Compatibilism Debunked | Free Will and Determinism 

Mom: What caused you to fail this test? Me: Ok so the universe began 13.8 billion years ago...

It's a shame a lot of people don't want to accept determinism. But I guess they have no choice.

Determinist: your honor it was determined for me to commit this crime. Judge: young man it is determined that you will spend time in prison.

The “want to want” is the perfect articulation… I’ve always thought the same. This video was like watching someone read my mind and put it into a well worded essay. Well done

Love getting my monthly reminder from Alex that I’m in control of literally nothing.

You can see the guy is a consistent skeptic: "I've been Alex O'Connor...". He'd never guarantee a 100% he's himself all the time.

I've always took a sort of pragmatist stance with this. "Free will" is a socially constructed word we use to describe a person's relative freedom to make a choice un-coerced. It's not really a word with any sort of hard definition -- honestly imagine what it means to have "free will" (or imagine a world in which it exists)... What does that world look like? How would a mind even function if it has no internal basis for which to make decisions? Could a free mind "store" memories in time? If so, wouldn't that storing of memories have some effect on future behavior? "Free will" is non-sensical when we break it down.

It's fun how each time I brought Determinism in a debate, my opponent instantly gain a phD in Quantum Physics.

You are one of the few people who make me seriously rethink my ideas.

As Hitchens once said “I believe in free will because I have no choice” 😂

"You can do whatever you will, but you can't will what you will." I felt compelled to highlight my liking for this quote.

I enjoy the illusion of free will and hope to continue to do so.

The entire free will thing is depressing and fascinating at the same time.

Determinism is comforting when I'm feeling down or I've done something bad. But it's really demotivating and unappealing when I'm feeling optimistic and energetic. So I live with a kind of pragmatic doublethink.

I just had a talk with my professor about determinism and he asked me what a universe with free will would like. It seriously stumped me because it seems like you would need a universe without any causal effects, but in that case it still seems like your desires would just be random and still not truly free. I'd be interested to hear your take on such a question! I'm also a 3rd year undergrad of philosophy.

when i was a kid i always had an intuition of this concept but was never able to communicate it. i always wondered why i wasnt able to make myself enjoy doing things i knew were beneficial (homework, cleaning, etc…) but i found boring or difficult.

Free Will? Does not exist ❌ Free Willy? Exists ✅ You win some, you lose some.

i'm determined to not do my homework due tomorrow i guess

I would consider myself a determinist, however I feel like determinism doesn't change anything about life since the illusion of choice and actual choice has literally no difference to me. As long as it feels like I can change anything it doesn't matter if it was determined in the beginning or not, the things I did had results to them so why bother if I really ever made a choice or if it only felt like that.

I discovered determinism at the age of 10. I said to my younger brother: "We often hear someone say that 'if I were you, I would rather do this or that', but, in fact, if I WERE you, I would do exactly as you do, because ...", and I explained about brain states, desires, inclinations, situation and past history in the language of a ten-year-old. However, however, however, ... At the age of sixty, I am still working on the perennial philosophical problem. My only 'discovery' along the way, is that the answer should not make the slightest difference to our everyday lives. Does determinism imply "they couldn't HELP it"? Or is there a hell of a lot more to say about the meaning of "helping it"? I just saw a determinist thanking his patreons, but why thank them if they couldn't help what they did, sorry, chose to do and then did? Then again, if he couldn't help thanking them ... uh ... couldn't help choosing to thank them ... whatever, if he couldn't help it, I suppose he doesn't owe me an answer. O k, I really think Alex is one of the most intelligent, most conscientious and most consistent youtube content creators in the world. Just admire the guy.

DRINKING GAME: shot every time alex says "IF DETERMINISM IS TRUE"

I've spent literally hours trying to explain these concepts to people. Thanks for giving me a link I can send them. They still won't understand but its less effort for me.

The puppet is free,so long as it loves it strings. ‐Sam Harris.

I'd like to take a linguistic shortcut and propose that while determinism is correct, free will also exists - as the strong intuition that you mentioned, as a concept that we can meaningfully apply to our own experiences and that we can use to communicate effectively with each other. It is generally understood as true that if I'm forced to do something at gunpoint I'm not doing it out of my free will, but if I decide whether I want to buy orange or apple juice I'm choosing freely - and ultimately, words are defined by how they are used. You can argue that "free will" can't be defined neatly and, as commonly understood, just exists in our heads - but so do many other things, like beauty. Furthermore, free will's existence is basically impossible to reject in practice - living as if free will doesn't exist is impossible for humans because we always feel like we're making choices. And if you can't reject a concept in practice, is there much point to rejecting a concept in theory by using a technical-academic definition of terms like "free will", "exists" or "true/false"? At that point it's just arguing about the definition of words without much gain.

There's a video called "Why is the milk" gone by Exurb1a about free will and the "cosmic game of pool", i think he is right.

I remember sitting on my floor in 3rd grade looking at a coat hangar thinking "in the future there are two options, I either pick up the hangar or not. only one can happen and already has happened relative to future me" I sat there staring at the hangar for about 2 min before I gave up and picked it up. Also I feel this issue does not need any debate, especially a philosophical one. Biology would be as far as you would need to go to decide whether free will exists. as far as I understand it (which is very uneducated) neurons receive ions such as sodium from nerves and whatnot, they then send an "amplified signal" to the next neuron through the pathway which provides the least resistance. So by that understanding free will could not exist as the brain would always send out the exact same "signals" for a certain input.

