The script to this video is part of... - The Philosophy Vibe - "Free Will vs Determinism" eBook, available worldwide on Amazon: mybook.to/philosophyvibe8
Determinism is not the same as cause and effect. All of the universe functioning requires reliable causation, but this does not mean that there is only one way for every event to unfold. Atoms are mindless objects, they passively react according to their nature, they do not determine anything.
wow! Who is acting twelve? You attack me with prejudice remarks because you don't agree with what I typed. DO you often treat people this manner when they disagree with you? I just used the Russell's Teapot analogy, if you were so knowledgeable in science you would know what I meant. without me having to explain it. I illustrated that the philosophic burden of proof lies upon a person making scientifically unfalsifiable claims, rather than shifting the burden of disproof to others (it's how science works). DO your self a favor and stop being cruel to others you disagree with. I hope you chilled and we could have a meaningful conversation however if you continue with your insults I will have no choice but to ignore you.
So that is assuming the belief that we are free is false. So that is assuming hard determinism. So that is assuming no choice and no responsibility. Which is the exact definition of slavery. It might be a Pascal Wager, but if there is no free will, there is no difference between free-will believers and hard determinists, so what difference does it make? Especially to those who believe in free will, they would believe it regardless. But if we have some level of free will, wouldn't that make the free-will believers more free? So basically, everybody who believes they are free, falsely or not, is at worst equal to hard determinists.
I'm a hard-determinist. this is how I see "free will" and I find it beautiful! When you are making a choice predetermined or not you are weighing pros and cons, that the outcome (your choice) was inevitable doesn't matter. It was still your unique pattern of thought which made the choice. Such a simple choice such as between an apple and a chocolate in your mind is much more complex and so much more beautiful, humans surely are the most beautiful programs. Even if the outcome (your choice) is a dull one.
saying the choice was inevitable is fatalism. and hard determinism it is.more like "humans are robots of some other force pulling the strings for them" liek the sims... this is stupid. there isn't any force forcing you to choose. even influenced. you are the final chooser
Yep, still all very determined. He chose chocolate because he knew he liked it better....and by choosing chocolate, he also chose the apple for the other guy!! But the other guy was the one who decided to give him the option of a choice. He probably already knew which the guy would choose. So why did he offer the choice?? And so on... All of the "internal causes" are really just External causes if you go back a step or more.... External Causes in Internal Causes clothing
This is so funny. I had this same conversation with my grandma and we ended up having it so similarly to this. I even tried to convince her of something very similar to soft determinism. She wouldn’t budge. Always thought there was free will.
@@PaulB_864 that is part of the conversation that we had. An important part of my belief is that in daily life and in regular decision making it is extremely important to act as if you have free will because if you don’t you can create an excuse for anything. Through regular life I think it’s important to behave like you have free will, but I really do think that my decision to behave this way was already determined at the beginning of time. I don’t think that truths of the world will always have real world applicability, this being one of them. But after saying all this I have to admit that my views might be changing. This is because of possible randomness in quantum mechanics, any real randomness would make determinism impossible. But since I don’t understand quantum mechanics and I haven’t investigated further I can’t be sure yet.
@@PaulB_864 But doesn't the realization of the lack of free will make people more compassionate? When you realize that "bad" people never chose to be bad, it's easier (or finally possible) to forgive them, which than gives them opportunities to fix their mistakes/become "better" people
yes. The past is very much determined. The future will be the past. Hence determined. The present allows us to be ignorant and play with chance. Thereby the choice is the momentary feeling disguised to give us a sense control, agency, etc.
I guess I'm a hard determinist, but I still think that people should be punished, not because they're responsible for their actions, but because if no one ever got condemned or punished or anything, people would just keep making the same harmful choices and the world would be way worse off. But as for determinism, yeah, I think that everything any person does has a cause, and whenever we can't identify that cause, we call the action their choice. If I picked an apple over a chocolate bar, that action was made because of a huge number of factors, like how I was brought up, what my brain looks like and how it works, all the emotions built up in my head at that exact moment, etc. But because the reasoning is so complex, it's easier for everyone to just say it was my choice, while in reality, it totally follows determinism.
yes punishment is an external force that does affect the internal forces of the individuals, we are brought to know that crime has punishment which for some people is the external factor that tips the scale to stop them from comitting a crime, but it's one of many external factors and at one point punishment can only do so much and cant stand alone.
@buzzmusic200 Who are we to say if the world is worse off or better off in a hard deterministic world? Animals kill and eat each other all the time, so why is it suddenly bad for humans to do so? Where did the morals to say what is good or bad come from?
