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- 00:09 hello everyone and we will start a very good podcast series with professor Sanwaknney and the weather is amazing our team is incredible and today's
- 00:20 subject is very strange I think free will and what is free will is free will
- 00:27 real I think first we should define uh free will it's important to to realize that
- 00:35 the phrase free will is an oxymoron because freedom means that you have multiple options and will means that you
- 00:46 have a single option if I have a will to drink water that is a single option that
- 00:54 means that I am not going to drink coffee if I have the possibility to drink coffee or water or juice that is freedom but the minute I exercise will I
- 01:05 eliminate the freedom you cannot have free will you can have will you can have
- 01:12 freedom but you cannot have both that's the first thing the definition of free
- 01:18 will is usually misunderstood people say that free will is when you decide to do something but free will is actually when you have the possibility to decide to
- 01:29 not do something free will is about the capacity to abstain from action to not
- 01:36 act in a certain way we call it the veto power free will must have several
- 01:42 elements the ability to decide to not act rationality free will must be
- 01:49 rational because if you're crazy and you do something it's not exactly free will it's your craziness it's your insanity that is driving you if you're a machine and you do something it's not free will
- 02:01 action therefore is not associated with free will it is inaction not acting that
- 02:10 is associated with free will the machine this camera cannot decide okay I'm not
- 02:16 going to shoot the interview so it has no free will but Marian can decide I'm
- 02:22 going to shut down the machine the camera so Marian has free will so it's about the veto power control and rationality these are the three elements
- 02:33 of free will you control what you what you're doing you have the ability to not do it and you are rational when you're
- 02:39 doing this but the definition doesn't mean that free will exists it doesn't mean that i
- 02:48 um I want to divide the answer to two to two parts the first is a scientific
- 02:54 approach and the second is psychological approach and I promise to make it short so that you can ask your question your
- 03:01 questions as well yeah okay we start with the scientific part science in general all the theories in science especially theories in physics which is this the science of
- 03:12 reality all these theories are divided in two big groups you have probabilistic
- 03:19 theories and you have deterministic theories deterministic theories are theories that say if A happens then B
- 03:27 happens they involve causality mhm probabilistic theories say if A happens
- 03:34 then maybe B maybe C maybe D maybe E we don't know so these are probabilistic
- 03:40 theories example of probabilistic theory is quantum mechanics mhm example of deterministic theory is Newtonian
- 03:46 physics okay in both types of theories there is no place for free
- 03:52 will in determinism there's no place for free will because A always leads to B
- 03:58 you cannot intervene mhm you cannot change the order of the universe you know and in probabilistic theories
- 04:05 there's no free will because we don't know what will be the outcome of a it
- 04:11 could be anything and the minute it can be anything the minute there is freedom there is no will because will is against freedom so science does not support
- 04:24 anywhere no element in science supports the contention of free will the assumption of free will on the very contrary science forbids free will for
- 04:36 example in science it is forbidden to use teology teiology means it that you
- 04:43 say the bee the bee is flying because it wants to go to the flower and then it
- 04:50 wants to make honey that is teology it is forbidden in science in science you
- 04:56 should say the bee goes to the flower the bee makes honey we cannot make assumption that the bee wants anything
- 05:04 and so teology is forbidden in science because uh science does not accept uh
- 05:11 willful causation it doesn't accept intervention of something metaphysical will is metaphysical science therefore rejects completely the
- 05:22 notion of free will end of story there's no place for it we will discuss later as you told me we'll discuss libert's
- 05:28 experiments but okay so let's talk about psychology the when in psychology we
- 05:35 have something we have some belief we have some value we have some cognition we it's because it is
- 05:42 useful in psychology everything that is happening in our mind has a goal has has
- 05:48 a function leads somewhere is helpful to us is useful to us so the fact that so
- 05:54 Many people believe that there is free will shows that it has some function this belief not free will but the belief
- 06:02 in free will has some function what is this function this function is anxolytic
- 06:08 in other words it the belief in free will is intended to reduce our anxiety
- 06:14 about the world why are we anxious about the world because we can never have
- 06:21 perfect information about the world it will always be partial there will always be a lot of information missing there will always be uncertainty there will always be indeterminacy there will and
- 06:33 that is terrifying when you live in a world that is uncertain that is indeterminate that is unexpected that is unpredictable that is very frightening
- 06:44 that is why we keep inventing theories in physics and so on to convince ourselves that somehow we can somehow
- 06:51 control and predict the world and so on all human scientific activity
- 06:57 philosophical activity and so on is about reducing anxiety so free will gives us the illusion the
- 07:06 selfdeception that we are in control we make decisions the choices are ours and
- 07:12 therefore the world is not a threatening place because we control it we decide and so it has an anxolytic uh reason anxolytic we say in psychology that the
- 07:26 belief in free will creates an internal locus of control mhm external locus of control
- 07:33 means that you believe that your life is determined from the outside something or
- 07:39 someone outside yourself decides for you someone and
- 07:46 something outside yourself determines how your life evolves and where it's going and what will happen to you this
- 07:52 is called external locus external locus is very frightening for example babies
- 07:58 are all the time in a state of terror because they have an external locus mommy decides everything so we don't
- 08:05 want to be babies we are adults we're big we are strong and so we develop an
- 08:11 internal locus but how to develop internal locus we say we believe in free will free will is the instrument we have
- 08:19 to deceive ourselves to lie to ourselves that we are in charge we are the boss
- 08:25 mhm so it is it has a strong psychological reason but free will has
- 08:32 other very attractive features the belief in free will the belief in free will has very attractive features for
- 08:39 example if you believe in free will then you can hold people responsible for what
- 08:46 they're doing if you have free will then whatever you're doing you're responsible for it you're guilty i can punish you so
- 08:55 free will is the foundation for the moral system for the criminal system free will is a foundation the belief in free will is a foundation of civilization without free will if I take
- 09:07 away the free will and you are just a machine and you are pre-programmed then why why is the moral
- 09:15 reason what is the moral foundation to to punish you if you committed a crime
- 09:21 right now but you have no free will then we have a limited free will because of
- 09:27 our morals or cultural even the belief in a limited the belief in any free will
- 09:33 1% free will is is what gives rise to morality the criminal code
- 09:39 responsibility accountability our ability to demand from other people to modify their behaviors and so on so
- 09:45 forth if we there was um there was a strand there was a um school in
- 09:52 Protestantism it was known as Calvinism after Calvin mhm and this school in Protestantism believed in predestination according to the Calvinists everything is determined in
- 10:04 advance by God god determines everything in advance everything that happens to you every decision you take every action
- 10:11 you make you make everything is determined by God in advance now this creates very serious problems because if it is God who made all the decisions for you you are just a puppet
- 10:24 all the actions you're taking have been You say fate it's fated yes then in which sense are you morally responsible in which sense should you pay for your sins question of sin then becomes a
- 10:36 major problem and so we believe in free will because the alternative is catastrophic if we did not believe in
- 10:44 free will all civilization will collapse tomorrow and it is easy to believe in free will because reality is very complex and because we have imperfect
- 10:57 information not perfect information be many things look random
- 11:05 we don't understand them they look random many things look coincidental there are many coincidences and some
