We are all essentially part of a big experiment called life. It is our moral duty to be more like the scientist and less like the guinea pig in that experiment.
Perhaps the question should be how much free will do we really have and expressing the little we do is a goal that some of us contemplate and actualise, my cognitive bias has like many a hard time excepting the neurological reality, BO BO Saposky (stanford) has a great thesis on the topic and a new book i believe. Thanx brother love your work!
1: We don't get to decide what we like or dislike, or what we prefer, or want: I like spicy foods - but I didn't decide to like spicy foods. I ate spicy food and liked it. Choice never came into it. For me to choose to like something, a preexisting preference for that thing would have to already be in place. 2: We don't get to decide what will or will not occur to us: If you have a great idea, the idea "pops" into your mind. If you were in charge of when that idea occured to you, then that would require that you already had the idea stored away somewhere, and you were completely aware of the idea long before it occured to you... Which doesn't make sense. So things simply occur to us. This goes for which word you're going to say next, and every single word you've ever said, and will ever say. This goes for every thought you've ever had and will ever have. If it were up to us when a great idea will occur to us, it'd make no sense to postpone it occuring, because of the benefits of great ideas. 3: Just as we are at the mercy of whatever occurs to us; we're also at the mercy of whatever we remember. If we were in control of when we remember things, then no one would ever forget anything ever, not even for a moment. Misplaced keys? No such thing. 4: We don't know the long-term effects of our choices/actions. The only thing we know for sure is that we're all going to die some day. But for now, we want to avoid that (yet another want included in the factory settings) -- so we're careful, but sometimes our inability to calculate everything and to consider every factor, and unknown factor, puts us in sticky situations. You could ask someone out on a date, and take your time getting to know this person, and after a year of being careful and only dating, one night this person finally reveals who they really are... And you either escape by the skin of your teeth, or something terrible happens. We just never know how things are actually going to go, even if we're good people doing good, ethical, thought-out things. 5: We didn't get to design ourselves, or select our IQ, attractiveness, etc, etc. Many people treat attractive people better. Beauty Privilege is a real thing and has a major impact on our lives. And so... Everything Comes Down To Luck.
You have no control of what you sense and feel: when Harris says it’s inevitable to confuse him with Stiler, that’s basically the same classification mechanism that tells you a “1” is the number one when you see it, that allows you to read this very sentence. It tells you things, it makes you “realize” things, but then you have to “think” using that information and act on it. So even though you can’t control what you experience and how you interpret it, you can control how you respond to it
A simple consideration which sets everything in order is that no one is free from their own 'ultimate will'. You are not free to do anything you ultimately do not 'will' to do.
@@metamorphosis_77 your statement doesn’t refute what I have said though. If one takes into consideration all of the elements of reality which affect an individual at any given moment and considers that what one ‘wills’ is what one ‘does’ within any given moment (whether that be action, thought, and/or bodily functions such as breathing or moving) and not what one aspires to, then it really is that simple, as what one does is always affected by the constraints that reality sets upon you and what one ‘wills’ is what one ‘does’ within those constraints.
There may be room for free will in a seemingly deterministic universe, however, it involves invoking the many worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics, or, "The Multiverse". Consider, we, as a conscious entity, could not be rooted to just one universe, our experiential self, or 'soul' for lack of a better term, could be free flowing amongst all the possible outcomes of the MWI, and which branch we go down could be tied to our free will. So, whilst it seems like the universe we inhabit from one moment to the next is deterministic, each universe collapses the wave function at a particlar point, and our conscious choice sent us to that particular branch of the multiverse (in as much as our conscious action or decision could possibly affect our trajectory) The work by Stuart Hameroff and Roger Penrose shows that there may indeed by quantum action in the microtubules of the brain, this could be a way for this to take place.
I recently saw Dan Dennett talk about an "intuition pump" and the word "determine" seem to be one of these. Saying the universe is deterministic sets the mind ablaze with ideas about one thing causing another in an unbreakable lockstep pattern. Just because you can do an experiment the exact same way and get the exact same results every time does not in any way imply that there is only one outcome possible for any event, as if the atoms "determine" what happens in the experiment. The atoms and molecules are passive inanimate objects that don't determine anything, they just react according to their nature. The experimenter can change the outcome at will by changing the ingredients, proportions or conditions of the experiment and the atoms will happily go along with this new configuration of reality. Living things do this as a matter of course. They actively change the conditions and ingredients in order to get particular outcomes. In other words, we are the experimenter, not the experiment.
My brother reasoned that all multiverses if existant are completely insulated from this one, therefore allowing for the existance of multiversality without free will.
Cool video really got me thinking 🤔. Like you I think both apply. In part through evolution/genetics however if we have zero free will how why wouldn’t we all be ‘wild’ with no means to control the controllable’s? Wouldn’t that make philosophy at the personal level insignificant?
