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Do We Have Free Will? with Robert Sapolsky & Neil deGrasse Tyson | StarTalk | YouTubeToText
YouTube Transcript: Do We Have Free Will? with Robert Sapolsky & Neil deGrasse Tyson
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all of a sudden I I said to myself is
everything in
society explainable in this way and then
I realized oh my gosh if it is then our
[Music]
shift this is Star Talk Neil degrass
Tyson here your personal astrophysicist
and I got Chuck nice with me Chuck how
you doing man I'm doing great Neil
thanks for asking okay Chuck Nice a
professional standup comedian and actor
here's a subject we haven't yet tackled
okay it's the subject of Free Will yes
it came up in the edges I was gonna say
we've we've tinkered around the edges
just the edge we couple conversations
with Brian Green couple conversations
with Heather Berlin a couple uh
Neuroscience conversations that we we
got another neuroscientist here here
Robert sapolsky a neuroscientist
biologist he's a professor of biology
neurology and Neuroscience and
neurosurgery can you be any more neuro
than that I think that's all the neuros
I think that's all the
neuros or neurotic that's the
one at Stanford University uh
best-selling author of eight books right
I have one in my hand right now came out
just months ago wow determined a science
of life without Free Will wow and that's
going to be a major subject of our
conversation today welcome to the show
Rob well thanks thanks for having me on
before we continue here let me just tell
our audience you captured so much of
this life's profile in a memoir that you
write just tell us briefly about your
Memoir then we're going to pick up the
Free Will discussion oh sort of one of
my not even marginally scientific books
that I cranked out it's called a
primates Memoir and basically just
stories of the 30 OD years hanging out
with both the baboons but sort of places
there in East Africa I was there for one
coup attempt I was there for one Civil
War I was so you know a interesting
colorful place to be a Kid From Brooklyn
who knows nothing about the outside
world so that that was a fun thing to
write I'm glad you you documented that
because if if it's a story that others
will never have or can't even imagine
that's got to be in print somewhere so
that we can access it yeah so so tell me
so this is a fascinating birthplace for
the ideas that maybe we're not entirely
in control of our own behavior so how
did this rise up to become your central
Focus thinking when thinking about Free
Will well actually just to just to undo
all of that um I already didn't believe
in free fre will I was 14 when I had
this incredibly epipal night where I
suddenly decided there's no free will um
I also as long as I was at it that night
decided there's no God and there's no
purpose and it's just a big empty and
different Universe it it was interesting
stuff going on the days before were
there were there mushrooms involved in
this no no but there there was there was
religious trauma instead which I think
is a much more effective way of ING with
your head um so it was it was a
wonderful sort of clarity of oh I get it
became nihilist this I think that's yes
that's when that word applies nihilism
nistic yes so I I have not believed in
Free Will since then so all all
baboon ecological physiology and all rat
monkey mice Neuroscience did was just
add more factoids to like we're just
machines we're biological machines
wow all right so so give us your the the
central points of your thesis then um
you can't just say well I don't think
we're have free will anymore um give me
some give me some foundations for this
well it's this basic deal where like
somebody does something and you wonder
like why that happened why they did what
they just did and like if you want to
unpack it part of the answer to that is
is cuz this was going on in this part of
the brain a second before while this
part of the brain went silent or that
sort of thing but you're also asking wow
well the person hadn't eaten yet today
they were sleep deprived they were happy
they were stressed they were in pain
whatever what's what's the hungry judge
effect that that reminds me oh it's the
I love it the hungry judge I remember
something like 10 years ago like if you
get convicted before lunch your your
senten is higher than after lunch yes
exactly it was it was this classic study
preceding National Academy of Sciences
they looked at every parole decision
made in this this judicial County or
whatever over the course of a year like
a thousand of them looking at what
predicted the judge letting the guy walk
versus sending him back from more jail
and the single best predictor was how
many hours it had been since the judge
had eaten the meal oh I I I thought it
was definitely how black the guy was
standing oh well that that's after we
that get get the one that explains about
99% of the variability once once that's
sorted out the other extraneous another
variance in the for of okay all right so
so that's shocking and disturbing just
simultaneously and so if the judge
presumably the judge is thinking the
judge is making the right decision in
that moment but in fact they don't even
know influenced because they can't even
if you were maybe you could correct for
it by the way that that got challenged
for its statistics and they they
responded adequately and I it's solid
science and it's been replicated do not
go and apply for a home loan in a bank
if the person you're talking to hasn't
eaten for four hours other versions of
that interestingly the more hours a
medical resident is Gone without
sleeping if they're white the more
implicit bias they show on tests by the
