are is the Self, which is an Awareness. There are relatively few other forms of life on our planet that have a Self. The Self is not bound to any form of Law other than One's Own Law. It is the only form of Law that cannot be violated. The foundation of what we are is the highest non physical form of what we are. The highest form of what we are is the Being, which is an Existence. The Being is not bound to any form of Law originating within Existence. The Being is bound absolutely to The Law. Existence, and the Laws of Nature which are the finite and specific foundational control structure ordering the actions and interactions of all elements within Existence, cannot Be without The Law being The Law. So, what is The Law? In a word, The Law is options. Definition option: a thing that is or may be chosen. The word 'option' does convey the idea of The Law in its most basic sense but does not clarify all of what The Law is. Free Will does describe how our species experiences The Law but does not convey all of what The Law is. In clarifying what The Law is; The capitalised form of the word 'The' indicates the following noun is a specific thing. Law is the finite and specific foundational control structure ordering the actions and interactions of all elements subordinate. Together, the words 'The' and 'Law' (in that exact order,) is a proper noun indicating; the singular form of Law that all other forms of Law and all other Laws are founded upon, the singular foundation upon which Existence is founded, the singular foundation upon which Non Existence is founded, the singular foundation connecting Existence to Non Existence, the concept of options, and Free Will. However one thinks, believes, guesses, hopes, or "knows", whether by a Big Bang, a creation story, a computer program, an expansion of consciousness, or whatever means by which Existence could have come to Be, the option for Existence to not Be also exists. Existence and Non Existence, the original options connected by the very concept of options, connected by The Law. Outside of space and before time. Extra-Existential. As we experience The Law in our Being, The Law is Free Will. The First Protector of The Law is Freely Given Consent. The First Violation of The Law is Theft of Consent." - Goho-tekina Otoko
I'm 29 and been listening to Sapolsky speak since I was 12. Probably the scientist I admire the most. His lectures on evolutionary biology should be a right of passage. They tell you so much about us as a species, and how that expresses itself in our individuality and the choices we make. The interesting thing is when I say "the choices we make", that phrase is precisely what has been the ongoing debate. It gets semantic until it gets very, very real, in it's real world implications.
I am fairly new to him, but i am familiar with determinism philosophically from an eastern religion context, politically from classical marxism, and scientifically from, well, science. But while I agree with some of his conclusions, it seems to me what's happening here is a lack of scanning the horizons of theoretical physics and philosophy on his part is causing his incredulity or surprise, and then sweeping claims that aren't coherent. For example, I think we have some amount of free will, because like free will, we aren't objectively real - as us, as selves. So free will is for selves, which is what we are, but those are also not empirically found in the brain, or body or anywhere, they are emergent simulations on that level, but for us they are real. So he's a bit like a doctor saying we need to change the way we do liver surgery because at the relativistic or quantum level, there is no discreet thing called a liver. Well for sure we can get insights into medicine and surgery this way, and we have, but on the whole that's just confusion.
@emilianosintarias7337 free will has implications in every major field of science and medicine and every other industry. It's confusing to digest free will on a macro level, but in situations like, for example, law, it's simpler to understand why presuming free will's existence is vital. Life in prison is something we have to get right.
But that already depends on the idea that the purpose of law is justice (which assumes free will), rather than the enforcing of social norms. What I am saying is that a total lack of free will on the level of society or individuals is incoherent - for the same reason it is coherent at a more macro level. Thus, it is in actually already established socio political concepts like buddhism, traditional libertarianism, communism, socialism, social democracy, etc, that we can find answers about how to organize industries and laws compassionately. They all assume that free will is constrained by social and natural factors, but don't dispense with it totally@@nothimbutbetteractually
@@askedofgod9067Social norms and religions have an enormous impact on us, so you’re actually right. People often confuse the absence of free will with fate. It’s easier to think of historical events as dominos. No need for free will here.
Robert Sapolsky's lectures on Wondrium should be standard curriculum at high schools. He distills an enormously complex subject matter of brain chemistry and resulting behavior into something high school students could understand - and should be exposed to. Understanding lack of free will should change our legal / moral compass, as well as how we treat other people and ourselves. This is enormously important! Thanks Neil deGrasse Tyson for having the insight to bring this topic to the foreground and asking the probing questions.
This is super interesting. I recently took an avalanche training course (AIARE) and one of the things I was surprised at was the emphasis on creating a framework for decision making that doesn’t allow you to make a bad decision. There was a lot of emphasis on recognizing things that could affect your decision making- are you hungry? Are you going through a breakup? Are you cold and tired? Are you deferring to an expert even if you’re uncomfortable taking a risk? You have to make sure everyone in the group is comfortable saying they are uncomfortable- which as social apes is actually difficult. For example more people die in avalanches on days that have blue skies because they take more risks
@@dayoonman3264 You don't. You're simply using the term free will, however his case is literally no different from...literally everything. If you read that there are many car accidents, so you'd rather take the bus everyday...you make a choice after reading some data. But weighing options, as you say, name me one situation where you don't weigh an option? You could say the simplest thing like breathing while asleep. However even then, you're brain keeps making a decision every milli milli second how long or a deep breath. Your brain is the machine that calculates everything, like a dog calculating why he got a treat so he can replicate that action. And we, as in our conscious is a simple spectator.
@@SOSULLI today my wife asked me if I wanted the green apple or the red one. Instead of weighing the option, I asked my wife to do eenie meanie mienie mo
@@dayoonman3264 And your ‘wife’ replied in frustration, can’t deal with these games, you get it yourself? Or perhaps, well you know what honey, you can have both
Somehow he got Neil and Arsineal Hall buying this crap too. You guys ever read the Bible hmmm? Tree of life? tree of knowledge of good and evil? Ever hear of those, Bobby?
One positive result of the pandemic lockdowns for me was discovering Sapoksky's Stanford lectures. Now I've read 3 of his fascinating books and myn life 's been enriched. It's sad that school convinces many that science is not for them.. it really is down to the teachers you get.
If it conforts you, the government just want a person smarth enough to push a button, but not to know how that machine really works. Of course, there's a lot of people that make those machines, but not all of them.
Amazing you had Dr. Sapolsky on! I took a dive through UA-cam last year and watched his lectures and couldn't stop watching the class. Amazing teacher and such interesting findings. I still love watching him when he comes up, so this is a real treat!
There was a great Radiolab where they talked about this lady who was stuck in a loop from medicine or something, and she would go through the exact same logic steps because she wasn't storing any new memories. It was like groundhog day over and over. Honestly, it was really compelling to me, it made me think about that idea of us being biological machines. She would repeat the same questions, the same answers, said the same weird little details, etc, exactly the same each and every time for hours.
We have free will on things we are not born with.The way we look & where are we born,we have no choice.we are free 2 think.We are fully free 2 do what we like,without harming other livings creatures.
If Christ made you then you indeed don't have any free will. It's been written and scripted in his eyes. Everything that has happened to you and will happen he intended. Sowwie.
OMG, Robert is such a hoot! I love this collaboration. I must say, South Africa (where I live) is a grand example of how culture can be changed. You guys may not understand how much people like Mandela and Tutu have done to fast-track social change and catalyse behavioural overhaul. It's still flawed and the road to healing and integration is long, but this is most certainly possible. It's just not effective without leaders who drive it from the top-down (which is why Rassie Erasmus is serving as a secondary lateral-hero and unifier at present)
Really interesting point. As a progressive-leaning person from the US, I feel like there's so much our two nations can learn from each other's examples of having to suddenly, out of the blue (but not really because it was obvious to everyone outside the situation that it was unsustainable at best, immoral and unethical at worst), integrate very different cultural/racial populations that had been held in a state of artificially, violently enforced inequality. Just after the US Civil War, there was a truly revolutionary wave of Americans of African descent being elected to local, state, and even federal positions. This was then faced with a brutal backlash with groups like the KKK, which formed the basis for the organized white supremacy movements we have today. Personally, I'm of the belief that the US would have been ultimately better off if, after the Civil War, we'd taken a stance more like Germany has taken regarding the darkest movement in their nation's history. Instead, we just all shook hands "like gentlemen" and let the atrocities continue on the sly.
I have already read 2 of Dr. Sapolsky books “behave” and “why zebras don’t get ulcers” and he is one of my favorite authors. So happy to watch this conversation happen. If you enjoyed , you can read his new books and can “read” behave where Robert has roughly 700 pages of further justification
This has got to be one of the best interviews on Startalk. Neil and Chuck's interventions are as apposite as usual, and I always marvel at how Chuck, while genuinely interested and contributive to the conversation, is still funny, not because he's trying, but because he's just made that way and can't help himself. (A kind of appropriate observation now I come to think of it!)
So many people (who still watch and listen, btw) complain at their interview style and that Chuck isn't funny. If we could plot humor on an X Axis and Intellect on a Y Axis, Chuck is crushing it
I'm always where Robert Sapolsky is invited. I'm 52 years old and when I was a teen I tend to come up with the same conclusion that free will doesn't exist. Simply by observing my violent mother and my alcoholic father (violent, angry everyday with my sisters and I between 4 an 8 years old, they where psychotic and neurotic, with their very difficult past, and observing my class mate, etc.) This made me a very patient, gloom, distant, and introverted person (as little as I know.) ... and that did not help me with life...
One thing it can do for you: you can be assured that IT WASN'T YOUR FAULT. And it was never your problem to solve, so there is no reason to blame yourself for not stopping them. You absolutely have my sympathy - it must have been horrible.
Fabulous conversation. This mirrors my experience as a social worker and mental health clinician. We know that one's formative years have an incredibly large impact on the rest of a person's life (see ACE scores). So much of my work is dealing with the problems caused by childhood trauma, even in patients in their 60's and beyond. You can't rationally blame a person for what happened to them as a child, but as a society we effectively do that all the time. Freewill is a fiction and a bludgeon used by the privileged to blame the disadvantaged for their circumstances while justifying their own elevated position in the hierarchy, and it's disgusting.
I've listened to him several times. But this discussion is the first time I understood the point of it all. Thank you Niel and Chuck. Very enlightening conversation.
I have listened to many, many, arguments on this subject of “Free Will” over the past several years. Quite honestly, I’m still having trouble with accepting it as a part of my daily reality of existence. I believe Neil hit the nail on the head. If this perspective of having “No Free Will” is true and really is what’s going on every day with our every day decisions, we have to do some serious changing with our social, political, and cultural perspectives of every single person on this planet. Of course, Robert had an answer and it should take 600 years for this “No Free Will” thing to become the positive part of humanity that he believes it should be. I disagree with that time scale. Probably more like a thousand and it’s not out of the question to say 10,000 years considering the human nature element. Chuck Nice’ comment actually makes very much sense, as he always does on this podcast. Basically, to paraphrase, I will still be me and who am regardless of the rules/laws at hand. This is where I have the problem with the whole “Free Will” thing. The question of where does morality come from is still a relevant question. The answer to that question is rather obvious to most people. Of course, morality comes from us. We human beings make the rules/laws and we give the validity to the meaning of morality. And, it doesn’t matter where in the world you are born. Your morality will be based on the culture you were brought up in. Okay, to some degree, that one point alone, seems to lend credence to the “No Free Will” perspective. However, it does not answer the question of why we believe in morals in the first place. Yes, one could argue that we needed to come up with laws to keep people safe from the psychopaths. But, if “Free will” doesn’t exist then psychopaths are not responsible for their actions or behavior. Listen, I’m all for forgiveness and tolerance of every single social and cultural difference with people in the whole world. But, if everything I think, do, and say is pre-determined, without my knowledge of it, then why am I concerned about Free will in the first place. I mean let’s be honest with ourselves here. If everything I think, do, and say has already been decided, then why bother with deciding anything. Just so you know, I would have no problem if having “No Free Will” was an absolute truth. I feel the same as Chuck. I would keep on keeping on and do what I love to do. Why? Because the truth is folks, that’s all you got anyway. “Free will” or not. Here’s the rub folks. All you got is now. Sam Harris said it and it is as true as true can be. “It’s always now”. In other words, all you have is the moment. So, whether Free Will is real or not, you should be doing what is the most important to you every time you have the opportunity. Because, if you don’t, than once again, Free Will or not, you’re not living your life. So, when it really comes right down to it, that’s all that really matters. LIVING!
try this and see if it helps: "Most of what we are is non physical, though, our lowest form is physical. All life on our planet has the lowest form, the Body. Our Body is an Animal and the other type of Body on our planet is a Plant. Bodies are bound absolutely to Natural Law, which is the lowest form of true Law. Natural Law is a localised form of Law and is derived from the Laws of Nature. Natural Law is the finite and specific foundational control structure ordering the actions and interactions of species, members of species, and the material sources of a planet. The lowest non physical form of what we are is the Mind, which is a Process. There are other forms of life on our planet that have both a Body and a Mind, however, so far as we currently know, there are no Plants and only some Animals that have a Body and a Mind. The lowest forms of Mind, Instinct and Emotion, are predominantly bound to Natural Law. The next higher form of Mind is Intellect which is bound predominantly to the Laws of Nature. Intuition, the highest form of Mind, can be bound or not to both Natural Law and the Laws of Nature separately or together, or to higher forms of Law altogether. Intuition is the truest guide for our Selves. The next non physical form of what we are is the Self, which is an Awareness. There are relatively few other forms of life on our planet that have a Self. The Self is not bound to any form of Law other than One's Own Law. It is the only form of Law that cannot be violated. The foundation of what we are is the highest non physical form of what we are. The highest form of what we are is the Being, which is an Existence. The Being is not bound to any form of Law originating within Existence. The Being is bound absolutely to The Law. Existence, and the Laws of Nature which are the finite and specific foundational control structure ordering the actions and interactions of all elements within Existence, cannot Be without The Law being The Law. So, what is The Law? In a word, The Law is options. Definition option: a thing that is or may be chosen. The word 'option' does convey the idea of The Law in its most basic sense but does not clarify all of what The Law is. Free Will does describe how our species experiences The Law but does not convey all of what The Law is. In clarifying what The Law is; The capitalised form of the word 'The' indicates the following noun is a specific thing. Law is the finite and specific foundational control structure ordering the actions and interactions of all elements subordinate. Together, the words 'The' and 'Law' (in that exact order,) is a proper noun indicating; the singular form of Law that all other forms of Law and all other Laws are founded upon, the singular foundation upon which Existence is founded, the singular foundation upon which Non Existence is founded, the singular foundation connecting Existence to Non Existence, the concept of options, and Free Will. However one thinks, believes, guesses, hopes, or "knows", whether by a Big Bang, a creation story, a computer program, an expansion of consciousness, or whatever means by which Existence could have come to Be, the option for Existence to not Be also exists. Existence and Non Existence, the original options connected by the very concept of options, connected by The Law. Outside of space and before time. Extra-Existential. As we experience The Law in our Being, The Law is Free Will. The First Protector of The Law is Freely Given Consent. The First Violation of The Law is Theft of Consent." - Goho-tekina Otoko
Don't force it on you that you don't have a free will when you know deep inside from your first person perspective that you do. And you have correctly and logically linked it to moral code which I'm afraid isn't an issue for people who want to see everything from a chemistry laboratory. Their world view isn't natural, yours is!