Of course you would question the reality of the assumption that free will is real. You had no choice. 😀 The philosopher William James would argue that even if someone did not believe free will is real, they will live their daily lives as if it were. From a pragmatist and existentialist perspective, it makes little difference whether free will is real or not. Neither a person's normal daily life nor society can function under the assumption that free will is not real.
Arandor, everything in your comment was perfectly reasonable. I can add that even saying what is "real" can be tricky. The physicist Sabine Hossenfelder, who made a sad video against free will, was the one to point out that particle physicists will say that a thing exists if it is useful to explain an observation. This is definitely not what most of us mean by "real".
Just a random thought to ponder. Why is it that just because something is perceived to be an illusion that it suddenly becomes less real? Why can't the illusion of reality be just as real as actual reality. If reality is a matter of perception, wouldn't that mean that the illusion is more real since it actually can be perceived.
I agree. The debate is more about what we can and can't control and the illusion of reality feels like something we can't control. Still if it matters or not is debatable.
I guess it all boils down to what each individual believes for themselves. Or maybe it's not about illusion or reality at all. Maybe free will is simply a matter figuring out who we really are. When life deals the cards who showed up to play, who showed up to bluff, who will have the courage to call when they were dealt a less than lucky hand and really need that last flip card, who is gonna go all in on a pair of deuces, and who will fold on the first round with pocket aces. Maybe it is an illusion, maybe it's real, maybe we can't ever win cause the winner has already been decided, but then again, maybe we can no matter what the odds. I believe life and free will is not so much about choosing where/what/who we will be in the end but more about choosing to show up and live no matter what.
Because we are self-learning machines. We have biological and cultural goals. Take a Roomba for example. It's goal is to clean a certain area. You set it up in an enviroment/room and it will learn the layout and calculate the best way to clean it. Humans have much more complex and even competing goals, but the principle is the same. Thinking and reasoning are just ways to reach our goals more efficiently. People learn that reasoning and logic works. We know about causality. Therefore it makes total sense to improve yourself to reach your goals/have a better life. If you want to reach goal x, you know or you can learn about the steps it would take to reach that goal. It's obviously immensely complicated in a human society and under scarce ressources. Everyone is different. The best way to reach a goal usually isn't clear. There are limitations to us and to our enviroment. But in the end it's all determination and random events and thus no free will.
@@christianmayr7139 Perhaps I'm missing something but if I learn that there is a better way to reach my goal and I choose to implement the better way, isn't that free choice? Or are you saying that after we learn there's a better way to do something, we have to follow that course?
@@MeeCee5204 The thing is that it's not really a choice. You would always do the same. You are the sum total of all your past experiences. You have the genes of your parents. You grew up under certain circumstances. You had certain friends. You watched certain movies. On day X of your life it was raining. On day Y you had coffee for breakfast. You read certain books. And on and on. All of that leads you to take option A instead of B. It feels like you had a choice. You can easily imagine taking the other option. However, if you repeated that "choice" a million times, you'd always go with A instead of B. Even if you apply reasoning. Even if you think long and hard about something. The way you reason and think about things is completely determined by your past experiences. That's why two people could come to different conclusions given the same "choice". Because they have a different past. You could also throw a coin. But the decision to throw a coin is determined by your past and the outcome is just random and therefore also not free will.
@@christianmayr7139 okay, I think I'm starting to understand. It sounds like you're saying a person's current reality is predetermined by their past experiences. Sort of like old school computer programming "if a=x, then y"
@@MeeCee5204 Exactly. Your experiences are constantly adding new lines of code to your program so to speak. To your "self". Most is probably redundant. Older lines are maybe reinfocred or forgotten, get circumvented or changed. We are unique collections. We are ourselves. The "choices" we make are our choices, in the sense that we make them. It's just that we can't help ourselves taking option A instead of B or vice versa. It somewhat becomes tangible when we know someone really well. We know how that person would probably react to a new situation. Because we know their "programming". Sometimes better than they themselves, because we have a more objective view of them. Another example would be crimes. You might read of some crime and have no idea why anybody would do such a thing. You certainly wouldn't do that. Then you read more and more about the circumstances. How a murderer grew up for example. What they experienced in their life. And sometimes we come to a point where we can imagine having done the same, if we had been in their shoes. They had no choice, given their history. Without free will there's no guilt. However, there is still a responsibility for the actions you take. Anyway, it certainly feels like we have choices or that we could have chosen the other option. We definitely experience life. It makes sense to improve ourselves and hopefully have a better life experience because of it. It also makes sense to help others have a better experience.
Awareness is not free will,as experience is a series of moments reflected on in the past tense.in the same way that we cannot choose the things we like ,we have no real choice of the things we think only those we acknowledge .without this there is no original thought,no new ideas.with only ever one possible outcome, any decision is always a certainty. Our consciousness is just a projection we see as independently ours.it is not the cause,it is the effect.
