Show Transcript
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Welcome back to the Alien Space Sheep Talk Show podcast.
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In your point you think we have got free will.
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In fact, just ask yourself, do you really have free will to do anything you want?
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Could you really go and do anything?
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Because if in fact you would never ever do that no matter what the circumstances, then
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you don’t have the free will to do that.
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Do you know that you do not see that?
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No, I don’t actually.
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This is, now I thought I was confused but now I think I get it now.
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So we have free will.
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Sometimes your mind could be corrupted.
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Maybe under the influence of a substance, a liquid, whatever it could corrupt your mind.
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And then what happens to that free will that you are talking about.
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It goes out of the window, don’t you?
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Because you can then literally do whatever you want.
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Under the influence of drink driving people that would normally not drive a car recklessly
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would.
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And that’s a free will.
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You chose to have that drink.
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You’ve chose to get behind that car and you’ve chose to drive it.
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That’s free will.
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Because without the drink otherwise you would have been able to be a good driver.
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But under the influence of a drink or alcohol you are not a good driver.
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But you still have that free will.
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You could choose to have left that car at home.
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While you know your intentions.
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You know what?
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I’m going out and I’m going to have a good time.
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You could leave the car at home.
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When you choose not to leave the car at home, that’s free will.
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So yes, we do have free will.
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How we choose to use our free will is entirely up to us.
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Yeah, I mean what you’ve described there is, should we say, mental incapacitation because
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most scientists agree, most neurosciences agree that if we have free will at all is a pretty
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limited extent.
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Because of the factors we talked about.
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In other words, people’s environment, they’re upbringing and most things we would never do.
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It’s only bad things because that’s not within our constitution to do that.
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But one of the exceptions I’ve said is desperation.
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If you were really putting in an impossible situation in life where it’s life or death for
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you or your family, then people can go outside of what they may know is right or wrong in
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desperation.
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Another one is mental incapacity, either mental illness or drugs, perhaps illegal drugs or
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alcohol.
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Then people on get drunk, are capable of doing stuff.
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They would never do in ordinary circumstances.
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You read this sometimes on an aeroplane that somebody has gone berserk.
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They’ve been drunk and threatening passengers and crew and everything else.
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And they usually get punished quite severely by the courts.
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They say, “I can’t remember any of it.
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It’s all hazy.
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I did have some drink and so on.”
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So yeah, that’s an exception to the rule of free will.
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But it does remain the fact that whether we like it or not, I mean, just to look at some
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of the scientists say, whether humans have free will is a deeply contested, unresolved
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debate across philosophy, science and theology, many argue it’s an illusion driven by a determined
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realistic biological environmental factors, which is what we’ve said.
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One others argue for compatibilism that rational agency exists despite deterministic forces.
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And another exception people try and say is, well, the brain is such a complicated, incredible
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organ beyond anything we could ever describe.
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In itself makes us potentially unpredictable.
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And if we’re unpredictable, then in a sense that that’s where free will can really manifest
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itself.
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So there’s a lot of contention on this.
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Now in fact, if we look at what someone like Einstein says, “I’m fine, and this law of this
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links into IQ and intelligence, really, I suppose, has to do with the brain.”
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He was a staunch determinist who believed that free will is an illusion.
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He argued that human actions are dictated by prior causes such as nature, nurture and
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the law of physics.
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Meaning we cannot control our desires or actions, but merely act on them.
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And there’s also a case where experiments have shown quite categorically that, and specific
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experiments allowing further time lapse, that where we’re asked to make a decision on something
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a picture we see or whatever, in turns out the brain has already made our choice.
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Before we’re conscious of that choice.
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And there’s many experiments which scientists have done to prove this point.
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Our brain is such an incredible thing.
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It’s managing all of our systems.
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It’s something we can’t describe as brilliance.
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But actually, it makes probably neuroscientists believe 95% of the decisions which we make.
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And if you think about it, that is almost obvious.
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And I stick with this because it is related.
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We get up in the morning because now we all have different lives.
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We have different things to do.
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Some will get up.
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We’re going to take a short break now.
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We’re back shortly.
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You’ve been listening to the Alien Space Ship talk show with Trevor Gear and Emily Higgins.
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Thank you.
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