Like MLK Jr said, “We all too often have socialism for the rich and rugged free market capitalism for the poor.”, but in this case, it's free will for the rich when they have success, but "out of my control" blame a lower down employee when there's a failure., and free will when someone in poverty steals, but ignoring the systems they're struggling in.
I knew the whole time it was an attempt to refrain from responsibility. You can infer blame to the employer if there's no free will; it was predetermined to happen. Your anti-free-will ideology is self-defeating, which shows why you are the employee. You're not very smart.
ok but how does one at extreme poverty ignore a system their struggling in that’s a practice of daily cognition even middle class kinda needs to steal on occasion, besides now days.
@@chinmeysway oh, I probably could have worded that better. The person in poverty isn't ignoring the system they're struggling in. It's the people judging the person in poverty for stealing, who are ignoring the system when assessing the situation.
You'd enjoy Greenwald, With Liberty and Justice for Some . . . If it's possible to enjoy that book. It's staggering. What you're talking about is WAY worse than we think. WAY.
I enjoy Sapolsky interviews and I've watched a number of them. This was an unusually good interview. Research was done, synthesis was good, references to entries in books, and you kept it on topics that just light him up - all without too many interruptions. Thank you.
Wow. What he said about mammals "liking " to punish or get revenge was pretty profound. The fact that it literally causes a dopamine hit is pretty enlightening.
Yeah, that was a very interesting insight, that mammals evolved to get dopamine from punishing due to its beneficial effects for regulating group social dynamics. Also the enjoyment from judgment or punishment probably has to do with virtue signaling on social media
Like I've often said to myself (because no one ever listen to me), you live half your life learning stuff, and then the next half un-learning that stuff from the first half....
We teach our children to that same bs. Children spent least 10 years on that BS, walking up, hurrying to school, coming home tired, stressed about schoolwork..They learn that same patterns, waiting for The Weekend and holidays only. They're so brainwashed to that BS that they don't know any other lifestyle. That was of course by design, as Henry Ford Said, we need workers, not thinkers. The Jobs i am working, any 13 y.o. can do it. Most important thing is to just be with your Kids and yourself, don't waste your Time serving society which gives you nothing Back, only takes. World is fd up place. As i walk in The City, IT means nothing for me. It's just something that a madman built. It's just concrete. People acting like robots. Get out of there. Theres land for everyone.
Coincidences... When my wife became schizophrenic her sense of causality went completely haywire. She saw a person named Kimberly and a person named Clark together interacting with her and concluded that the Kimberly-Clark company was spying on her. For example.
I've watched his whole Stanford class and read the primatology book and yet I still am astounded by this man. I will watch every interview. I guess I'm an involuntary superfan or something. This professor's mind is perfect edutainment for me. Bravo - He is my favorite contemporary intellectual. Also he's totally hot, and its not my fault for thinking this because i have no free will. Its just biology.
Mr. Watkins, I really like your interview with Robert Sapolsky. From your insightful queries to your ability to allow the interviewee to fully express his thoughts, your style of interview was fruitful. Thank you, and "Please, sir, may I have some more please?"
There is free will, but it is hard to move up if you came from certain circumstances but it CAN BE DONE at least in the past era. The kids now maybe not.
@@alomaalber6514the universe is deterministic. We are in the universe. There is no free will? Our consciousness rejects this because it's been selected for in our species by evolution. The belief is beneficial to survival. The majority of us believe many things that can't be proven because there is no proof and no logical way to prove them. You can't prove a negative. Free will is a negative proof the same way g-d is. You're free to believe anything you want but it doesn't mean that you can prove or not prove them. There's no point in debating them . Believe if you want to. I believe in the best story when ever I get the chance . If I'm delusional, so what? Does it really matter? Reality is an illusion..that is proven.
Freewill is how you react on the line of duality which is evident in everything Fight/flight up.down happy/angry left-right expand/contrast and so on... We are able to shape our souls/consciousness by using this spectrum. There is always a decision in how we react.
but you are not part of the race that poisons you. every person has the capability to do great things, we just have to create a society that enables people to do those things.
Yes, you are still a rat but a cool 😎 one. Besides, you don't know where the first ones are directing you in the race, you can only see their behinds and the destination might not be a good one.
I’ve been telling my mom im an atheist since I was 7. Every time something bad happens in my life she says it’s because I don’t believe in God and i counter with “you believe in God and pray to him all the time and bad things happen to you too explain to me why it’s happening to you?” She can’t.
It is not your age or level to believe in God. Don't meddle with higher stuff. You are too young to understand subtleties of life. And by whatever you believe doesn't make the world run behind you. Believe in god, I don't believe in god.There's a higher question first know yourself. It will take a lifetime
Your mom needs to read the book of Job (in the Bible) as her understanding of how God "works" is incorrect. Everyone faces difficulties in life, regardless of whether they believe or not.