I agree that there are many illusions involved in the discussion of free will. Causal determinism is the biggest one. Dan Dennett talks about intuition pumps, and determinism is one of these. Your mind takes off with thoughts of one thing causing another as if this was some hard science fact. Any "Law of Causation" you intuitively think you understand is a philosophical concept, science has no such law. When you use your memory to construct a "chain of causation", this is also an illusion. Anyone can predict last weeks weather and think themselves brilliant. Some will say that what happens in one moment completely determines what happens in the next moment, but where in nature are these magic "moments"? This is another illusion that trips up the determined determinist. I could go on and on, but the true defining characteristic of determinists is absolute, ontological surety in their position, and when you combine this with their overarching ego, it becomes useless to try to reach them. In fact, you might conclude that they have foreclosed their own ability to exercise free will, which is kind of ironic.
What I have come to believe or realize/experience, is that the subconscious mind (Determinism-Will of the Universe) is more powerful than our conscious mind (Free Will), but once we realize this fact/truth, we can actively use our conscious mind, through Askformations and to a lesser extent Affirmations and forming new and improved habits of thought and action, to "reprogram" our subconscious mind, so it is more aligned with the goals and wishes of our conscious mind, while at the same time making sure, through Introspection and Meditation, that our Free Will (conscious mind) is not opposing the Will of the Universe (subconscious mind). Meaning, that the more our subconscious mind and our conscious mind can be in harmony and cooperate with each other, the more of an effective, productive and successful Free Will we will gain/have. So, I agree with your premise that "Free Will Isn't Free." To me Free Will is a lifestyle, a philosophy or an art form and a science, all at the same time.
@@metamorphosis_77 Thanks so much! I highly appreciate the high-quality and very visually appealing and aesthetically pleasing UA-cam content you are creating and providing for us!
I accept I am morally responsible to be a scientist or more precise a metaphysician. First as a metaphysician I do not espouse to belief or at the very least try desperately not to use the word in my vocabulary. My synthesis of Universal Dynamics states that we are neither subject nor direct object but we are the predicate. X=y+z. We are ONE. That's the best I can offer. Love Peace and Happiness
This was fascinating. I have found that the more I meditate (Mindfulness/Awareness technique of following the breath), that this so-called "I" can watch the thoughts as they arise. Thus becoming less reactive. So, is it the case that because there is no actual self, there is no one to "have" a will in the first place?
Yeah you're right I meditate in when I do I see the egoakatension there clinging to what it feels is safe making the way for anxiety aka cortisol then I just breath and relax the ego be like ok I'm good then disapates
Please consider doing a video on Generic Subjective Continuity, from the essay, "Death, Nothingness and Subjectivity", by Tom Clark. Sam Harris discussed it in his podcast episode "The Paradox Of Death".
Hi! How can you say "we have no control over biological mechanisms" first and in the same sentence say "but we have control over our decision to understand"? Please don't assume my position on this as I am just wondering the thought process and the assumptions behind these 2 affirmations. The first one is implying determinism and pure cause and effect over any organism phisiology and the second one is implying that "decision" and "understanding" is part of human experience but not biological (or not "within" the body?), therefore it must be "something else" that does not follow the same rules you believe exist and are in play in the first instance. By adding the "to some extend" comment it makes things even more complicated because it now implies that the "other thing" do follow the fixed rules, but only sometimes. What is then your intuition for that "other thing" you're implying? Mind/body split? What "are" we? Body only? Mind only? Both? Neither? What are the implications of pushing either "theory" to its extremes? Are you afraid you can choose literally everything or does it make you more afraid to know that there may not be anyone doing anything and that you might be a imagination of yourself? What about the subjective experience of being a divided psyche within one body that seems to have different goals and dreams and ways of communication within itself and that "you" aren't just one of them, or all of them, but at the same time you are? Why do "we" have to be either free or not free, but in both cases a unity (that assumes is or isn't something)? What if that question doesn't make sense in the first sense and should be rejected after all? Thanks for your videos btw.
You are right, it's difficult to affirm both. I am suggesting that insofar your mental apparatus (with its pre-designed features) allows you to understand, choose to understand. Choice and free will are not identical.
I think we are conditioned and that conditioning and trauma responses included will colour our next move. Through wisdom and understanding, we then will weigh up a circumstance. I feel we have a modicum of free will in choice but we do not have complete free will. This would only apply to self as being in the moment. We can not have free will with others as we are dependent on what another does or does not do. It depends on what we think free will is. I have free will to respond to this video or not. I do not have free will regarding what I will think about the content of it that unfolds as I hear and I respond. So maybe like the spiritual terms which I find useless "let it go" or just "forgive" in spiritual terms it is just an idea to make us feel better when are stuck between choices? Saying to myself I have free might encourage me if I am in an unwanted situation and telling others that may be helpful if they are struggling in choice. I think the term is more to do with wisdom rather than absolute fact. Looking at my own life I have been programmed somewhat and trauma has given me wisdom and life skills. Interesting I do study astrology and in charts, it can be seen that there is a modicum of truth in the symbols and aspects that would appear to show something as being written. I then think each person's level of consciousness developed or for some not and then we have intentions which could be the will of something greater than we will ever know. A complex term it is for sure.