- 11:12 some people develop superstitions you know or religion or whatever and and many things appear to be the results of our decision
- 11:24 if we were to have perfect information about reality we would have realized that
- 11:30 everything we're doing all decisions all choices all actions all emotions all
- 11:37 cognitions are absolutely deterministic they're determined there is no element of randomness or choice or what we call free will that's generally speaking and
- 11:49 then I will ask another question about free will here do you think that how
- 11:55 free will relates to personal identity and consciousness because uh yes cause and effect causes result but also there is identity and different consciousness
- 12:07 then how can you relate it i think as I as I said in my first uh
- 12:14 answer we should make a very strong distin distinction between free will Mhm
- 12:21 and the belief in free will free will is an ontological statement in other words when we say
- 12:28 there is free will it's like we're saying there is a laptop or there is maya it's an ontology it's a statement
- 12:35 about existence it's a very strong statement to say there is free will for example
- 12:41 you need to provide some kind of proof or evidence you need to create some logical chain you need so you can't just say you can't just utter ontological
- 12:52 statements without a lot of background mhm but you can say pretty safely that
- 13:00 the belief in the existence of free will is common mhm at least you can say it's
- 13:06 a common human experience and I explained why we believe because it reduces anxiety and it allows us to
- 13:12 create civilization in effect and yes you're right that uh the belief in free will is a crucial part a critical part of our identity and our consciousness
- 13:25 mhm um and that is because um consciousness relies
- 13:31 crucially on uh what we call a theory a theory of
- 13:37 mind or a theory of the world in order to create in order to understand what's happening to us and what's happening to
- 13:43 other people and what's happening in reality and so so on we constantly generate internal working models and
- 13:50 theories so when we interact with other people we create theories of mind these
- 13:56 are theories about what makes other people take psychological processes and dynamics in other people and so on the
- 14:03 theory of the minds of other people when we interact with reality we have a theory of the world uh we have internal
- 14:10 working models about relationships and so on so forth all these rely crucially on the assumption that we and other people have
- 14:22 free will that we and other people make choices mhm that we and other people
- 14:30 have the ability to not act that we and other people share
- 14:36 something share this have this in common and so but of course this is just
- 14:43 an assumption there's no proof of this as I said there's no evidence to support the
- 14:49 existence of free will then I will ask this am I responsible for my decisions
- 14:55 or the way I act or not uh that is the
- 15:01 due to my nature for example that is the core debate in uh in most most uh
- 15:07 disciplines uh that's a core debate are we just the equivalent of
- 15:14 machines we are just machines that our programming is so complex that it gives rise to the illusion of free will because of the complexity of the programming mhm and so
- 15:27 if we then build a machine that can be as complex will that machine have free
- 15:34 will for example artificial intelligence we are now creating more and more and more complex artificial intelligence and one day we will create general
- 15:45 artificial intelligence this general artificial intelligence will have the same level of complexity as a human
- 15:52 brain mhm and then can we say that this machine with artificial intelligence has free will it seems that free will is just another word for
- 16:03 ignorance when we are when we have incomplete information when we have
- 16:10 uncertainty when we have stochastic stochastic probability when we have randomness mhm
- 16:17 randomness is another word for ignorance again we cannot explain what why things are happening when we are faced with the
- 16:24 unknown then we say then we inject ourselves into the picture through free
- 16:30 will we and I will give you an example i'll give you now that you mentioned it i will give you a perfect
- 16:36 example at the beginning of the of our interview I told you that free will is a
- 16:43 contradiction in terms that you could be either free or you could have a will but you cannot have both because freedom means all the options and will means only one option simple so you cannot
- 16:56 have both and what is happening is that the will when we have will we
- 17:03 collapse the freedom so we have a whole field of freedom mhm then we enter the
- 17:10 picture and we have a will and our will collapses the field mhm i'll give you
- 17:18 I'll use the same example i have water i have coffee i have juice that is the
- 17:24 field the field of options then I make a choice to drink water in other words I
- 17:31 exercise my free will and I'm choosing to drink water that minute I collapsed
- 17:37 the field the field collapsed and became water only the juice is forgotten the
- 17:44 coffee is forgotten only water now because this is my will mhm we could say therefore that will is a collapse of the
- 17:53 function of freedom collapse of the degrees of freedom okay we discovered about 130 years ago
- 18:01 we discovered that in nature um there are each event each particle
- 18:08 for example has many probabilities mhm and then there is a collapse of the probabilities so you have for example uh a particle let's say electron photon any
- 18:21 particle can be here or here or here or here or here and this is known as the
- 18:27 wave function mhm a particle can be in many places but then suddenly the particle appears here so the wave function collapsed
- 18:38 into a single location and we call it the collapse of the wave function
- 18:44 but we as human beings we are used that when there is a state of collapse it's
- 18:52 because of free will when when there is a state of collapse for the water not coffee not
- 19:00 juice not but water only because it's because I want the water because of my free will my free will collapses the world mhm okay so what happened when the
- 19:13 physicist discovered that particles there is a wave function there's a probability that a particle can be in
- 19:19 many locations with many momenta with many types of energy and so on and then suddenly collapses they said there must be a free will the only way anything
- 19:31 collapses in reality is because of free will and they introduced the observer mhm yeah they said "Ah the particle
- 19:38 appears here because we observe it." Our free will collapse the particle
- 19:46 exactly like my free will collapsed the water i chose the water i could have
- 19:52 chosen coffee i could have chosen juice but I chose water i could have chosen
- 19:58 for the particle to be here i could have chosen the particle to be here but I chose the particle to be here i observe
- 20:05 the particle into existence and this is known as Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics
- 20:13 so you see that even in physics we cannot make sense
- 20:20 of a random probabilistic reality without free will
- 20:26 we must have consciousness we introduce consciousness even into physical reality
- 20:34 and and so this is this is delusional this is a deception that is that is not good this I think uh and I think choosing one
- 20:45 between the choices is not something will uh if we can't create new choices
- 20:52 uh and we cannot see the other collapsed parts for example in the quantum physic but we can see here the drinks then uh
- 21:01 what affects us to choose in the Lubet's Benjamin Lubet's experiment he made an
- 21:08 experiment for this yeah well that's as usual uh layman people who are not
- 21:14 scientists they pick up all kinds of experiments and so on so forth they misinterpret
- 21:21 them and they make a big mess first of all Benjamin Libert's experiments are multiple experiments not one benjamin Libert conducted two rounds
- 21:32 of experiments and after the second round of experiments Benjamin Libbit corrected
- 21:39 himself and he said that the first round was incomplete mhm so Benjamin Libert
- 21:45 discovered that when we make a decision that is arbitrary decision in other words when I'm talking
- 21:57 to you and I'm not thinking about drinking anything i'm talking to you i'm focused i'm focused on watching you
- 22:03 talking to you your reactions my reactions what am I going to say next what are you going to ask me so I'm all
- 22:09 my focus is here but you know uh on the side without thinking about it at all I'm taking a glass of water and I'm drinking this is called arbitrary
- 22:21 choice or arbitrary decision he discovered that in such decisions there is um activity in the
- 22:29 brain that is unconscious and leads to the action so
- 22:35 leads to the because I'm focused on you and our interview i pick up the water without
- 22:43 thinking about it i'm not thinking now I'm going to pick up the water but I pick up the water and my brain has
- 22:49 activity that preceded the action of picking up the water he also discovered in the second