You are concerned about freewill probably because you were told of this concept and it is uncomfortable when this notion is challenged. It does have to be that reason, but the point is there is a reason, and then there are reasons behind that reason, and so on, which create this predetermined causal chain, you know the drill.
You are basically saying that if there is no free will, we ought to do some serious changing? An agent only ought to do something if she actually can do it, and ought only to refrain from doing something if she actually can refrain from doing it. But under determinism, neither can you do nor refrain from doing something. Determinism devolves into incoherence.
I consider most of this a part of chaos, which I define as "The effect of countless unknown factors upon any given outcome." I do believe in 'free will' - as in we can make our own choices, even against our own biology and circumstances, given that we've done enough self reflection and introspection to know when we tend to make certain kinds of decisions.
But did you actually choose the self reflection introspection etc. or was it just your nature from your nature and nurture. Actions don’t manifest from nothing. That is magic. Actions- including your thoughts happen via nature and the nature that is around you.
Name me literally one action where the priority wasn't survival of you and or the species. So just to make clear. The brain analyses every aspect that will gain them the possibility for survival. Like a hungry dog getting a treat, will analyse every detail in its behaviour that could have led to that (like sitting down, not barking etc). And the brain also knows 2 things. Happiness influences the rate of survival and the avoidance of pain also. But I'm pretty sure it is impossible for a human, thereby their brain, to commit an act that is not selfish and maybe even choose for the number 2 of possible actions to increase survival.
Just want to point out the school-dyslexia issue. We had several kids in my elementary school that suffered from dyslexia but the teachers made us students believe the kids were dumb and outcasts. They got the worst treatment possible. I knew it back then and it still pains me today. These types of behaviors from adults changed my thinking drastically. I strongly agree what is being done and what was done to many of us is wrong and needs correction asap. Thank u for talking about it!
The argument against the existence of real free will is rooted in the understanding that both deterministic and probabilistic laws govern the universe, and in the evidence that unconscious neural processes precede conscious decision-making. This view posits that what we perceive as free will might be an illusion, with our choices predetermined by past events or influenced by random quantum events, neither of which we control.
things that are not being stated, that the subconscious acts created by narration are exemplorary to what feeling propogates the vision that perpetuates the narrative..folks like to be right, but it takes energy to change a thought. Energetically, bioelectromagnetically, there are Effects that influence outside of proximatey..Quantum energy reveals Spirit energy, not a standardization mean of 40% in behavioral issues in the general population, imo.
the problem there is that first, we don't mostly know those laws or how they work, second, they could be preceded/ determined in turn at a deeper level themselves, analogous to how they determine biology on our level. The next problem is we don't know how time or the mind work, for example backward time referral in the brain, causation from the future, may be real. Finally, the same logic that rules out free will also must rule out identity and selves, so what does it mean to say things aren't as we perceive? What does it mean to say we don't have free will? I don't have the answers, but I am impressed by one brilliant scientist who claims that only simulations can be conscious. In that sense, free will is real - for us. It's not real, beyond us, but that's a realm we can't touch anyway.
@@emilianosintarias7337 Just because we don't know the laws, doesn't mean it's then undetermined. There is a difference between unknowable and random, as was discussed in this video. Same goes for going backwards in time. Just because we cannot determine what happened before, does not make it undetermined. It just means we can't determine it. We just dont have the capability to determine it. No free will doesn't rule out identity or selves. It just removes the idea that they had free will in determining what their identity or selves are. You're conflating free will with a lot of different things. These are assumptions you've made about free will, and without evidence.
@@RigelOrionBeta You don't understand my comments. "Just because we don't know the laws, doesn't mean it's then undetermined. There is a difference between unknowable and random, as was discussed in this video.". That's irrelevant. For example if how it works involves backwards time referral, IE your brain sending information backward to itself all the time, then that invalidates the idea of preceding causes for making choices being the issue. Libbet goes away. It has nothing to do with randomness. And I didn't say free will rules out selves. I claim that just as we can find no place in the functioning of the body and brain for free will, the same examination fails to find selves, and yet they are both cultural and psychological objects or constructions. The mistake Sapolsky is making is to pretend that any brain science has found the self, and then ask how lack of free will affects it, despite there being no place in physiology or neurology for the self to be hiding either. My final suggestion was that free will is not real, but that we (who , in physics, are not discreet individual object) do have it. Just like Frodo Baggins does not exist, but he is a hobbit. So, free will may just be part of the interface or operating system of selves, which are functional illusions, at base determined by bodies determined by physics
And genetics. Unless there is something fundamental we do not know, it is safe to see no free will exists. This however has very uncomfortable implications for people which makes it very difficult to accept, however I guess those people have no choice in the matter too lol.
This is wisdom, and i have thought like that for years. The other side of that is that how you treat others is important because your negative or positive actions may echo through time in other peoples behaviour either making world uglier or more beautiful place. If you hurt someone you are not just hurting him. The person you hurt may feel wounded and may go hurt others, repeating what you did. Same applies if you do kindness.
Just listened to the podcast version.... Brilliant episode....Mr Sapolsky is such a fascinating and interesting person....I loved your back and forth discussion with a serious dose of humour....9,9/10 for this one....(The missing 0,1 because it should've lasted another hour+) 😋
I don't think the expectation should be that without free will we don't get mad. Anger is a response to something we identify that would have been better having gone a different way. Identifying these things is important to actually getting better results next time. Anger can be a tool like any other, the danger of course is when it shuts down rational thought and we become impulsive.
that seems to contradict the lack of free will idea. important? getting it right? tool like any other? danger? which non determines agent is standing back from this, is transcending this?@@uninspired3583
I've been thinking this way for 3 decades and I barely ever got mad and at this point it pretty much never happens. Some anger is genetically built in, but most of it is learned through imitating our environment and having certain kind of behavior legitimized and normalized. If our society did not believe in free will at all and you were born into that world, you'd very likely be feeling much less angry more often on average than you do now.
I have tremendous respect for the circumstances that just so happened to make Robert Sapolsky the brilliant person he is. The circumstances in my past just so happened to make me the kind of person that is truly inspired by him.
I love how any time Robert is invited to give a talk from home, he will never corral his dogs and they always make an appearance. Usually just via sound, but I'm glad this time I can put a face to the barks.
There would also be an absence of justice as no one would be held accountable for "their" crimes because they have little to no control over their actions .
@@hafissujanlal6454 the idea is discussed and refuted within the podcast. The main reason to jail somebody who is predisposed towards violence is the same whether they are acting with free will or not. You’re protecting other members of the public from being harmed. It’s the distinction between saying “you’re going to prison in order to protect the rest of the public from your actions” and “you’ve been a very naughty boy or girl and you deserve to be punished”. One of them is a moral judgement and the other is a functional statement, moving away from moralising is what’s being put forward (you really should watch the whole podcast because the arguments are very reasonable - he discusses other examples where moralising isn’t helpful and can even backfire, such as dealing with obesity)
"no free will" means "there is nothing to forgive". So there is no blame, and no guilt. Which has been the best benefit of my life, similarly. We're all doing our best. (and our worst at the same time, but why see it that way). No one makes a mistake if they know it's a mistake.
Thank you, I believe that fueling empathy - through an understanding of the lack of free will - is essential to truly promoting compassion. Most importantly for those we don't understand / dislike. This is a very important conversation to have
Just because you're empathetic doesn't mean you shouldn't correct someone with the wrong mindset at a given time. Things change as time goes on and we have to accordingly. Being empathetic means hitting people where they respond to the correction successfully if nothing else works. There is a balance and you can't be an extremist. Some people can't change their mindsets accordingly and become a problem for evolving. Those people have served their purpose if they do not respond to the needs of the majority. So I do agree with you. But I got bludgeoned to death basically and some haven't so they aren't there yet.
It is impossible to fuel empathy or judge the lack thereof for the same reason it was impossible for the person to do anything other than commit the harmful act. It's equally impossible to listen to this and alter the trajectory of the justice system or society specifically because it is impossible to alter the trajectory of anything according to this. I keep watching these because I'm astounded how it keeps sounding to me like the most pointless discovery. It's as if they're only applying the argument to the person initiating a harmful act but then assuming we can somehow control our response. On rails is on rails.
@@nottyseel949 if I'm understanding you correctly I can see why you'd say we can't alter trajectories. We don't even know if we do, it's just us thinking that we are and it's not just simulated. That depends on other simulations I guess, and the outcomes. You'd have to compare, but if you believe in free will then I'm not sure you believe in simulation. I'm currently going through a similar situation as one of my brothers and there are many alikes, although Im able to predict things before they happen so I can try to change them. It's not even just my brother, I've noticed other people having similarities but I'm focusing on him as he was closer. I think me being awake has mostly helped. I believe I have changed trajectories and I may have free will to the degree of fighting with people that still have power over me. It's just not free enough because I'm at the mercy of others decisions. I do think I'm making progress at breaking down that power though. It won't end the same, I already know that.
If I could recommend only one video, out of the millions and millions of videos on UA-cam, to everyone I know, to my friends, to my acquaintances, even to my enemies!, this would be the one.
About the judge hunger effect, I worked with a guy who always scheduled meetings with his clients between 11h30am and 12h30pm, as an attempt to talk to them before they had lunch. My colleague said the clients said yes to anything he suggested, in order to get rid of the meeting and go have lunch 😄
Based on the actual evidence of history, human and personal tragedies, I would say we do have our own ability to make decisions and have made some of the absolute WORST CHOICES AND USE OF FREE WILL. Just look at all the pain and suffering the human family has gone through. Horrible and destructive use of free will.
I was innocently watching UA-cam one day and being a fan of Dr. Tyson the algorithm led to a clip and saw a clip of Neil saying no free will. I instantly rejected this. Four weeks later I realized he was right. This idea has changed my life.
@@gfdia35 sure you can use this info to make better decisions. For example if you wait a few days before reacting to situation at work you can minimize the effects of biology on your decisions and things like tiredness and hunger will be less of a factor. That could explain why sleeping on it really works…you are not thinking as much as getting an average reading on emotions, fatigue, tiredness, being too hot etc. Knowledge is power.
@@gfdia35 same it made me even more depressed initially say a month ago. Don't worry. Try go into the depth of what he is saying and think. You'll realise it's actually liberating. Atleast for me it was, can't say for you until you try. I can understand your pov. If you want we can talk this further, like if you feel depressed and need someone to talk.
To hear someone of the caliber of DeGrasse Tyson say the phrase "I did not know that" shows how humble this man is - even with all his educational achievements. I've had high-school gym teachers who couldn't admit that there was something they didn’t know.
Neil recognizes Robert's genius. He knows his accolades are completely merited and sound. That's his way of showing the upmost respect for a superior intellect, albeit a different field of study of course
It's because NDT acknowledges that Sapolsky is as accomplished, if not more, than him. Whenever NDT talks to a non-scientist, he just bulldozes everyone in the conversation.
you aren't free to stay or not stay healthy though. It's something we should instill in people as a society, sure, but if someone isn't staying healthy - not their choice *shrug*
its not simple to stay healthy. humans are lacking natural selection due to wildlife exploitation and soil/bacteria content is changing with time. wildlife exploitation is inflicting alot of suffering towards other organisms as they lack natural selection as well due to deforestation and seperation of organisms from their natural habitats.
I was first introduced to this concept of Determinism or no free will while watching Star Talk live. It was mentioned briefly by the other physicist on the panel (maybe his name was Brian Greene). The concept was dismissed on the show, but i was hooked, and went down the UA-cam rabbit hole. I then found Robert Sapolsky talking about the book Determined. I am reading Behave right now. Thank you so much Mr. Degrasse for intruding me to new concepts and expanding my thinking. You make science fun.
The concept of determinism/free will has been around since ancient Greek philosophy. But within determinism there are compatibilists and incompatibilists, who believe free will is an emergent property or not.
@@daanschone1548Yep incompatibilists who agree with determinism are called pessimists and incompatibilists who agree with free will are called libertarians.