X-Files Earthling human beings (love) think that "free will" means freedom to appreciate this paradise planet lifeboat and the miraculous works of fine art called "life" that inhabit it. And not be imprisoned and enslaved by hostile alien vampires (greed) and their ignorance (hate). But the hostile evangelical vampires (greed) think that "free will" means freedom to suck the joy out of life and devour the planet like a ravenous cancer. And freedom to imprison and enslave humans. Like bats that fly around in the darkness of caves...vampires (greed) are blind and cannot see the ignorance or transforming heaven (peace) into hell (war). The capitalist counting corpses are also blind and cannot see the ignorance of destroying the planet. Vampires (greed) who suck the joy out of life have joined the zombies who eat the futures of their children. Zombie Apocalypse is here and happening now.
04:40 -- so, there's such thing as a brain, but there's no such thing as a mind (psyche, soul, spirit, Ego, etc.)? Is that what Sam Harris argues? A deterministic mindset applies an ultimate absolution. That's why so many people like the sound of it.
I like that you mentioned Ego. I have concluded that the honest determinists are so completely Egotistical and Narcissistic that they really do feel compelled and unfree in most situations. It's no wonder they recoil at the idea of free will.
The question and search for the answer and reality of free will is such a mind puzzling journey. The quote in the beginning left me speechless & confused. 😵💫😅 It reminds me as well of the discussion of whether there is fate or coincidence. Are you acting according to the mysterious fate that was given to you or are you acting according to the coincidental circumstances that define your life, where there is room for different outcomes and sudden turns in your life (hence you can decide where your life is taking you)? I think free will is not absolute, there is a certain extent to which we have a direct influence but everything outside of this radius is perhaps pure coincidence, influence, or at best a chain reaction of other causes and relations. One might also say that free will is instead of an absolutistic state of being, more likely a spectrum of being, that varies. Oh my, now I confused myself. Anyway, it was a great video! Thanks for your effort and insightful work!
Sam Harris is a true scientist. The intellect is like a microscope, able to zoom in and out of any concept to create a sense of separateness between different magnifications. The pride of the intellect belives it has power over the things to which it can understand, because it is able to separate things into manageable bites and use it for ones own intentions. Having the power to control the thing to which it can understand. We seldom forget tho that no one magnification is right, hence as to how there are many truths, a sea of variables and perspectives over any one given thing. The intellect fails to fathom the unity of all things also known as absolute truth. The mind can only grasp relative truth, bite size pieces of information when in fact we are much more than bite sizes of information. When we pour water into an empty cup, the water takes the form of the space that resides within the cup. You can use any symbols(language) to represent how the boundaries of the cup separate it from being one with the water but you cannot deny wherever the cup goes the water will follow. You can identify with the intellect to such a degree your whole perception becomes fixated on a sense of objectiveness. We don't see the world the way it is but the way we are. You can create as many logical arguments as to why you have no free will because you being heavily Identified with the intellect become absorbed in its characteristics and see a separateness within all things including your own actions but fail to acknowledge you are your actions, your more than merly a consious observer witnessing acts occur you are also your acts. We belive who we are ends at the boundaries of the skin but we are more than our body, and more than what we interact with. We are a finite body that creates a unique subjective re creation of the infinite objective world through constant interaction. Consciousness does not reside solely within the organism nor its environment, but it is the harmonious playing of the two energies.
That was a very good synopsis of a bunch of Sam Harris's ideas. I can't help but point out that when you observe a natural phenomenon, you give it a name and a description. All through history people have noticed that humans are constantly making choices and gave this phenomenon the unfortunate name of Free Will. Sam Harris is arguing against some conceptualization of this observation, so whatever he concludes, it cannot negate the very thing on which it is based. Like I always say, if your concept of free will is incoherent and impossible, maybe you need a different concept.
We are all essentially part of a big experiment called life. It is our moral duty to be more like the scientist and less like the guinea pig in that experiment.
That’s only if we have free will, no?
It’s a moral duty to free the guinea pig :)
Perhaps the question should be how much free will do we really have and expressing the little we do is a goal that some of us contemplate and actualise, my cognitive bias has like many a hard time excepting the neurological reality, BO BO Saposky (stanford) has a great thesis on the topic and a new book i believe. Thanx brother love your work!
1: We don't get to decide what we like or dislike, or what we prefer, or want: I like spicy foods - but I didn't decide to like spicy foods. I ate spicy food and liked it. Choice never came into it. For me to choose to like something, a preexisting preference for that thing would have to already be in place.
2: We don't get to decide what will or will not occur to us: If you have a great idea, the idea "pops" into your mind. If you were in charge of when that idea occured to you, then that would require that you already had the idea stored away somewhere, and you were completely aware of the idea long before it occured to you... Which doesn't make sense. So things simply occur to us. This goes for which word you're going to say next, and every single word you've ever said, and will ever say. This goes for every thought you've ever had and will ever have. If it were up to us when a great idea will occur to us, it'd make no sense to postpone it occuring, because of the benefits of great ideas.
