Why psychopaths aren't actually evil - The problem of free will 

ITS NOT MY FAULT I DO NOT WANT TO DO HOMEWORK

Using this logic, I don't need to "practice empathy and patience" as was suggested at the end. If I was going to practice empathy, that choice would have already been made by my supercomputer brain before I even had a chance to think of it. Therefore since I'm not practicing empathy, it's not my fault.

Doesn't matter if they're evil or not. They're still more *capable* of evil than the rest of us and we need to keep an eye on them and make sure to keep them in line.

It's often depressing, the subject regarding psychopathy and how it's seen. I've been diagnosed Psychopathy a couple years back, and that explained a lot from my childhood, my reactions and ways of thinking things differently. But most people would just see a potential monster, instead of a person who was given a bad hand at birth. I've learned to emulate a lot of things, to be able to function relatively normally, but then people who know me and know of my condition end up thinking I'm normal, and forgetting about the condition. Suddenly there is misinterpretation somewhere down the way, some "normal" rule that I couldnt understand, missed and misinterpreted, and they get angry. It's always painful, because it reminds me how different I am, makes one feel like a puzzle piece, but from a different puzzle. It can fit in somehow, but every once in a while, it's obvious it doesnt belong there. Some people nowadays are realizing that Psychopaths are not always monsters, not always criminals and constantly plotting future crimes. Yes, I have horrible thoughts from time to time, and random bouts of desires to do mayhem. The boredom episodes, which drive me insane, where nothing can sate my need to feel something. I stop it all, with pure willpower. What depresses me is to still see a lot of people, whom call Psychopaths monsters that should be locked away or executed. Too dangerous to live among them. I suffer knowing that I dont fit in, that should it be known too widely, that I'd be shunned, to know that not only do I have to deal with my inner desires, but with the rest of people whom would sooner throw me off a cliff to feel safe, instead of giving me a hand and helping me on a day where I need it the most.

This would be a really cool idea to write a book about. Like there could be an evil scientist or some sort of antagonist that develops a machine to change peoples brain signals and then makes them do whatever he wants while still giving them the illusion that they are choosing their own decisions.

You can't judge people for thinking a certain way. But actions are something completely else. You can't control the way you feel. But you CAN control your actions.

I don't care whose fault is aggression. Be it sickness, drugs, tumor ... all I care about is prevention from happening it again. If tumor removal will cure person from aggression, I don't see reason for him to stay in jail. If not, let him die in prison with his tumor, not as punishment for him but to keep us safe.

Reductionism and psychology don't work so well. A computer recognising the pattern of an action potential before it's an impulse doesn't prove we have no free will. Only someone advocating for devolution would ignore the characteristics of triune brain evolution and the role of the neo-cortex in self realisation.

This is pretty much I've been thinking.... *In the end in turns out we're just chemicals that reacts to different factors.* There seems to be no free will or consciousness.

I really wish prisons would be designed to be more like rehabilitation facilities not containment.

"Nothing is never anyone's fault" Crazy Ex Girlfriend

I agree 99%... I still believe we as individuals do have final say in acting or not acting upon an impulse. For some background: I had an unhappy, abusive childhood, raised by a cluster-B parent... most likely a narcissist or histrionic, I'm neurodivergent, have attention deficit disorder & dysgraphia... but I decided to be different and not become a carbon copy of my circumstances. It definitely wasn't easy but I overcame my circumstances. Everyday I made a choice to not be mean, manipulative, hypercritical, violent, drug abuse, etc. Counseling was really helpful to me to break the cycle. I do have kids that are both young adults now. Our relationships are good and I'm always there for them! To anyone struggling, please don't lose hope. Yes, there are personal challenges we're each born with or born into but that doesn't have to become you. You can change your story, one minute, one decision at a time. I believe in you... I did it and you can too!

