Consciously Unmasked #4: Free Will: Choice or Illusion?

In this thought-provoking episode, we dive deep into one of philosophy’s biggest questions: Do we truly have free will, or is everything predetermined? From ancient philosophical debates to modern neuroscience, we explore different perspectives on whether our choices are our own or just the result of complex biological and environmental forces.
Join us as we break down the arguments for and against free will, discuss its implications for morality and responsibility, and examine how recent scientific discoveries might reshape the way we think about human agency.
Is free will real, an illusion, or something in between? Tune in and decide for yourself.
Note: Video in the first couple video clips are choppy, but we corrected it.
Outro: ”Goodnight, Sweetheart, Goodnight” – This score is in public domain and may be freely downloaded, printed, and performed. The sound file may be downloaded for personal use. For more information see https://lincolnlibraries.org/polley-music-library/

Transcript:

(0:00) The following is a conversation between DropTheMaskPod and Knocked Conscious. (0:07) Together, they are Consciously Unmasked. They discuss free will.Next. (0:14) Sir, how are you, man? (0:16) I am great. It’s good to be here.I didn’t realize we were live already. (0:19) Sorry for talking over you. (0:21) That’s okay.It’s a whole point. But did you choose to talk over me? (0:27) I did not choose. And that’s what we’re talking about today, man.Free will. (0:33) You sent me this video of Robert Sapolsky talking about free will, and that sparked (0:39) a whole rabbit hole of deep dives and back and forth. And we decided to talk about it today (0:46) with you guys.(0:49) So we’ve got a lot of people coming on here. I got to actually get into the comments section (0:54) because I know that Justin will be joining us. We got a couple other people, but (0:57) right now we’re at zero.So we’ll just wait until we get the first person on here, (1:01) but we’ll kind of warm it up, get it kind of zhuzhed. But basically, the general concept is, (1:09) can we choose to do what we do? Or is it already going to happen regardless of our choice? (1:19) And just that question alone opens up the floodgates, man. Like you said, (1:25) it was like, I just came across this video.I sent it to you and it’s like, (1:28) rabbit hole time. And we just started diving deep into that rabbit hole. (1:34) So we started pulling up all kinds of stuff.So, all right. So everybody who’s going to be (1:39) joining us, welcome. We really appreciate it.And Serge, would you like to start with the (1:46) general portions of free will and how this goes or how would you like to start? (1:50) Yeah, man. I think we could start with why. Why does it matter? Because when people do something, (1:57) it’s usually unexpected or usually when it’s unexpected, we kind of ask ourselves, why? (2:02) Why did they do that? What was the reason? We even do that to ourselves, which is another (2:07) interesting concept when you think about it.And that in itself could spark a whole other (2:11) conversation. We’re asking ourselves why we did something, why we all do things we (2:18) know are wrong or bad for us. We do things that make no sense.But what our brains will do is (2:24) rationalize these actions after the fact. And I think if you paid any kind of attention to (2:29) psychology or human behavior, if you listen to Scott Adams, for example, you’ve certainly heard (2:34) that. That should not be a surprise, right? We agree on this so far? Anything we’re missing? (2:40) No, it’s funny.I was holding up my finger because I cut my finger cutting a bagel yesterday, (2:46) two days ago. And I was cutting it in a very weird way because my girlfriend makes, (2:53) she makes baked goods, like homemade bagels. Now, I would not even call it a downside, (3:01) but the only difference is they are not the same perfect shape as like a donut maker.(3:07) So they are bagel shape, but they’re, you know, a little thin up here or whatever. So I’m cutting (3:12) it and holding it, trying to keep it even and level. I’m like, I’m going to gash my finger.(3:17) I’m going to gash my finger. And I’m going slowly around. Sure enough, I gash my finger, (3:23) throw down the knife.And I’m like, I knew I was going to do that. I knew that was going to happen, (3:29) you know? And there I am freaking out. There’s a great example of, did I choose to do that the (3:35) whole time knowing I was going to do that? I could have stopped cutting it that way and cut (3:38) it a different way.So many different things really. But I ended up doing exactly what I (3:43) thought I was going to do regardless. Yep.That’s, so was it free will? Did you choose to do that? (3:53) You know, it’s funny because I’m like, I need to stop cutting it this way. I need to stop cutting (3:57) it this way. I’ve shared some stuff with you and I’ve shared stuff with you before.And I’ve, (4:02) you know what I mean? Like when I go against my intuition, I’ve actually had like places where (4:07) I need to change the lane and there’s no reason for it, but there’s like a trash can up ahead. (4:14) You know, they’re doing like trash day and it just happens to be like just sticking out and I hit it (4:19) with my mirror and it’s like, son of a gun. I knew I was supposed to move over, but I didn’t, (4:23) you know, kind of thing.And I, you know, it happens a lot for me, but it probably happens (4:28) to everyone, you know, phone calls, you pick up the phone or you’re thinking about somebody, (4:31) they call, did you will that to happen? Did they will, you know what I mean? Like, how did that, (4:36) how did those things happen? There’s a lot we don’t understand for sure. Yeah. There does seem (4:44) to be some kind of precognition happening.So when we talk about free will, we kind of know (4:50) that we’re not always in control. I think we kind of all accept that to some degree, right? (4:58) Not everything’s exactly in our control, or at least it doesn’t seem like it is. (5:02) And I’m not ready to make a conclusion whether we have free will or not, but it does matter (5:07) in the sense of how we understand each other, how we treat each other.Are people consciously (5:13) making decisions that piss us off, or are they just wired to do what they do? And we should give (5:19) them some grace. And we also know, and I think this is pretty widely recognized and not controversial, (5:25) that people’s upbringing and culture play a big part in who you are as a person. There’s always (5:31) a battle between nature and nurture, right? Like, is that something you were born with? Or was it (5:36) something that you learned along the way in your life? But both of those things are largely on the (5:41) side against free will.Like, neither of those things happen by your choice. So is there something (5:48) else going on that shapes who we are as individuals? What do you think? Yeah, so that’s a great question. (5:55) Something you bring up, genetics and biology.We may have talked about it, but I definitely (6:01) talked about it on another podcast. Something about 57% of people would commit, were criminals, (6:09) even though they were adopted and brought up in a different household. It’s just a slightly 51-49 (6:15) leaning towards biology deciding.Deciding is really hard to say, right? Because you’re giving (6:22) it personification of some sort, but compelling or driving that individual to be a certain way. (6:29) And it seems to be just a little bit biological. Obviously, nurture would make sense.I’m sure (6:35) we’re going to bring this up, but Sam Harris talks about Hussein’s son, right? It’s like, (6:40) the dude was a bad dude. How did he grow up? He grew up as a son of Saddam freaking Hussein, (6:46) you know what I mean? So it’s also Saddam Hussein, and he grew up under Saddam Hussein. (6:52) Just imagine how much that would be multiplied, for example.(6:57) Absolutely. So yeah, I don’t think that’s controversial at all. A lot of who we are has (7:02) to do with how we’re raised.Some of it’s genetic. Some of it happened before we’re even born. So (7:09) again, both of those things really not in our control.So does that bring us to, (7:15) do we have free will or not? Well, that’s a little bit more loaded because (7:21) this is just the nature of nurture, right? That we’re talking about actually going, (7:26) you as an individual, meeting a situation where you have the choice and the means to make a (7:32) different decision, and you make a decision. And the question is, was that decision always (7:40) going to happen regardless of what you thought? I mean, great example is instinct. If you drop (7:47) something, you reach to catch it.You don’t even think that you have zero, you realize that you (7:53) caught it milliseconds after you like looking at it in your hand already. And then your brain (7:59) catches up and plays, oh, you dropped it and you reached and caught it. It’s like that stuff just, (8:06) it wasn’t conscious yet, right? Yeah.But when it does happen, then you feel like really good (8:12) about yourself. You’re like, oh, look at my reflexes. I’m so great.But really, was it you? (8:17) Or is it something else motivating that action? That’s what we’re going to get into today. (8:24) Yeah, exactly. So, and the great point is why does it matter? Like ultimately, why does it matter? (8:30) Because I have some feelings about, as we look at some of these philosophies, the way to, like we (8:36) talked about better for humanity, right? What’s the best course of action for humans to be to each (8:41) other, right? We, you and I have different ideas and some people who think government should have (8:46) more of a role or something like that.But I look at some of these mindsets and I go, (8:51) if this is what you think, the only way to fix something is through force. (8:58) The only way to like fix it would be to actually like have to actively compel someone to do. (9:04) It’s beyond coercion, in my opinion, like you’re not going to coax them, per se, if that makes sense.(9:09) That action would certainly be removing free will, if we had it in the first place. But then (9:14) you got to look at that decision to coerce. Where does that come from? Is that something- (9:20) Was, you know, it’s turtles all the way down, right? (9:22) Right.So, what are we talking about here? How do we define what free will is? Because that (9:27) will kind of set up the rest of the arguments here, right? (9:33) Yeah, absolutely. So, I’m going to put up something here Justin mentioned, (9:37) but we did actually touch up on this. It is, the nurture does have an act, but there are (9:45) some studies out there that it’s something like 56% or something.What it was, was you had two (9:50) people who were twins, I think. One was adopted and one was raised under the father, like something (9:56) like that, or they split them up or something. And there was still a criminality aspect to the (10:00) father of the kids that were fostered or whatever.And it, you know, it was a pretty compelling (10:06) information. I mean, 57 is a little more compelling, like 50.1. You know what I mean? (10:10) 50.1 is like, okay, I don’t even know. But 57, that’s a somewhat of enough noticeable difference.(10:18) I mean, it’s more than the 10% difference between the two. So, just a thought. (10:23) Yeah, I don’t know, man.I would say, yeah, more than 50%. I could agree with that as (10:31) nurture versus nature. Oh, no, this is a nature thing.Yeah. It’s actually nature that determines. (10:38) Yeah.That’s the crazy thing about it. Now, once again, I’ll share the studies once we pull up (10:42) this stuff. I just didn’t think that would come up like this, but I should have thought about it (10:46) earlier.Yeah. Well, that’s a little bit beside the point. It does help us set up the premise (10:51) here of what we’re talking about.But I would say free will is just the ability to consciously (10:57) make a decision, to think about it, think about what you’re going to do, (11:02) choose, actually make a choice for yourself and then do it, right? Without anything external (11:08) forcing you. Is that a good enough definition? I would think that’s a great definition is you, (11:17) once again, you have the means and the ability to make two different choices and you choosing (11:24) a different one than the one that you might be initially leaning towards would compel me to (11:29) think there’s some kind of will aspect to divert you from that initial thing. Yeah.But people argue (11:37) against that. So like I said, we’ll get into how, you know. Yeah, we’re going to get into that.(11:43) Free will is something that definitely we don’t fully understand as humans. I think (11:48) there is some amount of it, I think, maybe. I’m still not sure.But what the limit is, (11:55) I don’t know. And it’s not something binary. It’s not like you have 100% free will or zero.Although, (12:01) like you said, some people do think that. I think right now, I think it’s not 100% (12:08) free will that I can easily get behind. It’s probably like 99.9% not free will.But (12:16) we’ll see if we get anywhere on this. Yeah. And I think to your point, being evolved (12:24) animals, there are some instinctual things that I think would usurp free will regardless.We have (12:30) some instinctual things we just do. Yeah, for sure. The instinct.But then (12:35) at some point that was like a new thing to us, right? When you’re a kid, everything’s brand (12:41) new to you. So at that point, it’s kind of a choice. I think it’s more of a choice.Again, (12:46) you still have other factors, you still have instincts, some nature playing the role there, but (12:52) you have to think about it more. Right? So you may just have less restraints, (12:58) if that makes sense. Like, so like they just do, you know, and they whatever, like, I don’t know (13:05) if you played the video, the thing about Bart Simpson with the ketchup packets.I don’t know (13:08) if you play clip that. But basically, there’s like a Simpsons episode where the guy where Bart (13:13) just puts down ketchup packets and hits him with a hammer. It’s like, dude, no adult, like that’s (13:19) not like a rage room or in like some place they know it’s easy to clean up would just do that.(13:23) No, no one would do that. But a kid? Why not? Like they’re just because they’re explorers. It’s (13:29) like a total different but it is almost different.Because like, once again, the brains are completely (13:33) formed. So does the complete formation of the brain mean that will happens? Is it only in humans? (13:39) Like, once again, these are all the things we’ll we’ll talk about today. So it’s really exciting (13:44) to get into.Yeah. So just a very basic example, something simple. I have one of those Nespresso (13:51) machines at home and I have coffee pretty much every day.And I choose which kind of pod that (13:56) I want to put in the machine. I have a few different kinds, different flavors, different (14:00) roasts, whatever that I can make. And it doesn’t really matter what I choose, right? Either way, (14:05) I’m getting coffee.They taste a little bit different, but I like them all. I just I don’t (14:10) buy the ones I don’t like. But what drives the decision on what kind of coffee I take? (14:16) You know, I think I’m making a conscious choice.But I might choose one because I just had the (14:22) other one yesterday. So I want some variety. I might choose based on the taste.Like why do I (14:27) think that particular flavor is going to hit my palate just right in the morning? I don’t know. (14:32) The things leading up to that are certainly not things I chose. Like I might choose one because (14:36) of the color.It’s just striking the right senses at the moment. And that’s where it starts to get a (14:42) little murky. You know, like, why do I choose to have coffee at all? You know, I chose to try coffee (14:47) at some point.But if other people didn’t drink coffee and offer it to me, I probably never would (14:52) have. So is that determinist? You know, I don’t think about all my options for breakfast beverages (14:58) and weigh the pros and cons. I just I just do it like it’s kind of a habit at this point.