Determinism Debunked, Cosmic Skeptic Repudiated

the existence of free will is surprise
surprise a question that philosophers have been debating since before records began and the main problem appears to be a contradiction between two thoughts first there are really good compelling arguments in favor of all of our actions ultimately being determined and by determined i mean that if we were to rewind the universe to the same conditions it was in a million years ago and press play every event would happen in exactly the same way it is crucial to notice and it is crucial to insist on just how irrelevant his definition of determinism is that he slips in there in just half a sentence what do we mean when something is determined what is it we're questioning what is the answer or conclusion we're trying to come to here it's not a question of whether or not randomness exists in the universe it's a separate legitimate philosophical question so if you started the universe again would crystals form differently in caves would the random movement of atoms in the ocean produce ultimately different weather events in the climate would the motion of lava trickling down from a volcano be the same when you scale this up and talk about it cosmetic i mean if you really believe nothing is random in the universe that the formation of every salt crystal in the ocean would be identical if you started the news again maybe that's an interesting philosophical discussion for you to debate for you to engage in but it's not what we mean by determinism it's not what people are debating when they talk about free will either we are talking about the decisions we make in our own minds our decisions our dreams our plans our thoughts about the future either we are saying those things those cognitive experiences that that subjective revery either that is something determined by myself or it is not determined by myself by determined i mean that if we were to rewind the universe to the same conditions it was in a million years ago and press play every event would happen in exactly the same way including the actions of human beings and if you believe it is not determined by yourself that has nothing to do with restarting the universe again and questioning whether or not random events would be different the formation of crystals weather in the climate et cetera or even the progress of evolution that ultimately at one point is proceeding on a on the level of a single cell the formation of the first amoeba would that have happened in the same way with the vagaries of you know organic chemistry millions of years ago either we are saying these thoughts these plans these decisions these dreams are determining myself or if they are not determined by myself perhaps we mean someone else determines it perhaps we mean something else determines it something with no sentience or perhaps we mean nothing determines it that it is entirely arbitrary or meaningless this whole discourse about determinism rests on a categorical error followed by a false dichotomy false dichotomy sounds like a little bit of a confusing technical term the reality is that when we engage in false dichotomies and when people find them convincing we're leaning on cultural familiarity if i say to someone that i'm not a marxist or that i'm an anti-marxist and they respond and say oh well you must be pro-capitalist you know or they might even say you must be right-wing this reflects a false psychotomy in their mind and their perspective and by the way that may be their experience in life it may be that their experience within their own culture is that there are only two possibilities either you're a marxist or you're a pro capitalist and no this this isn't the case at all you know some people would talk about the theory of evolution and if somebody says they're against the theory of evolution then the assumption is that they must be a creationist and creationist is obviously very culturally specific oh you must be a christian who supports this view of creationism etc maybe not maybe they are a buddhist who grew up in traditional buddhist culture and they have a completely alien set of reasons for being opposed to now again my point is not that any of these points of view is more valid than the other but very often we indulge in thinking in terms of false economists go there are only two possibilities here like either you support determinism or you support free will and how do we get to that ultimatum how do we get to that false economy just by saying something that is strictly speaking completely irrelevant to the question like well if we were to rewind the universe and then press play again that is a non-falsifiable speculative hypothetical claim and it's irrelevant by determined i mean that if we were to rewind the universe to the same conditions it was in a million years ago and press play every event would happen in exactly the same way including the actions of human beings the question is this choice my choice is this dream my dream do i make this decision for myself or not is completely separate from the question of if we rewound the universe and played it again would you make the same decision is that does it take a genius to recognize that is that too hard for you to follow all right was it adolf hitler's decision to massacre all of these people to create terrible atrocities crimes against you was that adolf hitler's decision or not if it wasn't his decision what are you saying whose decision was it was it somebody else's decision was it nobody's decision was just arbitrary whatever your philosophical perspective on this may be it's completely irrelevant to say well if we could rewind the universe and then press play again adolf hitler would make the same decision that is not controverting that is not debating that is not disputing that is not relevant to in any way the question of whether or not adolf hitler himself was the person who made the decision that does not reduce the status of adolf hitler's mentation his reverie his imagination his planning his dreams it does not reduce that cognitive process to being something that is just as clearly determined by the laws of physics as the formation of salt into a salt crystal there is a tremendous burden of proof on you if you are supposedly scientifically going to prove that that's all there is to the process of forming a thought or experiencing a dream now hear what he says in this next clip he is again relying on what is philosophically and largely called a categorical error a category mistake determinism is largely a product of the rise of the scientific method and the belief that the universe operates in accordance with laws of cause and effect that every event in the universe has some sufficient explanation for why it happened that is some preceding cause that necessitated it all of this was covered by karl popper like 40 years ago a very very long time ago oh oh so every event is explained by the laws of physics in terms of cause and effect dreams are you saying that dreaming is explained by the lots of cause of it really that can't be random and arbitrary and meaningless oh and you're saying within physics there's nothing in the universe that's random and arbitrary and it's just truly random where it's it's not determined one way or another that in fact there are theoretical physicists who say if you re-round the universal plate again it it could go either there's just no sufficient reason for one thing you don't think that's a debate that exists within physics okay but karl popper's point would be what you're doing here is mixing up different domains of knowledge the types of claims made by sigmund freud the types of claims made about the human psyche the human imagination dreaming when you're asleep and also dreaming in the sense of being awake and wondering what you're going to do with your future planning maybe you should go to university and study to be a poet and maybe you should go to university and study to become a stockbroker and financial analyst that that process that you're driving that abstract reflective speculative thought you're engaging in without some evidence that proves that it is truly equivalent to the formation of a salt crystal out of salt why would anyone presume to take the laws of physics and extend them with no evidence to dreaming and how dare you glorify this pseudo-religious new age horseshit of believing in determinism absolutely playing the same role that the christian god did before that the jewish god that the muslim god did before of deciding each and every tiny decision you make secretly lurking just above your heads like a floating angel how dare you justify that as a scientific perspective when every step of your argument is relying on inviting the audience to believe in things that are unseen have no evidence are not falsifiable are not scientific and if they were true would not change anything that could ever be measured measurable provable one of the problems with theories about the speed of light in the past was whether or not any of them could be proven like well if you can if you can have one theory that light is array and another theory that it's a a kind of wave you have different theories about the different types of particles of light up to a certain point in the 20th century it's like okay we have different theoretical approaches to explaining what light is and how it functions is it something more like a radio wave or something more like an atom or what you know really it doesn't matter until you reach the point where those are testable falsifiable where there is a difference in the real world einstein played a decisive role in that history written about and celebrated by karl popper it's folded into karl popper's philosophy of science if one theory or another were true we should be able to test it by measuring how much the light bends out of its course to what extent rays of light are bent by making certain careful observations with a telescope during an eclipse so now the different theories they had measurable real world outcomes measurable consequences so light is something that doesn't always travel in a straight line it can bend in response to mass in response to gravity okay now we have a testable hypothesis now we can speak in terms of truth and falsehood now we can speak in terms of science because when you're just making [ __ ] up when you're just telling us which set of philosophical assumptions seems more compelling to you you're not in the domain of science you're in a domain that much more closely resembles mythology and that was karl popper's critique of sigmund freud that was karl popper's critique of a whole generation of people who kept trying to expand the sciences to encompass and include the human mind and there just is no reason to regard the human mind as something that is determined by cause and effect in the same way as salt forming a salt crystal