Totally agree. I look at it in respect to a sports match. Without rules and punishments for breaking those rules, there is no game, and no fun, just chaos. Those external forces of rules and punishments effect internal forces. I think people of free will and determinism mind sets can still agree on laws from this standpoint. Actually, I think determinists wouldn't agree with people getting away with crimes on pleas of insanity, because to a determinist no one has free will or responsibility, the punishment is merely to lessen the likelihood that others will break that same rule, when others know their will be punishment.
Basekitball In a determined world, everything has a measureable cause, right? Wouldn't it stand to reason that a formula can be developed in which the future is exactly known due to knowing every cause that will be enacted on a human being?
Determinism and Predeterminism just leads to 'Here' and 'Now' , when you made a choice it's just another Determined and Predetermined cycle to 'Here' and 'Now'. No extremity needed.
Regarding Heisenberg's uncertainty principle, the point is that it is supposed to be physically impossible to know, not that we just happen to not have an answer yet(there are a lot of things we can't predict accurately, but have reason to believe that is just because we lack the variables/knowledge of how to do it). That said while I guess that would disprove determinism, it still does not provide any reason to believe in free will either, by definition it is completely random, so it's not chosen by "human decision". It's everything is determined, except for a few things that are completely random, I would not consider either of those free will.
Here's a simple demonstration of compatibility. In the video, John is offered both a chocolate bar and an apple. John plays football and needs to boost his energy for the game coming up a little later, and the extra fat plus the caffeine in the chocolate will give him the boost he needs to play better and longer. So, when John selects the chocolate bar rather than the apple, he is doing so according to his own purpose and his own reasons. Therefore, two things are simultaneously true: (A) Because his choice is a product of his own purpose and his own reasons, he has made the choice of his own free will. (B) Because his choice is a product of his own purpose and his own reasons, it is causally determined. Free will is our ability to decide for ourselves what we "will" do, when "free" of external coercion or other undue influence. This definition requires nothing supernatural, makes no anti-causal assertions, is commonly understood by and correctly applied by nearly everyone in all practical scenarios, and is quite sufficient for both moral and legal responsibility. Determinism is the belief that the objects and forces that make up the physical universe behave in a reliable fashion, such that, it is theoretically possible to predict their interactions and events in advance with perfect accuracy, given sufficient information (e.g., omniscience) and calculation power (e.g., omnipotence). It is important to take note of the fact that determinism itself, being neither an object nor a force, plays no active role in bringing about any events. It is not an actor on the stage of reality. On the other hand, we exist as physical objects, living organisms, and an intelligent species that can imagine a variety of ways to satisfy our needs, and choose which option will best suit our own purpose and our own reasons, and act upon that choice. And when we act upon our chosen intent, we are forces of nature.
@Mike It's "free will", not "free desire". While we may not choose our desires, we definitely do choose what we will do about them. A desire that controls you is termed an "irresistible impulse", and subject to psychiatric treatment. Normally, people have sufficient impulse control to avoid being taken over by their various desires. Free will is literally a freely chosen "I will". Deciding what we will do sets our intention upon accomplishing something specific. This intention then motivates and directs our subsequent mental and physical actions toward satisfying that intent. So, what is "free will" supposed to be "free of"? Normally, it is a choice we make while free of coercion (a guy holding a gun to our head) and other forms of undue influence (a significant mental illness, being under the authority of someone as in parent/child, commander/soldier, doctor/patient relationships, etc.) Cause and effect in itself is neither coercive nor undue. Only specific causes qualify as coercion and undue influences. So, the notion of universal causal necessity/inevitability (determinism) in itself is also neither coercive nor undue. It is not even a meaningful constraint, because what we will inevitably do is exactly identical to us just being us, choosing to do what we choose to do. It is basically "what we would have done anyway", and that is not a meaningful constraint.
@Mike I don't see how you get to that conclusion, Mike. Weren't you free to post that comment? Aren't you free to decide what you will have for dinner? Aren't you generally free to do what you want? What kind of constraint is there that you need to be "free of"?
@Mike In order to be meaningful, the terms "free" and "freedom" must reference some meaningful constraint. For example: 1. We set the bird free (from its cage). 2. We each enjoy freedom of speech (free from censorship). 3. The lady in the grocery store was offering us free samples (free of charge). 4. I participated in Libet's experiment of my own free will (free of coercion and undue influence). Note that in none of these normal uses of "free" or "freedom" is there any mention of "freedom from reliable cause and effect". Why is that? Because every freedom we have, to do anything at all, requires reliable causation. To suggest being free from that which freedom requires is paradoxical, and therefore irrational. So, if we stop pretending that we need to be free of cause and effect in order to be free, we can realize that all of the meaningful and relevant freedoms are still available to us.