(15:03) Well, it’s interesting in that in that way, when you talk about coffee, like, (15:07) because coffee is harmless, right? But like, I grew up with alcohol. So like when teenagers (15:13) were having a party, peer pressure is real big, right? I chose not to drink. And it’s I don’t know, (15:21) I don’t know if I chose not to drink, but there was a lot of pressure out there to have a drink (15:29) or a sip or something.You know what I mean? Like, but it just wasn’t my interest. So did I (15:35) freely choose to not do that? Or was it just like it wasn’t embedded or whatever? It was bound to be (15:40) that way regardless, right? Coffee is interesting in that way, because like some people drink tea (15:45) because they grew up with their parents who drank tea in the morning. So it just seemed like a (15:48) cultural, like there’s cultural shifts and almost it can be kind of fluid in that way.(15:55) So absolutely, yeah, we definitely are compelled. We’re definitely influenced by by outside things. (16:01) But like, when it comes to that, like peer pressure is a really great example of when (16:05) really you’re gonna say no, like the natural thing would be the path of least resistance (16:11) in nature would be to just go along with it, right? Like ultimately, even if it’s bad for you, (16:16) to be part of the pack would be like the most natural thing to do.So why do we not smoke when (16:23) the kid hands you a cigarette or whatever? It’s like, why do you not give any peer pressure? So (16:28) that one just popped in my head. I don’t know if you had any thoughts about that. (16:31) Yeah, exactly, man.So like, did your parents raise you to think that alcohol wasn’t a good (16:35) thing to do as a kid? I mean, and then what made them decide that? You know, is it just their (16:41) experience? You’re talking about being in a pack? What, you know, why do certain habits or (16:46) traditions develop within a tribe or a pack? You know, you say, oh, yeah, it’s the group influence, (16:53) but something started it at one point, right? Or was it someone’s decision? If you go all the (16:59) way back to the beginning, did someone decide, hey, this is what we’re doing now? Or was it just (17:05) like, how does that happen? We don’t know. I don’t know. (17:08) One real one that screamed to me before we even really dig deep is like the trans situation.(17:13) It went from a point whatever percent to like a significant percentage. And you’re like, where did (17:20) that come from? Where? Like, I can’t imagine that not being a free will to nondeterministic cultural (17:29) focus to actively make that happen. And I don’t think that is a (17:36) a natural way that it would happen, right? Like, unless it maybe is because Camille Paglia talks (17:43) about it in the Roman times and the Greek times that that is the beginning of the end of a (17:47) civilization.So we’ll talk about that, too. And I think we talked about cycles, too. So, (17:51) you know, once again, so many things, man, my head is like just going in so many directions.(17:57) I know this. We could probably spend a whole year talking about this and researching, (18:03) but we did it in about a week. So we’ll see how far we get.So we know. Right. Oh, (18:10) you want to bring up this comment? Go ahead.Oh, no, I was just putting it up in there. So (18:13) no, no need to read it. But I will peer pressure, whichever way you decide to go can just be (18:19) explained, can just be explained.A term deterministic was where if you felt your (18:25) heart hierarchy once and that would be sense like alcohol is bad for me. So I know that it’s not (18:30) good. So I know I shouldn’t do it.So I won’t do it. And that superseded the other desire of (18:36) the people, you know, being in the group was doing self-harm or something. (18:42) So you can also go the other way.I know alcohol is bad for me. I know it’s poison. I know it’s (18:47) not doing me any good, but I still choose to do it.Right. Right. Also.Yep. I still choose to. (18:53) I allow myself to have a drink on the weekend.I allow that for me. And I, I, I poured out, (19:02) I poured exactly two fingers high and I control it every and you’re like, you know, every, every (19:08) by that amount. Yeah.Right. Exactly. Like clockwork.Like, you know what I mean? Like, (19:13) you know, it’s like where we get into habits and stuff too. Right. So.(19:17) Yeah. So, okay. Back to kind of definitions, right? Like we know we have consciousness (19:23) so we can think about our actions.We can kind of understand like what’s going on a little bit. We (19:30) can rationalize after something happens, but can we really control it? That’s what we’re going to (19:36) get into. Right.So should I play the first clip about self-discovery before we continue? (19:44) Yeah, let’s go ahead. Let’s do that one. Yeah.Just because we’re, we started talking about (19:49) that before we jumped the right before we jump it. Cause we’re, we’re going to talk about conscious (19:52) next. We got a couple of clips for that, but basically this is part of what is free.Well, (19:56) each choice is self-discovery. This is, this is the clip we’re going to play for you. (20:01) Yes.Every choice I make and we all make choices. Determinism does not say that we don’t make (20:09) choices. We are always making choice.Every choice I make for me is a moment of self-discovery. (20:18) It’s a moment when I reflect and think I am the entity who is disposed to make this choice (20:26) right now. Every single choice I make is a moment of self-discovery.It’s an opportunity (20:34) for self-insight. It’s a revelation, a continuing revelation of what I am, what I truly am, (20:44) which is not Bernardo Castro. And that’s how I see meaning in the future.It’s the first time (20:51) that nature is discovering that it has those dispositions. It is the thing that makes those (20:58) choices. Whether those choices are good choices or bad choices, particularly the bad ones, (21:04) tend to be more meaningful when you make a self-destructive choice.Yeah, so this guy, (21:12) his name is Bernardo Castro. I found this on YouTube. He’s one of the people that might fall (21:18) into what we call the compatibilist, compatibilist, what do you call it? Free will advocates or (21:27) whatever.But basically he’s saying like free will and determinism are the same thing. (21:33) And it’s kind of a convoluted thing, kind of a cop-out in my opinion. But this is a good way (21:41) to understand yourself, right? Like each choice you make is something that tells you information.(21:49) And a lot of times tells you information about yourself. So you do something, (21:54) instead of trying to rationalize why you did it, just think about it. Like think about why, (21:59) ask yourself.And that will tell you something, right? Do you know what I’m saying? (22:05) Yeah, absolutely. 100%. I love the way that is like a discovery.It’s like, okay, so (22:12) regardless of whether you made the decision or not, the made decision, he sees it as a discovery. (22:23) So to your point, it does work with the compatibilist. And we’ll talk about the (22:26) different styles obviously, but it’s almost like a soft version of a really light version (22:33) of determinism.It’s like, oh yeah, well, I knew I was going to make it, but I didn’t know (22:39) what the outcome was, what my actual decision was going to be. But I knew I was going to make (22:43) the decision. So it’s like, all right, so you made it, but you didn’t know what you were going (22:48) to make.That doesn’t sound as free will-ish because you got to know what you’re going to do (22:53) and when you’re going to do it, I guess, or cover those bases. Yes. Yeah.So Sam Harris in his book, (23:03) he has this line, he says, the popular conception of free will seems to rest on two assumptions. (23:09) One, that each of us could have behaved differently than we did in the past. And two, (23:14) that we are the conscious source of most of our thoughts and actions in the present.(23:18) And he says, we’re about to see that both of these assumptions are false. So Sam Harris wrote a whole (23:24) book on free will. He does not believe in free will whatsoever.This is kind of the argument, (23:33) the idea that if you went back in time and rewound yourself to the same spot with the (23:40) same knowledge and same things leading up to it, you would always make the same decision. (23:46) And maybe that’s true. It sounds probable, right? Like obviously we can’t test it.We can’t go back (23:52) in time. And once you’ve experienced something, you think you could go back and make a different (23:57) decision, but that’s because you now have the knowledge, the experience of that event, right, (24:03) to learn from. So you might make a different decision if you still have the knowledge, but (24:07) in the exact same situation, you’d probably do exactly the same thing.What do you think of that? (24:14) Right. Great points. And I think about that all the time because I had near death experience (24:20) and I wonder, should I’ve gotten in that car? You know, should I’ve gone to that thing? (24:25) And people, you know, there’s always that question, if you could go back in time and do something (24:29) different.And it’s like, I do look at that one event as like very pivotal and monumental in my (24:36) life. So like I can do that. But for the most part, you’re going to generally do a lot of the (24:43) same things that you would do, I would think.Yeah. Now it might change. Like if you fell into (24:49) some money, maybe, Oh, maybe I’ll go to an Ivy league school.Cause it’s like, I can afford it (24:54) where you might take that off your plate. But that was also technically predetermined. (25:01) I mean, literally, I mean, they’re talking, it’s, it’s interesting because by the way, (25:08) you can listen to Sam Harris’s book.If you have premium is a Spotify premium Spotify. (25:12) Yeah. You can listen for free.Yeah. So it’s like an hour and 15 minutes guys. It’s like an easy (25:16) listen.But basically I, I, I hate, I hate to say it’s, it’s just too reductionist. It’s just so (25:24) reductionist to the point where like, it’s like trying to explain God. It’s like the old, like (25:28) God’s the invisible guy with the mustache and the beard, like, and it’s a dude and it’s an old man.(25:34) And you’re like, that sounds like a reductionist version of God. It’s like Sam Harris’s is a (25:39) reductionist version of free will, but Sapolsky agrees with him and he’s deeply thought, you know, (25:46) deeply well thought. So, um, you know, what are your thoughts on those? Yeah.On the, (25:52) on the book, I, it’s not bad. I mean, we, we like to pick on Sam Harris a lot and rightly so, (25:57) but, uh, the book’s solid, but it’s like when you have it, when you have an hour to make your (26:02) case and there’s no counterpoint, it’s not like a debate. Yeah.I mean, you start nodding cause (26:06) you’re like, okay, his points, he’s making assume this and assume that and this and that. And I, (26:11) it’s not, look, it’s philosophy, man. This, this isn’t a perfect thing when you and I (26:15) still don’t know where we land on this, I think after, at the end.Right. So, right. (26:21) Um, yeah.So maybe we can go into more of the definition. So we’ve got libertarian (26:26) free will, which is not related to a libertarian political philosophy, right? (26:32) Yeah. There’s no anarcho cap, uh, will (26:38) anarcho decision-making.Yeah. So do you want to explain these? You, you’ve got the notes on these. (26:45) Yeah, I do have the notes on these.So basically libertarian free wills and indeterminism. (26:51) Basically from my understanding, it’s ever, there’s nothing determinant at all. You make (26:55) your decisions.Yes. They’re causal. They create other things and you react or whatever, but you (27:00) still are completely within your full faculties.Then you’ve got your determinism, hard determinism. (27:05) Specifically. This is where at Newton, uh, Brian green.I don’t know if you clipped that with (27:11) Brian green talking about each horse, what the forces that make the will and how each of them (27:17) have been covered by some other physicists over time is like, well, it’s not gravitation. It’s (27:21) not new Tony. It’s not the nuclear force.It’s not the strong or the weak. It’s not, you know, (27:26) it’s not that. So it’s interesting how we look at that.Many, I mean, I, there’s a reason I do (27:34) want to talk. Cause I think determinism is a political, it might be a psyop. No, no, that (27:40) sounds weird, but it’s just like physics has gotten seared off.Like, uh, Justin mentioned (27:47) me, he sent me a Michio Kaku, uh, clip. Right. And Michio Kaku for me growing up was like my idol.(27:56) But like the strings theory stuff that’s set, that’s set physicists back like 20, (28:00) 30 years right now, we went down this weird path, just like the SSRIs with medical. Like, (28:05) it’s like someone captured the industry and intentionally diverted it away from the truth. (28:14) So like Brian green and all these guys are chasing these ghosts in a weird way, even though they’ve (28:20) got math to go with it.Don’t get me wrong. It’s not like it’s not brilliant, but it doesn’t mean (28:24) it’s correct. Right.So like, I’m looking at all this stuff and you got so many of these guys who (28:30) are like, you, it doesn’t matter. You are a criminal regard. You were born.Actually, you (28:35) weren’t even born. Your parents had you born as a criminal before you were even conceived to them. (28:41) And you’re like, so then, you know, what does it matter? Right.And we get to that. Anyway, (28:45) the last one, compatibilism, it’s like a cheap way to kind of like your point, this guy, (28:50) oh, I made the choice, but it is a discovery kind of so, but I may not have made the choice, (28:57) but it is new to me. So it feels that way.So these people try to combine the two and look, (29:02) it’s, it does make sense to have a little bit of that. We’re seeing physics in a Newtonian way is (29:07) very different than physics in a quantum way, you know, and this opens up a lot of different (29:12) questions about, is it the multiverse, right? Did you make every possible decision you possibly (29:17) could have per quanta and the, you know, the possibilities and the probabilities, (29:23) or, you know, did you only make this one choice in this one chance that you had to make the choice? (29:31) Yeah, right. So yeah, we’ll get into examples of those things.We’ll talk about the physics. (29:36) We’ll talk about criminal implications, things like that. We’ve got a whole, we’ve got a whole (29:44) week’s worth of stuff here for you, but we’ll try to condense it down to a few hours.