It makes me think even for simple instances in life. When you look back and remember some moments of your life, when you were angry at someone, when you made some stupid choices, when you stressed out for something that in retrospect seems ridiculous, and you are still doing it in the future even if you know. I remember some things and wonder why did I act like this or why did I stressed about that matter? But then I realize this, how we think we are in full control of our brains and thus who we are, yet that's not true. We might have a higher consciousness that can observe and controls the acts from the lower parts of our brain sometimes, but many times we are human. It makes me wonder how many more instances of actions and feelings do we think it's our own but it might not be so.

I think this idea is in fact dangerous. The conclusion is also self-refuting. If Uday had no free will people who decided to punish him didn't have free will either. A few, OK more than a few points: 1. If I am my brain then if my brain causes something I cause something and so there's no problem for free will just from that alone. It only starts plausibly becoming a problem considering the brain can be influenced by inputs. BUT you left out an input, randomness. It could well be a very tiny factor, but Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle would mean that some of the physics going on in the brain at the molecular level, as with anything else would be random. There's also the issue of the study about predicting people's behavior before they act, but that leads to my next point, 2. What about exercising free will over a long-term period? If you plan ahead then what ever physical activity occurs in the conscious part of the brain has time to send outputs to the other parts of the brain, thus having influence (however imperfect) on the later outputs that arise from the subconscious part of the brain. Could the study just mean that we don't have free will when we have to make a snap decision? 3. Another thing, why are we assuming that the subject's personally reported experience of when they thought about whether or not they would push the button is accurate? Maybe the time we experience our thoughts as having occured in is actually later than when we actually had our thoughts? Maybe it is the timing of our thoughts that is the real illusion. We already know that when we see something we're not actually seeing it when it happens, light has to travel to our brain. What if thoughts work similarly? 4. And is it wise to define our "selves" according to only the conscious part of the mind? Say you have some aspiration, sometimes you may think of it consciously but if it's deeply engrained you'll be doing things towards it at times without consciously thinking about it. Is it less "you" because it's below the level of consciousness? Why can't we just define our "selves" as including what ever causal factors ultimately lead up to our outputs (though only counted as part of the self in the role of producing that output i.e. the big bang would count as part of you only in so far as it lead to everything you did, not in so far as it lead to things you don't do)? If we did this it would mean based on how we are defining self that everything results solely from a given person's self and therefore that person has free will. That may seem like a ridiculous way to define "self" but does anyone else have any other suggestions? Where do we draw the line between "self" and "not self"? If we don't equate anything physical to "self" then we may as well just say "self does not exist" which would turn "do we have free will?" into a non-question. Psychological studies seem to suggest the concept is really just an instrument we use to navigate the world and make decisions, so the question when considering matters of free will becomes a semantic one, and then therefore the question of free will itself boils down to semantics. 5. Utilitarians would disagree that we can only have accountability if we have free will. They would also disagree that we shouldn't call people "evil". If the concept of "evil" is helpful in yielding more positive outcomes then we should continue to use it in our descriptions of certain people and certain actions. You say you should blame it on neurology and not the "person". This goes back to the question of what the "self" or "person" is. The logical conclusion of your line of thinking that if it's the brain it's not the person is that the "person" doesn't even exist. Do you want to live in a world where people stop conceptualizing what it means to be a "person"? I don't. We have to draw a line and be able to say "this aspect of neurology constitutes the person". Not punishing or blaming people for what they do wrong based on your reasoning also means we can't thank scientists, inventors, and philanthropists for the good they do in the world. Whether free will is real or not we have to act like it is or the world we live in will become empty. 6. Promoting this new view may feel like the kind compassionate thing to do, but it could actually hurt people. I used to smoke cigarettes, and eat copious amounts of junk food. I didn't get fat but I reflected on it and realized it wasn't healthy. I dedicated myself to discipline and dedicating my life to self-improvement. "You only live once" so the saying goes, so I want to see how good a life I can live, not waste it on base pleasures. If I decided I was not to blame I might just go back to smoking cigarettes and eating junk food all the time. And a study shows I'm not some anomaly in that regard, people behaved worse if they didn't believe in free will. www.bbc.com/future/story/20130924-how-belief-in-free-will-shapes-us 7. And another thing is how can we objectively determine what constitutes mental illness and what constitutes mental health if mentally healthy people have just as much free will as mentally ill people? Doesn't it just turn into a matter of values and opinions? Forget mental health, how would we define good or bad behavior or right or wrong? Non-belief in free will could lead to anarchy. 8. Or it could lead to tyranny. If free will does not exist then is freedom also an illusion? Is it then still important to respect other people's freedom? If society decided that it didn't like, as just one out of many possible examples, introverts would it be justified in defining it as a disorder and then inventing brain-altering technologies and forcing treatment to reengineer people into extraverts? Could non-belief in free will lead in the long term to an outcome akin to the Borg from Star Trek where everyone has been forcibly reengineered into a hive mind because society has stopped valuing freedom? "Free will" whether it exists physically must remain a concept socially for the sake of protecting our freedom.