Fantastic interview.The interviewer was as serene as Prof.Saplosky and we who watched the interview truly benefitted out of that mutual respect. I bought the book yesterday and really want to go deep into that. I have a question for Prof.Saplosky. I have recovered(recovering) from alcohol addiction and sober for the past 21 years by the grace of God and the fellowship of AA based on the famous 12 step program. The prayer we have at the meetings is "God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference." What here being advocated by the author more or less similar to that except the word God or a Higher Power to keep one's sanity amidst the chaos of our evolutionary limitation of free will and the man made miseries we are caught up in. AA's primary thrust on living one day at a time. How such a fellowship formed in 1935 and have meetings going on every part of the globe helping insane alcoholics to lead a better life by removing one's character defects through the 12 step program really works for those who want to recover . It's not a cult or any other indoctrination or debate on other matter such as religion or one's place in society except only things confined to one's sobriety . It has no membership or fees and still remains simple as when it was founded. I hope that Dr.Saplosky does also maintain a view that there's a small light at the end of the tunnel of human existence and humanity's survival throughout evolution over the years ever since the human brain attained the prefrontal cortex. I wish both of you all success in your life ahead.
Don't worry, the socialist program SNAP (foodstamps) is there for you. In the U.S. no one starves. In the U.S. poor people are fat. So you see there is no real poverty in the U.S. We have the safety net. So... you can let go and just leap! 😂😂
@@chrismaxwell1624 "socialism" implies doing what is best for society. i would say USA is a mix of corporate libertarian-ism and corporate cronyism. Small businesses are free to fail, while a privileged few get all the handouts
There's something to be said for denying both suffering and joy the opportunity to upset your equilibrium. Buddhists know it, Kipling knew it... isn't that also free will?
Happiness is: Letting go of the life you imagined for yourself & embrace the one you have bc Time waits for no man…..I spend my work days taking care of people where “All their money won’t another minute buy” 👉slow suicide ain’t no way to go👉read a good book, take a long walk, make a new friend, donate time in a soup/food pantry, dive into a new hobby, dive into your Ancestral history & visit those countries or view them in 3/4K on RU-vid, go horseback riding, adopt a new pet, reach out to an old friend, take out a map, close your eyes & put your finger down on the first town you’re going to road trip to & visit just bc you can, visit Cohokia mounds in Southern Illinois, or Serpent mound in Ohio, take a plane ride, train ride to somewhere you’ve never been (quite cheap if you plan ahead) learn a new card game, buy & put together a puzzle collection unique to you👉Too much time on one’s hands is dangerous for one’s mental spiritual Soul👉must be of service elsewhere other than the mind that brings you down 🦋
I used to be that baboon that would freak out, when a rival was present. The other baboon never even gave it a thought just did what they where doing. And I got sick..
I’m an atheist and I never had a period where I did horrible things because I won’t be held accountable when I die. I didn’t do horrible things, because I’m not a horrible person.
Or you're just weak and ineffective. What did Nietzsche say, most people that don't do bad things not because they're a good person but because they're cowardly.
I like Robert and largely agree with him. My only real issue isn't with what he's saying it's people taking the concept of determinism to an extreme level where "if were just beasts with no will I might as well just lean into every impulse and do anything I want." This is an *extremely* dangerous line of thinking that quickly leads to chaos. I've seen it first hand living in very low-income and high-crime areas. People get it in their head that nothing matters anyway, and do horrific things. We have to at least act as though things matter and that we have some semblance of choice to better ourselves...
Life has no point but every moment has meaning. I knew this at 8. Now 71. It has never depressed me. Atheist raised by catholics. IQ 148. I enjoy your lectures.
Life is the point and not every moment has meaning. Sapolski is wrong about determinism and free will. He might as well believe in God. Big G. No reason to "End the Criminal Justice System".
@@yanapostolides601 There is a huge reason to end criminal justice system, because it operates based on the false predatory consciousness and paradigm of exploitation that keeps the consciousness fragmented and stuck within the two dimensions of good and evil, when in reality there is no good and evil once someone evolves their cosnciosuness to the entry and unity point of the feminine dark hole/third dimension that sits in the center where it is perfectly understood that there is no absolute truth or objective reality (which we already know for a fact from quantum mechanics), this is why the more we are resisting the opposition the more we are freeding it and negativelly polarizing and densifying in the dark matter. This ha also been largely covered within quantum mechanics, which symbolizes the potential allegorical story of the fall from garden of eden. This is why many of us are allowing evil, pervwersion, and everything we resist, bevause it is through the integration and inclusion into the whole that we erase the patterns and come back to the divine flow that heals and balances that what is excluded. This what I shared with you is the next stage of awakening for humanity, we are getting there finally, albeit slowly and gradually. This is also why as a humanity through this process we will shift towards communism as a global system, that is actually an inevitable trajectory at this point, because it will be able to operate from this holistic approach to life.
