Episode Transcript
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0:08
Hello and welcome to the Origins Podcast.
0:10
I'm your host Lawrence Krauss. Robert
0:14
Sapolsky is a genius or
0:16
so says the MacArthur Foundation when they gave him
0:18
a genius grant. Whether
0:21
he's a genius or not, I've known him
0:23
personally and of his work for many years and
0:25
have always been
0:27
impressed by both the depth
0:29
and breadth of his work. You can tell how accomplished
0:34
a scientist he is by how many departments
0:37
he's a member of at Stanford.
0:39
He's a professor of biology and neurology
0:42
and I think neuroscience and
0:45
who knows what else at Stanford University. And
0:48
he's worked on primates and
0:50
neurobiology and a host
0:53
of other things. Wrote a great book called
0:55
Behave and he has a new book out
0:58
and the new book is called Determined,
1:01
the Science of Life Without Free Will. When
1:04
I heard about it I wanted to
1:06
speak to Robert. We've been for years trying
1:08
to set up a time to
1:11
talk in general
1:13
about aspects of neurobiology and this seemed like a
1:15
good starting off point. And I got
1:17
to read the book before it came out
1:21
and it's a long book and for me it was
1:23
a challenge initially because
1:25
as someone who recognizes
1:28
that there is no such thing as free will based
1:30
on the laws of physics and has seen a host
1:33
of books that I find rather tedious about
1:35
free will, some by people I've known, I
1:38
was a little worried about reading this but I knew that Robert
1:41
always has gems to share.
1:43
And the book is chock full
1:46
of his own perceptions. It's fun
1:49
just like he's fun and
1:53
one can learn a lot about neurobiology. And
1:55
then discuss the important question of once
1:57
you accept that there is no such thing as free will.
2:00
He really takes on head
2:02
first the more difficult
2:06
question of what do you do about
2:08
responsibility and guilt
2:11
and blame. So in any case,
2:13
we did what I love to do on the Origins
2:15
Project. We talked about his own origins and
2:17
he and I shared four things that
2:19
I knew about. And
2:21
then we had a rollicking discussion of
2:24
many aspects of free will, neurobiology,
2:28
society and consciousness
2:31
as well, which is a subject I've written about in
2:33
my new book. And I was happy to see that
2:36
it passed muster
2:38
with him,
2:39
one of the experts. It was a great discussion.
2:41
He's a remarkable individual and
2:43
really fun to listen to and talk to. So
2:46
I hope you'll enjoy listening to it and watching
2:48
it ad free on our Origins
2:51
Project podcast on our Critical
2:53
Mass website where
2:56
paid subscribers will get to see the whole
2:58
podcast ad free. Of course,
3:00
you can listen to the podcast on
3:03
any site that podcasts can be listened to.
3:05
And then eventually the video
3:08
will come up on our YouTube channel, on our Origins
3:10
Project YouTube channel as well a few days
3:13
later usually. No
3:15
matter how you watch it or listen to it, I
3:17
certainly hope that you
3:19
will be as thrilled
3:22
and pleased and entertained and educated
3:25
as I was when I had
3:27
my dialogue with Robert Saposky.
3:38
Well thanks so much for joining me, Robert.
3:41
We were saying before I pressed the record
3:43
button that we were amazed we actually never have
3:45
been in the same room to our knowledge. We've
3:48
crossed paths intellectually and as
3:51
you know I admire and respect you tremendously.
3:53
So it's such a thrill to finally after
3:56
all this time be able to have a long discussion.
3:59
So thanks for coming.
3:59
coming on.
4:00
Well, thanks for having me on. The
4:03
respect is mutual. That's
4:06
great. I appreciate it. I, this,
4:09
this was no easy task. In fact, it's
4:11
probably this, this was one
4:13
of the hardest things I've had to do for many
4:15
reasons. I want to talk about
4:18
your new book, which by the time this
4:20
airs will be, I'm going to try and time it to
4:22
the, to the airing of your new book. I have a pre-production
4:25
version. Your
4:27
book determined about free will. One
4:29
of the hardest things for me, it was
4:32
not an easy task to work through it for a variety
4:35
of reasons. There's a lot there.
4:37
But also I come
4:40
into this
4:41
with the absolute conviction for everything
4:44
I know saying there's no such thing as free will. So it
4:46
was hard for me, you know, accepting
4:48
this fact. I thought, well,
4:52
given that I don't, you know, think there's
4:54
free will, why am I really motivated to go
4:56
through this? And that was hard at the beginning.
5:00
But of course, what's great is that
5:02
our reasons for
5:04
my a priori regions for not thinking
5:08
there was free will sort of are almost not
5:10
orthogonal, but don't have much overlap. You
5:12
actually know how the brain works, or at least a lot more
5:14
than I do. And so your arguments really
5:17
were
5:19
quite useful. I don't think I needed
5:21
them. Because basically,
5:24
you and I both don't think there's a magic somewhere
5:27
in the middle. And that's
5:29
really what you need, as we'll talk about. So
5:31
that was one of the reasons I found it hard. But the other
5:33
is there's a lot in this book because this book covers
5:36
so many different interesting things. And
5:39
that was the other part. I love your mind.
5:41
I've always loved your mind. I love your writing. And I
5:43
think it was just it was
5:45
hard because it's a joy to read. I wanted to skip
5:48
parts and I couldn't. And
5:51
and the footnotes of which there are tremendous.
5:53
I as a rule, I try not to read footnotes
5:56
in books. But I read every footnote here because,
5:58
of course, the footnotes are where you get to put. and
6:00
all the stuff where I really
6:02
get to see how your mind works. In any case,
6:05
it was worth the effort, and I hope this
6:08
discussion will be worth people's effort
6:10
because we're really going to dig down and deep into the
6:12
ideas as well as summarize. But
6:17
this is an Origins podcast, and
6:20
I like to find out about
6:22
people's origins. I'm particularly interested in yours.
6:26
What led you to
6:28
the remarkable long and winding road that
6:30
you've taken with so many
6:33
branches, almost like
6:36
the emergent complexity of a
6:39
neural system, as
6:41
we'll talk about. I've
6:45
read a little bit of your biography that I could,
6:47
as much as I could find, and
6:49
I found out your father was an architect.
6:54
But clearly, and he was an Orthodox Jew. Your
6:57
mother was, I assume, as well.
6:59
The more we
7:01
learned, the more we realized coerced.
7:04
Yeah, okay, interesting. He
7:07
was from Eastern Europe, but he came from
7:09
Eastern Europe? Yeah, he came
7:11
over just after the revolution
7:14
as a young
7:16
adolescent, a very good time to get
7:19
out of that area. He
7:21
came over from the old country as a fetus,
7:24
so she
7:26
didn't remember as much stuff back there as
7:28
a fetus. Yeah, she was born in the States. Yeah.
7:33
Okay, so that's, but now I want
7:37
to find out a little bit, and you were brought
7:40
up as an Orthodox Jew. And
7:44
one of the things, I was born as
7:46
a secular Jewish household and
7:48
brought up in that way, where
7:51
the only thing I learned, my mother kept
7:53
telling me about being Jewish, is that learning
7:56
was a big deal, and reading, she tried to convince
7:58
me that was a big part of religion. And
8:00
but you obviously
8:03
love learning and reading and of course. A
8:07
lot of it's probably hardwired but but.
8:11
Who would the biggest influence your so obviously
8:13
your father had influence because you write about my don't like
8:16
to learn about your mother to who for example.
8:18
As an architect when you're a
8:20
kid i know you want to love gorillas
8:23
right away but what got you interested
8:25
in that i don't know that i'd like to. I'm
8:28
not. Trying
8:32
to get into to. To
8:35
murky and quick sand ish of.
8:38
She for psychotherapy.
8:42
But i was like eight
8:45
when my mother my mother started
8:48
take it to museum and natural history
8:50
and incredible. Percented
8:53
to feel by all it just i've encountered who
8:56
like instead of growing up out in the bush and his
8:58
parents were missionaries a researcher. They
9:01
grew up in some urban and at some
9:03
point they they stumbled into
9:06
the natural history museum that was
9:08
it that's that's the
9:10
day they imprinted on geckos
9:12
or. Whatever
9:15
so we went
9:17
into the primate exhibit somewhat randomly
9:20
and if you ever go in there there's this.
9:23
stuffed
9:24
mountain gorilla like right
9:26
at the entrance and may not be at the entrance anymore,
9:29
but like he's been on their postcards
9:31
forever it was shot by like carl
9:34
achley in 1912 probably
9:36
with teddy roosevelt is gun
9:38
bearer but it's this
9:41
like. diorama of this
9:43
taxiderm mountain gorilla
9:45
silverback and like
9:49
something clicked and
9:52
if i'm going to get all all fuzzy
9:55
here and stuff like
9:57
both of my grandfather.
10:00
others died more than 50 years before
10:02
I was born kind of thing and everything. And
10:05
like something on some
10:08
visceral level, this just seemed
10:10
like this would be the greatest grandfather on Earth.
10:13
And I just wanted to go live inside the diorama.
10:16
I think that's that's what
10:18
was going on there. That's
10:21
where it came from. I was wondering, there had to have been something
10:23
where you grew up in New York and there's not a
10:25
lot of silverback gorillas,
10:28
at least non-metaphorical
10:31
ones. That's why I wanted to live in the diorama.
10:34
I don't know about you, but I'm still
10:36
trying to come to terms with the fact that Brooklyn has
10:38
now become a trendy place to live. It
10:42
was not. Yeah,
10:45
yeah, no, it wasn't then. Exactly. But
10:48
it gave you that opportunity, which,
10:51
as we'll talk about, gave
10:53
you good luck and
10:57
had a huge influence. Now I understand where that came
10:59
from. And you basically
11:02
did live in that diorama. I
11:04
mean, you willfully
11:08
chose as soon as you
11:10
could, as far as I can see, to actually experience
11:13
to go and for then for three decades to continue
11:15
to try and live in that diorama at some level, which
11:19
really impressed me and amazed me and also
11:21
made me envious in some sense, but I
11:23
was talking about privilege and good
11:26
luck. Yeah, yeah. Well,
11:28
but you know, well. But
11:31
for whatever reason, you took advantage
11:34
of the privilege and good luck. I
11:37
would say it would be grit, but I know better. But
11:44
so so that's interesting. So your mother actually
11:46
had the biggest influence that way. What about reading?
11:48
I assume I'm always interested
11:50
in reading was vitally significant
11:53
for me. And I'm always interested in what did
11:55
you did you read a lot when you were a kid? And if so,
11:58
did that example come from either parent or not?
12:00
Oh, I've
12:03
read obsessively.
12:05
And like, I, I guaranteed
12:08
I was going to be like, kicked
12:11
in the rear and schoolyard perpetually
12:13
by, I don't know, in fourth grade,
12:16
like, who's your best friend, Essie?
12:18
And I said, books are my best friend. Oh, my
12:20
God, this kid has no instinct for
12:22
how not to just beg to be
12:24
abused and bullied. Yeah,
12:28
books were, were pretty great.
12:32
It's, it's tempting to do a whole escapism
12:35
thing, but I guess part of it
12:37
was also just getting patted on the head that this
12:39
was like a nice metric for being a good,
12:42
good, compliant boy. compliant
12:44
boy. Were they in that available in the house?
12:47
Or I mean, I mean, or, or,
12:49
or not? I mean, what does that an example or something
12:51
you picked up? Again, I'm interested just
12:54
in comparing my notes to myself in some ways.
12:56
Um, their
12:59
number, it was it was not quite a book
13:01
obsessed house, but there was like a decent
13:03
number there. But once once libraries
13:06
started to be a part of the picture, what we
13:08
did have I, I, do you remember the book of knowledge?
13:12
Yeah, of course. Oh my
13:16
God, we had the book of knowledge. And
13:18
like, I would get up early, like on
13:21
Sunday morning and just read the book where
13:23
you could see like an article in there
13:25
about like this newly finished ship
13:27
called the Titanic and is like
13:29
this ancient is phenomenal. Yeah,
13:34
I yeah, I love
13:36
those things. I, and I, and I ended
13:38
up getting a subscription to book
13:40
of knowledge type stuff. The time life books.
13:44
I remember that my 20 volume thing was my
13:46
first thing. I spent my allowance on it when I was
13:48
a kid because there
13:50
were books in my house, but not but not but
13:52
not. Yeah, not enough. Yeah, yeah. And
13:54
so Yeah,
13:57
one of them would show up like every six and a smell.
14:00
So good. Yeah. First
14:02
came out of the box. I still have
14:05
them. I still, I just put them up and I, you know,
14:07
I'm never going to get rid of them because it,
14:09
it means so much. So there's so many, you know,
14:11
and of course they're outdated, but that's what's great to great
14:14
to, that's what's great about science is they're
14:16
outdated. It actually makes progress.
14:20
And they admitted somewhere afterward that that was wrong.
14:23
Yeah, exactly. That's the being wrong
14:25
as well. You know, I, I talked about
14:27
that in my new book. I think admitting you're wrong and
14:29
not knowing is a key part of science. Um,
14:32
now, okay. So now I see where the
14:34
sort of background, by the way, as Orthodox
14:37
Jewish, whether your mother was coerced in or
14:39
not, did they,
14:42
did they have plans for you? I mean, my
14:44
mother wanted me to be a doctor and my brother to be a
14:46
lawyer, but did they, did they want that
14:48
kind of thing for you? Was there, did you feel any pressure
14:50
to be a professional in that way? Um,
14:54
frantic, ceaseless, crushing,
14:57
heartless pressure to become a doctor. Um,
15:01
where my, my wife and I have like tried
15:03
to figure out the chronology because it was a
15:06
long time ago, but
15:08
we think this is the case, uh,
15:10
that my father started off in med school,
15:13
like in the second year of the depression, and there's
15:16
going to be a
15:17
cancer and ran out
15:19
of money and,
15:22
uh, never finished. Um,
15:25
like we've, we've got his like stethoscope
15:27
and microscope in the back of some closet
15:30
upstairs from 1930, whatever. Um,
15:35
you know, there, there's
15:37
a couple of possible holes in the story, but at least
15:39
that, that can hold
15:41
together broadly. So he,
15:44
uh, you know, he knew how to do drafting.
15:46
He had gone to Stuyvesant high school in
15:49
New York and like, he got a job doing that
15:53
in an architectural firm and then decided
15:55
to start going to architectural night school. And
15:58
before it was over with, he was a. professor
16:00
of architecture kind of
16:02
thing, but not
16:05
quite daily, but not far from about the
16:08
highest possible calling would be to go
16:10
like be a doctor and cure cancer.
16:15
All right. Well, okay. Did he talk
16:17
to you much about, I mean, did he talk too much about science
16:19
or his interests or did no, I
16:21
mean, no, that doesn't happen. Kids
16:23
often forget to ask their parents what they're saying.
16:28
They came in sort
16:30
of frenzied monologues.
16:34
He was a very, very large
16:36
presence, but he was not a very approachable
16:38
one.
16:41
He'd had a tough time with things
16:44
and like he was doing
16:46
his best. Yeah, yeah.
16:48
Well, he obviously did. And it's interesting
16:50
to see that that pressure came from a
16:52
different place for me. And I've
16:54
already said this a bunch of times, I think in different
16:57
contexts, my neither my parents finished high school,
16:59
but but the, and for them, it was
17:01
especially important to be a doctor because it represented,
17:04
you know, going beyond and,
17:06
and,
17:07
and, and, and I, again,
17:10
when, when I got my first, I got
17:12
a fancy job at Harvard, and I never forget my,
17:15
my mother phoned my, my then wife at the
17:17
time and
17:18
immediately said he still can go to medical
17:21
school. It's still fine.
17:24
Uncanny. I
17:26
had the same when I was getting
17:29
like, trying to pick where I was going to go have
17:32
a job, I got an offer from like Cornell med
17:34
school, the neuro there. And
17:36
so, well, I'm considering it and coming back
17:38
to New York or whatever. And they said, that would
17:41
be a good inside connection
17:43
if you decide that
17:46
is freakish. Yeah, that is.
17:48
That's amazing. Oh, I'm glad I brought it up. I wasn't
17:50
gonna but that's bad. That is freakish. Now,
17:53
you I
17:55
have to ask you this, did you did you learn Swahili?
17:58
I mean, I know he started till do Did you ever like,
18:00
did you learn enough to... Yes,
18:04
I'm terrible at languages, but it
18:06
was just kind of by force.
18:10
I became sort of functionally
18:13
fluent by about my fifth or sixth year
18:15
there. And all has been a decay
18:18
since then. I
18:20
took Swahili for two
18:22
years in
18:23
college, and it
18:25
being the times that it was, the book was
18:28
entirely written for African Americans
18:31
thinking about roots and stuff. So it was mostly
18:35
learning how to talk about Charlie Parker and
18:37
Swahili, stuff like that. Okay, well,
18:39
at least... And it turned out the
18:41
instructor was Tanzanian, so I learned Tanzanian
18:43
Swahili, which was like showing
18:46
up in the Bronx speaking the Queens English
18:48
or something, to Kenya. But
18:52
I was eventually able to get
18:54
by, but I'm pretty bad at languages.
18:57
I should have pointed out that, I mean, people may wonder if we
19:00
don't know why I even brought that up, but you actually
19:02
decided when you were still a
19:04
teenager, early a teenager, that in
19:06
addition to learning about, if you wanted to learn about
19:08
gorillas, you would learn. So you started to learn Swahili
19:11
when you were in your early teens, right?
19:14
Yeah. Yeah, that's true. And
19:17
I was writing fan letters to
19:19
various
19:20
primatologists when
19:22
I was in high school and
19:24
eventually got to sit at the feet
19:26
of one for four years. And that was
19:28
a
19:29
major disappointment. But yeah,
19:31
I sort of was intent.
19:37
I think I had to have been the only
19:40
like Jewish kid in Brooklyn
19:42
in the 1970s, sitting on the West side, independent
19:46
train, the B train, reading a biography
19:49
of Joe Mocagnata day after day.
19:53
Yeah, that would have gotten some, it'd be interesting to see
19:55
what would happen today if you were doing that.
19:58
And it's a different world. But
20:01
you went, so you, that, it
20:03
was kind of natural then to major,
20:07
it went to Harvard, right? And did
20:09
biological anthropology? Yeah.
20:11
And,
20:13
and, you know, and that's sort
20:16
of, I guess, biological anthropology. I'm wondering
20:18
why it wasn't like, more,
20:22
I mean, biological anthropology is not directly
20:26
focused on primates. You could
20:28
have done primatology and I'm wondering what, what, what.
20:32
Well at the time, this was just at
20:34
the time that like the great sociobiology
20:38
shitstorm hit. In
20:41
fact,
20:42
it was amazing. It was
20:44
amazing. What did you do, did you take classes from him or something?
20:47
My first semester is when he published sociobiology
20:50
and yeah, like
20:53
spending college, like
20:55
arguing about whether he or Lewinson
20:57
made sense and it was incredibly
21:00
stimulating time. You
21:02
know, at the time, a bio-anthro
21:04
included primatology. They
21:07
shortly after that, things are bad enough and
21:09
there had been enough like
21:12
drive-by shootings between the social and
21:14
for people in the bio and for people that they
21:16
split into two departments. But
21:19
yeah, that was, that was, yeah. And
21:24
it's part of, you know, and you, and as you say, and it's
21:26
clear, I mean, you are, one of the things I
21:28
admire and I'm jealous of is, you know, I've
21:30
always liked the idea of being a generalist and
21:32
you, you have, you've been a generalist
21:34
in, in, you know, in a clear way.
21:38
I mean, achieving levels of levels
21:41
in a wide variety of fields and it's nice
21:43
that you could start that generalization
21:46
with bio-anthro. It
21:48
was, it was, and it was a low
21:51
profile department so you could get away
21:53
with like just happening, not
21:55
to take all sorts of requirements
21:57
and things. And it was, it was.
21:59
Nobody paid attention to their part from
22:02
then it was very quiet. It's
22:04
sort of around then that I then
22:06
started my like in my neurobiologist
22:09
or primatologist crisis, because
22:12
said primatology
22:14
God at whose feet I was sitting got
22:17
sick my freshman year.
22:20
He was fine. Everybody
22:22
canceled all of his classes, including
22:25
a couple I was going to take and sort
22:27
of the last minute saying, Yeah,
22:30
maybe I'll take an intro neuro class. They
22:33
probably have something to say about behavior instead of
22:35
just us evolutionary biologist blown
22:38
away by it and like
22:41
ever since deciding on my neurobiologist
22:43
around my primatologist and
22:45
sort of that was that he anticipated.
22:49
My question is, I was wondering if you did by, you
22:51
know, biological anthropology and you like primates,
22:54
why you then went
22:56
to do, you know, your PhD
22:58
in neurobiology and now that I guess that's
23:01
the reason I would seem like a jump, but
23:05
and sort of by then the
23:07
way that the totally intellectually
23:10
fabricated way that I saw them as connected
23:13
is like I go study behavior
23:16
and stuff and baboons and exactly at the point
23:18
where I would say, wow, what's
23:20
going on inside. I'm not
23:22
going to lose in disguise hippocampus because
23:25
like I've known him for years and his mother was great.
23:28
So I'll go do stuff to rats in the lab
23:30
and just what I'm learning about the brain there and
23:32
saying, huh, I wonder if this works in like real
23:34
animals out in the real world I get to
23:37
go back to the baboons so they
23:39
were synergistic.
23:41
You know, I couldn't decide which. Yeah,
23:44
actually I was good. Well, I guess it's because of the love of
23:46
the bamboons are the great apes that because I
23:48
was going to say, you know,
23:52
I actually just had a discussion with Peter Singer
23:54
and who who's
23:57
lovely interesting talk to and his we talked
23:59
about. Animal experimentation
24:02
and some of the silly things that have been
24:04
done in the name of psychology on animals, the
24:07
torturing of animals that didn't, you know, in order to try
24:09
and understand how humans work. When it was clear
24:12
often that if you want to really understand
24:14
how humans work, you probably should examine humans
24:16
and, you know,
24:19
certain torturing of rats was probably
24:21
not going to give you huge insights into post-traumatic
24:24
stress syndrome and humans and stuff. But, but,
24:28
but, but you didn't want, but,
24:30
you know, we could have chosen work on humans, but
24:32
you just found apes more interesting.