(29:49) So tell me, tell me something, Jason, is free will the same as consciousness? (29:54) What are your thoughts on that? So we are obviously conscious, right? (30:00) And some people may be more than others. That’s another interesting take on it, but (30:05) we’re conscious of a very small part of things that are going on around us. And (30:13) it’s only a very small part of what’s going on inside of us, even, right? We feel hunger, pain, (30:17) sadness, happiness, all the emotions and feelings that humans have.And we have thoughts, right? (30:24) But what we’re conscious of is just a tiny piece of everything that’s happening (30:28) internally and externally. So can we even expect to have free will when we cannot (30:36) perceive the entire world around us and inside of us? (30:42) That’s a really great question. I didn’t really think about that way, but (30:45) we are as conscious as we are.That’s merely aware that we’re aware, right? (30:51) But our eyes are limited to the visual spectrum that we have. (30:55) Our ears are limited to certain frequencies. So imagine there is a thing hovering right here in (31:01) front of me that I can’t sense.That doesn’t mean it’s not there. I just can’t hear it or see it (31:09) within my visual field and my auditory field or something, right? These are real things that (31:16) happen. So it just makes you question everything.It makes you basically question everything, right? (31:23) Yeah, exactly. (31:23) So yeah, the consciousness. And that’s the thing.Consciousness to me, (31:26) I had the pleasure of speaking with Bobby Azarian. He wrote The Romance of Reality. (31:32) And like he, I think it’s an emergent property, to your point.Single cell become multi-cell, (31:38) enough multi-cell, enough neurons fire. There’s this pop, whatever that pop is. (31:43) Now, I do think octopi and I do think dolphins are conscious.I think some are aware, (31:48) but they’re also limited for the fact that they can’t harness fire, for example. So our ability (31:53) to make our environment does give us a weird consciousness advantage that they may have gone (32:00) a different kind of consciousness. Maybe they went with psychic ability, you know, whatever, (32:05) like telepathy or some other skill that they have, you know, cooperation, teamwork, whatever, (32:12) whatever they… Am I just babbling? (32:17) Absolutely.No, I’m with you. I’m with you. Just, yeah, it’s got me thinking.(32:23) Maybe we go to this next clip. (32:25) Yeah, let’s do it, my friend. The O’Connor clip, right? (32:28) We all accept that one.(32:31) It’s fascinating because, well, especially because most people intuitively know this to some degree, (32:39) right? If you’re having an argument with somebody, you might think to yourself, gosh, (32:43) maybe I’m just hungry or hangry. Maybe I’m tired. You say, well, let’s revisit this in the morning.(32:48) I need to sleep on it. People are already aware that to some degree, there are moments in our (32:55) lives where the decisions that we make seem to be out of accord with our own agency. So when (33:02) asking, you know, whether we have free will, everybody’s going to agree that there are (33:06) certain circumstances where we have less free will or more free will.There are certain times (33:12) when our free will is diminished. And I suppose when the question is asked, you know, well, (33:16) where do we draw the line as to how far that… (33:27) You’re muted, my friend. (33:29) Oh, sorry.The video cut off there. The end of it was where do we draw the line where (33:34) that free will ends. Yeah.(33:36) Yeah. It’s a little glitchy. It’s a little stuttery.So apologies on the technical issues. (33:45) Is it? Is the video smooth for you? Because it’s kind of skipping for me. (33:48) Copy for me.So I don’t know if it’s a stream from you to me to me. And maybe I should just (33:53) put it directly on mine. I could try to play it directly if I want.I could try that. So (33:57) that’s fine. I think it’s good enough.(34:00) Yeah. So yeah. So what are your thoughts on that clip? (34:04) Justin says, consciousness is the ability to know that you have awareness.Free will (34:08) is the ability to choose between the things that you’re conscious of. So yeah, I think (34:12) that hits it right on the head. And that is the tricky part.Are we choosing things that (34:18) we’re conscious of? And the evidence for it isn’t great. I’ll be honest. (34:25) The more I delve into this, the more deterministic it is.But I just don’t know if I can go 100. (34:40) But I had a different political ideology. And I didn’t know if I could go no government (34:47) thought.You know what I mean? Governance over government, for example. I didn’t know (34:52) I’d be there politically. So compel me to change my mind, guys.I’m open. So I know (34:57) the more we delve into this, it’s like the one I know we’re going to come up to it. So (35:02) I don’t want to jump it.But that’s coming up next. Alex brought it up about if you’re (35:08) not in the best mood for certain reasons. So feel free to expound on that and share (35:13) your thoughts on what I mentioned.Well, I just want to say one more thing (35:17) about humanity. Having consciousness clearly and maybe not having free will is kind of a cruel (35:25) joke to whoever created humans, right? We’re doomed to like wallow in the consequences (35:33) of our actions but have no control to change them. That would be quite a sad state of affairs.So (35:39) it’s difficult to make the leap to believe that there is no free will whatsoever. (35:45) And that’s why maybe I just like to believe that we have some control, even if it’s not true. (35:51) It’s a very interesting thing.Yeah, I agree with you 100% because like (35:59) these people are saying it’s liberating. People are telling me that knowing that you don’t have (36:04) a choice is liberating. And let’s be honest, like liberation to me is the 180 degree antithesis (36:14) of that concept.So it just doesn’t sound liberating to me. And obviously we’ll talk (36:21) about the challenges of that as well. Yeah.So yeah, we know a lot happens without us (36:27) thinking directly about it. We do things like when you put on your shirt, you don’t think about, (36:32) okay, I need to raise my arm and I need to extend and then I need to line up the hole of the sleeve (36:38) with my hand and then put it in. You don’t think like that.You just do it. It’s unconscious, (36:45) right? Exactly. 100%.(36:49) And definitely if you’ve ever tried to convince somebody of a political opinion, (36:54) for example, you know that it’s a virtually impossible task because people aren’t rational (37:00) necessarily. So free will is also a separate thing from making rational decisions. (37:07) Well, what’s funny to that point is I remember one of our first podcasts that we did together, (37:11) we had talked about that.We had talked about, what was it? We think that you thought that people (37:20) make the, or have the decision made, or they have the thing and then they rationalize it going (37:26) backwards. Right? Yeah. So you’re onto something there.You know what I mean? Maybe you’re onto (37:33) something there. That’s almost a deterministic way is we do it and our consciousness reflects on (37:42) what we did and is a feedback loop. Now that’s still, that might change our action forward if we (37:50) reflect, but that doesn’t not make it deterministic because we would have reflected on it because we (37:56) would have acted the same way anyway.And our consciousness would have reflected on it. (38:01) You know, once again, we start hitting repeat. And our brains are kind of lazy, right? So like (38:07) they look for the most efficient way to do things.And to do that, they set up patterns. They set up (38:12) these neural pathways that when you’re in this situation, you know, to do this, you don’t have (38:17) to consciously think about it because that takes a lot of energy. Right? Yep.Yeah. And to that point (38:25) is drive to drive to work. Right? Yeah.How many times do you look down? You’re like 20 minutes (38:30) later, you’re three quarters of the way to work. And you’re like, I don’t remember getting in the (38:34) car. Yeah.Highway hypnosis. Yeah. There it is.Yeah. It’s a, it’s a great point. Yeah.So, (38:41) all right. So does that mean I’m able to free will? Go ahead. Does, does that then, (38:47) is this an indication that we don’t have free will? Well, once again, I don’t know because I (38:54) feel like our consciousness reflecting on it does compel us to contemplate future acts.(39:02) Like I definitely know that’s factual. I can’t tell you that I made the decision or not, (39:07) but I can tell you I’ve reflected on decisions I’ve made. I felt shame, guilt, good, happy, (39:16) proud.Like I felt every emotion after a different decision that I’ve made. (39:21) Mm hmm. And I certainly would think that that as a compelling, as a contemplative human being (39:28) would compel my actions to be different going forward because of that.But that once again, (39:34) that doesn’t prove that it was free. It still could all just be causal deterministic, right? (39:39) Like one action pushing, you know, pushing the boulder down the rock down the Hill. If all the (39:44) same factors are the same, it should go down the same way every time.Should. Yeah. Yeah.To me, (39:53) it’s still, I’m not convinced on the determinist side because that so far only means that we (40:01) certainly can make very poor decisions often because there’s no way that we can calibrate (40:06) to every single factor involved. Right. Yeah, exactly.So I had to share some of that. Look, (40:13) I, I share my, I, my religious ideology stuff, my thoughts and everything, but I also welcome (40:21) everyone. We are an open platform to welcome all open your hearts to Christ and you’ll experience (40:26) love in its purest form.Zach shared with me his experience on our podcast. We had that little (40:31) impromptu one-on-one. We kind of talked about stuff when wrecked and wall came on.(40:35) It was beautiful when Zach shared how that worked for him. That was beautiful. So I just want to (40:40) share that.Yeah. So thanks for sharing that, man. But back to the, back to the show.(40:49) Let’s keep it moving. So we’ve got some arguments from neuroscience. (40:53) Do you want to do the quantum physics experiment? Let’s, let’s do the, the libet experiment.Yes. (40:59) The libet. Yes.Okay. So I’m going to try to play it from my, from my computer. I downloaded (41:04) it in the meantime, so hopefully this might work.We’ll see. Cool. (41:16) Oh, that’s not the one.The libet experiment you said? Yes. All right. Let me, let me try it from (41:22) here.See if this works. Put your hand in front of you and flex your wrist. You presumably first (41:29) had a thought flex my wrist that then caused your wrist to move.That’s how it seems. But Benjamin (41:35) Libet’s experiments in the 1980s have cast some doubt on that. In his neuroscience lab, he wired (41:41) up subjects to an EEG machine measuring brain activity via electrodes on their scalps, and (41:46) then asked them to choose to perform a simple hand movement when they felt like it.He also got them (41:51) to record the time at which they made a conscious decision to move their hands. Disconcertingly, (41:57) he found evidence of brain activity initiating the movement hundreds of milliseconds before the (42:02) conscious decision was reported. In other words, his experiments seemed to show that the conscious (42:08) decision didn’t cause the movement.The brain activity bringing about movement started before (42:13) the individual willed anything to happen. Some people think this is proof that free will is an (42:18) illusion, that our conscious decisions are more like reports on what is already happening (42:22) than the causes of our action. Libet didn’t go that far.He thought that we might not have free (42:27) will, but there’s still time for what some have called free won’t, a conscious veto of an action (42:32) that has started in the brain. Others are more skeptical about the implications of these (42:37) experiments. They point out difficulties of recording the time of a subjective decision to (42:40) move, and question whether Libet’s findings could apply to more complex conscious decisions based (42:45) on reasons, such as the decision to reject the claim that Libet’s experiments undermine our idea.(42:56) So the free won’t is an interesting concept. I think it’s something worth exploring a little bit. (43:03) So basically there are things acting on us, but he wasn’t going so far as to say that we can’t (43:08) reject those things, right? Those influences that, you know, all the nature, the nurture, (43:15) everything inside and outside of us that is supposedly forcing us into this deterministic (43:21) decision.We do have some power to reject it. And that would mean free will, right? Free won’t (43:28) is actually free will. Yeah.The choice to not say something is the same free speech as the (43:37) choice to say something, right? So it’s the same thing. It is a will, right? But here’s a great (43:42) example. I have some, I get angry sometimes.A little bit. And everybody, the skipping video, (43:51) I’m going to try to fix on the next one, because I’m going to try to play directly from my computer. (43:54) I think we’re bouncing through a couple channels, so that might be the problem, but (43:57) hopefully it’s, that’s the only problem or it’s StreamYard and tsk, tsk, tsk.We shouldn’t have (44:02) free will chosen to StreamYard. I should have deterministically chosen, uh, river, river, (44:08) somebody, river, whatever. Riverside.Riverside had its own problems. Exactly. So, um, well, (44:16) with this case, okay, the free won’t thing, I’ve gotten angry before I’ve taken my phone and I (44:23) wanted to throw it through a window.I look at the window, I changed my mind and I slam it onto (44:28) the ground. Now I know that phone is going to break. I know that because I am just fits of rage (44:34) beyond anything, but I’ll be damned if I’m going to throw it through a window.I’ve had that where (44:39) I’ve literally stuttered and then just changed. I’ve, I’ve done that. So I don’t, I don’t know (44:45) what that is.Is it that the, the will to do it, but then the consciousness reflected changing it (44:51) and it’s still deterministic. Like was it that in one act, you know? Yeah, I still, I still don’t (45:02) know, but definitely we, you have thoughts all the time, right? Things you want to say, (45:06) things you want to do. You want to break out into a fit of rage and strangle somebody, but you don’t (45:13) because you know what’s going to happen.Right. But then is that decision something that’s already (45:19) wired into you? Because some people have those thoughts and then they actually do it. And is (45:24) that their fault? Is it because they’re bad people? Well, once again, if they were always going to do (45:32) it, they, I, the, the glob of cells that are the being, you know what I mean? It’s not fault, (45:43) but like they’re responsible as in a cultural sense.Right. And we’ll probably talk about that, (45:48) right? Responsibility and the thing and the part of it. So that’s, you know, that’s an (45:51) interesting conversation as well.So do you want me to try the quantum physics one from my computer (45:57) this time? I think, I think I want to skip that. Can we, because since we’re talking about the (46:03) bad people, let’s go to the hungry judge. Okay.Yeah. Do me a favor. Why don’t you set this up (46:08) while I download it really quickly? Cause I just have to add it to my, okay.So yeah, good example (46:16) to demonstrate the, the external effects of things that play into our decision-making, right? (46:24) You have a judge, they’re supposed to be these neutral arbiters of the law, which already has (46:29) its own problems, but we’ll see in this clip here, another big problem with it that maybe we don’t (46:35) think about. Yeah. So let me pull this up and here we go.Hope this is better. Everybody (46:43) tell me about the hungry judge phenomenon. Yes.Oh, I love this one. This one is, is in the realm (46:50) of like what’s been going on in the previous hours. And this was this classic study published (46:57) in a very prestigious journal, looking at all of the parole board decisions that were made in a (47:03) particular country over the course of the year and hundreds and hundreds, possibly thousands, (47:09) I’m forgetting.And you know, at each juncture, a judge either let somebody go free or sent them (47:15) back to jail and the scientists looking for what were their predictors of the decision. And they (47:23) found like the single most powerful one was how many hours it had been since the judge had eaten (47:30) a meal. See a judge right after they had lunch, you had about a 60% chance of parole by three, (47:36) four hours later, essentially a 0% chance.Whoa. What is that? That makes total biological sense (47:45) because like the part of your brain that is required to think about the world from somebody (47:52) else’s perspective to challenge your immediate snap judgments a second time, the fifth time, (47:58) a 10th time it’s part of the brain. The frontal cortex is the most expensive part of your brain.