@@Steven_DunbarSL one thing is sure. Due to the Heisenberg uncertainty principle we can never determine whether the universe is deterministic or not. :)
Arthur Schopenhauer in his "World as Will and Representation" said something like "you can will what you do but you can't will what you will". Thanks for the show.
Awesome, I became aware of the same thing when I was 13 - 14 years old. Also a French philosopher, Gaston Bachelard said: The willpower consists of doing what one does not like.
The willingness to accept what others can not. The freedom to choose willingness instead of will not. The willingness to do what others won't. The willingness to change while others don't. -Buddah says
@@ogungou9 I’m not sure that will power is the same as free will but let’s accept that. You will only do what you don’t want if you want something else more. Eg I don’t like to exercise but I want to be fit more. I don’t want to go to the ballet but it makes my wife happy. I don’t want to raise my hand but I will because I want to prove I can more.
You don’t choose the thoughts that pop up in your head. You don’t choose which ones are more appealing to you. You don’t choose your emotional state or how you understand the world. You choose nothing. you are having an experience. Seeing other outcomes that could have unfolded but never would have creates the illusion of free will.
I came to a similar vibe in this conversation when I studied Situationism in college. It argued about the impact of situational factors in our behavior. It has not left my mind because so much of what I observe and read in research seems to point in this direction. That situations or environment dictate behavior. The funniest thing for me is that we really don’t have language to talk in these terms because our mode of communication assumes free will. Unless we turn the “I went to the store this morning” into a statement made by a third person narrator or something.
You could say I went to the store as its accurate, perhaps not "I decided to go to the store" I'm not sure though as this free will stuff has only been in my mind a few years
Would love to have a conversation around how mindfulness and meditation help combat the negative side effects of our lack of free will and planting certain ideas can also help dissolve the same.
I think the interesting here is the notion that you'd perform mindfulness meditation would be pre-determined by the life path you've taken. I think of it like 'I want to create a youtube channel one day'. That will remain a distant goal until the time that I've developed sufficient motivation to complete that goal. The weird part is thinking that "the act of your thinking about it and taking the initiative now" was always going to happen based on your life choices up to that point which made you thoughtful enough to reflect. Also, Sam Harris' Waking Up app/podcast is specifically focused on these concepts (mindfulness, meditation, and free will and becoming aware of how thoughts simply emerge without your initiating them -- and then we ride these thoughts as passengers -- believing that we constructed them. The simplest example being trying to keep an empty mind and observing the random thoughts that emerge that you did not control but instead are an observer of.
@jmx808 but free will doesn't mean we are free in our ability to control our next thoughts. It's about the fact that we're free to choose between the actions presented to us. If I just stayed in bed for the rest of my life, is it societies responsibility to look feed me because I have no choice in how my life is? It makes no sense to me. If free will don't exist, neither do we. I can't make sense of it. Seems irrational to me
@@tobiaskvarnung3411 Well put it this way: you aren't responsible, and so society (also lacking in free will) isn't responsible either for keeping you alive. Makes sense yeah? Once we accept that, ultimately, we're not really responsible for anything, we actually kind of gain more freedom by understanding our constraints and knowing exactly which actions will affect us and how. We're a self-determining machine, but a machine nonetheless. If we view ourselves as somehow innately greater, we're led to even greater biases and worse models of predicting things. I mean here's the thing, even if I had no free will I'd still be hungry, or I'd like Batman more than Superman, or I'd prefer studying theoretical physics over mathematics. I would still be moved into action even if I'm not the source of that action. And so, I would much prefer not to be in bed not contributing to society: I have no other choice.
@kamkamkam_ I see. But it seems to leave so many holes. If your whole life is determined by chemical reactions and molecules, and you have no agency in your life and no say in what direction you want to take. Then we don't even exist. How do our lives hold any value if we exist purely as observers into a life that isn't ours. Wisdom and skills and all such stuff isn't real. I have a hard time grasping that we lack any agency at all. Free will makes more sense to me. If I stay in bed all day, I am responsible for getting up and start owning my life.
@@tobiaskvarnung3411 Yeah it's an interesting thing and something I've not yet come to terms with. If we believe that the universe is deterministic in that it was "set in motion" by a big bang/other event and has for eternity followed rules that create patterns in the chaotic systems -- then it follows that humanity and all life emerged as a random but predictable by-product of this chaos. So then, what follows is that our minds are yet more structured chaos, which is deterministic (if you could compute every atom, and then every molecule, and then every microorganisms behavior). That makes the idea of free-will something of an illusion. I was always going to type this reply because my bio chemistry led me to be more likely to respond to a random comment than to continue my work activities. So here I am. But notice I said 'more likely'. Human behavior is predictable, see 'normal distributions'. But there is a great variance in those ranges. Perhaps, we have some degree of freedom to which of the randomly emerging options we will take. Or perhaps not, perhaps it's more like the double-slit experiment. The photons may take a random path but ultimately, they always form the same distributions. Like a role playing game where all options lead to the same outcome for a given playthrough. Free will implies conscious control over your outcomes. What I've described (random distributions) isn't really free will, just a more advanced algorithm...
There is no denying that there are psychological and genetic differences in people that cause us to react to life's situations consistently in a certain way. When these consistent responses and decisions are harmful to us you could say that they don't have free will. Nothing could be further from the truth. Our free will is the only thing that can enable us to overcome our negative tendencies, make better decisions and thus eliminating a sorce of suffering that would have lasted a lifetime. As they say nothing is easy, but life contains limitless possibilities.
This is blowing my mind a bit. It relates to Dostoyevsky's Notes from Underground and so much of Foucault's ideas on Power Dynamics, Biopolitics, Discipline and Punish, Agency and Resistance. Sapolsky is grounded maybe more in biology than social theory. I need to read this book. Thanks
This conversation demonstrates to me just how important the illusion of free will is to human society. It must have been STRONGLY selected for for us to feel it is so foundational to who we are. With it it is possible for groups of human beings to work toward common goals. Without it nobody is responsible for anything and the social structure is increasingly eroded.
It's important to acknowledge the technology of free will was employed and enforced by the ruling classes since its creation. I believe free will may exist once those repressive frameworks are gone.
My thoughts as well. Sure, all our emotions and thoughts are accompanied by and affected by physiological things. But that does not make it true that we exercise no independent decisions.
@@jimgulick9773 Sit down and think for a while. At which point did you decide to have that thought that popped in your head? Or the next? At which point did you decide to remember to pay the bills? When did you decide to feel sad or angry? Wherever you try to find the free will in the earnest, it's not there.
but neither are you there to be found. So there is free will for you. We as selves are fictions which determined stuff gives rise to, and we give rise to free will in this realm. When you exit the realm of identity things just are, and are so without you or I. @@digitalspecter
@@jimgulick9773 We are independent in the sense that two people in identical situations would make different decisions because their brains are not identical. But you can't be independent of the way your brain is. Basically we are our brains and they are physical objects subject to determinism. You can be pessimistic about this and say that we are not free because the way we are (that is the physicality of our brain) determines our actions. Or you can say that this is actually freedom, because what else is freedom if not the freedom to be who we are and to want what we want? The issue this raises of course is when it comes to moral choices. If we never have any choice but to act the way we act then how do we justify punishment? But how can we exist together in society without some system of sanctions and rewards? These are genuinely difficult problems and we can't just wave them away by pretending to believe in something called free will, which we know, scientifically, cannot exist.
I have had these exact same conversations with people, looking bk at my life, I can see what made me the way I am now, and that's just what I can remember
Frreaking Neil! at around 26:26 'here are my recent thoughts', your rant is amazingly exactly the glue that holds this entire convo together all while re-enphasizing and refocusing the main focus, 'Free Will'. You put this delimna in a relateable perspective of real world examples, challenging society to look seriously at how we pass judgement and/or write off certain marginalized members of our society we share our lives with. The unfortunate outcome that typically and mistakenly occurs is that our lack of compassion and deliberate choice to see the actual set of uncontrollable consequences that have overwhelmed and consumed an individual into despair & misfortune, is much easier to justify as a choice that said person through 'free will' can simply make to turn it all around. The problem is that we deep down understand that most everyone can improve their situation with the compassion and help required to overcome and reprogram the bad hand that people our dealt. But we are not willing to acknowledge this truth because we have to sacrifice our time and resourrces to help those in need: selfishness. We would rather justify and contribe our success on our 'free will' to overcome our own bad hand and conclude that if I can make it, so can anyone. The jist of it is, we all need support, we all need to community to help work through the history that was not our choice but our consequence, and there is no better feeling or fulfilment in life then to witness a change in one's life from the sacrifice we 'chose' to make for an individual that deserves and appreciates the love that we all seek and thrive. Thanks!
If we start with the premise that free will doesn’t exist, why should we even discuss what we, as a society, should do to improve things-like not punishing or praising individuals for actions beyond their control? If we truly lack free will, doesn't that mean everything we do is just a result of predetermined causes and events? Any compassionate change, then, would either be inevitable if it’s meant to happen or unreachable if prior events don't lead us there-not a deliberate, freely-made decision. So, what's the point of trying to figure out how to make society better if we're not really making choices to begin with? Am I misunderstanding something? I hope Robert Sapolsky sees this question, @StarTalk. It's really been haunting me, though maybe it's meant to be, just another cog in a predetermined universe. I will definitely read the book. If everything is determined from the start, with the motion of the first particles leading to the rest-ultimately forming life, then driving every reaction in and around us-then even my posting this comment and you reading it are just inevitable outcomes. In this framework, treating people as independent entities doesn't even make much sense, since the universe is just one big system, with no room for individuals, for free will, for consciousness, or even for true understanding. Everything ended the moment it started. If we take the initial state of the universe, x_0 at time t_0 and think of the function of the universe as some complex wave function G, then at time t_n, we get x_n =G(t_n). I know this is oversimplified (and maybe wrong), but my point is that if we live in a world without free will, whatever we "learn" about the system isn't something we learn on our own-it's just a consequence of deterministic events that led us here. Thus, anything we "discover" while being inside this system isn’t real in the sense that it isn't freely derived. Only someone outside the system, observing it, could truly say they made a realization-because it wouldn't be just another inevitable consequence of prior events like the case of a bunch of neurons making a decision that is totally independent of previous history as Robert Sapolsky mentioned.
I personally believe he might be aware of this caveat, but I also believe that it is not relevant to his argument as it seems his argument is not whether free will is real or even attainable. His argument is that there IS no free will and a world where we understand that lack of free will would be a net positive for humanity and the way we treat each other. In theory I agree with his hypothesis, if we adopted this dogma, in a few hundred years we would have a society where nobody lets their emotions get the best of them or react to how they perceive the people around them but rather how it IS, and while a world without judgement or hate sounds wonderful, I also think it is far too idyllic. His perception of free will is "the ability to make a choice without any previous information influencing that choice," which is a biological impossibility for us humans. The concept of free will was made up by us with this limitation in mind, the "real" definition of free will isn't about our nature or past, it isn't about freedom from our biological nature, it's about a lack of oppression enforced by other beings. My perception of free will, the one most think about when they use that word, is being able to decide whether or not I want to eat something, regardless of what led me to that choice. I can say no, I can say yes, if I fall and fracture my knee, I can, despite my biological desire to be healed, reject medical services for fear of high medical bills, to preserve my interests. As long as no one can strap me to a gurney and force me into a hospital, as long as no one can make those choices for me, as long as I don't have to do things, I don't want to. I consider myself a human with human free will, regardless of what influenced my choices, they are my choices, by definition mine. Sapolsky's definition of free will pertains more to a nature that frankly not many people are interested in, almost everyone wants to make a choice, not many people care why they make that choice. While a beautiful thought and a fascinating hypothesis from a scientific standpoint, it is by current statistics, unattainable, because it truly doesn't matter to most.
There is nothing for me to add. I listened and have listened to Professor Sapolsky many times. I started his book, but haven't finished it, probably because I have already heard most of the arguments. I need to just read the story.
I'm so glad that you guys are covering this, because Ive been asking myself these questions since I was in high school (partly as a product of a traumatic childhood) and nobody else Id ever talk to would even so much as humor these things, much less understand why I felt free will was so unintuitive. I feel so validated right now.
Hint: Reality & Truth does not have to be so-called "intuitive" ... whatever "intuitive" means. lol Fact that somethings in our lives are 'determined' does not mean that Real Humans are devoid of "freewill". When we stop entertaining the silly, suggestive question of 'either or', 'freewill or determinism', we are likely to find the 'happy medium'.
@@nirbija I am using the word "intuitive" to describe a combination of the extent to which an idea appears rational or reasonable to an individual and the ability for that idea to be derived in response to a problem or question relevant to it. For example, a video game controller may have an intuitive design if it conforms well to the mechanics of the body part it is designed to interface with (whether this is a classic hand controller, or something more exotic like the dancing mat used for the Dance Dance Revolution titles that released on the Xbox) and it is easy to learn the use of the controller and its functions with respect to the game the user is playing. By saying that free will is unintuitive, I am stating that it is a concept that does not immediately appear reasonable, practical, or viable when compared against my existing conceptualization of the world.