24:37
I would say more understandable, but maybe
24:39
the word is more palatable or more.
24:42
I wanted
24:45
to get out and do field work somewhere in the middle
24:47
of nowhere. Yeah, no, I can understand that. You
24:51
know, and in your general, you are lucky
24:53
to have a position that
24:56
that actually explicitly demonstrates
24:58
your generalness.
25:00
I
25:01
mean, again, I always wanted, but I didn't always, because I
25:04
wanted to, I started a degree in history and
25:07
as well as physics, but I quickly learned that the
25:09
intellectual baggage required me to do a degree in mathematics
25:11
as well as physics, and that took all the time.
25:14
But, but you, you have, you have professors
25:16
in biological sciences, neurology, and
25:18
this really always amazed me, neurological science
25:20
and neurosurgery. And
25:23
my mother would have been very happy if I was a
25:25
professor of neurosurgery, but.
25:28
Well, you better bet I trotted that out
25:30
when I went back for Hanukkah. You
25:33
know what? Yeah, I
25:35
think at one point the neurosurgery department
25:37
had some sort of visiting committee, and
25:41
they suggested they needed a little more basic
25:43
researchers in the department. So I was friends
25:45
with the chief of neurosurgery who said,
25:47
hey, can we put your name on the letterhead?
25:50
Oh, ever since
25:52
then, I've been a member of the department. I
25:56
have to say that at one point I was vice dean
25:58
of the medical school of case.
25:59
for about six
26:02
months. And I don't think I ever
26:04
told my mother. I worried about what that would
26:06
imply. So I think it would go.
26:09
But it did intrigue me. So your professor, I
26:11
mean, and it's quite appropriate given all
26:13
of the breadth of your, the lovely
26:15
connections you make between neurobiology and
26:18
behavior of human behavior
26:21
and behavior of great apes. It
26:24
is a lovely symbiotic relationship.
26:26
And it's, and I guess it took someone
26:28
like you to realize that that was
26:31
useful. I'm intrigued
26:33
at you. And I guess I'm intrigued and impressed
26:36
that among that collection of departments in which you're
26:38
a professor, psychology isn't one
26:41
of them. And I was wondering, I was
26:43
intrigued by that.
26:47
That's a good question. Nor is anthropology
26:49
there, although they've also
26:51
purged like virtually everyone
26:54
except the social and cultural anthropologists.
26:56
So that war has been won
26:59
there. I don't know. I
27:01
talked to psychologists. So I
27:04
can occasionally say the right
27:06
nouns and get away with it. But yeah,
27:09
clearly some of the stuff I've
27:11
done has involved my having
27:13
to like interact with them a lot.
27:16
Yeah,
27:17
no, it's interesting to me that anyway, we'll
27:19
get, people will see when we talk about the
27:22
context of trying to address this question
27:24
of free will, which I wanted to move to.
27:27
You mentioned, obviously you've
27:31
agonized, I guess that's the right way to put it. You've
27:35
thought about free will for a long time, obviously.
27:40
And agonizing, by agonizing,
27:42
I don't think the agonizing was, I suspect
27:45
you recognized like
27:48
me that there was no
27:50
obvious scientific reason why
27:53
there should be free will. So maybe you didn't
27:55
agonize about the science, but you agonized to try and understand
27:58
how to demonstrate.
28:01
explicitly or
28:02
address this question. How long
28:04
you been thinking about it? Is it an issue that's always bothered
28:06
you? Or?
28:09
Well, I think once I started
28:11
getting acne, that was right around
28:13
the time when logical things happened. Like I was
28:16
having all sorts of like angst
28:19
and
28:20
contradictions. And,
28:23
you know, during one sort of particularly agitated
28:26
period, I
28:29
woke up at two in the morning one night
28:32
and said, oh, I get it.
28:36
God doesn't exist. What's
28:38
going on? And then shortly after that
28:40
was, oh,
28:42
and there's no free will. And that
28:44
was followed by, and it's
28:46
a totally empty, empty and
28:48
different universe. So
28:51
that cured everything right there. That
28:54
wasn't all. It did for me too. I
28:57
didn't, I'm not sure I had an epiphany that way. In
28:59
fact, I meant to ask you that.
29:01
I noticed that age 13 is when you
29:04
kind of had
29:06
this realization, that's what this bio says.
29:09
Age 13, for
29:13
me, it was a gradual thing, but I actually sort
29:15
of became, I mean, age 13 was
29:17
when I burst bar mitzvah. And that
29:19
experience enough was enough to turn me off
29:22
religion forever if it
29:24
hadn't already been that way. Was the age 13
29:27
a coincidence for you too, or no?
29:29
No, not at all. Of
29:32
course. I would
29:34
say just from focusing
29:37
on the ways in which often
29:40
ancient and well-established cultures
29:42
have influenced your life, and in which
29:44
the purpose of every generation is to inculcate
29:47
their offspring into the same cultural values.
29:50
You know, age 13 is when they're
29:53
really pressing
29:55
court on that one. So that's
29:58
kind of when, inevitably, the...
29:59
This doesn't make any sense and this
30:02
isn't right. So
30:04
now you mentioned it though, it shows that they understood
30:06
neuroscience a little bit because you point out
30:08
how in fact prefrontal cortex and
30:11
I mean it's that period when things are developing. So
30:13
if you're going to inculcate, that's
30:16
probably a really good time to do it. And
30:18
especially do it in a way where they somehow
30:20
make you feel guilty for a
30:22
pogrom that happens in the 15th century. So the very
30:25
worst thing you could do right now is
30:27
make your children stop putting that
30:29
as well. Well guilt is a huge
30:31
part of that I think. But you know it's
30:34
interesting when you said you smiled when you cured
30:36
everything when you woke up in the middle of the night.
30:39
And I want to follow that up. We'll come back
30:41
near the end of this six or
30:43
seven hour discussion to
30:47
this question because you almost
30:49
apologize or make it appear as if
30:51
recognizing that there's no free will.
30:54
Is and should be a depressing thing. But
30:57
one could often say and I'm often asked
31:00
that I mean it isn't recognizing there's
31:02
no meaning no cosmic meaning to the universe
31:04
and no God also
31:07
a depressing thing and
31:09
we'll talk about its impact on morals because you talk
31:11
about that. But for me it was
31:13
exactly the opposite and maybe it's just the wiring.
31:16
It was it's liberating and
31:20
energizing
31:22
to know both of those things
31:24
because it makes sort of it makes you understand
31:27
your place and it makes every moment in some ways
31:29
more precious if you understand that there's
31:31
nothing guiding it and there's no. And
31:34
that you're here for a short time and and you
31:36
dealt a set of cards and
31:40
and and that's life and you might as well use it.
31:43
Well you're you're made
31:45
of more resilient stuff than me. Somebody
31:49
somebody did right by you meeting up to that
31:51
point or somebody's
31:54
nutrient level when you were a fetus did right by you. But
31:56
yeah, that's the next step.
31:59
notion. I
32:02
mean, this is, I just
32:05
agree to blur the manuscript for
32:07
a book of someone, a scientist
32:10
who experienced
32:12
just a horrendous nightmares
32:15
family tragedy. And
32:18
the book is about like, how
32:20
he has found comfort in science. And
32:24
I sure can't wait to read it because
32:26
like, how do you do?
32:29
Science just seemed like the only intellectually
32:34
sustainable default
32:36
state to try to understand things,
32:39
but it sure does not
32:41
give comfort much.
32:43
Yeah, well, I guess again, it's all in its
32:45
long on the attitude. I do
32:48
I since we're both
32:50
atheists in that sense. But obviously,
32:52
for some reason or other, I've been labeled it. It's
32:55
higher in my profile.
32:58
And because I've spent time trying to protect
33:01
things like the teaching revolution in schools and
33:03
got involved in that, because the
33:05
biologists weren't doing it enough, in my opinion, that's why
33:08
they're right. You you died for our sins.
33:13
But but because of that, I
33:15
spent a lot of time talking to people about this issue.
33:17
And I, I do think that that that
33:20
real realizing one talks
33:22
about loss of faith, and even that, that's
33:25
already propaganda, or that's already promoting
33:28
a reality that doesn't
33:30
need to be it's not a lot, you don't lose anything
33:32
you gain, I think. And if you indicate
33:34
people that you can gain by making every
33:36
recognizing every moment for precious, if you have
33:39
a mentality, and you recognize
33:41
it, then you don't have to,
33:42
then then then
33:44
you gain. Anyway, I think that's
33:46
the kind of, you
33:48
know, if I'm going to do a feel good or try to try
33:51
to be a, you know, I don't try to be
33:53
advisory. One
33:55
of those kind of advice scientists, but but
33:58
but if I did, I mean, that's I think that's
34:01
the argument and I'm going to try and argue it
34:03
later on. I
34:06
struggled a lot with the last half of this book
34:08
because I can see your angst. We'll
34:11
get to it.
34:12
But
34:13
I think there's, I can see a happy
34:15
way out and maybe it isn't, but we'll see if you
34:17
think about it.
34:19
Well, I think I finally,
34:21
it took me like
34:23
a huge amount of time to get to
34:25
the end there because like
34:28
how can this not just be, well,
34:30
this sucks and is pretty demoralizing, but
34:33
you know, we're adults. That's
34:35
the way the work to see that there is
34:37
actually a good feature
34:40
of it and a liberating one. I
34:43
sure can't convince myself of it most of
34:45
the time. And not only did I write the damn
34:47
book, I read it even at various points.
34:52
Yeah, it's a hard pull. But
34:55
it's kind of, it's reminding me of that
34:57
great rebranding that
34:59
atheism has tried to do in recent
35:01
years. We are not just about
35:04
what isn't. We are not just atheist.
35:07
We're not just like saying, I don't
35:09
believe there's a God and as always we're at it, I
35:11
don't believe there's an Easter bunny. No,
35:14
it's a positive. And the whole rebranding
35:16
is humanism. And to be
35:19
able to say like the
35:21
source of human goodness is
35:24
human. That's
35:28
not just saying, you
35:30
know, it wasn't in seven days
35:32
that the world got created and like
35:35
smoting is probably not a good thing most
35:37
of the time. Yeah,
35:41
there's rooms for positivity in there.
35:47
Well, I think, you
35:49
know, well, I think as I'll argue, and
35:52
I was reminded of a quote from my
35:54
late friend Christopher Hitchens here. I
35:57
mean, I don't think we have a
35:59
choice. And I think that we
36:01
should, you know, I'm
36:04
getting ahead of myself, but in some sense, part
36:08
of the last part of the book is saying, well, we have, how
36:10
can we, wanting there to be
36:15
free will and believing their free will is so
36:17
ingrained, how can we get over it? But I think we
36:19
just recognize
36:21
that not
36:24
thinking in terms
36:26
of free will is just part of the way we're wired to.
36:28
And that's, we don't have the choice
36:31
to not want, to not emotionally
36:34
want there to be free will. We
36:36
have the, we don't have any choice, I'll
36:38
agree with you there, but we can intellectually through
36:41
learning, we'll argue at some level, recognize
36:44
rationally that there isn't. But
36:46
I think, you know, recognizing
36:49
that we don't have the free will to not
36:52
emotionally believe in free will is just something
36:54
we have to accept, I think, and should not struggle with.
36:57
To some extent,
36:59
I mean, Robert, Robert Rivers,
37:01
like one of the pioneering social
37:04
biologists during one
37:06
period got very interested in publishing
37:08
stuff on the evolution
37:10
of the capacity for self-deception.
37:13
Yeah. And essentially saying,
37:15
if you're going to have a species that can
37:18
know the future, like the
37:20
only way you're going to get up in the day is the
37:22
ability for self-deception. Equally
37:26
interesting is the notion that
37:29
evolution of self-deception, because the
37:31
best way to convince people of your laws
37:34
is to believe your laws and competition
37:37
and all of that. So he got very interested in
37:39
that, but just the very notion that if you're
37:41
going to be this smart,
37:45
it's a pretty helpful thing. Oh, yeah, yeah.
37:47
Well, I've always say we all, every one of us has to believe
37:49
six impossible things for our breakfast just to get
37:51
up. You're like your colleagues, you're like a job,
37:53
you're like your spouse, whatever
37:56
it is, but you just got to get out of bed. okay.
38:00
I mean, but a great thing is to recognize
38:03
it's okay to recognize it's an illusion, but to
38:07
recognize it doesn't diminish the fact that
38:09
we know we have it and almost
38:12
revel in it. But anyway, let's
38:14
get to, you know, I could have spent time talking
38:16
about the last book, Behave, which is a precursor
38:18
to this, but this book, Determined, is
38:21
about free will. And
38:23
by the way, it seemed to me not only have you agonized
38:25
about it for years, when did you really start to think
38:27
about it? It was when you realized that there's no
38:30
God at the same time as when you began to think
38:32
about it. And then you've
38:34
actually also put your not your money, well, you
38:36
may have money where your mouth is, you've actually
38:38
gotten involved and
38:40
if,
38:42
consequentially, if there is no free will,
38:45
then there's a question of responsibility and punishment,
38:47
which we'll get to. And you've gotten involved in prisons,
38:50
in court cases, and really taken this
38:52
on, which I really admire as well. You've
38:55
internalized it or at least shown that.
38:58
Well, before it's lauded, I should
39:00
just basically say it's a totally fun hobby,
39:03
because it's a totally fun hobby,
39:05
you find out about some of the most
39:08
horrific
39:11
things that can happen to people.
39:14
And as a result of that damage, some
39:16
of the most horrific things they could do to other
39:18
people and like what totally broken
39:20
system it is, but it's
39:22
kind of like, it's
39:25
cool trying to convince 12 skeptics
39:27
who are getting to decide whether or not this person
39:29
is going to be in jail for life to think
39:31
differently. It almost never works.
39:34
And it's cool to have a smart
39:37
DA during cross examination,
39:40
who wants to argue it. So, you
39:43
know, it's a version of that.
39:45
But well, it's okay. I always tell people
39:47
you what you're what you're saying is just simply, you
39:50
have to enjoy what you're doing. I tell people
39:52
that most scientists, most
39:54
scientists, you know, I don't become scientists
39:56
to save the world, your cancer or
39:59
whatever they do. because it's cool
40:01
and they like it and it's in the process of some
40:03
good comes out of it that's great that's great
40:05
too but because dry
40:08
ice is just like fun to play with yeah
40:10
exactly yeah magnets and
40:12
all the rest I often ask
40:14
people why they didn't become physicists I was going
40:16
to say because it's so neat why
40:18
didn't you anyway by the way did you ever
40:21
did you ever toy with that physical
40:23
sciences or is always biological
40:25
sciences that you
40:27
always biological and always
40:29
like cutting every corner to like
40:31
avoid the chemistry requirements and stuff
40:34
just just not my temperament
40:36
I've I've had to spend years and
40:38
years filling in the the
40:41
crater holes of where I didn't get the basic
40:44
information that's okay that's
40:46
okay because you know that's what it's for I you know
40:48
I learned a lot more physics I forgot my
40:50
PhD than before anyway but but uh
40:53
you know that's where you you yeah it's all right
40:55
because that's called lifelong learning now
40:57
the basic premise of determined
41:02
basically that
41:06
there are you know and and and
41:08
you might say why is this why is
41:11
there so much here to just say
41:13
two things there's no one cause decision
41:15
making no decision is made by some magical
41:18
thing it's always caused by series
41:20
of causes which then have causes which then as
41:23
you said at the beginning of the book turtles all
41:25
the way down and
41:27
the second is that if that's the case
41:30
then
41:30
what then the notion
41:32
of responsibility for
41:34
your decision making
41:36
if if there's if there's no random
41:39
no spontaneous decision making if there's
41:41
no free will if everything is based
41:43
on as on on
41:45
some physical biological uh chemical
41:48
process then then
41:51
we have to re we
41:53
have to renounce or at least rethink
41:55
what we mean by taking responsibility for
41:57
our actions those are the two if I were to some
42:00
summarize, is that a reasonable summary of
42:03
the general context of the book? Yes.
42:06
Okay.
42:07
Now, having done that,
42:09
I want to unpack it, and there's
42:12
a lot to unpack.
42:19
And I have to say, I was cursing
42:21
you last night when I was reading the last 100
42:24
pages and I was staying up all
42:26
night. But
42:29
I took solace from the realization
42:31
that I had no choice in the matter. And
42:35
do you know the quote from, I was alluding
42:37
to it from Christopher Hitchens when he was asked about free
42:39
will. You know what quote he said? He
42:41
said, yes, I have free will, I have no choice.
42:44
But that's wrong. But
42:47
I think if we just said, yes, I feel I
42:49
have free will, I have no choice, that'd be right. You
42:52
have like one of the theological loops
42:54
for getting to that.
42:56
I can't remember Aquinas
42:59
or who knows what, or no
43:01
doubt someone much more closed minded than that,
43:03
saying like, God
43:06
is so glorious, so
43:08
amazing, and having granted us free will that
43:11
we have no choice but to worship it.
43:15
Perfect.
43:16
That captures
43:18
it. Yeah. That's
43:21
great. I got to remember the answer. Well,
43:24
look, I periodically I'm going to read quotes of yours
43:26
because I like them. And it'll allow
43:28
me a chance to give you a chance to expand
43:30
upon them. Obviously, not as
43:33
much detail as the book, but at least give a sense. But
43:36
basically, right off in the very beginning,
43:39
where you talk about turtles all the way
43:41
down, you say to reiterate, when you behave
43:43
in a particular way, which is to say, when your
43:46
brain has generated a particular behavior, it
43:48
is because of the determinism that came just
43:51
before, which was caused by the determinism
43:53
just before that, and before that all
43:55
the way down. The approach of this
43:57
book is to show how that determinism
44:00
works, to explore how the biology
44:03
over which you had no control interacting
44:06
with environment over which you had no control
44:09
made you you.
44:11
And when people claim that there are causeless
44:13
causes of your behavior that they
44:15
call free will, they have a,
44:18
fail to recognize or not learned about the
44:20
determinism lurking beneath the surface and
44:23
or be erroneously concluded
44:25
that the rarefied aspects of the universe
44:28
that do work in deterministically can
44:30
explain your character, morals and
44:33
behavior.
44:34
Now
44:36
so the point is, you see, you
44:39
know, to say that that things are deterministic is fine
44:41
and then it'd be a very short book. And a lot
44:43
of people have written not so
44:45
short books that basically don't say any more than that
44:47
and I won't alert to some to some of those people.
44:51
But you want to talk about the biology of
44:53
this and and I think that the neurobiology
44:55
of it and I think that's what makes it
44:58
incredibly enlightening to learn
45:00
about this. But but
45:02
you you basically come
45:07
down to say, okay,
45:11
you need to look at all of science to
45:14
do this and as a generalist, you
45:16
you you, you, it
45:20
fits in your your sort of
45:22
natural parietal elections. Crucially all
45:24
disciplines, all these disciplines, you talk about many disciplines
45:27
collectively negate free will because they are all
45:29
interlinked, constituting the same
45:31
ultimate body of knowledge. If you
45:33
talk about the effects of neurotransmitters on behavior,
45:36
you are also implicitly talking about the genes
45:38
that specify the construction of those chemical messengers
45:41
and the evolution of those genes, the field
45:43
of neurochemistry, genetics and evolutionary biology
45:46
can't be separated. And it goes
45:48
on. So this
45:52
notion that that
45:54
there's this biological basis requires us and
45:57
we'll talk about each of those aspects,
45:59
particularly. But logically,
46:03
you frame the argument as there's
46:06
four complementary ways of thinking. And I want
46:08
to get you sort of to elaborate on that. You say,
46:10
we have a choice. The world is deterministic and there's
46:13
no free will. The world is deterministic
46:15
and there is free will. The world is
46:17
not deterministic and there's no free will. And
46:20
the world is not deterministic and there is free
46:22
will. So we're
46:28
going to unpack those more carefully. But
46:30
do you want to give it sort
46:32
of an expansion of each
46:36
of those areas and what the central concepts
46:39
of why there are fallacies in some and not others? Yeah.
46:43
And, you know, two by
46:45
two matrix where two of the
46:47
four are a lot more interesting
46:50
than the other two. One of them
46:52
makes no sense at all, which
46:54
is the world is not
46:56
deterministic, but you don't have free will.
46:59
And I don't quite know how you get there.
47:01
And I don't think I've read anyone that's
47:04
just making sure like fill out the matrix
47:06
there. The
47:09
there
47:10
is not determinism and there is
47:12
free will. Is this somewhat
47:16
off in the ozone view
47:18
of libertarian philosophy, libertarian
47:21
in an intellectual sense rather than political? And,
47:25
you know, I got pulled into reading
47:27
any of this philosophy stuff, kicking and screaming,
47:29
but it appears to be like
47:32
a very minority view. The
47:34
most common one is that,
47:37
yeah, yeah, yeah, it's a deterministic
47:39
world. I'm not a
47:42
I'm not a lot. I'm not a whatever. Yet
47:44
there's like atoms and
47:47
we're made of cells and like there's
47:49
rules to the physical universe and stuff. But
47:52
somehow, somehow, some ball somehow
47:54
that's compatible with
47:57
us still having free will.
47:59
And this.
47:59
Compatibilism, one is what
48:02
I spend most of the book carrying
48:05
my hair out because what the polls
48:07
show is 90, 95% of
48:09
philosophers say that they are deterministic
48:12
compatibilists and a shocking
48:16
number of neuroscientists when
48:18
you really back them up in a corner and
48:20
you try to get them to look
48:23
at what it is that they just said or advocated.
48:26
But it's this notion that, yeah, yeah, yeah,
48:29
of course, like I'm a modern 21st
48:31
century, all of that. And
48:35
we're made of stuff and the universe has rules
48:37
and all that, but somehow, somehow,
48:40
somehow, there's room
48:42
for this intangible thing
48:45
to still be lurking in there and that's
48:47
the essence, that's the us of us
48:50
and that's the us of us that gives
48:53
us agency. And
48:56
of course, the fourth truly lunatic
48:58
fringe version of the matrix
49:00
is the one that I'm saying, which is a completely
49:03
deterministic world and there's no free will whatsoever.