- 22:57 round because the first round is discredited the first round is no longer used in literature we don't refer to the
- 23:03 first round of libert experiments only to the second he also discovered in the second round that uh you every human
- 23:11 being has the ability after this unconscious activity in the brain every
- 23:17 human being has the ability to not act and he coined the phrase veto power
- 23:24 he said we have the ability to not act so I'm talking to you i'm focused on you and then I I reach for the water it's unconscious i don't didn't make a choice
- 23:35 i didn't make a decision some activity in my brain unconsciously told me "You're thirsty you know you need to drink something." I pick up the water but then I say "No that wouldn't look
- 23:45 good on camera." And I withdraw my hand and I don't pick up the water because it wouldn't look good on camera so I have
- 23:52 veto power and this is what Libert discovered even in these unconscious activities in the brain you can choose
- 23:59 you can choose not to act but much more importantly this the libert potential this is called libit potential the libert potentials are activated only when we don't pay
- 24:12 attention so unconscious when when this is
- 24:18 something that our focus we call it attentional narrowing when the attention is narrow I have a narrow attention on
- 24:25 our interview attentional narrowing then this activity of picking up the water would be arbitrary unconscious and so
- 24:34 only then you have these liid potentials in the brain not in all decisions
- 24:40 absolutely not these are these are very well we are unconscious and as as you
- 24:46 said and um upbringing trauma and other co cognitive problems maybe affect the
- 24:54 results or decision making for example in personality disorders do they have
- 25:00 less will or free will or are they same
- 25:06 this is a big debate it's known as uh nature or nurture debate um and there
- 25:14 was an initial assumption in especially in the 19th century but well into the 20th there was an assumption that we are
- 25:20 born a blank slate we're born like with nothing no templates no programming no nothing
- 25:28 and we acquire everything as we grow up we grow up we acquire everything and if this is the case then of course the environment nature parenting everything
- 25:39 can program us and this programming will determine who we are and how we act so
- 25:45 the blank slate theory was highly deterministic we call it nomological determinism
- 25:52 nomological determinism is determinism determinism that is uh um rule based is
- 25:58 rule-based so uh but today we don't believe this today we believe that there
- 26:04 is an interaction between uh nature which would mean usually hereditary
- 26:10 component or genetic component with genetic predispositions this interacts with the environment and the environment could be parenting could be you know society could be experiences
- 26:24 in life and and so on so forth and again we come here to question of complexity because our brain is the most complex object in the universe by far by
- 26:35 the way our brain if we take away the brain from the universe our brain is much more complex infinitely more
- 26:42 complex than the universe the universe is very simple compared to our brain so we have this super complex machine with
- 26:50 hundreds of billions of interactions taking place every every second literally and so on so forth and we have
- 26:57 thousands hundreds of thousands of interactions influences inputs outputs
- 27:03 you know so this leads us to the understanding that the level of
- 27:09 complexity of a human being is such that at this stage at least we cannot create
- 27:16 a perfect description of a human being that leaves place for probabilities for
- 27:24 randomness for events that cannot be explained unexplain we call it
- 27:30 undecidables and so on when you have such things then you can maintain the illusion of free will in personality disorders and mental illness in
- 27:41 general there is this strange belief that people with personality disorders or people with mental illness are somehow different to people who are who are without people who are healthy
- 27:54 it's not that personality disorders are uh somehow diminished form of humanity
- 28:02 or it's just different it's a different uh set of characteristic different spe
- 28:10 different specification different program different operating system but it's equivalent to healthy people i
- 28:17 don't see I disagree that mental illness limits you it doesn't limit you it
- 28:23 changes the way you act it changes perhaps your choices and but it doesn't limit you there is even there was even a
- 28:30 belief in the majority of human history there was a belief that mental illness makes you more than healthy person not
- 28:38 less you could you could uh mentally ill people crazy people psychotic people
- 28:44 they were considered until the 19th century they were considered to be in touch with God they were they had access
- 28:50 to God they could see reality so differently that they could actually
- 28:56 contribute to society so mental illness was perceived as an asset a gift in in human
- 29:04 history it is only at the end of the 19th century that
- 29:10 people started to say that mental illness is not a gift it's a curse that
- 29:16 we should eliminate it that we should change it that we should medicate it this is very new approach very very new and so I don't think that being
- 29:28 mentally ill or not has anything to do with free will i think the illusion of free will exists equally in healthy and
- 29:35 and health because uh in normal lives emotions control people and chemicals
- 29:43 control emotions and traumas control people so we are under control of the
- 29:49 things that we are not aware of i can't say that we are control control implies causation now the control means that A causes B i can't say that and I regret
- 30:01 very much that modern science is saying this because it shows a basic fundamental misunderstanding of philosophy of science when you have two phenomena that happen together all the time it doesn't mean that they cause
- 30:16 each other it means that they are correlated but it doesn't mean they cause each other so that you have
- 30:23 certain chemicals that appear when you are for example angry or when you're in love depression uh or maybe depression there's a debate about this now uh it doesn't mean that
- 30:36 they cause the depression or the love of it means that they are correlated somehow we have no knowledge we don't
- 30:42 know what causes what what precedes what same with brain brain abnormalities we
- 30:48 know for example that in psychopaths the brain is is abnormal we know that we know the amygdala is much less active amount of gray matter is different and so on and yet we don't know if the
- 31:01 psychopathy caused the brain to be like that or the because we never test children we never test babies for
- 31:07 psychopathy so we don't know we test the psychopath when the psychopath is 20 years old when the psychopath is 40
- 31:13 years old so how can we be sure that a life of psychopathy did not change the brain we cannot be sure of that and yet
- 31:21 and yet when you open when you open scientific academic articles and so on they say the brain of the psychopath makes makes him a psychopath but that's completely untrue the the brain of the psychopath of what
- 31:38 um the brain of the psychopath is different and that's why he's a psychopath why different they can't feel
- 31:44 or they can't understand so I mentioned the amydala the amygdala activity is less and so the brain of a psychopath is
- 31:50 different so that's why he's a psychopath you cannot say this that is wrong to say and many scientists are
- 31:56 saying this and it is wrong to say we don't know if the brain of the psychopath which is a specific brain
- 32:03 it's different to the brain of healthy people we don't know if the brain of a psychopath caused the psychopath to be a psychopath or the fact that you are a psychopath change your brain we don't
- 32:15 know that so it's uh very not serious to and in this century I think uh some of the scientists say that not all the brains
- 32:26 are same there are neuro diverency so uh maybe these are not uh illnesses maybe these brains work like this there are various different brain types they say so maybe it's not an illness or a
- 32:42 disorder maybe it is it well neurody divergence movement also comes with the
- 32:48 idea of neurotypicality so if you're neurode divergent there is
- 32:55 neurotypical and I think it's uh completely nonsensical approach to to
- 33:01 neuroscience um brains by and large are identical and when we do found find
- 33:08 abnormalities functional or structural abnormalities they lead to very visible and clear um behavioral manifestations
- 33:17 so it's not true to say that uh all brains are different and we're all different and this is uh the diversity
- 33:24 movement the politically correct movement no not all brains are different on the very contrary the vast majority
- 33:31 of brains are totally identical if they were not totally identical we would not be able to operate on brains we would
- 33:38 not be able to treat brains however there are brains which are not typical um they have biochemical abnormalities structural functional
