Robert Sapolsky: Finding Meaning in a World without Free Will 

In my opinion, Sapolsky is one of the most interesting and important intellectuals of our time. He is Nobel Prize material.

Thank you! I'm grateful that my organism made me watch this.

A debate between Sapolsky and Dennett is going to be legendary. I've been wishing for this to happen! So glad to hear it will.

I do think life becomes a lot easier and clearer when you understand ppl and yourself as resulting from everything before. Justice becomes about harm reduction instead of retribution, achievements are a thing to feel grateful and lucky to have instead of prideful and above others. People doing bad things are just on some deep level unlucky and sick and still deserving of compassion and understanding instead of trying to draw some nonsense like for when it’s okay to hate and disregard them. Trying to get ppl to be better is about understanding and manipulating all the factors that influence behavior instead of just telling ppl to not be evil and doing stuff that doesn’t work like putting criminals in traumatizing prisons with no support. Most of all it opens up a path way (albeit not necessarily an easy one especially when challenged) to feeling love towards all other beings. No matter what bad things someone does or how much they fail to meet certain standards, we don’t have to hate them anymore than we would someone with a brain tumor or dementia lashing out and doing something bad. Everyone is the entirely to product of things they had zero control over so you can always always love them and wish them well. It’s kind of funny how Sapolskys understanding if behavior converged him on similar sentiments that a lot of ancient religions have in that regard.

I love this topic - but it does my head in!

"I try to avoid the despair." :)

Thank you both for a brilliant conversation. When we think about free will as an illusion, it helps us to see that people don’t have ultimate control over their actions. This way of thinking can help us be more understanding and less quick to judge others as simply ‘good’ or ‘bad’. For instance, Dr. James Doty’s work on compassion and Dr. Robert Sapolsky’s studies on human behavior both suggest that people’s actions are influenced by many things, like their background, experiences, and even their biology. So, when someone behaves in a certain way, it’s not just about them choosing to be ‘good’ or ‘bad’. There’s a lot more going on behind the scenes. Understanding this can make us more compassionate. We realize that, in many ways, we’re fortunate if we haven’t faced the same challenges as others. It also means that even though we might feel like we’re making free choices, a lot of different factors influence these choices. This doesn’t have to make our life meaningless, though. It actually can make us more aware and appreciative of the connections we have with others and the world around. Ironically, I’ve found this can lead to a greater sense of freedom and self-compassion too. I hope to share insights on this in my videos and blogs in the coming months. 😊

I brought up this fascinating discussion with my mother, and she referenced how the Chinese Three Character Classic outlined something similar, where each person has no evil or good but rather a product of everything

While watching this, I receive a video from my brother-in-law and his son-in-law won the volleyball game, which only reminds me about half of the country going home depressed after a Super Bowl game and how understanding further the things that you’re teaching distances me much much further from the average person How will I be able to relate because I’ve always found it so odd that half the country would go home depressed after a Super Bowl game physically depressed now I’m even further from fitting into this world. Thanks a lot. I wanted to ask my brother-in-law if they were going to console the losing team but of course I restrained myself.

An absence of free will is not an absence of meaning.

What a great conversation!

It is the "feeling grateful" technique, mentioned starting around 41:55, that is the key to transforming the view Sapolsky is explaining from a dark and negative one to a bright and uplifting one. For those new at it, give it time -- the shift from feeling proud to feeling happy is hard to make, even for Sapolsky.

Excellent pod cast on no free will. Thank you both .

36:58 "Hurt people hurt people."

Professor Sapolsky says there's no justification for praise and blame, but goes on to remind us that people can change. How are we to motivate preferable change in others, if not with praise and blame? 🤔

Why is this interviewer saying that Harris is a compatibilist? What does he reads?

I think we can still have responsibility and meritocracy with out contradiction to why Sapolsky is saying, they just have to mean slightly different things than how the terms are usually used. We can still make a distinction between someone who kills a person intentional versus someone who does so by accident and we can still say some ppl have demonstrated skill or contributed in a way that earns them reward or recognition of some sort in a utilitarian sort of way. We just have to recognize that the ppl who intentionally do bad things are unlucky and not inherently deserving of punishment beyond what’s necessary for harm reduction and like wise for ppl who make great accomplishments being lucky to do so and not inherently deserving reward beyond what encourages more of said behavior.

I too was surprised to hear that Sam Harris was called a compatibilist. I think there is a bit to this though. These resources helped me unpack this claim: [1] Sam Harris's blog post "Reflections on free will": read the paragraph that starts with "Seriously, his main objection to compatibilism" [2] A Sam Harris subreddit post "It all comes down to what you mean by truly": read the post and into the comments

It's just a ride

Is it possible that reward and punishment are useful, not so much to reward or punish the behaviour just completed, rather to encourage or deter it happening again in the future, thus shaping the predictability of a subject going one path or another? I’m not in favour of punishment/reward but just attempting to get this argument straight in my own head so I can file it as decided.

