Toy Story vs. Lego Movie: Are We Really Free? 

To this day, I am still pissed that not only did The Lego Movie not win best animated feature, it wasn't even nominated.

Freedom is an illusion created by our limited perspective of reality. It is an illusion that I greatly enjoy living under.

given that the characters in the lego movie are acting out a morality play for the benefit of the gods, it could be argued that in both cases the characters actualize their freedom through acting out their higher purpose, the difference is in whether knowing that is what is going on matters, after all, we really don't have too much reason to believe Emit understood what he witnessed.

I'd love to see a series that examines the other Toy Story films and how the philosophy changes

The first minute brought to mind this quote by Dostoyevsky that I think is greatly relevant in today and for this video, “… And that is not all: even if man really were nothing but a piano-key, even if this were proved to him by natural science and mathematics, even then he would not become reasonable, but would purposely do something perverse out of simple ingratitude, simply to gain his point.” I’ve yet to see people analyze and just read the quote and reflect on it.

Imagine the existential dread of Andy's moms toy

It seems that those who crave power are more like the toys in Toy Story. They believe they have a purpose for serving their god, boss, or someone in between, and thus know more than those who don’t believe. Those who are like the Master Builders in The Lego Movie are a lot more like those who just want freedom while acknowledging that they’re not in control of their lives. I like to reference Marcus Aurelius’ quote: "Live a good life. If there are gods and they are just, then they will not care how devout you have been, but will welcome you based on the virtues you have lived by. If there are gods, but unjust, then you should not want to worship them. If there are no gods, then you will be gone, but will have lived a noble life that will live on in the memories of your loved ones."

PLEASE do a video on the Wreck-It Ralph movies! They both tackle similar ideas of free will and it would be really interesting to hear some metasophycal views on those since the first is about Ralph's journey to accepting his role as the bad guy while the second has to do with Venelope leaving her's behind.

Oh, Hard Determinism. I remember my old engineering class speaking about it as the most evil philosophy on Earth with its almost-as-evil friend, Soft Determinism, because we as a society should acknowledge how every technology added to society should be actively chosen and not passively accepted.

There is also the fact that both Finn's dad and President Business represent a cruel, unforgiving form of adulthood that seeks to squash youthful innocence and play

I came up with this 10 years ago but seems relevant... "All we are is Lego rats in the hands of a petulant child." (Not that I ascribe to the notion of "free will" or of a higher power, I just thought it was funny).

i didnt expect to see such a satisfyingly deep and rich philosophy video essay about toy movies =o

Ad for a duplicitous scam ends @2:06

Maybe after this, you should consider doing a video looking into what went wrong with the Playmobil movie in comparison with the Lego Movie and Toy Story.

The Lego Movie is basically The Matrix

I Wil never stop. Please do the cadmus arc from justice league unlimited. Is awesome: it is like civil war, the incredibles, a little of watchmen, the law, the power, the government, corporations, bioethics and cloning and more. This is not spam I'm just saying that this arc has several elements that need a bid and deeper analysis.

OPTIMUS PRIME: Freedom is the right of every sentient being ME: Freedom without limits will lead to abuse.

Now I get why I saw The Lego movie twice in theatres…it called to me

I usually give wisecrack a hard time for just discussing existentialist (or continental philosophers), but glad to see them try to talk about the views of analytic philosophers (e.g., Dennett & Churchland), even if they butchered it a bit. Good job!

"Honey?" "... uh, yeah?" "Are you... masterbuilding in there?" "UH WHAT NO NOPE NOT ME"

Discussions of free will also leave me feeling like none of the arguments have enough meaningful difference from each other. Here's a thought experiment to explain why: imagine you make the choice to eat your favorite food for breakfast in response to how you're feeling on waking up. You do so. Then some thought experiment contrivance (wizard, time traveler, who cares) turns back time to before you woke up. If you were not made aware of the time shenanigans nor given any extra knowledge or feelings as a result, is there any reason to believe that you would make a different decision on what to eat for breakfast? If the answer is yes, it has no bearing on free will because it could be either your own will or the universe being inherently random due to quantum blah blah blah. If the answer is no, it still has no bearing on free will because who everything that went into the decision is generally classified as part of who you are, both spiritually and materialistically. In short, should free will exist to any degree, then it is also part of cause and effect because who you are is embedded in the causal chain.