(48:03) Metabolically, when it’s been hours since you’ve eaten, your blood sugar levels are low. And what’s (48:08) one of the first parts of the brain that’s beginning to get a little sluggish as a response, (48:12) this part of the brain, and it’s easier to default into a quick snap judgment. All right.(48:23) Yeah. What do you think, man? (48:25) Angry, man. Don’t get angry.(48:28) Isn’t that crazy? Like you, your fate depends on the judge having eaten within the last 30 minutes (48:35) or so. That is insane. (48:40) Imagine, imagine you like, you know this and you’re like, I’m going to schedule after lunch (48:49) and something pushed it and they had to push you right before he was going to eat lunch.(48:54) And you’re just like, I can’t go to sensing. I got, I got to wait. I got to wait an hour.I just (48:59) got to wait an hour. Imagine like, imagine that we think these people are totally partial. (49:04) And I think later in that clip, right? Not, we didn’t, we’re not going to share that, but (49:08) whole Snickers did a whole, has run a whole advertising campaign on hangry, right? Turns (49:14) in different celebrity.And Alex brings that up to Robert and like Robert’s such a nerd. He doesn’t (49:18) even know that that’s a thing, but he’s like, what? They made a commercial like that. That’s (49:23) brilliant.Cause he knows that is exactly like such what we are, you know? Yeah. It’s amazing. (49:31) Yeah.Yeah. But one thing that he does say is like, (49:36) knowing that the part of your brain that makes those decisions, he says, (49:43) is affected by hunger. Well, that means that you are at least somewhat making a decision, right? (49:50) Right.And I can speak to that. Remember I weighed 315 pounds guys. Okay.I was going to eat (49:58) myself to death. I’m not kidding. When John Candy died at 43, I’m like, I can beat that.I’m not, (50:04) I’m not kidding. I had a death wish. Okay.But at some point in my life, I just said, (50:11) trust me, I’m hungry right now. I’m hungry all the time, but I fight all day to do that. Now (50:18) I know it’s, I know it’s better for my health to not eat than eat like, because I’m so big, (50:24) but it’s almost unhealthy to the point where I’m like, I’m almost deterministically opposite, (50:29) not eating, but I had to do that to fight that other urge to eat so badly.Right. So it all, (50:38) did I just do a one 80? Did I just use the same psychosis about eating? Like I used to, (50:44) to just not eat it. Did something happen to you that made you change your mind about (50:50) wanting to be thin or, or what? Right.Yeah. All these things come into play, but it’s like, (50:57) is it worth it to me? What’s the value to me to do that? Like on it, what are all those things (51:02) at play? Is it my girlfriend that I wanted to be with her longer? Is it that I felt not so good? (51:07) Like, you know, it’s so many factors go into it, but like, I can tell you I had to actively fight (51:13) every urge to eat. So I just would starve myself because I’m like, I have fat storage.I, it will (51:19) go away. I have fats. I had to just mantra myself into it, you know? Yeah.So, yeah. (51:26) Yeah. So on the criminal thing, Sam Harris’s book, to go back to that, he starts with a story about (51:32) two career criminals who broke into a house and proceeded to do terrible things to the family (51:39) that they found inside.Very, very disturbing things that I don’t really care to discuss, (51:43) but it ends with them setting the house on fire with people still tied up alive inside. (51:49) You can go read it if you like, or go listen to it for free. But the purpose of the story is to (51:55) try to understand the motives.And so perhaps what we see as a society ought to do with, to hold (52:02) these people responsible differs, depend on how we view free will, right? So the criminals had (52:08) a history of abuse themselves, and we know that that can often lead to perpetuating (52:14) that abuse as adults. I think that’s pretty well recognized, wouldn’t you say? (52:20) Yeah, 100%. (52:21) So, so the question is, was this just a choice that these men made because they’re bad people, (52:28) or was it something predetermined inside them? (52:31) Right.And what was interesting, remember, I think when they talked about, (52:35) why did you just set the house on fire and not do anything about the people inside? And you’re like, (52:40) it didn’t occur to them. (52:42) Yeah. Like they didn’t even think about it, right? (52:45) And, and, and like, I get, I do get that.I, people, look, human, human diversity, (52:56) like intellectually, biologically, there’s a huge range, man. There’s a huge range. (53:01) And the government, the military doesn’t even accept people below a certain IQ, for example, (53:06) because they can’t point the gun in the right direction.Okay. And that is not, that is an (53:10) unfortunate thing that one is born like that. Okay.And we must be, we must care for all people who (53:17) can’t, you know, who, who need help, right? Like that’s, that’s a true personal thing that I would (53:21) want my community to do. That said, not everybody has all capacity. So like when you, when, when we (53:29) talk with these intellectuals, you know, 150, 160 IQ, I, I hate to use IQ.It sucks, but it’s just (53:36) one of those things. Like these guys are talking to levels. You and I are hurting to reach.Imagine (53:40) people who would just set a house on fire without thinking about who’s inside. Imagine how much (53:46) they can understand these concepts. Right.So like, not only is it, whether these concepts are (53:53) real or not, it’s like, can people even grasp what these things mean too? Because there’s implications (54:00) if we think that it’s one way or another, just like a religion. If you have a faith, it has used (54:06) to act certain ways, right. Or it compels you at least to act certain ways, which maybe are not (54:12) for you.(54:15) We’re kind of going in circles around here, but (54:19) You want to pull the weight clip or where are we at? (54:22) Well, one more thing from, from Sam Harris, he has a passage in there about this incident that he (54:29) said, he says, I cannot take credit for the fact that I do not have the soul of a psychopath. If I (54:35) had truly been in that guy’s shoes on that day, that is if I had his genes and life experience (54:41) and an identical brain or soul in an identical state, I would have acted exactly as he did. (54:47) There’s simply no intellectually respectable position from which to deny this.The role of (54:52) luck therefore appears decisive. How can we make sense of our lives and hold people accountable (54:57) for their choices given the unconscious origins of our conscious minds? So there’s a handful, (55:05) right? How do we hold people accountable? And do you think Sam’s right? Do you think that (55:11) if you were in the identical situation, I mean, I guess he sets it up in the way that (55:16) is unfalsifiable, right? He sets it up and says, if I was the exact same person in the exact same (55:21) situation, well, yeah, you probably would. If I was a boulder in the same conditions.(55:29) And once again, just quickly, Sam loves to do that. Assume, assume all my things I’m telling (55:36) you are true. Here’s my conclusion based on everything that I told you being true.It’s like, (55:42) assume COVID actually did kill a lot of people. You had to get us banned on YouTube, you son of a (55:50) bitch. Sorry, man.Damn it. We were so close. I couldn’t control it.Did you have free will? (55:59) Did you choose that? Did you choose to sabotage us? No, and YouTube has no control whether they (56:05) choose to censor us or not. So I can tell you this. I have an older brother by three years.(56:12) He and I are eerily similar in some ways. Our reaction to things, how we, whatever. (56:20) He and I have different life paths, but I can almost guarantee if I was the first born (56:26) and he was born three years after me, that I would be, I really feel like I’d be in a similar (56:32) situation to where he’s in.Yeah. I think it does leave a lot of space, (56:40) not space, but it should leave us with a lot of sympathy for people, right? Because yeah, (56:48) a lot of that stuff that led to you being in those situations was out of your control. And maybe at (56:54) some point you did have a decision to make, and that was wrong, but we have to have some (57:01) compassion here, right? That it’s not people’s fault that they grew up with abusive parents.(57:06) It’s not people’s fault that they maybe grew up poor or something. I had decent parents. We (57:13) certainly weren’t rich or anything, but because they went to college and they valued education, (57:18) so did I. And I ended up in a pretty good spot.That wasn’t me. I don’t really take credit for (57:25) that. I got lucky, you know? Yeah.And same thing. My upbringing, (57:32) I’ll say privilege. Sure.My, my parents, my parents were not privileged. Okay. My parents (57:39) are naturalized American citizens from Germany.Like they were born in 40 and 44. (57:48) There was no privilege there. Being in America for the opportunity to make a life was the privilege.(57:57) I got that privilege. Thank goodness that I got that. So what, to your point, so blessed to be (58:05) here, but this is cool because it does allow us to actually talk about these things.And maybe we (58:10) can bridge the gap to your point between like, people don’t understand the concept people do (58:14) like Tom Petty’s a great translator for Bob Dylan. Cause he speaks like half, half Dylan. (58:20) So like, if I can get Dylan to talk to petty and then petty to talk to me, (58:24) I can understand Dylan, right? That’s like pretty much how it is.So this is how we kind (58:29) of bridge it. So we need to take, like, we’re on it. We’re privileged to be here.Now I will (58:33) tell you at 40, I didn’t want to be here anymore. And I sought help. I, I wasn’t coerced.I took (58:41) myself and dragged myself to see someone to make a change that I wasn’t happy with in my life. (58:47) Once again, that doesn’t mean it was free. It, it, but it, it doesn’t mean that I reflected on (58:54) what was going on and compelled myself to make that decision.I would think so almost like the (59:03) consciousness being a feedback loop, like we were saying maybe compels action that doesn’t not make (59:11) it deterministic as long as your consciousness, you know what I mean is the feedback, but without (59:18) the consciousness, I don’t think the free will part works that way. Yeah. I mean, you get feedback (59:25) either way, even if it’s not conscious, like if you feel pain, I guess you consciously know you (59:30) feel pain, but you know, something happens to you.There’s all kinds of stories where like (59:35) things are stored in your body. Basically it’s kind of an analogy, not literally stored in your (59:40) body, but you’ll have like reactions and instinctive reactions based on your experience that do not (59:46) cross your consciousness. Does that, that make sense? 100%.Absolutely. And to your point, (59:53) we’re talking about, are these people to blame? Yeah. Like, and, and that’ll come, are we going (59:58) to get to that a little bit later as well? Cause we’re kind of asking the question, right? Yeah.(1:00:02) We’re asking the question. I don’t know if I know the answer exactly, but looking at this kind of (1:00:08) stuff, it does make me pause and think maybe they’re not so much to blame. And when you look (1:00:13) at our criminal justice system, it’s set up in a way that understands free will, that we have free (1:00:21) will, right? That you just made a choice and we’re going to incentivize you not to make these choices (1:00:26) by punishing you.Right. And, and that kind of maybe doesn’t make sense. So maybe we should (1:00:34) actually get to another clip here.Let me, yeah, the weight weight clip, not the weight one, the, (1:00:43) where did it go? Better world without reward and punishment. Do you have that one? (1:00:49) I didn’t download that one yet. Let me pull it up.All right. Do you want to set it up while (1:00:53) I download it? Award and punishment. Give me one second.Yeah. So just what we’re talking about (1:01:00) with the criminal stuff, does it make sense to punish people for bad actions? Does it make sense (1:01:06) to reward people for good actions? Do we call people great because they made the best choices (1:01:14) and did something good in the world, right? That’s kind of what we’re talking about here. So (1:01:18) this is Sapolsky again.He’s going to talk about it. Yeah. And so, and to your point, once again, (1:01:26) it’s like, yeah, do we also reward these people for being in the position that accepted the lack (1:01:33) of the will? Right.Like, yeah, right. You know, all, all, all these things are like very important (1:01:40) on how we, how we look at that. So yeah, let me play that clip for you.Now, if you’re right, (1:01:48) that all human behavior is a result of a similarly, uh, uh, sort of a process that’s similar (1:01:57) in the sense that you don’t have control over it, then this leads to quite a radical conclusion that (1:02:02) we should probably adopt the same approach to essentially anybody doing anything, (1:02:06) any of the time is, is that your position? Um, exactly. That’s the only logical extension. (1:02:12) It’s the only intellectually honest and ethically honest conclusion to reach, (1:02:18) which is this completely nutty stance that blame and punishment as virtues in and of themselves, (1:02:26) rather than as instrumental tools, blame and punishment never make any sense whatsoever in (1:02:32) any realm of human life and holding a mirror up to that.Likewise, praise and reward never make (1:02:39) any sense whatsoever because it is, that’s a circumstance in which some people are treated (1:02:44) better than average for reasons they had nothing to do with, as opposed to the world of people (1:02:48) being treated worse than average for reasons that blame, punishment, reward, praise, a sense of (1:02:54) entitlement, a sense that you have earned anything, a sense that hating a person is ever (1:02:58) justified. None of those make any sense whatsoever. And in principle, you need to run the world (1:03:06) without any of that stuff.Yeah. Very interesting. I don’t know if I’m on board with that completely (1:03:17) in the sense of like, um, are you better than other people for making good decisions or are (1:03:23) you worse for making bad decisions? No, maybe it doesn’t make sense to reward good behavior or (1:03:29) punish bad behavior.Right. But the reward does serve a function. And