Why is Free Will a Big Question? | Episode 1109 | Closer To Truth

Free will seems obvious, simple, common; but it's subtle, profound, maddening, Free will probes the deep nature of human existence. But big questions have big problems. Featuring interviews with Alfred Mele, Eddy Nahmias, Tim Bayne, Joshua Knobe, Bertram Malle, and Roy Baumeister.

Season 11, Episode 9 - #CloserToTruth

Closer To Truth host Robert Lawrence Kuhn takes viewers on an intriguing global journey into cutting-edge labs, magnificent libraries, hidden gardens, and revered sanctuaries in order to discover state-of-the-art ideas and make them real and relevant.

Closer to Truth presents the world’s greatest thinkers exploring humanity’s deepest questions. Discover fundamental issues of existence. Engage new and diverse ways of thinking. Appreciate intense debates. Share your own opinions. Seek your own answers.

#FreeWill #Consciousness Your source for the study of philosophy and college philosophy class materials.

[dennistucker]

I love discussions like this. Thank you CTT.

[daithiocinnsealach]

Glad to see the subscribers are climbing now that you guys have started uploading full length episodes.

[jeffamos]

My cat lives rent free and does not question free will. I have to pay the mortgage and wonder whether I have free will.

[simonhibbs]

I like the formulation that what matters is freedom of action. Early on Kuhn says he likes to think his choices are un-caused and that he could do otherwise, but those are two different things. His choices are caused by him - his memories, preferences, habits, beliefs and so on. Choices that don't come from these things aren't in any way ours. Trying to eliminate causality also eliminates ourselves as causing our actions, and therefore being responsible for them. But our mental state does have a cause, it's caused by our biology and our experiences in the world. There is simply, no getting away from this. Dualism or appeals to the supernatural don't actually address this point because a 'soul' or whatever is still a cause and is still us, it still has a state.

[thegremlinspoliticsoftheabsurd]

As myself a freethinker and a renaissance person, this conversation here is in a known territory to me. Thank you for the sharing of those critical thoughts.🙏

[AnnoyingMoose]

You can choose a ready guide
In some celestial voice
If you choose not to decide
You still have made a choice
You can choose from phantom fears
And kindness that can kill
I will choose a path that's clear
I will choose free will - Geddy Lee / Alex Lifeson / Neil Peart

[dogwithwigwamz.]

I first read about Free Will and Behaviorism when I was in my late 20`s. I was impressed by its very persuasive declarations. I wish I could remember the names of those couple of Psychologists that asserted its vaule according to them, and wonder what kind of world this would be if societies adhered to its maxims. As far as I rememeber there is no `personal agent / actor` but only an environment which acts through an organism which in our case is a human one. Essentially it removes all culpability.

[garruksson]

The past is determined, the future is open to possibilites determined by the present. Contingency swallows us all in our movement and necessitates itself, this is our freedom. I am not free to think, something else drives it. Yet I am able to relate to this otherness of thinking and reflect on what the thinking means. What could we think, what can we create. Everything is creating, everything is unity, everything escapes itself, everything is free because of its limits.

[ChrisDragotta]

We don't necessarily experience ourselves as creatures with free will.

It does seem like that at times, though.

[patrickfitzgerald]

Pragmatically the question is whether or not anyone can make a truly unfettered choice. Given that all of us are 99.99% social constructs, and .01% individuals, the pragmatic answer is almost always no.

[robertfoertsch]

Amazing, Added To My Research Library, Sharing Through TheTRUTH Network...

[michaelbartlett]

Any action, no matter how small or seemingly inconsequential that validates ANY free will validates ALL free will.