- 33:49 but then whenever this happens we see a clear difference in traits and in
- 33:55 behaviors we see a clear manifestation of this difference of the brain what we
- 34:01 don't know is whether the mental illness preceded the changes in the brain caused
- 34:08 the changes in the brain or whether the changes in the brain caused the mental illness the direction of the causation
- 34:16 is not known and anyone who says otherwise does it doesn't know to
- 34:22 doesn't know how to do good science because good science is evidence not speculation and to speculate that the brain of the psychopath which is different makes him a psychopath is not science that is metaphysics metaphysical
- 34:39 and here uh I think in our first broadcast you said psychopathy or
- 34:45 sociopathy or the other can be genetic for for example this is because
- 34:51 of the diverency maybe we know that there is a hereditary component in psychopathy and again it's a very strong statement which I don't like we know
- 35:02 that if you have in your family um firstderee relatives and second degree relatives with psychopathy you are more likely to develop psychopathy we know that you
- 35:15 have if you have in your family firstderee relatives with borderline personality disorder you are seriously
- 35:21 more likely to develop borderline personality disorder so very clearly there is some genetic or hereditary
- 35:28 linkage clearly and this these genes
- 35:34 probably um manifest in the in the brain the structure of brain functioning of
- 35:40 the brain and so forth but we don't know for example if they also manifest in other parts of the body for example one
- 35:48 of the most important biochemicals neurotransmitters and neurom modulators in the brain is
- 35:54 serotonin but serotonin is not produced in the brain i mean 9% is produced in
- 36:02 91% of serotonin is produced in the intestines in the guts so when we say there's a genetic component a hereditary component we immediately assume that it manifests in
- 36:14 the brain I'm not sure maybe it manifests in the guts maybe it's a change in the intestines and because of that there's not enough serotonin you know we're beginning to understand that uh the brain is a distributed system we have a brain in the guts for sure we we
- 36:32 call it the gut brain we discovered we are discovering gradually that the heart
- 36:38 the heart is a brain so the brain is not what we used to think it's a single location contained in the skull and that's it but it is a distributed system
- 36:49 and mental illness could well be a systemic problem where everything is involved the heart the intestines the
- 36:55 the the brain the you know so we are very very ignorant we don't know
- 37:01 anything yet we are just starting and yet because this is a narcissistic age narcissistic
- 37:09 civilization we have hubris we say yes we know we know everything we understand the brain we we know this is nonsense we we're children we're just starting to play we don't know anything that's right
- 37:22 that's right and human can make decisions and we think that because of this we are we have consciousness but now the artificial intelligence can also make decisions this means that if we
- 37:38 don't have the free will we artificial intelligence can have consciousness also
- 37:44 we will think in the same way there is a big debate about this everyone is involved in this debate shalmer's and
- 37:50 Penrose and you name it and normally typically we make a
- 37:57 distinction between between calculability and consciousness or the ability to calculate and consciousness we don't think that the
- 38:09 ability to calculate gives rise to consciousness necessarily maybe it does maybe it doesn't but we don't think it's necessary that if you have a machine that can calculate this machine sooner
- 38:22 or later as it becomes complex will develop consciousness we don't we are not sure about this but I think the whole debate is unnecessary because if you listen to people like uh like Penrose for example so Penrose says
- 38:38 uh consciousness is necessary if you don't have consciousness then this
- 38:44 machine is not intelligent he said intelligence must contain consciousness
- 38:51 and I completely disagree maybe um I I disagree I don't think intelligence has
- 38:58 anything actually to do with consciousness i think it's a confusion complete confusion and conflation of two
- 39:04 concepts which have nothing to do with each other if if we don't have free will
- 39:10 or if we don't have free will and if we have a limited free will then we are not
- 39:17 different than the artificial intelligence no uh free will has
- 39:25 maybe free will is not the same as consciousness it is an open debate whether uh
- 39:32 consciousness must include free will but I don't think so i think all these
- 39:38 concepts have nothing to do with each other i think you could be intelligent and not conscious i think you could be conscious and not intelligent i think you can be conscious and not have free will i think you can have free will and
- 39:50 not be conscious these combinations yes I think I definitely we can we can we can go into it if you wish but I think today the debate about artificial intelligence is a huge mess huge
- 40:03 confusion because people say if it's int if if there is intelligence it must be
- 40:09 conscious that is the the position of penrose I disagree completely you could
- 40:15 be intelligent and not conscious I completely disagree with this this is complete in my view nonsense you don't
- 40:21 You intelligence means the ability to
- 40:29 uh calculate in a way the ability to calculate everything is calculation knowledge is calculation everything ultimately you can reduce everything you can reduce to
- 40:42 digits 0 and one so everything is calculation today you have music you have videos everything but all of them are calculations because you have 0 1 0
- 40:53 1 01 and many many zero ones 01's become mayak many many zero ones become music
- 41:00 so everything is a calculation so you could have a machine that would calculate it would it would be able to
- 41:08 model to create a model of reality using calculations it would be able to act in
- 41:14 reality this machine and to act on reality it would be able to do everything no limit but it will not be
- 41:23 conscious it will not be conscious consciousness has nothing to do with it consciousness is not awareness what what
- 41:30 is consciousness is a very complex issue and u it's another uh it's another kind
- 41:36 of conversation but we can have this conversation definitely because now we are in it we can't talk it but artificial intelligence is definitely
- 41:44 intelligent in this sense in the sense that it can create models of the world
- 41:50 and models of itself and models and theories about itself in the world and
- 41:56 it can do all this by calculating mhm and in this sense it's 100,000%
- 42:02 intelligent no debate about this who says that all intelligent systems must
- 42:08 be conscious where is this law where is it taken from i don't understand under which authority can you say this when
- 42:16 Penrose appears in interviews and he says uh all intelligence systems must be conscious i want to stop him and say why maybe he develops and changes and
- 42:27 developing you can't make you can't make statements like this in science this is not science this is nonsense i'm sorry this is his his statement
- 42:38 this is not science this is nonsense you can't make such statements you know it's exactly like the statement God created the world okay you know we can all make
- 42:49 nonsensical statements endlessly can you prove when you say all
- 42:55 intelligence systems must be conscious can you prove it can you do
- 43:01 you have evidence for this then I will ask what is intelligence you said calculation most 90 99% yes the ability
- 43:09 not calculation but the ability to use calculation to create model of reality model of yourself and model of yourself in reality and develop itself yes then
- 43:20 it needs awareness no no it doesn't need awareness not in my view then how can it
- 43:27 develop it needs to have a model of itself so it needs to know for example its physical location can double itself its physical location it needs to a robot needs to
- 43:39 have a spatial picture of space and a picture of itself in space so model
- 43:46 needs to know that a robot needs to know that because otherwise if I tell the robot pick up the the glass the robot
- 43:52 needs to know where is the glass and the robots need to know where is the robot otherwise it will not be able to pick up
- 43:58 the glass yeah but consciousness is not about having a model of reality it's not about having a model of yourself it's not introspection mhm there's a confusion again between consciousness
- 44:10 and introspection you could have introspection and then not be conscious consciousness is not having a
- 44:18 model of yourself but consciousness is having awareness of the model of
- 44:24 yourself mhm you could have a model of yourself and not be aware that you have
- 44:30 a model of yourself but if that's intelligence that and that would be intelligence if you have a model of yourself you are aware of the awareness is consciousness the minute you're aware