@Mike "known in advance to the code of reality"? What kind of superstitious nonsense is that? To "know" anything requires a brain. To make a choice also requires a brain. Although my choice will be causally necessary from any prior point in time, the choice will not be made until my brain actually makes it.
How to justify punishing criminals through hard determinism: The criminal is acted upon by forces that make him endanger the mass. Therefore the the mass cannot afford to let these forces act against it through the criminal. Thus the mass removes the criminal. The mass, no longer under the pressure of the criminal, can understand the forces that caused the criminal to be a criminal. As it was hurt by the criminal's actions, it will attempt to fix the problem that caused the criminal to act. Then the ciminal may be reintegrated if he isn't too far gone. The judge is for all intents and purposes a clockmaker. The mass is a watch, and the clockmaker observes that the watch is broken. By observing the watch, he identifies the criminal as a damaged cog. the cog is removed to see how it blocks the system. Then by examining the watch further, the source of the advanced degradation of the cog can be identified (other cog needing oil...), and fixed. then the clockmaker examins the cog. if the cog can be fixed it can be reintegrated into the watch. If it is far too damaged, it is discarted and replaced.
This was a really interesting comment, but I'm not sure if your analogy aligns with the prison structure our society currently holds. In your scenario the judge is acting out of concern for the mass and he removes the cog in order to try and preserve its safety. I don't think that a modern day judge who sentences someone to prison is doing so solely out of concern for the public, it's also out of a desire to punish him for being morally wrong. This is made more apparent when you see how inmates are treated and how negative public views of criminals are (not saying they shouldn't be). So after reading your comment I'm still left wondering how punishment, or even praise are justified under a hard determinist lens.
+VelvetWind8 Oh that's easy: it doesn't. my comment was a thought experiment, not an accurate depiction of reality. If I was asked to justify the existence of a judicial system through hard deterministic values in a vacuum, that's how I'd do it, but it appears obvious that prisons all over the world were founded on a different set of values. One I do not necessarily agree with either.
Interesting proposal, but I have an objection. In some cases of criminal actions, the actual criminal "responsible" for committing the crime would actually have a very low chance of committing the same crime again or any other crime for that matter, especially if it is a case where they harmed someone they knew personally (maybe they have personal issues or something). If those personal issues are only in place with said friend/family member, after the crime is committed the offender may have a very low chance of committing that crime again because the influence is gone. By this logic, it wouldn't be rational to place them in prison for something they (1) didn't have control of and (2) something they likely wouldn't do again regardless of whether or not they go to prison. However, I could see a way you could make this argument work. Firstly, just to note, I am not a hard determinist. I am a compatibalist (just getting that out of the way). You could argue that while (1) yes, the offender didn't have control over their actions, and (2) they may have a low chance of committing the crime again, however (3) punishing them could influence other members of society NOT to commit the same crime.
this clock /watch analogy is represented in this video, when he explains a society founded on determinism ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-rfOMqehl-ZA.html
@Bush 911 the point was to explain to people why we would still "punish" criminals under the pretense of determinism where we are all void of moral responsibility. and instead of using "punish", we ought to use "treat". you have to explain things to change people properly. how could we ever get to being a determinism founded society, if we never even explain the foundations of that society? sure everything can be predetermined, but we still have to actually go through the process of acting it out. its the whole point of a determinist society, it doesn't just fall into nihilism and chaos and the void. it actively changes and thinks about what is best for the whole.
I am not a native english speaker but i will try to make my point clear and speak simply: I think there is something wrong in the way we treat the subject. If you put it in an other way, something appears to be quite obvious: what would it truly mean to have free will? I think it is simply unthinkable! We cannot be what we are not, and what are we? I think we are what Schopenhauer calls the Will, and we could not want to be something else, it is not possible to be what we are not.. Everything is determined which means we had to be this way because everything follows the will, but now, we, humans, think that we are seperated from the will, as if we were detached from a sort of survival instinct, but in fact i think that it is still the case exepted that we got more and more complex and invented tons of beliefs and concepts... We make one with everything in the universe, because we are the same thing, we are the will itself but it is like we don't know it because we invented more and more words and more and more concepts , as we evoluated which drove us away from our primal animal will.. did i make my point? so whatever we choose is to be choosen because it responds to the will, and we cannot complain about it because it is unthinkable that we could want to be something else. And what is now arising within us would be the will recognizing itself through all of our humans sensations and thoughts etc... Things are the way they are because they could not be otherwise, as if it responds to a necessity... and it is normal that we humans think that it is unfair because we invented concepts of morality and justice. A deer who sees her dead mom may feel in danger and hurt but does not think it is unfair... In the other hand i think that knowledge still drives us away from a primitive will and that it can extend our possibilities of choices, even if we don't choose, by experiencing life and learning every sort of things we bring to our brain all kind of experiences that offers the will various possibilities... so it is not : our self is determined by the will, but rather : our self is the will and cannot be nor want to be something else. because if we say that we are trapped in a body and mind determined by all sort of causes and effects, then we suppose that there is something that is not and which undergoes the will..i think we are the will itself, what could we be otherwise?