I recently took a class on this topic and found it incredibly fascinating. I was actually rather supportive of the marriage between free-will and determinism. I, however, must concede that the intuition of free-will certainly swayed my opinion. Absolutely loved the video- especially Schopenhauer- but, I have a minor contention. I feel there was a bit of a mischaracterization of compatibilist theory in the analogy used in your argument: the Boulder comes barreling down towards you, and you jump without truly having a choice- hardly any free-will in that choice- and I agree. Harry Frankfurt proposes an argument for compatibilism, yet he would not claim that in your example there was any free-will present. Given that you are incapable of doing anything other than jumping out of the way (I hold this was the essence of the analogy), Frankfurt would claim no agent causation was exercised in that scenario. I found it useful to phrase compatibilist theory in the negative rather than in the positive. Compatibilism, as I have understood it, essentially claims that free-will is not a matter of choosing what one wants to do, but rather, it is the ability to not choose all other possibilities. If I am unable to choose anything other than jump out of the way, then free-will was not present in that choice; the choice is then merely another link of transeunt causation. I know you’re very well read and probably much more educated on the topic- thanks for reading this far and keep making great content!

I would agree with several things you said, though I must raise a couple points. You’ve started by defining free will as the ability to do what one what’s to do, however free will is not that at all. Free will I think most would argue, is the ability to pick any option available to you at a given time, irregardless of what the will wants. For example if I’m in a scenario where I wake up to a blaring alarm, I have several options in theory; I could turn of the alarm and get up, I could put a pillow over my head and ignore it or I could turn it off and keep sleeping. Now my will in this scenario is to turn off the alarm and keep sleeping. If I have true free will, I can act on my will or I can act against it and get up, it’s up to some deeper level of my consciousness. Secondly, when discussing compatibilism, you talked about the way they view free will in a manner I can’t exactly agree with. I’m sure some compatibilists are satisfied at stopping at the point where the distinction between internal and external causes has been made, but that certainly isn’t enough for other compatibilists. As I’m sure you know compatiblilists argue our will is determined, but at least when I learned about it, the argument was that the aspect of ourselves that granted free will was out ability to act either in accordance with our determined will or against it. This is a more sensible compatibilism. Now I am not a compatibilists, I found it very compelling for a while but it had flaws, and the one that broke it for me was that with free will defined as that crucial ability to pick different options available to you in a given moment, it seems you can’t have any determinism at all. Let’s entertain a hypothetical. If my will is determined to want to steel a wallet I found on the ground I can acutely be aware of what my ‘will’ will be in the future depending on what I do. If I take the wallet for short term gain, I know later my will is going to be in a state of regret wherein I’ll want to seek redemption somehow. If I don’t take it, I can also predict how I’ll be feeling and what I’ll want to do, which will be find a way to get money. So if I truly do have the ability to either take the wallet or leave it, then it follows necessarily that the will that arises along path A and the will the arises along path B are not determined, since it was my undetermined action which caused them, and I can intentionally go down one pathway. I also want to talk on determinism for a moment because it’s always been an extreme position to take in my eyes. Yes we observe a natural reality where cause and effect is a very real and present phenomenon, but the thing is, it’s already shown that our reality is not wholly deterministic, and yes I’m going to insert the quantum indeterminacy argument… but for me what this should tell us, is that it’s not implausible to assume that other aspects of reality are indeterminate. Consciousness is hardly understood, as Dennett framed it “consciousness is one of last surviving mysteries”. I mean here is this bizarre phenomenon wherein the universe can begin to perceive itself and become aware it’s perceiving itself, why I ask is the determinist so adamant that this is merely a normal function that is just as deterministic as a planets rotation? Honestly,what grounds are there to hold this when all that can be shown to be causally determined is matter that lacks sufficient consciousness? In the end determinists put all their cards into an assumed axiom (laplace’s demon) even though quantum mechanics has already broken it. I believe that the notion of free will is just too important to surrender, such that the only time one should be willing to submit to determinism is when it has been proven beyond any reasonable doubt that humans are completely determined. Only you can’t do this until you’ve unlocked consciousness entirely, and we are far from that. Thus the most rational and sensible thing to do is either wait in ignorance or with the belief in free will for peace of mind.

"You're really just gonna throw your hands up and call free will a grand mystery?!?!" "Yes."

I love everything about this video, from the argument, to the explanation, to the graphics, to the setup, to the analysis of past/current philosophers' views, to the soothing accent. Absolutely brilliant, Alex.

I’m sad because I don’t even have control over why I’m sad that I had no control to like this video. I feel so used. 😢

The problem with your statement is that you can’t prove you want something more that something else. When someone wants to stay in bed, but goes to the gym anyways, you can’t just say “Oh he just wanted to go the gym more”. What if the desire to stay in bed was stronger, but he went to the gym anyways? That’s free will in my opinion.