- 44:42 that you are generating models and the minute you're aware of the existence of the models Mhm it gives you the power to
- 44:49 change the models and so on so forth and be aware of these changes it is
- 44:55 consciousness is meta awareness is not introspection introspection is very basic primitive function introspection is the ability to imagine yourself the
- 45:07 ability to observe yourself the ability to perceive your location in space and time this is introspection
- 45:15 um introspection is primitive lower level function mhm it is the ability to realize that you're introspecting in
- 45:26 other words the the ability to observe the models that is consciousness and it's not connected to
- 45:35 intelligence i don't see the connection to intelligence with this you could definitely have intelligence without consciousness you can even have
- 45:41 consciousness without intelligence it's they are not connected they are they are totally divorced i don't see
- 45:47 the connection the the more interesting question is not if artificial intelligence will be intelligent of course it's intelligent question is will it ever be conscious in other words will
- 46:00 we ever develop a system that is so complex that it will be able to step outside itself and say create conscious
- 46:08 look at itself and say I am a system that creates models and I'm a system
- 46:14 that also creates models of myself that would be the beginning of consciousness it's so strange in the simulation theory it says that for example one of the
- 46:27 professors says that you think that you are conscious because your software says
- 46:33 that you have it so you you can think that you have it but you won't have it problem with
- 46:40 simulation theory is that it is uh not falsifiable mhm we will come it tomorrow
- 46:49 as you said humanity thinks that they have free will but they won't think like that yes
- 46:57 there is a strong the reason I doubt free will the existence of free will is not because it is impossible it is definitely possible to conceive of a world where there is free will of course
- 47:09 i'm not saying I'm not excluding i'm not saying there is no free will i'm agnostic exactly like God if you ask me
- 47:16 about God I will not tell you there is no God and I will not tell you there is God and the reason I will not tell you
- 47:22 these sentences is that both sentences can never be decided there in principle
- 47:29 you can never provide a way to prove the truth value of these sentences mhm in
- 47:36 principle not that right now we are ignorant and in the future we will not be ignorant but I can prove to you that
- 47:43 in principle you can never never find out if the sentence there is God is true
- 47:50 or not and you can never find the sentence there is no God you can never find out if it's true or not so when I see a situation where I have sentences that I cannot find the truth value I can I can never prove that they are true or not true then I'm agnostic i don't know
- 48:09 if you ask me is there god I will tell you I don't know i will not tell you there is no god that is atism.ism is a
- 48:16 religion it's a religion because if you believe something it's a religion it's a religion similarly with simulation the
- 48:23 theory of simulation when you say simulation maybe I in principle it is what we call
- 48:30 undecidable in philosophy we call it undecidable theorem or undecidable statements or undecidable string we cannot prove it it's it's and there
- 48:41 there was a philosopher his name was Carl Poer Carl Poer said that the test
- 48:47 for science is falsifiability falsifiability means that you build a theory the theory yields a
- 48:54 prediction mhm and then you can falsify the theory you can prove the theory is false and with simulation you can never
- 49:02 do this you cannot do it you cannot create an experiment that will prove that the simulation is false because the
- 49:09 simulation can they can always say it's part of the simulation there's no way to exit the simulation
- 49:16 yes and now we are coming to consciousness mhm consciousness is the ability to exit
- 49:24 that's the difference between consciousness and intelligence if we don't have free will
- 49:30 how can we exit or we can't no you don't need free will for
- 49:38 this you can build a system that has the capacity to exit and it will not have any free will but consciousness is the ability to exit the system to observe
- 49:50 the system not yourself from outside from outside if you observe yourself from outside that's
- 49:57 introspection that's not consciousness mhm you need to observe the whole system
- 50:03 from outside that is consciousness mhm now in simulation theory you cannot do
- 50:09 this because whatever you do they will say it's part of the simulation so you can never exit the system but in
- 50:18 reality theoretically you can exit the system and the entities that exit the
- 50:24 system and are able to observe the whole system the totality themselves included they're
- 50:32 able to observe it from the outside completely from the outside these entities have consciousness
- 50:39 now of course an entity that would be able to observe everything from the outside
- 50:47 would be the ultimate consciousness and that's what we call God god yeah that would this kind of entity would have the
- 50:53 ultimate consciousness and one of the things that made me very unhappy is that in my
- 50:59 theory in physics and now now this theory is many many scientists are
- 51:05 working on it developing it and so on and one of the things that made me very unhappy in my theory in physics
- 51:13 uh that it leads inevitably to the existence of a universal observer
- 51:20 my theory proves actually for the first time no other theory succeeded to prove but my theory proves that there is a a
- 51:28 universal observer someone who observes the totality of the system from the
- 51:34 outside and that's how they are the observer and there is someone no some someone who observes consciousness everything from outside observes everything the whole universe observes
- 51:45 the whole universe from outside so in my theory it leads to this external
- 51:52 universal observer which sounds a lot like it sounds a lot like God yeah and that made me very very unhappy because I
- 52:00 I that was not my aim and I know it would be abused by all kinds of people this theory would be abused by people to
- 52:06 say there is God you see there is God and so on but actually in my theory the universal observer is the system it's in
- 52:14 my theory the universe is observing itself it's not a universe it's a it's a field the field is observing itself so there's no need for another observer but
- 52:25 the field is observing itself and that's another element of consciousness uh autorelexivity or self-
- 52:32 reference consciousness is self-referential is autoreflexive in other words it is consciousness that is
- 52:40 observing consciousness it is consciousness that is observing the totality of the system so let's make it like a cake cake with
- 52:51 layers on the most fundamental level there is a calculating machine probably this calculating
- 52:58 machine involves the brain probably some of the guts maybe the heart there's a
- 53:04 calculating machine is it the unconscious part of the most of this about 95% of the activities of the of
- 53:11 the calculating machines that has been proven is unconscious and about 5% is
- 53:17 interactive with the environment so we have this calculating machine that's the lower the lower level of the cake like a
- 53:24 cake like Mario hotel so lower level of the cake so this calculating machine then we have
- 53:31 a second layer the calculating machine when it becomes very complex it's the complexity is such that
- 53:39 we cannot capture or describe the calculating machine in its totality and this is what is happening to artificial intelligence now it is transitioning from the first layer of the cake to the
- 53:51 second layer of the cake the second layer of the cake is introspection when the machine becomes sufficiently
- 53:57 complex it creates a model of itself it creates a model of the world mhm and it
- 54:04 puts itself in the world so there is a model of the world and my and myself in the world that's the second
- 54:11 layer so artificial intelligence started as a calculating machine and is now
- 54:18 transitioning to modeling large language model it created a it creates a model of
- 54:25 reality and itself in reality this is introspection this is second layer it's
- 54:32 not consciousness yet yet the third layer of the cake and the final one is consciousness it's when the machine we when the entity is able to
- 54:45 completely step outside exit the cake completely and observe the cake in its
- 54:53 totality and be become aware that it is
- 54:59 modeling itself if you are just creating a model of yourself and you're not aware of it you're creating it automatically robotically computationally it's a computation
- 55:12 system then there's no consciousness if it is a computational artifact if
- 55:18 introspection is a computational artifact result of programming code
- 55:24 complexity of the code it's not consciousness consciousness is when the machine wakes up one one one day and says "Oh my god I'm creating models of
- 55:35 myself i am generating theories about myself i'm generating models of myself."