@Shortstacksandticktacks chasing your own tail, having goals instead of being 'ambitious ' about being fully present. Living for, hoping for or fearing the future and regretting or idealising the past. Maintaining an image of oneself. Shall I go on ? 57 yr old curious, but less driven being as 20 yrs ago - and very happy about it, fresher than ever since growing up / undergoing societal conditioning. And I haven't dropped out of society and continue a job with a high societal contribution.
Trying to be somebody only ever brought me misery, all of that just went away when I focused on free time over money, now Im money poor and time rich instead of having neither...A VAST improvement. Our system has none of the answers to important questions in life unless it involves money making it meaningless to me, I have the basic comforts and do not aspire to more.
A lack of meaning is what people fear from the eventual potential dominance of AI in capitalism. A lack of meaning and free will is also what underlies a lot of addictions. People often ask for the wisdom to know what they can and can not control. The idea that life is just a meaningless, arbitrary unfolding of matter towards entropy leaves the burning question of why we have consciousness and why we search for meaning in the first place.
People don't become addicts from a struggle with lacking free will and meaning. AA tries to push the higher power, free will and meaning aspect, but their success rate is abominable because it is untrue. Isolation and hopelessness is what underlies a lot of addiction. As for why we have consciousness, that is easy enough to solve. Organisms have problems to solve. If they solve those problems, they live to solve another problem. Find food, find a mate, find shelter. Even a single celled paramecium solves these problems. Our consciousness is just a highly evolved form of... problem solving. It really is as simple as that. Don't believe me. You are a smart woman. Think about the evolution of the central nervous system and how we became more conscious as it evolved into a much more advanced system. Listen to some lectures on the evolution of the nervous system. The answer is right there. As for why we search for meaning? Ever had a toddler following you around and learning how the world works? From birth we are developing theories on how the world works and trying to understand the "why" of... everything. To ask "why" is to be a homo sapien. None of the other monkeys (yes, we are monkeys as well as apes) sit around and wonder what their meaning is. Lastly, to ask "what is the meaning of life" should be a very personal question that is changed to "what is the meaning of YOUR life". When you do, people can often find great answers.
I have never read such an inspiring & interesting comment, I Thanks for opening a pathway to some subjects I would of not considered before. I am going to have a winter binge read. You never know, you could have indirectly changed my perception of some lifes many unknown ?'s. Your comment gave me a gut feeling of comfort
I remember being a kid around 12 years old in church and hearing about God hardening Pharaoh’s heart. I asked myself, “Wait. Why’s Pharaoh the bad guy here?”
Just another example of the blatant contradictions in the Bible. If God is omnipotent and always good, then why do we live in a world full of pain and injustice? They couldn’t really blame God, so they invented the Devil. But why doesn’t God just kill the Devil if he’s all-powerful? Don’t ask such questions.
The story shows your punishment for succumbing to hardness is too never escape it. See it as a metaphor of how life works. Being a dicky makes you more of a dicky over time. At first you decide, but after a while you lose yourself on it and can never decide to come back.
As a Taoist, I find the revelation of no free will wildly liberating. It's the way the moment of awakening is described in buddhist meditation - you are free the moment you realize you can't escape the trap, and so that means you don't have to. But knowing this, it's easier to forgive the past and this knowledge may potentially unlock the acceptance to break free of psychological loops.
But Dr. Sapolsky still hasn’t answered the riddle central to this conundrum, which is “okay, but it feels like I have free will, so what am I supposed to do with these FEELINGS”.
He blames the very thing our free will is dependent upon, as that which negates it. His argument is circular, and self defeating. There is no internality without the external. They depend on one another.
@@kirkcharlton1308 Perhaps you can sum up what negates our will without describing the very things it depends on to function at all? I have to go to bed.
I also rejected free will at an early age. I might differ from him in certain ways. For instance, we celebrate people have great talents--like singing-- even though we all know this isn't a matter of choice. Just because you are "lucky" in your talent--whatever it is--doesn't mean you can't feel good about it, albeit you ought to mix that with a good dose of gratitude. Similarly, I have a rabid dog theory about destructive people--like narcissists & psychpaths, etc. who can't be redeemed. They may not have chosen to be serial killers or toxic abusers, but they clearly can't be allowed to inflict damage on others. The change is that we should be organizing a society that minimizes damaged individuals, instead of creating them and feeling that punishment is the only tool.
The Ancient Indian religio-philosophy of Ajivikism agrees with Sapolsky’s thesis on free will. But like other “nastika” Indian religions, it eventually disappeared. This does not invalidate it’s and Sapolsky’s claims. I think they both advocate for more psycho-emotional acceptance from a rational standpoint.
Just came across this by accident and im impressed with your interview skills. Congratulations on having Sapolsky on your channel. Ive been a fan of his since getting this device in my hands. Im interested in primates as a hobby. My algorithm inevitably sent me here. Thank you for using RU-vid for positive.