I can partly agree with you. I have a good friend who is a psychopath but I can see that he is trying to be good person. He completely understand his problem and he used to say "I don't have feel what's good or bad, but I have knowledge of that". I appreciate his efforts to somehow fights against his nature.

While 'free will' can be problematic for some, I don't see it as an issue. Personally, sure, it's an issue. But on the social scale, I don't see why it should matter. The problem usually comes from how people conceive of the justice system. They view it as a way to 'punish' wrongdoers. There is a much better way to view it. View the justice system as a means of protecting the public by separating those who would harm them. This solves a tremendous amount of issues. If someone built a machine that simply spun around swinging blades at everyone, zipping from place to place, and turned it on at a playground, would anyone protest that we can't stop it because it doesn't have free will? Of course not. If your goal is to protect people, rather than punish wrongdoers, then you grab the machine and separate it from where people are. Simple. If human beings have free will or not, if they take actions which make it clear that they are either willing to harm, or incapable of not harming others, separate them from the public. There is no need to 'punish' them. No need to even make their accomodations odious. They simply need to be separated from the general public. Worrying about whether they are 'evil' or not can occupy the priests, but it shouldn't bother the general public or the justice system.

One issue I find here is that it mixes up the idea of "deciding" with the idea of "predicting" what will be decided. In other words, as if determinism implies there is no free will. To be able to predict others people choice does not mean we are forcing them to make such choice.

Say you have a vicious dog that bites people. So what if the dog was born with the inclination to bite, and so what if it was taught to bite by its owners? None of this matters to the random stranger who was bitten by the dog. Sure, you can empathize with it- if you were born in the dog's circumstances and with the dog's intellegence, you would have bitten the stranger just as it did- but empathizing with the dog won't keep it from biting. If anything, your sympathy and lack of dicipline will make the dog bite even more. That's why it's good to believe in free will, whether or not it's an illusion.

I see someone has been listening to Sam Harris

What I love about all these videos is how he offers a solution, and doesn't just point a finger at someone or some concept and find faults. I feel its a much more constructive approach to psychology lessons, not just "this is what it is" but how others can use that info to help their lives.

This is how people normalize extreme ideas; by saying it isn't their fault. Just because they haven't control over how their brain developed, does not conclude that they are not at fault for their actions. They are, because they know exactly what they are doing.

1:57 -- Just because the researcher predicted the button push before it happened doesn't mean the subject was not exercising free will. If the subject is working up to the decision--via free will--the researcher will see it coming before the actual push. It's a bit like saying I predicted someone would drink coffee because I saw them get up and walk over to where the coffee pot was. They couldn't have freely chosen to drink coffee because I knew they would drink it before they did!

I love your videos! I hope to see more content from this channel in the future!

I thought this was very obvious and wondered why more people didn’t know this

Why people do what they do is not the issue. The issue is that when people do things that are destructive to other people they must be stopped permanently. All this sympathy leads to repeat offenders getting released back into society to ruin more lives over and over again.

I think that what you describe is the mechanism of free will, rather than the absence of it. On the other hand, if there is no such thing as free will, and if we tortured Uday Hussein to death, it wouldn't have made us evil. We would just be chemicals and life experiences, after all.