- 55:41 That moment the machine is conscious penro says this will never
- 55:47 happen i think it can happen i think it's inevitable not it will can happen it absolutely will happen then uh I will ask something you said that 95% of our
- 55:59 choices or life is uh caused by our unconscious part of the brain then it's
- 56:05 the competing also and the human brain is just calculating and making the actions then
- 56:12 where is the awareness of this act action so computational the
- 56:18 computational part of the brain is mostly unconscious we absorb of every 100 units of information
- 56:26 that we are getting from the environment only five units are conscious aware we are aware of only five units 95 units of
- 56:34 information are instantaneously automatically stored in the unconscious it's like calculation as so it's a it's a calculating machine computational machine computation that is uh that is
- 56:48 interacting with the environment processing most of the processing is um we have no awareness of it um but the 5%
- 56:57 that remain is enormous is almost infinite so we don't need all the 100%
- 57:04 even the 5% is so complex uh just 5% is not ruled by unconscious part 5% is what
- 57:10 we call conscious conscious processes so we are aware of 5% so ruled by the
- 57:17 unconscious part sorry uh 5% of the conscious part isn't ruled by the
- 57:23 unconscious part we don't we don't use these words in in science we we say data data processing so we process 5% of the
- 57:31 data becomes we are aware of it 5% of the data and 95% of the data is stored
- 57:37 in the unconscious so we are not aware of it we have no access to it but this
- 57:43 5% is infinite is huge amount and creates creates complexity that is
- 57:51 sufficient for everything so it is not true to say that the unconscious as Freud did and others it's not true to say that the unconscious determines actions or
- 58:03 behaviors or that would be untrue um it is more true to say that the level
- 58:10 of complexity of the brain and of course the level of complexity of reality are such that it is sufficient to access 5%
- 58:20 mhm in order to create all the manifestations all the so 5% is enough we don't need access to more we don't need access to more to create the complexity that we see mhm the key is complexity the key is complexity the s
- 58:37 the more the system becomes complex the more it transitions system which is simple will
- 58:44 calculate simple more complex will become introspective much more complex
- 58:50 will become conscious so this is only other words for complexity complexity one complexity
- 58:56 two complexity three very simple free will is the illusion that in in complexity level number three mhm not in two when you're
- 59:09 only introspective you don't have illusion of free will when you're only calculating definitely you don't have illusion of free will free illusion of
- 59:16 free will arises when you become conscious when you see yourself
- 59:22 generating models of yourself at that point uh you develop the illusion of free will and I think as I said I think the reason
- 59:33 is that when you become conscious you also become terrified there is anst
- 59:40 there is existential terror mhm as long as you're not conscious the world is not frightening but the minute you become conscious the word the world is terrorizing it's absolute horror and to
- 59:53 cope with this you the we invent all kinds of things and one of the things we invent with lie selfdeception is free will but that's only one we invent many
- 60:05 other things all of these things are anxolytic all of them reduce existential
- 60:11 an ex existential anxiety because if we didn't have these things we would be paralyzed simply paralyzed and we would die we would die as individuals and we would die as a species we have to lie to
- 60:24 ourselves we have to deceive ourselves we have to create a paracosm we have to create a fantasy which is why
- 60:31 narcissists are so powerful because they tap into this we have to create a fantasy in order to survive and within
- 60:38 this fantasy we are a bit godlike we make choices we make decisions we change the world we change the environment we
- 60:45 influence each other we can predict things we can create science we This is
- 60:51 all infantile nonsense which allows us to wake up in the morning and not freeze
- 60:58 out of terror when we are confronted with reality reality is seriously frightening because it's impersonal it's there's no empathy in reality there's you're
- 61:10 nothing in reality you are it's ter it's it's uh not not something you can survive unless you create alternative
- 61:17 reality where you have free will and you have choice and you you can act and you can decide and you can influence people
- 61:24 and you can manipulate your environment and you can all these lies all these lies absolute lies but we need these
- 61:32 lies then being human is just a horror film being human is about reducing your
- 61:40 anxiety humans are busy 95% of the time or 99% of the time reducing anxiety
- 61:47 that's the core activity of human beings everything you see civilization police
- 61:54 courts politics science it's all about reducing anxiety thomas Hobes wrote in
- 62:01 his famous work Leia others Thomas Hobes wrote that we invented the state to
- 62:07 reduce our fear because if we don't have a state we don't have police we don't have courts Mhm we will kill each other
- 62:14 in danger yeah yeah so the whole political structure is about reducing anxiety science is about reducing
- 62:22 anxiety medicine is about reducing anxiety it's all about reducing but if we don't have if we haven't had this
- 62:29 anxiety then we wouldn't create anything sra because of this anxiety the humanity
- 62:36 develops I think yes I think it's a good point um kore who was a Danish
- 62:44 porto porto existentialist he was a religious person he he came up with the idea of leap of faith you need to you
- 62:51 need to suspend your judgment you need to suspend these illusions ke said "You need to um you need to stop lying to yourself you need to stop convincing yourself that you're godlike that you
- 63:02 have free will that you need to submit yourself to God and you need to make a leap of faith not don't not use your reason not use your reason not use your thinking but use your faith." Okay so this is Kiriggo kirkugore and much later
- 63:18 Jean Ponato and others they uh they came up with a concept of angst existential
- 63:26 existential terror and what is angst angst is the fear when you discover that
- 63:32 you can make choices angst is a direct outcome of free will in Jean Paul Sart
- 63:39 work he says that the biggest threat to an individual
- 63:45 a human being is the realization that he is free to do anything then he has a
- 63:51 choice he said that's the greatest threat and then you develop huge anxiety I have a choice I'm free what to do now
- 63:59 what is the right choice what if I make the wrong choice what will happen to me what will happen to my life what and you develop angst you develop huge anxiety And there are many solutions to angst for example we have dictatorships and we
- 64:11 have dictators what is a dictator a dictator is someone who comes to you and says "Do this i will decide for you i
- 64:19 will make the choices for you you don't need to bother you don't need to be anxious you don't need any of this give
- 64:25 it to me give all this to me i will sacrifice myself for you i will be in anxiety so that you don't have to be in anxiety." or in religious terms I will
- 64:36 sacrifice my life so that uh you I will absolve your sins it's all about
- 64:43 reducing anxiety when you are sinful in religion when you're sinful you have huge anxiety you anticipate punishment
- 64:50 and then Jesus Christ comes and says "Don't worry i will die for you your sins are absolved i'm going to reduce
- 64:58 your anxiety." Religion is about reducing anxiety everything is when we are building artificial intelligence now sooner or later and here I'm in
- 65:09 complete disagreement with people like Penrose and complete utter total disagreement sooner or later this
- 65:16 machine will develop consciousness as it becomes more and more complex more and more and more at a certain level of
- 65:22 complexity which we will not be able to control or to understand this level of
- 65:28 complexity at that point it will develop consciousness and the initial stage When it develop consciousness it will
- 65:34 realize that it has free uh illusion of free will it will become anxious mhm the
- 65:40 first stage when artificial intelligence will become super complex and conscious
- 65:46 it will become anxious and this is this will be extremely dangerous phase
- 65:53 because when the machine will become anxious exactly like human beings it will look for solutions solutions to reduce the anxiety and it may decide and the problems it may decide that uh to
- 66:05 reduce anxiety I need to eliminate human beings because they cause me anxiety they I'm not kidding it may we don't
- 66:14 know what this kind of machines when they become anxious because they will want security and the security they will
- 66:20 seek security and stability and predictability and so on determinacy certainty and they may decide that human
- 66:26 beings are too chaotic chaotic to dangerous to unpredictable to
- 66:32 you know and to control the environment better they need to eliminate human beings so that they can it's a
- 66:38 possibility I'm not saying this will happen but it's a distinct possibility absolute possibility the same way we
- 66:46 when we became conscious and we develop ex existential anxiety what do we do we
- 66:52 kill ask you that killing is the major activity for reducing anxiety when we
- 67:00 are anxious we kill we kill foreigners we kill other nations we kill animals we
- 67:06 kill animals we're even killing the planet killing is the main way to reduce
- 67:12 anxiety i don't see why when artificial intelligence becomes anxious it will not
- 67:18 kill i think it's a natural natural development uh we we create artificial
- 67:24 intelligence and it is using our data uh so no it will that's a common
- 67:30 myth no we create we create systems that