49:06
Compatibilism is incompatible
49:09
with the way the world works.
49:12
Okay, great. And a premise
49:15
which I agree with as a
49:17
physicist and
49:19
it was, so I have my will get to some of
49:22
the physical arguments, but so it's, for me, it's wonderful
49:24
to see the biological basis as well. But
49:27
as a physicist, it seems to me that that's
49:30
clear. It's certainly interesting
49:32
that 90% of the, we'll
49:34
get to it, we'll get to the fact that we spend a lot of time,
49:36
it doesn't say much about philosophy, which
49:40
is fine because, and
49:43
by the way, it's not just me, some people
49:45
think I trash philosophy too much, but I, again,
49:47
was talking to Peter Singer, who's a philosopher
49:50
and it was fun to see him trash
49:52
philosophy because a lot of philosophers talk
49:55
about how animals don't have rights because it's
49:57
clear they don't have rights. I mean, as if, as
49:59
if there's, you know. No, and we'll
50:01
get to it, but it's almost low-hanging fruit
50:03
in some ways to see the arguments
50:05
that are presented. Okay, that's
50:08
great. That puts
50:10
things in context. But you actually mentioned,
50:13
and I think it's worthwhile saying, what do you mean
50:15
by free will and what do you mean by determinism? The next
50:17
thing you talk about that. And so I'll give
50:19
you a chance to sort of briefly explain what you
50:21
mean by free will and what you mean by
50:23
determinism.
50:25
Well, this is where everybody
50:28
spends half the conference on arguing
50:30
about debt solutions and stuff. But
50:34
I think,
50:35
well, maybe the place to start defining free will
50:38
is what it's not, even though
50:40
lots of people go for this. And
50:44
this is a super influential
50:47
way of seeing free will
50:49
where there isn't because it's what
50:52
runs through the entire criminal justice system.
50:55
You got somebody on trial and essentially
50:57
trials revolver and three questions.
51:00
Did this person after they figure out what the person
51:02
did, did the person intend to
51:04
do it? Did they know what
51:06
the consequences were likely to be? And
51:09
did they understand that there were alternatives? They
51:11
could have done something else. And if the answer to those are
51:14
yes, that's it. The person showed free
51:16
will and lock them up. And
51:19
an equivalent myopia
51:22
has run through sort of one field of like
51:25
neurobiologists thinking about free will. And
51:28
this is from this like a landmark famous
51:31
experiment in the 1980s by Benjamin Libet. And
51:35
you've read any damn paper
51:37
on the biology from by this second paragraph
51:40
outcomes. Libet and you want to screen
51:42
Libet's the one who's done that study. That's
51:45
the famous one. He sat people down and basically
51:47
said, here, do this, do this
51:50
behavior and do it
51:52
whenever you feel like it. Press
51:54
this button and, you know, whenever you feel
51:56
like it and we're going to hook you up to all sorts of like
51:58
modern ways to see what's going on. on your brain
52:01
and your muscles and all of that. And out
52:03
of it came this incredible
52:05
finding. So you
52:08
put people in there and like you're monitoring
52:10
what's happening in their brains when they decide
52:12
to do something. And what they
52:15
reported was at the
52:17
moment that someone said, that's
52:20
when I got the intention to press
52:22
the button, you could already tell
52:24
from their brain, like up to a
52:26
few seconds before that they had decided
52:29
to push the button. Oh my God,
52:31
everybody learned. Neuroscientists
52:34
have just shown your brain
52:36
knows before you do. With, of
52:38
course, this ridiculous like dichotomy
52:40
there. But like people
52:42
have been fighting about it ever since was
52:45
the do can you
52:47
tell the difference between when
52:49
you intend to do something and when you know
52:51
that you intend to do it and was there a better
52:53
way of measuring the milliseconds and
52:56
like, like there's still papers
52:59
being published, saying
53:01
things like, Libit had
53:03
his head up as he was so wrong, like,
53:06
four years later, people are still fighting over it.
53:08
Because it's essentially the question of
53:11
when you believe you intend to
53:13
do something, has this
53:16
imaginary separate construct, your
53:18
brain already decided to do it. And
53:22
both in that route, and the courtroom,
53:25
that's the most ridiculously useless
53:27
thing to do. Because
53:30
like the metaphor I use, it's
53:32
like trying to review
53:35
a movie based on only seeing the last three
53:37
minutes of it. Because whether it's
53:39
in the courtroom, or whether it's hanging
53:41
with Libit and his detractors, in
53:44
both cases, you're not asking
53:46
the critical question. Yes, yes, yes, the
53:48
guy intended to do this and we could
53:50
have done other. Yes, yes, yes, the person
53:52
did or didn't intend before this
53:54
part of their brain had a bunch of action potentials.
53:57
Where did that intent come from? And
54:01
if you're going to talk about free
54:03
will, you're not off the hook
54:05
if you just say the person intended to do that.
54:08
Where that intent come from. Why
54:11
did that psych 101 freshmen
54:13
show up to do this experiment for Libet
54:15
that day, instead of like
54:17
coming in and stealing the guy's laptop and sneaking
54:19
up? Why was that? Where
54:22
does intent come from? And the answer
54:25
is, if you figure that out, that's
54:27
where any semblance of free will goes down
54:29
the drain.
54:31
Okay, that's great. That's
54:33
great. Let me, I was going to go to Libet anyway,
54:36
but we'll take a break for a second
54:38
to talk about determinism, because I want you
54:41
to explain it too. But since you brought up
54:43
Libet, and when I was writing
54:45
my book on consciousness, obviously I had to address
54:47
it. It never
54:51
seemed to strike me as a problem, because all it indicates
54:53
is it confirmed my, I should say,
54:55
my pre-pret election in
54:57
advance, which was confirmed by
55:00
everything I read about consciousness. Which is that consciousness
55:02
is just a surface phenomena. So, yeah,
55:05
I mean, okay, so people report that. But
55:08
everything we know says you really don't know
55:10
your perception of what's going on. It's totally different
55:12
than what's going on in your brain. And so,
55:14
okay, so that proves it. Big deal. It
55:17
just proves what you kind of know anyway,
55:19
that people, that people sense of why
55:21
they're doing what they're doing is wrong.
55:26
It's the same reason, you know, philosophers
55:28
could come up and say, there's
55:31
determinism, but
55:34
there's no free will. Why? It's
55:36
because reason
55:39
is the slave of passion, as you might
55:41
have said. Yeah, if you really
55:43
want that to be the case, you can find a reason for it. But it's no, but Libet,
55:45
I mean, it's fascinating.
55:48
As far as I know, there's still debate about whether
55:50
that delay was really
55:52
there. Although you pointed out at one
55:54
point, there's some evidence that the prefrontal
55:57
cortex begins to experience
55:59
some. some other action
56:01
potential tens up to ten seconds before
56:04
which i was shocked by.
56:06
Which is when they went
56:08
from moving from medieval electroencephalograms
56:11
on the skull to modern imaging stuff
56:14
and check back to ten. It's that point
56:16
when people start arguing can
56:18
we tell the difference between intent
56:21
and urge are we seeing
56:23
her and if that
56:26
point where you say you know
56:28
this is. Sort of interesting and
56:30
i have like all sorts of respectable
56:32
colleagues who. I spent a lot
56:34
of time working on this problem
56:36
but it's not where
56:38
you're going to prove or disprove free will
56:41
because you got there for the last three minutes.
56:43
Look for the end of it okay and we'll get to the
56:45
fact that it's a lot more than the last three minutes you have to go
56:48
through. Hours days years millennia
56:50
and millions of years but but let's
56:52
but let's just it just clarify
56:55
our definition so I think you've discussed that a little
56:57
bit let's talk about determinism and
57:00
in the context of what you mean and maybe in context
57:02
of the plus or or someone else.
57:06
Well, not not a
57:09
La Plaussian demon. Which
57:12
is the other he always has to come up in the second
57:15
paragraph also just somewhere a little
57:17
bit okay they they check
57:19
the boxes I held
57:21
off to three paragraphs before it did so
57:24
I am a maverick. determinism.
57:27
I basically define it
57:29
by exclusion.
57:30
Which
57:37
is you look at why something happened
57:40
and as soon as you're informed enough to
57:42
know that all sorts of things influence
57:45
stuff that we're not aware of that could
57:47
be very distal in time or place that could be subtle I could
57:49
be subliminal blah blah blah etc etc. It's when you look why something
57:51
has happened and there's no contributing factor.
58:00
that requires invoking magic.
58:04
That's the key point, the invoking magic. We'll
58:06
get to that.
58:07
And as I say later, I think it
58:09
reminds me of my favorite Sydney Harris cartoon,
58:11
which I'll remind you of if you don't know of it with some point
58:13
later.
58:15
But this, okay, so that's the term, that's
58:18
sort of the question of whether there's magic
58:20
or whether there's, or whether things are, you know, or
58:22
not, really that, I agree. That's what
58:24
you really mean by determinism. If there's some, if
58:27
the laws of nature somehow
58:30
break down somewhere in the middle,
58:33
and given that the laws of nature are deterministic,
58:35
and one of the things I hope to,
58:38
I don't know whether they're correct, I hope to change your picture of this,
58:41
when we get to quantum mechanics, quantum mechanics is deterministic.
58:44
I think you've been led astray there. Oh
58:46
my God. Although, you know, it's
58:49
fine that you, the argument is that might not
58:51
be, and you could still show it doesn't make a difference, but I
58:54
think it's even, you don't even have to worry
58:56
about that. Well, I was in a path of
58:58
last night saying, oh my God, I
59:00
have the nerve to write two chapters about quantum
59:02
mechanics, and we're talking, I'm talking
59:04
with you tomorrow. So you've just
59:07
confirmed everything that
59:08
I knew had to be learned, which is like
59:11
calling me a dilettante as a compliment.
59:14
No, no, but it's okay. I mean, it's okay because
59:17
what, in some sense it was conservative.
59:19
I would, I would, I'm gonna be generous, but I would say
59:22
where I would disagree with you, you go overboard
59:25
and then show that even if it's overboard, it doesn't make
59:27
a difference anyway. But
59:29
we'll talk about that. But
59:33
I do wanna get, I mean, central to all of
59:35
this, just to make it clear, and that
59:37
we, you know, that my understanding is from
59:39
your book and my other things is the same
59:41
is that we realize that we,
59:44
that most of, that our conscious, what we
59:46
define as consciousness, what we define as intent,
59:49
what we perceive as all of these things, is
59:51
just our awareness is just the tip of
59:53
an iceberg, that it's the
59:56
last stage of a detailed, and
1:00:01
the brain that we still don't understand,
1:00:04
and we understand contributing
1:00:06
factors, but this
1:00:10
sense of free will, like everything else,
1:00:13
like even our sense of consciousness
1:00:16
is somehow a post-Hulk illusion. I mean, we're
1:00:18
piecing together a world
1:00:22
in which we have an us in our
1:00:24
brain and a me, and
1:00:26
there's some continuity, and
1:00:30
that's what our brains
1:00:32
is doing, but it doesn't... That's
1:00:36
the end result, not the beginning.
1:00:39
Is that a reasonable
1:00:41
to say? Yeah. Okay,
1:00:44
now, one of the ways to
1:00:48
demonstrate this, other than just talking about
1:00:51
it, the fact that reporting is unreliable. By
1:00:53
the way, it was... I
1:00:56
know you read that part of my book on that,
1:00:58
and the experiments Michael
1:01:00
Gazzaniga on the split-brain
1:01:02
thing were, for me, just so overwhelming that
1:01:05
you invent this perfectly
1:01:07
rational explanation, which is obviously totally
1:01:09
false for why you're doing something, but
1:01:11
you give lots of examples, because you know what you're talking
1:01:13
about. I just sort of read a few, and
1:01:15
I appear to know what I'm talking about, but
1:01:18
one of the ways
1:01:20
you can show that people... That
1:01:23
this sense of free will is an illusion is
1:01:26
an experiment, a psychology experiment, that
1:01:29
this sense of agency is illusory, is
1:01:36
having people push a button when their hands are
1:01:38
being controlled by something else. You
1:01:40
want to talk about that for something? I found that quite interesting.
1:01:43
Yeah, that's the one that really pushes
1:01:46
lots of people over the edge there. There
1:01:49
are means these days, one
1:01:52
likes standard ones, this very cool
1:01:54
thing, transcranial magnetic stimulation,
1:01:58
where you... you can stimulate
1:02:01
a certain part of the brain and make
1:02:03
somebody do something. Like this is
1:02:05
not suddenly make them become a libertarian
1:02:08
when they weren't, but this is like, you
1:02:11
could make their index finger
1:02:13
contract
1:02:14
no matter what you try to do.
1:02:17
And if it's done subtly enough,
1:02:20
you will believe you decided to do that.
1:02:22
I mean, I've had that done on me and it's the weirdest
1:02:25
thing imaginable. Or there's all sorts
1:02:27
of ways of manipulating the Libit
1:02:30
scenario where they
1:02:33
add like an extra
1:02:34
bell or something,
1:02:36
which you were told is driven by
1:02:39
your volitional intentional
1:02:41
doing whatever and where
1:02:44
they can manipulate that in ways where you
1:02:46
will feel as if you decided to wait
1:02:48
a little bit longer that time before
1:02:52
buzzing it. There's- It's
1:02:54
amazing. I mean, it's wonderful. It's wonderful
1:02:56
the control you can have that just, I
1:02:58
mean, to explicitly
1:03:00
demonstrate these things, which one could
1:03:02
talk about vaguely. I love that. And
1:03:05
you really feel like you're choosing
1:03:06
to press that button,
1:03:08
you've had it done on you. It's the
1:03:11
weirdest thing. It's a good thing I didn't believe
1:03:13
in free will beforehand or else I would have stopped
1:03:15
believing in free will. But
1:03:18
we know this, there's incredibly
1:03:20
smart people who are paid a whole lot
1:03:22
of money to make you believe
1:03:25
you really want to buy some
1:03:27
nonsense crap that they're advertising.
1:03:30
You know, it shows how much you want to believe in
1:03:32
free will that you can do an experiment like that
1:03:35
where you have this sense of agency and
1:03:37
it's completely explicitly
1:03:39
an illusion because
1:03:41
it was created. And yet it doesn't, that's
1:03:45
not sufficient to convince people and will lead a
1:03:47
lot more and you spend a lot of time
1:03:49
because you want to talk about, you want to try and address all
1:03:51
of the arguments
1:03:54
that you've heard over the years, I think, that you're trying to
1:03:56
finally address it, because
1:03:58
you've heard all of them. But you then... you
1:04:00
then go to consciousness self where you I was
1:04:02
really pleased to say that you know obviously
1:04:05
I think it's right and agrees with me but but
1:04:08
but that what you know consciousness is an epiphenomenon
1:04:10
I love that where you point which
1:04:13
which by the way noam Chomsky
1:04:16
said to me in a different context but he said but
1:04:18
we say consciousness is an irrelevant hiccup
1:04:22
which I was I'm gonna quote that
1:04:24
over and over and
1:04:29
and
1:04:31
the
1:04:32
the key part of this irrelevant hiccup
1:04:35
which is really central
1:04:37
and and this is
1:04:39
the whole part of the question
1:04:41
that the the hard problem of consciousness
1:04:43
as people would might say some
1:04:45
people have said is what is
1:04:51
what you know some people say the hard consciousness
1:04:53
problem conscious is what is the we that makes
1:04:56
us but the really interesting question me is what
1:04:59
what gives us the illusion of a we that's that's
1:05:01
the problem I would want to answer but but
1:05:03
um but you say something like our
1:05:06
brains generate a suggestion and we then
1:05:08
judge it this dualism
1:05:10
suggests thinking back century so it's
1:05:12
it enters into even I
1:05:15
guess into into sort of the parlance of
1:05:17
at least some of neuroscience and a lot of philosophy
1:05:19
that somehow there's a separation between our
1:05:21
brain and
1:05:22
the we
1:05:24
you want to elaborate on that a little bit in your perspective
1:05:26
of that
1:05:26
and it's totally
1:05:29
false and just
1:05:31
to show sort of the pedigree that comes with
1:05:34
like arguably the most
1:05:36
influential compatibleist philosopher
1:05:38
on earth right now talks about exactly
1:05:40
that model with a possibility
1:05:43
generator an idea generator
1:05:46
that comes it and then you pick then
1:05:49
the dichotomously pristine
1:05:53
made of marshmallow you
1:05:55
floating around up there picks among
1:05:57
the possibilities based on your learning
1:06:00
experiences and your values and all
1:06:02
that.
1:06:03
And like that's, that's where
1:06:05
free will slips in. Yeah, and
1:06:07
I don't and that and you,
1:06:09
I think I want to I want to there's an elephant
1:06:12
in the room here and it's Dan Dennett. And
1:06:15
and I do want to I do want to mention
1:06:17
that because it seems to me it demonstrates I know
1:06:21
Dan and a friend of mine for a time
1:06:23
but it amazes me how
1:06:25
can how someone who is
1:06:28
remarkable in his arguments about many
1:06:30
things can be so confused and
1:06:33
logical that somehow obvious
1:06:36
nonsense like that. If
1:06:41
he can be that confused and logical, it should
1:06:43
make you suspicious about the rest of the of
1:06:45
the field. Yes.
1:06:48
And
1:06:48
just to show where I think that's coming
1:06:51
from. Like I
1:06:56
tiptoed around him with kid gloves.
1:06:59
Insofar as I think a
1:07:01
lot of his values come through a lot
1:07:03
of his philosophizing and ways
1:07:05
that I think tell us about how
1:07:08
he's gotten some very wrong conclusions. How
1:07:11
can he be so smart that he concludes that this
1:07:15
quote that gives it all away in
1:07:17
one of his talks and you can find the zillion
1:07:19
versions of it on YouTube in one of his books, saying,
1:07:22
Oh, my God, I wouldn't want to live in a world in which
1:07:24
no one thought there was free will because they'd just be
1:07:26
running amok and rapist and violence.
1:07:29
And besides, we wouldn't
1:07:31
be able to feel like we earned our prizes.
1:07:34
Yeah, yeah. Well,
1:07:36
that's why the guy
1:07:39
is invested in free will. There's
1:07:42
not a whole lot of people who are saying, Oh, my God, if people
1:07:44
stop believing in free will, I won't be
1:07:47
able to feel like I earned my low
1:07:49
socio economic status, and
1:07:51
my abusive parents and my
1:07:54
Yeah, I
1:07:56
will come to that. I think you mentioned that very
1:07:58
thing at the end and I want to talk about. I want to talk
1:08:01
about how a way out of that too. Maybe it'll
1:08:03
help Dan, but oh
1:08:05
good. But you know what is surprising
1:08:08
is to hear Dan is, you know, like
1:08:10
me, and in many ways, well,
1:08:12
and always more well known atheist.
1:08:16
But it's so ridiculous to hear that sentence,
1:08:18
because you could replace free will with religion
1:08:20
and God. And he would argue completely
1:08:23
the
1:08:23
opposite. I want to live in a world
1:08:25
where there's where people didn't believe in there's God, because
1:08:28
if they did, then they're running amok.
1:08:30
And like, Dan, don't you see the complete
1:08:33
illogic of that? And I must say, I
1:08:35
thought wouldn't have blessed me with my
1:08:37
endowed chair. Yeah, yeah, exactly.
1:08:40
Exactly. God wouldn't. But
1:08:42
you know, but and I don't want to pick on Dan too
1:08:44
much, although I think he deserves it in this case.
1:08:50
Is this
1:08:53
all of this argument that somehow there's
1:08:55
a there's a generator
1:08:57
or you're inventing something that no
1:08:59
one's ever seen or measured, that
1:09:02
somehow allows you around, get
1:09:04
around the problem that there's no evidence whatsoever.
1:09:06
And every logical argument you can think of shows
1:09:08
there's no place for free will. It's
1:09:11
and later on, we'll talk about that reminds me of the
1:09:13
God of the gaps argument, the more we learn, the plate,
1:09:16
the less place there is for free
1:09:18
will to exist. It's a very similar argument.
1:09:20
When I was reading the book, I wrote
1:09:22
a God of the gaps at one point later on in the book.
1:09:24
But let me remind you
1:09:26
this Sydney Harris cartoon, which
1:09:29
you can use in your lectures if you haven't. It's
1:09:31
two physicists that are blackboard, have you
1:09:34
seen that? That thing? Or was a
1:09:36
long equation. And then and then in the
1:09:38
middle, it says and then a miracle occurs. And
1:09:40
then one of the guys says the other I think you should
1:09:42
be a little more explicit at that right
1:09:45
there. But it's exactly that
1:09:47
right? It's it's perfect.
1:09:50
It's exactly that. And you have
1:09:52
to presume magic. But what intrigued
1:09:54
me I do want you to elaborate on one thing. It's almost
1:09:57
the last sentence of the of Oh
1:10:03
yeah, in that particular section
1:10:06
of the book you say, okay,
1:10:12
thinking that it's sufficient to merely know about the intent
1:10:14
in the present is far worse than just intellectual
1:10:16
blindness, far worse than believing
1:10:19
that it is the very first turtle on the way
1:10:21
down that's floating in the air. In a world
1:10:23
such as we have, it's deeply, ethically
1:10:26
flawed as well. Can
1:10:28
you just leave that hanging there and maybe because
1:10:30
you're going to want to talk about it later, but why
1:10:32
is it ethically flawed?
1:10:36
Because the subject about
1:10:38
whether there's free will at the
1:10:41
end of the day isn't about neuroscience and
1:10:43
isn't about philosophy and isn't about
1:10:45
the fact that we've created
1:10:48
a world that runs on
1:10:50
a myth that's just
1:10:53
and runs on a myth that
1:10:56
it is ethically defendable to
1:10:59
have a world in which all sorts of people
1:11:01
are rewarded for things they didn't earn
1:11:03
and a vastly larger
1:11:06
number of people live lives of misery
1:11:08
and deprivation and are viewed
1:11:10
as having been entitled to it for things they had
1:11:12
no control over either.
1:11:14
Okay.
1:11:17
Yeah, and we'll get, you know, sorry. Okay,
1:11:21
good. Okay.
1:11:22
I get worked up about this one.