Also an evening bigger thank you to both your enthusiasm. I would have seen this as a one off gem, so your comments are telling me to check this guy out
Free will is not what people want. It appeals to the religious idea of a soul which has a lot attached to it, but it doesn’t actually help with your basic needs. You don’t want to make choices all the time. You want the things you chose in the last transitional phase of your life to remain available, healthy, interconnected, and moral.
Way to go on the Q&A I'm an old fart and fan of Sapolsky enough that the algo keeps popping up his interviews, This is one of the most interesting weaves.
One of the best interviews of Dr Sapolsky I have ever heard. Good questions, excellent use of quotes from the book. Sapolsky is end of the world. I fell in love with his Stanford human behavioural biology lessons (free on RU-vid) and even listen to them when i need to wind down after hard days.
Great thinker ! His book, Behave was one of those life changing books for me . And his Stanford Lectures on Human Behavior , viewable on RU-vid are exceptional, too !
As a Christian, I find his message compassionate: people are wired in a certain way and can do little about it. He also says that change is possible. At every junction, we can make an effort to make a conscious choice, instead of an automatic one. Consciousness is not a function of frontal cortex. Even Penrose struggles with the origin of consciousness. To me, this is the transcendental aspect of humanity that may save us from a life of an automaton.
Yes, as he defines free will, I say "of course" it doesn't exist. Nevertheless, he talks constantly about making decisions based on more complete information. As I think of free will, that aligns just fine.
🐟 22. ILLEGITIMATE GOVERNANCES: SOCIALISM (and its more extreme form, communism) is intrinsically evil, because it is based on the ideology of social and economic egalitarianism, which is both a theoretical and a practical impossibility. Equality exists solely in abstract concepts such as mathematics and arguably in the sub-atomic realm. Many proponents of socialism argue that it is purely an economic system and therefore independent of any particular form of governance. However, it is inconceivable that socialism/communism could be implemented on a nationwide scale without any form of government intervention. If a relatively small number of persons wish to unite in order to form a commune or worker-cooperative, that is their prerogative, but it could never work in a country with a large population, because there will always exist entrepreneurs desirous of engaging in wealth-building enterprises. Even a musician who composes a hit tune wants his song to succeed and earn him inordinate wealth. Socialism reduces individual citizens to utilities, who, in practice, are used to support the ruling elite, who are invariably despotic scoundrels, and very far from ideal leaders (i.e. compassionate and righteous monarchs). Those citizens who display talent in business or the arts are either oppressed, or their gifts are coercively utilized by the corrupt state. Despite purporting to be a fair and equitable system of wealth distribution, those in leadership positions seem to live a far more luxurious lifestyle than the mass of menial workers. Wealth is effectively stolen from the rich. Most destructively, virtuous and holy teachings (“dharma”, in Sanskrit) are repressed by the irreligious and ILLEGITIMATE “government”. The argument that some form of government WELFARE programme is essential to aid those who are unable to financially-support themselves for reasons beyond their control, is fallacious. A righteous ruler (i.e. a saintly monarch) will ensure the welfare of each and every citizen by encouraging private welfare. There is no need for a king to extort money from his subjects in order to feed and clothe the impoverished. Of course, in the highly-unlikely event that civilians are unwilling to help a person in dire straits, the king would step-in to assist that person, as one would expect from a patriarch (father of his people). The head of any nation ought to be the penultimate patriarch, not a selfish buffoon. DEMOCRACY is almost as evil, because, just as the rabble favoured the murderous Barabbas over the good King Jesus, the ignorant masses will overwhelmingly vote for the candidate which promises to fulfil their inane desires, rather than one which will enforce the law, and promote a wholesome and just society. Read Chapter 12 for the most authoritative and concise exegesis of law, morality, and ethics, currently available. Even in the miraculous scenario where the vast majority of the population are holy and righteous citizens, it is still immoral for them to vote for a seemingly-righteous leader. This is because that leader will not be, by definition, a king. As clearly and logically explicated in the previous chapter of this Holy Scripture, MONARCHY is the only lawful form of governance. If an elected ruler is truly righteous, he will not be able to condone the fact that the citizens are paying him to perform a job (which is a working-class role), and that an inordinate amount of time, money and resources are being wasted on political campaigning. Furthermore, an actual ruler does not wimpishly pander to voters - he takes power by (divinely-mandated) force, as one would expect from the penultimate alpha-male in society (the ultimate alpha-male being a priest). The thought of children voting for who will be their parents or teachers, would seem utterly RIDICULOUS to the average person, yet most believe that they are qualified to choose their own ruler - they are most assuredly not. Just as a typical child fails to understand that a piece of sweet, juicy, healthy, delicious fruit is more beneficial for them than a cone of pus-infested, fattening, diabetes-inducing ice-cream, so too can the uneducated proletariat not understand that they are unqualified to choose their own leader, even after it is logically explained to them (as it is in this chapter, as well as in the previous chapter). And