Agreed, you can't judge someone as evil, but from a human perspective you can judge the degree of damage they do to society and the possibilities of them being re-incorporated into society (which are usually very high [damage] and very unlikely [re-incorporation] respectively).

Science has a long way to go yet in this area. Our brains are responding and changing with each choice we make. We do indeed have free will.

I understand where you are coming from, some thought provoking points brought up. However, consider this, when society punishes a psychopath, it is not the physical body which is being punished but rather the brain, as that is where all feelings are perceived. So whilst some people may be put in unfortunate circumstances, we as a society are punishing the newly shaped brain rather than the one the person was born with.

Criminals thrive on the indulgence of society's understanding.

Semantics. I my opinion a person who can not resist doing evil/or is determined to do evil, for whatever reason is therefor evil, free will or not

What's the name of the instrumental playing in the very beginning of the video

You can choose to not have free will because you have free will. How can you question free will without free will. If free will doesn't exist then nothing is man made, nobody owns anything, and rules exist to sabotage, and punishment is slavery........ Consequences are acceptable, preferences aren't definitive, and reactions are unwarranted.

Actually, quite few criminals are punished for the sake of punishing. Other reasons for punishment could be: Making the action have a consequence, so people have a reason _not_ to commit the crime Rehabilitating or Educating the prisoner in some way that might stop them from doing it again Preventing the criminal from doing said crime for an extended period of time

I think this kind of determinism is partly true but there is solution whether genetics or environment did it. We can always have more control over our actions with help of a psychologist. The power psychology has isn't used even a little bit.

I like how you choose what to speak about and how objectively you do this. Thanks.

What if the button pressing study wasn't proving that there isn't free will, but that the doctor can read minds in a some way?

I have quite a few problems with this video: 1. You make the case against free-will sound less contentious than it probably is. As far as I know, the conclusions one can draw from experiment's like Fried's and Libet's is limited. 2. I always find it slightly bizarre for determinists to say 'we shouldn't hold people responsible for their actions', presumably our decision to hold people responsible is as much a product of our genes and society as any other decision. 3. Look, it's all very well saying we should drop our assumptions that people do bad things because they are bad people so we can be more empathetic and punish better, but that only makes the case for one side. Denying people's free will can at best be highly demotivating, and at worst promote a 'nothing is off limits' approach to morality. Hence even if you want to take a consequentialist view of morality, it is not clear your conclusion is the right one.

The criminal justice system isn't based on punishing criminal out of vengeance. Whether someone or something is believed to be responsible for it's own actions is inconsequential to the idea that we ought to minimize it's interactions with the public if that person or thing is deemed to be a danger to the public. If there existed some creature to whom we might attribute perfect free will and that creature sought to bring us harm, we would hope to detain and nuetralize any threat the creature posed to us, and conversely, if there were an unpredictable and wild animal on the loose, we would take the same measures. The criminal justice system is based on the concept that there is a legitimate authority behind the public's desire for self preservation. I believe you are conflating justice with vengeance.

Curious question! Why do you have a clock ticking in the background? :)

Do you know the spiritual cause of psychopath mental disease is never take responsibility of their actions? That once he take consequences of his actions, he might start develop FEELINGS and probably empathy?

Unfortunately the conclusion that "punishment is wrong" is itself wrong. Instead punishment as a form of corrective action becomes the wrong, and the most logical act would then be to execute the criminal because by this rationale they are unable to be reformed and inherently harmful to society through no fault of their own. The preservation of society therefore demands they be eliminated from it. But that is a very ugly conclusion, isn't it? I certainly think so.

Thank you for this video!

Looking at the Fried study, all it claims is that the neuronal signals to move happened before the "conscious decision to move" appeared in people's heads. That does not preclude the idea that free will exists at all. For example, when you make the decision to move your hand, the neurons that fire the hand to move, reach your hand before they reach your body's awareness that it has moved. Most of the neuronal pathways for your muscles work like this. The path for the neurons to fire to the muscles is quicker than to awareness. This is one of the reasons why we have a "fight or flight" mechanism.