I am a compatibilist. I very much appreciate the video, and you come _very_ close to understanding compatibilism, but unfortunately your points end up missing the mark quite significantly. Let me explain my viewpoints. First of all, while I cannot presume exactly what Hobbes meant, I am very much of the belief that you misinterpreted his ideas. An action does not cease to be "free" simply because it was coerced. It only ceases to be free once you can't say that there is any conceivable way for it to have gone otherwise. In essence: physical restraints inhibit free will. Threats do not. If you grab my arm and flail it about, I didn't do so out of my own free will. If you put me at gunpoint and tell me to flail my arm about, then doing so will be of my own free will. It's not about the idea that an action can ultimately be traced back to an external impetus. This is irrelevant. If the impetus actually bringing the action about is internal, then irrespectively of its causes, the action was taken of that person's own free will. This also means I wholly reject the distinction Van Inwagen draws between touchable and untouchable facts. If the idea there is to label facts that humans could have affected as "touchable", the definition given misses the mark entirely to the point of being useless, because _absolutely no one_ who believes in free will defines touchable facts in that way. Now, this should dispel the idea that once you have granted a compatiblist definition of free will, it still contradicts determinism. But I won't stop there, as I still have to show that my definition of free will is in fact reasonable. Notably, you say the following: "If you're happy to say that you're free, despite having no control over your actions, then I think maybe we're just talking at cross purposes" This is still misunderstanding what I, as a compatibilist, would define free will as. Very simply put, compatibilism defines free will in a way that attempts to square it not only with determinism, but also with how we experience the idea of freedom in daily life. If an actions _feels_ free, it most likely is. The core of this misunderstanding is that you assert a different conclusion than the one you have actually proven. You have proven that you have no control over _who you are,_ but this does not imply a lack of control over your actions. It's still _you_ that takes those actions, after all. It's not strange at all to say that if you were a different person, you might have chosen differently. We are all shaped by our circumstances and experiences, and I don't think you'll find anyone who denies that. Despite this, and our lack of ability to choose who we are, you are ignoring that the very subject to which free will is applicable sits _right in between_ who you are and what you do. So even if you were somehow forced to take a certain action because of who you are, that force acts upon YOU. It doesn't directly bring about the action. If it did, then yes, you would have no control. But because YOU, in the sense of your innermost self, are a step in that process, you have control by definition. Now, to return to your very first point again, I believe you've also said something else of note that's self-refuting, namely that compatibilism makes you "a slave to your own desires". During your explanation of Schopenhauer's ideas on the matter, you make it very clear that you equate Hobbes' and Schopenhauer's ideas of will with desire. This is problematic, because this makes your assertion synonymous to saying that "you are a slave of your own will". In other words, you directly imply that "will" is the thing that chooses, and is thus in other words, free. This idea that will and desire are one and the same is not something I subscribe to regardless, however... My main sticking point here is that desire does not equate action, whereas the idea behind free will is that we can _act_ freely (hence the insistence on internal vs. external--the latter only becomes important once we try to put something into action). Ultimately, I believe desire to be completely irrelevant. Desire is a predictor of what action someone chooses to take, but you yourself rightly point out that coercion isn't foolproof. In other words, if you coerce someone, you cannot necessarily count on them following your instructions. This means our desires don't _dictate_ our behaviour, but _inform_ it. Free will is not about choosing what you want. It's about choosing what you _do._ Though perhaps even that description falls short. It's about _doing_ what you do. This may sound redundant, but I already explained previously that someone taking your arm and flailing it about does not constitute a freely taken action. The reason that it does not is that you are not the actions _doer._ If you are the _doer_ of an action, _then_ the action was taken freely. This also means Schopenhauer's criticism falls flat because it focuses on the things that happen _before_ free will takes effect. It's the translation of your inner state to action that is the domain of free will. Of course, if you have answers for all the points I've raised, I'd be glad to hear them. Allowing my own viewpoints to be challenged is a healthy habit, after all, and at the core of what scepticism is all about.

I'm free to turn off this video. No, wait, I can't because I'm determined to watch😁

I like to think that a form of free will is the ability to break out of structured patterns of abuse or self harm.

It's interesting that he uses reductive reasoning by focusing solely on classical determinism on a macro level and ignoring the potential role of quantum indeterminacy or metaphysical influences, which could provide a more nuanced understanding of free will through probabilistic processes.

You're an intellectual, but I especially admire how patient you are in debates and conversations. I believe that one of the reasons why you can answer questions so well is because you listen in order to understand the other argument. Then, you are able to meet them on their level. It seems like an obvious way to debate, but it seems like a lot of debaters are so ready to educate the ignorant that they forget that they need to listen in order to understand why others think the way that they do.

Ohhh yes, thank you for reminding me that I'm not in any way free 😍 Edit was for grammar mistakes

Compatiblism = let’s just change our definition of free will so that it still works out

Free will is not some random event. It also has nothing to do with determinism. "Freel will," is a linguistic construction. It can not exist without language. The ability to cogitate and ponder, without need for an immediate outcome, is the function of free will. Language is inherently subjective; pure abstraction. Determinism is objective. How can one even use determinsim to deduce subjectivity?

No. I'm not letting go of compatibilism. And I'm not ready for this video. I haven't left my house in 7 months. My children have established a separatist region in my front parlor. The soundtrack of my life is my husband shouting on conference calls. I need time before I revisit this issue. I'm giving you a like on this video, in recognition of discussing something that matters to me. But it will be a while before I watch it. In a month or two, I'll have three stiff drinks and weather it. I'll update my comment with my reaction. God bless America, God save the Queen, forgive my atheistic irony, and please make me a cup of tea.