So understanding of purpose sets us free seems to be the concept: once you know your "purpose" ignoring it and doing your own thing is true freedom I.e. toystory 4 which I still haven't watched after my ex fiancé who had me watch TS3 died before I saw it so I have little inclination to see it, even though I grew up with 1 and 2. Buzz's freedom is simply ignorance which is the opposite of freedom since he is just acting out the story written for him.

We have no freedom of being anger or being sad, we have no freedom of our design, why we exist, or when we are going to die. We cannot change to make things things like stars and galxies exist. But with that design and with all that exist we have to the freedom with these conditions we can act as we will despite with uncontrolible existence

In The Lego Movie 2, it is confirmed that Emmet doesn't understand what he witnessed in our world until he was trapped under the dryer for 4 years (I know this because Emmet's VA Chris Pratt said he was trapped for 4 years in an interview) that he started to basically have an existential crisis and an identity crisis, I think it was best that Emmet didn't understand the truth because it quite literally crushed his poor innocent soul as shown with Rex in the movie. The sequel is really sad in Emmet's case (not saying it took my enjoyment out of it).

The determinist that you quote here is named "Churchland" - fascinating!

Funky that you’re sponsored by Full Sail. I remember researching that place in high school and deciding it was a scam BTW: I’m an actual factual doctor now

4:39 How was Sid supposed to know he was tearing apart sentient beings, he just thought he was making works of art

the indifferent cruelty of the universe when the indomitable human spirit walks into the room

The points your making about toy story are valid although i feel like the toys in toys Tory are more metaphors for the freedoms and purposes of a parent. Basically stating that children become our purpose when we become parents. And this is also reflected especially in the 3rd movie when Andy goes to college

Hey is Wreck it Ralph pretty much a Toy Story remake? because the ending is pretty similar

New band name: Well-intentioned Legos

That saint quote seems to fit to well in the lore of elden ring

Really outstanding job on this one!

We are always free within the confines of our current prison. It isn't until we become aware of a space beyond the walls of our prison that we realized how trapped we truly are. Once we escape that, the walls of the larger world becomes the new prison and so forth. If we deem freedom the appreciation of our actions within the confines of reality, then our happiness is based on our function within reality. If we deem freedom on our ability to remove barriers that impede our actions, our happiness becomes based on our appreciation of our finite will.

Gimme faith in an upload schedule

I don't think that the lego movie gives a different answer to the question of free will, from toy story, but rather asks a different question. The question asked in the video is if our actions are determined by ourselves or by other forces (chemicals in our brains or gods), and so answers that we should accept that and fulfill our mission despite not controlling our actions. A "peoples' will" won't be able to answer this question. A big revolution created by a lot of individuals won't answer the question if I did those actions or someone else. The LEGO movie asks a different question, not about who's responsible for our actions but what results do they have, for that question the answer of peoples' revolution can be given. So the two movies give different answers because they ask different questions, one about who's responsible for my actions, the other what results do they have (although the second question makes sense only if we gave an answer to the first question, but it isn't addressed at the LEGO movie)..

Some of your best work

That was worth a rewatch

Love this direction y'all are taking on the channel. How long til you do a guest pod on Bad Wizards?

I think agency is a better way to think of free will. We have as much agency as we can rise to. We can learn to tame and rise above our baser instincts. I think how we break out of that "Netflix just choosing shows" trap is through creation- through the blending of old options in to new concepts.

Next: The Secret Life of Pets vs The Playmobil Movie. Accepting others vs believing in yourself

Morality is subject to reality. A pawn to a king. That's to say; Reality is real, regardless of your beliefs.

Love em both

Another approach to free will is to examine definitions of the self. There is weighing of options and making self-directed decisions, undoubtedly. The weighting and decisions are determined by the genetics and the environmental stimuli that the brain takes in. The self just notices all this going on and has the ability to jump in and override the weighting of information with a higher order analysis. The self is fractal, where sensory information goes through several rounds of processing on increasing orders of complexity before it becomes an action taken within the world. Consciousness is the highest order of complex sensory processing, relying on the sequence of sensory processing of raw data to yield meaning and action. So, decisions are made. But who we are relative to the decisions made is up for interpretation. Great video.

