Why Free Will & Determinism Are The Same | Bernardo Kastrup PhD 

The big issue with free will 🎯

But a man's will is not fully definitive. In other words, there are many choices that will satisfy a mans will. Those are the genuinely free choices.

Man can't even do what he wills, because that's just more will. Haha.

never follow a man with mommy issues #schopenhauer

we have this in Italy too ... but is more related to "deal with what you have" and dealing is an act of free will.

@@francesco5581 You chose to answer my comment here because you read it, and u are interested on consciousness, and u have an idea of free will and determinism elaborated through your education and interrelation with other beings, and you have emotional and mental conditionings, and u are experimenting an evolution through ur hundreds of lifes (if u believe in them or ur one life if not), and u have a relation with parents, friends, relatives, unknown people which had an influence on you, desires, fears, etc. etc. etc. The list would be endless. So, your choice was not unconditioned, unless you believe you are an enlightened being, meaning one who reached such a high conscious state that allows him to "see" all these infinite connections and obviate them (but being honest, if that was the case you woulndt be in this world...). So, the point is that you MADE A CHOICE but at the same time the choice was DETERMINED.. And one would say: How is that possible? In the same way that that we can only see "me vs others" when actually we are me and others at the same time (because the Universe is fractal and continuum), we can only see "bad vs good" when all is bad and good at the same time (because everything has a purpose), etc... Labels (determinism-free will, good-bad, me-others, etc) are symbols our mind needs to classify and survive in our physical existence (u needed to differentiate between a dangerous and not dangerous animal, etc), they are concepts, mental constructs. When u assimilate this, you then stop offering resistance against reality (because you realize you are what you are and what you need to be) and you flow with it and stop suffering. But yes,,, its a process,,,, I understand that tomorrow we need to pay bills, grow up children, etc... But it helps.

Wow! That's so clever!

We all choose when to conform or rebel against what others believe to be right, based upon what sports teams, political systems, or philosophies we choose to make part of our nature. We can all choose what landscapes in nature to focus quantum entanglements with, and which to reduce quantum entanglements with, as we architech the landscapes which adorn our natures.

"If my aunt had nuts she'd be my uncle. " Americans a bit more crude ya know 😊

A) That's not what the difference between determinism and pre-determinism is. Determinism means everything will play out according to cause and effect, that could theoretically be predicted if you had enough knowledge. Pre-determinism is that everything was all planned and known in advanced. And B) Quantum Physics has not been proven to be truly random. There are valid deterministic interpretations of QM, like de Broglie-Bohm pilot wave theory (non-local hidden variables), Many Worlds, etc.

no "It is stranger than we can think"

It just is

There is no why .

@@ruskinyruskiny1611 “reality is not only stranger than we suppose, it may be stranger than we can suppose.” - J.B.S. Haldane

@@sunchis717 “why not”

You can't choose (example ideal action) what you want to do because your preconditioning determines the next course of action. The brain (a predictor) depends on the stored memories to come up with the best possible course of actions. It has no way of knowing what the ideal course of action is in the absence of any previous input. So, it maps its available data (memories) to produce an output (action) that almost always is not an ideal choice. You are enslaved by your previous karmas (your actions and all the bad things you have absorbed from the society).

What they do... it's a new form of poetry, really... ;)) Quite enjoyable for many.

Hola, muy buenos días, leelos y escuchamos, por que deberían de recetar una fórmula mágica de convivencia?, vaya fantasía esperar algo semejante, además de ingenuo, perdona no trato de ofenderte, tiene que decirte alguien como comportarte en tu vida?, no eres lo suficientemente serio para vivir una vida consistente, seria, comprometida, lo que hagan los demás no depende de, depende de eso mismo, que sean serios, comprometidos, sensibles, empaticos.

​@@sydney456Buen día, para mi si lo es.😊

@@milainkstincto Yes, may be it is indeed a nature's choice or will. They knew due to their involvement and the nature of nature finds its way towards an outcome.