end of their sleep deprived lunatic work
period so yeah that's what's up with the
judges all sorts of stuff like that mild
effects these are not but they're just
part of this picture of stuff going on
underneath the surface so that's that's
like how many hours it's been since
you've eaten that's but then you got to
figure like what have hormones been
doing in the last 24 hours because
they're marinating your brain and having
influences and then you got to figure
what have the recent months years
decades been like did you get
traumatized did you find God did you
find love did you lose either what
because that changes the brain and by
the way the food thing that became an entire
entire
commercial line for Snickers candy bar
yeah are you hangry hangry oh what a
great and the most amazing thing is it
makes sense like O blood glucose levels
are low when you haven't eaten and it
turns out the part guys are craby
they're all in a car on a road trip and
one guy's just completely crab and and
actually it's usually some other
famously crabby famous person right
so that's who they turn into and then
they give them a Snickers bar and then
they're back to their back to their
normal self that's oh finally science
influencing commercial America so
reasonably and it makes perfect you know
you're looking guy he looks nothing like
you he's got a background that has
nothing in common with you and you're
deciding is this a person who has
reformed or and it takes some work to
see the world from this person's
perspective it takes some work to try to
think about how they turned out to be
different from who you are it takes work
brain work and the most expensive part
of your brain is the one that you're
working at that point and if your GL
glucose levels are low in your
bloodstream what the hell let's just go
with an easy answer it's very
mechanistic and it's exactly what you
say you sit the judge down at that point
and say whoa that's really interesting
remember just after lunch you pared this
guy and this guy just now did the same
thing and you set him back for another
50 years in jail what's up with that and
they'll quote freshman year philosophy
they're not going to say oh because I
was mildly hypoglycemic in my frontal
cortex delusional delusional in their
own intent yes yes exactly yeah so the
the big takeaway here is if you are ever
before any judge make sure that you
offer them cookies before they exactly
exactly and the other advice is find a
way to mention that it's your birthday
there's even been a study showing judges
give slightly shorter sentences if
they're aware to the defendant not if
yesterday was or tomorrow was it's got
to be the day terrible social conflict
conflict number one we need to protect
Society from d dangerous rapacious
people conflict number two be nice to
people on their birthday and somehow it
balances out and you get a slightly shorter
sentence by the way I fully Embrace
everything you've said and I did I've
done some recent amateur thinking about
Free Will and I want to share some of
those ideas with you um but they will
fully resonate with everything you said
thus far but I have to bring in sort of
the physicist perspective of Free Will
where if every action has a a preceding
action to it you just take that all the
way back till it's no longer in your
Consciousness right and then something
set those series of synaptic trips in
sequence and then you end up saying
something or doing something so this so
the the physicist's cause and effect
argument um how does what you say tale
with that or are you are you saying
something slightly different
philosophically um actually very similar
I you know Behavioral Sciences biology
whatever discovered made this major
discovery recently by which I mean
somewhere in the last couple of
centuries which is something happened
because of what came just before that
and that happened because of what CH and
you know that whole deal I freak out
when we've gotten anywhere near the Big
Bang because I understand zero about
that but at the very least to and how do
you turn out to evolve into the sort of
species you are yeah you look at
everything and it had a deterministic
fruit yeah but okay so there's the there
is the physics physiology philosophical
argument that you just gave uh and I
don't think there's a good argument
against it um and let me just expand a
little bit for those catching up uh the
concept of chaos is not just disorder
right you can you can there's certain
chaotic systems where you set them into
motion with certain initial conditions
and you'll get a result and it's a
repeatable result with causes and
effects determin from start to finish
however if the system is truly chaotic
an arbitrarily small shift from those
initial conditions can produce an
infinitely different result at the other
end and so the so what it means is you
can't realistically predict a future
based on these starting parameters you
give because of how sensitive the future
is to those starting parameters so like
a hurricane yeah exactly hurricane it's
why you can't really predict weather
more than like a week in advance it's
get goes completely chaotic so all they
can do with the hurricane is give what
the models all say and you pick the
middle one and and work it from there
but every day you get closer to that the
models converge because you're it's less
chaotic so my question back to you which
you've surely gotten this before is okay
philosophically you can say what you did
was predetermined but the way we experience
experience
life we feel we have free will and isn't
that good enough um no and not only
isn't good enough scientifically it's an
awful thing for how life is for lots of