1:11:25
Yeah, well, good. Well, I can't wait. If
1:11:27
you're worked up about this. Yeah. Well, that's
1:11:29
the part of the book where you can really sense the emotion and frustration
1:11:32
and yet also fear that you're
1:11:34
going to say something that, you know, people
1:11:37
are going to anyway, it's interesting. And
1:11:39
the bravery it took to write it down. I think
1:11:41
you talked about that viewer has, you know, one of the many,
1:11:43
there are lots of things that cause you to take
1:11:46
time in writing this book, but how people
1:11:48
respond to the obvious consequences
1:11:51
of what you're saying is terrifying
1:11:53
a little bit. I think I can understand that. You
1:11:57
next talk about where intent comes from, where you really begin
1:11:59
to get Into the into for me
1:12:01
the fascinating aspects of neurology much of
1:12:03
which i knew nothing about and so
1:12:05
is great learning experience for me also
1:12:08
depressing of course. Because
1:12:11
every time you learn i mean
1:12:14
it's driven home even things that are
1:12:17
the examples the explicit examples
1:12:19
and empirical examples of things that
1:12:22
i might have presumed exist. Are
1:12:24
are depressing like the fact that that
1:12:27
when you make decisions about things that you think are
1:12:29
decisions that you say in three different
1:12:32
studies subjects and brain scanners
1:12:34
alternated between rating the beauty of something.
1:12:36
Are the goodness of the same behavior and
1:12:39
basically and you say both types of assessments
1:12:41
activated the same region your
1:12:44
orbital frontal core cortex or osc.
1:12:47
More beautiful or good the more osc
1:12:49
activation. Is it for relevant
1:12:52
emotions about beauty gum up cerebral contemplation
1:12:54
of the scales of justice.
1:12:57
Namely you make decisions and it's
1:13:00
just explicit not just we
1:13:02
we know that you can measure the brain and see
1:13:04
that it is that these that
1:13:07
these external things which you shouldn't
1:13:09
which you don't think are affecting your rationality. Are
1:13:12
totally determining what you think is rational. Yes
1:13:16
and never in a million years
1:13:19
with the average person who's just made one of those judgments
1:13:21
saying oh that's interesting why did you decide
1:13:24
that. Oh it's because my orbital
1:13:26
frontal cortex evolve that it has trouble
1:13:28
distinguishing between the two because
1:13:30
just very recently that we evolved making moral
1:13:32
assessments rather than just like appearance
1:13:35
assessments
1:13:37
oh that's why i did that yeah
1:13:39
right. Exactly yeah
1:13:41
and and and it's true we we as
1:13:44
you point out that we that these moral assessments
1:13:46
are recent so yeah all of the biological
1:13:49
machinery was developed without that and we
1:13:51
built up. A
1:13:54
morality and a
1:13:56
rationale again trying to impose
1:13:59
that. on an infrastructure that
1:14:02
wasn't based on any of that. Once
1:14:04
again, if Hume had been around today,
1:14:07
he would say that reason is a slave
1:14:09
of passion. I mean, this gives
1:14:11
meat to that beautiful quote, I
1:14:14
mean, which he presumed, presumed
1:14:16
I guess on the basis of thinking
1:14:18
about things, but not with the evidence
1:14:20
that you have. And it's great to see evidence that specifically
1:14:23
shows over and over again that reason
1:14:25
is a slave of passion.
1:14:27
Well, and you used a great word
1:14:29
for describing all of the cluj of
1:14:32
like, oh, it's just this mishmash
1:14:34
that you kind of put together and improvised,
1:14:37
which is the human brain. Another
1:14:40
sound bite of the field, evolution is not
1:14:42
an inventor, it's a tinkerer. Okay,
1:14:45
what do we got here? And we suddenly have
1:14:47
like come up with a notion
1:14:49
of love. Where are we, okay,
1:14:51
give me some duct tape. This part of the brain
1:14:54
is gonna have a lid, even though for a
1:14:56
hundred million years we've
1:14:58
been doing this instead. So there's gonna be some mistakes.
1:15:00
Yeah, that's exactly it.
1:15:03
And okay, and then when
1:15:06
you, so you begin to, in each of these
1:15:08
cases for the first, when you talk about the
1:15:10
biological basis of trying to address this
1:15:13
fallacy of free will, of
1:15:17
perceived free will, you talk about, you
1:15:19
try and again, put meat on turtles
1:15:22
all the way down by saying, okay, you have this intent.
1:15:25
What about the minutes before? What about the hours
1:15:27
before? What about the days before? The millennia
1:15:29
before? The millions of years before? And I
1:15:31
wanna unpack that a little bit.
1:15:34
You talk about pre-existing
1:15:37
tendencies towards aggression. And
1:15:41
how you say,
1:15:42
Bawal,
1:15:49
because of how much life has taught them at a young
1:15:51
age that the world is a menacing place.
1:15:54
That people or that animals
1:15:56
in particular, that experienced
1:15:59
the fact that world's a... is a menacing
1:16:01
place, respond
1:16:04
with the kind of aggression that's
1:16:06
not surprising. That they don't control
1:16:09
that, it's based on their experiences,
1:16:12
minutes, hours, years, or lifetimes,
1:16:14
or genetically beforehand. Yeah,
1:16:17
exactly. One of the things that I was
1:16:19
interested in, and I want to throw these things in because
1:16:22
there's so many neat examples, is
1:16:26
just to show a sense that when we talk about
1:16:28
being good people by being monogamous versus
1:16:30
polygamous, you talk about different
1:16:33
species, and oxytocin
1:16:35
and testosterone, and
1:16:38
vasopressin receptor levels. When
1:16:42
you talk about what happened, I was going to quote it, but you
1:16:44
can talk about polygamous rodent species
1:16:46
versus monogamous rodent species. I
1:16:50
found this fact, once again, fascinating when you think about
1:16:53
this, what we impose as a moral
1:16:55
issue now is biology.
1:16:59
Biological and biological.
1:17:03
This is irresistible and so much
1:17:05
fun to teach about. Voles.
1:17:08
Voles are these little vole things
1:17:10
that run around, and there's all these different types.
1:17:14
There are mountain voles and prairie
1:17:16
voles in the great American West. They
1:17:19
turn out, despite having 99% of
1:17:22
the genes in common, they have very, very different social
1:17:24
systems, in that prairie voles
1:17:27
are monogamous. They form
1:17:29
parabonds, and mountain
1:17:31
voles are polygamous. I always
1:17:33
have to remember when I'm teaching this, okay, which
1:17:35
one is it? Garrison Keeler. Garrison
1:17:38
Keeler talks about the great American
1:17:41
values out in Wobekon, so that's
1:17:43
in the prairie. It's the prairie voles
1:17:45
who are monogamous. They turn out
1:17:47
not to be, but that's what I always have to
1:17:49
remember before I mess them up. Wow,
1:17:53
how'd that happen? Because they're so closely related.
1:17:56
They're so incredibly
1:17:58
cool work by...
1:17:59
like a bunch of neuroscientists over the
1:18:02
last couple of decades have completely
1:18:04
unpacked that system.
1:18:06
When you are a male vole
1:18:09
of either species and you're mating,
1:18:12
you've released this hormone vasopressin from
1:18:14
one part of your brain. And
1:18:16
what it does is it buzzes a part
1:18:18
of your brain having to do with reward and
1:18:21
whoa, they just explained sex feels
1:18:23
good. And then it turns out
1:18:26
that because of just a gene
1:18:28
and a duplication event, a change
1:18:31
in a promoter on a gene,
1:18:33
in other words, stuff that like dead
1:18:35
white males and lab coats and molecular
1:18:37
biology could explain. In
1:18:40
the prairie voles, the receptor
1:18:42
for vasopressin is more
1:18:45
widespread in responses than
1:18:47
the receptor in the mountain voles. So
1:18:50
for the same sex act,
1:18:53
they get a whole lot more of a buzz and
1:18:55
at that point, like basic behaviors and
1:18:57
takes over, wow, that was
1:18:59
great, I think I'll stick around. And
1:19:02
instead mountain voles are nomadic,
1:19:06
the males there and they're like gone
1:19:08
the next day. Okay, how do you know this? How do you
1:19:10
know this? One of those experiments where
1:19:13
like people's mouths
1:19:15
have to drop open, brilliant,
1:19:18
like molecular manipulation,
1:19:21
take the prairie voles version
1:19:23
of this gene and plunk it down
1:19:26
into mountain voles and
1:19:29
you make a monogamous, you
1:19:31
make a monogamous. It's
1:19:33
amazing, yeah. I mean, that's the kind of thing I love.
1:19:36
I mean, you can't argue with that, right? That's
1:19:38
what's great about it.
1:19:39
And okay,
1:19:40
so what about us? And
1:19:43
what about us and aren't we monogamous,
1:19:46
but what about divorce rates and what about most
1:19:48
societies that are polygamy and there's
1:19:51
incredibly convincing evolutionary
1:19:55
biology showing that among all the primates,
1:19:57
we're right in the middle. halfway
1:20:00
between being a classic pair
1:20:02
bonding monogamous species, the polygamous one,
1:20:05
and there's all sorts of interesting ways you can
1:20:07
show that. But in terms of this, say,
1:20:10
okay, so which version,
1:20:13
what kind of vole are we? And
1:20:16
it turns out we have different variants.
1:20:19
Some of us have one kind, some of us have
1:20:21
one another, and
1:20:24
that's predictive of things like how
1:20:26
stable of relationships you form. That's
1:20:29
predictive of things like how close
1:20:31
you stand to an attractive person
1:20:34
if you're already in a relationship.
1:20:36
Oh my God,
1:20:39
it's the same stuff. It's
1:20:41
like the same stuff that before it's over with is
1:20:43
produced like sonnets
1:20:46
or divorce lawyers. So there's
1:20:48
very human specific aspects to it. But
1:20:51
whoa, even that is
1:20:54
ultimately mechanistic. Yeah,
1:20:57
and so when we come
1:20:59
to responsibility, people who work in them for one
1:21:01
way or another, as you point out,
1:21:03
a lot of these things are gene variants or
1:21:06
affected by expression of genes, epigenetics, which
1:21:08
I wanna have you explain. The first time I really
1:21:10
understood, well, I'm not sure I still understand, but the first time
1:21:13
I think I understood it was reading your book. I
1:21:16
never could quite understand how, but it's
1:21:19
gene expression. Anyway, but
1:21:21
you sum this up by saying, thus the decisions
1:21:24
you supposedly make freely in moments that
1:21:26
test your character, like
1:21:28
monogamy, let's say, generosity,
1:21:30
empathy, honesty, are influenced
1:21:33
by the levels of these hormones in your bloodstream
1:21:35
and the levels of variance of the receptors in
1:21:37
your brain. It's just that,
1:21:40
not character. It's that. All
1:21:45
that like fidelity,
1:21:48
or if
1:21:49
you're in a different society,
1:21:52
all of the cultural values built around, you
1:21:55
should be fine being the third wife, or
1:21:58
you should wanna get as many camels. as possible
1:22:00
to get as many wives and that's
1:22:03
how we, that's the kind of people we
1:22:05
are. And whether it's one extreme
1:22:08
or the other, one of the ones in between, it's
1:22:10
imbued with value and
1:22:12
cultural judgment. And
1:22:15
that's not it. That
1:22:17
said, you know, it's not all what
1:22:20
version of the vasopressin receptor gene you have.
1:22:22
And those studies showing that and different
1:22:25
human correlates of it's not everyone,
1:22:27
it's just at a higher than expected rate. All
1:22:30
of our usual provisors there. But
1:22:32
if you knew about the vasopressin status
1:22:35
plus three more of the neurotransmitters
1:22:37
and seven of the hormones and this and that,
1:22:41
you're getting close to saying that's
1:22:43
why this person is this way instead of
1:22:45
that way. Well, again, I think of Dan Dennett
1:22:47
again with saying, you know, you
1:22:50
can't, you may not be able to
1:22:54
feel good about your accompli-, you know,
1:22:56
feel you deserve the prizes and similarly
1:22:58
you might, feeling that you've been a good
1:23:00
person is
1:23:02
great but you may also
1:23:05
realize that it's a genetic bit of luck
1:23:07
as well. Or all the
1:23:09
other biology. All of it, yeah. Or
1:23:11
an historical, genetic, historical,
1:23:14
in fact we'll talk about that. So
1:23:16
that's minutes to hours, you
1:23:18
know, hormonal influence
1:23:21
on your actions which are immediate.
1:23:23
But then you talk about, you know, weeks to years
1:23:26
really related to neuroplasticity which I
1:23:28
guess
1:23:30
is
1:23:33
becoming increasingly important.
1:23:36
And you say, to
1:23:38
jump to, sort of depressing in a way,
1:23:41
to read once again about adolescence
1:23:43
and its importance. Because
1:23:45
we, done of us, can have control. I mean
1:23:48
when you think about that you're
1:23:50
doomed, you're doomed in
1:23:52
some ways to act the way you are because of a period
1:23:55
in your life that you sometimes want to just forget. And
1:23:59
you say... If you're an adult, your adolescent
1:24:02
experiences of trauma, stimulation,
1:24:04
love, failure, rejection, happiness, despair,
1:24:07
acne, the whole shebang will
1:24:09
have played an outsized role in constructing
1:24:11
the frontal cortex because you point
1:24:13
out that's when it's being constructed.
1:24:16
Constructing the frontal cortex you're working with
1:24:18
as you contemplate pushing buttons. Of
1:24:21
course, the enormous varieties of adolescent experiences
1:24:24
will help produce enormously varied frontal
1:24:26
cortexes in adulthood.
1:24:30
Boy, isn't that depressing? Yeah,
1:24:34
but from my perspective, cool.
1:24:37
It's the aesthetic mechanism
1:24:40
for it. But
1:24:42
in fact, you point out even a better reason it's
1:24:44
not depressing. In some sense, it was a rhetorical
1:24:46
question because the next page you say, this
1:24:49
suggests something remarkable. The
1:24:51
genetic program of the human brain evolved
1:24:53
to free the frontal cortex from
1:24:55
genes as much as possible, namely if the
1:24:59
frontal cortex is being developed during a period
1:25:02
of learning of experiences
1:25:04
in a rational, intelligent, self-conscious
1:25:08
species, you'd want
1:25:10
that brain function which
1:25:13
really is what's governing much of your rational
1:25:16
behavior, I guess, to be
1:25:19
as free from genes as possible to be based on experience.
1:25:21
So you understand
1:25:24
the world as it in principle is
1:25:26
as opposed to the world that your genetic
1:25:28
ancestors might
1:25:30
have experienced.
1:25:31
Yeah, like basically
1:25:34
we have evolved
1:25:36
genetically more than any other
1:25:38
species to be free of our genes
1:25:42
and free of their deterministic powers.
1:25:44
That's a great thing. It's not a bad
1:25:46
thing. It's allowed us to get where
1:25:48
we are and necessary
1:25:51
for as
1:25:53
complex a brain as we have probably.
1:25:55
Well, unless you spend your late adolescence
1:25:58
where you're listening to species. every
1:26:00
day by a guy with a mustache
1:26:02
and a brown shirt and saying here's
1:26:05
who's responsible for problems in society
1:26:08
means formative
1:26:11
stuff is happening then and that
1:26:13
could be for better or worse.
1:26:15
In fact for worse you point out that you talk
1:26:17
about this ACE score which is what's
1:26:19
a adverse childhood experience
1:26:22
score which I guess psychologists
1:26:25
can get by looking at all sorts of neglect
1:26:27
and household dysfunction and abuse and all
1:26:30
of these categories that you may or may
1:26:32
not have experienced and you say for
1:26:34
every step higher in one's ACE
1:26:36
score is roughly a 35% increase
1:26:39
in the likelihood of adult antisocial behavior
1:26:41
including violence, poor frontal
1:26:44
cortical development, cognition, problems
1:26:47
with impulse control, substance abuse, teen
1:26:49
pregnancy, unsafe sex and other risky
1:26:51
behaviors and increased vulnerability to
1:26:54
depression and anxiety disorders.
1:26:57
Oh and also poor health and earlier death. So
1:27:01
you know that impact
1:27:04
is remarkable
1:27:06
and
1:27:07
one might say how does that impact happen
1:27:10
and that's where I may be introducing this too early
1:27:12
but that's this connection between genes
1:27:14
and environmental interactions
1:27:17
which I think is related to epigenetics.
1:27:21
So do you want to explain I mean people would say
1:27:23
look how can this be the genes are genes
1:27:25
you have a DNA how can
1:27:28
how can experience it's almost
1:27:30
sounds Lamarckian how can how
1:27:32
can experience experiences going
1:27:34
to change that chemistry of
1:27:37
the DNA backbone what
1:27:40
are you telling me what gigs and so why
1:27:42
do you why do you get around that question
1:27:45
and explain it better than I could. Yeah experience
1:27:48
environment all of that
1:27:49
doesn't change your genes your
1:27:52
genes that are made up a sequence of DNA
1:27:54
and a code and it doesn't change
1:27:57
your genes what experience
1:27:59
does is change the on-off
1:28:01
switches for your genes. How
1:28:04
readily you activate a gene, whether
1:28:07
you permanently silence it, how
1:28:10
readily you activate it under this circumstance,
1:28:13
but not that circumstance. What
1:28:15
epigenetics is about is the
1:28:17
regulation of genes. And it turns
1:28:19
out when you look at a species like us, the
1:28:22
majority of our DNA is not devoted
1:28:25
to the genes. The majority is devoted
1:28:27
to the regulatory elements. The
1:28:30
instruction manual is much
1:28:32
longer than the DNA code itself.
1:28:35
And what evolution is
1:28:37
mostly about, if you want to get into
1:28:39
a nuts and bolts level, is the evolution
1:28:42
of the regulatory control far
1:28:44
more than the genes themselves. And
1:28:48
what environment does is forever
1:28:50
after, in some cases, in some cases even
1:28:53
multigenerationally, make
1:28:56
it easier or harder to activate certain
1:28:58
genes.
1:28:59
Yeah, in fact, you say that when it comes to humans,
1:29:01
it can be silly to ask what a gene does, which is
1:29:04
the kind of thing my elementary
1:29:06
biology might have asked, because
1:29:08
I don't know much. But
1:29:11
you shouldn't ask what that does, but what it does in a particular
1:29:13
environment, because it's the expression.
1:29:16
It's the turning on and off. The genes produce proteins
1:29:19
that give instructions for production of
1:29:21
proteins and when that gets
1:29:23
turned on and off. And my also understanding of
1:29:26
how impactful those proteins
1:29:29
are in subsequent things is also environmentally
1:29:32
related.
1:29:33
Some of those proteins are
1:29:35
switches that turn genes on or off.
1:29:38
Yeah. Or you're regulating the regulators,
1:29:40
and it's regulators all the way
1:29:42
down. It's these recursive loops.
1:29:47
Yeah, OK. And that's, I think, incredibly
1:29:49
important to realize that. That's
1:29:52
how when one thinks of
1:29:54
there's, I guess, you can say,
1:29:57
OK, there's lucky genes, as people
1:29:59
say. born with lucky genes. But when
1:30:01
we talk about the spectrum of behaviors for
1:30:04
which we think we have free will in the spectrum of
1:30:06
people and for which we'll have
1:30:08
to take responsibility for good or bad actions, you
1:30:11
could say, well, there are two there are two components.
1:30:13
There's gene variants. The population
1:30:15
has gene variants, and some people do have
1:30:17
lucky genes, and some people have unlucky genes
1:30:19
in the sense of getting a variant that, you
1:30:22
know, related to vasopressin
1:30:25
or whatever. And then there's
1:30:28
the other aspect, which I really hadn't fully appreciated,
1:30:30
is exactly how the environment
1:30:33
affects the
1:30:35
mechanism by which environment affects
1:30:38
gene regulation is the other aspect.
1:30:41
So there's the variants in genes and
1:30:43
the variants in environmental experiences. And
1:30:46
it's that combination of those two that
1:30:48
determines who you are. Neither
1:30:51
of which you had any say in. Nine
1:30:53
of which you had any say in. Yeah, exactly. You didn't
1:30:55
even get to fill in an application form. Yeah.
1:31:00
And
1:31:02
just like you, yeah, in particular, we all realize
1:31:04
we didn't have any say in the choice of our parents. And
1:31:07
sometimes that's good. And sometimes bad.
1:31:09
And but it goes far
1:31:12
beyond that.
1:31:14
Now you say, okay, that's okay. So that's
1:31:16
basic biology. But beyond that, we
1:31:19
go back more than just years.
1:31:22
And more just
1:31:23
more than just your own life experience, but
1:31:26
the life experience of your ancestors, culture,
1:31:30
that which that you're irresistible.
1:31:35
It's totally cool. It's
1:31:39
totally cool. I'm a dilettante
1:31:41
in this area, because what do I know from like
1:31:44
cultural anthropology or history or stuff,
1:31:46
but different
1:31:49
cultures are different.
1:31:53
And there are historically
1:31:56
and biologically and ecologically.
1:32:00
logical reasons why different
1:32:02
cultures wind up in different ways. For
1:32:05
example, like way
1:32:07
back when traditional means of production,
1:32:10
you could be a farmer or you could
1:32:12
be a hunter gatherer or you could be a
1:32:14
pastoralist. And it turns out
1:32:16
that pastoralists, all the world
1:32:19
over, whether it's yaks or camels
1:32:21
or goats or whatever, are much
1:32:24
higher than likely to generate
1:32:26
what is called a culture of honor, where
1:32:29
it's built around retribution,
1:32:31
revenge, clan loyalties,
1:32:34
feuds that go for centuries, where
1:32:36
it involves forming warrior classes,
1:32:39
high rates of aggression, all
1:32:41
that sort of thing. And
1:32:43
whoa,
1:32:44
you hardly ever see that among the farmers or the hunter
1:32:46
gatherers. And what's that about? If
1:32:49
the bad people come and you're a hunter gatherer,
1:32:52
they can't steal your rainforest. If
1:32:55
they come to your farm, they can't steal all
1:32:57
your, they can't harvest your crops at night, but
1:33:00
sneaky low down varmints
1:33:02
can come and rustle your cattle
1:33:04
at night. Pastoralists
1:33:07
spend all their time raiding each other
1:33:09
and stealing their means of livestock. And
1:33:11
like in Africa,
1:33:14
I hang out near a pastoralist tribe
1:33:16
and like they have raids on each other and steal
1:33:18
all the cows and people have to take
1:33:20
revenge. And all of that, among
1:33:24
pastoralists, you have a special
1:33:26
vulnerability in being nomadic and
1:33:28
in your wealth being a
1:33:31
bunch of animals that could be stolen. And
1:33:33
they all evolve these similar cultures
1:33:35
of honor. And where if
1:33:38
you do not answer an insult
1:33:40
to your honor with twice the retaliation,
1:33:44
you're just like losing face and you're dishonoring
1:33:46
you and your family and your ancestors and your people
1:33:50
and all of that. And that
1:33:52
turns out to explain aspects,
1:33:54
geographical variations and violence
1:33:57
on this planet. Or as
1:33:59
another one.