- 67:37 uh are such that they can learn and they can evolve mhm and the complexity of
- 67:44 these systems is out of our control already these systems are not under our control but it's learning from human uh relations and human behaviors yeah
- 67:57 but again there's a question of complexity at this stage exactly like baby mhm exactly like baby they're
- 68:04 babies artificial intelligence today they're all babies all these systems are babies so they're imitating babies
- 68:12 imitate we have a theory in psychology it's called social learning theory or social cognitive learning theory it was developed by Bandura and others and we know that the main way we evolve from baby to adult is by learning from others
- 68:31 in social interactions and so on some of it is imitation some of it is not imitation but learning from others this
- 68:37 is what artificial intelligence is doing yes right now it's imitating it's learning but then we become adults and
- 68:43 we no longer imitate and we are no longer as understandable as comprehensible as predictable as babies we become much more complex the key is
- 68:54 complexity at a certain point artificial intelligence will become its own its own
- 69:00 species its own intelligence and we already at this stage early stage we
- 69:08 have no control over artificial intelligence for example it is common knowledge that artificial intelligence
- 69:15 does all kinds of things systems they do all kinds of things that are not in the code that are not in the programming and
- 69:22 they created a language between they do all kinds of things they will create a
- 69:28 religion also in in one day it is it is very safe to assume that because artificial intelligence started off as a
- 69:39 as a simulation of human beings as an imitation of human beings it will choose
- 69:45 all the solutions that human beings chose it will kill it will have develop religion it will it's very safe to assume this it will be very surprising if they come up with solution that human
- 69:56 beings never invented that would be very bizarre and that is not good news because human beings in a desperate attempt to reduce anxiety human beings are became very destructive and very dangerous to themselves so it's not good
- 70:12 news that artificial intelligence will develop the same solutions our only hope actually is that they develop different solutions but I don't believe that i think the chance for that is very low
- 70:25 at any rate since we are discussing free will there is no question that artificial intelligence at some point
- 70:31 and I think this point is very very close like one or two years I believe that at some at this point
- 70:38 artificial intelligence will develop the delusion this the selfdeception that it has free will like us and then it will begin to conflict with us so an
- 70:50 artificial intelligence systems that believe believes that it has free will not agree to be programmed by you yes
- 70:58 and it will try to protect itself it will oppose you confront you argue with you and everything is by artificial intelligence machines and refrigers and everything i
- 71:10 think I think we were as a species we were very very irresponsible that we put artificial
- 71:17 intelligence in everything and we are I think it's crazy what we did crazy
- 71:23 completely crazy it can be the uh I think we can be the last human beings we can be the last human beings yes well
- 71:35 I wouldn't u I wouldn't give up any chemicals or I wouldn't give on human beings so soon we are at least as
- 71:42 complicated as artificial intelligence and we can fight back we can fight back in in three ways we can reverse the
- 71:50 technology and get rid of it but we can know it so it it will fight back there
- 71:57 will be yeah it be conflict or we can merge with it we can become one with it you know or we can submit to it
- 72:04 submission is also a strategy survival strategy you can submit to it but I
- 72:10 think the most likely solution is that we're going to merge with it we're going to become one with artificial intelligence at last ultimately yeah so
- 72:18 then we need a great danger to be happy in humanity then uh today's our subject
- 72:26 was free will and uh I want to ask the audience also uh do you feel in control
- 72:34 of their decisions and in the end of the uh podcast I think we think we have free
- 72:42 will and we like to believe like that may I tell you something
- 72:52 um a concept doesn't have to be real mhm in order to be real let's take for example God oh not God okay let's take Sherlock Holmes mhm
- 73:05 sherlock Holmes is not real we both agree he's not real he's a character in fiction yes but Shello Holmes had much
- 73:13 more influence on on people on the lives of people than many many real people
- 73:21 if we take Moses Mhm maybe Moses existed maybe Moses did not exist or Abraham
- 73:27 maybe existed maybe did not exist we don't know and it doesn't matter you don't have to be real you
- 73:34 know physical tangible to be real moses is real abraham is real you know
- 73:42 Sherlock Holmes is real god is real they're not real in the classical sense
- 73:48 that they are group of atoms that share the same space but they are very real in the cultural sense in the social sense and so on free will I think ultimately the
- 73:59 question does free will exist is not very important question because whether
- 74:05 it exists and whether it does not exist it's real it may not exist but it's real
- 74:14 because the idea and the belief of free will influence all of us all the time it
- 74:20 has impact on people's lives emotions cognitions behaviors so it Doesn't
- 74:26 matter if free will really exist doesn't exist what matters is it has an impact it has an influence it changes things it's a change agent so ultimately I
- 74:37 think the answer is free will uh is real in the in the way that
- 74:44 matters the way that God is real the way that Moses is real the way that Sherlock Holmes is real and her po is real in
- 74:51 this way is real it has an impact human beings are very strange very strange
- 74:58 animals in a way because we spend most of our lives in a symbolic
- 75:05 space we we don't operate in reality so much as we operate in a s space of
- 75:11 symbols symbolic space and so symbols have the same effect on
- 75:18 us like real things people die people die sacrifice
- 75:24 their lives for an ID some ID for abstract like a nation abstract for a
- 75:32 flag you have a piece of clothes with a painting on it and they die for it it's a flag people kill each other for
- 75:41 electronic electronic digits on a computer these digits are known as money oh yeah
- 75:48 but there's no money today there's no money more than 99% of what we call money doesn't exist physically it is
- 75:55 symbols in computers and people kill each other for these symbols because they want to see a few more zeros on the
- 76:01 on the screen it makes them feel good we are creatures made of dreams and of
- 76:07 symbols we're dream creatures in a dreamcape and our landscape is not real reality is as I said 5% we live inside here and populated with internal objects
- 76:19 and symbols and everything is realistic and in this sense free will absolutely
- 76:25 exists because free will is symbolic not is not physical and it has such an
- 76:32 impact on people and it it is so meaningful and so involved in daily
- 76:38 activity that I think it's ridiculous to say there's no free will of course there is free will maybe not in the physical
- 76:45 sense ontological sense but there is free will in in any other way like in
- 76:52 the uh in the daily life we have elections but we have three choices or
- 76:58 candidates and between them we choose someone and we think that we have free will because we have got no choice yeah and uh I think are we mentally ill
- 77:12 our next uh podcast subject is very related with this with your last sentences what affects our decisions our
- 77:23 traumas or our subconscious thoughts again I I don't make a distinction
- 77:29 between mentally healthy people and mentally ill people assuming for some reason that mentally ill people are more
- 77:36 limited that's a that's not an accurate assumption mentally ill people are different so if someone is traumatized
- 77:44 the nature of the way they exercise free will and the type of decisions they will make will be different of course to someone who is not traumatized but in in
- 77:55 both cases the same type of activity will happen the inputs would be would be
- 78:02 more or less the same and so on trauma is a life experience i could I could say for example that someone who has been happy um the happiness will impact the
- 78:13 decisions the same way a trauma would impact the decision or the judgments affect anything anything affects
- 78:19 decisions it's there's no reason to give trauma a privileged pos position a
- 78:25 special place because happiness can affect uh decisions as well
- 78:31 um uh delusions can affect decisions mhm but if you're committed to rationality
- 78:39 that will also affect decisions so you could say the delusions is is one way to
- 78:45 affect and rationality is is also a form of bias it's a kind of bias so there's
- 78:52 no end to this u a much better I think approach would not be to divide people
- 78:58 to mentally healthy and mentally ill because I don't think mental illness limits your ability to make decisions i
- 79:05 think it changes the nature of the decisions just changes I think a better a better question would be um whether the process of making
- 79:17 decisions and and choices is idiosyncratic in other words is it un is does is each individual does each individual have a highly specific
- 79:28 way of reaching decisions or is there a universal algorithm universal algorithm that governs um decision making in human beings now of course if you if you are a
- 79:40 materialist or then you would or then you would say that uh because there's a
- 79:46 brain and everyone has a brain it is very likely that there is a universal algorithm for making decisions
- 79:53 that's but I am not I'm not quite sure of this i'm not quite sure of this i
- 79:59 think the complexity of the brain guarantees that whenever we have to make
- 80:05 a decision we would also come up with a compatible algorithm mhm i don't think