@@Crumbling_Vortex So you are saying, in effect, that Your "unintuitive"/counter-intuitive means that which is contrary to Your Personal "conceptualization of the world". We think that you urgently need better teachers who can give you the right/true "conceptualization of the world". For the vast majority of humans, and for the real world, human freewill is taken for granted and should be taken for granted, respectively. Those lifeforms with freewill live in highly sophisticated societies because they can be held responsible, and are RIGHTLY held responsible, for their actions. Without freewill, to decide and act this way or that, humans would not, and could not, be holding each other responsible for their actions. Neither would the wise, for all times, be repeatedly stating the Natural Codes of Conduct, which are responsible for Governing & Guiding human behavior, the violations of which bring sorrow and the adherence brings joy. Those lifeforms that do not possess freewill, they live in herds instinctively under the guidance of Mother Nature. This so-called "professor" should not be teaching young people; he is irresponsible. He does not know to keep to himself, and from young, impressionable minds his misguided thinking about something so basic as human freewill. In fact, the so-called "professor" should be back in school learning the basics about his life. lol
This was the greatest and the most realistic conversations I've ever witnessed on UA-cam. I just want to add another line to it as a psychologist, if I may; - If we look back to our footsteps through our life, we see steps which they are not my fault, but the responsibilities are mine, as an individual and a grownup person, and because they're my steps not anyone else.
Thousands of people used their free will to comment under this post. Nothing neurological caused this.. Those who read and respond to comments is also doing it based off their own “free will.” No? I agree that there may not be complete free will based off situations/circumstances. This video opened my eyes to it. With that being said, I just don’t believe you could ever prove that free will doesn’t exist. I love listening to these great minds and reading everyone’s comments.
Like this comment when you meet the extra special guest of this episode... 🐶
Thanks for the verity of content on StarTalk, excited with every upload. Thanks to everyone who makes this happen! Lets goooo ( PS- love the puppy
Um, "meet" him?
Neil. I'll tell you my biggest fear is that if someone is a determinist they are almost definitely an atheist, a democrat, and a technocrat. Surely you can realize how such underlying ideas can lead to a George Orwell book. Me, personally, I think the brain is a tool-- just like your hands, a drill, or a hammer. If you mess with any of those tools then the self will not be as able to effectively achieve the goals that the self wishes to achieve. Meaning both can be true: making a bad decision to take drugs is sawing off the tip of a pick axe. And, yes, bad decisions are more common among people of lower socio-economic status-- but the lower socio-economic status also correlates strongly with not having two parents in the home. Not having two parents in the home correlates with the parents not taking responsibility for their actions.
I tend to lean toward prima facie arguments because they tend to be true. I think it violates Occum's Razor to undermine every decision you've ever made by insisting on determinism.
Special guest is Star Talk+ @@michaelccopelandsr7120
I always liked Christopher Hitchens answer to the question of whether or not we have free will. "Of course we do, we have no choice."
What kind of illogical statement is that by Christopher. It's like saying do we have a squared circle? Yes we do! we just don't know how to draw it.
@@ythjkl2881I mean, you can draw a circle that would appear to us as squared, if you choose a space with rectilinear norm L1.
@@Darth_Niki4what's next? A bachelor who isn't married?
They couldn't put the fourth dimension at 90 degrees and came up with a tesseract in an attempt to move from 3d to 4d. And even the that tassaract is only their best attempt at the projection of a 4d model in a 3d world, not a real 4d object which we can't perceive. And my friend you are telling me "appeared" for a circle that can be squared. Please!
@@ythjkl2881 the self contradiction is the point of it, it's supposed to be humour
@@polishane8837 not sure why the guys didn’t catch the humor
A parenting book said "Remember that children are usually doing the best they can, and don't get mad at them." I told myself that so many times as my kids were growing, and it really helped me be patient and look at them as a whole process of learning, not just one moment of a mistake. Now, I realize it's not just children. Most people lead very complicated lives in their minds/bodies, and they really are trying, even if it doesn't seem like it.
I am certain that I was guided by God to this comment. My wife is recovering from a kidney transplant that didn't work....so she is dealing with the physical healing and the sadness of it happening at all.
While this is a TOTALLY understandable situation, the fact that I do a lot for her before the surgery is not as beneficial as we try to get her back to the abilities she had before the surgery.
The decision to push yourself to get back to what you were or accept the physical impairment as a potentially lifelong impairment is an absolute choice.... just as I will have to choose tough love or total comfort and understanding or a balance in between.
How tough is tough enough is never as simple as are they doing the best they can....not when so much is at stake. But what is the right answer is always hard to know.
Yeah, I believe that. We can try to extrapolate to loving everyone for what they are (you never know what someone else is going through), but with innocents it is definitely more understandable. I believe that of animals, that they are perfectly performing the life given to them, because they have even less knowledge and self-consciousness, and work with instinct. I hate it when people are angry at dogs for just being what they are--and doing their best--better than humans, it seems. Your post reminds me of my friend and his kids, who I lived with for years. Sometimes when they were acting up, he just smiled and observed them until things calmed down. He just looked at them with love, not demanding that they immediately " toe the line". You may think that's permissive, but they became the greatest adults.
I've put some thought into that in the past as well, and I've uttered that on several occasions. It's a niggling consideration, but I wonder what it really means for one to be doing their best in any given circumstance. In reality, no matter what their performance is at any given moment relative to their theoretical maximum performance, they're simply doing what their life led up to in that moment and they couldn't have done otherwise. Do we just call it their best by definition because it's literally the only thing that could have happen, upon reflection? And in such a case, if you're TOO blasé about that fact, you (not YOU, but people in general) perhaps run the risk of undercorrecting children or others in general. I guess it's the unnecessary frustration that can go away without missing it. Sorry, I'm rambling lol
And as are the parents, and the family, and the teachers, and the colleagues, and the bosses, and the cops, and the judges, etc
Thank you I was just talking to my friend about this. Every single person on this planet is doing the best they can
Stanford has his lectures online. Professor Sapolsky is SO KNOWLEGEABLE! He is an EXCELLENT educator!
Probably the greatest playlist on UA-cam. These 30+ hours of lecture he have on the Standford channel are probably my best investment on this platform in years
ua-cam.com/play/PL150326949691B199.html&si=YksDBAEkMly2lcq-
hes a bit goofy when it comes to the free will thing
THANK God? No... That Neil and his guests for enlightening the world toward a more civilized and advanced understanding of human nature. 'Free will' had always been garbage meant to uphold the power structure. Praise the powerful and indict the weak--all garbage.
@@orwellianreptilian2914 How so?
It is a huge privilege to be alive at the same time as these great thinkers and get to witness them in action! They're national treasures!
Indeed, the fact I'm listening to these great minds while driving to work is quiet a privilege.
Wow, indeed.
you need to get around if you think you lucked out by being alive when these 2 thinkers were. you have no ideas what's out there. today, tomorrow, and before you entered this world lol.
and are they great thinkers??? if you are listening to this then they are great regurgitators of information that they were exposed to and then they automatically without freewill are saying what they have no control over saying....blah blaaa blahhh!!!! i do like neil degrasse tyson but this is a little much, as he said there is no way to prove this guy wrong, anything you propose he would say that proves his point.......
@@JohnLee-or9im Sure, we can only use the words we learned, anything we might say in the future is a combination of the past. This fact changes nothing. People keep delusionally believing what they "discovered" will fundamentally change society if people just "follow" the example they set.
In fact it has little to no effect, although he is mostly correct (logically), no matter what words we say, what tools we discover, we keep repeating the same patterns over and over again. The scale changes, new tools are invented and behaviours repeat
Dr. Sapolsky’s books- like “why zebras don’t get ulcers” and his online lectures from Stanford Uni are life changing! One of my favorite scientists! Great to see him
Yes
Yes. Glad to see him on Star Talk.
so, why don't zebras get ulcers?
@kavorka8855 that's ridiculous... zebras DO have to deal with, but not limited to:
-constant weather
-lack of health-care
-constant bug infestations
-constant fear of poaching
-constant feeling of just blending in with the crowd, no feeling of real independent identity (spots, etc.)
Prof Denis Noble
I can't stop myself from watching Dr. Sapolski's free will interviews.
Just about to start my journey on that. Thanks to this one 👍
He's done loads,I've got the audiobook too.
I'm not sure if he's saying we should ditch things like pride, while they don't make sense there's still utility in it even if you don't believe in free will cause you can't totally escape the notion.
Sapolsky also has a complete Stanford lecture series on UA-cam. It's fascinating.
Same here, got heavily addicted 😅
@@konrid22 you had no choice
They told me "Cheer up, things could be worse." So I cheered up, and sure enough - things got worse!
That's life.
that's funny. sounds like something Rodney would say.
Sounds like an Elliott Smith album.
That sounds like Murphy's Law😂 and one more to add: Anything that can go wrong, will go wrong😅 Murphy wasn't pessimistic, he was realistic🤷♀️
Sullivan's law- Murphy was an optimist
Dr. Sapolsky has long been one of my favorite scientists. He makes many of his phenomenal lectures free to the public online, which is something I greatly appreciate. Thanks for having him on!
I’ve got so much love and respect for Professor Sapolsky! Life is such a runaway snowball, rolling downhill and once you get that concept, you grow so much empathy towards people that have less or are in worse situations.
So true. It’s so easy to take for granted why someone acts the way they do and are the way they are but as soon as you appreciate it the entire idea of hating anyone or thinking anyone intrinsically deserves more or less than anyone else goes out the window.
Unless they're a Christian, or conservative of course..
This is so much NONSENSE.
@@ataraxia7439Oh the simpy simp has a voice.
@@markiv2942 if you want to have actual impact you should put in the effort an explain your views otherwise no one is going to take you seriously
Tolstoy said, "The only difference between free will and fate is time." I've always loved that definition.
where can I find this quote from him?
He makes this point at the end of his novel war and peace
got it. what's your interpretation on that?
Wow, that's spot on. In my musings on this subject it occurred to me that understanding the nature of time would be a prerequisite to any scientific examination of free will. For example, if we accept the "block universe" concept of spacetime there is no room for free will as it is generally understood. Which brings up another important point, we need a more precise definition of free will before we can begin to discuss it meaningfully.
Just because something is an illusion doesn't mean it's not real
@@RFK_wait4_2028Frank, are you saying that just bc ur paranoid, doesn't mean they're not out to get you.?
It is FASCINATING listening to scientists of this level having a discussion.
to you because of your past
yes, even if, more that a "discussion", it was deGrasse Tyson interrupting Sapolsky every other sentence, it was a bit annoying for me.
What was fascinating? How was free will defined in this discussion=
The fascinating part is how these “supposedly” smart men sound incoherent and uneducated in the realm of social science
@ToriZealot as conscious decisions made with intent seperate from your past lol did you listen?
I'm glad yall exist because the things you're saying here basically is similar to my personal experience where people told me I just didn't want to do things, or I was making excuses because I couldn't/can't do a thing in school. Only to learn years later I'm autistic with adhd, and suddenly all my failing at life made sense to me and the guilt and shame I had melted away. Please continue to bring awareness to all these issues because it's still very hard! I'm glad that there are professionals that understand things like this!
Amen to this thought! I, too, found a great sense of relief and life finally made sense when I was 74 years old and found out I am on the autism spectrum!!!!! Whew. Life is suddenly much easier👏👏👏👏
Loved, loved, LOVED this interview. Thank you for having Robert Sapolsky on the show. I absolutely love following his work.
He presents a plausible case for people deeply ignorant of the nature of awareness, consciousness, self, reality, and god.
@@xrgiok
That is the natural conclusion to reach when you know nothing. Entertain me with your 55 IQ and explain how awareness, reality, and self are "non-proven beliefs"
I'm very entertained by your use of the word "absolutely" considering Robert is himself an absolutist.
@@yourlogicalnightmare1014if you have to resort to insults when questioning the validity of a “god” figure and put another (just as conscious and aware person) down…i really don’t think you have the grounds to be arguing about “intelligence”.
those whom are defensive of their beliefs live in glass houses.
your, nor any human being’s anecdotes are above any others.
i suggest you calm down, humble yourself - and treat those how you want to be treated - just like the “god” you oh so dearly have faith in commands you to do…according to your books “he” wouldn’t be very proud of your little temper tantrum you just threw…now would “he”?
@@LostTemplate
🫵😂 Two things can be true at the same time. For example, a more hawn could make a claim about something they know nothing about, and a deeply informed, tremendously well studied individual who knows the subject at hand better than 99% of the population, could correctly assert that the more hawn is in fact a more hawn.
I have 20 years studying the nature of awareness, consciousness, self, reality, and god, and I have very low tolerance for more hawns who male false and 'ignant' claims about them
Robert Sapolsky is such a deeply good person. Through no fault of his own.
Lmao
He just have to understand that 'sometimes it's not that deep'...
@@tychodancer you got the joke
@@timmcdraw7568
Lol he didn't say he's a good person with no fault, he mentioned a few things that he wouldn't do even if they're not enforced by law. And what you define as a good or bad person is subjective or I would say relative
The fact that Sapolski can sit up immediately after a 2 hour couch nap and still be this coherent while having the interview on the same couch is quite amazing.
LMAO. best comment.
He is amazing but, why is there no mention of feedback loops.
Memory as it is formed in both biological and computing logic system need feedback loops. The brain creates it's internal monolog, which gets fed back into the system stimulates new concepts, memories and emotions, and that gets turned into the words of the internal monolog, repeat. Eventually the monolog produces something from which the network stabilizes into a state where the decision is made. I think there is more complexity to discuss in this, there is a conscious part of the brain that is listening to the monolog and has some parameters about what kind of solution it is looking for (direction of thought).
@@haylekm There is no monolog. Animals make decisions without having a concept of language, and their brains work on the same principles as ours do.
😂😂😂😂
@@haylekm Some people have no inner monologue, but I can't remember which Consciousness science podcast i heard this from...But he essentially said that your thoughts arise out of preceding thoughts to a small degree...but the decisions are basically a vote between neurons. the strongest signal produces your choice. that signal strength is effected by genetics, memory, learning, positive and negative experience, words that other brains transmitted about it etc. so your thoughts try to standardize about things, but can change with new plastic forces which alter the neurons to produce a different signal strength.