by “uneducated”, it is simply meant that they are misguided in the realities of life and in righteous living (“dharma”, in Sanskrit), not in facts and figures or in technical training. Intelligence doesn't necessarily correlate to wisdom. No socialist or democratic government will educate its citizens sufficiently well that the citizens have the knowledge of how to usurp their rule. To put it frankly, democracy is rule by the “lowest common denominator”. It should be obvious that ANARCHY can never ever succeed, because even the smallest possible social unit (the nuclear family) requires a dominator. Any family will fall-apart without a strict male household head. In fact, without the husband/father, there is no family, by definition. The English noun “husband” comes from the Old Norse word “hûsbôndi”, meaning “master of the house”. The same paradigm applies to the extended family, which depends on a strong patriarchal figure (customarily, the eldest or most senior male). Likewise with clans, tribes, villages, towns, cities, and nations or countries. Unfortunately, there are many otherwise-intelligent persons who honestly believe that an ENTIRE country can smoothly run without a leader in place. Any sane person can easily understand that even a nuclear family is unable to function properly without a head of the house, what to speak of a populous nation. The reason for anarchists' distrust of any kind of government is due to the corrupt nature of democratic governments, and the adulteration of the monarchy in recent centuries. However, if anarchists were to understand that most all so-called “kings/queens” in recent centuries were not even close to being true monarchs, they may change their stance on that inane “system”. Most of the problems in human society are directly or indirectly attributable to this relatively modern phenomenon (non-monarchies), since it is the government’s role and sacred DUTY to enforce the law (see Chapter 12), and non-monarchical governments are themselves unlawful. One of the many sinister characteristics of democracy, socialism, and other evil forms of governance, is the desire for their so-called “leaders” to control, or at least influence, the private lives of every single citizen (hence the term “Nanny State”). For example, in the wicked, decadent nations in which this holy scripture was composed, The Philippine Islands and The Southland (or “Australia”, as it is known in the Latin tongue), the DEMONIC governments try, and largely succeed, in controlling the rights of parents to properly raise, discipline and punish their children according to their own morals, compulsory vaccination of infants, enforcing feminist ideology, limiting legitimate powers an employer has over his servants, subsidizing animal agriculture, persecuting religious leaders (even to imprisonment and death, believe it or not. Personally, I have been jailed thrice for executing God’s perfect and pure will), and even trying to negatively influence what people eat and wear. Not that a government shouldn’t control what its citizens wear in public, but it should ensure that they are MODESTLY dressed, according to the guidelines outlined in Chapter 28, which is hardly the case in Australia, the Philippines, and similar nations. At least ninety-nine per cent of Filipinas, for instance, are transvestinal, despite Philippines pretending to be a religious nation. Cont...
So refreshing to listen to a man who has studied human animal behavior, with as much objectivity as he did with baboons. We are not as special as we think. It's just a matter of degree, due to our complex brains.
Initially, it becomes exceedingly challenging to commence watching this due to the profound irony that he is engaged in by being remunerated for his participation.
Nah, we had markets and services and currency before capitalism. When people criticize it they mean big c Capitalism or what Mandel called late stage capitalism, with rule of society by big busuiness/multinational corporations compounding profit as the #1 goal for society unrestrained by issues of fairness or kindness, ie capitalism at its most exploitative, alienating, and destructive, hitting global saturation and its logical conclusion of neofuedalism like we had in the late 1800s
Sure, but we're also pretty convinced he's not extremely wealthy, as most academics aren't. and isn't a proponent or actively supporting wealth concentration. He'll be a fairer scientist if he's not hungry.
40:30 This fits physics perfectly with cause & effects,evolutionary theory too. We do make choice’s based on our understanding of reality at the time…. So what motivations lie behind choice & how can you map that with the application of individuality in the question?
@salninethousand2496 ptsd was discovered in the absence of the concepts existence, and further discovered to exist in people during the same economic heights that allowed everyone the ability to work at something to own a house or whatever.
We don't cause what causes what happens to us. The universe, including the forces in our mind, is just running, Now continuum-flowing into the next Now. Most of your thoughts were 'in the pipeline' before you're consciously aware of the outcome. This is not understood or accepted by most humans (goodbye immortal soul delusions). Just try to enjoy the conscious ride - the meaning of life is 'simply' to live.
you can consciously choose to become more involved in the process (or not). but regardless of whether you choose to involve yourself, those energies are going to play out.
OMG I did the same thing - took Swahili as a kid because I was so convinced I was going to go to Kenya one day, but then I got mesmerized by neurobiology also! It just blew me away and still does. I also have to balance 2 different passions. I didn't know this about your early years.
This put tears in my eyes. To think of all the unnecessary blame, judgement and suffering. Even that I have done to others and to myself. But I guess with no free will I just have to say this was a lucky RU-vid choice. I guess that makes you fellow listeners my tribe.