3: Just as we are at the mercy of whatever occurs to us; we're also at the mercy of whatever we remember. If we were in control of when we remember things, then no one would ever forget anything ever, not even for a moment. Misplaced keys? No such thing.
4: We don't know the long-term effects of our choices/actions. The only thing we know for sure is that we're all going to die some day. But for now, we want to avoid that (yet another want included in the factory settings) -- so we're careful, but sometimes our inability to calculate everything and to consider every factor, and unknown factor, puts us in sticky situations. You could ask someone out on a date, and take your time getting to know this person, and after a year of being careful and only dating, one night this person finally reveals who they really are... And you either escape by the skin of your teeth, or something terrible happens. We just never know how things are actually going to go, even if we're good people doing good, ethical, thought-out things.
5: We didn't get to design ourselves, or select our IQ, attractiveness, etc, etc. Many people treat attractive people better. Beauty Privilege is a real thing and has a major impact on our lives.
And so...
Everything Comes Down To Luck.
Freewilled actions always creates another deterministic notion for the future.
No freewill can exist without a source of strong determinism.
I can't get enough of your videos . What you speak is all the thoughts I've been struggling to put into words .
Thank you .🦋
Thank you!
I look forward to these now
♥️✌️ & 🍄
You have no control of what you sense and feel: when Harris says it’s inevitable to confuse him with Stiler, that’s basically the same classification mechanism that tells you a “1” is the number one when you see it, that allows you to read this very sentence. It tells you things, it makes you “realize” things, but then you have to “think” using that information and act on it. So even though you can’t control what you experience and how you interpret it, you can control how you respond to it
A simple consideration which sets everything in order is that no one is free from their own 'ultimate will'. You are not free to do anything you ultimately do not 'will' to do.
It's not that simple. Either decision is predicated upon formerly instigated processes that you are unaware of and you can't really control.
@@metamorphosis_77 your statement doesn’t refute what I have said though. If one takes into consideration all of the elements of reality which affect an individual at any given moment and considers that what one ‘wills’ is what one ‘does’ within any given moment (whether that be action, thought, and/or bodily functions such as breathing or moving) and not what one aspires to, then it really is that simple, as what one does is always affected by the constraints that reality sets upon you and what one ‘wills’ is what one ‘does’ within those constraints.
There may be room for free will in a seemingly deterministic universe, however, it involves invoking the many worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics, or, "The Multiverse".
Consider, we, as a conscious entity, could not be rooted to just one universe, our experiential self, or 'soul' for lack of a better term, could be free flowing amongst all the possible outcomes of the MWI, and which branch we go down could be tied to our free will.
So, whilst it seems like the universe we inhabit from one moment to the next is deterministic, each universe collapses the wave function at a particlar point, and our conscious choice sent us to that particular branch of the multiverse (in as much as our conscious action or decision could possibly affect our trajectory)
The work by Stuart Hameroff and Roger Penrose shows that there may indeed by quantum action in the microtubules of the brain, this could be a way for this to take place.
loved that
I recently saw Dan Dennett talk about an "intuition pump" and the word "determine" seem to be one of these. Saying the universe is deterministic sets the mind ablaze with ideas about one thing causing another in an unbreakable lockstep pattern. Just because you can do an experiment the exact same way and get the exact same results every time does not in any way imply that there is only one outcome possible for any event, as if the atoms "determine" what happens in the experiment. The atoms and molecules are passive inanimate objects that don't determine anything, they just react according to their nature. The experimenter can change the outcome at will by changing the ingredients, proportions or conditions of the experiment and the atoms will happily go along with this new configuration of reality. Living things do this as a matter of course. They actively change the conditions and ingredients in order to get particular outcomes. In other words, we are the experimenter, not the experiment.
My brother reasoned that all multiverses if existant are completely insulated from this one, therefore allowing for the existance of multiversality without free will.
Cool video really got me thinking 🤔. Like you I think both apply. In part through evolution/genetics however if we have zero free will how why wouldn’t we all be ‘wild’ with no means to control the controllable’s? Wouldn’t that make philosophy at the personal level insignificant?
sometimes i think philosophy is more about mental stimulation and less about practicing what you read
@@metamorphosis_77 for sure it’s one way of living a good life in my view that requires discipline & an exploring/diligent mind to a degree
Of course you would question the reality of the assumption that free will is real. You had no choice. 😀 The philosopher William James would argue that even if someone did not believe free will is real, they will live their daily lives as if it were. From a pragmatist and existentialist perspective, it makes little difference whether free will is real or not. Neither a person's normal daily life nor society can function under the assumption that free will is not real.
Arandor, everything in your comment was perfectly reasonable. I can add that even saying what is "real" can be tricky. The physicist Sabine Hossenfelder, who made a sad video against free will, was the one to point out that particle physicists will say that a thing exists if it is useful to explain an observation. This is definitely not what most of us mean by "real".