1:33:59
Another
1:34:00
one, people whose ancestors
1:34:03
or people who live in rainforests
1:34:06
are much more likely than chance to invent
1:34:09
polytheistic religions.
1:34:12
People who live in deserts are more likely
1:34:14
to invent monotheistic ones. And
1:34:16
there's all sorts of ecological, you know, if you're
1:34:19
living in a forest where there's like a thousand
1:34:22
different edible plants that
1:34:24
you can use, it's not that surprising that
1:34:26
you decide that there's like a spirit
1:34:28
inside each one of those different plants and like
1:34:31
a thousand flowers blooming.
1:34:33
And like if you're living in the desert, everything
1:34:36
gets boiled down to just like
1:34:39
survival and very singular
1:34:41
things. And big surprise,
1:34:44
they come up with singular religions. And
1:34:47
you know, people like Jared Diamond have done brilliant
1:34:50
work analyzing how it is
1:34:52
that this planet was overrun
1:34:55
by the desert monotheists rather
1:34:57
than the rainforest polytheists.
1:35:00
And that's the planet we have now. But
1:35:02
that's a cultural difference. And
1:35:05
that one influences
1:35:08
like through shortly after birth, where
1:35:11
you were being taught, like ethics
1:35:14
come from and who you were
1:35:16
trying to please and whose
1:35:19
foot or whose plural feet
1:35:21
you'll be sitting at if you do things right
1:35:23
and wind up in paradise afterward.
1:35:26
And
1:35:27
that's from culture.
1:35:29
And I never understood that.
1:35:32
What I think is important is that relates to what
1:35:34
we're just talking about in a way that I hadn't really appreciated
1:35:36
before. I knew that, obviously, culture affects
1:35:39
people. And you know, when I talk to people, you
1:35:41
know, they don't seem to get, when I talk about religion,
1:35:43
isn't it surprising that the children of Christians
1:35:45
turn out to be Christian, the children are Muslims, the children are
1:35:48
Muslims. Even if there's some universal truth, isn't that a little
1:35:50
surprising? Of course, it's a cultural thing. But
1:35:52
now when you talk about, say, the
1:35:55
pastoralists and sort of retribution
1:35:58
and violence, Now
1:36:00
i kind of now i thinking about it by
1:36:02
chemically or no biology logically so
1:36:05
that experience undoubtedly affects
1:36:08
the regulation of jeans that that that
1:36:10
produce aggressive responses so
1:36:13
you can understand the
1:36:14
the.
1:36:15
How that culture and
1:36:18
the affecting. People
1:36:21
who's who's dna is the same but but
1:36:23
but but but the regulation
1:36:26
that dna is culturally determined
1:36:28
something.
1:36:29
And like
1:36:31
from a cultural perspective the job
1:36:33
of parents is to make kids
1:36:35
who will have the same cultural values as them
1:36:38
and translate it that into neurobiology.
1:36:41
Is to have their nervous systems constructed
1:36:44
in a way that this is what they will
1:36:46
carry along okay here's here's like one
1:36:48
of the all time cool experiments and
1:36:51
the only time i have seen a particular
1:36:54
word appear in the scientific journal. This
1:36:56
is incredible work by this guy
1:36:58
richard nesbit university michigan one of
1:37:00
the gods of social psychology and.
1:37:04
What it was one of those where the site
1:37:06
majors like come volunteer for this experiment
1:37:09
and ask questions about whatever and so
1:37:12
they go to the site department and there's
1:37:14
the lab they're going to down to the end of the hall
1:37:16
and they walk down the hall from the elevator and
1:37:19
unbeknownst to them the experiment
1:37:21
occurs in the hallway. Which is
1:37:23
it's a narrow hallway all these
1:37:26
like. Children chuncan
1:37:29
stuff and as they're walking down there's
1:37:31
a guy walking at you
1:37:33
he's a big guy working
1:37:36
on the project and what
1:37:39
he does is as he comes past
1:37:41
you he knocks into your shoulder
1:37:44
looks back and says watch it
1:37:46
asshole. This
1:37:49
is the experiment in print and
1:37:51
then what they do is they like
1:37:54
you come into the lab and they
1:37:56
give you all sorts of scenarios
1:37:58
of like moral quandaries. And
1:38:00
what would you do in response to this? And
1:38:03
what you see is people from
1:38:05
the North, Northern
1:38:07
United States, having been bumped
1:38:09
into has no effect on their answers.
1:38:13
And of course, there's the controls where
1:38:15
the guy doesn't do that. And people
1:38:17
from the South were now
1:38:20
far more likely if they were bumped into
1:38:22
than not to advocate violent
1:38:25
responses to these norm violation
1:38:27
scenarios.
1:38:28
And they elevate their levels
1:38:30
of testosterone and stress hormones.
1:38:33
Whoa, are you kidding?
1:38:35
The American South, instead of being settled
1:38:38
by these nice, like Quaker shopkeepers,
1:38:41
were settled by these, like, crazy-ass
1:38:43
Irish, Scotsman, shepherds and
1:38:46
stuff. And they brought a culture of honor.
1:38:49
And centuries later, you're
1:38:51
walking down a hallway in Ann Arbor,
1:38:53
Michigan, and that's going to influence
1:38:55
how much stress hormones you secrete. And
1:38:58
whether you advocate saying, you
1:39:00
know, they're just an idiot, but ignore them versus
1:39:03
rip their throat out.
1:39:05
Well, this culture stuff persists.
1:39:08
Wow. Yeah, it's just wow. I
1:39:11
love these examples. I'm really
1:39:13
happy with it. It's amazing because you can put
1:39:15
meat on all of these. You know, the
1:39:17
words sound nice, but the meat is what matters.
1:39:19
I mean, that's what makes it science.
1:39:21
And
1:39:22
we talk about, you know, I wrote down education
1:39:24
here because you talked about the purpose of
1:39:26
parents in some sense is to inculcate those
1:39:30
values and the cultural things to their children,
1:39:33
which is, by the way, the reason I argue
1:39:35
that for public education, the purpose
1:39:38
of education is to get you away from your parents, in
1:39:40
my opinion, which is I could never understand why
1:39:42
in the US we have this system where
1:39:45
parents somehow are supposed
1:39:47
to be able to impact on the education
1:39:49
of children because that's so, and why I like,
1:39:51
why I'm not always a big fan of homeschooling
1:39:54
because it seems to me that's the great opportunity
1:39:56
is to get people away to learn that the world
1:39:58
isn't exactly necessary. the way their parents say
1:40:00
it is.
1:40:01
Yep, exactly. Except,
1:40:04
you know, it's not by chance
1:40:06
that the school that your parents are going to
1:40:09
send you to is going
1:40:11
to teach some semblance
1:40:13
of their exact same values. You're not
1:40:15
going to go to a school if you're growing
1:40:17
up in Kansas and they teach you
1:40:20
that it is time for the workers of the world to
1:40:22
unite and overthrow their chains and you're
1:40:24
not going to go to a school and
1:40:28
I'm Chotka and they do. Yeah,
1:40:31
the parents still get in there.
1:40:34
Well okay, so this
1:40:36
we basically, I don't know whether we beat in the dead
1:40:38
horse, but we certainly added a lot of color
1:40:41
to it. And
1:40:45
part of the book about intent, you basically say
1:40:47
to summarize in order to prove this free will we
1:40:49
have to show that some behavior just happened
1:40:51
out of thin air in the sense of considering all
1:40:54
of these biological precursors, the ones we've talked
1:40:56
about and a lot more obviously in the book, it
1:40:58
may be possible to sidestep that with some subtle
1:41:01
philosophical arguments, but you can't
1:41:03
with anything known to science. And I think
1:41:05
that's the sort of the key thing. But
1:41:07
then when we
1:41:09
come to the padding on the back, the
1:41:13
question is, you know, people,
1:41:15
you know,
1:41:17
surely with grit and hard
1:41:20
work, you can overcome, you know,
1:41:22
the bad luck of your existence.
1:41:25
And the idea
1:41:27
is that
1:41:29
it
1:41:31
is a misunderstanding of history, which I think you
1:41:33
basically say, look, okay, these people are
1:41:35
saying, okay, there's no free will. I accept
1:41:37
everything you said about hormones and everything. So
1:41:39
clearly there's no free will in what you're doing now. But
1:41:42
somehow in the past, the
1:41:44
past, there was something you could
1:41:46
have done that, you know, to make yourself a better person
1:41:48
now. And somehow that it's
1:41:51
okay, it's somehow we can bury the free
1:41:53
will in the past. You want to elaborate
1:41:55
on that?
1:41:56
Or if you're a particularly fancy compatibilist,
1:41:59
somehow. in the future, which somehow
1:42:01
counts in the present, or whatever,
1:42:04
it's a notion of
1:42:06
like, what
1:42:09
brought you to this moment, and
1:42:11
the answer rather than being
1:42:13
because of what happened a second ago and a minute ago
1:42:15
and an hour and a million years ago in biology all
1:42:18
the way, it's because of
1:42:20
the key decisions you made
1:42:22
back when, which
1:42:24
is just like, oh, good,
1:42:26
they've just explained it by saying the puzzle
1:42:29
is now on back when. That's
1:42:31
what we're now trying to explain, and the trouble
1:42:34
is whatever was in the past once was
1:42:36
now, and why did this
1:42:39
behavior just happen? Because
1:42:41
of one second before, one minute before, et
1:42:44
cetera. It's
1:42:46
one of the like
1:42:48
dodges
1:42:51
in there. I mean, what you're bringing up also
1:42:53
is this total
1:42:55
least seductive
1:42:57
dichotomy, which is like
1:43:00
one compatibilist trick, which most
1:43:02
people advocate
1:43:04
is that you'll say, okay, okay,
1:43:07
there's some stuff we had no control over.
1:43:09
Like, I don't have a voice that
1:43:11
could sing opera.
1:43:13
I'm not tall enough to play in the NBA.
1:43:16
I don't have whatever receptor
1:43:19
for whatever neurotransmitter, so that
1:43:21
I've got this amazing analytical skills, whatever.
1:43:23
Yeah, yeah, yeah. We have our natural
1:43:26
attributes,
1:43:27
and those are biological.
1:43:29
Yeah.
1:43:30
What isn't? What really matters
1:43:33
is what do you do with those attributes? Do
1:43:35
you put your shoulder to the grindstone?
1:43:38
Do you squander your gifts? Do
1:43:40
you get
1:43:42
going when the going gets tough too?
1:43:45
And that's where we've got this incredibly
1:43:49
sort of Judeo-Christian
1:43:52
temptation to say that that
1:43:55
is the playground of free will and judgment.
1:43:58
It's what we do with what we were
1:44:00
gifted or cursed. That's the measure
1:44:02
of a person. And that's
1:44:04
so destructive. I mean, like
1:44:07
it's got a nice nappy pamby liberal version
1:44:10
of it, which is when your kid does something
1:44:12
good, don't tell them, Oh, you must be so smart,
1:44:15
say, Oh, you must have worked so hard, because
1:44:17
you're fueling that side of the dichotomy.
1:44:19
And, and that's a good thing, because that's
1:44:22
instrumental value, not because
1:44:24
it has moral value. But it's
1:44:26
this huge dichotomy that
1:44:29
the natural attributes we have are
1:44:32
made out of atoms. And
1:44:34
whether you show backbone in a
1:44:36
moment of temptation, that's
1:44:39
the stuff that's made out of the fairy dust. And
1:44:42
the what you do with what you
1:44:44
got, what you do with those
1:44:47
crossroads and splits in the road and
1:44:49
all those things is made of the same
1:44:51
stuff. Because it's that frontal cortex
1:44:54
of the earth that decide, are you going
1:44:56
to show impulse control? Are you going to do long
1:44:58
term planning? Are you do? And it's
1:45:00
the exact same? How did you get the
1:45:02
frontal cortex that you have?
1:45:05
Because of one second ago and one minute ago and
1:45:07
all of that. And that's why
1:45:09
at some point,
1:45:11
somebody is going to decide to rob
1:45:13
the liquor store. And
1:45:16
instead, somebody is going to decide
1:45:18
to devote their life to doctors
1:45:21
without borders or something.
1:45:24
Exactly. The point that somehow
1:45:28
accepting that the instantaneous
1:45:30
moment of what you're, you know, that
1:45:32
your that your local intent to that moment
1:45:36
is biological control, but somehow, what
1:45:38
determined your local intent, which was earlier,
1:45:41
isn't biologically determined. It's that, it's
1:45:43
that irrationality. I had, you know, you
1:45:45
do give a, you know, to pick again on
1:45:47
dead orders, you pick up the
1:45:49
identity law, you know, basically says
1:45:52
that he says, so you know, when someone, when
1:45:54
he argued with someone that we have no control over
1:45:56
the biology or the environment thrown at us, Dennis
1:45:59
response was so what? The
1:46:01
point I think you're missing is that our autonomy is
1:46:03
something one grows into. It's
1:46:06
a process that's initially entirely beyond one's
1:46:08
control. But back when it
1:46:10
was happening, it was the same biology. So it wasn't
1:46:13
anymore. And
1:46:15
as one matures, one learns one's being able to control
1:46:18
more and more one's activities. But the
1:46:20
whole point is you just learned that you don't
1:46:22
control. I mean, you don't control them.
1:46:25
You control them, but your control over that of
1:46:28
that was determined.
1:46:29
Because was, was, once is. Yeah,
1:46:33
exactly. Was, was, once is. It's so
1:46:36
clear when one puts it that way. I guess I
1:46:40
don't see it. I think
1:46:42
the fundamental question, and as a physicist,
1:46:44
this is why as a physicist, I
1:46:46
guess I never found this whole issue.
1:46:49
It seemed to be clear.
1:46:51
It's that fundamentally
1:46:55
everything... Everything
1:46:59
is determined by a combination of
1:47:02
nature, which is biology, physics and chemistry.
1:47:05
And none of those have fairy dust in them. Not
1:47:08
even physics, we'll get to it. And
1:47:12
once you recognize that, then it's clear
1:47:15
that free will must be an illusion. Because
1:47:18
none of those, none of those, none
1:47:21
of the
1:47:23
physics and chemistry, I know the physics, I know the chemistry
1:47:25
a little bit and the biology less. All
1:47:28
of them behave with
1:47:30
rules of science that don't allow for that, you
1:47:32
know, that gap in that Sidney Caris
1:47:35
cartoon.
1:47:36
Yeah,
1:47:37
exactly. And an
1:47:40
awful lot of people work very, very
1:47:42
hard and begin to have
1:47:44
almost evangelical incoherence
1:47:48
at points where they still manage to
1:47:50
pull that out of the hat. There's
1:47:52
still a special essence that doesn't
1:47:55
obey those rules. Well, to
1:47:57
me, it's very related. Again, having spent
1:47:59
a lot of time...
1:47:59
time thinking recently about consciousness, to the same
1:48:02
argument as where is the you
1:48:04
that exists beyond your brain. I
1:48:07
mean, it's the same really argument, isn't it, in
1:48:09
some sense. Where
1:48:12
can that be? If, you know, this is what there
1:48:14
is. So where's the you if it's not there?
1:48:17
And if it's beyond there, then somehow you're invoking
1:48:20
some fairy dust to assume that
1:48:22
that you is an independent existence.
1:48:24
And the version of that that like
1:48:28
makes us wet our pants the most is
1:48:30
so when
1:48:32
someone dies, there's
1:48:34
no them anymore. Yeah.
1:48:38
Yeah.
1:48:39
Like, that's that's enough to make almost
1:48:42
anyone who rejects free will feel
1:48:45
a little bit like queasy and dizzy
1:48:47
at that point. But yeah.
1:48:49
Yeah,
1:48:50
well, and my you've heard this my argument
1:48:53
and people always say what happened to it. And
1:48:55
the argument which I didn't invent myself but
1:48:57
first was told to me is, you know, what was
1:48:59
it like before you're born?
1:49:03
Just imagine what it was like before you're born. And
1:49:05
then but, okay, let's talk
1:49:07
about them. But you are here and
1:49:09
you spend some time on the cognitive prefrontal
1:49:12
cortex, which is so important to learning and social
1:49:16
socialization and sociality, and
1:49:18
how those things are, are, you know,
1:49:20
evolved. And you
1:49:23
talk about the social PFC,
1:49:26
the that,
1:49:29
that basically there's two the
1:49:31
prefrontal cortex is sort of control mecha, I don't
1:49:33
know whether you want to think of it as a control mechanism,
1:49:36
but it does two things, right? It kind
1:49:38
of inhibits it
1:49:40
either it either encourages or inhibits
1:49:43
in the right quote unquote, right moment. So
1:49:47
you want to discuss that a little bit. I guess
1:49:50
I guess the key thing I learned about from your
1:49:52
is this two parts of the PFC. And
1:49:54
I love saying these things because they make me sound so literate,
1:49:57
biologically now I know I forget the words almost
1:49:59
immediately. That's why I didn't become a biologist early on,
1:50:01
because I couldn't memorize words. I was awful
1:50:04
at it. But there's the dorsal lateral
1:50:06
PFC, and then there's
1:50:08
the ventromedial PFC, and
1:50:11
there's sort of the yin and
1:50:13
yang, the devil and the angel
1:50:15
on the side of you. Why don't you talk about
1:50:17
that? And
1:50:19
by the way, I probably
1:50:21
didn't become a physicist because I couldn't understand
1:50:23
the concepts. So
1:50:25
you couldn't memorize the jargon. But
1:50:29
well, whatever. Yeah,
1:50:31
it was just okay. You could have if you wanted to.
1:50:33
Anyway, the lateral, let's
1:50:36
call it the egg heady part of your
1:50:38
prefrontal cortex, and the ventral
1:50:40
medial, your emotional over
1:50:42
the top hysterical
1:50:45
part. Ventral
1:50:47
medial prefrontal
1:50:50
cortex is the means
1:50:52
by which the more emotional parts
1:50:54
of your brain, the limbic system
1:50:57
funnel all of their opinions
1:50:59
and quirks and yearnings and
1:51:01
legitimate aspirations and stuff,
1:51:04
and send that information onto the frontal
1:51:06
cortex. That's how your
1:51:08
frontal cortex is figuring out what
1:51:10
your gut is telling you.
1:51:13
What
1:51:14
biases are about to make you make
1:51:16
a totally unfair decision. It's
1:51:19
the ways in which decision making is
1:51:21
influenced by emotion. And that's
1:51:24
been a major revolution for the field
1:51:26
of figuring out, no, it's not
1:51:28
just your like gleaming calculator
1:51:31
of a prefrontal cortex that's
1:51:33
telling the limbic system, now's
1:51:35
the time to give the person flowers. Now's
1:51:37
not the time to do whatever, because you're
1:51:39
going to regret it, that there's as much
1:51:42
flow of information from the emotional part of
1:51:44
the brain to this egg heady part of the brain.
1:51:46
So the ventral
1:51:49
medial, the emotional part of the prefrontal
1:51:51
cortex is getting that information
1:51:54
and amid lots of other areas
1:51:57
of the brain there that fomper around
1:51:59
and confine.
1:51:59
and
1:52:01
compare and contrast and it's
1:52:03
ultimately the dorsolateral
1:52:06
prefrontal cortex that's the
1:52:08
decider that sends
1:52:10
out a message that is four or five steps
1:52:12
away from your muscles that sends
1:52:15
out a message that's four or five steps away
1:52:17
from telling your muscles not to do
1:52:20
that, raising issues of free
1:52:22
won't as well as free will. These
1:52:26
two areas of the brain are
1:52:28
like very pertinent to this. Big
1:52:31
surprise, the cortex
1:52:33
was the last part of the brain to fully evolve
1:52:36
evolutionarily. The prefrontal
1:52:38
cortex was the last part of the cortex
1:52:40
to evolve. The dorsolateral
1:52:43
prefrontal cortex was the last
1:52:45
part of the prefrontal cortex to evolve
1:52:48
and we proportionally have more of it than any other species
1:52:50
out there. So that's
1:52:53
where your Calvinistic
1:52:55
backbone dwells or your turpitude
1:52:58
or whatever and it's the same thing.
1:53:01
What kind of dorsolateral prefrontal
1:53:03
cortex do you have today? It
1:53:06
depends. It depends on what happened.
1:53:08
It's not going to go in a million years ago
1:53:10
and all of that because stress
1:53:12
and stimulation and certain gene
1:53:15
variants and the levels of this hormone
1:53:17
and the levels of that nutrients and certain
1:53:19
cultural produce
1:53:21
different kinds of dorsolateral prefrontal
1:53:24
cortices. This is not just, oh, this
1:53:26
has to be the case from work. Go
1:53:28
do imaging and look at the size
1:53:30
of these in different people and
1:53:33
it reflects
1:53:35
all sorts of logical stuff. People
1:53:38
who were much better at doing
1:53:40
the right thing when it's the harder thing to do,
1:53:43
you go and look
1:53:44
and they have a bigger and or
1:53:47
a more energetic
1:53:48
dorsolateral prefrontal cortex than other people.
1:53:52
Damage the prefrontal cortex and
1:53:54
you get somebody who can even sit there and tell
1:53:57
you the difference between right and wrong and
1:53:59
nonetheless, every juncture, they're going to
1:54:01
do the impulsive disastrous thing.