The laws of thermodynamics dictate that this is an energy competition. As such, everything is in tension. Tension, thus, creates potential. Discovery itself is a product of the interplay of duality. In reality, paradox, contradiction, conflict, and resolution, is all there is. These are the tools of self discovery, and self-realization. We live of off the entropy of other living things, and natural systems, this isn't ugly. It's beautiful, as it is the universe becoming itself. Change is the only constant.
I hear ya. I no longer blame self, I am responsible but sometimes it WAS the other person and they were selfish blamers. It is very hard to move up in life, but I DID it, the era one is born in also makes a difference, there is no free will in that. But I do believe in Free will. And I think God is some sort of math and probability that is beyond my pay grade. Cheers. and do the best you can for YOU.Also hydration and food choices matter, find what works for you.
The Bible isn't a literal historical novel. It's a text of mythology, metaphor, and allegory within a loose historical context. It's been translated and mistranslated, interpreted and misinterpreted, edited, redacted, and modified dozens of times throughout the centuries. It has been weaponized, corrupted, and weilded by those who seek and hold power. The foundational moral core of it resembles that of most other religious and spiritual traditions. We are all part of one cosmos, and we must treat others as ourselves. We have free will to the extent that we are conscious of the forces that determine our thoughts and actions. Meditation, deep prayer, and contemplation will reveal these truths and allow us to have more control over the responses we have to the world we live in.
Thank you. Why do atheists always attack the lowest level of religious thought? I respect sapolsky a lot but he sounds like a fool when he speaks on religion and philosophy. I guess he has just made up his mind about free will and thinks it is a waste of time to spend resources thinking about philosophy. The old thinkers were acutely aware of the ephemeral nature of their world. One of the only constants was the stars and rhythms of the cosmos. They overlayed these constants with hyperbolic allegory in order to pass along a vast knowledge that could be retained and accessed through memory. They knew full well that parchment and even stone would not last, but the stars would be there.
@@rblongfellow Wisdom is hard won and easily lost. We live in a fallen world and long for the divine, but the contradictions of that state make for the inescapable condition of human folly. It's been said that once truth is written down, it is dead.
@@rblongfellow Stars and the breath of life. Materialistic thought for all its merits in accuracy and self consistency and science is very expensive and seems like a huge waste of life. A spiritual person who lives and lets live at the highest levels of human being seems much more worthy. This is why he seems like a fool. But is he considering the times we live in? Maybe not so much.
“Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. 29 Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. 30 For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.” - Matthew 11:28-30
I am with you. Our Lord Jesus is the only one who can and will give life meaning and purpose in the end. I agree with the guest's humble life attitude, it is good, but only Christ gives comfort that is deeper than anything else I ever experienced. Peace be with you.
Thomas doubted… and he felt the wound. 😂❤😂… the god of love ❤️, shows us the example to follow… nothing much matters, but that we care for others. Even the best of us have imperfections. Yet love ❤️ fixes all.
The religion of the successful(lucky )is that they deserve everything. Which live under the hypnosis of survivorship bias. It’s their opiate and protection of ego boundaries that leads to might makes right.
Really great video. It's interesting to me that before neuroscientists like Sapolsky found evidence for this, behaviorists like B.F. Skinner predicted that we don't have free will (because our behavior is a product of the environment we are in). And the environment we are in is a product of chance. Have you read Walden Too?
His views are not far from Sikh beliefs. There is no Mr God in the sky, there are no individual souls, there is no free will, what happens is Reality and we are all part of the One. Accepting Reality and Oneness is the key to joyful mutual love. None of this relies on individual free will.
What amazes me is we live so much longer now that we have mature capitalism. Life expectancy went from 35 to 100, even with all the stresses we have in our lives.
I'm halfway through this enjoyable interview as I write this comment: Robert Sapolsky's book A Primate's Memoir was a surprisingly fab book, not surprising that it was good but by how moving & hilarious it is. - Highly recommended!
@ 1:14:45 That is efficacious humility, a paradox, but well demonstrated by the Apollo astronauts, especially with Neil Armstrong calling himself a "mere technician" (it is also an expression of the Dunning-Kruger effect).
When you asked him what can we do, I wish you had asked if things like meditation can help. Putting spiritual notions aside for the moment, I have found, as have so many others, that meditation can calm your nervous system, and allow you to consider things in a less emotionally charged or reactive way. It makes you less impulsive. It does seem to me that the result of this is that choice and some kind of free will can occur in this state. I don’t mean free will in the sense of being an absolutely independent agent , free of influence of personal history or circumstance or of what you had for lunch and what the weather is like. I mean an awareness that your decisions are part of a greater set of circumstances- while you (as an organism made up of many organisms with complementary or competing agendas) are a conscious contributor to. So not so much free will of an individual but the will of a complex set of agents that you can contribute to more or less consciously, depending on whether you have managed a level of less Reactive calm. Thanks for the interview.