I’ve listened to several podcast interviews with Sapolsky. This one is comparatively delightful! Indeed. I love Sapolsky. And, like him, it’s been obvious to me from an early age that free will is an illusion, which direct observation readily exposes. I was happy to hear him debunk the people who wish to debunk the brain imaging studies. Sapolsky asks, “Where did the intent from?” You can say the same thing about thought-where did the thought come from?

In this comment section: why are people so disturbed by the concept of a lack of ‘free will’? Does that make you any less than the person that you thought you were??

48:00 How is all that different from determinism? Is there a difference?

If it’s true that we humans are no better or worse than each other then by extension all animals, all life, all things have the same kind of equilibrium.

I wonder why Robert didn’t correct him that Harris is not even remotely a compatibilitist

Anyone who looks at the universe with all of the knowledge we have attained about it, with any perspective on deep time and space, the evolution of life, our infinitesimal place in it, and thinks there's meaning here needs to go back and do another full review. Believing in meaning has as much weight as believing in Santa Claus. This isn't cynical any more than saying we're all going to die is cynical. It's simply an undeniable fact. But seriously, absolutely find whatever is meaningful to you, and savor it. That's all the meaning there will ever be.

sapolsky 💯🔥🔥🔥🙌🏽❤

Also recommend bernardo kastrup free will for MEANING!

(49:47) "Where did that intent come from in the first place ?"

So we who understand this are the few and the miserable because of the loneliness and the meaningless of life. Purpose and meaning we have to create for ourselves an illusion.

"People don't get what they deserve." In this model where does the notion of deserving come from? There is no individual apart from the sum of its parts in this view. Which is why BF Skinner titled his book "Beyond Freedom and Dignity". And notions of "deserving" are determined.

There is no meaning without free will. If it is so that there is no free will, then we are just deterministic machines, each of us doing what we must. We have no choices to make, everything is chosen for us by the god of necessity. If you think life has meaning, then you were programmed to think so by inanimate necessity, and if you think life has no meaning, it is just a result of atoms randomly interacting. If everything is all just a deterministic machine, then every thought we have, every feeling we have, every choice we think we make, is a product of that machine, and all just a result of inanimate necessity. Even wondering about free will is something you were programmed to do by inanimate necessity. Even thinking you understand that everything in the universe is determined, is determined for you by the machine of inanimate necessity. We are like characters in a movie projected on the screen in a movie theater, and we can not do anything on our own at all, the projector and the film projects us and determines all, we are shadows of light and dark.

Even if you are fully familiar with the woods from the trees locally that are common there but the forest extends around the world in multifarious types and environments.., move 5 miles in any direction and you start over. Which is why you can imagine what you think you understand about local events seen through the lens of Eternity-now, looking at the logarithmic Perspective Principle of pure-math relative-timing ratio-rates motion Actuality, you can come to the realization that you know what your relationship is locally and how unique the state of condensed wave-particle matter quantization is in unique Totality, but this is purely functional thumb rules attributing magical-functional judgement of actual cause-effect behavior to the logical location-based Bose-Einsteinian Condensates that result, from information following functional integration, in a POV position, No-thing definable absolutely except superposition logic limt zero-infinity sync-duration vanishing-into-no-thing numberness. Actuality includes philosophy and all Nomenclatures, which requires an identification system such as Euler's Unit Circle modulo radial-resonance fields of cause-effect Lensing, conic-cyclonic interference positioning resonance bonding Fusion-Fission orthogonality, or Entanglement chemistry, depending on how you approach the topic. Flash-fractal recognition of e-Pi-i QM-TIME Eternity-now allows for i-reflection containment in phase-locked coherence-cohesion, optional arrangements according to your freedom to re-cognise WYSIWYG. Any longer rehash of the narratives is tedious, and I know we're all getting impatient, ..for our age.

46:00 so turns out we .."make mistake"? Albeit "...our only mistake"...?

Super determinism just makes us all zombies… helplessly watching our lives unfold driven as the animals are by our bodies’ needs and inclinations. Good luck keeping the existential dread at bay thinking like this. The ego may like this idea as it frees it from the responsibility of being a self conscious being.