The problem with this line of reasoning for determinism is that it is based upon newtonian physics. But quantum physics shows that the universe is not as predictable as we thought.
He expressed it precisely at minute 3:21: "Just because the cause is unknown doesn't negate its existence." The inability to predict the behavior of quantum particles doesn't imply they lack causality. Consider the flip of a coin: its outcome is deemed random due to the absence of complete information on influencing factors. However, if factors such as throwing force, air resistance, and mass were known, the outcome could be anticipated. Thus, randomness doesn't negate causality; it simply highlights our incomplete understanding of all contributing factors.
This is a great crash course in free will and determinism, though the animation is rather amateur. Then again, I doubt I could do better, so I have no right to complain. Nicely done.
In the case of God being all knowing and us having free will. We have free will despite God being all knowing because God's all knowing is NOT the cause of the things that we do. We are our own cause of the things that we do God just knows that we are going to do the things that we do. There is no contradiction in that at all.
The sense of free will seems to be a very specific programming by evolution. As such, the purpose of free will must relate to nature's two mandates of survival and reproduction. Since it seems to be a very specific programming, how specifically is it useful as it relates to survival and reproduction?
going back to the example about the bar vs the apple, is it free will that decides to take the chocolate or is it all the taste buds on your tongue sending signals to your brain? All your thoughts, emotions and feelings correspond with brain stems. If a neuroscientist studies your brain using MRI etc, they can roughly correlate feelings and thoughts with specific parts of the brain. Every thought you've ever had can be traced back to electrical signals that have taken place in your brain. So where is the freedom in all of this, we don't control these processes. Those processes all occur according to the laws of physics and these things are outside our control.
Personally, soft determinism does make sense in the fact that organisms do have to adjust and change for the environment around them which is an almost infinite of variables, but this is just personal speculation about why we had to evolve concepts such as "personal responsibility" in the first place which is a psychological tool used as a reference point for deciding what behaviors are good and bad to begin with.
As a hard determinist, to address the idea of “if everything is cause and effect then why punish?” I always viewed it as more cause and effect. We punish and reward to condition people so they are more or less inclined to behave a certain way. Therefore I don’t view punishment as a measure of fault necessarily, as it isn’t our fault the way we are. Punishment is more an effort to change perceived “bad” behavior.
Free will and determinism can be attach together. Think about a video... If during a video, a person was asked to choose between a chocolate or an apple, and he ended up choosing the chocolate... Playing the video several times will end up on the same result... the person chosing a chocolate, but at least, he had the free will to chose while the video was recorded. :v I hope that summarizes your video
Very well discussed!! 👏🏻👌🏻 For me, what i understood is, freewill and determinism both overlap in every action of ours since we do have a previous cause to determine the situation but we also can't determine how strong or weak is the cause which has an effect on our choices now.. Some causes are really strong and determined that it results will reap anyway and some causes are there which are not deterministic and thus it gives us some space to have freewill to do better or worse based on our discriminatory wisdom which shapes our feelings, feelings shape our intention which give the results as actions. This is what i learnt from Nalanda studies based on Buddhist psychology and philosophy. 🤔🫣
The Quantum superstate defeats the determinist hypothesis as you don't get an outcome until you observe the particle and therefore you can't have predetermined the state it would end up in. Such observation would have to be persistent to know the outcomes, they can not be calculated in advance. No matter how much knowledge you start with or how much processing power, quantum states ruin your perfect predictions. The best you would be able to do, ever, would be to predetermine probabilities. but no outcomes would ever be certain.