It would be a fallacy to think that necessarily because a person is younger, less experienced, less educated, etc. than another person, therefore the first person doesn't have good, valuable, innovative, etc. ideas. Ideas should be judged on their merit - not their origin. And the achievement of spreading ideas to a wide audience has a lot of value in itself.

I’m confident that the words “free will” are far too confusing for most people to even have productive discussions over the matter. Just about every debate comes back to something like: “well, you and I are talking about 2 different things.” Beyond matters of justice, I don’t think this topic is all that important. While I agree with determinism, I also have no problem with laymen saying they have free will.

We can't choose what we want but we can choose what we do.

Just to add to this... even if one was to assume there is randomness in the universe, that still would not result in free will as it would just be a roll of the dice, not something under our control that we would get to decide.

I can stop wanting what I want by being conscious of what I want deeply inside me and of what is driving my desires. By our strong will, it is possible to do it, but most of us just don't do it. As an example, someone can think that he lives happily and freely in a modern city, but by reevaluating his thoughts, he can drastically manage to change his way of life by going to live in a quiet and ecologist environment, discovering that before he wasn't actually free in the sense that he hasn't had much control of his desires, for example. Our free will seems also to evolve, and we get more and more control of ourselves through deep introspection of our desires, soul, and values etc. By doing that, we can diminish the level of determinism. The free will is an ideal-type in some sense which maybe cannot be achieved fully, but we can get so close that we may actually tell that it exists if we aren't stopped by external phenomena. We can reach a high level of self-control and self understanding, but for most people it is not the case. Therefore the compatibilist approach is not debunked here completely in my eyes.

You have no idea how long I have waited for this video ever since you announced it on Twitter. In fact, today I told my Catholic philosophy tutor why we don’t have free will, and she was impressed (not necessarily convinced but impressed).

Supporters of hard determinism often use the argument that "you can't want what you want" - as Alex does in this video. They just leave it at that. So where did the "want to want" come from? Supporters of hard determinism would say it is just part of the chain of cause and effect that is currently occurring in you brain but can be traced back to the start of the Universe. Supporters of Compatibilism would nuance it a bit more and say that the "want to want" comes from a persons earlier experience and learnings. For example you want to save money. Your want to want to save money probably comes from your experiences and learnings in earlier life. For example perhaps you were broke at some stage, didn't like the experience and swore to never be in that position again. So saving money becomes part of what you do - it is the reason behind your want to save money. This is the supporters of compatibilism's argument. Like the want to save money it is all internal to the person based on THEIR learnings and experience. External factors are all just stimuli that either lead to learnings, experience, action (or some combination of those) or even nothing. Even if the learnings and experience are ultimately determined they are still theirs - it is all internal to them. They had the (apparent) choice, a choice that felt like a free will choice and was in fact indistinguishable by them from a free will choice. This soft determinism (compatibilism) approach should not be dismissed lightly. It provides a way of thinking about determinism - if you want to believe in that - that is more palatable than hard determinism - hard determinism that can lead to nihilism and a number of other undesirable outcomes.

When it gets interesting it gets abstract such that it becomes hard to follow.

It’s like wanting to have a drink and an hour later wanting to go to the toilet. I didn’t want to go to the toilet when I wanted the drink, my wanting to go to the toilet could only have been possible if I wanted to have a drink. Everything is determined by the state of circumstances before.

I don't buy that all internal decision-making is "determined" by external factors (boulders rolling towards us). External factors present us with new information, which we can process. We can learn to run different processes on that information. Our decision (you might call it our final want) would be different depending on the process we run. My sense is that whilst we inherit a whole set of natural / instinctual processes to run, human brains are complex systems likely with emergent properties that are not solely caused by precursors. Our sum is greater than our parts.

I have no reason to believe the universe would play out the same exact way if started again from the origin, just like I have no reason to believe people would take the same path walking through an endless maze or if blind folded while walking through an endless field. In other words, I do believe in relative probability being a part of the evolutionary process and agency/consciousness makes us aware of that.

It seems to me that we have no idea about all the myriad influences in our biology and subconscious that are influencing us. There seems to be a variety of experiences we each have when making a decision including: 1. Irrational actions which we don’t even pretend to understand and might lead us to therapy. 2. Rash actions for which we give no thought like suddenly losing your temper and inappropriately blurting out a profanity. 3. Obvious choices based on predetermined likes or goals like choosing to eat cake vs dirt. 4. Complete indecision when the options are of equal merit… brown hat or gray hat… like the character Chidi on “The Good Place” with a constant repetition of “on the other hand.” 5. And the most interesting to me; when you mull something over for awhile and then suddenly you realize a decision has been made. You eventually know what you’re going to do as if a coin has been tossed in your subconscious. This illusion of free-will is simply the conscious awareness of one’s internal process and in retrospect it feels like a real choice because it all happened in your head. Having said that; We have to act as if we had free will and hold people responsible for their actions regardless in order to restrain anti-social behavior. Our social structure becomes an emergent external force to limit our actions.