Introduction: Our neighbors couldn’t have done otherwise (of their own accord) because we are all subject to logic and to the idea of time and to the logical dichotomy that: every 'event' must be either: caused- or- not. When an 'idea' is already internally logically incoherent (like the idea of a 'square-circle'), then there's no need to search for it in the physical world. As conscious beings we obviously can’t obtain “absolute knowledge” but this subject holds the same standard for knowledge we use for any & all other urgent moral practical issues. If someone is saving a life or entering data into excel for a cure for cancer, no one stops just to argue that '7=7 isn't absolute knowledge.' ******** Any idea of 'a cause' is also an idea in terms of an 'event', because the ‘idea’ of any 'cause' takes 'time'. Everything here is in terms of 'events'; a process. There’s no static, unmoving, beyond-time 'self' that creats the events within the universe. the 'self' is also a process. And our neighbors don’t have the ability to manifest a “first cause”; The fabric of our world is woven via the idea of causality. An idea of an indeterministic event can only either be one of the following: 1. via an idea of true randomness 2. via an idea of some specific real-probability. 3. only seems indeterministic to us due to lack of potential human knowledge, and so really via the idea of determinism/causality. this is a logical trichotomy of ideas. And none of these logical-options give any of our neighbors the ability of CHDO (Could Have Done Otherwise) of their own accord. The Main Point: Both Compatibilists like Dennett and Incompatibilists like Sapolsky agree that everything is determined (with or without acausal events - this is not of importance) And they both want to make the world a more just place regarding social circumstances and equal opportunity for children. But for doing so its critical to specifically teach that our neighbors could not have done otherwise. Not being clear on this or understanding that its actual knowledge of the only epistemological standard that humanity has, is hindering us. For example, it’s already difficult enough to help the greatly suffering as they are also naturally irritable and difficult, so in order to much better succeed one needs to be fully grounded by the knowledge that at every moment this neighbor could not be doing otherwise. Or if a police officer needs to arrest a violent person who's hitting them and spitting on them, the officer needs to really understand the logic behind "can not be doing otherwise" When we don't teach it thoroughly, we get a world that’s on emotional steroids, instead of us being grounded by our rational and its efficient forward looking consequential method. This knowledge needs to be grounded and firm, otherwise in challenging situations when we witness an immoral act being committed we will continue, as throughout history to be inefficiently swept by our emotions and by our baboon-like instincts to achieve the immediate relief of our distress by venting via violence that at times is even towards people that are just “passing by”. Professor Sapolsky has found and researched this behavior in baboons in the wild and it’s also what we see everyday when a “Chef yells at a waiter that yells at the customer”. The world is spiraling into uncontrollable anger and vengeance between ‘neighbors’ because we aren’t filling in a this dark void with the the grounding knowledge/rational and forward looking consequential perspective based on the the building blocks of 'thought' itself: the idea of causality. Another terrible problem with our belief in the fallacy of free will is how it makes us all somewhat comfortable with social inequality. Where luck and luck determines who we were conceived to be. One baby born into abuse and heroine addiction and another baby born with a spoon of gold, and where society de facto has negligible effect to shift the track each baby is causally going down. And luck and luck alone has each of us standing in each of our shoes at this moment. I personally don’t understand why there is so much emphasis and talk about the judicial's system need to acknowledge “could not have done otherwise” when the utmost crucial and urgent need for its effect is on our atrocious social construct of inequality. Because we would be treating the root problem instead of fumbling with its symptoms. And it would be preventative to potential judicial-system encounters. Not being clear regarding this (because instead Compatibilists Professors and Incompatibilist Professors have focused the debate mainly on the semantic of the term free will) is costing human suffering. Compatibilists must not be aware that our “baboon-like” propensity to naturally and quickly slip towards emotions like rage, violent behavior and social inequalities, is fueled and maintained by our lack of rationale, ie this specific knowledge that our neighbor could not have done otherwise. And its causing seventyfold more immorality and violence (which in itself also maintains the inequalities), than any hypothetical future harm that compatibilists fear.

Lol, he said "...how screwed is that?"

38:34 ververy long way to go where???? Oh god, what a comedy central

I think there's no free will on a personal level because you're a product of your past and environment. BUT! What if by telling everyone that there’s no free will you (we) cause a cascade effect or ripple through society that’s worse than what the “natural” series of events would’ve been had we not all agreed to do that? I understand that on a micro decision by micro decision level, you make decisions based on sub atomic particles randomly going one way or another, I think the same thing happens on a societal level. If we vote whether or not to punish people for crimes, we’re interfering with the environment that decides what people will do, there are cascades in my opinion that makes me feel that there is some control when humans work together to change hearts and minds. I could be 100% wrong, but I don’t think removing punishment is the way to go because that will cause someone else’s decision cascade to fall the other way when “deciding” whether or not to do something wrong,

Lol, he said "...being just"

I used to not believe in free will, but I don't know anymore. Why would we think it exists if it doesn't? What would be the point of it? Why would evolution create the very strong impression that we have free will, if in fact we don't? Why would there be such a strong selection pressure to create a sense of free will if it was only an illusion? How would that be an adaptive response?