I would have appreciated a longer discussion about what his definition of "free will" is. I contend he's discussing circumstances and biological processes rather than free will.
Where would free will fit in? I see no room for it.
I totally agree - free will is not really discussed, and it could be so well addressed by a physics expert - the impact of relativity (pretty obvious) and quantum mechanics (devilishly difficult).
Define it how you want. He is saying any and all "free will" is an illusion
@MedXOR this is nonsensical. What is the mechanism for free will? It cannot be described. How are humans any more than deterministic physical systems? Saying that yet to be understood quantum phenomena are where free will comes from is a "free will of the gaps" argument. Before we knew about hormones and neurons, we believed humans were magical beings with souls and vital forces. Before we knew what atoms and molecules were, we believed in all sorts of absurd models for what matter is made of. Now there are still unexplained phenomena, but you think the seeming randomness of subatomic particles grants us free will? At best that means it's a random, non-deterministic system, which is hardly free will any more than basing your decisions on dice rolls would constitute free will.
I think that he's saying that's all there is. Biological processing and circumstance.
I think you just pulled the best Sapolsky interview. Sapolsky is always fun, but the energy in this scientific approach to the line of questions put to him to break his theory down was better than anyone else has managed .
And it makes perfect sense too. Science is amazing
he was on a political podcast here in the uk.. (the rest is politics)
a good programme
and he was just so fascinating..
talking mostly about primate behaviour (and of course linking back to politicians lol)
Not that fun, really. Telling people they don't have free will and that accountability doesn't make sense. I recall Dr. Huemer roasting Sapolsky on this debate.
I agree. I've watched dozens of Sapolsky interviews and this is the best. Niel and his partner did a great job and also made it entertaining.
Question: do we pick the womb we are born from or is it assigned, and by whom?
I came here for Sapolsky and Tyson but I gotta say, Chuck Nice is probably the best co-host/guest star or whatever I've ever heard on a podcast.
I love when Tyson says that in modern-day, junkies aren't arrested. Nice and Sapolsky are spot on. Tyson can be out of touch. Nice is the perfect balance for Tyson: Nice is more approachable, and though also highly intelligent, not as arrogant.
@@leave-it-wild Totes!
Love chuck. He speaks for me
Chuck, explain that picture. A heart?
I believe.
"It's not a matter of punishment, it's a matter of nurturing and understanding" 100% yes! And beyond that, creating the environment and context that produces prosocial behavior and provides the opportunity for people to thrive.
And awareness that the prosocial is found in the motivation for the behaviour employed by an individual.
One culture/individual's rudeness is another culture/individual's display of respect. 😅
But if we don’t, doesn’t matter either, no free will, we are all just bouncing along our pre etched paths. Trump 2024
It’s not that I want to punish anyone… I have no choice!
@@HairySourpuss 🤮🤮🤮 anti-science hate machine, what an insane takeaway to take from this convo
That is asinine.
I read the primate’s memoire in undergrad! It was my primatology class and we had a book discussion. When I tell you we were SHOCKED at the ending! I never thought I would cry over baboons. That book has stuck with me for years. Such beautiful writing!
I wish Neil wouldn’t interrupt Robert Sapolsky so much.
Shows how different neil and sapolsky nervous systems are 😅
interrupting is kinda his deal
He’s made a career out of interrupting other people
Yes, I Love Neil but he really has a bad habit of interrupting people.
I believe he has all the right intentions of wanting to add some info or humor to the conversation and he usually has some valuable information or insight to add but he tends to overdo it.
@@ignorasmusit's funny, I talk very similarly to Neil, and I have to fight against interupting, because my brain is in a constant struggle to go off on tangents and adding stuff in while someone else is talking is the only way I can keep myself focused on what they say
.... I have fairly extreme add and I would guess it's a similar explanation.
May just be an interrupter though.
Wasn’t expecting to Dr Sapolsky, but I’m glad he’s a guest! I’ve watched so many of his lectures and presentations and have learned so much from him.
What’s the point? We have no free will…
"Most of what we are is non physical, though, our lowest form is physical. All life on our planet has the lowest form, the Body. Our Body is an Animal and the other type of Body on our planet is a Plant. Bodies are bound absolutely to Natural Law, which is the lowest form of true Law. Natural Law is a localised form of Law and is derived from the Laws of Nature. Natural Law is the finite and specific foundational control structure ordering the actions and interactions of species, members of species, and the material sources of a planet.
The lowest non physical form of what we are is the Mind, which is a Process. There are other forms of life on our planet that have both a Body and a Mind, however, so far as we currently know, there are no Plants and only some Animals that have a Body and a Mind. The lowest forms of Mind, Instinct and Emotion, are predominantly bound to Natural Law. The next higher form of Mind is Intellect which is bound predominantly to the Laws of Nature. Intuition, the highest form of Mind, can be bound or not to both Natural Law and the Laws of Nature separately or together, or to higher forms of Law altogether. Intuition is the truest guide for our Selves.
The next non physical form of what we are is the Self, which is an Awareness. There are relatively few other forms of life on our planet that have a Self. The Self is not bound to any form of Law other than One's Own Law. It is the only form of Law that cannot be violated.
The foundation of what we are is the highest non physical form of what we are. The highest form of what we are is the Being, which is an Existence. The Being is not bound to any form of Law originating within Existence. The Being is bound absolutely to The Law.
Existence, and the Laws of Nature which are the finite and specific foundational control structure ordering the actions and interactions of all elements within Existence, cannot Be without The Law being The Law.
So, what is The Law?
In a word, The Law is options.
Definition
option: a thing that is or may be chosen.
The word 'option' does convey the idea of The Law in its most basic sense but does not clarify all of what The Law is.
Free Will does describe how our species experiences The Law but does not convey all of what The Law is.
In clarifying what The Law is;
The capitalised form of the word 'The' indicates the following noun is a specific thing.
Law is the finite and specific foundational control structure ordering the actions and interactions of all elements subordinate.
Together, the words 'The' and 'Law' (in that exact order,) is a proper noun indicating;
the singular form of Law that all other forms of Law and all other Laws are founded upon,
the singular foundation upon which Existence is founded,
the singular foundation upon which Non Existence is founded,
the singular foundation connecting Existence to Non Existence,
the concept of options, and
Free Will.
However one thinks, believes, guesses, hopes, or "knows", whether by a Big Bang, a creation story, a computer program, an expansion of consciousness, or whatever means by which Existence could have come to Be, the option for Existence to not Be also exists. Existence and Non Existence, the original options connected by the very concept of options, connected by The Law. Outside of space and before time. Extra-Existential.
As we experience The Law in our Being,
The Law is Free Will.
The First Protector of The Law is Freely Given Consent.
The First Violation of The Law is Theft of Consent."
- Goho-tekina Otoko
@@tonyk4615 you have no free will..
I'm 29 and been listening to Sapolsky speak since I was 12. Probably the scientist I admire the most. His lectures on evolutionary biology should be a right of passage. They tell you so much about us as a species, and how that expresses itself in our individuality and the choices we make.
The interesting thing is when I say "the choices we make", that phrase is precisely what has been the ongoing debate. It gets semantic until it gets very, very real, in it's real world implications.
I am fairly new to him, but i am familiar with determinism philosophically from an eastern religion context, politically from classical marxism, and scientifically from, well, science. But while I agree with some of his conclusions, it seems to me what's happening here is a lack of scanning the horizons of theoretical physics and philosophy on his part is causing his incredulity or surprise, and then sweeping claims that aren't coherent. For example, I think we have some amount of free will, because like free will, we aren't objectively real - as us, as selves. So free will is for selves, which is what we are, but those are also not empirically found in the brain, or body or anywhere, they are emergent simulations on that level, but for us they are real. So he's a bit like a doctor saying we need to change the way we do liver surgery because at the relativistic or quantum level, there is no discreet thing called a liver. Well for sure we can get insights into medicine and surgery this way, and we have, but on the whole that's just confusion.
@emilianosintarias7337 free will has implications in every major field of science and medicine and every other industry. It's confusing to digest free will on a macro level, but in situations like, for example, law, it's simpler to understand why presuming free will's existence is vital. Life in prison is something we have to get right.
But that already depends on the idea that the purpose of law is justice (which assumes free will), rather than the enforcing of social norms. What I am saying is that a total lack of free will on the level of society or individuals is incoherent - for the same reason it is coherent at a more macro level. Thus, it is in actually already established socio political concepts like buddhism, traditional libertarianism, communism, socialism, social democracy, etc, that we can find answers about how to organize industries and laws compassionately. They all assume that free will is constrained by social and natural factors, but don't dispense with it totally@@nothimbutbetteractually
The Palestinians have no choice but to elect Hamas. Israel has no choice to decimate Gaza. Seems legit.
@@askedofgod9067Social norms and religions have an enormous impact on us, so you’re actually right.
People often confuse the absence of free will with fate. It’s easier to think of historical events as dominos. No need for free will here.
This was a great convo. I started off totally disagreeing with Sapolsky. But after fully hearing out his view, he really opened my perspective.
Robert Sapolsky's lectures on Wondrium should be standard curriculum at high schools. He distills an enormously complex subject matter of brain chemistry and resulting behavior into something high school students could understand - and should be exposed to. Understanding lack of free will should change our legal / moral compass, as well as how we treat other people and ourselves. This is enormously important! Thanks Neil deGrasse Tyson for having the insight to bring this topic to the foreground and asking the probing questions.
standard civilizational curriculum
I've been following Dr. Sapolsky for years! I watch and re-watch all his Stanford classes. Love him. Fabulous interview. Thank you Dr. Tyson.
his books are great as well
This is one of those Startalk episodes where Neil's mind actually gets blown. Robert Sapolsky is something else!
Same. About to rewatch those standford lectures now.
This is super interesting. I recently took an avalanche training course (AIARE) and one of the things I was surprised at was the emphasis on creating a framework for decision making that doesn’t allow you to make a bad decision. There was a lot of emphasis on recognizing things that could affect your decision making- are you hungry? Are you going through a breakup? Are you cold and tired? Are you deferring to an expert even if you’re uncomfortable taking a risk? You have to make sure everyone in the group is comfortable saying they are uncomfortable- which as social apes is actually difficult.
For example more people die in avalanches on days that have blue skies because they take more risks
That is an interesting info
Not every day you can hear about avalanche training tidbits
And thus you have the free will to weigh the options and make decisions that might be one that you otherwise might not have made
@@dayoonman3264 You don't. You're simply using the term free will, however his case is literally no different from...literally everything. If you read that there are many car accidents, so you'd rather take the bus everyday...you make a choice after reading some data. But weighing options, as you say, name me one situation where you don't weigh an option? You could say the simplest thing like breathing while asleep. However even then, you're brain keeps making a decision every milli milli second how long or a deep breath.
Your brain is the machine that calculates everything, like a dog calculating why he got a treat so he can replicate that action. And we, as in our conscious is a simple spectator.
@@SOSULLI today my wife asked me if I wanted the green apple or the red one. Instead of weighing the option, I asked my wife to do eenie meanie mienie mo
@@dayoonman3264 And your ‘wife’ replied in frustration, can’t deal with these games, you get it yourself?
Or perhaps, well you know what honey, you can have both
And by the way, Robert, I LOVE the presence of your dog! ❤
I know so can hear toenails 😂
This is the best Sapolsky interview I've seen, and I've seen many.
Indeed. It is the first time I see an interviewer bring Karl Popper's falseability principle in conversation with Robert Sapolsky 👍.
Unfortunately Neil was interrupting and cutting off Robert at so many opportunities and that subtracted from the quality for me.
Somehow he got Neil and Arsineal Hall buying this crap too. You guys ever read the Bible hmmm? Tree of life? tree of knowledge of good and evil? Ever hear of those, Bobby?
its great when he's interviewed by someone who has a basic idea of his thesis along with respect for his accolades.
One positive result of the pandemic lockdowns for me was discovering Sapoksky's Stanford lectures. Now I've read 3 of his fascinating books and myn life 's been enriched.
It's sad that school convinces many that science is not for them.. it really is down to the teachers you get.
If it conforts you, the government just want a person smarth enough to push a button, but not to know how that machine really works. Of course, there's a lot of people that make those machines, but not all of them.
I can’t help myself, I got happy tears in my eyes when I saw the cameo appearance of Dr. Sapolsky’s cute doggo next to him 🥹😊
ROBERT SAPOLKSKY IS A GENIUS!!!
Amazing you had Dr. Sapolsky on! I took a dive through UA-cam last year and watched his lectures and couldn't stop watching the class. Amazing teacher and such interesting findings. I still love watching him when he comes up, so this is a real treat!
Yes, you can stop. You have the free will to do so.
Robert Sapolsky is one of the best educators EVER 🙌🙌🙌
U R misled. Follow what you want, though you don't think you have a choice evidently.
He is actually terrible at everything he does. What is even "education" for you clowns? Sympathy for chopping of limbs?
There was a great Radiolab where they talked about this lady who was stuck in a loop from medicine or something, and she would go through the exact same logic steps because she wasn't storing any new memories. It was like groundhog day over and over. Honestly, it was really compelling to me, it made me think about that idea of us being biological machines. She would repeat the same questions, the same answers, said the same weird little details, etc, exactly the same each and every time for hours.
Get out!
Do you remember the name of the episode? That sounds super interesting but I can’t seem to find it.
She had a bout of transient amnesia and was on a 90 second loop…. The episode is ‘Loops’
We have free will on things we are not born with.The way we look & where are we born,we have no choice.we are free 2 think.We are fully free 2 do what we like,without harming other livings creatures.
Do we really have the ability to ignore our programming and all that's come before?
