Determined: Robert Sapolsky on Life without Free Will. A Conversation with HG Moeller

Your free will is real, you are making your own choices, and of course they are determined! What is the problem? It is a relatively simple paradox.

Better to reference John Searle rather than Peterson who is not an authority on this subject. Sapolsky spouts an extreme form of scientism.
Searle answers all his points with interest.
Very disappointing. His book will soon gather dust.

Turtles all the way down is a poor response in the first place. An even worse analogy for freewill.

"Just because a system isn't predictable that doesn't mean it isn't determined." That's a critical point I've been missing. I almost understand this now. 😃

Great conversation thanks for taking the time to put this together. I too adopted determinism at a young age it fits in well with the philosophical pessimism plaguing young men growing up. The definition I've cobbled together for myself goes something like this... Even though the universe is singularly deterministic the particle/wave dualism created at the moment the singularity dissolved into discrete particles provides the illusion of choice. The paradox remains but the point becomes moot because in real life there are no winners, those of us who are forced to play soon realize the truth… When you succeed and get what you want it ultimately produces boredom, and when you fail you suffer. The worse cut of all is at rest the most you can hope to gain is a moment of painless solace. Remember though, it’s all a mere illusion, however tenacious and persistent.

I think it would be good to distinguish free will in short run and free will in long run. In short run it seems to make sense that we don't have much choice. For eg me becoming a philosopher tomorrow. Obviously it is impossible. But let's say I want to become a philosopher 20 yrs from now , I do have some control to direct myself towards that goal. I don't know. But It is a wonderful interview. I thank the host for making it available.

Yeah, right - emergent complexity - Ok, Robert. Could the troll that lives in my phone beep any louder?
Couldn't emergence theory cover the "uncaused cause" - a cause that has emerged independently from its building blocks?
Thanks (?) for sharing. 🙂

I wrote this elsewhere (with edits):

To the compatibilists/determinists: It's a probabilistic universe if it's infinite. (It's not just classical mechanics.)

You are trying to apply determinism/finiteness to a probabilistic/infinite universe.

The problem with causality is that infinity (and quantum instantaneousness) breaks it, fundamentally, because you cannot go far back enough to determine all the initial conditions (that lead to you/your behavior) because there are none with infinity!

Infinity breaks determinism.

To add: The Uncertainty Principle suggests that you cannot say for certain that we have no free will.

To add for this video's context: Sure, you have no control in some senses, like classical mechanics (upbringing, gravity, etc.), but not necessarily from a fundamental/quantum sense. The universe goes beyond classical mechanics. Think also of 'spooky action at a distance.' This doesn't appear causal, but, rather, instantaneous.

If the universe created you, then so did infinity if the universe is infinite.

Weird that he never heard a biologist talk of autopoiesis ...

I always love how determinists sweat to make me choose determinism.

The example of 'Perfect Pitch' is rather interesting as it has been found that many musicians who are also speakers of East Asian languages (which often have a strong tonal element), demonstrate a higher frequency of pitch discernment. Should we assume that speakers of East Asian 'tonal' languages are better at hearing pitch because of their language experience - or should we assume that East Asian tonal languages are such due to the speakers being biologically more adept to hearing pitch?
The casual simplicity that Mr. Sapolosky uses the example of 'perfect pitch' with is a far too simplistic - to the point of being misleading that things are so cut and dry.

Also, while there is no inherent issue with accepting that our upper limits of skill are biologically 'capped' - how many of people have really put in the time and effort to truly reach those limits (Olympic level athletes perhaps?)? To dismiss the notion of 'working hard' as 'fairy dust' (how else would one know unless they try to find those limits?) and also consider the admiration of people who do so as misplaced admiration - is quite odd and out of touch with reality to the effort and time commitment required of any human to even become adept at something as trivial as tying their shoes, walking, or learning to speak - even more with the self- discipline and self-sacrifice required to achieve advanced knowledge/skill in any field. No, the effort and time required to coordinate multiple biological potentials into a single expression of skill is highly significant.