people to believe in free will that
isn't there because you give somebody a
sense that they had control over how
things turned out forget predicting the
future it changes
Society it justifies an awful lot well
put it put it this way one once you buy
into my deal that there's no free will
um and when you look at all the
biological stuff going on from like when
you were a single fertilized egg cell
and everything thereafter when you look
at all all that stuff there's no that's
the beginning right there
that just when you were born no no
you yes because that actually has a huge
influence on stuff um when you there
there's not a crack anywhere in that
edifice in which you could push in
something that is completely free of the
last like centuries of Science and how
we understand the world to work so
that's great if you buy into that you
suddenly realize
there's something very wrong in that we
run the world on the notion that it's
okay to treat some people way better
than average for things they had nothing
to do with and other people we worse
than average for things they had nothing
to do with and then slather on nonsense
about this being a just World afterward
and what getting rid of a notion of Free
Will is about is saying actually that's
stuff you had no control over o I had no
idea by not just an academic point is
what you're saying to be debated
slightest in journals it has very real
consequences in our social cultural
fabric hello Star Talk averse Neil
degrass Tyson here your host of the Star
Talk podcast I'm here to announce that
we just opened a brand new channel on
YouTube called Star Talk Plus and that's
where we're going to bring all kinds of innovative
innovative
content that doesn't quite fit on our
Flagship Channel but they will involve
experiments in what we create what your
reaction might be to what we create and
it's going to be our Skunk Works as it
were to borrow a term from
Aerospace so I look forward to sharing
all of this new content with you and
check it out if you have a chance I get
what you're saying and I agree with it
I'm not sure if I'm completely there
with the total no free will just being
honest and and so explain to me this all
right so here's why I agree with you
saying I have a friend of mine Dr Mike
uh had a patient who tried to sell their
baby okay and they were a drug addict
they were drug addict so and his these
are your friends these are your friends
just want to be clear no not not the drug
drug
addi sorry Who Am I who am I
sharing am I sharing a a podcast with
here okay
so anyway uh you know said to me um yeah
that they could not help doing that and
I said you got to be out of your gourd
like what kind of hippie dippy commi
liberal crap is that that you're saying
look this person tried to sell their
child and and then he gave me all this
information on how drugs hijack the
dopaminergic system and how your dorsal
lateral prefrontal cortex and your
nucleus accumbens and all this crap
comes together and basically you have no
control over what you're doing you you
decision tree has been hijacked yes you
are just responding to these things this
this Cascade that's happening in your
brain and it's really kind of like a neurosynaptic
neurosynaptic
response to something that says hey go
do this because we need this and you'll
do anything so you're agreeing with
Robert I thought you started this
I am okay now here's why I that's why I
agree because I did all the reading and
it makes perfect sense perfect sense
however here's what here's what I want
to know what about just your regular
everyday decisions that has nothing to
do with this outside force coming in and
hijacking a system of your brain it's
just I want vanilla ice cream right now
I just want vanilla ice cream some you
know so what's I want pepperoni on my
pizza I want pepperon on my pizza
because Robert these are I want to see
this movie tonight instead of this other
movie right these are the these are the
the the power we have over our lives
small small examples that they are all
right this is the power over our lives
that gives us this illusion that we have
free will and we're perfectly content
thinking that you're saying there's some physiochemical
physiochemical
biomolecular thing that makes me choose
strawberry instead of in all
tonight yeah which is also saying
there's this cultural thing which is
also saying how you were raised and what
lullab were sung to you have a neuro
that it's all one of the okay let me let
me give you a a sense of this with the
the drug guy um if you happen to make a
really stupid rash decision and pick the
wrong womb to spend nine months in and
your mother was very stressed during the
pregnancy as a result your brain would
develop fewer of those dopamine
neurons and as an adult okay so this an
epigenetic thing going on epigenetic
exactly a part of the brain called The
frontal cortex has to do with reigning
in your like imprudent urges and stuff
by age five yeah your par your mother's
socio economic status by age five has
already influenced the rate at which
this part of the brain has developed
every step thereafter and it's just one
piece leading to another to another okay
so something like you pick vanilla
instead of strawberry
or what we're caught in there is exactly
what you like we're alluding to you sit
there you make a decision you have a
moment of intent you're consciously
aware of the intent you know what the
outcome's likely to be most importantly
you know you don't have to do this there
are alternatives and that sure seems
like Free Will and that is nothing
nothing to do with free will because the
only thing to ask at that point is so
how do you turn out to be the sort of
person who would want vanilla over
