Robert Sapolsky: "Free will is just biology that hasn't been discovered yet"

February 15, 2021

Mindscape 134 | Robert Sapolsky on Why We Behave the Way We Do
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pcPZ0Z0bO1o
https://www.preposterousuniverse.com/podcast/2021/02/15/134-robert-sapolsky-on-why-we-behave-the-way-we-do/

"it seems self-evident from my perspective, if you spend enough decades studying enough different ways in which our brain and behavior are influenced by stuff we have no control over, that put all those pieces together, and free will is just what we call the biology that hasn’t been discovered yet.

So you think that as we understand more and more about the biology, the idea of some room left for human free will will just go away?

Yeah, basically, because if you look at, I don’t know, the last 500 years of knowledge, that’s been a theme over and over. And in some ways, the last half millennium what biology and behavior has mostly consisted of is people saying, “Oh, I had no idea that had something to do with why that behavior happens.” And what has occurred in the process is if there is free will, it’s getting crammed into smaller and smaller places.

But in substantive ways, all that science has spent centuries doing is teaching us, oh, that’s actually a biological phenomenon, that’s actually stuff out of our control, that’s actually stuff that was sculpted by issues that were sheer histories of luck or bad luck. All we are is the sum, nothing more or less, of what our biology and its interactions with environment have been."

"I don’t believe there is a shred of agency that goes into any of our behavior, so that puts me out of the lunatic fringe of the range of philosophers. And there are scientists thinking about this. But in terms of this stuff, where this issue of, “There’s more stuff going on than we think”, subterranean biological forces, who I had no idea that had anything to do with it, it’s out of your control. The realm where it is most important is when it comes to behaviors that we judged harshly. That we punish people for, that we condemn people for. And the lesson that I pound into the heads of my students over and over is, 500 years ago, in virtually every European country, if you had an epileptic seizure, the best doctors around had a diagnosis for you, as to what caused the seizure, and the seizure was caused because you were consorting with Satan."

"if you accept that we are nothing more or less than our biology, incredibility complicated biology from one second ago to 1 million years ago and interacting with environment, blah, blah, blah, if we are nothing more or less than our biology. And those are biological influences over which we had no control that brought us to this point.

If you really, really, really believe that you can never feel justified in thinking you are entitled to anything more than anyone else, because whatever it is that you have done, which you believe has earned you praise your entitlement, you have nothing to do with… And if you really, really believe this stuff, you have no rational grounds forever hating anyone because they didn’t have a damn thing to do with whatever it is they did, no matter how horrific and hurtful it was, and if you really think those ways, this could be a very different world, and at the same time, like I could think those ways for about three and a half seconds at a time before I fall back into the much more inquiry and stuff, but if you really believe this stuff, those are the only conclusions you can reach."

Robert Sapolsky: Free will — a myth we need… to get rid of 5/6 [Vert Dider] 2020
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uaxHTYtSavc

Robert Sapolsky: Justice and morality in the absence of free will | Full [Vert Dider] 2020
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nhvAAvwS-UA

Daniel Amen: The most important lesson from 83,000 brain scans (2013)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=esPRsT-lmw8

Kim Gorgens: The surprising connection between brain injuries and crime (2019)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fO2htapfNhA

Sam Harris: Taking the Redpill on Freewill (2019)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OFazP2nBIqQ

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