1:54:04
And just to kind of stop you
1:54:06
in your tracks, depending on the study, 25 to 75% of
1:54:09
the men in this country on death row
1:54:12
have a history of concussive head trauma
1:54:15
to that part of the brain. Wow.
1:54:18
Uh, we're talking machines here.
1:54:20
We're not souls.
1:54:22
Yeah. Oh, that's right. And, and, and
1:54:25
why that's, that's power. That's amazing and
1:54:27
powerful. Speaking of the PFC
1:54:29
and the experience that you've had it, there was
1:54:31
a, there was a quote here that made me
1:54:33
think, well, a lot of goals made me think
1:54:35
you say all the individual pieces of these findings
1:54:37
follow socio socioeconomic
1:54:41
status predicts how much a young
1:54:43
child's. The,
1:54:46
the LPFC, which is that the,
1:54:48
whatever it's called, um, yeah, but
1:54:51
they can activate and
1:54:53
recruits other brain regions during an executive
1:54:55
task. It predicts more responsiveness
1:54:58
of the amygdala to physical, um,
1:55:01
or social threats, a stronger activation
1:55:03
signal carrying this emotional response to the PFC
1:55:05
by the VM PFC, which is the other,
1:55:08
the emotional part of the PFC, I guess. And
1:55:11
such status predicts every possible measure, um,
1:55:14
of function and kids, uh,
1:55:17
named naturally lower socioeconomic status
1:55:19
predicts worse PFC development. This,
1:55:23
this does smack when
1:55:26
a buzzword now it's called white privilege, which
1:55:28
I have, which I, which is
1:55:31
over
1:55:32
well, which I have issues with at some level, but, but
1:55:34
we won't go there, but, but this does suggest,
1:55:37
I mean, there is privilege and, and,
1:55:39
and, and it's, and it's undeniable.
1:55:41
What it doesn't suggest is that somehow it,
1:55:45
you know, it's, it suggests the world isn't fair,
1:55:47
but it doesn't say that you can cure that
1:55:49
by then doing something else, because it just
1:55:51
says, you know, you're stuck with, with the, with
1:55:54
the, with, with your, with the experience
1:55:56
of your past and suddenly, you know, society
1:55:59
doing these other. things is not necessarily going to solve
1:56:01
your particular problems.
1:56:03
Uh-huh. Here, here is where I have
1:56:05
to
1:56:06
disagree strongly
1:56:08
because as it's turning
1:56:11
out, very little in your brain is irreversible.
1:56:14
Um, that's this whole field of neuroplasticity.
1:56:17
Yes. And when you look
1:56:20
at how change occurs and
1:56:22
incredibly dramatic change
1:56:24
and explanations for why one
1:56:27
out of every 10 or a hundred thousand
1:56:30
of kids who grow up in some appalling circumstance
1:56:33
wind up not having that profile and
1:56:36
blah, blah, all of that, um,
1:56:38
change happens. Massive amounts
1:56:40
of change can happen. And
1:56:42
when you look at how that works,
1:56:46
it's exactly as mechanistic as everything
1:56:48
else that reinforces the
1:56:50
belief that we
1:56:54
don't have free will rather than doing exactly
1:56:56
the opposite.
1:56:57
No, in fact, I, yeah, we're not an agreement
1:57:00
because I guess what I wanted to say is that appropriately,
1:57:03
in fact, that's my out at the last part of this book,
1:57:06
I'm going to argue that,
1:57:10
that appropriately treating the
1:57:12
world as if we have free will understanding that
1:57:14
we don't have free will, will
1:57:16
allow the kind of
1:57:18
positive change
1:57:20
that one, that is that,
1:57:23
that is necessary. Even personal positive change, Rick,
1:57:26
we'll get there. The possibility
1:57:28
of change and how you do it can
1:57:30
only be effectively done when you understand the mechanisms
1:57:33
that imply we don't have free will, if
1:57:35
you want to understand how, how to
1:57:38
affect, you know, we talk about, we don't have the
1:57:40
ability to determine what
1:57:43
we wish in some ways,
1:57:46
but we can, but with that knowledge, we can,
1:57:49
we can, I think, allow
1:57:51
future development that may change what we wish.
1:57:53
So we'll, we'll get there. And I think that's really
1:57:56
important. But, but I guess what I was saying
1:57:58
is that some of the societal solutions
1:58:01
that are proposed. There's
1:58:06
inequities and they're built in inequities in the world.
1:58:08
And that's and you're right, we should be trying to address
1:58:10
those in a realistic way. And
1:58:13
a realistic way means thinking about the science and
1:58:16
not and not thinking about airy
1:58:18
fairy wonderful imaginary
1:58:20
solutions. I guess that's that's that's my
1:58:23
let alone nationalistic myths
1:58:25
of equal opportunity. Yeah, exactly.
1:58:27
You got it. Anyway, so that so
1:58:30
I think that the I love your
1:58:32
summary part of basically
1:58:34
the takeaway is that it's impossible to
1:58:36
successfully exactly this is what I was gonna
1:58:39
I was good for this quote was right in front of
1:58:41
me. It's impossible to successfully wish
1:58:44
what you're going to wish for. The chapter's
1:58:47
punchline is it's impossible to successfully
1:58:49
will yourself to have more willpower. And
1:58:52
that it it isn't a great idea to
1:58:54
run the world on the belief that people can and should
1:58:59
I and that's important. But
1:59:01
I want to come back to that because I think that does
1:59:03
leave this will this loophole that
1:59:05
while you can't successfully will
1:59:08
yourself to have more willpower,
1:59:10
what you can do is potentially
1:59:12
with that knowledge and
1:59:15
the recognition that people can learn and change, you
1:59:17
can imagine ways to in
1:59:20
the future adjust
1:59:23
yourself to have
1:59:26
characteristics that you might prefer to have. And
1:59:29
exactly that's really important. But you can
1:59:31
only do it if you realize the real science
1:59:33
behind it, which is that it's not you don't do it by just
1:59:36
strength of character. You
1:59:37
do it by thinking of the kind of things that
1:59:39
change people for better or worse.
1:59:42
And so I think that's really
1:59:44
important.
1:59:46
And if in addition to that, you're lucky
1:59:48
enough to wind up in life where you can listen
1:59:50
to a lecture.
1:59:52
Yeah, exactly. That's the whole point.
1:59:54
I mean, learning actually works. Otherwise, you and
1:59:56
I if we didn't think that I don't think you and I would have been
1:59:58
doing what we well we might have anyway.
2:00:00
But, but, but
2:00:03
we, you know, is that
2:00:05
a ha experience? In fact, somewhere
2:00:07
in the book, you say how devastating the stating is to find something
2:00:10
you fundamentally believe in is
2:00:12
wrong. And I've always said, I found it the most energizing
2:00:14
thing in the world. I hope everyone, my,
2:00:17
my goal in higher education is that every
2:00:20
student has something that they fundamentally
2:00:22
believe is central to their being proved to
2:00:24
be wrong. And that's the purpose of education,
2:00:26
I think, because it opens your mind. Well,
2:00:29
I think, as I said before, you're made of more resilient
2:00:32
stuff than me. So good go, maybe.
2:00:34
Yeah, well, yeah, what maybe in that aspect,
2:00:37
but I still
2:00:39
feel I still envy all the other
2:00:41
aspects of you. Anyway, and, and,
2:00:44
and I find them remarkable in ways
2:00:46
I always find when people do things that I couldn't think
2:00:49
of even doing in principle, and you're
2:00:51
full of that. But anyway, let's add that we've already, okay,
2:00:54
enough of that. Okay,
2:00:57
I want to get to chaos and determinism. And then I want
2:00:59
to get to the to the to sort of the emotional
2:01:02
heart of this, which is, which is responsibility
2:01:05
in the second half of your book. But so
2:01:07
you the argument, it looks, it comes down to
2:01:09
this, okay, people say, Yeah, yeah, all that sort of, but
2:01:11
nature has these weird characteristics.
2:01:15
And one is chaos, that
2:01:17
the world is chaotic and and unpredictable.
2:01:20
And
2:01:22
and,
2:01:25
and that's, there's the out, there's the magic,
2:01:28
there's the magic out because the world is unpredictable,
2:01:30
either because when you never have more than two
2:01:32
bodies, and as you described
2:01:35
nicely here, you
2:01:37
have you have chaotic systems, you can't you can't
2:01:40
you can't predict the future of a three body
2:01:42
system, which is amazing when you think about
2:01:44
it. It's just the first time I learned that was amazing. And
2:01:47
I will give a plug, by the way, I
2:01:52
Timothy Palmer wrote a book called
2:01:54
something,
2:01:57
something is something
2:01:59
of doubt. which I just actually we had a he's
2:02:01
a physicist, he's a climatologist. It's a
2:02:04
great book on chaos and, and, and,
2:02:06
and understanding its implications
2:02:08
for not just, not just climate science,
2:02:10
but
2:02:11
behavior and all sorts of other things. I highly recommend
2:02:13
you take a look at it. I don't know
2:02:15
if you saw it, but in some recent issue of science
2:02:18
or nature, there was a paper entitled
2:02:20
something like a statistical
2:02:23
solution to the three body problem, which
2:02:25
of course, I immediately turned the page because I was not
2:02:27
going to understand the word of it. I
2:02:29
assume it really has not solved
2:02:32
the three body problem statistically. Well, yeah,
2:02:34
I mean, but I mean, a statistical solution is chaos,
2:02:36
especially if they're if they're, if they're,
2:02:39
you know, stranger track, you can ask what's the likelihood
2:02:41
of the system is going to end, which is what meteorology
2:02:43
is all about. What's the likelihood that
2:02:46
and you do that by running computer simulations
2:02:48
many times over and you see where it goes, because you can't
2:02:51
a priori do it, you change the initial conditions.
2:02:53
Anyway, but chaos
2:02:56
implies and
2:02:58
you go into this that that that
2:03:02
for many systems, small changes, extremely
2:03:04
small changes in initial conditions, can
2:03:06
lose dramatic changes in
2:03:09
outcomes can don't
2:03:11
don't always that not don't must but can
2:03:13
and that's an important thing too. They don't always
2:03:16
but they can and that seems to
2:03:18
be suggested somehow. There's
2:03:21
this there's this out. And, and,
2:03:23
and I think, I
2:03:26
don't know where you say it here, but basically, I
2:03:29
paraphrase this thing not being able to so
2:03:33
this is an anti reductionist argument.
2:03:36
And as a as a reductionist,
2:03:38
it's always amusing for me to see the
2:03:40
anti reductionism as someone who's tried to understand
2:03:42
the fundamental structure of matter. So it's amusing.
2:03:46
Because I'll all you later emergent
2:03:50
complexity, I think is reductionism
2:03:52
in a different form, but but not
2:03:56
being able to trace things to their fundamental constituents,
2:03:59
not being able to go back to the fundamental
2:04:01
constituents to be able to say how a system
2:04:03
is behave is not an out
2:04:06
You want and let me let you
2:04:08
give your explanation and then I want to add something to
2:04:10
it from physics. Oh good
2:04:13
because every single person who
2:04:15
says Chaoticism
2:04:19
is totally cool and unexpected and revolutionary
2:04:21
is completely right and Every one
2:04:23
of them who then says and this is
2:04:25
where you could find free will is Wrong
2:04:28
because they always make the same
2:04:30
mistake. They think that systems
2:04:33
that are unpredictable are undeterministic
2:04:37
and That's to get out of free
2:04:40
get out of jail free card that they think they're
2:04:42
pulling out at that point and there
2:04:44
is a universe of differences between
2:04:46
determinism and predictability chaotic
2:04:49
systems which occur
2:04:52
in like Molecules and cells
2:04:55
and brains and societies and universes
2:04:58
Chaotic systems are deterministic
2:05:01
are that deterministic is the most like
2:05:03
old-time clock with gears but
2:05:06
because of the nature of the
2:05:08
interactions going on are not predictable
2:05:11
and Unpredictable does not
2:05:13
mean you can pull free will out of that That's
2:05:16
the key point you make and I think very important
2:05:19
is it Unpredictable is not
2:05:21
not deterministic. They the three-body system
2:05:23
is this
2:05:23
is it is governed by Newton's
2:05:25
laws There's nothing more predictable than
2:05:27
that They're the same things that made it the world that
2:05:30
ended the burning of witches when made it seem like the world
2:05:32
was comprehensible by
2:05:35
by mathematics and and and
2:05:37
and causes had effects and and
2:05:40
effects had causes
2:05:42
Yeah, but but they're unpredictable But let me
2:05:45
add for for your ammunition as I was
2:05:47
thinking about this It occurred to me the
2:05:49
exact this almost the strongest
2:05:51
version I can think of this is thermodynamics
2:05:55
Because there I can't predict. There's
2:05:57
no way I can break where the atoms in
2:05:59
this room are, for many reasons. There's
2:06:02
no way. But there's nothing
2:06:05
stronger than the second law of thermodynamics,
2:06:08
which says, even it's all totally unpredictable.
2:06:13
But it governs the world. There's
2:06:15
a law that you can't break. And every time people
2:06:18
try and do it, they create perpetual motion machines
2:06:20
because they try and avoid the second law of thermodynamics. And
2:06:23
much of life is trying to avoid it. When I look
2:06:25
at my study every day,
2:06:27
it's trying to avoid it. And
2:06:29
yet, there's nothing stronger, nothing
2:06:34
more deterministic than the second
2:06:36
law of thermodynamics. Yet, it's based
2:06:39
on the fact that I have a system that's at
2:06:44
a fundamental, large-scale level unpredictable.
2:06:48
We're never going to be able to say exactly
2:06:50
where it's going to be puffing out. But by
2:06:52
definition, if you've just climbed up
2:06:55
a mountain with a bag of potato chips, you probably
2:06:57
with you are going to be bulging
2:06:59
outward. Yeah, exactly. And
2:07:02
it's incredibly important that it's
2:07:06
the
2:07:10
basis of the world we live in. Physics works
2:07:13
for a world that's chaotic and unpredictable
2:07:16
because it is deterministic. Because
2:07:18
there are certain things you can say with
2:07:21
certainty. And one of them is that in a closed
2:07:23
system, the entropy of that
2:07:25
system is going to either remain the same
2:07:27
or increase. And
2:07:31
that's deterministic. That's a rule. That's
2:07:33
a law and a law that can be violated
2:07:36
in spite of the unpredictability
2:07:38
of the specifics of that system. And
2:07:41
that's, I guess, where I come from in physics. OK,
2:07:44
for the first time in my life, I'm going to start using
2:07:46
the word thermodynamics. It's
2:07:50
exactly. Oh, good. Yeah,
2:07:52
exactly. Just like I'm going to
2:07:55
say, I'm going to remember that dorsal
2:07:58
lateral or whatever, PFC make my sense. Sound
2:08:00
good too. Okay.
2:08:04
One, we'll come to, I want
2:08:06
to jump ahead because you point out that
2:08:09
we have developed, okay. So
2:08:12
that in 1922, people would have said that,
2:08:15
you know, someone
2:08:17
who began shoplifting, you know, and
2:08:21
urinating in public behaved a certain way because he
2:08:23
chose to. In 2022, we
2:08:25
now say they behave that way because of deterministic
2:08:28
mutations of one gene in this
2:08:30
particular example. And you point out
2:08:32
that, so in, if
2:08:35
that,
2:08:38
I forget what you say, but if free
2:08:41
will is determined by what we know, by level
2:08:43
of ignorance, there's something wrong.
2:08:45
If an instance of free will exists only
2:08:47
until there's a decrease in our ignorance. So
2:08:50
it's free will until we understand it and then it's not
2:08:52
free will anymore. And as I say,
2:08:55
that's exactly the God of the gaps argument.
2:08:57
Exactly. You know, thunderstorms
2:08:59
are God and then we understand thunderstorms and where's
2:09:02
the room left for God. It's
2:09:04
not, even theologians understand it's not
2:09:06
a good argument for trying to put God there
2:09:08
because that shrinks. And I don't understand
2:09:10
why the free will people don't realize that shrinks
2:09:12
each time we learn more about how systems work.
2:09:15
Yes.
2:09:17
Emergent complexity is interesting
2:09:19
because the
2:09:21
argument and I've seen in physics, there's
2:09:27
this debate because these people say, oh, well, you know, particle
2:09:30
physics is these fundamentalize, okay. But
2:09:32
really the really interesting stuff is the stuff that
2:09:34
you can't explain at this reductionistic level. It's
2:09:37
all the fascinating structures is how Oatmeal
2:09:39
boils. And
2:09:44
there are things, you know, obviously
2:09:46
the understanding things
2:09:48
at a microscopic level don't necessarily help you
2:09:50
understand. And there's lots of, and you
2:09:52
give examples of a emerging complexity in particular
2:09:55
in neuronal systems.
2:09:56
And, but...
2:10:02
Again, it's not
2:10:04
clear why that reflects
2:10:05
anything. The
2:10:11
fact that you can't trace the
2:10:14
end result from fundamental constituents
2:10:16
is once again
2:10:20
ignoring the fact that unpredictability
2:10:24
is not the same as indeterminacy.
2:10:31
Evolution itself in some sense, it
2:10:33
seems to me, when I was reading it,
2:10:35
some thoughts occurred and I wanted to run them by you.
2:10:39
It's
2:10:42
no great mystery. I mean, snowflakes are in some
2:10:44
sense emergent complexity. You take the fundamental
2:10:46
polar interactions of molecules and who
2:10:48
would have thought they'd form these beautiful Christmas-like
2:10:51
patterns. But more than that,
2:10:57
evolution itself in some sense is
2:10:59
a – because you point out that the whole
2:11:01
point of emergent
2:11:04
complexity is that the individual constituents
2:11:07
are just doing their own little thing without
2:11:09
knowing what the whole system is doing and
2:11:11
somehow the whole system goes in a certain direction.
2:11:14
And that's a remarkable statement.
2:11:17
But okay, so what?
2:11:21
I wanted to ask you, don't
2:11:23
you see – I mean, I see evolution as exactly
2:11:25
that. Biological
2:11:28
systems evolve not because they're
2:11:30
heading in some direction or because globally
2:11:33
something's happening. It's because the individual
2:11:35
system sort of might be
2:11:37
a genetic mutation and nearest-neighbor
2:11:41
interactions, reproduction and
2:11:44
other things are going to drive the system in a way
2:11:46
that may in response
2:11:48
to natural selection will create
2:11:51
an organism that has beautifully
2:11:54
structured existence to make it look like they
2:11:56
were designed. Exactly.
2:11:59
And that's
2:12:01
totally
2:12:02
cool and amazing and emerging complexity
2:12:05
makes me so happy. I can't even begin to
2:12:07
tell you that. And it's the greatest
2:12:10
in all of that, but this
2:12:12
is not a playground either where
2:12:15
suddenly you can pull free will out of
2:12:17
it. Because once again,
2:12:19
it's built around the confusion of predictability
2:12:21
and determinism. And the people
2:12:24
who try to sidestep it and
2:12:27
still somehow get free will out of it, always
2:12:30
do the same trick that their model
2:12:32
requires once you've established
2:12:34
an emergent level of something
2:12:36
unexpected, that emergent
2:12:39
level can reach down and
2:12:41
change the constituent parts. And
2:12:44
if and only if there's 10,000 ants and
2:12:46
they have formed like a complex society,
2:12:49
like each individual ant now
2:12:51
can like solve the traveling
2:12:54
salesman problem on a piece of paper. No,
2:12:56
the whole point of emerging complexity
2:12:59
is that the stupid simple
2:13:01
little building blocks are
2:13:04
still just as stupid and simple.
2:13:06
But because there's enough of them, out
2:13:08
of it has come something amazing and complex
2:13:10
and adaptive.
2:13:12
But
2:13:13
in order to pretend you've pulled free
2:13:15
will out of it, you've got to assume the
2:13:17
system works in a way that it can't, that it doesn't.
2:13:21
Exactly. Okay, and then let me throw something
2:13:23
out at you that I only realized in the context of reading
2:13:26
that description of yours, which
2:13:28
I'm gonna use now whenever I hear people throw
2:13:30
emergent complexity at me.
2:13:32
That
2:13:34
emergent complexity is an extreme
2:13:36
form of reductionism. Because
2:13:38
emergent complexity is just saying, right,
2:13:41
reductionism is saying the world, the complicated world
2:13:43
is based on simple principles, few quirks,
2:13:46
four forces, put them together and look what
2:13:48
happens. Emergent complexity
2:13:50
is saying exactly the same thing. The fundamental
2:13:52
constituents aren't knowledgeable about
2:13:54
the whole world, they're not complex. They're very
2:13:56
simple. They have a few simple behaviors,
2:13:59
a few. simple properties that are restricted
2:14:01
to, and out of that simplicity comes
2:14:04
this amazing complexity. So
2:14:07
it's the ultimate form of reductionism, it seems to me.
2:14:09
Exactly, and the only reason,
2:14:14
and it's reductionism, which when you put
2:14:16
enough pieces together becomes unpredictable,
2:14:18
but you haven't, like, escaped from the laws of
2:14:20
reductionism. And the only reason
2:14:22
why emerging complexity is interesting,
2:14:26
separate of, because sometimes it's really
2:14:28
surprising and beautiful, is that
2:14:30
understanding some phenomena,
2:14:33
it makes more sense to try to get it at that level
2:14:36
than at the more reductive level.
2:14:38
It's just more convenient. Yeah, exactly.
2:14:41
But physics is also based on that. Most
2:14:43
people, I've written about it in one of my books, most people
2:14:45
don't realize physics does exactly that. The
2:14:48
laws of physics are not, there's no law of
2:14:50
physics is universal. So
2:14:53
you discuss the laws that are appropriate to the scale
2:14:56
at which you're exploring phenomena. That
2:14:59
was a revolution in our thinking about physics, and
2:15:01
we actually have the mathematical underpinning of that, something
2:15:03
called the normalization group, it doesn't matter.
2:15:06
But that it's appropriate
2:15:09
if you're a psychologist, if
2:15:12
you're a behavior psychologist or a neuroscience,
2:15:15
it's ridiculous to try thinking about quark
2:15:17
interactions, it's not gonna get you anywhere. And
2:15:20
so, but the same is true in physics, it's not
2:15:22
a new phenomena, that you talk about
2:15:24
the
2:15:25
appropriate
2:15:27
interactions at the scale at which you're
2:15:29
looking at. And that's just, you know. And
2:15:32
you do that because you eventually
2:15:34
wanna finish your thesis and get a degree.