strawberry at that's you know I'm gonna
do Robert next time I'm in an ice cream
shop I'm gonna say let me see do I want
vanilla no I want Strawberry in that
then right when they're ready to scoop
it I I walk out and say I don't want any
ice cream at all and that'll totally
confound your entire Theory no not at
all because how do you want to being the
sort of person saying screw that with
trying to say this is how I'm gonna show
them or whatever I'm gonna show you if
you wound up exactly like your parents
there was a certain absence of free will
if at some point you said oh my God
shoot me if I wind up having anything in
common with my parents I'm going to do
just the opposite it's the exact same
appen for you and any version of that
you just happen to be someone who
decides oh I have a theory what this
researcher is up to this psychologist
I'm going to intentionally tell the
opposite because I've got authority
figure issues or because I'm cranky
today and my underwear is too tight or
who knows whatever the impinging what
made you who you are at that moment okay
Robert I okay so so first let me just
preface all this was saying I completely
agree with you and all of my recent
thinking aligns with this and I want to
share it with you just so I can hear you
say Neil you're you're like right on Q I
want to be able to hear you
I need that that encouragement but if
this is an hypothesis that is strongly
supported by
observations what would have to happen
for you to say I guess my hypothesis is
wrong because if anything anybody says
or does you count as evidence in support
of your your theory then the theory isn't
isn't
testable and if it's not testable you
you're accepting everything as evident
oh that he did that I'm right they did
the opposite I'm still right you chose a
vanilla I'm right if you're right for
everything how am I going to know if
you're ever wrong here's how you falsify
it show me and at this point like
everyone oh prove to us there's no free
will prove to us there's no Easter Bunny
prove to us that like there's till you
turn around there's somebody creeping up
behind you o they disappear that absence
proed proof of absence that whole deal
um by now the onus is on people saying
there's free will and this is what would
falsify all of this show me a neuron or
a network of neurons or a brain that
just did something and show me that it
did that completely free of its history
it wouldn't matter what quantum physics
that happens all the time I mean you
have particles popping in and out of
existence there's no there's no known
cause for it it just is right yeah this
is this is where I get conniptions when
quantum physics is wonderfully relevant
to quantum physics it's got squat to do
with free will issues because it's like
what this this this physicist at at MIT
Max tag Mark is
calculated we had ma we're friends with
Max Go on okay he's car 23 orders of
magnitude that an indeterminist
subatomic effect would have to scale up
to influence the behavior of a molecule it
it doesn't
doesn't
very very important I did not know that
that should shut everyone up who's
trying to explain Consciousness with
quantum physics exactly and the next
because if they find a way where somehow
magically it bubbles up what you've just
explained is a mechanism for Randomness
for random Behavior not like the moral
system you've had since you were in your
diapers and the consistent and even if
we went there it's not it's it's random okay
okay
and still it's still not really in our
random that's not what we're looking for
with we're looking for you know you get
somebody's funeral and what do they do
is they Trot out their oldest friend who
gets to say wow even when we were in
kindergarten they were already like this
consistent you're not going to get
consistency like that you're not going
to get like a stable moral compass or
something out of quantum r Randomness and
and
every you get Randomness exactly that's
not where the issue play best
explanation I've heard ever okay so are
you saying
neurologically because I'm I'm still
stuck on the vanilla ice
cream I mean I appreciate the quantum
physics but I'm I'm trying to figure out
I'm trying to figure out yes and no up
and down so are you saying that our
brains are ramped up with intention
before we even enter the circumstance to
say vanilla or chocolate there is
something happening neurologically that
has already put us at that precipice and
then pushes us to that place from stuff
that went on a second ago to back when
you were a fetus and everything in
between and that's that's exactly it
because all you are okay here's here's
my like embroidery this on doilies we we
are nothing more than the biology over
which we had no control and it's
interactions with environment over which
we had no control and that's why we are
who we are like if I go into a
supermarket I'm not going to buy cheddar
cheese how come because probably because
some of the genetics of my taste buds
but also because when my wife and I
first got together because I had been a
vegetarian in college and thus all you
ate was like large blocks of cheddar
cheese because they had not discovered
vegetables yet at that time like this
was my and she said oh my God that's a
saturated fat that's incredibly bad for
your health and I was changed as a
result and what we know is the biology
of it even involves like change the
makeup of my gustatory receptors in my
tongue as to what tastes good now all of
this stuff all of these pieces come into
place and the challenge winds up being
show me that this person would have done
the exact same thing if all those if
they had different genes they had a
different fetal life if they got raised