Hola, buenas tardes, quedate con tu primer parrafo, parece que es asi, yo asi lo creo y lo suscribo, el segundo lo estamos poniendo nosotros, en este caso tu, nuestro intelecto.@@sunchis717

​@@dieselphiendphysical processes in the brain create "irrationality". It's not a thing that exists in the world beyond the physical state of the nervous system (based on external inputs or self-referential thoughts)

@@dieselphiend If all things are interdependent, when do you make YOUR determination, inherently on your own wothout influence or cause? You are only making it in thought because your determination depends on everything else. Thought is just the reaction, or sense, of brain activity that has already occurred (according to some MRI experiments)

@dieselphiend Entropy is sometimes defined by the number of possible states a system can have. High entropy means more possible states or configurations, while low entropy means fewer possible configurations. For example, a chessboard with one piece has 64 possible states, but one with three pieces has many more.In your argument, you're essentially equating freedom with high entropy and constraint with low entropy. When a man gets out of jail, his "human system" experiences higher entropy-he can now exist in more possible states within the universe, not just a single "chess square" like a jail cell. However, chess pieces themselves don't have free will; their movements are determined by the player, and those movements are constrained by the rules of the game. Similarly, the player's choices are limited by the "entropy" of the system-the range of possible actions dictated by the rules and the current state of the board. Moreover, the choices made by the mind are further confined by what enters the mind-our thoughts, decisions, and perceived options are influenced by the information we receive and the experiences we have. Just as the chess player can only make moves based on the current state of the board, our minds can only make choices within the limits of what we know and perceive.

Of course we do. The question is what you think of when you refer to "we", the person or the consciousness? That's the difference.

This is a beautiful conversation ❤ I am searching the comments for answers. It is that good.

"Both and, Neither or, It's what it ain't ." - JuanHugeJanus

there is a problem , that this "unfolding" created a meaningful universe where morality plays a big deal ... and morality require free will. Also what is nature ? is a bit ambiguous ... Is consciousness ? then how a consciousness cannot have free will ? by who is governed the idealism consciousness if you remove free will ?

Nature is an abstraction of the quantum or more fundamental processes.

But the interesting thing is that imagining "could have beens" does influence future decisions, even though these "could have beens" cannot be accessed directly. Fantasy in this way is an indirect method of interacting with reality: changing the present based on the past until the principles of these changes are integrated into the "future." I put future in quotes because, ontologically, it never really arrives.

@@Jack-in-the-country exactly, we pass a good part of our life thinking what could have been with different choices ( a bad habit btw if not about moral issues)

Yes... but this is essentially the same as saying that "free will" is just an imaginary illusion. That's not free will, that's determinism. Most free will advocates would not agree with that. All the so called "compatibilists" just redefine what "free will" is to mean something different than actually having the ability to act differently than how you actually did act. Free will and determinism are not compatible. If the only way to make them compatible is to redefine them, then you are just working around the bush to avoid accepting the incompatibility.

This

YES!🙌

The problem I find myself running into here is that, objectively speaking, consciousness does not exist - it's a category error created by my subjective experience; but also, objectivity does not exist, because experience by definition is always subjective.

But people can misinterpret that, which they have. It doesn’t mean we have freedom from consequences, it still pays to be mindful.

Where can I find the Kufayev interview? Bernardo and Sarvapriyananda convo was a good. I made concept artworks on my website including Kastrups work and Vedanta/Trika (ravibajnath.design) under metaphysics if interested.

@@RaviBajnaththe interview is on Kufayev’s channel serviced by his team. Google Kufayev Kastrup ‘The end of philosophy as we know it’, it’ll show up.

point me to a book to read on this topic

and me

Igor Kufayev writing comment here, cool.

But you didn’t chose the parameters of your choice, like you don’t chose to have a brain or fingers to type, and you don’t chose the conditioning that made you who you are.

Why do you think that nature “must come from something external”? He is defining nature as “all that exists”, in which case there can not be anything external to it by definition. Nature is the totality of all that is, so it can’t be anything other than what it is.