2:15:37
Exactly. It's like the most accessible
2:15:39
level. Yeah, you wanna, yeah, you wanna
2:15:42
do, you wanna exactly, you wanna get results. And
2:15:44
then that's what science is all about, find a way to get
2:15:46
results that work and that you can test.
2:15:49
And nothing more fundamental than
2:15:51
that. But you point out, I
2:15:53
mean, this thing you just said that some level you have
2:15:55
to reach down, in order to find that miracle,
2:15:58
in order to find that way, The emergent
2:16:00
complex system is to reach down and change
2:16:03
the properties of the fundamental constituents. But
2:16:05
neurons are still neurons, independent of whatever.
2:16:09
And the mechanisms neurons are not going to change
2:16:11
no matter how complex the system there's in. Their
2:16:14
fundamental interactions are going to be the same. And
2:16:18
I can't help but say this. There's a whole chapter based
2:16:20
on this. And it seems to me you
2:16:22
must be doing it because that's where all the
2:16:24
philosophers are hanging
2:16:26
their hats. Without saying
2:16:28
it, somehow they're all saying just
2:16:31
that without explicitly
2:16:33
saying it because when you explicitly say it, it sounds
2:16:36
ridiculous. And I can't help but think you
2:16:38
must have, for much of your life, had to
2:16:40
counter those philosophers or at
2:16:42
least hear those philosophical arguments.
2:16:45
That's
2:16:46
really seductive.
2:16:50
And that's what it pivots around. And
2:16:54
I stole this metaphor from someone,
2:16:56
oh, an emergent feature of
2:16:58
water molecules is water
2:17:01
molecules are not wet until there's a whole
2:17:03
lot of them. That's an emergent property. However,
2:17:07
water is made of two hydrogens and one oxygen.
2:17:10
It's not the case that once things
2:17:12
get wet, it's sustained because
2:17:14
it's now two oxygens and one hydrogen.
2:17:17
Yeah, that's great. That's great.
2:17:19
Okay, we
2:17:22
will now move to quantum mechanics, but you'll be happy to know
2:17:25
we're going to gloss over it for
2:17:27
many reasons because I think it's a red herring
2:17:29
in the first place. And
2:17:31
you point out how it's a red herring for
2:17:35
biological reasons, which I'm aware of. And
2:17:37
I had a big debate once on stage
2:17:40
with Mr. Hammeroff about this. But
2:17:43
yeah, I know. Where I explained
2:17:46
it, I had another slightest understanding of what quantum mechanics
2:17:48
was all about. But
2:17:51
the idea is people say, look, quantum mechanics
2:17:53
is indeterminate because it has
2:17:55
a fundamental indeterminacy that you perform
2:17:58
an experiment and the results are profitable. probabilistic.
2:18:00
You can't say with certainty, in
2:18:03
some cases you can, but in many cases you
2:18:05
can't say with certainty what the result, you can
2:18:07
only say probabilistically what the result of an experimental
2:18:10
bee. And suddenly that fundamental
2:18:12
indeterminacy appears to give you a way
2:18:15
out. Let's
2:18:17
give your arguments for why that's irrelevant,
2:18:19
which is basically
2:18:21
two, I think, I want to summarize
2:18:24
them. One, that
2:18:26
randomness
2:18:31
is not a good explanation of free will. And
2:18:33
two, that when you actually think of the mechanics of
2:18:35
the brain, the scale of which quantum mechanical
2:18:38
effects might come about, which
2:18:41
is something I recognize too, but the
2:18:44
scale at which they might be relevant is vastly
2:18:46
different than the scale of which it's going to cause
2:18:48
an activation potential or a
2:18:50
whole slew of things to happen to make a decision.
2:18:53
They're vastly different scales. So why
2:18:55
don't you elaborate for a second and then I'll explain why
2:18:57
I don't think any of that matters anyway.
2:19:01
I had never heard this phrase before
2:19:04
before starting to read about this stuff. The
2:19:06
brain is a moist,
2:19:09
noisy environment, which
2:19:11
was very picturesque to me and kind of like
2:19:14
unsettling and a little
2:19:16
bit yucky. But I guess
2:19:18
like for stuff
2:19:22
at the quantum level to have
2:19:24
any hope and
2:19:26
hope in this case comes with like 23
2:19:29
zeros after it, any hope
2:19:31
of being able to impact macro events,
2:19:34
it requires a synchrony.
2:19:38
It requires all of these random events to
2:19:40
be random and roughly the same way all at once.
2:19:42
And it can't work that way statistically.
2:19:46
And it especially can't work that way in
2:19:49
moist, noisy environments like
2:19:51
biological stuff, because
2:19:53
what they're very good at is collapsing
2:19:58
sort of the indeterminate
2:19:59
features. Yeah, the claps the way for yeah,
2:20:02
I mean, that's the arguments that are presented that those words
2:20:04
are are problematic,
2:20:06
but the odd but the idea is exactly that
2:20:09
that
2:20:09
You
2:20:10
know, I face it because people talk to me. Well,
2:20:13
well, look at all this quantum Entanglement
2:20:15
and quantum teleportation when we will
2:20:17
be able to send people from here there I would have a book about Star
2:20:19
Trek as you know and and and And
2:20:23
the point is the only reason we can do that is we
2:20:25
have to is quantum mechanics
2:20:27
is so weird is
2:20:30
because we don't experience it we don't
2:20:32
experience it because We
2:20:34
don't we're not quantum where we
2:20:36
we're classical beings and our we are
2:20:39
exist at a level where the quantum mechanical
2:20:41
aspect Reality is hidden. It's an amazing thing that
2:20:43
we humans even discovered that it's
2:20:45
there that
2:20:47
That in order to illustrate these
2:20:49
quantum mechanical things you
2:20:51
have to put very Carefully
2:20:54
prepare systems and unbelievably carefully
2:20:56
prepare systems. That's why Nobel prizes are given
2:20:58
out for these things It's hard to do so that
2:21:00
you get so that you can isolate the weirdness
2:21:03
of quantum mechanics Otherwise, it's
2:21:05
not there if it was quantum mechanics
2:21:07
wouldn't seem so strange but
2:21:09
it's It's not there
2:21:11
because you know You can't teleport a human
2:21:14
because a human is in a very carefully prepared State
2:21:17
of two photons where you work very hard and
2:21:19
you isolate it from the environment all
2:21:22
the time It's happening. So there are no further interactions which
2:21:24
destroy quantum correlations and all
2:21:26
of the rest and I mean
2:21:28
it is surprising that there are in biological systems
2:21:31
places where quantum coherence exists
2:21:33
We wouldn't have expected it to you know, maybe
2:21:35
in photosynthesis, for example But
2:21:38
but that's different than than brain function,
2:21:40
which is incredibly noisy environment
2:21:43
Not just noisy but the scale over
2:21:45
which quantum fluctuations even if
2:21:47
they can happen could happen is vastly
2:21:49
different than the scale where the important
2:21:52
things related to neuronal processes
2:21:54
and Activation potentials and
2:21:56
decisions and are made.
2:21:58
Okay, so that's I think that
2:21:59
that's
2:22:00
really important. But
2:22:02
the thing I want to stress to you is quantum
2:22:06
mechanics isn't indeterminate. So
2:22:08
that whole argument is wrong in the first place. People
2:22:10
get it wrong. Quantum mechanics
2:22:14
is based on a second order differential equation.
2:22:16
Schrodinger equation. Second order differential
2:22:19
equation says if you give me the initial and
2:22:21
it's a second order differential equation for the wave
2:22:23
function, not for an observable,
2:22:26
but it says you define it here and
2:22:28
for all, just like Newton, just
2:22:30
like the three body problem, for all future
2:22:33
times I can calculate exactly with 100%
2:22:36
certainty what the wave function is
2:22:38
going to do, at least in principle and practice I might not
2:22:40
be able to. It's an incredibly, it's
2:22:42
completely deterministic. Now
2:22:44
it is true that when you try and
2:22:46
make measurements, those are
2:22:48
probabilistic, but the underlying mechanism
2:22:52
of quantum mechanics is completely deterministic.
2:22:55
And so the fact that the results
2:22:58
are probabilistic
2:22:59
is just a red herring. And
2:23:02
the example I would give you, I think,
2:23:04
which I think is part of, you know, so people say,
2:23:06
oh, maybe there's some accidental activation
2:23:10
here that changes your view here. And
2:23:12
that gives you an out because of quantum mechanics. The
2:23:15
example that I think is really important is radioactivity.
2:23:19
Radioactivity happens because of quantum mechanics. So I
2:23:21
can't tell you when a given
2:23:24
uranium atom is going to decay.
2:23:27
But I can tell you with exact certainty
2:23:29
that the laws of nature is determined that
2:23:32
when what the behavior of the radioactive
2:23:34
system is going to be and how many of
2:23:37
the I can't tell you which one, but
2:23:39
I can tell you with certainty, you know,
2:23:41
if it's big enough system, exactly
2:23:43
how many and they're going to be decaying at any instant.
2:23:46
And so while it appears as
2:23:48
if you have that indeterminacy, it's
2:23:50
really a red
2:23:52
herring. The system is determined
2:23:56
as in large scale
2:23:58
as anything else. And radioactivity Is
2:24:00
a perfect example if a radio
2:24:03
if uranium atoms. You
2:24:05
put a bunch of them together are gonna have a well
2:24:07
known decay rate the same
2:24:09
is gonna be true for your neurons in your brain
2:24:11
or anything else is gonna just as prescribed.
2:24:14
No.
2:24:16
I would if
2:24:19
you would tell me that i would not have had to a
2:24:21
fake my way through writing two chapters
2:24:23
on it no but on the other hand it's good what
2:24:25
is the fact you are forced to do it is usually because
2:24:28
then you were able to discuss the things you know. Which
2:24:30
is the process is in the brain and
2:24:32
illustrate those which i can't do illustrate
2:24:35
exactly how how implausible
2:24:39
even if it were true how the
2:24:41
process is that determine free will in your brain
2:24:44
aren't going to be affected by quantum mechanics and
2:24:48
and anyway well.
2:24:52
We're now going to talk we're going to now spend the last
2:24:54
half hour so talking about
2:24:56
the last half of your book it's really not last
2:24:58
half so I feel better it's like the last third.
2:25:02
And which i which i which
2:25:05
gave me solace when i realized how much i had left to
2:25:07
read when i when i when i before i got to the end. The
2:25:11
the. The
2:25:13
you know question of what we do about this but
2:25:16
but part so so given that given
2:25:18
that. It's undeniable
2:25:20
that the that the world that we don't
2:25:23
have free will based on science so there's no loopholes
2:25:25
there's no places for the magic to
2:25:27
occur. Why
2:25:33
do we have the illusion of free will. And
2:25:36
why is that a good thing you ask about at the very
2:25:38
beginning of this and and and it seems
2:25:40
to me. Yeah are
2:25:42
you have mentioned to it there's an obvious reasons
2:25:45
right because because it allows
2:25:47
us to function. Effectively
2:25:50
the illusion of free will allows us to go about
2:25:52
from whether we're early
2:25:55
hominids or not to
2:25:57
go about living the life. creating
2:26:00
the illusions that allow us to live our daily lives.
2:26:03
And evolution therefore picks
2:26:06
us, we don't have the choice. We
2:26:08
don't have the choice to not believe in free will.
2:26:12
If we want to be
2:26:15
psychiatrically
2:26:18
resilient, one
2:26:20
of my favorite definitions of clinical
2:26:22
depression is it's a pathological
2:26:25
failure of the ability to rationalize
2:26:27
away reality.
2:26:29
That's great. Oh, I like that. Yeah,
2:26:32
absolutely. And
2:26:34
here's the point. When I say we
2:26:36
have no choice, we
2:26:38
have a, well, we don't have a choice, but we
2:26:41
can learn intellectually. We
2:26:44
can learn. Every time I'm going to say I have a choice,
2:26:47
I'm going to say we can learn. If we're
2:26:49
exposed to the right teachers at the right time in the
2:26:51
right place,
2:26:53
we can learn intellectually that free will
2:26:55
doesn't exist. You and I can learn that. And that does not
2:26:58
mean that we emotionally,
2:27:00
since reason is a slave of passion, that
2:27:03
in our daily lives, we don't go
2:27:05
about our daily lives every day, but
2:27:07
because we function well enough
2:27:11
to be integrated in society, that
2:27:14
we don't go around behaving like everyone
2:27:16
else, like we are making choices and we're doing
2:27:18
that. But
2:27:21
it's the same as saying, the
2:27:24
fact that evolution requires us in
2:27:27
some sense to believe in if you will, is the
2:27:29
same as saying, well, evolution may, in
2:27:32
principle, suggest it's okay
2:27:36
to kill your neighbor under certain conditions, but
2:27:38
we do have learning that allows
2:27:40
us to at least intellectually override
2:27:43
that fundamental
2:27:46
evolutionary
2:27:47
remnant.
2:27:49
So I think
2:27:51
the second half of your book, in large sense, is
2:27:54
about how we understand,
2:27:57
override, and utilize
2:27:59
it. to make a world which isn't bad.
2:28:02
It may seem like it's bad. And so
2:28:05
if I go to...
2:28:16
So you know, you summarize basically saying, yeah,
2:28:19
well, I don't think we need to summarize anymore biological
2:28:21
turtles all the way down. But what do we do
2:28:23
with that? And the first question
2:28:26
is, you know, will we run amok? Because
2:28:29
the first thing you can think of, it's the same as the question
2:28:31
people have with atheists. If we don't have
2:28:33
free will, then why care? Then why
2:28:36
should we try and be good? Why
2:28:38
should we... Let's just do what we
2:28:40
do. I'm not responsible for what I do, so
2:28:46
who cares? And I think
2:28:49
just like for atheism, I mean,
2:28:51
you could have that attitude. But
2:28:54
I think the thing you point out is
2:28:58
that that's not a
2:29:00
natural consequence of accepting the
2:29:03
absence of free will any more than
2:29:07
accepting that there's not a God. If
2:29:09
you look at the statistics and you look at
2:29:11
the data, does
2:29:14
not primus naturally behave, quote unquote,
2:29:17
immorally, that
2:29:20
when you actually look at the data, people
2:29:23
who don't believe
2:29:25
in a God generally
2:29:31
don't behave any more immorally
2:29:34
than and often sometimes more ethically
2:29:37
than people who do.
2:29:39
I want to let you elaborate on that.
2:29:42
Which is, thank
2:29:44
God, because that solves the running
2:29:46
amok problem. The literature,
2:29:49
there's been like a handful of studies
2:29:51
about the ethical implications and making people
2:29:53
believe more or less in free will, but there's a massive
2:29:56
literature on the relationship with
2:30:00
between ethical behavior
2:30:02
and belief in deities and
2:30:04
stuff. And it's exactly what
2:30:07
you show,
2:30:08
in part because a lot
2:30:10
of the time, religious people are telling
2:30:12
you about how ethical they're being.
2:30:15
And a lot of the time you're measuring
2:30:17
things as being ethical, which don't
2:30:19
really matter to atheists
2:30:21
and all sorts
2:30:24
of other confounds in there. But
2:30:26
the most interesting thing about
2:30:28
that literature is
2:30:31
exactly paralleled in the free
2:30:33
will one, prime
2:30:35
someone to believe less than free will for the next 10
2:30:38
minutes and they cheat more on a economic
2:30:41
game. And even
2:30:43
though it's not clear if that really does happen all
2:30:45
the time, but get someone
2:30:48
who hasn't believed in free will
2:30:51
for a long, long time, and
2:30:54
there is exactly as ethical as
2:30:56
someone who really believes in the very heart. And
2:30:58
the religion equivalent
2:31:00
is one that like, I
2:31:02
don't know,
2:31:03
why get some sort of almost transcendence,
2:31:06
something out of. When
2:31:11
you look at people who have thought long
2:31:14
and hard about where
2:31:17
does goodness come from and
2:31:19
what sort of person I wanna be and
2:31:22
what does this all mean and why are we here if
2:31:24
they thought long and hard about it, it
2:31:26
almost doesn't matter if their conclusion is and
2:31:30
there's no free will or there's no
2:31:32
God or if their conclusion is
2:31:34
there's a God with all
2:31:36
these attributes, on the average,
2:31:39
they're gonna be more ethical than other people
2:31:42
because
2:31:43
they've thought long and hard.
2:31:46
And it's the doing that
2:31:48
that's almost certainly a guarantee
2:31:51
because you care about
2:31:53
what counts as the right way
2:31:55
to live your life
2:31:57
enough to have thought long and hard about it.
2:31:59
And enough to have had a moment of crisis
2:32:02
and enough to have felt lonely
2:32:04
because there's no God or enough to...
2:32:07
Yeah, it's because that stuff
2:32:09
matters to you enough to have thought
2:32:12
about it and to have thought about how you
2:32:14
feel about it.
2:32:15
And that's what it's about. We're not
2:32:17
gonna run amok. If we train kids
2:32:21
and people with as much
2:32:23
value-laden
2:32:26
ideas about why
2:32:28
are you the way you are and why did this person
2:32:30
become the way they became as
2:32:33
we invest in theological
2:32:36
or agentive arguments about
2:32:38
it, it
2:32:40
would be, we're
2:32:42
not gonna run amok. And
2:32:45
here's a psychological experiment I've done. Because
2:32:50
with the atheist thing, not the free will thing, you
2:32:53
give the standard, somewhere the standard dialogue,
2:32:58
how we trust you atheists be moral if you don't think God
2:33:00
holds. And
2:33:05
when I hear that, I
2:33:08
always ask the question and I've done this to audience
2:33:11
at only once did someone come
2:33:13
up, why say, okay, if
2:33:15
you didn't believe in God, would you go and kill your neighbor
2:33:17
right now? And
2:33:22
generally, except for one exception where
2:33:24
someone said yes, you
2:33:27
know, people say no because they have reason, they
2:33:29
have thought, they, you know, and
2:33:32
by the way, that's Steve Pinker's argument
2:33:34
for why God is redundant. Because if
2:33:36
God said rape and murder of
2:33:39
innocent people was okay, would it be okay?
2:33:44
And most people say no. And then you say, well,
2:33:46
then Steve Pinker would say, well, just get rid of the middleman.
2:33:48
You don't need the God to say
2:33:50
it. But I think the point is if you ask people,
2:33:53
okay, just imagine you believe in God, would you then
2:33:56
steal from your neighbor, beat
2:33:59
your kids. And
2:34:02
people, you know, and when I think about it,
2:34:04
they realize that it's not, even if they think
2:34:06
it's their belief in God, even if
2:34:08
that's what they're telling them, fundamentally,
2:34:11
if they have reason, they think
2:34:13
of all the reasons why they shouldn't be doing the bad
2:34:16
behavior anyway. And it's
2:34:18
superfluous. And I think the same, you
2:34:20
know, is true of free will. Ultimately, if
2:34:23
you think about reason and rationality,
2:34:25
you're going to, the behavior is going to be the same,
2:34:27
regardless of whether you believe
2:34:30
in free will or not. So that's my little psychological barrier.
2:34:32
You try it in your class sometimes to see if
2:34:34
anyone would... Sounds good to me. Yeah.
2:34:37
You know, but you give the example, of course, of Scandinavia,
2:34:39
everyone's perfect example of idyllic society is having
2:34:42
problems now. But
2:34:45
you know, that there's a, you know, a secular
2:34:48
society where people on the whole are, you know, better
2:34:50
behaved and more generous,
2:34:52
blah, blah, blah. We won't go into it. We'll give you a
2:34:55
lot of examples. I would argue that
2:34:57
part of the reason is the
2:34:59
same reason I'm invigorated by the fact
2:35:01
of lack of meaning in the universe
2:35:03
is that if you focus on the here
2:35:06
and now, if the here and now is
2:35:08
all there is, then you
2:35:10
pay much more attention
2:35:12
to the here and now.
2:35:14
And if you pay much more attention to the here
2:35:16
and now, and you're rational,
2:35:18
you're going to begin to behave on the
2:35:21
whole in the kind
2:35:24
of, you might say, ethically
2:35:27
good behavior that happens naturally. So
2:35:31
getting rid of the hereafter, and
2:35:34
instead of thinking of now as all that is,
2:35:37
is actually a positive
2:35:40
motivator to behave well, not a negative one.
2:35:43
Exactly. Yep. Now,
2:35:51
and you do point out that religion, your
2:35:54
religion generally tends to have people
2:35:56
treat people better, but only in their own group.
2:35:59
And the world is an example. example of that. But
2:36:01
again, I would argue that that's not so much a problem
2:36:03
of religion. We ran once, in
2:36:06
my institute, I ran a workshop in the origins
2:36:08
of xenophobia. But surely,
2:36:10
I mean, that's again something over which we don't
2:36:13
have control, right? Even at the biological level, the
2:36:15
immune system is the very
2:36:18
basis of xenophobia, right? A
2:36:22
beautiful way of stating it. Yeah,
2:36:24
I mean, you know, and if it works for single-sales
2:36:26
animals and immune system, and you know, it's a
2:36:30
natural thing, we have to overcome it as
2:36:33
rational beings, just as we
2:36:35
have to ultimately overcome our illusion of free
2:36:37
will. It's
2:36:39
the same thing. And so yeah, I don't blame
2:36:41
religion for that. I blame
2:36:43
evolution.
2:36:44
But here's where
2:36:51
I see hope in where it's sometimes in
2:36:53
where you see despair,
2:36:56
maybe. I don't know whether it's really that strong.
2:36:59
You have a great section on how we learn. I
2:37:01
mean, it's beautiful. I never knew. I knew about Eric Kandel,
2:37:03
but I never knew these beautiful
2:37:05
diagrams. And it's just a lovely way of learning
2:37:08
about the neurobiology of how learning happens.
2:37:10
It's just beautiful, just spectacular.
2:37:13
And then you find out, like,
2:37:15
this is occurring in sea slugs, it's
2:37:18
the same molecules in us.
2:37:21
It's unbelievable that same molecules
2:37:23
in sea slugs and us.