Had this debate with a professor a few weeks ago. He's in the camp that says the emergent complexity of the human mind separates it from the type of thing which can be said to be determined. I don't understand why that would be the case unless there is some type of extraphysical aspect of mind that itself is unbounded by deterministic factors, yet he insists he doesn't incorporate a sort of "soul" into his model. I fail to understand how a materialist can avoid determinism on the level of metacognition.

So free will doesn't exist? Who cares. Let's just do what we want.

What is actually the arguement for free will? Not in the sense if determinism might be wrong or anything, but just "what compells a person to even consider free will" as an axiom in life in the first place?

if you replay history, you will not get the same result because of chaos and the uncertainty principle. Free will exists in the uncertainty. More basically, free will is an *experience*. As you said, it certainly "feels" as if we have free will, that is we DO have the experience. And that experience is what we define as free will. It is part of our lived reality, our consciousness. Any underlying causation is necessarily outside of our lived reality, and so is irrelevant to the question. Our wants (internal drives or causes) are part of what *defines* the self, our true nature. Freedom is the ability to act in accordance to that nature. You cannot go any deeper than that and have the concept of free will retain meaning (because there is no meaning outside of our lived reality).

Great video! Here's my problem with the argument, though: I define "internal factor" as any factor that was influenced by my personality. So when you say "I can't choose my wants," I don't have to, because I AM my wants. What I want makes me, me. Makes me who I am. So, even if there's some external factor that caused me to be me, if there's anything that happened because I am the way I am, because of the influence of my personality, then it happened because of me. Free will to me is just the extent to which my actions were decided by my personality. If you put a gun to my head, any influence my personality has is diminished to null. Just my two cents.

18:24 Please don't misrepresent the usefulness of VPN's. VPN's do have their usefulness, but claims that ISPs can see EVERYTHING you do is misleading.

Consider this event: a decision enters your conscious awareness We call the experience of this event "making a decision." This is a mistake. It is just an experience. The actual decision is made prior to that, outside our awareness. We are normally not privy to evidence of this because the path of decisions to our physical actions (the other evidence we have of what has been decided) is longer than the path to our conscious awareness, so our actions almost always happen after the decision has entered our awareness. If we more often acted before we knew we'd decided to act, we'd be less inclined to make the mistake. Somewhat more accurate might be to describe the experience as "the universe informing us of what we're going to do."

The problem with this whole Free Will, Determinism and Compatibilism discussion is that there is no way to examine which is true and all three are unfalsifiable.

The other point that should be adressed is the "strong intuition" that we have free will. That intuition quickly vanishes, in my experience, the moment you pay atention to how your will emerges on its own. It is clear that you are a witness of it, not its author. I find it strange that so few people adress this matter, as it seems to be, as you pointed out, the only argument left for proponents of free will, after the logical implications of causation have been pointed out to them.

Compatiblism doesn't need to redefine free will. Free will never originally required non-determinism, but refered to something observed, but it got redefined by anti-determinists to mean that it requires non-determinism. Free will applies to a specific scope of function in a deterministic universe. If you assert that the only scope we should be looking at is the most outer scope, then there is no such thing as a decision and no such thing as freedom. But these are clearly things which we can usefully refer to, and we aren't referring to things which don't exist. Freedom and decision are both concepts that only make sense at a specific scope of function. Free will is the same. You can define all these concepts out of existence by applying the wrong scope where none of these could ever have utility in our language.

I truly love these videos, my main problem with Determinism is that I don’t fully understand how does that address the responsibility of our actions. If we can’t freely choose to do X over Y but rather we were pre-determined to do so and couldn’t have acted otherwise, how can anyone be held accountable for the consequences of their actions? I’d love it if you could explain this dilema because it’s one that I can’t truly wrap my head around. Thanks again.

@5:42-.-His argument against compatibilism here is literally _my_ argument _in favor of_ compatibilism. Why does it even matter that you can’t choose what desires you want? Your desires are _a part_ of you, that’s the point.

Curiously, many people have learned to experience, first hand, the lack of free will. The illusion, the feeling, is neither universal or inevitable. It can be dispelled.

Then belief in a metaphysical anything is not a choice, no matter how irrational.

Before I say anything, I just want to add that I appreciate your calmness, way too many people insult people instead and force them into defensive mode, making all argumentation pointless. Thank you very much. Having said that, I believe you may have misunderstood compatibilism. The point of compatibilism isn't to deny that your actions are completely free of external influence, it's that what made you want to want is irrelevant to the existence of free will. The ability to make your choices stars from the point on the cause and effect chain you exist upon. Everything has an external factor, and what you want is outside your control, but since free will is about the freedom of a being, the being you end up becoming is the person in question anyway. Our definition of free will starts after the link in the chain that makes up your personality. You as a person change every moment anyway, the difference between external and internal factors begins after your personality. I doesn't break causality, it just says that freedom has almost nothing to do with what led to your personality, because for you to have free will, there has to be a you in he first place. It is also possible that you haven't misunderstood it, and I'm not a compatibilist even though I think determinism and free will coexist; but that would also mean I'm somehow a better philosopher than multiple professional philosophers as someone that doesn't have a philosophy degree, because I noticed and found counterarguments to all your arguments long ago by myself. Seeing as how that is *extremely* unlikely, and seeing as how I'm absolutely an idiot, I have to imagine you misunderstanding compatibilism is more likely.