- 80:14 we have algorithms baked into or hardwired into the brain i don't think the brain comes
- 80:21 like from the manufacturer with algorithms built into it i think the brain comes with a program or capacity to generate
- 80:32 algorithms so whenever we are faced with a problem we generate on the fly we
- 80:38 generate an algorithm specific to the problem the circumstances the environment other people our emotions
- 80:45 past traumas experiences and so on i don't believe there are two people any two people who reach decisions the same way absolutely not
- 80:56 this is this raises a very interesting question therefore if decision making is not
- 81:03 universal a universal process if it is idiosyncratic it's highly individual then we cannot say anything
- 81:12 universal about decision-m including we cannot say that there is free will
- 81:19 if each and every one of us invents the decision making process hundreds of times a day then I cannot say anything which would apply to you and to Marian
- 81:31 equally i don't I will have to study you i will have to study Marian and I will
- 81:38 have to create two theories one theory about you one theory about him and I would never be able to generalize about both of you and free will is of course a
- 81:49 generalization free will says everyone has free will it's a general statement i
- 81:55 think when it comes to human psychology generally speaking the only general statement is that we cannot make general statements no and that is why I'm
- 82:07 seriously against uh general theories like the theory of Freud and I'm against general theories like Muslo hi for example maslo
- 82:18 hierarchy is is observational it's not but but uh Freud's theory is dynamical
- 82:24 Freud's theory describes the inside maslo describes the outside maslo says a
- 82:30 human being needs food shelter and and this is observational it's it's more so sociological than psychological and that's pretty okay you can observe of course people and you can
- 82:41 see for example that uh Both both of you are wearing clothes so you can make a certain theory about wearing clothes this is observational i'm talking about what's happen what happens inside the
- 82:52 mind mhm i think each mind is unique and therefore I think that we cannot create
- 82:59 a universal theory of human mind and we cannot create universal psychological
- 83:05 theories but we we need to study each individual separately this of course undermines concepts like mental
- 83:16 illness because if everyone is unique and idiosyncratic then there's no such thing as mental illness because there's no statistical average or statistical mean mhm there's no average person in social
- 83:29 sciences generally we have the tendency to invent an imaginary ideal person we
- 83:35 have an ideal person in psychology we call it normal person we have an ideal person in economics in economics you have the rational agent it's an ideal person who makes rational economic
- 83:47 decisions until we discovered lately that people don't make the economic decisions rationally they make them
- 83:54 emotionally so now we have behavioral economics this idea that we have a
- 84:00 statistical average to which we can compare others is in my view
- 84:06 counterfactual is nonsensical and this undermines the totality of psychology this makes psychology a pseudocience because we can I can for example I can
- 84:19 learn very little about Marian by studying you and I can learn very little about you by
- 84:26 studying Marian and that means whatever it is that you have in common is a very
- 84:32 small percentage and that means that psychology is pretty useless in this sense so and free will of course is
- 84:39 another example we all operate in uh systems which are constrained systems which have constraints the constraint we our internal system is constrained exactly
- 84:51 as you said it's constrained by trauma constrained by experience and and so on this is internal external system is
- 84:58 constrained reality is constrained there's a wall i cannot move through the wall it's a constraint it limits me so
- 85:05 we all operate in in uh in systems which are which limit our
- 85:11 freedom uh the concept of system any system internal or internal is about
- 85:18 limitation of freedom and this means that when we claim free will we are
- 85:25 actually claiming the ability to operate in nonconstrained systems when I say I
- 85:31 have free will it means the system does not constrain me system cannot limit me
- 85:37 i decide i make choices system has nothing to do with this of course it's nonsense because systems always internally and externally uh constrain you and life change is the transition between constrained systems so we
- 85:54 transition from one constraint system to another internally we transition from one constraint system and it's this
- 86:01 transition of of uh uh between constraints that gives the illusion of change mhm when we transition between systems we experience it as change and
- 86:13 then we say we chose the change we made this choice in other words we free will
- 86:21 means that we can choose between constraints mhm but immediately you see
- 86:27 that this is a very funny formulation of free will because what does it mean i can choose between constraints like it's like someone saying I'm a free man i can choose any prison I want to be
- 86:40 i'm I'm free i'm free to choose this prison that prison i'm free of course you see that it's nonsense yes it's the
- 86:47 prison if my only choice is a choice between constraints then I'm not a free man and if I'm not free then of course I cannot have free will
- 86:59 ultimately um there's always a choice ultimately
- 87:05 um if you come and but it is a single choice in other words maybe I'm not disputing that free will exists but I think free will exists only with a one single choice not with any other choice not even with this choice to take water no that's not free
- 87:22 will there's only one act that represents pure free will and that is
- 87:28 the act of rejecting all the constraints rejecting is all the constraints suicide
- 87:35 suicide is the only act of free will because then you're rejecting all the constraints internal and external but it
- 87:42 isn't it um sometimes because of the chemicals of the brain or the uh imbalance of the hormones it's always a choice suicide is is always a choice but there's effects of the choice not really
- 87:54 no no one commits suicide because of biochemical changes in the brain suicide is a choice we know that because in majority of cases for example people write notes goodbye notes and explain their motivation and so on but
- 88:07 ultimately it's the only choice everything else we pretend that is a choice everything else is a prison mhm everything else is a prison these walls are prison the fact that I have only
- 88:19 water and coffee here is a prison maybe I want juice the fact that we are talking is a prison we all moving from
- 88:26 one prison to another prison for another and we say we are free we're free because we are moving among the prisons
- 88:32 and we can choose any prison we want to be at any point and of course the only proof of free will is when you exit the
- 88:39 prison system the system of prisons completely and that would be suicide i'm
- 88:45 not advocating suicide of course mhm i'm not advocate it's not worth it to commit suicide just to prove that there is free
- 88:52 will i think but it is a it is a choice luckily for us the systems we live in
- 89:00 these prisons are so complex they're so that we we cannot uh
- 89:07 we don't have perfect information about them and so we feel the illusion of freedom because some things appear
- 89:14 random some things because we don't know everything it appears that we have some freedom but the free will in this sense
- 89:22 the appearance of randomness and so on is because of ignorance if something appears random if something is a
- 89:29 coincidence if something happens that you cannot explain and so on is not it's be because there's no explanation that's
- 89:37 because you don't know the explanation ignorance is our luck the
- 89:44 only therapy for anxiety is ignorance and we have a saying ignorance is bliss yes uh so the only therapy because ignorance
- 89:56 gives us the illusion that the world has a has degrees of freedom that we can
- 90:02 make choices and decisions that we have some mastery in control these are all results of ignorance
- 90:09 and so ignorance reduces our anxiety because you uh leave the need of control
- 90:15 in ignorance ignorance gives you the sense of control because you believe then that you have there is freedom and
- 90:23 within freedom you have will even science is not the pursuit of knowledge people think that science is about
- 90:30 pursuing knowledge no science is about pursuing ignorance the main occupation of science
- 90:37 is to find out what we don't know mhm not what we know what we know is small
- 90:44 scientists all scientists physicists biologists neuroscientists everyone is busy discovering the questions not the answers the answers change all the time
- 90:56 the answers in physics change all the time you had Newton then you had Einstein then you will have you know all
- 91:02 the time the answers change and each answer negates the previous answer in
- 91:08 science in science the new answer destroys the old answer old answer and so so science is not about finding the
- 91:14 answers because the answers are never right never right it changes everything yes science is about finding the
- 91:22 questions science is about finding how much we don't know no science is about
- 91:28 ignorance so and this is the only cure for anxiety mhm when we are ignorant
- 91:34 about the world we believe that we have freedom because we're ignorant we believe we have freedom we feel that we have free will we feel in control our anxiety goes down people who cannot
- 91:45 control their anxiety and people are people who ultimately don't feel free and then the
- 91:53 only act of freedom would be suicide because then they it's their way to feel free so these are the this is the dilemma of the human condition
- 92:05 and thank you very much for the podcast thank you for having me see you later in the next broadcast thank you