Whether free will exists or not has no bearing on whether we can and should be held accountable. This is a common mistake in reasoning in that people confuse WHY we make the decision with the fact that we make the decision. The reason this is faulty should become clearer by simply using an analogous logic in which you state that something didn't happen because you know how it happened. For instance, knowing the mechanism by which the moon orbits the Earth does not, in any way, change the simple reality that it orbits the Earth. The same thing is true here. Yes, my brain is simply reacting in a manner that is dictated by chemical biology. That doesn't change that my brain is making a decision when it makes a decision. While it is true that our brain often makes decisions long before we are consciously aware of those decisions, this does not mean that all decisions are made in this way. If that was the case, we would not be able to react as quickly as we do.

Yeah... Not buying it. At all.

Your videos are quite insightful and creative. Keep it up, mate.

By punishing criminals, it creates an "environment" that it is bad to do wrong, whereas otherwise would make such to have an environment more likely to commit crime

Just because people cannot control their genetics or their environment doesn't mean they have no free will. One could argue that in many cases we can change our environment, but there still would be the question of whether they did it freely or because of their genetics or environment.) There could still be other factors though. Merely explaining the genetics and environment play a large role in decision making doesn't mean nothing else does.

What's with the obsession that in order to be free, we must also defy physics? The problem with this assessment is then there is NO SUCH THING as "evil", "fault", "control", or "freedom" -- the words lose meaning and in fact become logical paradoxes. Yet clearly we do use those words and understand what they mean in day-to-day communication. That's why Compatibilism (look it up on wikipedia) makes infinitely more sense than total denial that we're free. The second flaw with this video is the dismissal of punishment just because the people aren't at fault. Punishment always has a use whether or not you believe in free will and that's DETERRENCE. The threat of punishment deters would-be criminals from committing crimes.

WHat is the background musics at 0:29?

You are very intelligent, and a good teacher. I'm glad YOU are a part of youtube, content like this is very rare

This video was really well made, i really hope you get more views and attention! Here is my thoughts though. If we don't punish criminals and sociopaths their children and close enviroment will be affected by them resulting in creating more of them. Even though it maybe isn't their fault that they are like they are. I know that wasn't the point of this video but i think it's important to note.

I don't care about their upbringing.

To the point! Thank you, 🎹🎶🎹🎶

All this science, objectivity and abstraction melt when a psychoparh completely destroys your life with glacial determination

people like to believe in this ultimate evil, because it makes them selves seem better in comparison, believing in pre-determinism does the same trick, they now think they are not to blame for any of their actions. at the end of the day, some think we have no free will, to avoid the stress of personal blame but others do to get them where they want to be.

u cannot separate the brain from the body. both are linked and that makes up the INDIVIDUAL.

Thank you for bringing this up and mostly I agree with you. Just two things to ponder on. Two people under no circumstances will feel/be/alterer in the same way, because we are different. Traumatic event "A" will be perceived 7 billion times differently. And since free-will isn't so free, not doing something radical against the "bad" guys isn't the best idea. Since they are controlled by their profound impulses, nothing will prevent them from repeating and repeating given the right frame. They will do it again, they will kill, rape, torture...etc. It's not in their power, but as long as they have the feeling/the need, they won't control it. No matter how loved they feel, or appreciated. Because it is not the right-now-love that it's missing. It is an old forgotten "not loved", when they needed it really bad.

What is that suppose to mean by "I" don't have free will? How is it not me making the decision if I am the process that makes those decisions? Where would the distinction be between me and my brain be if all I am is the brain?

Evil is a Human concept.

First of all: I love your videos! However, I have a comment. The study with the hand movement was debunked a long time ago. Also, it was carried out by Benjamin Libet. You can read about it here: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benjamin_Libet

this is one of the best videos I ever seen!

The thing is, our justice system is too geared towards punishment rather than towards behavior correction.