@@CampingforCool41 What Bernardo is assuming is that, nature is already FULLY defined. In other words, the story of your life is like a movie, where you don't know what comes next, but it is already determined, because "it is what it is". This obviously begs the question, who created the movie? Well, it certainly did not create it self, since "it is what it is". There for there must have been something external to the movie, that created the movie. This is the inconsistency. However quantum physics teaches us that nothing is FULLY defined. Nature is uncertain. There for to assume that nature "is what it is" is to presume there is something deterministic behind the uncertainty we observe. So lets be clear, this is an assumption that is contrary to our observations. But since we observe uncertainty, why not accept that nature is uncertain. And as such, you can not say nature "is what it is", because nature has not decided what it is yet. And the process of deciding what it is, is a genuine free will act of self creation. This is the only way you can say that there is nothing external to nature. Nature must possess free will, so that it is capable of creating what it is.

@@Curious112233 I think you might be misunderstanding what he means. The fact that Nature is uncertain and can change from moment to moment doesn’t contradict that Nature as a whole is what it is right /now/. He is saying that the universe has free will and is deterministic at the same time, according to his definitions of them.

@@CampingforCool41 I believe I do understand what he means, which is why I point out the inconsistency. His idea of free will is not what most people would consider as genuine free will. It is just a will that is not really free. It is actually determined by the nature of nature. When you say, "The fact that Nature is uncertain and can change from moment to moment doesn't contradict that Nature as a whole is what it is right /now/" As I understand it, this is saying that the uncertainty of nature is only apparent uncertainty due to our limited knowledge, but the reality is that Nature as a whole is FULLY certain and determined. But to say that Nature as a whole IS what it is. Implies that nature did not decide what it IS, which means something else must have decided what it IS. I'm saying that to avoid an external maker we need to assume that nature possesses the ability to create itself, and it does this through its free will choices.

The ideat of being "free from" means being separate and independent from. Where's the separation in reality? We are a part of nature. We breath nature. Our cells are nature. We are born and die into nature. The separated self is an illusion.

@@eprd313 To be free by nature does not mean or imply that we are “separate from” anyone or anything. Reality is non-dual, as you point out. Non-dual reality, however, does not necessitate pure determinism. To live according to one’s nature as a free human being is to not be enslaved to the false idea that we are a separate self or that our entire life, including all our choices are purely determined. So long as we don’t live consciously according to our free nature, we have no choice but to be enslaved to our deterministic patterns of thought, behavior, emotions, and environment. Freedom does not deny the fact that much of our life and reality is determined. However, as free human beings we have the capacity to interact consciously, intelligently, and synergistically with the unfolding of reality, to the extent that we live according to our free nature.

@@Aaron-xb4rq again, free from what? If there's something you are free from it means you are not that thing, ie. you are separate from that. So I ask again, free from what? We are part of everything. Our freedom is the freedom of an unbound totality, for which our will is a minuscule illusion

@@Aaron-xb4rq our deterministic pattern of thoughts, behaviour and emotion *IS* our will. If you think it is something else that's where you create the egoic illusion that there's something superior and separate about you that has control over the forces of nature.

@@eprd313 Free from the illusion that you are a separate self. You are not a separate self, as we both agree. However, according to your logic, freedom means separation. So to be free from the idea of separation would mean to be separate from the idea of separation. The illusion of separation is the whole problem, so why define freedom in terms of separation? That just supports the delusion. Freedom has nothing to do with separation. There is no separation whatsoever. Reality is non-dual, as we both agree. Therefore, freedom cannot be defined in terms of the false concept of separation. Freedom is to live in accordance with one’s nature - to actualize one’s essential potential. If one is not free, then they are not (for a host of possible reasons) actualizing their potential. What most often plagues and enslaves mankind and prevents people from actualizing their potential is the false belief in separation - that you are a separate self and that you are your thoughts, feelings, emotions, and conditioned reactions to your environment. This is not who you are. Who you are is not purely determined. If this is who you think you are, then you are enslaved by ignorance of who you really are. You are not living in accordance with your nature - you are free, but you don’t know it. You are self-imprisoned by your belief that you are a separate self. This is why free will isn’t ultimately about choice. Free will is about our nature. So the question becomes: what is our nature? Ultimately, who are we? This is where it seems you believe that we are “our deterministic pattern of thoughts, behavior and emotions.” That this is “our will” and that we are determined to act in accordance with it. This is not who you are. To believe so, is to be enslaved by self-ignorance. From this vantage point, it is easy to conclude that determinism = free will. That is, that there is no free will. The will, from this perspective, is purely determined. Self-knowledge is the key that sets one free from this delusion. You said that to think otherwise is to “create the egoic illusion that there’s something superior and separate about you that has control over the forces of nature.” This highlights precisely the key to self-knowledge which is necessary to be free from the delusion of self-ignorance. Who you are is the consciousness that transcends all thoughts, feelings, and emotions, and it is not separate from you. You are this consciousness. Thoughts, feelings, and emotions arise within the consciousness that you are. Thoughts, feelings, and emotions are determined in that sense, but they do not determine you. However, if one is ignorant of who they are and is not aware of the consciousness that they are, then all those “external” things that arise within the consciousness that you are will “control you,” as you point out. Alternatively, to act in accordance with one’s nature - consciousness - is to be free. If we know who we are, then we can observe thoughts, feelings, and emotions arise, along with everything else that is continuously unfolding in our environment, and choose to act in accordance with our free will - not purely determined and enslaved by all that arises in the consciousness that we are. This is freedom. This is who you are.