in a different neighborhood by different
parents with different culture all of
that and if they had had a different
breakfast this morning and all that
stuff and okay I to get this this
compliment from you so here are my
recent thoughts okay here we go okay I
because I was following the Free Will
argument and I was just wasn't the
arguments were just not um enlightening
to me to this this every neuros synaptic
firing has a precedent and that you'll
do things that you you will make up the
reason afterwards for why you did it but
in fact it was predetermined fine okay
you can argue that philosophically why
that must be so but I I came to that the
same conclusion differently in a in a
more restricted sense I asked myself the
person who is
depressed chemically depressed do they
have the free will to not be depressed
Absolut let's back up if you look if you
look at if you look at at
culture one by one things people have
done in the past have
fallen by the by the way of the person
is not
accountable okay now an early one of
these would have been epilepsy okay the
devil got you you're not it's not your
fault let bring the priest okay we got
that but if you were I'm old enough
maybe you're old enough the the skidrow
bum the drunker every all blame was
placed on that person no okay we find
out that alcohol is addictive and when
you're addicted you can't get off of it
and there there's a homeless community
where circumstance have put them there
and so Society has changed in its
response to this okay the people who are
risking their who are depressed and on
the brink of suicide we're not saying oh
just cheer up no we're saying there's a
neurological problem and they're not in
control and the person the instant
before they jump off the bridge do they
have the free will to not jump off the
bridge and as I went through this mental
exercise more and more more of
society ended up folding into this
mindset and I got more and more
depressed not depressed angered I got
angered by it and you find out what is
it 70% of people in prison grew up below
the poverty line so poverty is
correlated with being in prison maybe
the problem is poverty not do they have
the free will to not have committed a
crime and end up in so so then I thought
might this explain everything everything
anybody the bully in the yard do they
have the free will the person who wants
to invade a country is that their
testosterone we all grew up saying can't
have female leaders because they have
hormonal shifts and we don't know what
they're going to do mean but men don't
but men have testosterone okay and with
testosterone you know violence is our I
I I I check this uh at a at an
intersection okay if someone Cuts you
off in an intersection if some say you
how did you chances are it's a guy okay
with testosterone out of control not in my
neighborhood we got some we got some
rough women around here that it is so
the men historically have not been
honest about what role testosterone
plays in their proclivity to commit
violence for example okay and so so all
all of a sudden I I said to myself is
everything in
society explainable in this way and then
I realized oh my gosh if it is then our
entire moral code has to shift it has to
uh it's not a matter of punishment it's
a matter of of of nurturing and
understanding so let me pivot now to you
and say if we agree and I think we do
that you're right
how does society need to change
change
massively totally um because when you
think this The Compassion machine has to
be put into effect and you're not
getting that in conservative politics right
right
yes exactly but if you're really going
to test it you got to see if somebody's
willing to feel compassionate about how
Donald Trump became the person who he is
because it's the same issue there I mean
if you really this out you mean being
the best of the best of the absolute
best how did this happen I don't know I
believe I believe God chose
me wow that's scary that's really good
and it blame and Punishment make no
sense praise and reward make no sense
meritocracies makes no sense criminal
justice makes no sense feeling like you
have earned anything makes no sense
hating somebody makes as little sense as
hating an earthquake all of that that's
the only logical point you can get to
and I've been thinking this way since I
was 14 and I can actually function this
way about three minutes every other
month because it's incredibly hard yeah
because we're but I've done it in some
ways I don't believe when there's a
lightning storm that some old woman with
no teeth at the edge of the Hamlet
caused it with her witchcraft that easy
now I subtracted respons that that the
old days that that was not the case
right right exactly and when you and I
Chuck you appeared to be too much of a
young for this but Neil when we were
both young if if you know when we were
in elementary school um if you had the
kids sitting next to you was just not
learning how to read and they just
weren't paying attention and you know
what the attributions were then this kid
they're not motivated maybe they're not
so smart they're lazy they're they just
don't pay put in a slow class with the
short bus you know EXA and then people
discovered oh there's this biological
thing called dyslexia like the
architecture of one layer of your cortex
is screwy and as a result you flipped
closed loop letters around and oh just
In Our Lifetime we have learned that's
not a lazy kid who we've done that one
that one didn't take 300 years of
getting rid of witchburn that one or you
know people have figured out in our
lifetime who you love is a biological
phenomenon it's not some like oh I had
no idea biology had to do with so we're
slowly getting better and at each one of