People who hate and fear the idea of personal responsibility, love the idea of no free will.

no free will isnt necessarily logically inconsistant with a beyond-time&logic god concept minus all the bible anthropomorphic and/or literal interpretations but with a "good godly plan" possibility.

I wonder who is going to put the car in the garage under the advise of Sapolsky

So basically we're just chocolate loving Auditors in the Pratchettonion sense,

"There is no purpose" was a thing Robert said. I'm not so sure. If we consider ourselves valuable, and therefore our species as well (they are me), then perpetuating our species is a good thing. People will still be around to evolve and ask questions and find answers, and make art and laugh and play etc. So, the idea of purpose and ethical or moral goodness, is in preventing the end of our species. The grand evolving causation of life and experience is under threat from people who believe in terrible things, and have a terrible amount of power to end us all on a whim. Too much power makes an individual crazy and dangerous, and so preventing any individual having an absurd amount of power is an act of goodness. (ed typo)

There is a big problem in the "no free will" idea. I can explain it, but will not do so for free. So, for a limited time this information will be available for $11.99, which is 40% off what I usually charge.

The interviewer goes down the fatalistic route. It has been proved that Atheists are more moral than many ppl who believe in God or are religious cuz they have thought long & hard & are humanists.

He looks like God… in cartoons. 😉

The absurdity of the statement that "all men are created equal" is obvious.

Perhaps spending time around primates was a waste of time?

Sure, we keep the kid home from school with a cold or contagious illness to protect the school and help the kid convalesce. But in the case of great harm to others, we don't keep them home or lock them up - we elect them president of the United States of America and chancellor of Germany in 1933. Explain the difference, please!

No wonder this dude gets funded😂

Never heard any "philosophers" (whatever that is) who wasn't proudly uninformed of the latest science in genomics, behavior, neurology, animal behavior, etc. I have only read/heard them trade in pop culture myths and platitudes - but that's what pays best so... Identifying these ideas with RS is a rhetorical trick or uninformed. How behavior happen, biophysically - genomics and neurology - has nothing to do with individual opinions/philosophy/politics/etc. How biology works is factual.

Just because Sapolsky says there's no free will doesn't mean it's true. It's only his opinion.

Silly conversation when near the middle they get to talking about what we SHOULD do, like keeping car with no brakes in the garage, or keeping sick kids home. Here you are talking as if there is a choice, a free will choice, to do these things --- JUST MINTUES after saying there are no such free will choices. Am I the only one who sees how silly this is???

As soon as you mispronounce Nietzsche and Sartre you lose credibility. PS, some unsolicited advice - skip the excruciatingly long biography questions.

I can unconditionally destroy the ENTIRE premise of this book in one VERY simple sentence: “Can we (you, I, they) make choices that will change the direction of our lives that you (Sapolsky) cannot definitively explain? The answer is…irrefutably indisputably and unconditionally YES (…in fact…I am doing that very thing right this moment…and so is every single human being on this planet…and it is done trillions of times every day!)! What is even more egregious...is that when it comes right down to it...Sapolsky's ENTIRE premise is nothing more than a bunch of correlations. They're not explicitly causal. He can't definitively establish deterministic formalizations. It's nothing more than speculation...on an absolutely grand scale. A scale SO grand...it seems to have utterly destroyed everyone's ability to recognize the indisputable flaw in the entire thing! That ability to influence the minutia of our daily lives IS free will. Nothing more...and nothing less. The truly offensive thing about how blindingly and trivially easy it is to UNCONDITIONALLY confirm that Sapolsky is WRONG (…in fact…I would go further…to borrow a phrase from a fellow scientist…I would say Sapolsky is “…Not even wrong…”)…is that Sapolsky is an internationally acclaimed scientist. He has ENORMOUS influence, authority, and credibility…and in this book he is assuming he has not only the right but the means to successfully dismantle one of the very foundations of human identity. And he fails …utterly and completely. And worst of all…his failure is so blindingly obvious and easy to verify. And the embarrassment does not only fall upon him. Countless supposedly intelligent interviewers seemed somehow to lose every ounce of intelligence they possess since not one was able to locate the trivially simple and utterly fatal flaw in his supposed grand thesis.

There is no free will when life if explained through a purely materialistic lens. To find free will one has to consider the spiritual world. No spiritual world, no free will. So, Sapolsky is putting himself in a box right from the get-go because of his framing and assumptions and that makes his conclusions correct as far as he is going (the world of matter, measurement, weight) but he is not seeing the bigger picture...by choice...ironically.

With ''free will'' there is no meaning either.