you see, this is like, (1:03:36) if you hear about dog training at all, positive rewards are much better, uh, (1:03:42) influences on creating good behavior.So as a training reinforcement isn’t actually like (1:03:48) beating a dog, like a lot, just to be clear, a lot of people think negative reinforcement is (1:03:52) actually like doing something negative. No, it’s taking away a reward by the way, just, (1:03:57) just to be clear, philosophically speaking. Anyway, go ahead.Yeah. And they say that the (1:04:01) positive reinforcement works a lot better. Um, so people being animals, I think that does, (1:04:09) does serve a useful purpose, especially parents towards their children.That’s where it’s (1:04:12) appropriate, right? You want to train your children to be good people and make good decisions to (1:04:18) whatever extent they can. Um, does that make sense? So I kind of disagree with the premise (1:04:24) here. There is a place for reward and punishment.I think there is. Can we just say accountability? (1:04:36) Like, why don’t we just do accountability versus blame? Like the, like I blame that guy for murder. (1:04:43) Okay.Like, no, that man. Okay. Do you want to pacify it? Fine.He’s accountable for that (1:04:49) person’s non-existence anymore for that person’s death. He’s accountable for that. There has to (1:04:55) be something.I don’t know what though. I really don’t know what, but the problem with Sapolsky (1:05:02) is at the end of that, he goes, there should be none of that. And I’m like, how do you force none (1:05:06) of that? Like you’re for, you know what I mean? It comes down to force.How, how like, Hey, let’s (1:05:13) get rid of the migrants. Okay, great. Would you like to give up your fourth amendment right to (1:05:17) go through everybody’s house to look for migrants in your, in your attic? Is that sound like a thing (1:05:22) you’d like done? You know what I mean? I’d say no.Right. So like these things can happen from (1:05:28) these deterministic people. This is one of the problems is like, first of all, it absolves you (1:05:34) of all responsibility in some weird way, like minor attractive persons.No, dude, you are a (1:05:40) pedophile. Okay. Now you can have any thought you want in your sick little fricking demented head, (1:05:50) but you act on it.And now it’s a different game. It’s a different game, right? I don’t care if (1:05:58) that’s determined or not. My animalistic emotion will not allow that.Right. Yeah. In a sense, (1:06:04) it doesn’t matter whether it’s deterministic or not, because right.You’ve committed the thing, (1:06:10) right? If you’re a violent criminal, there, there must be something people do to remove that threat. (1:06:17) Right. And how about repentance? Yeah.What about people who turn their lives around? (1:06:23) Yeah. You know, I mean, look, Ross, Ross Oldbrook was in prison for 12 years. I don’t know (1:06:30) how different he’s going to be coming out, but he, he was doing a lot of stuff in there.You know (1:06:37) what I mean? Like that kept him motivated or whatever. So like there are epiphanies that (1:06:42) happen. You, you reflect sometimes, right? There is there no ability to change and is that change (1:06:50) predetermined? Man, that’s really hard.It’s really hard to say that. Right. Yeah.(1:06:57) That’s really hard. Hey, Billy, get in the car. We’re going to do another drive-by.(1:07:00) I just got out of prison. Well, yeah, but we’re going to do another drive-by. That’s like what (1:07:05) we do.We’re scorpions, right? Like, well, maybe I don’t want, I don’t want to be in prison again. (1:07:11) Like I, you know what I mean? Like, I don’t know. I it’s hard to say whether that’s deterministic or (1:07:16) not, but I, once again, I do think that feedback of the consciousness reflection (1:07:20) can influence future actions, if that makes sense.That might not be free, (1:07:25) but I think that’s how part of it works. Yeah. And Aaron makes a good point.Who’s accountable (1:07:32) for the training of humans, a keeper of brothers. Yeah. I mentioned parents.I mean, that’s one way (1:07:38) and there’s always going to be some kind of social norm, social system where these things (1:07:43) are learned. I don’t think you can escape that. Right.And who teaches them right in different (1:07:49) cultures. Like right now we’ve had, for example, our education system is completely (1:07:56) captured in some of this captured in certain ways. Arizona is not so bad, but it’s captured (1:08:01) in a lot of places in a lot of ways.And that’s outside the parents where they’re not even letting (1:08:06) the parents know if these kids like want to be something or like the California law, the AB (1:08:12) 1955, whatever that I talk with Amy Bonner perk about, it’s a crazy law where it’s like, you don’t (1:08:17) even get to tell the parents. You’re like, well, I would argue the parents had the kid. I know (1:08:23) there’s really not great parents out there.I really do know that. And those to those that we (1:08:28) know that that’s happening, that needs to be addressed, but that, that doesn’t take default (1:08:34) de facto, the government knows what to do. So we can just take his to do, you know what I mean? So (1:08:39) that whole, that that’s where it gets scary is who’s going to impose the can’t let them.(1:08:48) If it’s the proper training is, I would say definitely not the government, at least, (1:08:56) I don’t know. And it’s never going to be perfect, but yeah, parents, I look at it this way. (1:09:02) I’m sorry.Go ahead. Finish your point. I apologize.That was it. (1:09:06) Oh, did you see the bam, the baboon thing with Sapolsky? Did I share that with you? The nine (1:09:11) minute clip? You might have, but I couldn’t watch them all. Basically the reason I it’s kind of (1:09:18) sprung this, it was like the second clip I saw.So I probably drowned you in clips. So basically it (1:09:22) was a nine minute video clip. He worked with baboons and he’s talked about it throughout his, (1:09:26) like, you know, through the podcast and stuff.What happened was the, the, the most aggressive (1:09:32) males in the baboon, it was top down, right? Hierarchy had the alpha males who got everything, (1:09:37) but they were antisocial, aggressive, blah, blah, blah. They got into some bad meat, some tainted (1:09:43) meat at a resort park, some track in a trash can, some like tuberculous meat or something. (1:09:50) All the aggressive one died.And all the passive mild mannered males were like, got all the females (1:09:57) who were like, nice guys did like totally changed the culture of that tribe. And I’m like, so wait, (1:10:05) you’re going to call everyone to make this thing happen? Like what? So, okay. This guy’s (1:10:11) deterministically nice guy.Well, who determines that? And what are you going to do? Call the ones (1:10:15) who don’t like, I totally get that that happened naturally in the wild, but how could you like, (1:10:21) how could you do that with us? Right. Or you know what I mean? Once again, it’s like (1:10:26) the concept sounds great. How do you execute it? Oh, you’d have to go through a brave new world (1:10:35) type scenario where everybody is raised in a, in a single environment, a hundred percent controlled, (1:10:43) a hundred percent controlled.And we control everything. I’m out of oxygen, everything, (1:10:48) right? Yes. Right.Right. Well, let’s get into another example. Keep this moving.The weight (1:10:57) uh, you talked about weight. Yeah. So let’s get into that.Absolutely. Let me share that one for (1:11:02) you, sir. Back to Sapolsky, he’s going to be talking about how weight is just out of humans (1:11:11) control.Yeah. The fact that if you get a certain variant of the gene coding for the leptin receptor (1:11:24) in your brain, no matter how self-disciplined you are, no matter how much you actually love (1:11:30) yourself or any, no matter what you do, you’re going to be overweight because your brain doesn’t (1:11:35) get satiation signals. And when you look at sort of implicit biases in society these days, (1:11:41) one of the only ones that has grown stronger in recent decades is implicit biases against people (1:11:46) who are overweight because we associate it with a lack of self-discipline and self-indulgence and (1:11:51) they secretly don’t love themselves at all.And you get that gene variant and you’re screwed. (1:11:58) You can’t do anything about it. And it’s going to be a much better world when we subtract (1:12:04) free will out of that one.Yeah. What do you think about that, man? I’m still having some (1:12:14) thoughts. Yeah, please.Oh, you want me to, you want me to go first while you’re processing or (1:12:20) I’ll go ahead. I just, I just have some doubts about this. (1:12:25) Yes, there’s a lot of things that are out of your control.You can have genetic factors. You can (1:12:29) have, you can grow up in an environment where the health is not prioritized. So yeah, to a large (1:12:40) extent, people’s weight is not in their control, but we see all the time people making a conscious (1:12:46) effort to change.And then I guess you could go back and say, well, that conscious or that thought (1:12:53) to want to change, uh, didn’t come from you. It came from some media you consumed some, uh, (1:13:00) some incident that happened to you. People get scared when they have a health incident, (1:13:05) they go to the hospital for a heart attack or something.And then they’re like, Oh, (1:13:08) okay, now I got to change. So, uh, where do you sit on this? (1:13:16) I did share a little bit about my weight thing and yes, people have thyroid disorders. (1:13:22) Yeah.A percentage of people can’t process lactose lactose, right? (1:13:29) These are genetic mutations that happen in our life, like in lives, like these, these created (1:13:34) things. But what, the way he says that is excusing the shove your face full of five big Macs. (1:13:42) Mm.And, uh, I think people are very helpful going, Hey, look, you got a weight problem, (1:13:53) but what are you doing? Okay. You’re exercising. You’re eating as well as I would think within the (1:14:00) portions of whatever.And you’re controlled in that way. Now, some people might have the thing (1:14:06) where they just can’t be satiated, I guess, gluttony or whatever. Okay.That’s a slightly (1:14:11) different, but that’s such a small percentage. These, these are, these are things within the (1:14:15) communities, right? That are just normal things. Like what you’re not going to, you know what I (1:14:20) mean? Like lactose intolerance.Oh yeah. You’re lactose intolerance. I can’t, I can’t mate with (1:14:25) you or you know what I mean? Like, okay.So there’s probably, I would argue that the, unless (1:14:33) it’s a male or female genetic disorder, that the same, a similar percentage of men and women would (1:14:38) have that. Maybe they find each other and they’re okay with that. Cause they have that understanding (1:14:43) and they still mate.Right? Like, what are we talking about here? I’m trying, you know, I’m (1:14:47) trying to understand. It’s like you can stop or control the things you put in your mouth, (1:14:53) the amount, maybe your processing doesn’t work, but that doesn’t like it excuses. (1:14:59) Oh, everybody’s obese now.No, not everybody was obese. Okay. As someone who’s a fat fuck for like (1:15:07) 30 years.No, it’s just not the case. Like, and, and weight is one of the ones where you just look (1:15:14) at. It’s like, I know a woman who had a thyroid problem and she was, she, she was overweight for (1:15:20) her size.She ran marathons. She ran marathons. You think I couldn’t walk five miles and she ran (1:15:30) 26.It’s like, okay, well I think, you know what I mean? Like there’s call, there’s grace. Like (1:15:35) humans have grace. I don’t know.I get, I don’t go crazy. Yeah. And running a marathon is often (1:15:44) called like a triumph of the will, right? Because at every point your brain and your body is telling (1:15:49) you why the hell are you doing this? This isn’t insane.And you want to stop the whole time, (1:15:55) but you’re like, Nope, I’m going to keep going. I’m going to keep going. Is the will is the will, (1:15:59) the glory or is a determinant, the glory? I would argue that I, I not, I would argue that not (1:16:05) everybody has the same determinant to determinants to do that.I don’t want the glory of saying I ran (1:16:10) a marathon. I don’t give a crap personally. I think it’s amazing that someone does.It’s just (1:16:15) not my thing. Right? So once again, is it how we’re born and how we do it, that makes our drive. (1:16:22) And you know what? I think there’s ambitious rich kids.Just like, we just see the ambitious (1:16:27) poor kids do real well because they don’t ever want to lose again or struggle. And we see rich (1:16:31) kids get entitled and maybe like not put themselves that forward because they got coddled (1:16:36) a little bit. So there’s a nurture there, right? And you see these people with willpower that came (1:16:41) from nothing, you know, Adam curls a great example.He sees his mom laying on the couch. (1:16:46) He goes, I don’t want to live that way. That sounded like he was determined.And I think it (1:16:53) was his will. I don’t think it was, you know, I think it was like literally that. So anyway.(1:16:57) Yeah. Yeah. I’m still on the side of free will, I think.But okay. Let’s say going back to kind (1:17:05) of the criminal stuff and maybe wait to, no, I think just the criminal stuff. Like you see people (1:17:11) who commit violent crimes generally are not particularly high on the IQ scale.And we’ve (1:17:19) talked about this a little bit before with IQ, but what do you think? Like IQ might not be a great (1:17:24) measurement for intelligence, but there’s something about the variance in your brain activity, (1:17:31) right? The amount of processing power you have in your head that I think at least it gives people a (1:17:37) greater or lesser degree of conscious thought. Like those people that burned the house down (1:17:43) and committed the violent crimes, like they said, I didn’t even think about why I did this. Like I (1:17:49) just didn’t cross my mind.So they’re not, they’re not maybe as conscious as people that (1:17:55) would, might be higher on the IQ scale. What do you think? Great point. And we talked about it (1:18:02) limited, right? Limited, but here’s the, here’s the rub.And I, I don’t know the number, but I (1:18:09) also think that these people would get off more than poor criminals who can’t afford defense. (1:18:14) What about all the white collar crime? How many fucking psychopaths and narcissists and (1:18:19) megalomaniac politicians have fricking gold bars in their house and a hundred dollar bills shoved (1:18:25) in their robes that are embroidered? Like it’s just a different crime, but the crime, you know (1:18:32) what I mean? Like it’s, it’s the crime within the means that they can do it, right? Like it’s the (1:18:38) dumb guy, the morons not going to do a smart crime. So he’ll just, but he’ll just do a crime.