neuroscientist says humans have no free will

[everything]

https://futurism.com/neoscope/scientist-no-free-will

Robert Sapolsky, a 66-year-old Stanford neurobiologist, has a controversial view on the nature of human existence: he doesn't think "free will" exists. At all.

A MacArthur "genius" grant recipient at the age of 30, Sapolsky has spent over four decades extensively studying human and primate behavior. His new book, "Determined: Life Without Free Will," is an examination and brutal takedown of the major arguments in favor of human volition.

His verdict is that pretty much everything we do boils down to biology, upbringing, circumstance, and whatever curveballs life throws us. We are, like every living organism, mere "biological machines."

"The world is really screwed up and made much, much more unfair by the fact that we reward people and punish people for things they have no control over," Sapolsky told The LA Times. "We've got no free will. Stop attributing stuff to us that isn't there."

It's a fringe belief, to be sure, and you may feel differently. But as Sapolsky argues, even a small, supposed decision like that is predetermined.

[Trick]

well, God enforced free will upon us from the very beginning, so nothing new there.

[origami_itto]

well good for him

[Trick]

Well yes, we had no say in that decision ………..and who say G.d is a “him”, I’m sure that did not come out from any free will of yours ….

[wiesiek]

everything is predetermined = noting is predetermined
yup
in internet times we may POOF anything

[yeniseri]

everything is predetermined = noting is predetermined
yup
in internet times we may POOF anything

Exactly! Our behaviours, good, bad, or indifferent, dictates choices. Add state of mind(lessness) and we get Donald Trump

[origami_itto]

everything is predetermined = noting is predetermined
yup
in internet times we may POOF anything

The best part of this is that it completely absolves you from any responsibility.

[Steve James]

The essential problem is that there's no real definition of free will. Obviously, we make choices every day. "Do I respond on this thread or not?" Otoh, I'm not choosing to breathe or circulate blood. So, is free will whatever do or whatever we think? If we drop a cup and pick it up before it hits the floor, was that free will even if we didn't think about it?

I don't know. However, the bigger question is whether everything that happens, physically and in the mind, is an inevitable result from the Big Bang (or before). I.e., it's all a matter of physics and chemistry.

From the quote from his book, I tend to agree that behaviors we think are chosen are actually the result of many factors -if that result is what he considers "free-will." Afa the physicalist idea that free will doesn't exist because it's all chemistry, my problem is that thought, though chemical, isn't information that was created at the "beginning" of the universe. We have certain expectations of cause and effect, but that's just our perception. Physicists generally agree that the universe operates at the quantum level beyond our perception, and which to us is random.

Anyway, it's cool as a thought experiment, but doesn't really matter. Today, someone is going to steal something and get caught. They can say they had no free will, but that won't be enough for bail. Maybe the religious idea of "free will" allowed people to decide which behaviors would receive punishment. So, without free will, people would excuse their actions. Seems like the people who created those rule broke them regularly.

[D_Glenn]

Everything,
I think there’s something to this.
We’re just animals. We’re still primitive. Evolutionary wise we are still stuck in the stage that the American Indians were living in. The world is just one big group of different warring tribes, but no longer bound by territories. With the internet, people are forming virtual tribes. Like the Native Americans, we still have Tribe Wars. We’re inherently violent and aggressive towards other tribes.

We’re also bound by our instincts to reproduce. Women are painting on makeup, putting on feathers and doing ritual dances, at a rate that is way beyond the confines of modern society. They are totally, instinctively digressing to their primal tribal nature.
So we don’t really have free will because we’re stuck in the evolutionary stage and with the same animal instincts that dominate our lives. People try to break from their primal instincts but they just break- depression, mental illnesses etc

[everything]

it is a radical but interesting idea. like, did i really just "choose" to sit here and type a response? or am I just like an AI, made of different biological neural networks and inter-related algorithms, and it all just "computed" a sort of "programmed" response to a complex stimulus? did I really "choose" these words? or did my wetware-AI-like algorithm "generate text" the way ChatGPT "generates" words/phrases? who knows, lol. I feel like I chose to do all that. but maybe I did it for the dopamine hit and didn't really have much choice.

[Steve James]

But, who chooses to get cancer. That might be programmed from before birth, but would certainly generate feelings.

Fwiw, the idea that we have no "free will" is an old one in "physics". Democritus argued it in the 5th century bc .

[everything]

Maybe we are clever enough to contemplate the idea

But not clever enough to figure out the answer

[Dmitri]

I've been contemplating this non-stop since I was about 13, looking for ways to prove (or disprove) that idea. It always made sense logically, but initially I couldn't break away from the confines of anthropomorphic thinking. Now, 45 years later, having repeatedly failed to disrupt the apparent logic of it and having learned to sufficiently detach myself from "thinking like a human" (in the sense of our delusional self-importance and superiority complex as a species), I'm quite convinced in the idea of "ultimate", all-encompassing relationship of infinite causes and their inevitable effects. It just makes too much sense - if you can, that is, step away from thinking/believing that you (a human) possess some sort of divine importance and purpose.
The idea of complete determinism is excruciatingly obvious to me. I'm still completely open to anyone disproving it, or at least offering something better in its place, but I haven't seen that yet.

[Bao]

How's about long-term goals people set up and dreams they have about their lives? Are they forced upon us or results of unfair punishment?

[Steve James]

How's about long-term goals people set up and dreams they have about their lives?

Good question. If we imagine meeting an extraterrestrial in the future, is it determined to happen? I.e., if any thought is predetermined by physics/chemistry, then shouldn't it be a cause for something predetermined in the future?

Of course, I'd argue that nothing going on in one's consciousness has a cause-effect relation with anything outside the body. That why there aren't thought crimes, and we can't be put in jailing for thinking about doing something immoral. So, I'd say that consciousness is just an illusion, but it's not a question of free or constrained "will."

The physical issue is not falsifiable. I can't prove I don't have "free will" with physics or chemistry. It could be true. However, any aspect of "free will" that extends beyond an individual's physical person can be criminalized and constrained by society. That means the issue is ultimately a philosophical and moral -and that is probably a better predictor of human behavior. We expect people to follow certain rules.