Do we really have free will? with Robert Sapolsky

[Shogun]

Stanford neurobiology prof. recently published a book arguing that free-will is impossible:

Do we really have free will? with Robert Sapolsky (Ep. 126)

Renowned scholar argues that biology doesn’t shape our actions; it completely controls them

news.uchicago.edu

Everything from the neurobiology of a second ago to evolutionary pressures over the last million years goes into how you became that sort of person. And when you look at all of that closely, you had no control over it. There is no room for this conventional sense we have a free will.

And translated into sort of nuts and bolts biology, it’s because of what your neurons did a second ago, but it’s what your hormone levels were this morning and it was what traumas you’ve had over the previous year and what your adolescence and childhood had to do with what sort of brain you constructed and fetal environmental influences in your genes and culture and ecological shaping of cultures and evolution thrown in for good measure. And all we are is the end product of all that biology that came before which we had no control over, and its interactions with environment which we had no control over.

Obviously, this is just another chapter in a long....long lasting debate.

I find it harder and harder to agree that there's free-will without some sort of spiritual, or meta-physical presence....which I'm generally agnostic to, but skeptical of.
Anyway, thoughts? Can free-will exist in a purely scientific, physical way?
Is there a spirit that guides us? A soul? Something immaterial which guides our principles?

 

[GnauzBookOfRhymes]

I can understand people who still believe in free will even accepting the validity of the extent to which biology/past experiences shape future actions.

Where it gets very very murky, and this is territory that is very controversial, lacks anything even remotely approaching consensus and may in fact never be settled, is the question of whether there are quantum aspects to our brain/biology. There are some who believe that quantum physics plays a role in consciousness and the brain, specifically in structures called microtubules.

If that's the case then any notion of free will goes out the window. You should look it up if that's your thing. The primary proponent is Roger Penrose, who recently won the Nobel Prize in physics for unrelated work ( black holes).

 

[Shogun]

I can understand people who still believe in free will even accepting the validity of the extent to which biology/past experiences shape future actions.

Where it gets very very murky, and this is territory that is very controversial, lacks anything even remotely approaching consensus and may in fact never be settled, is the question of whether there are quantum aspects to our brain/biology. There are some who believe that quantum physics plays a role in consciousness and the brain, specifically in structures called microtubules.

If that's the case then any notion of free will goes out the window. You should look it up if that's your thing. The primary proponent is Roger Penrose, who recently won the Nobel Prize in physics for unrelated work ( black holes).

I'm pretty well convinced free will is an illusion.
Has some interesting implications for the way we reward/punish behaviors societally.

 

[GnauzBookOfRhymes]

I'm pretty well convinced free will is an illusion.
Has some interesting implications for the way we reward/punish behaviors societally.

Few things in life or nature are black/white. It's possible we have free will in some areas but are totally handcuffed in others. I believe I have the free will to decide whether I turn my head to the left this very second. I can't imagine that there is some hidden drive/instinct/force that decided to convince my brain to tell my body to do so. But it may be that hidden factors of which I am completely ignorant came together when I was an embryo only 7 days old that had determined my full psychological/mental profile as an adult.

 

[Shogun]

Few things in life or nature are black/white. It's possible we have free will in some areas but are totally handcuffed in others. I believe I have the free will to decide whether I turn my head to the left this very second. I can't imagine that there is some hidden drive/instinct/force that decided to convince my brain to tell my body to do so. But it may be that hidden factors of which I am completely ignorant came together when I was an embryo only 7 days old that had determined my full psychological/mental profile as an adult.

Got it....this Stanford neurobiologist is arguing that it is, indeed, black and white.