Professor Sapplskys intro to human behavior was always one of the most popular classes at Stanford, very funny lecturer.
Even if we don't have free will, I'm determined to be free
You're programmed that way :D
I'm programmed to not do bad things to other people because I'm afraid of what they might do to me.@@Shive1337
@@Shive1337 we are who we are. every moment a new version and will never be the same.
Only Christ and being born again can set you free, give you eyes to see, ears to hear, and stary you on the path to the beginning of wisdom
If Christ made you then you indeed don't have any free will. It's been written and scripted in his eyes. Everything that has happened to you and will happen he intended. Sowwie.
OMG, Robert is such a hoot! I love this collaboration.
I must say, South Africa (where I live) is a grand example of how culture can be changed. You guys may not understand how much people like Mandela and Tutu have done to fast-track social change and catalyse behavioural overhaul.
It's still flawed and the road to healing and integration is long, but this is most certainly possible. It's just not effective without leaders who drive it from the top-down (which is why Rassie Erasmus is serving as a secondary lateral-hero and unifier at present)
Really interesting point. As a progressive-leaning person from the US, I feel like there's so much our two nations can learn from each other's examples of having to suddenly, out of the blue (but not really because it was obvious to everyone outside the situation that it was unsustainable at best, immoral and unethical at worst), integrate very different cultural/racial populations that had been held in a state of artificially, violently enforced inequality.
Just after the US Civil War, there was a truly revolutionary wave of Americans of African descent being elected to local, state, and even federal positions. This was then faced with a brutal backlash with groups like the KKK, which formed the basis for the organized white supremacy movements we have today.
Personally, I'm of the belief that the US would have been ultimately better off if, after the Civil War, we'd taken a stance more like Germany has taken regarding the darkest movement in their nation's history. Instead, we just all shook hands "like gentlemen" and let the atrocities continue on the sly.
I have already read 2 of Dr. Sapolsky books “behave” and “why zebras don’t get ulcers” and he is one of my favorite authors. So happy to watch this conversation happen. If you enjoyed , you can read his new books and can “read” behave where Robert has roughly 700 pages of further justification
This has got to be one of the best interviews on Startalk. Neil and Chuck's interventions are as apposite as usual, and I always marvel at how Chuck, while genuinely interested and contributive to the conversation, is still funny, not because he's trying, but because he's just made that way and can't help himself. (A kind of appropriate observation now I come to think of it!)
So many people (who still watch and listen, btw) complain at their interview style and that Chuck isn't funny. If we could plot humor on an X Axis and Intellect on a Y Axis, Chuck is crushing it
May I just express my appreciation for your appreciation of other people's diverse communication styles ❤
I love Chuck lol
I'm always where Robert Sapolsky is invited. I'm 52 years old and when I was a teen I tend to come up with the same conclusion that free will doesn't exist. Simply by observing my violent mother and my alcoholic father (violent, angry everyday with my sisters and I between 4 an 8 years old, they where psychotic and neurotic, with their very difficult past, and observing my class mate, etc.)
This made me a very patient, gloom, distant, and introverted person (as little as I know.) ... and that did not help me with life...
So you didn't choose to write this post?
One thing it can do for you: you can be assured that IT WASN'T YOUR FAULT. And it was never your problem to solve, so there is no reason to blame yourself for not stopping them.
You absolutely have my sympathy - it must have been horrible.
@@winchesterbearright lol
We have the free will to make better decisions in life but no free will when it comes to our human anatomy so basically yes and no.
@@winchesterbearhis past which he did not choose or control contributed to him writing the comment 🤔
Thank you for brining on Dr.Sapolsky! He is one of my absolute favorite professors!!
Fabulous conversation. This mirrors my experience as a social worker and mental health clinician. We know that one's formative years have an incredibly large impact on the rest of a person's life (see ACE scores). So much of my work is dealing with the problems caused by childhood trauma, even in patients in their 60's and beyond. You can't rationally blame a person for what happened to them as a child, but as a society we effectively do that all the time. Freewill is a fiction and a bludgeon used by the privileged to blame the disadvantaged for their circumstances while justifying their own elevated position in the hierarchy, and it's disgusting.
I've listened to him several times. But this discussion is the first time I understood the point of it all. Thank you Niel and Chuck. Very enlightening conversation.
I have listened to many, many, arguments on this subject of “Free Will” over the past several years. Quite honestly, I’m still having trouble with accepting it as a part of my daily reality of existence. I believe Neil hit the nail on the head. If this perspective of having “No Free Will” is true and really is what’s going on every day with our every day decisions, we have to do some serious changing with our social, political, and cultural perspectives of every single person on this planet. Of course, Robert had an answer and it should take 600 years for this “No Free Will” thing to become the positive part of humanity that he believes it should be. I disagree with that time scale. Probably more like a thousand and it’s not out of the question to say 10,000 years considering the human nature element.
Chuck Nice’ comment actually makes very much sense, as he always does on this podcast. Basically, to paraphrase, I will still be me and who am regardless of the rules/laws at hand. This is where I have the problem with the whole “Free Will” thing. The question of where does morality come from is still a relevant question. The answer to that question is rather obvious to most people. Of course, morality comes from us. We human beings make the rules/laws and we give the validity to the meaning of morality. And, it doesn’t matter where in the world you are born. Your morality will be based on the culture you were brought up in. Okay, to some degree, that one point alone, seems to lend credence to the “No Free Will” perspective. However, it does not answer the question of why we believe in morals in the first place. Yes, one could argue that we needed to come up with laws to keep people safe from the psychopaths. But, if “Free will” doesn’t exist then psychopaths are not responsible for their actions or behavior.
Listen, I’m all for forgiveness and tolerance of every single social and cultural difference with people in the whole world. But, if everything I think, do, and say is pre-determined, without my knowledge of it, then why am I concerned about Free will in the first place. I mean let’s be honest with ourselves here. If everything I think, do, and say has already been decided, then why bother with deciding anything. Just so you know, I would have no problem if having “No Free Will” was an absolute truth. I feel the same as Chuck. I would keep on keeping on and do what I love to do. Why? Because the truth is folks, that’s all you got anyway. “Free will” or not.
Here’s the rub folks. All you got is now. Sam Harris said it and it is as true as true can be. “It’s always now”. In other words, all you have is the moment. So, whether Free Will is real or not, you should be doing what is the most important to you every time you have the opportunity. Because, if you don’t, than once again, Free Will or not, you’re not living your life. So, when it really comes right down to it, that’s all that really matters. LIVING!
You're not the only one on this.
Was my response "free will" or was I destined to comment. 🤔
try this and see if it helps: "Most of what we are is non physical, though, our lowest form is physical. All life on our planet has the lowest form, the Body. Our Body is an Animal and the other type of Body on our planet is a Plant. Bodies are bound absolutely to Natural Law, which is the lowest form of true Law. Natural Law is a localised form of Law and is derived from the Laws of Nature. Natural Law is the finite and specific foundational control structure ordering the actions and interactions of species, members of species, and the material sources of a planet.
The lowest non physical form of what we are is the Mind, which is a Process. There are other forms of life on our planet that have both a Body and a Mind, however, so far as we currently know, there are no Plants and only some Animals that have a Body and a Mind. The lowest forms of Mind, Instinct and Emotion, are predominantly bound to Natural Law. The next higher form of Mind is Intellect which is bound predominantly to the Laws of Nature. Intuition, the highest form of Mind, can be bound or not to both Natural Law and the Laws of Nature separately or together, or to higher forms of Law altogether. Intuition is the truest guide for our Selves.
The next non physical form of what we are is the Self, which is an Awareness. There are relatively few other forms of life on our planet that have a Self. The Self is not bound to any form of Law other than One's Own Law. It is the only form of Law that cannot be violated.
The foundation of what we are is the highest non physical form of what we are. The highest form of what we are is the Being, which is an Existence. The Being is not bound to any form of Law originating within Existence. The Being is bound absolutely to The Law.
Existence, and the Laws of Nature which are the finite and specific foundational control structure ordering the actions and interactions of all elements within Existence, cannot Be without The Law being The Law.
So, what is The Law?
In a word, The Law is options.
Definition
option: a thing that is or may be chosen.
The word 'option' does convey the idea of The Law in its most basic sense but does not clarify all of what The Law is.
Free Will does describe how our species experiences The Law but does not convey all of what The Law is.
In clarifying what The Law is;
The capitalised form of the word 'The' indicates the following noun is a specific thing.
Law is the finite and specific foundational control structure ordering the actions and interactions of all elements subordinate.
Together, the words 'The' and 'Law' (in that exact order,) is a proper noun indicating;
the singular form of Law that all other forms of Law and all other Laws are founded upon,
the singular foundation upon which Existence is founded,
the singular foundation upon which Non Existence is founded,
the singular foundation connecting Existence to Non Existence,
the concept of options, and
Free Will.
However one thinks, believes, guesses, hopes, or "knows", whether by a Big Bang, a creation story, a computer program, an expansion of consciousness, or whatever means by which Existence could have come to Be, the option for Existence to not Be also exists. Existence and Non Existence, the original options connected by the very concept of options, connected by The Law. Outside of space and before time. Extra-Existential.
As we experience The Law in our Being,
The Law is Free Will.
The First Protector of The Law is Freely Given Consent.
The First Violation of The Law is Theft of Consent."
- Goho-tekina Otoko
Don't force it on you that you don't have a free will when you know deep inside from your first person perspective that you do. And you have correctly and logically linked it to moral code which I'm afraid isn't an issue for people who want to see everything from a chemistry laboratory. Their world view isn't natural, yours is!
You are concerned about freewill probably because you were told of this concept and it is uncomfortable when this notion is challenged. It does have to be that reason, but the point is there is a reason, and then there are reasons behind that reason, and so on, which create this predetermined causal chain, you know the drill.
You are basically saying that if there is no free will, we ought to do some serious changing?
An agent only ought to do something if she actually can do it, and ought only to refrain from doing something if she actually can refrain from doing it. But under determinism, neither can you do nor refrain from doing something. Determinism devolves into incoherence.
I consider most of this a part of chaos, which I define as "The effect of countless unknown factors upon any given outcome." I do believe in 'free will' - as in we can make our own choices, even against our own biology and circumstances, given that we've done enough self reflection and introspection to know when we tend to make certain kinds of decisions.
But did you actually choose the self reflection introspection etc. or was it just your nature from your nature and nurture. Actions don’t manifest from nothing. That is magic. Actions- including your thoughts happen via nature and the nature that is around you.
@@ducky169So you're saying that me gaining free will was predetermined?
Name me literally one action where the priority wasn't survival of you and or the species. So just to make clear. The brain analyses every aspect that will gain them the possibility for survival. Like a hungry dog getting a treat, will analyse every detail in its behaviour that could have led to that (like sitting down, not barking etc). And the brain also knows 2 things. Happiness influences the rate of survival and the avoidance of pain also.
But I'm pretty sure it is impossible for a human, thereby their brain, to commit an act that is not selfish and maybe even choose for the number 2 of possible actions to increase survival.
Just want to point out the school-dyslexia issue. We had several kids in my elementary school that suffered from dyslexia but the teachers made us students believe the kids were dumb and outcasts. They got the worst treatment possible. I knew it back then and it still pains me today. These types of behaviors from adults changed my thinking drastically. I strongly agree what is being done and what was done to many of us is wrong and needs correction asap. Thank u for talking about it!
I'm 75% through Sapolsky's book. It's a real eye opener. Highly recommend 😎👍
Trump 2024!
I agree!!!
@@HairySourpuss I don't empathize, but I sympathize.
For use as TP
The argument against the existence of real free will is rooted in the understanding that both deterministic and probabilistic laws govern the universe, and in the evidence that unconscious neural processes precede conscious decision-making. This view posits that what we perceive as free will might be an illusion, with our choices predetermined by past events or influenced by random quantum events, neither of which we control.
things that are not being stated, that the subconscious acts created by narration are exemplorary to what feeling propogates the vision that perpetuates the narrative..folks like to be right, but it takes energy to change a thought. Energetically, bioelectromagnetically, there are Effects that influence outside of proximatey..Quantum energy reveals Spirit energy, not a standardization mean of 40% in behavioral issues in the general population, imo.
the problem there is that first, we don't mostly know those laws or how they work, second, they could be preceded/ determined in turn at a deeper level themselves, analogous to how they determine biology on our level. The next problem is we don't know how time or the mind work, for example backward time referral in the brain, causation from the future, may be real. Finally, the same logic that rules out free will also must rule out identity and selves, so what does it mean to say things aren't as we perceive? What does it mean to say we don't have free will? I don't have the answers, but I am impressed by one brilliant scientist who claims that only simulations can be conscious. In that sense, free will is real - for us. It's not real, beyond us, but that's a realm we can't touch anyway.
@@emilianosintarias7337 Just because we don't know the laws, doesn't mean it's then undetermined. There is a difference between unknowable and random, as was discussed in this video.
Same goes for going backwards in time. Just because we cannot determine what happened before, does not make it undetermined. It just means we can't determine it. We just dont have the capability to determine it.
No free will doesn't rule out identity or selves. It just removes the idea that they had free will in determining what their identity or selves are.
You're conflating free will with a lot of different things. These are assumptions you've made about free will, and without evidence.
@@RigelOrionBeta You don't understand my comments. "Just because we don't know the laws, doesn't mean it's then undetermined. There is a difference between unknowable and random, as was discussed in this video.". That's irrelevant. For example if how it works involves backwards time referral, IE your brain sending information backward to itself all the time, then that invalidates the idea of preceding causes for making choices being the issue. Libbet goes away. It has nothing to do with randomness.