Mr Sapolsky at 1:15:02 I will do my best in the classroom to teach this! Especially in competetive sports I have learned and experienced it all the time- arrogant people who think they are better humans because they won a race one time. But! Most are encouraging and motivate each other because they know how much luck can play a role.. mental aspects, what happened the day before the competition, ….. ahh i look forward so much to teach (not only this example) but so much more
I much love Prof. Robert Sapolsky and agree that life is very arbitrary, especially at the point of birth where you don't get to choose your mother or her socio-economic status, two factors that determine your life to a greater extent. However, different from the good Professor's view, I believe that during our lives, we have a limited amount of freewill to decide our fate. Most of us can pick out scenarios from our past where we have exercised this freewill, limited as it may be.
Can you give examples of exercising free will & why these choices were not pre-determined by genetics, environment, past experiences etc etc? Could you have wanted to make a different choice in those situations?
This man is a bliss. Determinism is my main subject of meditation and conversation since my apostasy, and Dr Sapolsky certainly added a lot to my database over the years. Thks for this interview.
Agreed. His lecture series was foundational for me upon my own apostasy. I've grown into the opinion that people need an ecology of practices to effectively inform themselves of the looping effect that becoming aware of the determination of your thoughts and behaviors has on determining your thoughts and behaviors. Meditation is one such practice, conversation (dialogue) is another, but there needs to be one that builds an effective relationship between one's consciousness and one's own potential for self deception. That's what I've been working towards lately. I don't know if you've stumbled across John Vervaeke but his work is phenomenal.
@@He.knows.nothing Don't you think Sapolsky's argument is circular, though? He blames the very thing free will is dependent on, as that which negates it.
@@He.knows.nothing Now that is pertinent, as an allergy to common effect of adopting determinism is to drown in a spiral of nihilism, but the specific awareness you mention is maybe the foundation of the the rise of compassion. Idk Vaervake, I will investigate, thanks!
@@dieselphiend Having a perception of the self and a memory of chronological events does not imply free will. Humans are idealistic creatures, they do "as if" the phenomenons and their representation coincide.
tbh, tired of ppl pushing socializing as the key to well being. Socializing is a massive burden, actually my biggest annoyance in life right now. I'd be happier with FEWER social connections I would assume, not more! Each person you know is a responsibility, not a benefit.
I believe it would be better, if we Al had a few GOOD social interactions rather than many MID social interactions as well. Better to have 4 quarters than a 100 Pennies.
Obviously a challenging concept to accept as a bit of a spiritualist myself, but I'm glad I stuck around for the whole thing as I found myself agreeing with almost all of his conclusions. The way I've always conceptualized it for myself is that the underlying "stuff" that reality is made of is Information. Or more specifically the self-consciousness or self-awareness that arises from the singularity of all possible and impossible information. (I call this Spirit). I think our universe is like one hologram of a tiny subset of the singularity with a particular starting configuration. Now I'm gonna relate this to the video; if you're still reading I appreciate it haha. The key word in the above paragraph for me is 'underlying.' For me science and empirical research is a way to get closer and closer to knowing true Spirit. While we may call them atoms or protons or radiation waves, they're still a ripple effect down to our holographic reality from the greater information/awareness based reality we root from. So basically I agree that its possible that I have no free will, even if I am literally made of spirit at my core, because as I'm saying even rocks and light are made from spirit at its core, and they certainly don't have free will. My Ego/awareness is just the underlying awareness of all reality filling a pre-programmed biological vessel; like air rushing into a vacuum. I think where Dr. Sapolsky and I probably differ is I believe that through proper meditation and practice you can learn to watch this biological programming for what it is 'from above.' And start to implement changes that arise from a reality deeper then Biology. Anyways thanks for a great interview obviously made me think a lot!
Fascinating interview. As a person who views life through a spiritual lens, free will is a fundamental belief. In my belief system, which is ever-evolving, the choice between multiple behaviors in any given situation can be ‘practiced’ if one is able to anticipate an outcome. If these situations are perceived as learning opportunities, compassion and kindness can be nurtured and become rewards in themselves, transcendent without feeling ‘better than.’ Dealing with random disasters and situations where others want to coerce power over others with potentially tragic outcomes, situations like our present social and political challenges, are very difficult yet opportunities for compassion and kindness abound even then. Fortunately, we do not experience these with frequency. I taught my children that they could and must choose every day, every moment what kind of person they would be. We all fall short, but doing no harm and being loving and helpful when you can, and even when it’s inconvenient is a pretty good outlook and basic way to navigate this life. Thank you so much! Namaste. 💙☮️🙏🌈🕊️💙
Thoughtful but tough questions! Very well done. Prof Sapolsky is absolutely the BEST! I listen to every Sapolsky interview I can find. Thanks very much to both of you!
The idea of there being no free will was a new concept for me. He makes some very strong points, though. After listening to this, I still believe Free Will exists, but it may be that the amount of it we possess is vastly lower than we think, maybe 1% at best.
Since we have to redefine physics every few months lately, I'm no longer impressed. How about using only real evidence guys? (My tutor was from Fermi, don't even bother starting with me..)