Just a random thought to ponder. Why is it that just because something is perceived to be an illusion that it suddenly becomes less real? Why can't the illusion of reality be just as real as actual reality. If reality is a matter of perception, wouldn't that mean that the illusion is more real since it actually can be perceived.
The Matrix series is all about this very topic. (Which I'm sure you're already aware)
I agree. The debate is more about what we can and can't control and the illusion of reality feels like something we can't control. Still if it matters or not is debatable.
I guess it all boils down to what each individual believes for themselves. Or maybe it's not about illusion or reality at all. Maybe free will is simply a matter figuring out who we really are. When life deals the cards who showed up to play, who showed up to bluff, who will have the courage to call when they were dealt a less than lucky hand and really need that last flip card, who is gonna go all in on a pair of deuces, and who will fold on the first round with pocket aces. Maybe it is an illusion, maybe it's real, maybe we can't ever win cause the winner has already been decided, but then again, maybe we can no matter what the odds. I believe life and free will is not so much about choosing where/what/who we will be in the end but more about choosing to show up and live no matter what.
Throw this man a follow here and on IG
Understanding no free will should lead to the thoughts pointing towards philosophy of scientism and modern eugenics.
what do you think about eugenics?
How about how of course free will and a strong will??
If there is no such thing as free will, why does anybody work to improve themselves or even think they can they can have a better life?
Because we are self-learning machines. We have biological and cultural goals. Take a Roomba for example. It's goal is to clean a certain area. You set it up in an enviroment/room and it will learn the layout and calculate the best way to clean it. Humans have much more complex and even competing goals, but the principle is the same. Thinking and reasoning are just ways to reach our goals more efficiently. People learn that reasoning and logic works. We know about causality. Therefore it makes total sense to improve yourself to reach your goals/have a better life. If you want to reach goal x, you know or you can learn about the steps it would take to reach that goal. It's obviously immensely complicated in a human society and under scarce ressources. Everyone is different. The best way to reach a goal usually isn't clear. There are limitations to us and to our enviroment. But in the end it's all determination and random events and thus no free will.
@@christianmayr7139 Perhaps I'm missing something but if I learn that there is a better way to reach my goal and I choose to implement the better way, isn't that free choice? Or are you saying that after we learn there's a better way to do something, we have to follow that course?
@@MeeCee5204 The thing is that it's not really a choice. You would always do the same. You are the sum total of all your past experiences. You have the genes of your parents. You grew up under certain circumstances. You had certain friends. You watched certain movies. On day X of your life it was raining. On day Y you had coffee for breakfast. You read certain books. And on and on. All of that leads you to take option A instead of B. It feels like you had a choice. You can easily imagine taking the other option. However, if you repeated that "choice" a million times, you'd always go with A instead of B. Even if you apply reasoning. Even if you think long and hard about something. The way you reason and think about things is completely determined by your past experiences. That's why two people could come to different conclusions given the same "choice". Because they have a different past. You could also throw a coin. But the decision to throw a coin is determined by your past and the outcome is just random and therefore also not free will.
@@christianmayr7139 okay, I think I'm starting to understand. It sounds like you're saying a person's current reality is predetermined by their past experiences. Sort of like old school computer programming "if a=x, then y"
@@MeeCee5204 Exactly. Your experiences are constantly adding new lines of code to your program so to speak. To your "self". Most is probably redundant. Older lines are maybe reinfocred or forgotten, get circumvented or changed. We are unique collections. We are ourselves. The "choices" we make are our choices, in the sense that we make them. It's just that we can't help ourselves taking option A instead of B or vice versa. It somewhat becomes tangible when we know someone really well. We know how that person would probably react to a new situation. Because we know their "programming". Sometimes better than they themselves, because we have a more objective view of them. Another example would be crimes. You might read of some crime and have no idea why anybody would do such a thing. You certainly wouldn't do that. Then you read more and more about the circumstances. How a murderer grew up for example. What they experienced in their life. And sometimes we come to a point where we can imagine having done the same, if we had been in their shoes. They had no choice, given their history. Without free will there's no guilt. However, there is still a responsibility for the actions you take.
Anyway, it certainly feels like we have choices or that we could have chosen the other option. We definitely experience life. It makes sense to improve ourselves and hopefully have a better life experience because of it. It also makes sense to help others have a better experience.
I think that human interaction affects our personality and way of thinking sometimes putting great barriers to our true potential
Awareness is not free will,as experience is a series of moments reflected on in the past tense.in the same way that we cannot choose the things we like ,we have no real choice of the things we think only those we acknowledge .without this there is no original thought,no new ideas.with only ever one possible outcome, any decision is always a certainty. Our consciousness is just a projection we see as independently ours.it is not the cause,it is the effect.