And I didn't say free will rules out selves. I claim that just as we can find no place in the functioning of the body and brain for free will, the same examination fails to find selves, and yet they are both cultural and psychological objects or constructions. The mistake Sapolsky is making is to pretend that any brain science has found the self, and then ask how lack of free will affects it, despite there being no place in physiology or neurology for the self to be hiding either.
My final suggestion was that free will is not real, but that we (who , in physics, are not discreet individual object) do have it. Just like Frodo Baggins does not exist, but he is a hobbit. So, free will may just be part of the interface or operating system of selves, which are functional illusions, at base determined by bodies determined by physics
You're only as good as your circumstances allow you to be
Absolute nonsense. There is zero conclusive evidence for this.
And genetics. Unless there is something fundamental we do not know, it is safe to see no free will exists. This however has very uncomfortable implications for people which makes it very difficult to accept, however I guess those people have no choice in the matter too lol.
@@TakezoMushashi your genes would also be circumstances
@@marcusaldrich8290 true
This is wisdom, and i have thought like that for years.
The other side of that is that how you treat others is important because your negative or positive actions may echo through time in other peoples behaviour either making world uglier or more beautiful place.
If you hurt someone you are not just hurting him. The person you hurt may feel wounded and may go hurt others, repeating what you did.
Same applies if you do kindness.
I am glad I have no choice but to watch Professor Sapolsky’s interviews. 😃
Just listened to the podcast version.... Brilliant episode....Mr Sapolsky is such a fascinating and interesting person....I loved your back and forth discussion with a serious dose of humour....9,9/10 for this one....(The missing 0,1 because it should've lasted another hour+) 😋
I've been thinking like this for a decade however it's still hard not to get mad at other human beings and even at myself
I don't think the expectation should be that without free will we don't get mad. Anger is a response to something we identify that would have been better having gone a different way. Identifying these things is important to actually getting better results next time.
Anger can be a tool like any other, the danger of course is when it shuts down rational thought and we become impulsive.
indeed.
that seems to contradict the lack of free will idea. important? getting it right? tool like any other? danger? which non determines agent is standing back from this, is transcending this?@@uninspired3583
I agree! I just try to think about why am getting angry/sad etc and what factors make it worse or better. Then I can try to make changes 👍🏼
I've been thinking this way for 3 decades and I barely ever got mad and at this point it pretty much never happens. Some anger is genetically built in, but most of it is learned through imitating our environment and having certain kind of behavior legitimized and normalized.
If our society did not believe in free will at all and you were born into that world, you'd very likely be feeling much less angry more often on average than you do now.
I have tremendous respect for the circumstances that just so happened to make Robert Sapolsky the brilliant person he is. The circumstances in my past just so happened to make me the kind of person that is truly inspired by him.
I love how any time Robert is invited to give a talk from home, he will never corral his dogs and they always make an appearance. Usually just via sound, but I'm glad this time I can put a face to the barks.
Refuting the belief in free will allows you to have empathy and forgiveness. Which has been the best benefit of my life.
There would also be an absence of justice as no one would be held accountable for "their" crimes because they have little to no control over their actions .
@@hafissujanlal6454 that’s not true. People still should face justice. I just don’t judge them from a moral perspective.
@@hafissujanlal6454you can still put people in jail that are bad for society.
@@hafissujanlal6454 the idea is discussed and refuted within the podcast. The main reason to jail somebody who is predisposed towards violence is the same whether they are acting with free will or not. You’re protecting other members of the public from being harmed.
It’s the distinction between saying “you’re going to prison in order to protect the rest of the public from your actions” and “you’ve been a very naughty boy or girl and you deserve to be punished”.
One of them is a moral judgement and the other is a functional statement, moving away from moralising is what’s being put forward (you really should watch the whole podcast because the arguments are very reasonable - he discusses other examples where moralising isn’t helpful and can even backfire, such as dealing with obesity)
"no free will" means "there is nothing to forgive". So there is no blame, and no guilt. Which has been the best benefit of my life, similarly. We're all doing our best. (and our worst at the same time, but why see it that way). No one makes a mistake if they know it's a mistake.
Thank you, I believe that fueling empathy - through an understanding of the lack of free will - is essential to truly promoting compassion. Most importantly for those we don't understand / dislike. This is a very important conversation to have
No. Placing empathy over rational truth is not good. It leads to coercion of the innocent.
Just because you're empathetic doesn't mean you shouldn't correct someone with the wrong mindset at a given time. Things change as time goes on and we have to accordingly. Being empathetic means hitting people where they respond to the correction successfully if nothing else works. There is a balance and you can't be an extremist. Some people can't change their mindsets accordingly and become a problem for evolving. Those people have served their purpose if they do not respond to the needs of the majority.
So I do agree with you. But I got bludgeoned to death basically and some haven't so they aren't there yet.
this is eugenics talk, meaning your DNA drives your actions
this is dangerous
It is impossible to fuel empathy or judge the lack thereof for the same reason it was impossible for the person to do anything other than commit the harmful act.
It's equally impossible to listen to this and alter the trajectory of the justice system or society specifically because it is impossible to alter the trajectory of anything according to this.
I keep watching these because I'm astounded how it keeps sounding to me like the most pointless discovery. It's as if they're only applying the argument to the person initiating a harmful act but then assuming we can somehow control our response. On rails is on rails.
@@nottyseel949 if I'm understanding you correctly I can see why you'd say we can't alter trajectories. We don't even know if we do, it's just us thinking that we are and it's not just simulated. That depends on other simulations I guess, and the outcomes. You'd have to compare, but if you believe in free will then I'm not sure you believe in simulation. I'm currently going through a similar situation as one of my brothers and there are many alikes, although Im able to predict things before they happen so I can try to change them. It's not even just my brother, I've noticed other people having similarities but I'm focusing on him as he was closer. I think me being awake has mostly helped. I believe I have changed trajectories and I may have free will to the degree of fighting with people that still have power over me. It's just not free enough because I'm at the mercy of others decisions. I do think I'm making progress at breaking down that power though. It won't end the same, I already know that.
Every time I feel like studying,I lie down, until the feeling goes away.
😂😂😂😂😂😂😂 lmaooooo 😅😅
If I could recommend only one video, out of the millions and millions of videos on UA-cam, to everyone I know, to my friends, to my acquaintances, even to my enemies!, this would be the one.
Why have enemies?
@@visiblehuman3705for fun?
agreed.... 😉@@visiblehuman3705
@@visiblehuman3705It's just semantics and frame.
@@ClarkPotter 😯
The gasp I let out seeing Sapolsky on my favorite podcast. Omg ❤
About the judge hunger effect, I worked with a guy who always scheduled meetings with his clients between 11h30am and 12h30pm, as an attempt to talk to them before they had lunch. My colleague said the clients said yes to anything he suggested, in order to get rid of the meeting and go have lunch 😄
That’s smart, stealing that!
life hack xD
Based on the actual evidence of history, human and personal tragedies, I would say we do have our own ability to make decisions and have made some of the absolute WORST CHOICES AND USE OF FREE WILL. Just look at all the pain and suffering the human family has gone through. Horrible and destructive use of free will.
I was innocently watching UA-cam one day and being a fan of Dr. Tyson the algorithm led to a clip and saw a clip of Neil saying no free will. I instantly rejected this. Four weeks later I realized he was right. This idea has changed my life.
U had no choice
❤
All this did was make me way more depressed, how did this change your life to ( what I can assume is more positive)?
@@gfdia35 sure you can use this info to make better decisions. For example if you wait a few days before reacting to situation at work you can minimize the effects of biology on your decisions and things like tiredness and hunger will be less of a factor. That could explain why sleeping on it really works…you are not thinking as much as getting an average reading on emotions, fatigue, tiredness, being too hot etc. Knowledge is power.
@@gfdia35 same it made me even more depressed initially say a month ago. Don't worry. Try go into the depth of what he is saying and think.
You'll realise it's actually liberating. Atleast for me it was, can't say for you until you try. I can understand your pov.
If you want we can talk this further, like if you feel depressed and need someone to talk.
To hear someone of the caliber of DeGrasse Tyson say the phrase "I did not know that" shows how humble this man is - even with all his educational achievements. I've had high-school gym teachers who couldn't admit that there was something they didn’t know.
"...of the caliber of DeGrasse Tyson..." -- that is why he thinks there are more than two genders. That is terrific "caliber."
🤨
Neil recognizes Robert's genius. He knows his accolades are completely merited and sound. That's his way of showing the upmost respect for a superior intellect, albeit a different field of study of course
I am particularly impressed with Neil's educational achievement of recognizing there are more than two genders. Now that is truly impressive!
It's because NDT acknowledges that Sapolsky is as accomplished, if not more, than him. Whenever NDT talks to a non-scientist, he just bulldozes everyone in the conversation.
Chuck, thank you for bringing these two guys on your show
That's why it is so important to stay as healthy as possible at all times. You make better decisions.
you aren't free to stay or not stay healthy though. It's something we should instill in people as a society, sure, but if someone isn't staying healthy - not their choice *shrug*
its not simple to stay healthy. humans are lacking natural selection due to wildlife exploitation and soil/bacteria content is changing with time. wildlife exploitation is inflicting alot of suffering towards other organisms as they lack natural selection as well due to deforestation and seperation of organisms from their natural habitats.
I’d love to watch an episode where Neil doesn’t interrupt the guest every single sentence. Ego through the roof. That’d be nice
He can’t help it
No free will buddy
I like Neil for what Neil does... the good and the bad... I accept him, and the experiences that have made him the great man he is today.
I was thinking the same thing , Jesus!
I was first introduced to this concept of Determinism or no free will while watching Star Talk live. It was mentioned briefly by the other physicist on the panel (maybe his name was Brian Greene). The concept was dismissed on the show, but i was hooked, and went down the UA-cam rabbit hole. I then found Robert Sapolsky talking about the book Determined. I am reading Behave right now. Thank you so much Mr. Degrasse for intruding me to new concepts and expanding my thinking. You make science fun.
The concept of determinism/free will has been around since ancient Greek philosophy. But within determinism there are compatibilists and incompatibilists, who believe free will is an emergent property or not.
@@daanschone1548Yep incompatibilists who agree with determinism are called pessimists and incompatibilists who agree with free will are called libertarians.
@@Steven_DunbarSL one thing is sure. Due to the Heisenberg uncertainty principle we can never determine whether the universe is deterministic or not. :)
Arthur Schopenhauer in his "World as Will and Representation" said something like "you can will what you do but you can't will what you will". Thanks for the show.
That makes perfect sense.
Awesome, I became aware of the same thing when I was 13 - 14 years old.
Also a French philosopher, Gaston Bachelard said: The willpower consists of doing what one does not like.
Good one.Kinda of a Synthesis, of the subject.
The willingness to accept what others can not.
The freedom to choose willingness instead of will not.
The willingness to do what others won't.
The willingness to change while others don't.
-Buddah says
@@ogungou9 I’m not sure that will power is the same as free will but let’s accept that. You will only do what you don’t want if you want something else more. Eg I don’t like to exercise but I want to be fit more. I don’t want to go to the ballet but it makes my wife happy. I don’t want to raise my hand but I will because I want to prove I can more.
You don’t choose the thoughts that pop up in your head. You don’t choose which ones are more appealing to you. You don’t choose your emotional state or how you understand the world. You choose nothing. you are having an experience. Seeing other outcomes that could have unfolded but never would have creates the illusion of free will.
There's no such thing as too much Sapolsky! Thank you!
Good comment!
I came to a similar vibe in this conversation when I studied Situationism in college. It argued about the impact of situational factors in our behavior. It has not left my mind because so much of what I observe and read in research seems to point in this direction. That situations or environment dictate behavior. The funniest thing for me is that we really don’t have language to talk in these terms because our mode of communication assumes free will. Unless we turn the “I went to the store this morning” into a statement made by a third person narrator or something.
You'll see in buddhism this tendency to refer to the self the same way
You could say I went to the store as its accurate, perhaps not "I decided to go to the store" I'm not sure though as this free will stuff has only been in my mind a few years
Would love to have a conversation around how mindfulness and meditation help combat the negative side effects of our lack of free will and planting certain ideas can also help dissolve the same.
I think the interesting here is the notion that you'd perform mindfulness meditation would be pre-determined by the life path you've taken. I think of it like 'I want to create a youtube channel one day'. That will remain a distant goal until the time that I've developed sufficient motivation to complete that goal. The weird part is thinking that "the act of your thinking about it and taking the initiative now" was always going to happen based on your life choices up to that point which made you thoughtful enough to reflect. Also, Sam Harris' Waking Up app/podcast is specifically focused on these concepts (mindfulness, meditation, and free will and becoming aware of how thoughts simply emerge without your initiating them -- and then we ride these thoughts as passengers -- believing that we constructed them. The simplest example being trying to keep an empty mind and observing the random thoughts that emerge that you did not control but instead are an observer of.
@jmx808 but free will doesn't mean we are free in our ability to control our next thoughts. It's about the fact that we're free to choose between the actions presented to us. If I just stayed in bed for the rest of my life, is it societies responsibility to look feed me because I have no choice in how my life is? It makes no sense to me. If free will don't exist, neither do we. I can't make sense of it. Seems irrational to me
@@tobiaskvarnung3411 Well put it this way: you aren't responsible, and so society (also lacking in free will) isn't responsible either for keeping you alive. Makes sense yeah?
Once we accept that, ultimately, we're not really responsible for anything, we actually kind of gain more freedom by understanding our constraints and knowing exactly which actions will affect us and how. We're a self-determining machine, but a machine nonetheless. If we view ourselves as somehow innately greater, we're led to even greater biases and worse models of predicting things.