I have been considering Free Will and Determinism and 'A God With A Rigid Plan' for some years. I have not reached any Hard Nosed Conclusions. Reviewing my 74 years of life, I can see validity in why I acted in the way that I did **** Because **** I was programmed to act the way that I did. There are days when I 'think' I can see myself as a pre-designed, pre-wired, 'robot'. And there are days when all Heck Breaks Loose, and I can't figure out 'who' or 'what' is running my show. I appreciate your video, and your deep coverage of the subject. This is a Heavy Duty Subject, and most of it is Way Over My Labor's Mentality. My studies have caused me to be less condemning, less intolerant, of the Humanoids around me. At the same time, I do have the Right of Self Defense **** Don't I ?
+Joseph Frierson We are all programmed base on the Law of Nature and a lot of choice given to us to make. Not making a choice means leaving the environment (including others) to make a choice.
I'm for determinism. To believe or consider free will would be a pre-determined fate. We're like characters in a movie, from the character's point of view every moment forward is unknown yet if you were to step outside of the box, you would see that your fate, your progressing story, has already happened in a sense and that you're merely a happening along a linear progression that makes up the movie that you are a character in. They explored this very example in the movie "The Last Action Hero". Of course we often look back on a past and make up a story that enables us to make sense of it to our liking, such as, "Oh I just chose to do that" etc. Great video guys, love the background. Very entertaining.
It seems ridiculous to think that someone with infinite knowledge could have predicted the exact content of this thread. Matter can be arranged into autonomous beings that are wholes greater than the sums of their parts.
Good video, but I have to correct you at 3:24. Quantum Mechanics and the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle do not say that we cannot KNOW the position and path of every particle; rather, it says that particles do not HAVE a specified position and path. 'Uncertainty Principle' is a bad translation of the German 'Unbestimmtheitsrelation'. A better translation would be: Undeterministic Principle. Of course, this does not help the vieuwpoint of free will, because now human action are the consequenses of the events in the past, the laws of nature and random chance. That still leaves no space for free will. A better comparison would have been: MATERIALISM vs free will. If you want to hear my opinion about free will: I think it just depends on the definition wheather we have it. The concept of free will that determinism makes impossible, would always be impossible, because that concept is flawed. To see why, imagine that our consciencesness operates wholly independent of physical reality, and that our choises are determined by what happens in this consciencesness. Seems like we would have free will then, ey? But, then our consciencesness would have to operate in some way according to some princples, and hence it would then be this principles that determine our actions, hence we would not have free will. This concept of free will never works when you try to specify how the free will actually works. Of course, we should still hold people accountable for their actions. We do not punish people out of revenge, but because people are more likely to behave themselves when they know they can be punished, and for various other reasons.
I was determined to watch this, because God want me to know my fate was sealed. We think we are free but we are driven by the necessities of the everyday like a car is driven by human.
For almost every topic, I want to try to figure out what is true. The only exception is free will. I choose to believe in free will on faith, because the belief gives me the power to act. If I look at a task and see that I have the power to do well on it or do it poorly, depending on what I choose, it drives me to do well.
I have a possible theoretical senario for trying to understand free will. It starts like this: We are made of matter, our emotions, actions and choices are subject of interaction of matter with matter. Matter is governed by the laws of nature. The laws of nature are studied and researched by Physics According to classical physics, matter in our scale, behaves acc. to the law of causality (everything can be calculated and described). According to quantum physics , matter at the subatomic level behaves completely different ( Werner Heissenberg law, etc) As a result of the upper 2 statements, for the scale of our existential dimension we should validate the classical physics and accept the causation argument. We dont truly choose, that doesnt mean though that we are free of our vices. (utilitarian ethics) I 'd love to read anyones thoughts.
Clearly, much of the time we have external constraints on our choices, e.g. the law, social disapproval, cost... So in those instances, surely we do not have free will -- ability to do what we please. Ditto for internal constraints. I cannot jump up and run a marathon. The very idea makes me exhausted. I suspect this problem will be "solved" by deciding it is too wooly to admit a solution.
The immobilization and unification of the world: We know that matter want to find immobilization by knowing how our happiness works and we have to remember that we human are made of matters. Happiness is a state that we continuously want to feel. Which mean we want a immobilization state, because in a none immobilization state we are not satisfied, if we still have movement which mean we still have a goals, it mean we have to satisfy our goals to have none and find total immobilization. In that theory we would think that death is the perfect immobilization and total happiness but even in death matter has movement. So in order to find perfect happiness, matter has to continuously assemble itself in one single point where it will create the perfect immobilization and unification. Well this is the theory that is really vulgarize and simplified by all me.
Jamie Dunmore I'm not arguing against choice, but rather for it. Likewise, everything is a choice, even if the choice doesn't exist. So, why is freedom of choice necessary?