I agree that there are many illusions involved in the discussion of free will. Causal determinism is the biggest one. Dan Dennett talks about intuition pumps, and determinism is one of these. Your mind takes off with thoughts of one thing causing another as if this was some hard science fact. Any "Law of Causation" you intuitively think you understand is a philosophical concept, science has no such law. When you use your memory to construct a "chain of causation", this is also an illusion. Anyone can predict last weeks weather and think themselves brilliant. Some will say that what happens in one moment completely determines what happens in the next moment, but where in nature are these magic "moments"? This is another illusion that trips up the determined determinist.
I could go on and on, but the true defining characteristic of determinists is absolute, ontological surety in their position, and when you combine this with their overarching ego, it becomes useless to try to reach them. In fact, you might conclude that they have foreclosed their own ability to exercise free will, which is kind of ironic.
powerful comment
What I have come to believe or realize/experience, is that the subconscious mind (Determinism-Will of the Universe) is more powerful than our conscious mind (Free Will), but once we realize this fact/truth, we can actively use our conscious mind, through Askformations and to a lesser extent Affirmations and forming new and improved habits of thought and action, to "reprogram" our subconscious mind, so it is more aligned with the goals and wishes of our conscious mind, while at the same time making sure, through Introspection and Meditation, that our Free Will (conscious mind) is not opposing the Will of the Universe (subconscious mind). Meaning, that the more our subconscious mind and our conscious mind can be in harmony and cooperate with each other, the more of an effective, productive and successful Free Will we will gain/have. So, I agree with your premise that "Free Will Isn't Free." To me Free Will is a lifestyle, a philosophy or an art form and a science, all at the same time.
It is a great way to put it
@@metamorphosis_77 Thanks so much! I highly appreciate the high-quality and very visually appealing and aesthetically pleasing UA-cam content you are creating and providing for us!
I accept I am morally responsible to be a scientist or more precise a metaphysician. First as a metaphysician I do not espouse to belief or at the very least try desperately not to use the word in my vocabulary.
My synthesis of Universal Dynamics states that we are neither subject nor direct object but we are the predicate. X=y+z.
We are ONE. That's the best I can offer. Love Peace and Happiness
Apologies in advance for being “that guy” but when exactly did metaphysics become a sub-discipline of science? Metaphysics is a branch of philosophy.
This was fascinating. I have found that the more I meditate (Mindfulness/Awareness technique of following the breath), that this so-called "I" can watch the thoughts as they arise. Thus becoming less reactive.
So, is it the case that because there is no actual self, there is no one to "have" a will in the first place?
Yeah you're right I meditate in when I do I see the egoakatension there clinging to what it feels is safe making the way for anxiety aka cortisol then I just breath and relax the ego be like ok I'm good then disapates
it has been interesting yet challenging . the more i disover myself, it gets less overwhelming, acknowledging to thy self. thank you for the videos.
:)
Please consider doing a video on Generic Subjective Continuity, from the essay, "Death, Nothingness and Subjectivity", by Tom Clark. Sam Harris discussed it in his podcast episode "The Paradox Of Death".
will check it out
Hi! How can you say "we have no control over biological mechanisms" first and in the same sentence say "but we have control over our decision to understand"? Please don't assume my position on this as I am just wondering the thought process and the assumptions behind these 2 affirmations. The first one is implying determinism and pure cause and effect over any organism phisiology and the second one is implying that "decision" and "understanding" is part of human experience but not biological (or not "within" the body?), therefore it must be "something else" that does not follow the same rules you believe exist and are in play in the first instance. By adding the "to some extend" comment it makes things even more complicated because it now implies that the "other thing" do follow the fixed rules, but only sometimes. What is then your intuition for that "other thing" you're implying? Mind/body split? What "are" we? Body only? Mind only? Both? Neither? What are the implications of pushing either "theory" to its extremes? Are you afraid you can choose literally everything or does it make you more afraid to know that there may not be anyone doing anything and that you might be a imagination of yourself? What about the subjective experience of being a divided psyche within one body that seems to have different goals and dreams and ways of communication within itself and that "you" aren't just one of them, or all of them, but at the same time you are? Why do "we" have to be either free or not free, but in both cases a unity (that assumes is or isn't something)? What if that question doesn't make sense in the first sense and should be rejected after all? Thanks for your videos btw.
You are right, it's difficult to affirm both. I am suggesting that insofar your mental apparatus (with its pre-designed features) allows you to understand, choose to understand. Choice and free will are not identical.
Great video, as always..
Thank you for this!
what if free choices in the future may cause your opinion and behaviour in the past?!
what if
Interesting concept
I think we are conditioned and that conditioning and trauma responses included will colour our next move. Through wisdom and understanding, we then will weigh up a circumstance. I feel we have a modicum of free will in choice but we do not have complete free will. This would only apply to self as being in the moment. We can not have free will with others as we are dependent on what another does or does not do. It depends on what we think free will is. I have free will to respond to this video or not. I do not have free will regarding what I will think about the content of it that unfolds as I hear and I respond. So maybe like the spiritual terms which I find useless "let it go" or just "forgive" in spiritual terms it is just an idea to make us feel better when are stuck between choices? Saying to myself I have free might encourage me if I am in an unwanted situation and telling others that may be helpful if they are struggling in choice. I think the term is more to do with wisdom rather than absolute fact. Looking at my own life I have been programmed somewhat and trauma has given me wisdom and life skills. Interesting I do study astrology and in charts, it can be seen that there is a modicum of truth in the symbols and aspects that would appear to show something as being written. I then think each person's level of consciousness developed or for some not and then we have intentions which could be the will of something greater than we will ever know. A complex term it is for sure.