(1:18:44) So maybe it’s the criminality inside the brain, not how they process the criminality. (1:18:51) Smarter people can’t be criminals, but to do that kind of thing with the violence, (1:18:55) where you just don’t care about the human thing. I guess they’re also very smart, like (1:19:01) psychopathic serial killers too.So maybe it’s not perfect. (1:19:04) Your point is that the, the, the, that, that reptile brain in the back of your head, (1:19:08) right? There is a base carnal effing and fighting, right? Lower IQ effing and fighting. (1:19:17) Look at the, look at the countries and look at literally just look at IQ and look at the (1:19:22) stability in those regions that have those IQ correlated IQ.And it’s pretty weird. (1:19:29) That, but a lot of those psychopathic people are smart. They have consciousness.They, (1:19:36) they know what they’re doing. They just don’t feel bad about it. They don’t have the, (1:19:40) the guilt.That’s a totally different kind. Yeah. Yeah.Different thing. So if that’s a (1:19:48) biological thing too, or if that’s cold, like we still totally wrestle with that one. (1:19:53) Yeah.I think it’s probably largely biological, but also triggered by nurture. (1:20:00) I think it’s a break for sure. Somehow.Yeah. Yeah. But anyway, so is this also correlated to (1:20:05) free will? Are there variances in how much free will you have based on your brain processing power (1:20:13) or whatever measure you want to say about intelligence? Do you think it’s correlated? (1:20:17) I think it might be.Well, Michael Malice, by the way, Michael Malice is coming to Freedom Fest, (1:20:31) y’all. Palm Springs, Michael Malice. Oh my God.I I’m going to get like within 50 feet. I’ll be (1:20:38) like, I’ll play hard to get. He’ll come to me.Sure. Anyway, Michael Malice said the smartest (1:20:45) dogs are to use to train. So I think there’s a point where, and I think you and I are at like, (1:20:53) I eclipsed that where we like getting to the Peterson philosophical, where we take steps back (1:20:57) outside of ourselves and look down and reflect, but there’s that midwit range.It’s like, (1:21:03) they’re smart and they grasp concepts, but then they just grasp onto the concept (1:21:07) and don’t have a deeper, but they have just enough to be dangerous. (1:21:12) That’s probably most of us. That’s I’m included in that.I’m, I dip in my toe into like, (1:21:18) what’s that mass psychosis, you know, mass formation psychosis every once in a while. (1:21:23) But you and I, we can argue that we’re a little different considering we COVID happened and how (1:21:30) we reacted and responded to that as best we could. So we have the capacity to step outside of the, (1:21:36) you know, the, the norm.And I do think there is a correlation between that. Now for the psychopath (1:21:43) serial killer, it does allow them to rationalize every decision they make. That’s evil.(1:21:49) So with that, I think a smart evil person is a lot more dangerous than a dumb evil person. (1:21:59) Yes. I agree with that for sure.And it’s not like I’m trying to say I’m the smartest guy. (1:22:05) I’m still a dumb human. And I would say that if there is any variation in the amount of freewill (1:22:11) that you have on the scale, it’s not like a 90% freewill to 10% on the low end.It’s like (1:22:18) the smart people might have a 1% freewill and the dumb people have like half a percent. (1:22:25) So it’s still a very small thing. I would just want to share who’s to say (1:22:31) proper training system, right? To your point, like who’s to say what the things are.Yeah. (1:22:36) And then I did want to share Justin point as well. That’s what they say about children.They (1:22:41) seem to be a whole lot crappier these days than they used to be. Yeah. I mean, there’s a discipline (1:22:46) aspect, right? Culturally there is right.But that is that have anything to do with will or not? (1:22:55) You know what I mean? Was it determined that once again, can maybe this is probably a good time, (1:23:00) right? Hey, there’s a book called the fourth turning with Neil Howell. Okay. It’s a brilliant (1:23:06) book, but it’s talking about what is it? Uh, strong men create good times, good times, create (1:23:15) weak men, weak men, create bad times, bad times, create great men or some strong men, (1:23:20) right? There’s like this cycle.Yeah. So this is the cycle. We’re on the fourth turning of this (1:23:25) for a generational thing, whatever it is, 80 year or whatever.It’s kind of a contritee (1:23:30) semi war cycle, whatever humanity, it repeats itself, right? We constantly say it rhymes, (1:23:37) it repeats itself. It’s history repeats itself. It’s a, it rhymes or whatever.And we’re like, (1:23:43) humanity repeats itself. And you’re like, well, is that almost, does, does the cycle almost help (1:23:49) with the deterministic factor of it? Because here’s your growth. It’s going to crest.It’s (1:23:55) going to go down and it’s going to go back and it’s going to back up. And it just does that. (1:23:59) That’s just what it does.Yeah. So does the cycle that we’re kind of experienced that we’re starting (1:24:06) to see emerge out of like out of history, the being repetitive, it almost lends itself to more (1:24:14) of a deterministic than free will. Cause we can’t seem to steer out of these things once we do them (1:24:21) because we tend to do them again.Yeah. There’s something to that. I think when you look at the (1:24:26) societal level, the aggregate or the average of people, you can kind of predict what’s going to (1:24:33) happen.And this is like kind of how insurance works, like insurance, car insurance companies (1:24:38) say, they don’t know what you as an individual are going to do. They don’t know if you’re going (1:24:45) to speed or get into a car accident. Maybe with some history, they can make an educated guess, but (1:24:51) they don’t know what the odds are of you.Well, they know the odds, sorry. They don’t know (1:24:57) specifically when you are going to get into an accident and require a claim. Right.But when they (1:25:02) have a whole bunch of people, when they have a million customers, they can predict pretty accurately (1:25:08) how many accidents are going to happen in a given period. Right. So there’s something at that level (1:25:14) where as a society, we get into these cycles, we’re kind of doomed to repeat these cycles.And (1:25:22) maybe that’s partially determinism, you know? Yeah. It’s really interesting. (1:25:29) Where are we out on this? Cause I don’t want to jump and jump the gun.Cause I wanted to talk a (1:25:33) bit about psychic phenomena, but that’ll probably be at the end, I guess. Let’s go to physics. (1:25:40) Yes.Let’s go to you. What do we got, sir? So yeah, people that make the argument for determinism (1:25:47) often reference physics. It kind of treating people as a collection of cells and particles (1:25:53) and electrons and whatever.I don’t know about it, but I think it’s worth exploring. (1:26:01) So if we got that, if you got that clip, what does physics say about free will? What does physics say? (1:26:07) Yeah. Let me, give me one second.What the physics have to say. Give me one second. I’ll (1:26:11) download that.I’m looking at the notes and I, I’m just not following the notes, sir. I’m trying. (1:26:16) My eyes are all over the place.Yeah, I know. No worries. No, it’s totally good.Everybody having (1:26:22) a good time in the chat. Give me one second. I’m downloading this.Give us some thumbs up. Hey, (1:26:27) everybody needs to subscribe. Everybody needs to subscribe to, to Jason’s podcast (1:26:33) at Drop the Mask.So let’s, let’s, let’s make sure we do that. Subscribe, join, (1:26:39) all that good stuff. Here we go.I’m going to drop the mask pod for me on X, (1:26:44) Mark Sean for Mark over there. Go follow him. Yeah.Not conscious podcast. Justin says, (1:26:54) I think that has more to do with the nature of man and less to do with the things being determined. (1:27:02) Interesting.Yes. Nature of man. But then is it, is the nature of man determined? I guess (1:27:07) that’s the question, right? Well, and that is the thing.Cause it, how many times where we go, (1:27:12) Hey, don’t become imperialistic. Don’t become an empire. (1:27:17) We’ve had three or four of these iterations of that from Greece to Rome doing it anyway.(1:27:23) Right. To England. I mean, we, we literally broke away from the empire that we replaced (1:27:28) as an imperial empire.Like, all right. Anyway, let me, let me, anyway, this is that green guy. (1:27:37) I forget his first name.Yeah. Brian, Brian, Brian green. And once again, he’s one of the guys, (1:27:44) I think is part of the PSYOP everybody that steered physics off.So it’s like, it’s really (1:27:49) weird. This deterministic. Cause I think that determinism is some kind of ploy to do stuff, (1:27:54) if that makes sense.So anyway, I will hit play. What does physics have to say about free will? (1:28:01) Well, it’s not definite because we don’t fully know the laws of physics, but the laws of physics (1:28:07) that we currently have at our disposal have no opportunity for intercession by human will. (1:28:14) Right.I mean, we are a collection of particles governed by laws that you can write down and (1:28:17) fit on a t-shirt. And those laws don’t at any point in the evolution of the particles say, (1:28:21) Hey, can you like tell me now what to do persons, right? Normally the intuitive definition is (1:28:26) things could have been different. And I could have made a choice for things to turn out differently.(1:28:32) And if that’s your definition of free will, does that resonate with your perspective? Well, (1:28:36) then I don’t see any way to square that with the laws of physics, because anything that you do (1:28:40) is your particles executing some kind of motion and the motion of your particles in your brain, (1:28:46) in your body, have no opportunity to allow you as a conscious being to direct them. (1:28:52) What force could possibly that direction come from? Is it the electromagnetic force? Well, (1:28:58) that one we understand from Maxwell. Is it the gravitational force? We understand that one from (1:29:01) Einstein.Is it the nuclear forces? Those we understand from the standard model of particle (1:29:05) physics. What force could you possibly exert on your particles that goes against or goes beyond (1:29:11) those that emerged from the equations of physics? Yes. The way that he understands this is (1:29:24) not really the way that most people understand who we are as a human, right? It’s broken down (1:29:35) to the point where we’re meaningless, right? If you think of us as just a collection of electrons (1:29:40) and neutrons firing, we are a collection of atoms, sure, but these atoms form something, (1:29:50) right? There’s something there.The consciousness is there. That can’t really be, (1:29:55) at least to my knowledge, that can’t be explained by physics, or can it? (1:30:00) You’re right. So many things, man.It feels like an agenda. (1:30:12) I’m not going to lie. I got sucked up in it, man.It’s not like I don’t believe that way either, (1:30:18) but I’m a materialist. I’ll admit, I’ve got a little bit of a blind spot. I’m a materialist.(1:30:26) I share my stuff I had happen. If it didn’t happen to me, I couldn’t believe it, (1:30:31) because I didn’t experience it, right? I have to feel it, touch it, see it, smell it, (1:30:37) all those things, measure it, this, that, and the other. These guys sent us down this hole, (1:30:42) but what does that allow us to do? It allows us to replace meaning with some tyrannical, (1:30:50) rule-based overlord of what you should do as a human, because that’s what we deem humanity should (1:30:58) do.You’re like, but who deems that? The social contract between two people deem that relationship, (1:31:07) and then the social contract between those two people and another, and those three and another, (1:31:12) and those five and those 15, and those 22, and those 36 people. That’s how it works. (1:31:18) To your point, it can’t just be globs of meat, because dogs don’t think about tomorrow.(1:31:28) They do bury a bone. That might be the only thing, because they know they can’t finish it, (1:31:35) but if they could probably finish it, they’d finish it right there. It’s not done (1:31:41) whatever.It’s instinctually stored or something. We actually look to the future, (1:31:46) plan and think. It’s frustrating, because I think this leads to meaning.(1:31:50) And I’m a pro-choice guy to an extent, but I could see how this reductionist makes it easy to be (1:31:59) like, you don’t even know what your kid was going to be. It was going to be whatever it was going to (1:32:06) be, even if you wanted to, no matter how you raised it, no matter how you fed it and did whatever, (1:32:12) it was going to be what it was going to be, so it’s worthless. Just don’t even start it.(1:32:17) Don’t even start that process. It’s the clump of cells argument, right? It wasn’t a baby, (1:32:24) it was just a clump of cells. And okay, maybe that is technically true, but then (1:32:28) you can say the same thing about a living human being, a fully grown adult.I’m just a collection (1:32:34) of cells, so who cares? And I think you’re right. It’s maybe a ploy, maybe consciously or (1:32:41) unconsciously, but a ploy to reduce humans to just matter. And again, that could be technically (1:32:49) true, but if we do… I mean, they’re not mutually exclusive, right? (1:32:55) Yeah.They can both be true, like, (1:32:57) okay, we’re meats and clumps, and at a point, this consciousness thing is an emergent property (1:33:04) from the meat of clump, so it gains momentum just like any complex system. So I don’t know (1:33:12) how that doesn’t defy physics. It is physics.Systems get more complex over time. I mean, (1:33:23) biologically- Yeah, and how do all these cells know how (1:33:25) to work together and form this form? I mean, I guess it’s in DNA, right? But do we really (1:33:31) understand exactly how that happens? I don’t think so. (1:33:35) And to say that at the Big Bang, everything was going to happen the way it was.Now, (1:33:42) I actually don’t necessarily disagree because in a quantum world, in my opinion, anything that can (1:33:51) possibly happen must happen, not should. It’s just a probabilistic potential, right? (1:33:58) It’s these whatever infinite outcomes and their probabilistic outcomes, right? That doesn’t change (1:34:05) free will either because it just makes it random as to the outcome, still not free. It’s determined, (1:34:14) just random determined, right? So it’s the roll of the dice thing.But when I look at this stuff, (1:34:20) man, and it gets so crazy because like, okay, I have to share this because this is what happened. (1:34:27) I wake up in the morning and I shared some psychic stuff with you. I wake up in the morning, (1:34:34) I start a fight with my girlfriend.First thing in the morning, Sunday morning, I get up and I (1:34:39) wake up and I look over to her. I go, if our house burns down and we didn’t move, (1:34:48) that’s going to end our relationship. I literally started there.It was weird, okay? I’m not going (1:34:55) to lie. I don’t know what came over me, but I felt a little possessed at the time. Because (1:35:01) basically we were talking about, you know, fire insurance being taken away and stuff.And like (1:35:05) Phoenix, there’s something weird going on that I’ve had voices in my head screaming me to leave. (1:35:10) The same ones that told me to come here are the ones telling me to get the heck out. (1:35:14) And I’m defying that.And it’s really hurting me. Okay. Now I, it’s my own thing.So I share this (1:35:20) with my girlfriend, but it had to be that morning. I’m like, if we burn down, I swear (1:35:26) it won’t go well for us. You know what I mean? Like literally that night I go out to walk and (1:35:32) I shared the video with you.South mountains on fire. It’s a half mile from my house, man. (1:35:37) And it caught on fire that night.I can tell you 100, I stormed upstairs and I go, baby, (1:35:44) come down here, check this out. And I show her, I’m like, had to be why it was so in my mind at (1:35:51) that time. And I know that sounds crazy, but the day her dog died, the morning I was awake with (1:35:59) her, like in the morning before she left, tears were shooting out of my face.And I was lucid (1:36:04) going, something’s wrong. I don’t know what’s wrong. Something’s not going, not good.Like (1:36:09) I just knew, like, I can’t explain it, but I look back. Right. So the psychic phenomena, (1:36:16) if it’s determined that may explain why you can see an outcome.