Genetics and enviroment dont sum up the equation,Thus there is still something else makes us decide thing,I am not saying it's free will,but it's a quantum level event which we all know don't follow rules like in classical physics. One can be in the same situation and genetics and could do otherwise,and that's where the mystery of brain comes in.

Why does it matter what a criminal thinks or feels like if they committed the action? If one commits a crime, they should be punished accordingly, and there are no excuses.

That's a really good argument against death penalty. We could say that the fact that people do bad things is only determined by environment and psychological/neurotic disorders, which is pretty controversial, but also make a lot of sense

Two issues for me: 1. Assuming actions are just a result of the circumstances and should therefore be viewed as a natural reaction and hence not be punished leads to a positive feedback loop. Imagine a guy steals and gets caught. The authority, forgiving in nature, retrieves the stolen items but lets the perpetrator go without any consequences. For the thieve this was a zero-sum game. Hence he has no reason not to try again. Because in some cases he will win (not getting caught, being able to sell the stolen items) and sometimes he'll get caught, but due to the forgiving nature he won't lose anything. It's like a coin toss. If you lose 10 bucks for tail and only get 5 bucks for head you will intuitively not agree since it's a rigged game, without any chance of exceptional gain(exceptional gain is why lottery and roulette still get played). But if the situation is reversed, so you gain 10 and only lose 5 then you will play the game. Even if you lose sometimes, in the long run it's a profitable strategy. So the punishment for a crime needs to be harsh enough to deter sufficiently, in accordance with likelihood of being caught. And even if free will isn't absolute, the law would be part of the environmental factors which have an influence on your decision making. So I'd conclude that harsher punishment leads to less crime, even with a deterministic approach to the human mind. 2. If I understand you correctly, and do correct me if I'm wrong, feedback from our family, friends and co-workers are part of the environmental factors. And since decision making patterns evidently change with the individual getting older, these feedbacks have an impact. So giving constructive feedback, as well as punishment when necessary, can better an individuals actions towards society. Yet too much empathy and determinism can cause individuals to either feel good no matter their behaviour(due to empathy) or powerless in regard to changing their behaviour. Both can be used to excuse one's bad actions and to repeat them in the future. Regarding the physical/biochemical side of the argument: We often tend to view the laws of "nature" as absolute and exact in their predictions, e.g. classical physics(Newton, Galileo, Maxwell, etc) Yet we now know that there are uncertainties that we can not exactly predict on the subatomic level. A popular illustration being Schrödingers cat. We can't predict the exact moment of death and consequently we can't predict the state of the cat. We can only calculate the probability for its state over time. Why couldn't we suppose the same about human nature? I'm not going to pretend to understand quantum physics, their pure concept goes against my intuition. But since their discovery we had to accept a certain level of randomness in our world. That we cannot exactly predict everything. Maybe the future of neuroscience will proof me wrong. My argument is by no means perfect. But for as long as we don't know, I rather believe that I wrote this comment out of my free will and that nobody knew I would when I got up this morning. They may have predicted it with a certain level of certitude, due to my viewing patterns and previous comments, but they couldn't have been absolutely certain...

Yes it is fundamentally Udays fault and as well as the environment that shaped the creep, a-duuuh. It has nothing to do with how he made those decisions but that he did. The responsibility lay with him as well as with influencing contributors and participants.

This has got to be a joke. I understand the argument you are making, but not the conclusions you reach... you're saying that people shouldn't be held accountable for their actions which is the stupidest idea I've heard. You say to empathise with the psychopaths; how about empathising with their victims you heartless monster. Glad you're not governing our society.

One important distinction not made here is that there is a difference between being unable to empathize with others and with a mental incapacity to understand morality. There are some people whose brain chemistry is so altered from a normal state, or compromised by a physical trauma, that the literally can't form a rational basis to understand an acceptable action from an unacceptable one. These people are not criminals, they are ill, though society still needs to be protected from them. A criminal psychopath only lacks empathy, not the ability to recognize basic societal morality. A psychopath who kills someone knows that they are committing an act that has been deemed 'evil' and will lead to punishment if caught. They have the ability to remain law abiding citizens, and many psychopaths do as there are many vocational areas where their traits promote success. So if a psychopath kills, they are 100% responsible for the action and should not be shown leniency.