If free will doesn't exist then what are we gonna do about it? This is why I stopped asking that question a while ago.

The illusion of free will is the same concept as being tricked to believe that you can turn the tv on and off when you clap, but someone else has the remote and is messing with you. It will feel real, convincing and seem like you have proof, until the situation is fully understood.

Theoretical question: If, as per the deterministic view, everything is predetermined based on external factors. Then it would be theoretically possible to create an algorithm (if it could take all input that exists in the universe) that could perfectly predict the future of a person. Seeing this, said person could choose to stop this future from happening - does this imply free will???. Remember that the algorithm could also know that the person would see the future as this counts as an input.

Every decision you make in your life is made based on the moment before... there is no freedom in life, all we can do is experience life, like in a video game, the end is already programmed into the game

Thanks for reminding me that my shitty circumstances were always out of my control and not due to any personal failings. Feelsbetter.

My fear is that the denial of free will is seen as a get out jail card for our actions. Even if there is no free will, having a society that acts as though it exists is the best one to preserve both its quality and durability!!

Of all philosophical topics, this one causes me the most anxiety. The same feeling I get when a Christian says “your suffering is all part of God’s plan”. I feel like a helpless puppet.

I’ve been thinking this for a while but I’ve never heard someone articulate it so clearly. Flawless logic

Anyone who's been on the wrong end of the game "Stop Hitting Yourself" gave up on having freewill a long time ago.

Hi, I don't know much about philosophy but i'd have 2 questions for you : 1. How do you articulate determinism with the uncertainty principle of quantum physics, which (i believe) states that P could result in Q1 or Q2 in a probabilistic manner ? 2. I also think that a lot of our actions and desire are kind of "programmed" by our environnement and our genes, but that is just a first step of what we are made of. I also believe that what we usually think and most of our knowledge isn't aquired by our own thinking capacity (we rely heavily on others). But we don't always follow the path of what's better for us and philosophy is a way (i think) to consider what would be right to do, even though it's not in our own interest. Therefore, values can contradict nature and what should be the "natural" way to act, isn't it ? Otherwise, what it would say about our values, or any value, if we have no choice ? Ultimately, what would be the purpose of thinking and trying to be a better person if that will has to be or not, out of our own ? (not sure i phrase it the right way but i guess you'll get what i mean) Thanks for your work anyway, i've discovered your channel just a couple days ago and it's really interesting. I hope my english is good enough to understand what i want (or do i ?) to express.

I am just starting my journey into the idea of free will. Thank you for this video, it's a good place for me to start as it gave me terms I didn't know before.

Do I understand this correctly? In the compatibilist view: if I eat because I'm hungry, that is free will; if I put on clothes because it is cold, that is externally determined and thus not free. The important distinction is between being hungry and being cold. But that certainly does not _feel_ like a relevant difference. Something is wrong here.

Wasn't there a break in symmetry that prevents the universe to unfold the same way ....

Maybe we aren't free but we feel that we are and act as we would have, had we actually been free. Kind of like pseudo randomness for games that have luck in them . Yes, the generator isn't producing random dice for example but it has the same effect as if it had. So maybe there's no qualitative difference.

Your point around 5:55 is really good, I feel like we don’t have free will because I could try all I want to jump off a cliff or bite my finger off but if I don’t want to do it my body does not let me

This “want to want to want” thing is a great example of philosophers getting confused in the way they do. Just because I can’t choose who I am doesn’t mean who I am doesn’t choose anything.

Love your debates even when I disagree with your premise. All of your arguments are well thought out and articulated well.

I think it depends on what you identify as yourself. If you consider your conscious self your true self then no you don’t have free will. But, If you consider your subconscious self or existence itself as your true self then yes you have free will.

Well explained. I've been wondering about how free will is an illusion ever since I came across it in a philosophy course. Thanks a lot for this video

If determinism is true, then is it like destiny? Our lives are Literally a story that’s already been written? It’s so fascinating

Can you imagine he made an entire video criticizing free will and compatibilism just for the ExpressVPN ad? This is what I call dedication and craftsmanship. Well done! :P

Wow, that was an amazingly smooth sponsor transition!

The best summation of my position I've heard is "I may not have free will, but I do have will." I still consider myself a compatibalist, since I am not giving up the notions of choice, agency and personal responsibility. The point is not that I am free to make decisions independent from my genetics and experiences. The point is that I am running a decision-making algorithm that is determined by my genetics and experiences, and may be updated based on future experiences. Saying that I don't make a choice, because the outcome is already determined and predictable, is like saying Deep Blue doesn't choose its next chess move, because it cannot choose to flip the board.

determinism is not fact, as where is chaotic thing in all more complex system and where are coincidences as (example) interaction of unrelated systems. Free will has little to do with it. It is the ability of the higher structures of the brain to influence actions, often consciously, to understand, predict, and plan them

Nevertheless I do think there is a real and meaningful difference between giving someone money out of fear of being shot, and giving it because you want to.