'Free Will' or "Not' (To be or not to be :P) , is not really something worth worrying about too much in-and-of itself. What ever the truth of the matter is stands regardless of our thoughts about it. However, it is of considerable concern the leaps of 'logical conclusions' some may make should they be fully convinced of either position without the highest standards of evidence.

Seems, that at this point in the conversation - both sides are making assumptions about what lies behind the 'Chaotic & Unpredictable' that lies outside of intellectual certainty.

'I don't know' is the purist expression of integrity.

Ask him if the j-s were pre-determined to be holocausted next time

Petersen is an intrigant manipulator 😢 .His succes is huge because he use this inflamatory language like people are bad snakes , you should hate everyone , all bad things happend to you are the cause of others...

The intro cracks me up. "It's an uphill battle to"... convince people they can't be convinced, because to be convinced evinces free will, which doesn't exist. If only people knew they couldn't make choices, they'd make better choices. Science.

It's like the emergent globalist collective saying your sins might possibly be forgiven if you keep doing exactly what it wants you to.

The gulags will be full of people who realise they should have asserted their right to their own free will rather than that of the Sapolsky people.

And what about cases where we chose smth we viscerally don't want because, say, we are morally compelled to do so? I think this is a 'transcendental idea' or how was Kant referring to those. And I think that believing in free will is useful even if you can't prove it's existence. Somewhat like Kant thought that one should believe in god even if there is no way to prove its existence. I am not religious, but it does seem lately that most people are, even if they choose something other than going to church.

Free will evolved as an emergent property of human intelligence, duh.

"its not made of magic stuff" everything which Carefree Wandering (by this guy's logic) would be talking about like for example the Authenticity, Sincerity and the double bind theory - none of which are identical to atoms or any particles. Pretty cringe sophistry.

Of course he is jewish.

He didn't write his own book then. He owns no rights to his book. Its a product of the collective determination of everything so the rights to his own book belong to anyone who claims to be the writer of his book. They aren't? Oh I guess thats because he is a person who had the free will to write it. Its his intellectual property.

Who cares about individuals though am I right? Oh wait.

I am in agreement with Sapolsky, but like him I struggle to see how I can significantly change so many ingrained assumptions. I think of quantum mechanics which I accept tells me all matter is mostly space and yet my day to day experience of it remains classically mechanical.

Is "free" the same as "unrestricted"? If you have limited options to choose from, does that mean your choice is determined ?

You thought Jordan Peterson was interesting to talk to? Um..

Is the belief in determinism ITSELF determined? Sheesh
Stop hiding behind ambiguities and ignoring self-reference
issues in universal and reductive claims.

No free will means there's not a self to own such a thing, or anything, including the opposite of such things, i.e. no free will. There's no humunculus in the machine, to have free will or not.

Our Turtles are Exploding!! 😱

What does this guy have to say about near-death experiences of that woman that was underwater for 10 minutes and was told that her son would die in one year. What does he say about that? Check it out online. She was a doctor you'll find her

Stop with Freewill Already!

This interview has clarified a point I've been missing this whole. time. Randomness does not equal free will. Thanks professor for honing on that. Other interviews of him and even reading his book (glancing mostly) didn't made this clear.

"Hey man, your brakes aren't to par. Can't drive this car."

"Bit i have to get to work...i can't not drive this car."

"Sorry, just the way it's gotta be."

Here's my point.

Do you want to be right, or do you want to make meaningful change.

Hot take: the vast majority of humans will never accept determinism.

Another hot take: the vast majority of humans will never believe you can be born in the wrong body.

Robert made it a point to bring up gender, he literally just asked anyone who doesn't agree to turn off the stream.

These aren't the days where people hear something they disagree with and listen forever to see if you have a point.

They don't care.

They plug their ears when they hear this. And i voted for Biden in 2024.I THINK HE WOULD'VE BEAT TRUMP OVER KAMALA!

Im that guy.

Tell me I'm wrong.

Keep talking out both sides your mouth and in 4 years you'll wish you messaged me on your PR team.

What about the subjective free will? You can't escape making choices in your mind. There is no way to "ask" the brain to decide for yourself and get a response. Subjectively speaking, you have to go through the process of decision making. How to marry the objective absence of free will with the subjective necessity of free will?

I think it's really important moving forward that people do understand and accept that we don't have free will.