The origin of the big bang is a thought. Thoughts are acts of creations. Yes you can choose another's thought and make it your own, or you can create brand new thoughts. The space of thoughts are infinite. This is why they cannot be determined. An infinite source provides infinite possibilities continuously without ever running out. When you say we don't have free will? what is the "we" made from? One must clarify what the "thing" that has or has no free will made from before you can say anything about if it does have free will or not. So the steps for a viable approach is. 1. What is the definition of free will? 2. What stuff makes the "thing" that I call me? 3. Does that stuff permit free will? These are my answers to the above 1. What is the definition of fee will. The ability to change space-time 4 dimensionally, that is change past present and future 2.What stuff makes the "thing" that I call me? The thing I call me is a single thing that is made of stuff that can connect simultaneous events as is evident from my ability to see simultaneous event. 3. Does that stuff permit free will? A thing that can connect simultaneous events can operate faster than the speed of light and as such can change past present and future as needed by the definition philpapers.org/rec/DESCAS
One may state that effects have causes and be accurate. But causality writ large is not then given to being precisely described. A cause has an effect, but complexity overwhelms any simple notion of cause/effect in human action. Therefore; the inquiry "Do we have free will?" is not well served by a yes/no answer. Consequentally, we cannot expect to be able to create sweeping moral judgements based on whether we do or do not have free will. We can assign free will (or the lack of it) as a factor in events, while understanding that generalities will apply, as well as special cases. We should within this process also accept that the application of free will as a factor will change over time, or within groups.
This video assumes physicalism. Compatibilism requires "internal causes" [7:22]. But why are these causes described in mentalistic terms? Surely it would be more consistent with universal physical causation to hold that internal causes are nothing other than physical processing going on in our brains? But, regarded in this manner - without any mention of mental states or mental causation (conscious choices) - compatibilist free will is far from plausible.
1. The argument that there exists an omniscient god who does not have preknowledge of everything we will think and do is logically incoherent. 2. If an omniscient god is also a creator god, and had a choice to create differently (i.e. where it can predict its creations would choose and do differently) then that creator god is ultimately responsible for what we will think and do.
The religious claim on this matter is very self defeating. For they result in using fatalism to explain that a god created the universe and everything came to be because of that, than proceed to justify hell and heaven with "free will". Free will is indeed an illusion, and you put it right our actions are soft determinant indeed. And that is not only the logical answer, but also what neuroscience tells us, and the fact that stimulants effect human behavior.
I'm not sure where I reside in this debate, but I have numerous problems with hard determinism which is why I don't think I'd be able to hold it. For one, if you buy into the argument that we'll eventually be able to predict every single thing that will ever happen by cause and effect, then we should be able to print you a book that has your entire life sequence written out. However, it seems if this was the case, you could choose to differently than the book says. I have so many other objections, and further explanations, example and counter example, etc. But no time for it now
Imagine a time machine, that gets you back to the point of a choice, but without changing you. You will be exactly the same person (mind, body and soul) as you were before the choice. You won't have memories of the events during and after the choice. If souls exist, they too would be restored to that point of time by the machine. The machine would even restore god to that very point of time. (That's one powerful machine) Will you make a different choice? Why would you, if you lacked the experience gained from and after the choice? The motives for your choice will be exactly the same as the first time you made the choice. Even divine intervention wouldn't be possible, because god would be busy with whatever he was doing during the first time you chose (after all causality applies to him as well). Now repeat this exercise a billion times. Did you become a hard determinist?
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aperson1234567891098 I'm part of a podcast where we talk a lot about morality from the perspective of no free will. Free Will, Science and Religion subscription links: itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/free-will-science-religion/id1001850850?mt=2 www.stitcher.com/podcast/chandler-klebs/free-will-science-and-religion?refid=stpr
Everything is Determined and we have No Free Will... but we lack the ability to observe or comprehend the infinite Causal Events in a way that would allow us to predict everything...but it Could be done by someone smarter than us!! Murderers were Always gonna murder before they were even born (it was set into motion by the Big Bang {or before} and a causal chain made it inevitable)!!! However, we can't just have murderers and rapists running around the streets freely!! Anyway, I would just say that it was also inevitable and Determined that he would go to prison etc!!!