these steps we figured out schizophrenia
is not caused by mothers who
unconsciously hate their child autism is
not caused by mothers who are incapable
of love oh it's a neurog genetic
developmental disorder we figured that
one out and hundreds of thousands of
women who spent their whole lives being
told by every expert out there that they
they were the cause of their child
schizophrenia suddenly oh this isn't
depressing this is liberating every time
we've done this it's become a more
Humane place yes yes and and even uh and
of course I remembered seeing a
film uh from the 19 early 60s where
someone was addicted to drugs
and it was a drama he was addicted to
drugs and he said I'm a junkie and I
can't stop it but the resolution of that
story was the cops came and arrested him
today that's Unthinkable right if
someone says I'm a junkie I can't stop
it you don't arrest them you you help
them right and that's a compassion wait
what what country are we talking about
here exactly what well if you say that
from your men's club where you've had a
little bit too much vault
then then they send you to a nice
expensive rehab program uh if it's out
on a street corner maybe maybe something
different you ever wanted one of your
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is self-aware that they need help that
we don't deny them the help I mean this
is an evolution of our cultural response
to people who are not entirely control
of their own fate so you know and I I
get it I mean I I don't disagree um I
think as I think I think what scares
people is they start thinking about the
consequences of this and because I was
just thinking about okay so what about
responsibility and what do you do if
people can just do what they want but
then it just popped into my head while
you guys were talking what if I were
able to do anything I wanted anything if
you told me can go out and do anything I
want with Cons with no consequence what
would I change and the truth is very
very little I would not go out and kill
anybody I would not start doing drugs I
would not start I would I pretty much
still be the exact same person I am
right now even if you gave me the
ability to do anything that I wanted it
wouldn't lead me down this path of and
now I'm just going to become the most
decadent most evil bad Boon like person
that I can possibly become I mean like
the laws are the only thing preventing
you from crime yeah it's not just the
laws it's it's my place in society it's
my commitment my commitment to being a
citizen it's it's all these other things
that make me me okay so Robert we can
split the kingdom here by saying there
are forces that are societal and
cultural and then there are forces that
are purely biological and physiological
and yes there's overlap I get it but but
if we're going to prevent religious
factions from killing each other I
refuse to think that that's biological
this is a trained thing from birth where
you where your religion is better than
someone else's religion and they're the
wrong religion and so this a kind of a
brainwashing there in not accepting the
diversity of what exists around us so
maybe if we can't change the biology we
can change the culture how far will that
get us in a world with no free
will um
it's G to make a spectacular place to
live in about 600 years it's going to be
long it's a long first off um I'm I'm
obliged or I have to give up my my
pedantry license to say oh Neil that's a
false dichotomy between culture and bi
it's one and the same like you come from
you come your mother was from a
collectivist culture versus an
individual no I say there there's
overlap there's overlap of course I'm
not denying that but what I'm saying is
what has to happen in this world if we
cannot change our physiology to make it
safer for us all and more of a Utopia
that you have imagined change the
educational system let everybody free
from the prison system no of course not
of course not you can't have dangerous
people running around but we've figured
out ways to deal with dangerous people
who are damaging for reasons out of
their control and to protect Society
from them here's a great example your
kid is sneezing your kid has a nose cold
and what you do is you keep them home
from kindergarten tomorrow because
there's a preemptive law please if your
guy if your kid has a cold don't send
them to they don't get everybody else
sick you quarantine you constrain your
child's Behavior but you don't then tell
them that they can't play with their
toys that day because they're a rotten
person for sneezing you subtract
responsibility out of it and you still
can protect and we do that in all sorts
of airline pilot airline pilot is taking
anti-histamines because of they're cold
and it makes them a little drowsy you
can't work you can't fly for X number of
days if you're taking antihistamine we
can build a world in which we protect
people from damaging folks and hopefully
along the way recognizing how people
became damaging and you while
subtracting out responsibility and
moralizing and sermoning at them and
because you could see biologically where
things went wrong and you can see where
culture comes in okay so like great
example the schizophrenia thing people
started figuring out in 1950s scientist
that schizophrenia wasn't caused by bad
mothering it was caused by
neurochemistry and it had zero impact on
Psychiatry and family members of people
it had no impact at all until something
amazing happened in the 1980s Phil
Donahue Phil Donahue was the Oprah of
the time um who turned out he had a
relative with schizophrenia and he
invited on host very yeah um very very
persuasive biological psychiatrist who
did something amazing he held up some of