(1:36:21) Right. So maybe it is determined if, if one can actually see an outcome, (1:36:29) maybe that’s determined, but it could also be quanta. Cause it’d be probabilistic and whatever (1:36:33) right.Yeah. Yeah. We could go back to that limit experiment where they recognize that (1:36:40) people’s brain activity was happening before they chose to make, make emotion.Right. (1:36:47) So there could be something there. I think, well, let’s get into some of the counter arguments (1:36:55) because we’ve got Jordan Peterson here and he’s going to talk about it in a way that I think (1:36:59) is really interesting and plays into that.Yeah. The first Peter, which one, the first one. (1:37:08) Okay.Yeah. Let me download them real quick. If you just want to set them up real quick.(1:37:12) Yeah. So he, he does believe in free will. He says that we are not just deterministic (1:37:18) clockwork machines is the phrase that he uses.And I kind of agree, although I’m not a hundred (1:37:24) percent, I’m on board with his argument. Yeah, I would totally agree. Okay.So yeah, (1:37:30) to your point, Peterson Peterson’s smart. Um, he’s well thought out. (1:37:40) And I, I think he’s got, you know, this whole, he’s got that new book where he, (1:37:45) we wrestle with God or whatever.And it’s like, okay, that’s, that’s pretty good because I do (1:37:49) think he’s trying to address it from a different perspective. But once again, I think we talked (1:37:53) about it. I shared it with you is I don’t know if everyone can conceptualize these things the way he (1:38:00) can.Does that make sense? So yes, it will be for his audience, but remember we need to live (1:38:08) between each other and amongst each other, whatever you want to live in your high walled (1:38:12) castle. Like, where are you going to live? You’re going to live among us. If you’re so here, (1:38:17) you know what I mean? And I don’t mean that in an elitist way, but I just mean it in like a, (1:38:22) if, if people can’t grasp the concept, if everyone can’t, if not everyone can, (1:38:29) then not everyone can like move forward with like a, a unified idea, right? Like, (1:38:37) and that’s weirdly where God kind of does the meaning, right? That was the unified idea.And (1:38:41) I don’t want government to replace God. I don’t want to serve anyone, you know? So Peterson one, (1:38:46) right? Go ahead and tell me your thoughts on that before I hit that. Yeah.So like, (1:38:51) as you were talking about the concept of time kind of comes into question here, (1:38:55) because you’re talking about precognition kind of experiencing or thinking about things (1:39:01) well before they happen. And to understand that, do we fully understand the concept of time as (1:39:10) exactly linear? And it can only be, there’s no like going back and forth. There’s no time travel (1:39:17) and that I don’t know.Right. And we can talk about the physics of time travel. Technically (1:39:24) you can move forward in time because you could park next to a black hole.Time slows for you (1:39:29) and speeds for everyone else. Come back. Everyone’s a hundred years in the future.(1:39:32) Sounds weird, but you can do that anyway. All right. Peterson one, sir.Yeah. (1:39:45) The future is unpredictable. Technically speaking, the universe is not deterministic.(1:39:51) Technically speaking, there isn’t any dispute about that. You’re not a clockwork machine. (1:39:57) And the reason that we know that is because a clockwork machine can’t compute the transforming (1:40:02) horizon of the future.So now whether or not that means we have free will, that’s a different issue (1:40:09) because it’s not exactly obvious what free will means. And it’s obvious as well that to some (1:40:14) degree, our will is bounded, but it certainly does mean that whatever you are, you’re not a (1:40:20) deterministic clockwork machine. And whatever the universe is, it’s not a deterministic clockwork (1:40:26) machine.Yeah. So that’s kind of setting it up. Before we continue, we got about 20 minutes (1:40:33) before we call it a day.I’m the one always holding us behind. So I want to make sure we’re (1:40:37) on the clock, sir. 20 minutes.T minus 20. All right. Yeah.So he talks about, this is setting (1:40:44) it up, right? But he does talk about time, how kind of like because we can think about the future (1:40:50) and probably alter the future based on our actions, that’s kind of an indicator of some kind (1:40:57) of free will. And he does admit that it’s bounded. So I think that is probably not in question, (1:41:02) right? We all agree to some level, we can’t control things, but let’s keep going unless you (1:41:10) had some other thoughts.Yeah. Very quickly is to your point, we talked about reflection, (1:41:16) changing actions, changing future actions. So it kind of makes sense.And so it does look like (1:41:24) as we implement our actions, the horizon of possibility collapses into a deterministic (1:41:29) actuality. But the farther out into the future we look, the less determined our perceptions (1:41:37) and actions necessarily become. Yeah.Well, I’ll leave it at that. (1:41:47) Yeah. So I think that’s very interesting.He says that as we come toward the present, (1:41:54) everything looks deterministic, right? And we can only live in the present. We cannot live in (1:41:59) the future. So that kind of blows my mind a little bit.Like you can look out into the future and (1:42:06) things are unclear. We don’t know what’s happening out there, but as we come into the present, (1:42:11) everything kind of looks like it’s predetermined because everything that happened in the past (1:42:17) leading up to this puts you in this moment. And like I said, there’s no going back and forth.(1:42:22) There’s no time travel. There’s no rewinding and do-overs. We’re kind of stuck.And so if (1:42:27) you’re only looking at the present moment, yes, maybe it is deterministic. Yeah. I thought this (1:42:36) was one of those compelling clips of the entire piece of the talk about it because it makes me (1:42:40) think about weather, the butterfly effect, all these types of things, right? Cause and effect too.(1:42:46) A week out, you can’t tell me what the weather’s going to be exactly like, right? The wind speed, (1:42:51) the temperature, the pressure, the humidity. You’re not going to tell me exactly. But as you get (1:42:57) closer to that, the five-day forecast, yeah, the fifth day, probably pretty accurate.But as you (1:43:02) get closer to the day of, it comes into being as the weather day that is. So it is all ethereal (1:43:13) here until it actually becomes weather, right? And you go, yeah, well, the high pressure caused (1:43:17) the clouds to do this and the jet stream blew this way. And that’s causal, but it’s not deterministic (1:43:23) till it actually exactly becomes a storm or becomes a thing, right? Yeah.Right. All right. (1:43:35) I can give you a contrary vision that’s associated with what I talked about tonight.(1:43:40) You’re not a clockwork machine. What are you? You’re a visionary. (1:43:47) So, and to understand that, you have to reconfigure how you think about the world, (1:43:52) because most of you undoubtedly think like scientific materialists, at least in part.(1:43:57) You’re probably not very good at thinking like scientific materialists, but because (1:44:01) very few people think scientifically in a very thorough manner. But still, (1:44:06) the basic architecture of your thought is going to be of that not nature. And so you think there (1:44:14) are objects in the world and you think that you react to the objects and in a deterministic way, (1:44:20) and none of that’s true.You don’t see objects that are objective. You see patterns that are (1:44:26) functional and they don’t determine your action because you’re not a clockwork machine (1:44:31) driven by stimulus. Yeah.Your thoughts? Yeah. Well, I’ll read Aaron’s comment here. He says, (1:44:43) deterministic means something is inevitable or happens as a result of a cause.It can also refer (1:44:48) to a philosophical belief that all events are predetermined. So we’re kind of mostly talking (1:44:52) about the philosophical belief here, right? But yes, I mean, everything happens as a result of a (1:45:00) cause. I don’t think that is debatable.I guess causality is a thing, right? Yeah. I mean, (1:45:09) random, maybe. And that’s the thing is when it clearly, you can’t do something that (1:45:21) the universe won’t allow, right? There’s physics, there’s laws of physics and gravity and all these (1:45:32) things that are bound, right? If the gravitational pull was a little too light, we’d all fly apart.(1:45:37) If it was a little too strong, we’d all be sucked up into one ball, right? The fine tuning of the (1:45:42) universe kind of stuff, whatever you want to talk about, you’re like, okay, but maybe we tuned it. (1:45:48) You know what I mean? That doesn’t mean it was determined. It had to be, it changed over time.(1:45:54) Evolution is one of those things where it changes. Things evolve. It’s natural selection after the (1:46:02) evolution because the evolution is like a mutation, right? So for example, a gorilla has black eyes (1:46:07) and the second white pupil starts going or white goes around it, you can tell the gorilla’s (1:46:12) attention.So that allowed mating to be better because you could tell that the person was (1:46:17) looking at you when they were looking at you. That really worked for trying to mate, right? (1:46:21) So obviously that got bred out, but some things like, for example, we talked about lactose (1:46:26) intolerance. That one still exists because we didn’t need it because actually lactose intolerance (1:46:32) was actually how it is.The non-lactose intolerance is actually the mutation, (1:46:37) which because it allowed us to drink milk later in life. It’s kind of a weird thing. So anyway, (1:46:42) so there’s all these genetics, biologics, and everything, but man, to really tell me that (1:46:49) it’s causal, sure, but all determined, it’s tough.It’s a tough one. (1:46:56) Yeah. Justin said that if there is free will on some level, regardless of how small it may be, (1:47:02) then things cannot be determined.So yeah, it’s a good point. (1:47:07) Yeah. And once again, it is a butterfly effect.Like if I clap my hand right now (1:47:12) and I just chose to do that and it creates just enough reverberation to do something else in the (1:47:16) room, cool. Did I do that? I mean, but is that free will? That is assuming every conversation (1:47:24) we had, it’s kind of like the thing about the monkey. If you give a monkey an infinite amount (1:47:29) of time, they’ll type out every work of Shakespeare, like letter by letter.And you’re like, (1:47:36) yeah, I mean, I guess, like, I don’t really know what that, you know what I mean? Like, (1:47:41) really? But is that really like going to, that’s deterministic in some way too? I don’t know. (1:47:50) Yeah. So I think Peterson’s point here is that yes, it looks deterministic now in the present, (1:47:57) but it’s because of some choices or actions that happened in the past.And so what we do now, (1:48:05) can affect the future. I think there is some room, maybe not big, but there is some room (1:48:13) for your free will to make those changes and affect your future self. Like Peterson often (1:48:19) talks about you as a collection of selves.So you’re thinking about you tomorrow. You’re (1:48:24) thinking about you in 10 days. You’re thinking about you in five years.So when you look at (1:48:29) where you are now, you’re like, well, I can’t change that, but I’m going to take this tiny (1:48:35) step and make it a little bit better for me in the future. So I think at that level, there is (1:48:41) some small amount of free will. And like Justin says, if there’s some, (1:48:46) that means that we do not live in a deterministic world.(1:48:52) And in Peterson’s defense, if you had young man after young man approach you and say, (1:49:04) someone handed me a video of yours and it changed my life. (1:49:12) Peterson affects change in people’s lives. Determined or not, deterministic or not, (1:49:20) I don’t see how he couldn’t see it as the desire to be a better person.(1:49:26) Yeah, because it’s the only way I think that he could rationalize him being there. Imagine him being (1:49:32) like, oh, you’re coming to me because you were going to come to me anyway. Like, yeah, this was (1:49:38) supposed to happen, I guess.So we’ll just play through the motions like it does really evoke (1:49:43) the meaning issue because meaning or lack thereof would compel me to act slightly, even the most (1:49:53) minute way differently, for example. So on Peterson’s defense, man, he’s seen people (1:50:00) will themselves out of some shit, or at least it seems like that’s what it was, right? (1:50:05) Like these young men turn their lives around after watching his videos. So I can imagine him (1:50:13) feeling much more that you are in control of your change and your future.(1:50:18) Yeah. And we may not know exactly what the impetus for change was, (1:50:23) but there was something. And at some point- (1:50:27) And I think it’s reflection.(1:50:28) Yeah. At some point, I think you do have a choice to make. And even if that’s not 100% true, (1:50:35) I think that’s still the way that I want to live.That’s still the way I want to understand it, (1:50:40) because like you said, that’s the meaning in life. And if we don’t have that, then yeah, (1:50:45) maybe we just sit around on the couch and do nothing and be lazy, fat slobs, you know? (1:50:52) And I mean, to your point as well, you have a future person that you’re setting up for (1:51:00) their life too, right? Or helping too. So you have that extra pressure on you that someone like (1:51:07) myself, who doesn’t have that, has less of that pressure even.So imagine no meaning, (1:51:14) no offspring, or no legacy, and look at some current culture stuff that have been a result (1:51:25) of that, right? There’s a nihilistic look in the world. And I was going to cut this clip, (1:51:32) but he’s like, how do we not go to fatalism? Because if it’s all predetermined, we’re going (1:51:39) to not care to a point, because there’s going to be a point where not enough of us are going to (1:51:43) care. And it’s going to create an inverted care spiral, like a death spiral, right? (1:51:51) Without meaning, that’s a possibility, isn’t it? Yeah, for sure.Let’s do one more clip, (1:51:58) the what has to change. Oh, okay. Sorry, I had Peterson 3. Can I play Peterson 3 while I pull (1:52:07) up what has to change? Yeah, we’ll finish this off.I was trying to save some time, (1:52:11) but it’s still good. All right. It’ll take me a second to download.All of that’s wrong. (1:52:18) Imagine what you confront when you wake up in the morning. You might say, well, (1:52:21) wake up in my bedroom, and I confront the furniture.It’s like… (1:52:28) I love that he’s exasperated about his own hypothetical. Imagine you’re at a theatre, (1:52:32) and you’re watching a play. I know, it’s great, isn’t it? And the stage is set with the props.(1:52:37) And the actors come on, and they say their lines, and you say, the props caused that. (1:52:44) Like, none of that’s even vaguely true. And you know, the props in a play aren’t objects either.