5:10 "You can do whatever you will, but you can't will what you will." Everyone is aware that we can't will what we will, including all the people who think that free will exists, compatibilist and incompatiblist alike. There is no camp of people who thinks that we can will what we will, so therefore why should we think that when someone says "free will" what that person is talking about is the freedom to will what we will? Free will as a concept entails certain freedoms, but it doesn't entail others. It obviously doesn't entail the freedom to float into the sky under our own power, and surely no one is talking about a kind of free will that gives us power to control our own wills. Free will is just a will that is free to act on its own decisions, and Schopenhauer's objection here is meaningless. 5:59 "The ability to do whatever you want can hardly be called freedom if you can't freely choose what it is that you want." We can call it freedom if we choose to do so, and that is the choice that most of the world has made. 6:20 "Say someone threatens you with assault, saying that if you commit action X, they'll beat you up, and that this compels you to not commit action X. Did you make this choice freely?" It's a free choice to a degree, but it's far less free than most choices we make. The more external compulsions that weigh upon a decision, the less free it is. A maximally free choice is one where we're not burdened by any apparent consequences no matter what we choose. 7:40 "I don't choose to want to deposit the cash. I simply do want to deposit it, and then like a slave to my own desires, I do what I want." Something has gone seriously wrong with an argument for incompatibilism when it comes to the phrase "slave to my own desires." Does that really sound like slavery to anyone? 7:58 "To say that you can do whatever you want is to say that you can do anything, so long as it is this specific thing over which you have no control in determining." In other words, you can do anything, so long as it is the specific thing that you want. To phrase it as if someone were forcing you to do something is very misleading. 8:27 "We have as much control over our internal constraints as we do external constraints. That is, we have no control over either of them, and so there is no meaningful reason for the compatibilist to make this distinction." Perhaps the distinction is meaningless, but it's a convention. It's the foundation of the concept of freedom. Perhaps the idea of freedom was invented on a whim for no good reason, but since someone has invented it and it has gained popularity, now it's something that we sometimes choose to talk about, and if we're talking about freedom according to its meaning, then we'd better make the distinction between internal constraints and external constraints. 8:41 "If free will means to have ultimate control over our actions, we aren't free whether the cause of our actions is internal or external." Why should we think that free will means to have _ultimate_ control over our actions? Our freedom is about our choices here and now, not some far away ancient ultimate cause for our current situation and whatever influence that might have. Freedom is about _proximate_ control over our actions, not ultimate control. We're the ones driving our own bodies and making our own choices. 8:49 "The compatibilist doesn't so much defend free will as simply redefine free will." The compatibilist defends free will by redefining free will whenever people try to redefine free will out of existence by turning the phrase "free will" into something about ultimate control instead of just being about ordinary control over our actions. 9:13 "Compatibilism simply states that free will has nothing to do with the ability to ultimately control your actions. Instead free will is about committing actions over which you may have no control, but the cause of which comes from somewhere inside you." It's not just _somewhere_ inside you. It's not free will if your actions are being controlled by your toe or your liver, nor would it be free will if your actions were controlled by a microchip implanted into your brain. It's free will when your actions are controlled by your desires. When people talk of internal causes for our actions, they're usually assuming that the only internal cause would be the person's desires. If the cause comes from anywhere else inside the person's body, that's not what we're talking about. 9:31 "If you're happy to say that you're free despite having no control over your actions, then I think maybe we're just talking at cross purposes." No one says that. We only established that we have no control over our _wants._ We still have plenty of control over our actions. We may be slaves to our desires, but our actions are still ours to control so long as our desires are determining what we do. 12:20 "Though the immediate cause of my action may be internal, it is always ultimately determined by something external." Free will isn't about some ultimate cause for our actions, whether that exists or not. There may be some deterministic chain of cause and effect behind every action, but our freedom is about the choices we make here and now, not the distant far end of that chain which has nothing to do with anything here on Earth. If we're jumping out of the way of a rolling boulder or obeying commands at gunpoint, then there are immediate external causes overriding what we would otherwise choose to do, but that's hardly the same as our actions being subtly influenced by a butterfly flapping its wings. 14:46 "Van Inwagen introduces a logical principle which goes as follows: If P is an untouchable fact and Q follows from P, then Q is also an untouchable fact." We can't guarantee that Q will be untouchable just because P was untouchable. What if P were someone's desire to put money in a bank, and Q were the fact that she put that money into the bank? In that case P would be untouchable, but Q would be touchable since it's a human making it happen.

Randomness doesn't refute determinism, it refutes predeterminism.

Why is the state of the universe 5 billion years ago is an untouchable fact? What if our ancestor were so civilized that they affected the state of the universe to their liking?

I was a combatabist, but I used my free will to change my mind. Stephen Hawkins once said that the people who deny free will also look twice when crossing the road. This is possibly the greatest question humanity has ever had the chance to ask itself. By coincidence, I asked my friend at school today if he believed in free will, (same day this video was uploaded). We agreed that with the lack of enough evidence we should resort to the null hypothesis which is that we are nothing more than chemical reactions. If you’re wanting to explore this topic of free will and consciences more, i’d Recommend watching black mirror (on Netflix) specifically “black museum.” It asks the question if what gives us moral agency is only complexity, then why shouldn’t an equally complex digit copy of consciousness be given the same human rights. Personally, I believe to insert the idea of a soul is just an easy way a giving a simple comforting answer to mind boggling question. Great video, Alex.