the first brain scans that were just
being published at the time showing
structurally there's differences in the
brains of people with schizophrenia and but
but
whoa look you can look at the picture of
it and that was the transformative
moment so you could say okay so why do
we have a culture where it took someone
like Phil Donahue to have us rethink
this why do we have a culture where it
takes Caitlyn Jenner appearing on the
cover of whatever magazine that was for
people to say oh this transf sometimes
people just feel like they're a
different sex than what their biology
and that why' we are why' we wind up
being that kind of culture why' we wind
up having a culture in which you know
certain values are glorified and other
SI culture is exactly the opposite how
were you raised depending on what
culture is a difference in how many
seconds on the average you would cry
before your mother would pick you up
were they training you to be tough or
were they training you to feel s and
just each time that happened your brain
got constructed a little bit differently
and at each one of these steps it goes
on like that and how do you like what
makes somebody an ex white supremacist
what went into that all of these things
can change and the cultural changes and
the biological changes are totally
intertwined and what we're getting at
here is like the worst conclusion to
come out of this with is oh there's no
free will nothing can change things
change enormously you have to do is
understand where the buttons are and
where the levers are and where the
irrationality is and where the post Haw
rationalizations are to explain
something that in fact was a pure gut
instinct it makes no sense at all and
had do people get that way and how do
you get people that way to stop being
that way and just to be clear post Hawk
explanation is you see something happen
and you after the fact account for why
it happened without real evidence for
what actually caused it and so you have
a post Haw accounting and there's
there's been a lot of that in the
history of civilization so if I'm
hearing you correctly you're kind of
saying let's look at these social
ills um and
maladies with an eye
towards uh
restoration and compassion compass and
and compassion and giv and restoration
as opposed to punitive measures only
which is what we do now we just go we're
gonna punish you and that's it thr and
and and and normally people go to jail
and come out worse
criminals better trained right they're
trained to become criminal
criminals yeah exactly um and like you
can use punishment and you can use
reward as Like Instrumental tools
because that's a that's a good way to
make organisms change Behavior but the
notion of them being virtues in and of
himself are ridiculous and yeah it makes
no sense to hold somebody responsible
either for the fact that their
unbelievably awful
upbringing resulted in someone with a
really impaired capacity for empathy and
feeling somebody else's pain or the fact
that somebody's really privileged
upbringing produce somebody who gets
really good SAT scores and know how to
write a five paragraph essay and get
into a prestigious is college like and
both there's no intrinsic virtue in how
any of us turned out and there's no
intrinsic earned or
entitled and that's hard as hell to
subtract that out and what I've seen is
yeah yeah yeah that's really scary in
terms of saying oh what are we we got
have criminals running around in the
street and what do we do with criminal
justice it's going to be a lot harder
for people like us to instead say oh I
actually haven't earned anything with my
work ethic I actually haven't earned
anything with my good SAT scores or my
corner office or my amazing Sal it's
going to be much harder to undo the
meritocracy end of it because anyone
who's sitting and listening to like
ridiculous stuff about cosmology and
stuff they're one of the lucky ones they
learned how to read they're probably not
homeless they're they're we're the lucky
ones and if there being no free will
means bummer my TV maybe isn't as
impressive as I used to think it was and
doesn't indicate I'm a much better human
than average and we're the ones who
we're we're in the subset where we are
treated better than average in society
like when they come well I worked hard
for this I worked exactly you you had
that roommate who no doubt went out and
got falling down drunk that Saturday
night and you studied instead and you
earned this and yeah you learn something
different you're brain did gratification
postponement differently because of this
that and the other thing here's
something I do tell people people say
how do you write so many books I my
than and there and why how' that turn
out how I I watch less football than
average because there was one stage
where I decided that bullies would like
me if I memorized every stupid factoid
about the Green Bay Packers because they
were in ascendency at the time and that
turned out not to work yeah and that
turned out not to impress them in the
slightest they didn't and okay so
football is not the route towards like
so like I lost interest in football
that's why I don't watch football
because like knowing you know Vince
Lombardi and his like Golden Rule or
whatever what yeah all of these things
come from somewhere and we turned out
who we are and for most people
um we claiming they're responsible for
stuffs that didn't turn out very well
that they in fact had no control over by
the way I watch football because I have
to support anything that keeps what
could be murderous barbarians off of the
streets of our country because I don't
know if you've seen these guys but they
are scary and the fact the fact that we