There's a difference between having free will in thoughts, or free will in actions. It may seem like you have total control of your thoughts, but if you go down to it and take a lower level view over what's going on, the very atomic pulse fired up from your neurons is not something you can control. Therefore, yes. We do not have free will, unless you train yourself to be subjective instead of objective. Question everything, including yourself and your very own existence.

This is interesting and may but I call BS on the general idea. The psychopath may not have a conscience based on empathy or emotion in the same way most people do but they still have free will. Instead of Uday Hussein choosing to torture and murder someone he could choose to do something (anything) else. He may not have any empathy for his victims but that doesn't matter. I have no empathy for the mosquito on my arm but I could choose to let it bite me instead of smacking it. Another point touched on in the video is how Uday Uday's upbringing may be a reason he shouldn't be blamed for his actions. I disagree. One's upbringing is to a certain extent out of his control but evil is more often a slippery slope than an on/off switch. Each of the little decisions we make every day pave the way for our future decisions. Our decisions and actions are often progressive. This is true for porn addicts and it's also true for serial killers.

Everyone is just a collection of particles and their positions in the future are predetermined by their original position. Why should a human have more free will than a rock? Both humans and rocks are collections of particles, and being more complex does not magically make these particles' future positions become determined by some spirit. However, this means pretty much nothing to us practically. This decision cannot affect our lawmaking or societal constructs logically as altering things because of this new knowledge would not be productive. At the level we observe, the complexity of the world must in some places be accounted to free will because of the sheer uncalculable depth of the physical system does not allow for any perfect predictions to be made. Free will and the Self are illusions of a collection of particles too stupid to understand reality.

If a criminal isn't morally wrong for murdering somebody because their brain is wired a particular way, aren't I not morally wrong for accusing them of being evil because my brain is also wired in a particular way?

Thank you.

At 4:07 : We harshly condemn criminals, from murderers to paedophiles. I think this is so wrong. Paedophiles aren´t criminals, child rapists are. It´s just as if i´d say heterosexuals are criminals, even though they didn´t rape anyone. Being sexually attracted to someone doesn´t mean you harm someone.

And here I expected for at least someone in the comments to at least bring up the concept of "souls." Other than myself, I haven't seen that yet.

Well at least you admit that killers still need to be locked up. Whether it's free will or not you can't have people running around doing whatever they want when it hurts others or society would collapse in on itself. Some can be re-educated or "repaired" but others cannot.

so we should let psychopaths do more bad things or we should stop them sending them to jail? we can't fix their minds at the moment

But you don't get it, empathy and our willingness to help others IS free will. There is no logical reason for why to help someone that you don't even know,(except for it feeling good maybe, but that's for another discussion) but yet we do it. Dude, free will isn't something that you can just simplify with todays knowledge of neuroscience. I've had dreams in my youth, where my brain would proceed to give me hints and knowledge on how to solve life-hampering problems. So here's ONE of my theories on how the brain works: there are *two* consciousnesses. I once had a dream that helped me get rid of all of my fears, JUST like that, it was a dream where i was put in hell and facing a MASSIVE wild boar, it came charging at me, but for no reason whatsoever i had the sudden impulse that staring it right in the eyes would stop it, and it did. As it turned around it said "you know me, now you are free!". My hopothesis is that this dream was induced by my subconsciousness to help me, and to give me relief of my fear. Even until this day, i rarely get afraid of anything, but back before then i was afraid of EVERYTHING. This isn't the only time i've had life-changing dreams, and i CERTAINLY hope there will be more times like it, because it really is a hint to that we're not all alone with ourselves. Btw ever had the sudden feeling when waking up that a whole lot of knowledge just passed your mind, but you didn't have time to remember any of it? Happened to me several times, and i think it's the brain trying to tell us that it's there and watching. If i'm the only one who's had these experiences, then i am truly a lucky man, because they have given me eternal wisdom and an unfathomable understanding of the human psyche. The human brain is the most technologically advanced being in the whole entire known universe, and trying to measure its capacities and capabilities with simple tests and instruments is just an insult to it's potential, it's like trying to fix a computer with hammer and nail: it's just too advanced for our tools, and we're not *there* yet. Stay open-minded, my fellow seekers of knowledge.

