Michael Shermer explains why Sam Harris and Robert Sapolsky are WRONG about free will.

In this clip, Michael Shermer explains why Sam Harris and Robert Sapolsky are wrong about free will appealing to compatibilism.

#freewill
#samharris
#robertsapolsky
#reason
#science

[willbox]

Believing (and it is a belief) in free will creates a lot of barriers to true understanding and awareness, especially where compulsions, addictions etc are concerned. E.g people chop and change on whether something happened because of their 'will' depending on the outcome. Understanding automaticity and unconscious compulsion is simply a far purer route to understanding many other things. The free will belief is a barrier in the same way religious belief is a barrier to understanding 'good' and 'evil'.

[ataraxia]

Sam Harris and Robert Sapolskys definition of free will isn't dependent on whether you could recreate an event or if you're part of a network of causes or if your current circumstances are new or not, it's dependent on whether or not one could make a different choice even if everything beyond their control was the same to which they would both answer no.

[SubKrypt]

Michael clearly doesn't understand what Sam is saying in relation to free will. Even if Michael's point of "nothing will happen exactly the same if we rewind time and play it back", it would just mean that the person making decisions in the new/current situation would be subject to the same process of non-free-will in that new context.

[chadreilly]

Compatibilism is so wack. This is pure gibberish

[jeff]

For me weather we live in a determined universe (we do) or not is irrelivant. We do not exist at the subatomic level. We live as living breathing human beings with the ability to think, feel, and make concious choices and we organize society according to the latter. If I take out a mortgage and default on it I cannot use the determinisim defense when the bank comes to foreclose on me.

[JSfer-]

As an evolutionary biologist the more know in this field the more I tend to agree with Robert Sapolsky.
I do not think most people understand the argument of Robert Sapolsky. What Sapolsky argues is that you can predict the behavior of a person at a given moment, if you know all the the variables at that specific moment, including the genetics, genes being expressed at that moment, the environmental context at that moment, the physiology at that moment, etc...

By the way, it is a shame that most discussions about free will focus about Sam Harri's argument which is full of flaws and inconsistencies. The best argument is by far the one proposed by Robert Sapolsky.

[mokamo]

Shermer is consistent; he's wrong about virtually every viewpoint he takes.

[georgekuchma]

The fact that you sit there wearing headphones to me means none of what you say is legitimate, Your bla bla bla is meaningless. I say all this because my prefrontal cortex thus did process the whole presentation,

[Assassin]

Wow that is so funny he totally didn't say anything that makes sense. Sam Harris and Robert Sapolsky said if you where born exactly like another person, with exact same outcome. Then your actions would be the same. This is just a hypothesis. They never said this can happen!


"You can learn from your actions" Yes of course you can!
Who said we couldn't
He just doesn't get it.

Let me put it this way.
Let say you deside to buy two groceries on the supermarket the other day and when you came out. You bought 5. If I asked you If this was your free will, most likely you would say yes.

But let say this store has now a very clever AI, that analyses every single purchase you have ever done in your life in that store. What kind of food you prefure, what is your favorite chocolate. On a exact time of the day, the AI can determine what you most likely will choose in this store.
And people don't realise, that our memory is very poor. We also get distracted all the time, so let say in that supermarket. You stood in line, and desided to buy a snickers bar near the counter. You don't remember that chilhood memory when you tried it that lovely day. And all those emotions with it.
You visited your grandmother and she gave it to you, you just FEEL connected to that bar, you grab for it.

And let say this AI can predetermine with a very high accuracy what you will buy and not buy on a specific part of the day, of the week, of the year, so then you will get discounts directed to your favorite items.
Why do you think they have snickers bar near the waiting line. The way supermarkets are build is a big science. And the more connected we are to technology the easier we can be targeted to certain types of products in any given moment.

Before you enter the store. Then the question is, do you really have free will then?. When someone can predict what you will do beforehand?
To say you have free will, is like saying you don't get affected by commercials. The truth is, of course we do. We just don't realise it.

[ATOK_]

I think Sam makes a much better case for his side

[PlankySmith]

This is a really bad representation of the compatiblist position.

[naturalisted]

Please have Thomas W. Clark on. He speaks on determinism a lot. Plus his essay, "Death, Nothingness and Subjectivity" is very interesting (Sam Harris did a podcast episode on it - The Paradox of Death).

[thsc]

I wish, for once, that experts discussing free will would define it. Coherently. And if we have free will, doesn't that mean that we are miraculously able to do things that run in place of the normal worldly course of everything happening due to immediately antecedent conditions? How do we get around those conditions? ("Here, a miracle occurs.")

Also, where on the evolutionary scale do creatures besides man stop having free will? My cat will choose between two foods I put out, so it would appear she can make a decision between two options and probably has as much free will as many people in certain situations.

On the other hand, if I put two goldfish foods in different ends of the tank and my goldfish clearly shows a preference for one, is it exercising free will or simply following a primitive law of attraction?

Single cell organisms may choose to head toward a light source. A plant may bend toward a window, too. Why is this question always framed about mankind?

[umblnc]

What is this guy talking about, he doesn't understand determinism at all? He is arguing against something that Sam never said.

[MrJetmech]

This is very easy: if you assess and conclude you have free will, then you do. If you believe you do not, then you do not. How can you assign thoughts to another person? Sam Harris and Sapolsky BELIEVE they have reasoned it out...they have not. Ever thought that SOME have free will and others do not???