Is Free Will an Illusion

[Music]

[Applause]

from the moment

of our birth to the very last instant

before death

we spend our entire lives making

decisions

these decisions can be life altering

like deciding which college to go to

or completely insignificant like

choosing between ice cream flavors

but in each of these decisions there is

something

that’s as crucial and as unique to the

human experience

as consciousnesses it’s the feeling we

have that we are the ones in control

the sensation that what i choose

is completely up to me it’s our free

will

this concept runs deep in our logic and

intuition

it’s foundational to the way we see

ourselves

perceive others and structure society

but what if free will was nothing more

than a feeling

what if none of our actions our

decisions could ever truly be

in our control hi

my name is nick jankovic and free will

may just be an illusion allow me to

explain

free will has been a topic of

philosophical debate for millennia

and for most of history many believed in

its existence

however this belief was challenged when

physics was brought into the picture

classical physics which studies the

world as we know it explains

everything from why apples fall to how

galaxies form

but more importantly for this topic

classical physics is deterministic

this means that everything is an

unbroken chain of cause and effect

renowned french mathematician pierce

iman laplace gave us the implications of

this

when he said that if we could somehow

know everything there was to know about

the universe

at this moment in time then we could use

the laws of physics to

determine exactly what would happen

tomorrow

or next week or next month or even in a

thousand years

well doesn’t the same logic apply to us

humans

famous theoretical physicist brian green

says that

since we are made up of the same

particles and obey the same laws as

everything else around us

then our choices just like the path of a

falling apple

should be perfectly predictable by

science

in other words those choices will not be

free

on the other hand quantum physics which

studies the really tiny

is not deterministic in fact it can be

perfectly random but this doesn’t give

us free will either

as brian greene says if it comes from a

random process

it’s like throwing the dice and throwing

the dice to get an outcome

is not what we mean by free will it

wasn’t in our control

so our universe is a mix a mix of

classical

and quantum of determinism and

randomness

but neither of these two things gives us

the free will

which we so cherish

sam harris neuroscientist and author of

the book free will

expresses this same view but instead of

talking about atoms and the laws of

physics

he believes it’s our genes and

environment that shape our brains and

thus cause our decisions

now aren’t these just two ways of saying

the same

thing after all atoms do make up your

genes and environment

so physics might be the more fundamental

explanation

but in the context of our daily lives

and in the terms which

we better understand it’s our parents

our friends

the videos we watch songs we listen to

people we follow

and our genes that all coalesce to bring

about

our choices

so despite what we may feel we don’t

have

free will but what does this mean for

our lives

i see two things first the absence of

free will directly impacts how we should

perceive

others we all judge people

and i’m guilty of this too of course

just think politics

we are so critical of anyone on the

opposite side

that all it takes is a few words she’s a

trump supporter or

he’s a communist for us to dislike a

complete stranger

but if you approach this from a no free

will standpoint

you quickly realize that the people

you’re judging never truly chose their

actions or beliefs

those things are just a product of their

genes and environment

now there’s nothing wrong with judging

someone’s beliefs

but we should try to understand the

causes behind those beliefs

before hating the people who hold them

and we should always remember that if

put in their positions

with their exact genes in their exact

environments

it would be impossible for us to turn

out any different

this may be a little hard to accept but

it opens up

the door for so much more empathy and

understanding

secondly free will being an illusion

also tells us a lot about our own selves

does it mean that nothing matters and we

should just stop trying

of course not sam harris puts this

beautifully

he says we are part of a system and

therefore what we do

matters you can’t take credit for your

talents

but it matters that you use them and you

can’t really be blamed

for your weaknesses but it matters that

you correct them

think about it this way if everyone is a

direct

product of his or her genes and

environment

and we are the environments of those

around us

then we play an enormous role in shaping

those with whom we interact

i’m here today as a result of my own

environment

it was this podcast two years ago which

first introduced me to the topic

of free will and just as they influence

to me

my hope is that i as part of your

environment

on this stage tonight can help influence

you to be a positive environment to

those around you

so let’s strive to bring out the best in

our own selves

so that we may bring out the best in

others

thank you