Omg. I just love this topic sooo much.. I havr many thoughts on those naturally. (That is caused by my environmental factors-->determinism). Its funny when they argue about weather they should punish anyone for doing something bad... haha I mran of course we should. The first thing we should note is that if we realise something in our nature (lets say we are deterministic) the logical conclusion is not to suspend our laws... Just cause we realized something NATURAL LAW does not mean anything COMMANDING to our SOCIETY LAWS. What if our societal laws are also deterministic? Either way we choose it will be deterministic. Its just a natural law nothing has to do with how we punish ppl. We should understand the difference between natural laws and societal laws. Natural laws are there if we know it or not does not matter what we do they r there. But they dont force us to do anything. What we do as a socuety are moral arguments and of course we can pumisg criminals... and we should cause thats the right thing That does not contradict to determinism. They are determined but think of a scenario how much more deteemimed would they be if there were no alienating factor as the law? Much more ppl would steal and murder so its a good thing... its hard to comprehend but thinfs are like this. As a society we should focus on making people good citizens.
Amazing video, thank you. I would add that I believe and have a theory called "collective will". That our will is the collective of every influence around us at the given moment AND by our life experiences leading up to that moment. I have another theory called "Womb envy", which states that the womb sets our baseline desired state. From the moment we are born, we desire and thus pursue things that recreate that level of comfort. Your "internal will" is governed by the "parenting" that you get and makes some choices more desirable and some less. Humans will always choose the choice they believe will either give them the most pleasure or avoid the most pain. Anything that bring us closer to the perfect state of nourishment (food), temperate (clothing), and physical and emotional security (shelter) give us pleasure.
Interesting video. My opinion from a theist perspective: our mind to comprehend determinism is limited by our human mind. If a God created time - if we contemplate on it, can we even imagine creating time? If we cannot, how can we comprehend a being existing outside of time. In the meantime, our view of it is contaminated by pop culture like back to the future and comics, that time must be like a line and when we return to the past it must be like in a movie. John Calvin only gave an analogy in his understanding of predeterminism: There is a gate which on top says 'Welcome', alot of people walking outside the gate. some chose to walk in, some chose not to. The ones that walked in, when they turn around and look at the back to the gate saw the words 'you were chosen'.
it's a conceptual thing. Neither determined nor undetermined actions are 'free'. When we talk about free will, we don't actually realise that we are not making sense. What is actually happening when we arrive at a choice is that we seem, experientially, to pull our choices out of an internal hat. We refer to that as making a 'free' choice. But even from the experiential point of view, how could this amount to freedom of choice? It just pops into your consciousness. There is no-one who selects it.
Thoughts don't just pop into your mind. They come to mind to aid the problem you are trying to solve or the issue you're trying to resolve. Thus, they are purpose-driven events. Personally, I find Sam Harris's mysticism about this to be quite uncharacteristic of scientific thinking.
Ultimately we do have free will, however, we have freely thrown ourselves into a maze of limiting beliefs that makes it seem as if we have no free will.
brandon chapman All beliefs are limiting to some degree, and yes, we have many beliefs we are not even aware of. Probably the majority of our beliefs have never really occurred to us.
brandon chapman More frightening is that 99%+ of our beliefs are not scientific facts. They aren't even based on logic or reason. Most of our beliefs simply come from hearing things. The mind believes what it hears. It does this on a subconscious level. We'll believe anything if we hear it enough times. Advertisers know this and use it to brainwash us into believing their products are superior. And scary thing is the the eyes tend to see what the mind believes! Beliefs produce our perceptions. And then those perceptions reinforce our beliefs! It's a vicious circle. And you've got to wonder why our minds do this to us.
Just wanted to say thank you to this channel for carrying me through my philosophy elective. Looking up your videos really simplified the content for me and helped me with my essays. Y’all the goats 🐐 Fr
3:31 Einstein said that god does not role dice only because he refused to accept quantum mechanics, which has yet to be proven wrong despite numerous attempts to.
P1. Mere effects of physics can be neither true or false. (Is a tornado more true than an earthquake?). P2. If determinism true, all human evaluations, propositions, understanding, etc. are mere effects of physics. C. If determinism true, all human evaluations, propositions, understanding, etc. can be neither true or false (a clearly incoherent conclusion that is reached when determinism is assumed). ______________________________________ P1. My thoughts and actions are all predetermined, effects of physics from the big bang (once again assuming determinism to be true). P2. Your thoughts and actions are all predetermined, effects of physics from the big bang. C1. Your nor my statement could be either 'more true' or 'more false' than the other. C2. If determinism true, there is no such thing as true or false. (Is that true?)