X-Files
Earthling human beings (love) think that "free will" means freedom to appreciate this paradise planet lifeboat and the miraculous works of fine art called "life" that inhabit it. And not be imprisoned and enslaved by hostile alien vampires (greed) and their ignorance (hate).
But the hostile evangelical vampires (greed) think that "free will" means freedom to suck the joy out of life and devour the planet like a ravenous cancer. And freedom to imprison and enslave humans.
Like bats that fly around in the darkness of caves...vampires (greed) are blind and cannot see the ignorance or transforming heaven (peace) into hell (war). The capitalist counting corpses are also blind and cannot see the ignorance of destroying the planet.
Vampires (greed) who suck the joy out of life have joined the zombies who eat the futures of their children.
Zombie Apocalypse is here and happening now.
How could Sam Harris not believe in free will but believe in morality?
Sovereignty of Self is a complex process but you make it easier by sharing your research and insights. Thank you for your work! 🙏🔥💚
Peter Tse is kind of weird.
Really? Why? I just saw his video on trying to debunk the libet experiment.
04:40 -- so, there's such thing as a brain, but there's no such thing as a mind (psyche, soul, spirit, Ego, etc.)? Is that what Sam Harris argues?
A deterministic mindset applies an ultimate absolution. That's why so many people like the sound of it.
Mind, ego, psyche are all facets of our consciousness. They are terms we use to express processes that occur inside our brains.
11:26 We don't though...
To me free will is the pathway you use to change yourself. Being aware of yourself in moments. Catching the ego in unconscious states.
I like that you mentioned Ego. I have concluded that the honest determinists are so completely Egotistical and Narcissistic that they really do feel compelled and unfree in most situations. It's no wonder they recoil at the idea of free will.
Free will exists...I can eat McDonalds or fruit. Who decides??
Not you as the subjective witness to your life. You are just a part of the universe observing itself.
The question and search for the answer and reality of free will is such a mind puzzling journey. The quote in the beginning left me speechless & confused. 😵💫😅
It reminds me as well of the discussion of whether there is fate or coincidence. Are you acting according to the mysterious fate that was given to you or are you acting according to the coincidental circumstances that define your life, where there is room for different outcomes and sudden turns in your life (hence you can decide where your life is taking you)?
I think free will is not absolute, there is a certain extent to which we have a direct influence but everything outside of this radius is perhaps pure coincidence, influence, or at best a chain reaction of other causes and relations.
One might also say that free will is instead of an absolutistic state of being, more likely a spectrum of being, that varies.
Oh my, now I confused myself. Anyway, it was a great video! Thanks for your effort and insightful work!
Sam Harris is a true scientist. The intellect is like a microscope, able to zoom in and out of any concept to create a sense of separateness between different magnifications. The pride of the intellect belives it has power over the things to which it can understand, because it is able to separate things into manageable bites and use it for ones own intentions. Having the power to control the thing to which it can understand. We seldom forget tho that no one magnification is right, hence as to how there are many truths, a sea of variables and perspectives over any one given thing. The intellect fails to fathom the unity of all things also known as absolute truth. The mind can only grasp relative truth, bite size pieces of information when in fact we are much more than bite sizes of information. When we pour water into an empty cup, the water takes the form of the space that resides within the cup. You can use any symbols(language) to represent how the boundaries of the cup separate it from being one with the water but you cannot deny wherever the cup goes the water will follow. You can identify with the intellect to such a degree your whole perception becomes fixated on a sense of objectiveness. We don't see the world the way it is but the way we are. You can create as many logical arguments as to why you have no free will because you being heavily Identified with the intellect become absorbed in its characteristics and see a separateness within all things including your own actions but fail to acknowledge you are your actions, your more than merly a consious observer witnessing acts occur you are also your acts. We belive who we are ends at the boundaries of the skin but we are more than our body, and more than what we interact with. We are a finite body that creates a unique subjective re creation of the infinite objective world through constant interaction. Consciousness does not reside solely within the organism nor its environment, but it is the harmonious playing of the two energies.
That was a very good synopsis of a bunch of Sam Harris's ideas. I can't help but point out that when you observe a natural phenomenon, you give it a name and a description. All through history people have noticed that humans are constantly making choices and gave this phenomenon the unfortunate name of Free Will. Sam Harris is arguing against some conceptualization of this observation, so whatever he concludes, it cannot negate the very thing on which it is based. Like I always say, if your concept of free will is incoherent and impossible, maybe you need a different concept.
@@caricue very well said!
Cringe and materialistic
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