(1:52:49) They’re facilitators of the symbolic message of the play. And I think you can say that about (1:52:55) the objects in the actual world. They’re not objects.They’re facilitators of the symbolic (1:53:01) meaning of the play. And then what do you confront when you wake up in the morning? Well, it’s not (1:53:06) the damn furniture in your room. It’s the possibility of the day.You know, the possibility (1:53:13) of the day makes itself manifest to you, and it presents itself as a problem. How will I interact (1:53:19) with what’s transforming in front of me in a manner that will bring about the desired end? (1:53:26) And you might be very bad at that, which just means you’re impulsive, and after the (1:53:32) realization of very short-term visions, and so you’re more hedonistic and immature in your (1:53:39) visionary orientation. Or you’re sophisticated, and you integrate the possibility that makes (1:53:45) itself manifest to you with a higher order and sophisticated vision.And then you grapple or (1:53:51) wrestle with that emergent possibility to realize it. And by doing that, you participate in the (1:53:57) creation of the world. All right.I’m going to go right to this next clip, buddy. (1:54:03) You just on that. I’ve got some time.Yeah. No, go ahead. Yeah.(1:54:08) Yeah. I think just by him saying that objects are kind of players in the world, (1:54:15) they’re facilitators, I forget exactly what he said, of your reality. I mean, (1:54:21) to me, that’s more of an argument against free will.Like, these objects are doing something to (1:54:26) you. They’re acting on you to force you to do something. But then he says, yeah, you have the (1:54:31) choice of how to interpret that.So yeah, that’s where I was like, I’m not 100% sure about his (1:54:37) argument, but maybe I’m not quite understanding. I don’t think he has a complete argument yet. (1:54:44) Yeah.And in a Peterson way, I don’t know if he will, because I don’t… He’s not a fence sitter. (1:54:52) He’s… He just rambles. He likes to bring the ideas and make them harmonize, (1:54:57) if that makes sense.Like, what is God? Well, what do you mean by God? It’s like, dude, (1:55:02) don’t dance around this shit. There’s people who think there’s a God. What are you talking about? (1:55:08) You know, I got God in my ear talking about me here, and I’ve got God in my left ear talking about (1:55:14) that.I love just the way he thinks, because he does dance with the ideas of it. But to your point, (1:55:22) I wanted to bring up non-player character. We talked about simulation theory.Simulation theory (1:55:27) is part of this deterministic stuff too. It’s not any different, right? Because it’s like, (1:55:32) dude, we got non-player characters who are just going through the motions. Now, maybe Will happens (1:55:41) at some level within the non-player character.I would argue it would be a consciousness, (1:55:46) which certain animals have certain levels, certain don’t. Plants have a consciousness, (1:55:53) but not in that same way. It’s a difference, like a general intelligence or whatever.(1:55:57) So, it’s compelling, man. It’s interesting to think about. (1:56:02) Yeah, let’s get back to the whole thing about what is a human.Yeah, you could get into simulation (1:56:07) theory. Are we just these little building blocks of electricity that are happening (1:56:14) in someone else’s world? Who knows? But yeah, just for the sake of time, we’ll maybe come back (1:56:21) to simulation theory in another one. Let’s do one of those, because that’d be fun for me.(1:56:27) Did you ever see Free Guy? Have you seen Free Guy? Yeah, that’s good. (1:56:30) I thought that was very well done. I thought that was pretty cool.Anyway, all right. Let me hit this (1:56:36) Alex O’Connor. This is the last one.This is kind of what would happen if we do accept that free (1:56:40) will does not exist, but it has to happen. Here we go. Now, in the same way that yesterday I was (1:56:48) hungry, and then today I sit down with a biologist who explains to me in precise detail exactly why (1:56:53) I feel hunger, how it works, how it’s connected to the body, I still feel hungry.I still go and (1:56:59) get the food. I mean, sure, I can sort of on a meta level now reflect more on what I’m doing here, (1:57:04) but it doesn’t change the fact that I’m hungry. So, in the same way, (1:57:08) whatever was motivating me yesterday to get out of bed is still motivating me to get out of bed (1:57:13) today.The only difference is I recognize that I didn’t control that motivation. I guess what I (1:57:18) ask, I mean, people often say to me is, well, you don’t believe in free will, but you don’t act like (1:57:22) you don’t believe in free will. You act like you believe in free will all the time.You just (1:57:26) alluded to that there. In your book, you say, I find it very difficult to live as if this is actually (1:57:31) true, but what does it mean to live as if it’s true? It might change the way that you morally (1:57:36) assess people, but even then, does it really? I mean, you used the word rotten a moment ago. (1:57:40) You said, if someone cuts you off in traffic, you’re tempted to say, well, what a rotten person, (1:57:43) but what does the word rotten mean? It just means that it’s sort of gone bad.I mean, (1:57:47) an apple can go rotten, but that doesn’t mean you’re making a moral assessment of it. It just (1:57:51) means that you’re looking at its behaviors and you’re saying that in relation to what I want it (1:57:55) to do for me, it’s gone rotten. And so, what really has to change just by adopting a belief (1:58:01) in determinism and living as if that were true? Alex is so smart.Yeah. Yes. Yeah.So, (1:58:11) what really has to change? I think, like he was saying, you still kind of act as if you have free (1:58:17) will. You’re still reasoning through things. Whether or not that was directly in your control, (1:58:23) kind of doesn’t matter, I think.Yeah. And we do. We should talk about it because (1:58:32) we’re coming up here against it, but like accountability and responsibility, (1:58:36) you’re still accountable for the shell that did the thing.And in a society that we’ve (1:58:44) agreed that certain things done on certain other people are unacceptable, (1:58:50) that’s not acceptable. What do you do? You give them, we put them on that island. (1:58:57) What is that? Escape? What is the one with Ray Liotta? Where he was like on that island where (1:59:01) they put all the criminals on and then they just fought it out.You know what I mean? It just had (1:59:05) their little warfare or whatever. You’re like, no escape, I think it was called. Something like (1:59:09) that.Anyway. Yeah. So, Justin says, if things are truly determined, our actions are just a (1:59:14) result of infinite history, so we don’t have free will.How can we trust our own reasoning? (1:59:19) To reason means to choose between ideas. Yeah. Last one of the day before your head explodes.(1:59:26) I’ll push back on that a little bit. We reason all the time, but it may be after (1:59:31) the fact. So, yes, maybe we do reason and then make a decision, but also we make snap decisions (1:59:38) and then reason why we did that.And we may be completely wrong about why, the decision we make (1:59:44) of why. So, but overall, I think, yes, the lack of predictability of humans individually, (1:59:54) I would say that is a tell for free will. It’s not perfect, but maybe it just means that other (2:00:04) people don’t act the same way we would expect, but we can look at people’s history and then they (2:00:09) change.And there are a million, billion factors why that might be, but we don’t really know. (2:00:17) And if you just think about your life, you probably recognize that you have (2:00:22) made some decision before, you know? Yeah. Now I think this has utility.(2:00:32) And I think the one place it has utility is you, you didn’t earn it. Keep fighting. (2:00:42) Like don’t act like you did all this.I think that’s never a bad lesson to act like you didn’t (2:00:51) do all this, that it is privileged and you are blessed to be able to like, dude, we’re sitting (2:00:57) here at night on computers with cool cameras and stuff and talking miles away and broadcasting to (2:01:06) the world. You know what I mean? Like, how cool is this that we can do this? How lucky we are that (2:01:13) we can do this? Like reflection on that is huge. And like, yeah, sometimes you can look at yourself (2:01:19) and go, I, I am proud of doing this and pride.Isn’t a bad thing. It definitely has portions (2:01:26) of it, but this hubris that we’re getting to this entitlement of some sort is like, (2:01:32) you didn’t earn, you didn’t deserve or like you had to make it happen still. (2:01:39) Yeah.Look, if you, if you don’t act, I guarantee if you laid in bed all day, I know you’re it’s (2:01:44) nothing’s going to happen determined or not. Right. Like regardless of whether it’s determined that (2:01:50) nothing will happen, it won’t.So you might as well do it. It’s kind of Pascal’s wager for free (2:01:55) will. Right.Like act as if God exists is Pascal’s wager. This is act as if free will exists because (2:02:03) if we don’t that we lose utility. Yeah.So with that, let me ask you this. I think you’re, you (2:02:14) so if, if, if there’s a Pascal’s wager for free will act as if, (2:02:19) then should we follow the Pascal’s waiver wager of God existing? (2:02:25) That might need a whole episode. That’s a whole separate episode.I think your head’s going to (2:02:29) explode, but you understand the question, right? It’s like, these are, these are really interesting (2:02:33) things. It’s like, okay, well it’s right to act like free will exist. Cause whatever.But like (2:02:38) the God stuff does have the meaning and some other stuff and some other utility to it. (2:02:43) If you can feel, but can you filter out the other stuff that doesn’t have the best utility, (2:02:48) right? Same thing. It almost becomes the same argument.What do we filter out? What do we (2:02:51) make culture? Right. Yeah, exactly. So just to wrap it up.Yeah. I find all pretty much all (2:02:59) the arguments lacking in one way or another, but I, I’m probably more moved towards the fact that (2:03:08) free will is less than we thought. You know, I feel like maybe we should do this again in a year (2:03:15) or so and see if we’ve changed at all.There are a few topics you get to get on, like the political (2:03:20) implications, how people think about politics is very relevant to this. But I think if, you know, (2:03:26) if things were so deterministic, we’d be better able to predict the future and we can’t. So I (2:03:33) that’s one way that this falls short.Yeah. Two points on that. The political thing was when you (2:03:40) keep talking about is exactly right.Tribalism, you pick a side. So you’re all the things that (2:03:45) that side is and you have to rationalize them all. Right.That’s less free will-ish. That’s a lot (2:03:50) more tribal and just done. Right.The other point that you were making about, what was the last (2:03:56) point you just made? So good. Predicting the future. I think if, (2:04:04) perhaps the machine’s just so complex.Yeah. That we just don’t have the means to measure (2:04:10) whatever is predicted that way. I hate to do it.I mean, I hate to say it, but you know, (2:04:17) that might be a thing, right? That is the butterfly effect. Maybe it’s so complex of a (2:04:21) machine that we just don’t know all the atoms that are moving. But it, even with quanta though, (2:04:28) because it’s still probabilistic, it still is limited, right? Within this, whatever box that (2:04:33) they’re, that they’re painting.So it does remove some of the will, but like to your point, the more (2:04:37) I delve into this is like determinism sounds more accurate and free will within that with reflection (2:04:49) changes the determinist thing, but it was all like in motion anyway, in some way. But man, (2:04:57) like I said, you’ve had personal struggles. I know I’ve had personal struggles that I’ve (2:05:00) forced myself to do with pain knowing.And it wasn’t necessarily knowing what the out, (2:05:07) that it would be better on the other side. It just, I just knew I had to do something (2:05:12) that wasn’t this anymore. You know what I mean? Sometimes it’s like desperation.(2:05:17) So like maybe desperation’s not free will either, you know, that the, you know, cause like my body (2:05:24) got tingly or whatever and like had to freak out to stop, you know, I don’t know. It’s like, (2:05:29) it is, it is a, it is a forever complex thing. But thank you everyone for joining.(2:05:37) We’ve had about, we’ve had over 50 people today. So Aaron, AWOL Aaron, Justin, (2:05:44) uh, let’s see some comment. Zach was up there.Um, looking through. Yeah. And thank you everyone (2:05:52) for joining us once again, this has been a Consciously Unmasked.I almost call it unconsciously (2:05:58) masked earlier. Like I almost totally flipped it wrong, but Jason, please share your stuff before (2:06:04) you call it a day, man. I know, I know you’re up against it.Yeah. Go follow me on X at drop (2:06:09) the mask pod. Uh, follow my YouTube channel here and, uh, locals.I’ve got some extra bonus (2:06:16) content on locals, drop the mask pod.locals.com. It’s free. Uh, you can support me if you like, (2:06:23) but no pressure. Go check it out.Right. And if you do support him, actually, you know what? (2:06:30) This is what we’re going to do. We should all give them five bucks today because it was supposed to (2:06:35) happen.So just do it. Yeah. Everyone.Thank you so much for joining us. It’s been really (2:06:42) interesting. Hopefully we’ll get to play this back and look at it.Like I said, I, I don’t know. I, (2:06:48) I don’t know. It’s so, it’s so complex to complex.Like I said, before we started, (2:06:55) I could spend a year preparing for this kind of conversation. So, uh, we’ll be doing some more (2:07:01) deep dives talking about similar things and maybe we’ll come back to it at some point. (2:07:06) Yes.All right. Well, thank you very much. What are we looking at? Maybe two, three weeks or (2:07:10) something like that.Just general couple of weeks. Maybe we can do next week. I don’t know.(2:07:14) We’ll see. Well, uh, I think we got the extraordinary gentlemen next week. (2:07:18) The five weeks then.So I’ll let you guys know. Yes. So next week we should have the (2:07:23) league of extraordinary gentlemen.Uh, I’m sorry. The extra league of ordinary gentlemen. (2:07:29) I apologize.We were just ordinary gentlemen. But, um, Monday, (2:07:35) this past Monday we were not able to do provoke week six. So we’re going to do provoke week six (2:07:40) and seven this Monday.Yeah. All right. Uh, six and seven, but we got a special guest.Dave (2:07:47) DeCamp will be with us. So that’s going to be awesome. You had Kyle Anzalone on.I’ve not (2:07:53) Kyle. Have you had Dave on yet? I haven’t. I was just laughing at Justin’s comment.You can’t (2:07:58) plan a future talk about free will. How can we have a future talk about free will? It was supposed (2:08:08) to happen anyway. But the thing is, it’s good that you gave us a year because I’m going to start (2:08:13) listening to everything right now to catch up.Cause I do need that year that you’re talking (2:08:17) about. Cause like we got kind of caught up in Sapolsky and O’Connor and this and that, (2:08:22) but there’s Hume and there’s like, there are gazillions of people that talk about consciousness (2:08:28) and will. We didn’t even, we barely scraped the surface.So we’re just grateful that everyone (2:08:33) joined us. So thank you everyone for joining us. Thank you.Next time it’ll be on Jason’s channel (2:08:38) and he’ll be streaming with us. So we’re going to make it happen. Everybody have a good night.(2:08:43) Take care. Bye-bye.