Fastest drummer ever. #2112

The cure for this global existential crisis is found in a book called -- “Simplicity Through Simulation: The Algorithm of Humanity” --

@@HelloUniverse1526 I will take a look. Thank you.

@@HelloUniverse1526 I just bought the book on one click Amazon. Thank you so much.

My toenail is quite different from my eyes.

I like to say the concept of "free will" is an oxymoron, it contradicts itself. To will means to be bound, restricted, limited etc. Certainly that is not complete freedom. What people usually think of although by being "free" is having options and being able to choose between them, and this fact is not inconsistent with determinism at all.

😄

what? its nothing more than what two drunk philosophy students say in the pub. ...

@@matswessling6600 Not saying that it's original, just the argument itself is really great.

If one considers it by Marx or any ultra-materialistical lens of reality, of course it is going to be tautological and impossible to fathom in reality. The problem is, materialistically, one cannot correctly consider the onthology of the being, and without considering the beings, you cannot comprehend it fully and will inevitably put it as tautological (but it is not).

@@craigwillms61 he's making a point and trying to express it in a bunch of different ways but none of them were landing for me - I think that reading the essay they mentioned would help me

Spell out the contradiction. We make choices even tho our choices are determined. In that sense free will and determinism are compatible.

​@@highvalence7649 if they are determined then they are not free choices. There's a difference between "will" and "free will". The whole point in discussion is the idea of freedom. He's saying we are not really free to choose differently than what we choose (you'd need to be a different person 2:39). We are not free. We have a will, sure.. just not a free will.

@@Ferkiwi i'm not sure why you're saying they are not free choices. We can make choices that are not restricted by some external force. Our desires may be determined, but under that scope we can make choices according to our desires and wishes. I was an anti free will person before, using the same arguments you are using. Ultimately i dont take a position on free will per se, as I'm just not sure how exactly we'd define that, but it seems clear that we can make choices that are free in the sense that we have The ability to choose what we want. We didn't choose what we want, but given that we want a variety of things we can make some choices according to those wants. It's pretty simple.

@@highvalence7649 It's not only our desires what's determined though. Also our circumstances, our physical capacity to do things (we can't just "choose" to fly and float away), even the rules of logic through which we finally decide the outcome are essentially mathematical rules, we choose based on the weight each of the choices have to us. Our thoughts are not simple, they are complex amalgamation of factors and rationality, so amongst that amalgamation, isolating exactly what is that makes us "free" has not been something that anyone has, so far, been able to reliably pin-point. At least as far as I'm aware. I think that if our mind was simple enough for us to understand, then we would not be intelligent enough to do it. By necessity, we are unable to exactly understand fully the factors that determine our "choices" because if we did, then that would become a new factor that we would necessarily have that could affect our choice, so being oblivious of our own motives is almost a requirement for us to move.

Of course! And if you decide to use it as a justification for any action, this also is the will of nature. The question is what is your true goal. If your true and honest goal is to maintain sobriety, then you wouldn't smoke it. Some other goal that makes you smoke it has higher priority than that of maintaining sobriety - then you simply act it out.