All that this argument would prove is that humans can’t “know” if determinism is true since they can’t hold true or false beliefs, but it doesn’t show that determinism is false. If we didn’t know that adding 2 and 2 gets 4, this wouldn’t disprove that 2 and 2 gets 4, but rather that we don’t have knowledge that 2 and 2 gets 4. I’m not saying therefore determinism is true, but rather, you need more evidence to suggest determinism is not true, since it is not self-refuting. Additionally, not being able to hold knowledge (or propositions) is entirely dependent on your definitions. If it’s some abstract concept of the mind, then I’d agree we can’t know. But if you mean knowledge as the ability of an organism to decipher patterns in the environment then respond accordingly, then we can have knowledge. This is because we can recognise patterns that objectively exist in the world (ie. determinism) and respond accordingly (by having brain activity to affirm determinism is true - corresponds to reality). Think of this like a AI. It doesn’t hold some abstract knowledge of a non-physical mind, but, like us, it has programming (akin to biology) that based on training data (experiences) responds to stimuli (says things that do or do not correspond to an objective reality). It is still following the laws of physics in doing this as a purely physical process, yet would technically have knowledge according to my definition.
I really like this. As of now, I agree with the guy on the right. I would like to add a question, which I suppose would be addressed particularly to the guy on the left but also the guy on the right and anyone reading: why punish those who do wrong? Why not help them to change their ways? Rehabilitate I suppose. What does punishment accomplish? It seems to me that rehabilitation is much more productive. One more question: why doesn't society take a close look at what determines people's destructive behaviors and try to prevent them from happening in the first place? I suppose I'm particularly referring to a massive education reform.
The main problem to solve this Free will and determinism debate are to know all the variable that shaped this universe and our ability to know that all variables. Especially the variable that shaped our brain. But, I wonder.. What if we know all the variable that shaped our world, and we can predict the people action in the future. (Let's assume we know that) And then we do differently from the prediction. Does it mean we have a free will? (sorry for my bad english)
Determinism says that everything is caused by influences and if we knew ever single one of them we could know who is going to do what. if you could see your future that would be an influence be a use of which you probably would not end up there
Because those results would fit perfectly In the illusion of free will, if you want to create an illusion of free will you would certainly punish or praise people by their actions... so it looks like they have a choice but in reality is part of a more complex mechanism, the mechanism of existence itself...
+D Green315 A democracy is still superior to a dictatorship because the organism inside you (the whole you) still makes a decision within the democracy, but the argument for hard determinism says that the conscious "I" which claims to make this decision by itself is an illusion. Think of it like this "you dont want something because you've found reason for it, you find reason for it because you want it"
I don't think determinism damages the justice system; it only emphasises the fact that we ought to focus on rehabilitation over vengeance, - always. And I do believe; the fact that we have _punishment_ works as an external factor on people's actions, and in that way it is further justified by (indirect?) prevention of law-breaking actions.
I could just as easily say. "The objection to free will is I don't want to do the hard work of thinking about my actions because that makes me uncomfortable about my shitty behavior."
Compatibilism is a cop-out have some conviction in your beliefs at least. Soft determinism is some half-assed attempt at reconciling "moral culpability" with the scientific evidence for determinism in the universe. If you believe in free will you have to accept and to try and reconcile chaos and randomness with purposeful choice. Chaos theory simply reflects our lack of understanding of the workings of the universe. Much like we once did not understand the retrograde orbits of planets and posited randomness until we understood why it happened. Or how we say that the heads or tails outcomes of a coin flip are the result of probabilistic chance, but there was a study I read (cannot find the link :( ) where they controlled all aspects of the coin flip perfectly and were able to predict the results with 100% accuracy. Complex events appear to be random until we can understand and control the multitude of variables, and another random event succumbs to the deterministic reality of the universe.
Determinism doesn't always have one outcome though... something could result in many outcomes.. of which one could then use free will to choose one of those outcomes. For example... consider a bowling ball that hits a set of numbered bowling pins... knocking them all down.... and you choose one or more of those bowling pins to keep (or not). Do you choose one, do you choose none or do you choose many?
Determinism isn't even necessary. In a chaotic universe we wouldn't have "free will" either. It would be random chance. It seems to me that free will is simply self contradicting. EDIT: In the end they merely redefine free will. Of course there is a difference between forced actions and such you commit "freely" according to your wishes. That has absolutely nothing to do with the notion that one could choose otherwise. And no, it doesn't justify punishment. Punishment, pride, shame, etc are unreasonable and should only be employed to serve a different goal. How much better would the world be with healing instead of vengeance and punishment - with understanding instead of dismissive elitism - with thoughtfulness instead of shame?
+Taxtro Also it is impossible to determine weather something is truly random, in the sense that it can never be predictable. We can say it only appears to be random.