Lego

In the case of this question, I lean more towards team Lego Movie. However, I don't really think Toy Story is supposed to tell us anything about humanity's relationship towards God. It's about parents' relationship towards kids. Woody is the fully dedicated parent who doesn't know who he is if he hasn't a function to fill for his kid. Buzz is the just become dad (of an unplanned kid) who thought he had his life all planned out for himself and has to learn to set his mind in parent mode and make new plans with not only himself in mind. Jessie is a step mom who lost her own kid. Bonnie is the grandchild. In Toy Story 4, some of the early parents learn that they can live their own lives that they never had the time for when they were younger.

Determinism, whether physical or spiritual, is a non conclusion. here's some ways of describing it. If we don't have free will, we are forced to believe we have free will. If we don't have free will, then it's not our fault if we believe what is false. If we don't have free will, then no amount of concern over the nature of free will will have any effect on the future or any such similar conception of causality. Any belief about the nature and purpose of reality must be useful, and any belief that claims our efforts are futile is useless. There are many ways to imagine that we have free will, but most of the interpretations you mention are delusion based. "i am free despite determinism is obviously false and useless."

The idea that God, gave us the freedom to abandon him, so we can serve him is kinda silly.

*clears throat* SPACE SHIP!!!!!!!!

Oh, do Tron and its cult of the User next!

I think throwing around the word "freedom" without a concrete definition is dangerous.

If believing an Andy or man up stairs plan floats your boat fine. If making your own. stuff to live for does it fit you, fine.

Their names are said "de boo-VWAH" and "AUH-gust-een." The saint's name is only said auh-guh-STIN if the E isn't there. And French never, and I mean ever, emphasizes the first syllable of a two-syllable word. :)

Wisecrack covered my favorite topic! 😍 I gotta watch the lego movie now. Great video! For extra info on the free will debate I would have included the philosophy of Hard Incompatibilism, which claims that Free Will is an incoherent concept regardless of whether determinism is true or not. See also; Gregg Caruso, Derk Pereboom Thank you Wisecrack!

you can't really argue for or against a notion like free will since it never had a definition to begin with. even if there was no element of cause or effect when making choices. there could still be people the say "well that wasn't freedom either, the choice was generated randomly in a vacuum"

Honestly the movie Lightyear has forever changed how I look at Toy Story. This is the first time I will ever say that I didn't need a orgin story for any character. *Spoilers* I didn't need meta commentary on how "I live enough to become a villian". A movie like Lightyear would have never contained the plot that it had if Lightyear had been made when Toy Story came out. That's the movie I wanted to see, not a movie of today passed off as a "kids movie" orgin for a toy. You mean the "Evil Emperor Zord" is a future Buzz that f'ed up being arrogant in the first place? And now the "Bad guy was the good guy" ish..man f that movie

The toys don't need Andy to love each other

The illusion of freewill itself is an illusion.

I honestly love this. another way of looking at it is science versus religion. the Bible says we have free will and just like the video says once that will is given we can truly be free but with Legos its like saying there is no God and all.of our actions can be explained and predicted with science alone. kind of like understanding every atom you can predict the future.

Let's go!!

In real life Sid ends up working for Stan Winston’s Studio. 🤷🏾‍♂️.

"imagine that. worshipping the machine that you're trapped inside. couldn't be us" ::existential crisis ensues::

In *hard determinism*, we still have agency. The idea that there is no agency in hard determinism is a strawman by the opposition. The compatibilist view of hard determinism, for instance, establishes that choice is illusory but agency is factual. I (in whatever sense you define the self) participate in the decision-making process, even if the result of the process is unavoidable.

Most people ARE actually in a position to do actual and big change in society, if only we gathered and connected multiple groups with others. And doing it face to face is the way to go; we can't lose that ability!

The title alone makes me think of a shin megami tensei game.