@@JHeb_ I think I get the viewpoint but I can sense there is something missing here. There is something to this as well but this explanation is missing something. I appreciate Bernardo, we people need Philosophy, maybe more in this day in age than ever. Have a great day

You're association with psychological continuity as free will is a completely separate argument. You're appeal to "ME" is absolutely unnecessary. "ME" is a fleeting feeling and there is absolutely no guarantee that you will maintain those preferences, biases or inclincations. The only thing guaranteed is your field of subjectivity, not autonomy over WHO is choosing.

I guess the freedom is in the absense of anything outside ourselves restricting us to choose what we want in at least some instances. While what we want is perhaps determined by factors outside ourselves, we are still at least to some degree free to choose what we want.

Yes.. all these "compatibilists" just redefine what "free will" is to mean something different than actually having the ability to act differently than how you actually did act. Free will and determinism are not compatible. If the only way to make them compatible is to redefine them, then you are just working around the bush to avoid accepting the incompatibility.

​@@highvalence7649 That's not was kastrup said though... I don't see how there an be freedom from what he said, not even "at least to some degree". He did say we make choices.. but that those choices are predetermined. If we can't change them then they aren't really "free" choices. So at that point why call it "free" will? He's clearly a determinist, so I don't understand why he needs to redefine "free will" and pretend it's compatible with determinism.

@@Ferkiwi it is what he said elsewhere, i believe. In any case it is what i'm saying. "If we can’t change them then they aren't really free choices". It depends on what we mean by free choice. Do you just mean not predetermined choices / choices that are not inevitable given the prior causal chain of events that led up to that choice? Then sure we don't have free choices. But that’s not what i have in mind when i hear "free choice". I have in mind something like choices that we make that aren't forced upon us by someone else, that we aren't coerced to make, and that aren't so limited in terms of the available options that the best option given our desires isn't something we don't want anyway. Of course, in a sense the only option available to us is the one we are predetermined to make or we're inevitably going to make as an inevitable result of the prior causal chain leading up to it, however given that nature is what is and that therefore we are going to inevitably want certain things and choose what we want given that that choice is available, we are free to choose what we want given that that option is available and given that no one is forcing or coercing us to choose something different.

@@highvalence7649 Ok, I think the original commenter was referring specifically to what was said in this video. But about what you are saying: I agree that the colloquial definition for "free" means "not forced upon us". And yet, if we think deeply about it, the line can be unclear ..because technically, if they blackmail or threaten me, I do still have the "choice" of not obeying, they can't really "force" me to comply. Even if they have me at gunpoint, I can sacrifice myself if it's for the greater good... so in a way, even under those situations, the term "free" is fuzzy. Of course you can't act in a "normal" way when you are being coerced, but determining what would be the "normal" non-coerced behavior is just as fuzzy, since the limits of what constitutes as coercion can become blurry the more subtle the act that influences you becomes. Is subliminal advertising a form of coercion? In my opinion, when you think deeply about it and try to actually get to the bottom of what makes a choice free or not, I feel that you need to either assert that all our conscious choices are free, despite all the influence, or that none of them actually are, because of the influence. Anything in between seems to be more of a confusing blurry line that just tries to place arbitrary limits based on the knowledge we have about ourselves (which is a knowledge that will forever be incomplete) and the possible situations we can imagine.

First time I had the first like on a comment that will inevitably be the top comment. Its been determined

The biggest truth of all and yet hardest to admit for the majority. Truly needs superior intelligence to get it. Moment by moment, there is NO YOU and NO free will

This statement means nothing

@@huntertony56 Thank you for further illustrating my point

​@@andrew-virabhavafeel better?

are not fully probabilistic since we have meaningful things, a stable universe, life, matter ....

This is not logical.

Come again?

Federico will be furious with these mental gymnastics 🤣 Redefinition game here🤓

@@Xenosaurian Just check it out in your experience. If you didn't notice something, you wouldn't have asked the question. But I can't resolve it for you, you have to see what you notice. Also, I'm just riffing here on what BK said; I'm presenting no theory, only a phenomenological possibility.

@@zetristan4525 No redefinition, just improv. Words are pointers. If it doesn't point to anything for you, no problem.

@@markcounseling Bernardo is talking about will here, not free will (mentioned in the title).

perhaps foresight is as well; if we could see if "now'