I mean here's the thing, even if I had no free will I'd still be hungry, or I'd like Batman more than Superman, or I'd prefer studying theoretical physics over mathematics. I would still be moved into action even if I'm not the source of that action.
And so, I would much prefer not to be in bed not contributing to society: I have no other choice.
@kamkamkam_ I see. But it seems to leave so many holes. If your whole life is determined by chemical reactions and molecules, and you have no agency in your life and no say in what direction you want to take. Then we don't even exist. How do our lives hold any value if we exist purely as observers into a life that isn't ours. Wisdom and skills and all such stuff isn't real. I have a hard time grasping that we lack any agency at all. Free will makes more sense to me. If I stay in bed all day, I am responsible for getting up and start owning my life.
@@tobiaskvarnung3411 Yeah it's an interesting thing and something I've not yet come to terms with. If we believe that the universe is deterministic in that it was "set in motion" by a big bang/other event and has for eternity followed rules that create patterns in the chaotic systems -- then it follows that humanity and all life emerged as a random but predictable by-product of this chaos. So then, what follows is that our minds are yet more structured chaos, which is deterministic (if you could compute every atom, and then every molecule, and then every microorganisms behavior). That makes the idea of free-will something of an illusion. I was always going to type this reply because my bio chemistry led me to be more likely to respond to a random comment than to continue my work activities. So here I am. But notice I said 'more likely'. Human behavior is predictable, see 'normal distributions'. But there is a great variance in those ranges. Perhaps, we have some degree of freedom to which of the randomly emerging options we will take. Or perhaps not, perhaps it's more like the double-slit experiment. The photons may take a random path but ultimately, they always form the same distributions. Like a role playing game where all options lead to the same outcome for a given playthrough. Free will implies conscious control over your outcomes. What I've described (random distributions) isn't really free will, just a more advanced algorithm...
There is no denying that there are psychological and genetic differences in people that cause us to react to life's situations consistently in a certain way. When these consistent responses and decisions are harmful to us you could say that they don't have free will. Nothing could be further from the truth. Our free will is the only thing that can enable us to overcome our negative tendencies, make better decisions and thus eliminating a sorce of suffering that would have lasted a lifetime. As they say nothing is easy, but life contains limitless possibilities.
He's the professor I never had but needed 😢
This is blowing my mind a bit. It relates to Dostoyevsky's Notes from Underground and so much of Foucault's ideas on
Power Dynamics, Biopolitics, Discipline and Punish, Agency and Resistance. Sapolsky is grounded maybe more in biology than social theory. I need to read this book. Thanks
Love this man. Love him, love him, love him. Such a beautiful soul and a BRILLIANT mind. He’s doing AWESOME things for the mentally troubled.
This conversation demonstrates to me just how important the illusion of free will is to human society.
It must have been STRONGLY selected for for us to feel it is so foundational to who we are.
With it it is possible for groups of human beings to work toward common goals.
Without it nobody is responsible for anything and the social structure is increasingly eroded.
It's important to acknowledge the technology of free will was employed and enforced by the ruling classes since its creation. I believe free will may exist once those repressive frameworks are gone.
We have free will, but within set parameters and with strong incentives and deterrents
My thoughts as well. Sure, all our emotions and thoughts are accompanied by and affected by physiological things. But that does not make it true that we exercise no independent decisions.
@@jimgulick9773 Sit down and think for a while. At which point did you decide to have that thought that popped in your head? Or the next? At which point did you decide to remember to pay the bills? When did you decide to feel sad or angry? Wherever you try to find the free will in the earnest, it's not there.
@@digitalspecter At what point did you decide to reply to me?
but neither are you there to be found. So there is free will for you. We as selves are fictions which determined stuff gives rise to, and we give rise to free will in this realm. When you exit the realm of identity things just are, and are so without you or I. @@digitalspecter
@@jimgulick9773 We are independent in the sense that two people in identical situations would make different decisions because their brains are not identical. But you can't be independent of the way your brain is.
Basically we are our brains and they are physical objects subject to determinism. You can be pessimistic about this and say that we are not free because the way we are (that is the physicality of our brain) determines our actions. Or you can say that this is actually freedom, because what else is freedom if not the freedom to be who we are and to want what we want?
The issue this raises of course is when it comes to moral choices. If we never have any choice but to act the way we act then how do we justify punishment? But how can we exist together in society without some system of sanctions and rewards? These are genuinely difficult problems and we can't just wave them away by pretending to believe in something called free will, which we know, scientifically, cannot exist.
I have had these exact same conversations with people, looking bk at my life, I can see what made me the way I am now, and that's just what I can remember
3 people that I love listening to on an incredibly fascinating topic - what a treat!!!
I am obsessed with Robert Sapolsky, he’s so humble and funny with his delivery, without even mentioning his intellectual contributions
Frreaking Neil! at around 26:26 'here are my recent thoughts', your rant is amazingly exactly the glue that holds this entire convo together all while re-enphasizing and refocusing the main focus, 'Free Will'. You put this delimna in a relateable perspective of real world examples, challenging society to look seriously at how we pass judgement and/or write off certain marginalized members of our society we share our lives with. The unfortunate outcome that typically and mistakenly occurs is that our lack of compassion and deliberate choice to see the actual set of uncontrollable consequences that have overwhelmed and consumed an individual into despair & misfortune, is much easier to justify as a choice that said person through 'free will' can simply make to turn it all around. The problem is that we deep down understand that most everyone can improve their situation with the compassion and help required to overcome and reprogram the bad hand that people our dealt. But we are not willing to acknowledge this truth because we have to sacrifice our time and resourrces to help those in need: selfishness. We would rather justify and contribe our success on our 'free will' to overcome our own bad hand and conclude that if I can make it, so can anyone. The jist of it is, we all need support, we all need to community to help work through the history that was not our choice but our consequence, and there is no better feeling or fulfilment in life then to witness a change in one's life from the sacrifice we 'chose' to make for an individual that deserves and appreciates the love that we all seek and thrive. Thanks!
Such a spontaneous unexplainable attraction to Robert’s message of no free will. Love hearing it over and over.
neil please let the guest talk and stop interrupting him
Neil has no choice over that.
😂@@InParticularNobody
thats was not his will tho
😂
It's edited ..
If we start with the premise that free will doesn’t exist, why should we even discuss what we, as a society, should do to improve things-like not punishing or praising individuals for actions beyond their control? If we truly lack free will, doesn't that mean everything we do is just a result of predetermined causes and events? Any compassionate change, then, would either be inevitable if it’s meant to happen or unreachable if prior events don't lead us there-not a deliberate, freely-made decision. So, what's the point of trying to figure out how to make society better if we're not really making choices to begin with? Am I misunderstanding something?
I hope Robert Sapolsky sees this question, @StarTalk. It's really been haunting me, though maybe it's meant to be, just another cog in a predetermined universe. I will definitely read the book.
If everything is determined from the start, with the motion of the first particles leading to the rest-ultimately forming life, then driving every reaction in and around us-then even my posting this comment and you reading it are just inevitable outcomes. In this framework, treating people as independent entities doesn't even make much sense, since the universe is just one big system, with no room for individuals, for free will, for consciousness, or even for true understanding. Everything ended the moment it started.
If we take the initial state of the universe, x_0 at time t_0 and think of the function of the universe as some complex wave function G, then at time t_n, we get x_n =G(t_n). I know this is oversimplified (and maybe wrong), but my point is that if we live in a world without free will, whatever we "learn" about the system isn't something we learn on our own-it's just a consequence of deterministic events that led us here. Thus, anything we "discover" while being inside this system isn’t real in the sense that it isn't freely derived. Only someone outside the system, observing it, could truly say they made a realization-because it wouldn't be just another inevitable consequence of prior events like the case of a bunch of neurons making a decision that is totally independent of previous history as Robert Sapolsky mentioned.
I personally believe he might be aware of this caveat, but I also believe that it is not relevant to his argument as it seems his argument is not whether free will is real or even attainable. His argument is that there IS no free will and a world where we understand that lack of free will would be a net positive for humanity and the way we treat each other.
In theory I agree with his hypothesis, if we adopted this dogma, in a few hundred years we would have a society where nobody lets their emotions get the best of them or react to how they perceive the people around them but rather how it IS, and while a world without judgement or hate sounds wonderful, I also think it is far too idyllic. His perception of free will is "the ability to make a choice without any previous information influencing that choice," which is a biological impossibility for us humans. The concept of free will was made up by us with this limitation in mind, the "real" definition of free will isn't about our nature or past, it isn't about freedom from our biological nature, it's about a lack of oppression enforced by other beings.
My perception of free will, the one most think about when they use that word, is being able to decide whether or not I want to eat something, regardless of what led me to that choice. I can say no, I can say yes, if I fall and fracture my knee, I can, despite my biological desire to be healed, reject medical services for fear of high medical bills, to preserve my interests. As long as no one can strap me to a gurney and force me into a hospital, as long as no one can make those choices for me, as long as I don't have to do things, I don't want to. I consider myself a human with human free will, regardless of what influenced my choices, they are my choices, by definition mine.
Sapolsky's definition of free will pertains more to a nature that frankly not many people are interested in, almost everyone wants to make a choice, not many people care why they make that choice. While a beautiful thought and a fascinating hypothesis from a scientific standpoint, it is by current statistics, unattainable, because it truly doesn't matter to most.
Let robert speak, damn it.. so many times he was going somewhere interesting when he's interrupted.
Just read his book if you want Robert to go somewhere interesting. He's got you covered there, uninterrupted.
Neil is awesome, but pleaaaase stop interrupting!!! Lol
💯
8:25 now I understand why my Aunt is told to do fasting the whole day before her weekly religious congregation meeting
Damn lmaoo
Does she get bad gas ?
@@unnamedchannel1237😂 well played
Think about this. They hate Christ. He fasted. He spoke of free will
@@joeslowmama2048never existed
There is nothing for me to add. I listened and have listened to Professor Sapolsky many times. I started his book, but haven't finished it, probably because I have already heard most of the arguments. I need to just read the story.
Saw preview, gasped "my favourite dudes!", clicked, liked, commented and will watch later during work 😊❤
I'm so glad that you guys are covering this, because Ive been asking myself these questions since I was in high school (partly as a product of a traumatic childhood) and nobody else Id ever talk to would even so much as humor these things, much less understand why I felt free will was so unintuitive. I feel so validated right now.
Hint: Reality & Truth does not have to be so-called "intuitive" ... whatever "intuitive" means. lol
Fact that somethings in our lives are 'determined' does not mean that Real Humans are devoid of "freewill".
When we stop entertaining the silly, suggestive question of 'either or', 'freewill or determinism', we are likely to find the 'happy medium'.
@@nirbija I am using the word "intuitive" to describe a combination of the extent to which an idea appears rational or reasonable to an individual and the ability for that idea to be derived in response to a problem or question relevant to it.
For example, a video game controller may have an intuitive design if it conforms well to the mechanics of the body part it is designed to interface with (whether this is a classic hand controller, or something more exotic like the dancing mat used for the Dance Dance Revolution titles that released on the Xbox) and it is easy to learn the use of the controller and its functions with respect to the game the user is playing. By saying that free will is unintuitive, I am stating that it is a concept that does not immediately appear reasonable, practical, or viable when compared against my existing conceptualization of the world.
@@Crumbling_Vortex
So you are saying, in effect, that Your "unintuitive"/counter-intuitive means that which is contrary to Your Personal "conceptualization of the world".
We think that you urgently need better teachers who can give you the right/true "conceptualization of the world".
For the vast majority of humans, and for the real world, human freewill is taken for granted and should be taken for granted, respectively.
Those lifeforms with freewill live in highly sophisticated societies because they can be held responsible, and are RIGHTLY held responsible, for their actions.
Without freewill, to decide and act this way or that, humans would not, and could not, be holding each other responsible for their actions.
Neither would the wise, for all times, be repeatedly stating the Natural Codes of Conduct, which are responsible for Governing & Guiding human behavior, the violations of which bring sorrow and the adherence brings joy.
Those lifeforms that do not possess freewill, they live in herds instinctively under the guidance of Mother Nature.
This so-called "professor" should not be teaching young people; he is irresponsible. He does not know to keep to himself, and from young, impressionable minds his misguided thinking about something so basic as human freewill.
In fact, the so-called "professor" should be back in school learning the basics about his life. lol
@@Crumbling_Vortexyou are going to do great in life
@@vandpiben Not to be mean or accusatory, but I would like clarification as to whether this comment is sarcastic or not.
This was the greatest and the most realistic conversations I've ever witnessed on UA-cam.
I just want to add another line to it as a psychologist, if I may;
- If we look back to our footsteps through our life, we see steps which they are not my fault, but the responsibilities are mine, as an individual and a grownup person, and because they're my steps not anyone else.
Naive. Get more experience.
unless we all share the same consciousness then your steps are everyone else's.
@@purefoldnz3070 wow
Thousands of people used their free will to comment under this post. Nothing neurological caused this.. Those who read and respond to comments is also doing it based off their own “free will.” No?
I agree that there may not be complete free will based off situations/circumstances. This video opened my eyes to it.
With that being said, I just don’t believe you could ever prove that free will doesn’t exist.
I love listening to these great minds and reading everyone’s comments.
I like to imagine Robert Sapolsky having the world's calmest heated argument with Terence McKenna.
YAS lolol
@@ghostrun101lol, shut up
The dog that shows up about 30 minutes in is the star of this
and much better groomed than Sapolsky.
The dog used his free will to show up.
Kissy doggy. Nice dog.
More Robert Sapolsky, please!
I think people forget that “will” is not always free. We have the appearance of free will.