To say that something "emerge from complexity or chaos" is also recurring to magic. Fisicalism, cientificism, magicsm.
The problem is reductionism.

What you’re talking about is the concept of dharma. The duty to adhere to and participate in one’s circumstances.

The presupposition of the concept is what you’re discussing as determinism.

All the intellectual contribution of Dr. Robert Sapolsky is this nothing burguer?

Every time I hear him talk, I get no more than a few sentences in and hear him defying his own theory with the things he says: “without free will, I have no idea how we’re supposed to live.” What do you mean “supposed to?” Isn’t your life already determined? Aren’t you obligated to live the way you do? If there is only one set of actions you will take for the rest of your life, how could you possibly be “supposed to live” any other way? Why would you even waste any time figuring out what you’re supposed to do if you have no choice. I think it’s much more than semantics. I think, your own explanation reveals a major flaw in the theory. I think the application of your theory defies the premise. We have no free will, so here is what we should do, instead of the alternative. How is there an alternative if the premise is true?

Read P. W. Anderson's "More Is Different"

logical fallacy: serotonin level based on “gene” mutation predicts future behavior — different levels of description. molecular level one description translates to behavior description. no way.

Thank you both for this! I find that discussions on free will are so messy because they blur phenomenology and the complex, chaotic systems that exist beyond our noses (and behind them, funny enough). I think by just focusing on the conditions and not the experiential aspect some real clarity is gained, but some important pieces are lost. I find Dr. Sapolsky's approach to be harmonic with Marx's dialectical method, and benefits the latter with heightened granularity toward the various material conditions than what was available during Marx's time (biology, neuroscience, etc.). Parts of the discussion reminded me of a bit of Wilhelm Reich's analysis of the failure of the SPD and KPD to consider ideology and culture as a material condition that attenuated the interests of the German proletariat; they struggled to calculate the emergent complexity of the time, to borrow terms from Dr. Sapolsky.

I think Dr. Sapolsky is objectively correct about a lot of things, which is a benefit of his method, and it's helpful to elide phenomenology and focus on the myriad conditions because you can actually work with them. It does seem however that in doing so it creates a parallel conversation since I get the sense that most people are very much so engaging with the idea of free will from a more phenomenological perspective.

I can demonstrate this with an issue I have with the analogy of the captain of the ship; I think the analogy is a tad reductive and almost inoperable per its internal logic because his framework makes no space for the phenomenology of the captain. I think if he allowed room for the experiential it could be a more load-bearing structure, it might look more like the captain having no real clue what could happen because of emergent complexity. For example his crew could engage in a mutiny, all get scurvy, the gunpowder could explode under deck, there could be a hurricane, or their navigator might have made a slight error and they end up in a port several miles away from their original course. Similarly, if I leave the house to drive to work, I don't know if the bridge I'm crossing will collapse due to not being regularly maintained, the causes for the lack of maintenance, or any of the other horrible disasters that happen on the highway that could somehow involve me. I get what he means of course, I'm not trying to be obtuse, but the analogy makes less sense than it could due to the way that the discussion of free will, let alone will itself, is sterilized of experience for the sake of objectivity by means of depersonalizing the captain. The driver or the captain is, of course, not an entirely free agent but they drive or sail all the same.

None of what I wrote is particularly novel, might seem facile, and Dr. Sapolsky may have addressed it elsewhere. I wrote it anyway because while this maximalist position on its own has some shortcomings, I find it very much welcome nonetheless since free will seems to be the dominant position within society to the preclusion of the recognition of emergently complex conditions. I've seen it in my clinical work whereby clients are able to make better decisions when confronted with additional information, or come to understand contextual factors they may not have been aware of. I basically think it's not "free will" but rather "will with a lot of conditions".

I've got to the point where I don't actually know what is meant by "free will". I've only ever thought of it as the ability to make choices based on conscious deliberation. I'm not sure whether the claim here is that we don't really have that ability, or that we do but that isn't free will. If the latter, then I really don't know what "free will" is supposed to be.

If everything is determined but outcomes can not be predicted without exact "context", then nothing is determined.

Amazing convo! Love both of you!