Please don't equate pedophiles to criminals. Innocent people get killed because of that confusion. The truth is, many if not most pedophiles are not child abusers, and most child abusers are not pedophiles. I implore you to be careful in your choice of words. You certainly don't want be like me, mourning the death of an innocent 16yo friend, because of ignorance and blind hatred.

Your videos are amazing!

The problem I have with this video is that "Free Will" hasn't been defined. If my subconscious mind is making a decision and relays it to my conscious mind, well, my subconscious is still a part of me so subconscious or not, it is still me making the decision. I am my brain so if my brain is making a decision then it is me making the decision. So what I am saying is you got to clearly define your terms before making a video like this, clearly defining what "Free Will" is would be a good start.

This doesn't actually defeat free will.

Recent studies actually show a Psychopaths' brain does light up when given images that would cause empathy in others. The problem is that it is the area of the brain related to enjoyment, satisfaction, etc. So psychopathic brains actually 'enjoy' or get a pleasure response to someone being hurt..........but if they logically understand it is wrong...then they are still choosing to do something that violates others Liberty which should have a punishment of some sort associated to the violation.

A very important and precise point has been put up.

I'm a firm believer in the illusion of free will as well. I talk openly about it with anyone when conversation flows into this space. It really amazes me that most people will not consider this as a possibility.

Some of your videos a good but I did not agree here. The conclusions were to far fetched. Maybe you just wanted to give a thought example. But if so, I think you should have said that. Still I really like some of your videos! Cheers

Love this video. Not enough people understand that free will is a lie. Everything we consciously think and do is predetermined by our subconscious thoughts, which are determined by our genes, environment/past experiences. Pull your heads out of your butts people.

The last statement off this video urging us to practice empathy presupposes free will. If we don't have free will, whether we practice empathy or not will be beyond our choice.

QUESTION: As for the button pressing experiment, why is that not free will? Why is the concept of free will limited to the one small area of your brain that governs consciousness, and not your entire brain? Your unconscious parts of your brain are still you, so I struggle to understand why it wouldn't still be considered your own will.

People can be psychopaths that are labeled bad for their actions but it all depends how you carry things out. A person influenced in crime wont always do the same things too. It all comes down to the choices we make and we put up with life. For example: Living in a poor family household may push someone to be very successful in which they do Another ex: Psychopaths may resent side effects of being psychotic so they try their best to do things that are normal

Definition of free will: the ability to do whatever you want. You can do whatever you want. You simply can't control what you want. But by the original definition we do have a form of free will.

can I get your permission to use this video in court?

People are too petty. It should be less about revenge, it should be about fixing the system. Justice is a dish best served cold, not hot with emotions and spite as if removing one monster will prevent the next. We simply need to find the monsters and make them disappear.

I want the music.

There is a follow up research that shows that if you prompt participants to decide again or change their mind, they become unpredictable by the same machines. And there is an entire issue with claiming the world is deterministic, because higher levels of physics currently can't show that as true for lower level particles. Can't argue with the need for empathy.

People that are dangerous, like psychopaths, don't need punishment. They just need to be out of the way of "non-violent" society and in a place where they can go about their daily lives without risk of harming other people. We need prisons to be that place. More like a mental institution than a criminal one. I would even suggest giving psychopaths games like GTA V to play so that they have an outlet for their desire to harm other people, rather than have them sit in a room all day and plot how they'll kill one of the guards or something.

My thoughts exactly but it does not support the thought that psychopaths aren't evil. Their behavior is evil, controled or not...But i love the way how this info in taunting our view on choices. Thanks for sharing.