The reality is that we're a vehicle for momentum, and it's not that any one individual cannot influence the train, it's that so many things are influencing the procession of the train that your individual input, even if incredibly significant like a world leader or scientific advancer--requires things beyond you to have already been done, and are governed by those things. You can change a great deal in your local area, but only within the confines of conditions set up long before you. There are gods and forces beyond us, not because they exist as individuals with values, but because our ideas and memes outlive individuals and grow and are interpreted differently. Your free will is so entwined with the free will of everyone else and everything else that you're just a part of a bigger creature. "We live in a house made out of eachother and if that sounds strange, that's because it is." - Watsky I know that sounds very heady but I am a very science and logically minded person. I still think these are truths about us, and where so much of our superstition and sense of lacking or having purpose comes from. We are a hive mind, it's just that the way information flows isn't back and forth, and it isn't even because of the internet or anything like that. For example, when traveling west, settlers thought God laid this land out for them when they arrived--native cultures had cultivated and developed the land harmoniously. Other species have existed long before us to make things like our fossil fuels work--if we look at the inside of your body, that same kind of relationship can absolutely be found within. We don't mourn the lost cells, we still consider ourselves alive. Our temporal time here contributes to a lasting thing that whatever we did it must be part of that machine. It's a majesty, and I doubt it's even as deliberate as our own blood flow is. Personally, if we're gonna get reeeeeeal heady, I think the reason there's something and not nothing is duality and singularity are hanging out and that rapidly creates everything else. Singularity being inert stuff and duality being the potentiality wave of nothing existing and something existing. The free will meets the deterministic. 0 and 1 warring with null. Practically, I end up siding with Hallward tho--I'm a unionist.

The failed launch of Buzz Lightyear in Sid's yard demonstrate they can act pure autonomy. Woody even states that he and Sid's toys will have to break a few rules, meaning that they willfully go limp in the presence of humans. This also means that their determinism is a result of their autonomous decisions. Ultimately it still boils down to the belief system you ascribe to. Yet... both movies ascribe to a higher authority; with the Lego Movie implying a theistic ruler, where Toy Story implies multiple rulers (albeit ones that can be actively acted upon in defiance).

Andy’s mom is God.

Philosophy for people who like to spray cheese-in-a-can directly in their mouth

Idk if you do interviews with people. But I would love to see you talk to voddie bauchman haha.

true freedom is beyond the body mind ego

Augh, please do "the rehearsal"

Please do a video for Severance, it would be interesting to see what you would make of it.

Neurodeterminism doesn't explain why and how people change their minds. People, by virtue of brain plasticity, can change their beliefs and desires, and our ability to choose depends on which direction to take this change.

a really good video

It seems like my position could be described as "compatibilism" but my jump goes rather from a qualitative perspective into a quantitative point of view; ask yourself not if you are either free or not but just how much are you free. This platform is a useful tool for problematizing and actually navigating the situations within the liberal framework, mainly just asking "by how many degrees of freedom is a will free?"

All hail Andy!

By watching this video I don't even understand the meaning of free anymore

Talking toys okay, a claw machine that works you gotta be kidding me

Toys of the world unite! You have nothing to lose but your glue (chains)!

Oh yikes, another Fullsail ad. As an entertainment industry professional and former Fullsail victim: Fullsail is a scam. Not a real school. It is often *worse* to tell people you went there than that you have *no* Experience.

Came for the knowledge. Left for the advertisemenf

No, the LEGO characters aren't sentient, the big reveal is that everything we see is just what the kid's imagining is being acted out

The question is what drive us to look for videos like this ? I mean it’s not for a neurology or psychology reasons like what we think about freedom So what exactly driving us to look up videos like this on term of Brain mechanism !

Remember kids: Don't study things that won't get you a job. Don't study at colleges that you have not researched very thoroughly for their ability to get you a job and quality of education. And avoid student loans you won't be able to repay.

The Lego movie is quite similar to sausage party in a philosophical sense.

freedom is like vampirism... to experience true freedom you have to suck it out from inconspicuous unsuspecting victims...

Very relatable lol

I liked the Lego movie a lot more than Toy Story so there's my answer.

Free Will is an Illusion.

Is a 22 year old male from South Africa I found faith in the beginning of the year and my life has changed for so much better. The blessings and miracles and fulfillment I have found is unlike anything else on Earth. So maybe an Andy isn't so bad afterall

"Eye-ee"

there is no freedom unless you rid yourself of desire and can anyone rid themselves or even change their desires if they wanted to?

To anyone new to this channel, I’ll save you a lot of time: Reform < Revolution There you go.

Droppin' that hard 'r' in de BeauvARE.

lmao literally just watched the lego movie. nice timing

Dear @wisecrack, nice video, can you please recommend a book that elaborates further on freedom?

Vive le Revolution

👍

I want a Michael Burns toy. 😉