[stoneysdead]

I think the reason we see someone as having freely done something if that something is morally wrong- is because if we decide something is morally wrong, then there has to have been a morally right alternative. Otherwise, we wouldn't attach morality to it at all- it's not morally right if it's the only action that can be taken- because even an immoral person would've taken it, it was the only option and thus didn't require a choice. For an action to be moral there has to be an immoral alternative- and thus for it to be immoral, there has to be a moral alternative. So yeah- once you attach morality to it, you're implying a choice was made. And of course, we see killing anyone- but especially someone you love and are close to- as immoral.
It also doesn't help that you say "He doesn't see anything but his wife..." because that suggests maybe if he had looked around- he would've seen something else. It makes it sound like he grabbed her prematurely, out of fear, and just chucked her over. I wonder if you really stressed to ppl that even after looking around really good- she really was the only option- and then you also said their children were on board- see, changes things huh? Now he's a hero again- "honey, I saved the kids..." I bet all the sudden- he was forced again- had no choice, gotta save the kiddies. See what they're really doing is looking at the value of his choices- if they don't value the choice he made- then he made it freely because it's not what they would've done. But if they agree with his choice then to them- there was no real choice, that's exactly what they would've done- or any decent person.

[bozo]

Free will has nothing to do with accountability. You can have the same standards for accountability with or without free will, and with or without knowing whether free will exists. (Proof: we do.)

[sambolino]

It seems to me that the only reason free will is a big question is that, by reasoning, we have deduced that the world is deterministic, but that goes against our feelings. What I don't understand, though, is how so many great thinkers, who have no problem imagining quantum effects, multiple dimensions, even multiple universes, all mind-boggling, counter-intuitive ideas nevertheless struggle with the idea that we don't have free will, simply because it really, really feels like we do have free will. Or because they've gone down some illogical path like "If the universe is deterministic, then we have no moral authority to put someone in jail for murder." Nonsense!
I think of it like multiple dimensions. They exist, but on a scale so far from the 3 (or 4) that we perceive of daily that we cannot interact with them in any perceptible way. So, in day to day life, of course we have to act as if we have free will; every experience we've had has shown us that actions have consequences, that we are responsible for our actions, etc. But, I have no problem accepting that, beyond the realm of day-to-day life, when you are speculating about philosophical subjects like "is the universe infinite?" and "are we living in a simulation?" then, yeah, the universe appears to be deterministic, which seems to imply that, in some sense, we do not, in fact have free will.
I have no problem separating the idea that I don't have free will on a philosophical level from the idea that when it comes to deciding how to act, I still have to make decisions, I can't just roll the dice every time. Am I alone in this?

[celalalagoz]

Free will in organism level is to choose what to eat. Free will in human level is to choose to ask... Where the food is coming from? Where is the taste coming from? Deep thinkers notice that they don't make the digestion happen. They then ask.. Who makes the digestion? How come I am made in need of food? How come there is a harmony between the food, my sense of taste, my feeling of gratitude, and more importantly, my ability to question and seek for an explanation. Ones who choose to stay as an organism take the existence aspect of things as granted and see the events as "just happening" by skipping the question of the causation. They make up jargon like "naturally happening, happening by itself, emerging this way, evolving that way, .." just to avoid to question how things happen. For them, the life is a matter of chasing the pleasure and avoiding the pain and after all life being a struggle, rivalry to consume, and gaining the power because all depends on the power not truth, purpose, harmony and meaning... Here is a two options just opposite to each other in crystal clear form. Which way to choose.. I am free.. Everyone decide for themselves.. I respect freedom. But I can't respect lying, deception, oppression, and obstinacy.

[melmill]

I wish we could get these without commercials. I like listening as I fall asleep and listening to commercials disrupts the flow.

[bozo]

The question is whether nature is deterministic, and/or how completely deterministic it is. If determinism is true or mostly true, then it's game over for free will, no matter how you (inevitably) feel about it.

[imranbug]

Freewill is a feeling inside the mind, just like love & hate, all these feelings exists and that is the truth, but doesn't mean that they imply anything beyond then what they are in them self.

[HouseofRecordsTacoma]

Free Will is the ability to choose. Ego skews the line between good & bad.