I'm kinda disappointed in this video. I'll note 2 things 1. There seems to be a general confusion as to the project of Compatibilism. "A Contemporary Introduction to Free Will" by Robert Kane provides a nice summary of the different views regarding free will. "Those who believe that free will and determinism are incompatible may take either of two opposing positions. They may deny Determinism and affirm free will, as Libertarians do. Or they may affirm determinism and deny free will, which is what hard determinists do. Hard Determinism can be distinguished from 'soft' determinism, which was defined at the end of chapter 2. Both hard and soft determinists believe in Determinism. But soft determinists are Compatibilists who insist that Determinism does not undermine any free will worth having, while hard determinists are Incompatibilists who take a 'harder' line: Since Determinism is true, free will does not exist in the true sense required for genuine responsibility, blameworthiness, and desert for deeds and accomplishments"- pg. 69 The Compatibilist project is about demonstrating that everything we feel free will provides(true moral responsibility, blameworthiness, desert for deeds, accomplishments, etc) is compatible with Determinism. Compatibilists don't just "redefine" free will in some arbitrary way. Rather, they argue that the Libertarian view of free will is flawed. For example, Libertarians typically affirm the "Principle of Alternative Possibilities". In the same book, Kane defines this principle as follows. Principle of Alternative Possibilities: (PAP) Persons are morally responsible for what they have done only if they could have done otherwise. The PAP lies behind the common belief of Libertarians that true free will requires the ability to do otherwise(It also underlies Peter Van Inwagen's Consequence Argument for Incompatiblism). Compatibilists argue that the PAP is false. Compatibilist Harry Frankfurt is known for giving counterexamples to the PAP called "Frankfurt-Style Cases". Consider the following. "[Black] has secretly inserted a chip in Jones’s brain which enables Black to monitor and control Jones’s activities. Black can exercise this control through a sophisticated computer that he has programmed so that, among other things, it monitors Jones’s voting behavior. If Jones were to show any inclination to vote for McCain (or, let us say, anyone other than Obama), then the computer through the chip in Jones’s brain, would intervene to assure that he actually decides to vote for Obama and does so vote. But if Jones decides on his own to vote for Obama (as Black, the old progressive, would prefer), the computer does nothing but continue to monitor-without affecting-the goings-on in Jones’s head. Jones is a lifelong Democrat and has every intention of voting for Obama. Jones votes for Obama without the chip activating" Was Jones truly morally responsible for voting Obama? The intuitive answer(and the Compatibilist answer) is "yes". An answer of "yes" implies the PAP is false(since Jones couldn't have done otherwise). Now Libertarians have responses to cases like these, but that's not really my point. My point is that Compatibilists give positive arguments for why the Libertarian view of freedom is flawed. They can't be charged with "redefining" free will in any kind of problematic sense. The burden is on the Libertarian(or hard Determinist) to answer Frankfurt cases. 2. This video suffers heavily since it only really covers what is called "Classical Compatibilism", which the SEP defines as holding, "freedom is nothing more than an agent’s ability to do what she wishes in the absence of impediments that would otherwise stand in her way". You seem to have something like this in mind throughout the course of the video. While your arguments may very well threaten Classical Compatibilism, it is far from clear that your arguments threaten contemporary Compatiblist views. Take Frankfurt's own Hierarchical Motivational Theory of free will. Frankfurt's view is immune to the "you can't choose your desires" objection you raised. Frankfurt draws a distinction between first-order and second-order desires. A first-order desire is a regular desire like, "I want pizza". A second-order desire is a desire about other desires. For example, a drug addict may have a first order desire to use a particular drug. He wants it badly. However, he may also want to overcome his addiction to save his job and his failing marriage. In this case, we have conflict between first-order and second-order desires. Therefore, Frankfurt concludes that such a person is not acting freely. For Frankfurt freedom only requires logical consistency to exist between higher order desires. Whether or not desires are causally determined is irrelevant. A person could be causally determined to be free under this view. My point is not to prove that Frankfurt's account is correct. In fact, I think the "Reasons-Responsiveness" view of Compatibilist free will is more plausible than Frankfurt's theory. My point is to show that objections to Classical Compatibilism do not threaten contemporary accounts of Compatibilism. Moreover, interaction with contemporary Compatibilist theories is certainly required to warrant a title like "Compatibilism Debunked". It also seems irresponsible to critique Compatibilism without even mentioning Frankfurt-Style Cases as they have been so influential in the free will debate. I could say more, but I think my point is clear.

I really can't relate to the "intuition that free will exists". I never had such feeling that human action is free, and I was surpised to hear that other people feel like they have free will. Since i remember myself I always felt like a character in a video game, and I intuitively knew that people cannot do anything different than what they did.

Compatibilism is the thesis that (some coherent notion of) free will is compatible with determinism. Thus it is incorrect to say that compatibilism affirms determinism, merely that free will is possible whether or not determinism is true. This error does not invalidate your main argument, but helps with its rhetoric using causal regress. The main problem instead is that in the phrase "you cannot control what you want to do", you do not carefully define what you mean by "you" and "control" in this context. Instead you critique a version of compatibilism which distinguishes internal and external causes without steel manning what that could mean. What further helps the rhetoric is that you paint in black and white that a choice is either free or not, whereas in almost every situation there are external constraints on choices (e.g. coming from threats from boulders or criminals). The question of "free will" is therefore whether "you" have *some* "control" on what you do. Without defining the quoted terms in some coherent way, you have not debunked compatibilism.