The History of Free Will

Do we really make choices or our behaviour is predetermined? The debate from antiquity to our days.

From the ancient Greeks to the present-day, philosophers have debated whether we have the capacity to freely choose between possible alternatives paths or whether our apparent choices have already been determined long ago by our nature and upbringing. We’ll trace the long history of the debate and outline its present state today.

[brokinsage]

I've watched 50-100 of these lectures, and this is the first one I've heard that they had to tell someone to leave, and it's about free will. Interesting!

[tcikovsky]

If anyone finds the second part, a link would be really helpful. Also if anyone knows that it doesn't exist for some reason I would appreciate even that information.

[LynnJung]

I really liked this and I'm so glad I've come across this channel.

[happinesstan]

Just because we're making decisions doesn't mean the will is free. Especially when choices are so easily contrived.

[coaching.kristyna]

Hi, Thank you very much for this lecture! and I would like to ask if there is any chance to find the second part?

[gingerapple]

I wish my college professors would have called out people talking during the lecture like this. 🙌

[hcfornwalt]

In many of these lectures, the interruptions from the audience are a distraction. In this particular lecture, they were really good. I don't mean the guy they had to kick out. Shaheen always gives smart comments.

[Faab]

Great lecture, and if you would like to have a great view by a primatologist/neurologist to make it a more complete story adding the biological level, then take a look at the work of Robert Sapolsky. He has a very outspoken view on it which is supported by his writings.

[ncarmstron]

I wonder why this topic, which seems central to Christianity, has so few views. I find it fascinating stuff.

[h.astley]

It is not only the case that we aren’t free, but that *nothing that exists can possibly be free*. To exist, to have a definition, is to be subject to limits and constraints. All that is free is the hypothetical - indeed, freedom itself is hypothetical !

[happinesstan]

Let's start at the beginning.
What is a path?

[charlestownsend]

3:45ish, when it comes to determinism, if we start the universe again with the exact same starting conditions, what reason do we have to think that the same causes would trigger different effects?

That's just a completely natural view on determinism, it gets even less likely that free will exists with an all knowing god because knowing the future makes everything before the furthest observed point fixed and the past.

[kathrine]

even if we have free will, is not the same as we have full control. so we can maybe use our free will here and there, but can't be certain it will happen.

[happinesstan]

If the product is free then YOU are the product.

[eodiete]

If oedipus parents had not been informed of the date and they raised oedipus as their son wouldn’t he have reacted the same way he did in Corinth to any suggestion of killing his father and marrying his mother and in consequence avoid the fate

[happinesstan]

What if the prisoner decided to stay because freedom is never given. It is only ever taken away.

[happinesstan]

In all honesty, I'm beginning to question the reality of any division between free will and determinism. Free will, as far as I'm aware, has it's origins in god. And the argument for god is an argument for intelligent design. I don't see how determinism is an alternative to an argument for intelligent design.

[hombreesloco]

He had will to pull the cell door but he didn’t so it doesn’t matter

[jimmie]

We should not concede to this modern determinalistic idea of free will the two concepts don't even mesh. Of course modern definition of free will is inaccurate. Modern concept of free will requiring fate, destiny and or materialistic constraints is an insult to the basic idea of free will. Let's make it simple using even the definitions that make up the compound word that is free will: to have your abilities to wish, desire, choose or intend not be under the control of or in the power of another. If those abilities are not controlled by another.... we have free will... why complicate it by attempting to mesh the two completely opposite concepts?

[donwolff]

Dang...I was just so ready to give kudos until here in this lecture...let me begin though with the kudos so you might perhaps glimpse my sincerity. I have listened to a great many lecture series, on line courses, and read so much as to bleed vast alphabets from my eyes, and of them all, I wanted to state that you guys are doing exceptionally well in trying to present the truth and educate your congregation on the facts. We all can't help but slant things towards our own pov, but you have taken the effort to minimize such distortions. There are so many denominations that have no ethical concern for presenting falsity as truth, that it becomes refreshing even uplifting to come across such a noble island floating amidst the dark seas of torrential obfuscation that it warns the heart of the secular and tells him there remains hope.
Now for the issue. Philosophy was not the cause for the absence of discussion in free will. It was christianity. Once they got in power it became a convert or die situation as all other belief were outlawed and one need only check history and population percentile reports on the influence of religion to support this. Once in power they went on the great purge and not only were people set to flame but so were books..anything and just about everything that didn't flee to the east and that Christians couldn't find use for was burned. There were over a thousand schools at the time, , all crushed by christianity and churches built over the tops of then. So devastating was the purge that every other activity ground to a halt just about. The investigation of biology, water and light dynamics, machinery, and complex mechanics, , even the advent of steam power, medicine, astronomy, surgery and of course philosophy were murdered in their cribs by Christianity. For the idea of what was lost and who was responsible for that loss, simply add up all the Philosophers who we still know about (I would double that number but matters not to results) that existed between say 400bce to 400ce, then add up the number of Philosophers from 400ce to say 1600ce when Christianity held the power over Europe, and then do the same from 1600 to present. Then dived by the years in that set and the truth reveals itself. Once more, , show me which institution, , the church or philosophy that made it punishable by torture and death to propagate any idea contrary to its own sacred dogma.. Oh to have eyes to see, ears to hear, and mind enough to understand.
Despite this, once again I will refer back to the first paragraph and state your presentations are some of the best available, and I hope you persist in doing as you have done, for there shines through more truth in what you say in one line than the volumes most others speak.. Best of grace and luck to you.