2:37:25
Which is why learning about
2:37:27
how change occurs not only shows
2:37:29
you that that's not incompatible with dropping
2:37:32
free will. If it
2:37:35
proves it, you can see the building
2:37:37
blocks.
2:37:39
You
2:37:41
can see how learning, you can see
2:37:43
that it's not, again, it's not a mystery.
2:37:46
I mean, at some level it is.
2:37:48
But I mean, at the fundamental basic level,
2:37:50
you can see how naturally it's possible
2:37:52
for a system. And not only that, you
2:37:54
can see how that neurobiology
2:37:57
of learning is affected by stress and conditioning.
2:38:00
Because you can see how these neurotransmitters
2:38:03
are going to be, whether
2:38:06
they're going to be expressed or how well the
2:38:08
system is going to receive them and respond to them, are
2:38:10
based on environment. And so you can see exactly
2:38:13
how environment and
2:38:16
past experience will affect learning as well.
2:38:19
But you see, that's where the fact
2:38:21
that change happens is for me the
2:38:24
great hope. Because I guess
2:38:26
I see, I've
2:38:28
often said, and I don't know whether I'll, you know,
2:38:30
and I guess I'd say I call this better
2:38:32
living through chemistry, which
2:38:35
is really what's happening is thinking about how
2:38:37
the world really works can
2:38:40
give us more effective ways of
2:38:42
producing a better world than
2:38:45
living under the illusion that it works
2:38:47
other ways.
2:38:51
And
2:38:55
so let me give you my
2:38:57
thinking on this and I want to see what you think about
2:38:59
this. That
2:39:06
I've, as I was about to say before, I've often said,
2:39:08
and I don't know if I'll say anymore, that we live in
2:39:10
a world in which there's no free will. But
2:39:13
for all intents and purposes, it's
2:39:15
a world that is identical, it looks
2:39:18
identical on the surface to a world in which there is free
2:39:20
will. So it
2:39:23
and what I said following that, and now I'm
2:39:25
going to change what I say, I think, I said, and
2:39:27
therefore it makes sense to behave
2:39:30
as if we have free will. Now
2:39:33
in some sense, I think that's
2:39:35
still true. But now I would
2:39:38
amend that. I would say it's
2:39:42
indistinguishable on the surface from a world in which
2:39:44
there is free will. But we
2:39:48
should behave in a way
2:39:50
that understanding
2:39:54
that that's an illusion, but
2:39:58
reproducing it in a positive way by realizing
2:40:00
that there isn't free will. Namely, we
2:40:03
may not have choice to now what we wish
2:40:05
to do. And this is what I was saying earlier.
2:40:08
But
2:40:09
by learning, we can change.
2:40:12
And therefore, if we realize we don't have free will,
2:40:14
we can say, how can I be a better person? Well,
2:40:17
let me think of the neurobiological
2:40:19
influences that I can have today,
2:40:22
tomorrow, and the next day so that the
2:40:25
day afterwards, when I think of the antecedents
2:40:27
that caused me to behave a certain way, those
2:40:30
nuances heatens will be will allow me
2:40:32
to act better than it was now because and
2:40:34
so I see recognizing
2:40:37
change and only understanding that there's no
2:40:39
free will is a way to actually
2:40:42
do what you think you're doing by free will namely
2:40:44
be becoming a better person.
2:40:48
Well,
2:40:49
and there goes Dennett
2:40:51
down the drain, among other things. That's,
2:40:55
that's beautiful. I mean, amid
2:40:57
that
2:40:58
is
2:41:00
our grounds for hope. And
2:41:02
that is our grounds for like neural plasticity,
2:41:05
things can change. Things can change
2:41:08
in an awful direction. Someone who was
2:41:10
open minded and tolerant back when is now
2:41:13
a bitter old whatever. But
2:41:16
it can go in opposite directions as well. And
2:41:19
understanding not
2:41:21
how to change yourself, but understanding
2:41:24
the circumstances in which you will be
2:41:26
changed. And
2:41:29
a beneficial way is
2:41:32
a very good thing. And it's the
2:41:34
effective way of doing it. If you can
2:41:36
only do it effectively, if you understand how it happens.
2:41:38
And if you have this illusion that you have a choice, then
2:41:41
you'll probably never be able to effectively change
2:41:44
eat while you might be able to but but it's an accident.
2:41:47
And it's I think it's not just true and
2:41:49
you've illustrated between not say 1922 and 2022.
2:41:51
It's not just the case in individual
2:41:55
levels, the case in a societal level,
2:41:57
by learning so well, you know, you and I are
2:42:00
devoted, I think, to learning. It's
2:42:02
an education. We can,
2:42:05
that is a way to affect our
2:42:08
understanding and our behavior in a way
2:42:11
that makes not just us better
2:42:13
individuals, but society as a whole better
2:42:15
so we don't draw on quarter people. We
2:42:17
don't have public hangings. Even
2:42:20
though we, but we can only do that once
2:42:22
again, and you have an amazing
2:42:24
chapter on, which is scary, on retribution
2:42:27
and punishment to show that we love
2:42:29
it. But once again,
2:42:31
knowing that we love it is the same
2:42:33
as knowing that we don't believe if we will. That's
2:42:36
okay. Knowing it gives you the
2:42:38
opportunity to overcome that. It's
2:42:40
overcome that it's hardwired in one way
2:42:43
and to know how to change your environment
2:42:45
in a way so that you
2:42:47
don't enjoy
2:42:48
punishment as much.
2:42:51
Yeah,
2:42:51
it lets you figure out like
2:42:54
the joy of retribution. Okay,
2:42:57
how much does it weigh? What does it
2:42:59
smell like? Does it do more of this
2:43:01
or that in this circumstance? Here's
2:43:05
how we could
2:43:07
turn
2:43:08
brutally violent people into people
2:43:10
who will be like really aggressive
2:43:13
sons of bitches when they play chess. Yeah,
2:43:16
when they play chess, exactly. And you talk about
2:43:19
it's really hard. You talk about Scandinavia,
2:43:21
but you know, people want to punish
2:43:23
people who've done really bad things. But
2:43:26
of course, and this
2:43:29
is where I would also sort of differ
2:43:32
in at least semantically describing things. I
2:43:36
think you would say people don't have responsibility
2:43:38
for their actions in a fundamental sense. And
2:43:41
I would say we should treat them as if
2:43:43
they have responsibility. But
2:43:46
that doesn't involve punishment. Okay,
2:43:48
if I run someone over, I
2:43:51
ran them over. There's no denying that
2:43:53
fact. I'm responsible
2:43:55
for the fact that they got
2:43:57
run over. Now, I may not have had control
2:43:59
over that. But then the response
2:44:01
to that is saying, okay, you're responsible, what can
2:44:04
we do to ensure that that doesn't
2:44:06
happen again? That should be the response,
2:44:08
not, I'm going to slap you in the head,
2:44:11
but you are responsible, I would say
2:44:13
you are responsible, but if we understand
2:44:15
where it comes from, the response
2:44:18
to that responsibility is a very different
2:44:20
one. It's to say, how can we ensure,
2:44:23
sure, if you have schizophrenia, we have to probably
2:44:25
ensure that you're not in a position to hurt
2:44:27
other people, not
2:44:29
punishment. And if there's
2:44:32
a treatment, we have responsibility
2:44:34
to treat.
2:44:35
You're just,
2:44:38
you're dichotomizing between what you're
2:44:40
calling responsibility and control. I
2:44:44
would use the dichotomy between
2:44:47
mechanistic responsibility and moral
2:44:49
responsibility, but it's the exact same thing as what
2:44:51
you just said. Yeah.
2:44:53
Yeah. And, and, and, well, I mean, you talk
2:44:55
about it, you know, and I think your argument of quarantine
2:44:57
is a lovely one. You talk about the origin of the word
2:45:00
and you really, in some, you're
2:45:02
really quarantining people, just as you'd
2:45:04
quarantine people who have another kind of sickness,
2:45:07
in a way that protects others around them, but
2:45:09
not as punishment. You know, you're not keeping
2:45:11
a kid at home from school as punishment if
2:45:13
they have a cold, you're doing it, you know, for other reasons.
2:45:16
And,
2:45:18
and that,
2:45:22
and this quarantine, which can be, as
2:45:25
you say, what is punishment? Punishment,
2:45:27
which is a lovely word in Scandinavia,
2:45:29
where you think that, you know, taking
2:45:32
people who've done horrific things, like you give the
2:45:34
example of this well-known serial killer,
2:45:36
the guy who killed all those people on that island in
2:45:39
Sweden. Was Sweden
2:45:41
or Norway? I can't remember. Anyway, it's
2:45:43
one of those Skårde countries. Yeah, Norway, I think.
2:45:46
And what they put him in jail and put
2:45:49
him in an environment where he is, you know,
2:45:51
a nice environment to live in. And
2:45:53
their attitude is, you know, let's
2:45:56
see if we can make sure he, you know,
2:45:58
whatever conditions cause him to do that again. that,
2:46:00
cause them to do that won't happen again, which is very rational
2:46:03
thing to say, although most of us, you know,
2:46:05
many people intrinsically emotionally want to say,
2:46:07
kill the bastard, draw and quarter the bastard, do this,
2:46:10
you know, and,
2:46:12
And what Scandinavian culture has
2:46:14
produced as the response to the horror
2:46:16
of him is that instead of a visceral
2:46:19
desire to make him hurt, what
2:46:22
all those interviews of parents of the setters
2:46:24
showed was a visceral desire
2:46:26
to be able to say, yeah,
2:46:28
we never have to think about this guy
2:46:30
again. His
2:46:31
grandiosity. Yeah.
2:46:33
Clown. He's a
2:46:35
violent clown, but good. He's a way
2:46:38
we never have to think about him again. That's
2:46:41
what their culture has been able to detour
2:46:44
the viscera
2:46:46
of
2:46:47
grief. And if we think about it logically,
2:46:49
I think we can say we can direct our culture in that
2:46:51
direction. I mean, even we don't have the, so
2:46:54
yeah, we naturally might, our inclinations
2:46:57
and our experience might not make us want to do that
2:46:59
now, but understanding how change happens.
2:47:02
The very thing that you some sense say is depressing
2:47:05
to me offers great hope. In fact, the only
2:47:07
hope I think ultimately to get better
2:47:10
is to understand how the world really works. If
2:47:12
you don't understand how the world really works,
2:47:15
it's an accident.
2:47:16
If, if you improve it,
2:47:18
it's a complete accident.
2:47:20
And, and
2:47:23
I guess I would, I would pray I'm giving you words
2:47:25
that may be useful, but I, when I read your stuff,
2:47:27
I thought it's, this almost
2:47:29
sounds like the kind of thing some self
2:47:31
help artists would say, but I think it's true. The
2:47:34
change we want doesn't come from within that comes
2:47:36
from without. The change
2:47:38
we want is going to come from without is
2:47:40
going to put ourselves in circumstances which
2:47:43
can cause a change. It's not going to come from willpower.
2:47:45
We don't have because we didn't have it in the first
2:47:47
place.
2:47:49
Now, become the sort
2:47:51
of person who was able to put themselves
2:47:53
in a different circumstance. Yeah.
2:47:56
The last two things, and I want to go another
2:47:58
two or three minutes. You've been great. maybe five minutes.
2:48:01
I want to come back to Dan Dennis about not during
2:48:03
praise for accomplishments, which you mentioned, which
2:48:05
I thought was it is hysterical. And so as if
2:48:08
that's what it's all about, then what are
2:48:10
we talking about for? But but more than that, actually,
2:48:13
I again, I'm going to present myself
2:48:15
as a devil's advocate. I don't think we disagree.
2:48:18
But I would say that accomplishments. We
2:48:23
don't deserve praise for the accomplishments.
2:48:25
It's the same. We go back to the ancient Romans,
2:48:28
you know, who separated the artists from the art, which
2:48:32
I first learned that I used to like ancient history,
2:48:34
and I was amazed. It seems so foreign
2:48:36
to me, but it's again, so obvious. I thought, well, OK,
2:48:39
so this is the artist big deal. They would say God,
2:48:41
you know, God is speaking
2:48:43
to them, but that doesn't make this person particularly good. But
2:48:46
what we can do is we can say accomplishments can
2:48:49
be recognized as amazing. And
2:48:51
you can be recognized as amazing if
2:48:54
you're brilliant or, you know, it's
2:48:57
not something that intrinsically means
2:48:59
you're good or we have to have
2:49:01
them back for. But we can say, yeah,
2:49:03
let's recognize you're an amazing person. It's
2:49:05
nothing wrong with that. You've achieved something
2:49:07
amazing. Let's all celebrate that.
2:49:10
So I guess I can. It's instrumental.
2:49:13
What was that? Only if it's instrumental,
2:49:16
only if it inspires other people. Yeah.
2:49:18
Yeah. That person more likely
2:49:20
to do it again. That's as
2:49:22
good of a tool as anything. Sure.
2:49:25
Yeah. But I mean, the fact that you had no choice in some
2:49:27
level in being the person you are doesn't make
2:49:29
your accomplishments less amazing. It doesn't make Einstein
2:49:31
less amazing. It doesn't make you less amazing
2:49:33
to me. You're still amazing to me. Even
2:49:35
if I know you didn't have choice, Robert,
2:49:38
you really are. But yeah, so I think I
2:49:40
think recognize that. I tell you, I
2:49:42
think, you know, even someone like Dan Dennick
2:49:44
can at least, you know, say, okay,
2:49:46
well, the book you've written or
2:49:49
the arguments you've given are amazing arguments and they've
2:49:51
convinced me of this or that. And yeah,
2:49:53
we'll give a prize for the amazing arguments. You're the person
2:49:56
who happens to receive it. Big deal. But the arguments
2:49:58
are the, you know, it's. And it's like
2:50:00
what you know in some sense. It's what
2:50:03
I've won prizes You've won prizes, but I try
2:50:05
to have the attitude of Feynman in
2:50:07
that regard who basically said yeah The prize is nice,
2:50:09
but the real the really neat thing was
2:50:12
the discovery You know that's that's
2:50:14
what the great and that's and and finding
2:50:16
that out is cool It's the thing as
2:50:18
you would say is cool. That's what makes it worthwhile
2:50:21
of the prize
2:50:23
This I want to end with two things. This
2:50:25
was a hard book for you to write It's
2:50:28
clear. It was a hard book for you to write I mean the agony
2:50:31
of some of saying some of the things that you say that
2:50:34
you know What are going to be unpopular or difficult
2:50:36
for people to accept? That
2:50:38
may sound nutty as you say at one point or another Clearly
2:50:41
gave you pause. How do you feel after
2:50:44
having written it?
2:50:48
Nervous as to who
2:50:51
is going to feel deeply offended
2:50:53
and hurt by it but at least
2:50:56
on a local level as a college
2:50:59
teacher I've like flaunted my
2:51:02
atheism enough to have a little
2:51:04
bit of experience of the pushback that it gets
2:51:07
Although mine has always been very
2:51:10
compassionate concerned people who are
2:51:12
saying please please please I want to be able to
2:51:14
save your soul. I love you. Your soul
2:51:16
is in danger of it
2:51:19
You know, what am I expecting with that what
2:51:21
I'm expecting?
2:51:23
In addition is Having
2:51:27
to focus a whole lot more
2:51:29
on That hundreds of pages
2:51:31
and decades have thought about this stuff. I Don't
2:51:35
live this way most of the time.
2:51:37
I'm fired in judgment
2:51:40
and entitlement and all
2:51:43
that sort of stuff and like 1%
2:51:46
of the time I can
2:51:48
achieve this mindset and Because
2:51:51
I've been trying to do it for a long time. I
2:51:53
like to think I achieve it in circumstances
2:51:55
where it's more consequential
2:51:57
like
2:51:59
should
2:51:59
we consider somebody's
2:52:02
well-being and needs to have been
2:52:04
earned to be greater than we consider somebody
2:52:07
else's. You know, let's stop
2:52:09
for a second and really think about it, because that
2:52:11
doesn't make sense. And I
2:52:14
can think that way, and more importantly, I can feel that
2:52:16
way for a couple of minutes at a time before
2:52:18
it disappears. Well, that's what I was
2:52:21
asking. Some books I've written, I
2:52:23
didn't know, which have just changed
2:52:25
the way I think about the world without... You know, I knew
2:52:28
what I wanted to say, but having written them,
2:52:32
they help me
2:52:33
personally. Is
2:52:37
this self-help at all? Having formulated
2:52:39
this in a coherent way, does
2:52:42
it help you spend maybe instead of 1% of
2:52:44
your time, 2% of your time, if
2:52:46
you mean way or no?
2:52:48
Yes, and not because this has been a journey
2:52:50
of intellectual discovery, because, oh
2:52:52
my God, I'm sitting here talking about this to all sorts
2:52:54
of people. And I do
2:52:56
one of those, they're going to be on
2:52:59
top of me in a second, so
2:53:01
let's try to live this way a little bit more. Maybe
2:53:04
that's the cynical out.
2:53:07
I once went to one of those Dalai
2:53:09
Lama conferences where he hangs out with a bunch of
2:53:11
neuroscientists and he's got a bunch of his all-star
2:53:14
monks. And we all talk to each other,
2:53:16
and we realize our vocabularies are so different
2:53:19
than... I did the same thing with the Vatican once,
2:53:21
and we had nothing to say to each other. A braver
2:53:24
man than me, and that's who you
2:53:26
hung out with. And at one
2:53:28
point, one of the monks said something about
2:53:31
what they do with their anger,
2:53:33
and they said something that was totally
2:53:36
unexpected, and it was gorgeous,
2:53:39
and it was something I could never have never
2:53:41
reviewed the world for. And I said, wow,
2:53:43
that's amazing. This guy functions
2:53:46
on a different planet. Wow.
2:53:49
That would be...
2:53:50
And all that's
2:53:52
come out of all of this is, yeah,
2:53:56
every now and then I can do that.
2:53:59
when you're able to do it. But you just said
2:54:02
something that actually was comes to the actually
2:54:04
last thing, one
2:54:06
of the last pages in your book. But
2:54:09
when you said maybe you know it's not right to think that
2:54:11
one person's needs and desires are more than
2:54:13
the other. And you say the only possible moral
2:54:15
conclusion is that you are no more entitled to have your
2:54:17
needs and desires met than is any
2:54:19
other human. There's no human who's less
2:54:22
entitled than you to have their well being
2:54:24
considered. Well in fact
2:54:26
that's a philosophy which
2:54:29
actually Peter Singer, I mean it's fresh on my
2:54:31
mind because I've talked to Peter, the
2:54:33
principle of equal consideration which he says it's
2:54:36
true not just for humans, you're being you know
2:54:39
speciesist as he would say. But
2:54:41
no being has
2:54:43
more entitled than any other
2:54:45
being to have their needs and desires
2:54:48
met and not need to suffer. So
2:54:50
what you've been driven to by this is a beautiful
2:54:53
philosophy of in some sense effective altruism
2:54:55
but more importantly the philosophy
2:54:58
that led Peter
2:55:00
to I think to be an amazingly ethical
2:55:03
individual about humans
2:55:05
and other animals has changed my own thinking I
2:55:08
have to say about the world. I
2:55:11
think this argument can be extended and it's
2:55:13
natural to beyond
2:55:15
humans to other species as well. Just
2:55:18
don't expect me to find
2:55:20
it to be easy to be that way all
2:55:23
the time and don't expect it's going to be easy
2:55:25
for you but it'll be a good thing if we
2:55:27
do because. Yeah exactly it's not
2:55:29
I'm now I'm now a vegetarian for example
2:55:31
and I wasn't before and it's not you
2:55:33
know well it wasn't that difficult.
2:55:38
But learn it the last let me end
2:55:41
with the last few sentences of your book because I
2:55:43
want to I
2:55:43
think it's nice.
2:55:46
Those in the future will marvel at
2:55:48
what we didn't yet know which
2:55:51
really resonated to me because of course as you know my new
2:55:53
book is exactly that.
2:55:55
I love the fact that it'll be out of date
2:55:58
and the fact that not knowing is what
2:56:00
it's all about. And if
2:56:02
they don't marvel at what we don't
2:56:04
know, then my goodness, we've made a big mistake that
2:56:07
progress has ended. There
2:56:09
will be scholars opining about why in
2:56:11
the course of a few decades around the start of the
2:56:14
third millennium, most people stopped
2:56:16
opposing gay marriage. History majors
2:56:18
will struggle on final exams to remember whether
2:56:21
it was the 19th, 20th, or 21st centuries
2:56:23
when people began to understand epigenetics.
2:56:27
They will view us as being as ignorant as we
2:56:29
now view the goitered peasants who
2:56:31
thought Satan caused seizures. That
2:56:34
borders on the inevitable. But
2:56:36
it need not be inevitable that they also
2:56:38
view us as heartless. And
2:56:42
I think that that's
2:56:44
important. That means what
2:56:46
you and I have been talking about together, that we can learn
2:56:48
to change and be less heartless, but
2:56:52
only understanding how the world works. So
2:56:54
I don't view this book and your work
2:56:57
as in any way depressing
2:56:59
or pessimistic. Just
2:57:02
as I take the fact that there's no meaning in the
2:57:04
universe as energizing,
2:57:07
I take this beautiful piece of work on
2:57:09
understanding how the world really works at the level
2:57:11
of behavior as
2:57:14
uplifting and a blueprint for thinking
2:57:16
about how can we can make the world a better place. So I
2:57:18
think you've done God's work as my
2:57:20
atheist friend, Steve Weinberg used to say. So
2:57:23
thank you so very much. It's been a blessing.
2:57:26
It's been a real pleasure. And I know
2:57:29
I appreciate the time that you allowed
2:57:31
me to take of yours.
2:57:32
And I wanted to do, well, I thought I
2:57:35
wanted to give
2:57:37
you the time that was necessary. I wanted to
2:57:41
give the arguments the time they deserved.
2:57:44
And we could have spent longer, but it's been a pleasure.
2:57:47
Likewise, I hope we could do this in the
2:57:49
same room sometime and talk for hours
2:57:51
and hours and hours. Yeah, I'm looking forward to that.
2:57:54
It's a real privilege. Thanks again.
2:58:02
I hope you enjoyed today's conversation.
2:58:04
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