give them lots of money to you know run
into each other instead of us is fine
with me just a a couple of more sort of
points to close this out so you would
say then that people might have a
susceptibility biophysiological
susceptibility to addiction to joining
Cults to belief systems and there's a
certain to working hard in it might not
be the right word but a certain
unaccountability to
that would that's a fair statement
correct yeah and other people wind up
with a proclivity for feeling other
people's pain or being able to look past
superficial explanations or reflect on
things and respect the process of
reflecting on things
and yeah the good sides the bad sides
it's all how we turned out and it's
stuff we had no control over okay so
what's if people read your book
determined okay just came out a few
months ago do you really think it would
take 600 years to reach that I mean if I
look at the pace of social cultural
change it's faster than that I would I
would like to believe that the depths of
compassion that a society without Free
Will promotes is something that would
come to us much sooner than that than
600 years well maybe I'm more
pessimistic than you I it's very we
figured out you know witches don't
control the weather and it's a bummer to
burn old women the Stak yeah
weed out we sorted that one out it was
50 years ago that figured out epilepsy
we figured that out we fig we're kind of
figuring out that there's a biology to
obesity and people who have trouble
feeling a satiation signal and it's not
because they secretly hate themselves
they've got screwy receptors for some
satiation hormone and they hypothal and
we're doing that stuff all the time but
we got a long way to go with it
and you know as I said I think this way
all the time but I can actually act on
this for two seconds at a time somebody
cuts me off in traffic I think they are
a vile human who deserves to burn in
hell someone tells me like o nice
sweater and for a few seconds afterward
I think I am intrinsically a better
human than average as a result and then
think about it a second time and a
fourth time and a tenth time and when
you next feel like judging somebody do
that and when you next feel like you
earn the right to be at the front of the
line for the next vaccine think about it
a second and 10th time as well and baby
steps well for those only listening to
this uh podcast Our Guest Robert has a
full up Santa Claus beard so I'm trying
to think given your free will hypothesis
would you make a good Santa Claus or a
Claus what kind of Santa Claus is this
man gonna make uh you know
you you you kind of look like smart
Santa you know it's the it's the because
because the hair you got to remember
Santa you know you you have the
professor hair and the Santa beard so
you're you're you're more professorial
Santa all right it's just say Santa says
were you were you naughty or nice did
you deserve this gift that's right this
would be the worst Santa ever say no you
don't have free myp actually now I take
it back you're Oprah Santa it's like you
get a gift and you get a gift and you
get a gift yes I'm I'm Santa biological
and in fact I don't care because all I
care about now is if my parents were
still alive they'd be totally irritated
by the fact that I have this beard still
that's why I have a beard not because I
want to seem like a good Santa or bad
because it irritated the hell out of
them in the middle 1970s and sure that
work operating on it yeah ex okay so I'm
gonna end on a on a question to you that
might Short Circuit your brain and steam
will come out of your ears like every
episode of Star Trek where Captain Kirk
outsmarts the
computer okay
so um if I tell
you that I don't agree with you that we
all have free
will then I'm not in control of the fact
that I am telling you we all have free
will it's predetermined that I think
that everyone who thinks we have free
will that we have free will that's
predetermined and there's nothing we can
do about
it yeah until you get
educated until somebody you can't get
out of yeah like somewhere along the way
you figured out the kids sitting next to
you having trouble learning to read
there's this thing called dyslexia and
you changed you changed as a result and
like you're brain changed when you look
at somebody who has like a lot of
spelling errors or whatever their
writing and like they mentioned
somewhere yeah I got a learning
difference whatever a part of your brain
that would have had some aversive
responses and told another part of your
brain that has something to do with
judgment and doesn't activate
anymore learn okay and social
Enlightenment turns out to be
neurobiology and neurobiology turns out
to be different social behavior it's
completely intertwined like thank God we
CH you can cure people who think there's
there is Free Will
there's yeah it's not their fault we
exactly we pray for their souls but [Laughter]
[Laughter]
still all right dude Robert this has
been a delight uh this book oh my gosh
um you know some people write books just
because they can write a book this one
has the power to shift the center mass
of civilization in ways that it's
already moving
in that direction but maybe too slowly
and with an a deeper understanding that
you're providing us all uh perhaps we
can achieve this Utopia much sooner than
I don't have to wait another 600 years
analogizing today to what to the witch
burnings of 600 years ago I'd like to
think we're on a faster track than that
let's hope so uh Robert spolski thanks
for being on Star Talk Chuck always good
to have you man always a pleasure this
is Neil theg grass Tyson Star Talk
this is a an addition on Free Will a
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