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