Its nice to say stop for capitalism, living in a whole product of it - the youtube, the institute, the computers at all, the food market, house, clothes and so on and on
@@MrBigTrey don't they?? Giving value to a shit and trading it is more likely a native human form of being, as for me. The "capitalism" looks more like an overall set of bad sides of trade.. Ok I accept I could be wrong on strict terms anyway
@@goge- It's a rarity to see someone admit that they were wrong. That's a solid trait in my book. And, yeah, commerce is just the buying and selling of goods. Capitalism just means that a small group of people own the means of production and get wealthy by leeching off others' labor. Socialism is the workers owning the means of production and owning their own labor.
Could you pick a favourite if you had to? Hoping for one that delves into practical / psychological applications of growth within the framework, hopefully with some kind of optimism, cause it can't just be me that feels existential dread & hopelessness? I know they're not self help books. I just don't need selling on the argument, if that makes sense. More like, ok, free will's BS, what now?? (And why is reward not useful? Surely, in a civilised & healthy society at least, it encourages positive behaviour?)
I found the part about what makes success particularly interesting. I would love to see more content and discussion about that. It accounts for so many of the driving forces in our societies.
the key thing is that although all effects have causes, there is no way to predict the eventual outcome of things. You have to live through things, and the behaviors of people do change at least from generation to generation, and things will continue to improve over time.
Free will is the choice we all have to think. To have individual thoughts about who we are, and how we choose to walk on this good green earth. We can change our thoughts. We can change our lives for the better.
But it is not free, it is perpetually connected to everything else, the idea of free speech or will have been some of the greatest deceptions of mankind, I am glad people are already awakening to this, because we are not disconnected from God which is everything around us. And so even words themselves are able to kill, because they have electromagnetic impact that can influce people's minds. The idea of free speech needs to end and needs to be controlled through laws the same like any act of violence, we will get to that point eventually of course once AI becomes fully in charge as a police over our minds and bodies. It will helps us evolve at an incredibly accelerarated rate. This is truly an exciting time to be alive.
We can predict the future. Not with perfect accuracy but accurately enough to manifest reality. Sapolsky blames the very thing "free" will is dependent on, as that which negates it- the externality of stimuli. It's a very circular argument. Nothing is free, and nothing can be free, as freedom is an aspect of constraint. Just as will is an aspect of desire, of not.
@@dieselphiendJust like anything else. He is just guessing about everything. No real proof yet. If he ever gets actual proof. Just think of how the world would change. 😮❤
Interesting about displaced aggression - in the past few days I've been precluded from going to a concert I'd been planning on for months ($160.00 ticket), looks like someone took my new dog's toy, leaving him with not enough to do which can cause both of us problems, took my car and house keys - to the tune of $800.00 to replace them, not done yet, and now the dog has had a monumental case of diarrhea (?) out of the blue when, 3 wks. ago when I first got him he was fine and healthy. Oh, and did I mention the headaches? Was it something I said? Any reason for this crap? Not hardly. Why is this? No one will mate with them; i.e., a lack of meaningful relationships somehow? I wonder why? B/c someone somewhere along the line has a potatoe chip up their you-know-what or they're a bully or just a pure and simple A-hole. Do I sound a little frustrated? The interactions could have been much more meaningful.
I deciphered YOUR CHARACTERS on the thumbnail, and my thought is « don’t waste YOUR Time in the SYSTEM, WHATEVER MODE it is in. » 🙌🏾🙌🏾🙌🏾 Source!! 🙌🏾🙌🏾 Ancestors!!
Yeah, it's circular logic from them. "YOU HAVE NO FREE WILL, MAKE THIS CHOICE AND START BELIEVEING THAT YOU'RE PREDETERMINED!" "How can I change if I've believed in free will my whole life? Wouldn't that contradict the ideology? The changes have to be random or predetermined, according to determinism. So what could predeterminate me to start the change? It can't be random as you're applying influence." "NO! YOU DON'T HAVE FREE WILL! YOU JUST DIDN'T GET IT, DUDE!" In my opinion, this deterministic wave is just a new wave of nihilism. It's sad that they're using science to justify their moral and spiritual conflicts.
@@TheLudwigWan I'm not sure whether it arises from nihilism or not, but it certainly equates to fatalism. It makes the assumption that the brain could not have evolved a mechanism wherein the "self" part of the consciousness could override all the determinism of the underlying physics of the particles of the brain, such that the self is capable of making a genuine independent decision of what to do next. And yet there is no proof that such a mechanism can't exist in the brain. We know the brain is capable of commanding all sorts of sophisticated and complex actions throughout the body, but we can't fathom that it might be able to allow the self to be in the driver's seat as far as dictating the thoughts and actions of the consciousness? Even though that seems to be exactly what happens in our life, dozens or hundreds of times per day, among billions of humans and other conscious sentient beings? I don't understand that part of it.
