 Okay, so welcome to your book show, and today we're going to be interviewing Ankar Ghatay, who's the Chief Content Officer at the Iron Man Institute of Philosophy, and we're going to be talking about free will. I get tons and tons of questions about free will all the time on the show, when I'm out giving speeches, and you know, I do my best to answer them, but today we've got an expert who is, we're going to try to cover the topic as much as we can. So thank you Ankar for joining us today. Oh, thanks for having me. So I thought we'd start with what Iron Man's unique view of free will is, because otherwise we're kind of talking about something that a lot of people don't even understand what it is. What is free will and what, and to what extent is Iron Man's view of free will from the context of the history of philosophy different or unique? So I think our view is unique in a lot of ways, but the basic phenomenon everyone's familiar with, so what Iron Man says and what you get in objectivism is the phenomenon is it's self-evident, and what the phenomenon is, is you make choices, and that's what free will is. You make choices, and choices means you're selecting between alternatives, and that means more than one, you could set A or B or C or D, and that everybody's familiar with, which is why the people who say there's no such thing as free will say there's an illusion of free will. You have choices, but you don't really have choices, that's what it means, and objectivism says you have choices, and there are choices, but to conceptualize fully the phenomenon that you're aware of, and that you're aware of internally or objectively, we'll put it introspectively, that's what's difficult, and what objectivism says about how to conceptualize it is in various ways distinctive, I think, but what it takes seriously is the phenomenon of choice and says it's real and is not to be explained away as an illusion. And the validation of that or the proof of that is purely introspective? Yeah, the evidence for it is introspective. You make choices and you're aware of the fact of making choices because it's you making the choice. You got up in the morning, excited what to wear, what to eat, what you're going to do in the day, if you got to work, what are you going to start working on? You constantly are selecting among all terms, which means you're making choices and you know you're the one making it. So the evidence is introspective. What objectivism also says, you can find some other people in philosophy who say this, but objectivism really stresses and I think gets how fundamental free will is, it's that it's incoherent to view yourself as not having free will and it's incoherent. Most people think of it as well without free will, there won't be good and evil. There's not moral choices. You can't fault someone, blame someone, which is also interesting. It's always in the negative. You can't fault them, blame them. You also kind of praise them and say they did something good. That's true, but not fundamental from an objectivism point of view because it's deeper. Issues about choice. First surface or surface in a crucial way in regard to the control you have over your mind and the determinist has to say that you're out of control. You're not in control. Something external to you and antecedent to you is in control. Whether it's put nature or nurture and all kinds of variations of what in nature is determining you or what about your nurture, your physiology, your genetics is determining you. In the religious view, it's God's really in control, not you. So there's a whole strain in religions of determinism. Something else is in control, you're not. If you take that really seriously, it means you're not in control of your mind or of your thinking. And if that's true, then what you're talking about, you have no control over. Why do you think you're right and somebody else is wrong? You're determined to think and say what you're saying. He's determined to think and say what he's saying. Why do you have a perspective that you're right, he's wrong? Haven't you ever been wrong before? Have you ever been in cases where someone else is right? You're fundamentally out of control. So it's, I believe what I believe because of, and I don't, and so, and someone like, because there are, most people today are determinists. Most people in science are determinists. Most people are even arguing about morality. Most people are determinists. So take someone like Sam Harris, who on many moral issues is good, on issues about Islam and religion is good. But he has a view that free will, there's no such thing, there's not even the illusion of free wellness is his view. And here's one way he put it. So here's, I've read his book on free will, here's one excerpt. So he gives that supposedly you select them on alternative, but you don't really. You are struggling to save money, but you're also tempted to buy a new computer. Where is the freedom when one of these opposing designers inexplicably triumphs over its rivals? And he has to say it's inexplicable because if they're really scientific, they have to say, I don't know what determines people. We can't tell it. I can't tell you what somebody's going to do. I can't even come close to telling what someone's going to do, but I know he's determined. I don't know what he's determined by because his mother breastfed him or didn't breastfeed him or what I mean, what combination of things results in his action now. So it's inexplicable. Now that's how Harris describes actions. He would never describe his thinking like that. It's I'm trying to decide, should I be religious or should I be secular? Where's the freedom when one of these ideas inexplicably triumphs? So what what objectivism says is there was no such thing as free will. There's no such thing as knowledge. There's no such thing as anybody having a perspective of I've arrived at the truth. You've made an error. You need to correct, which means you need to make choices. You're in control of your own. Make choices to come to see, oh yeah, that's a wrong view. This is the right view. If you don't have that control, the distinction of truth and falsehood goes away and all knowledge goes away, including knowledge that determinism is true. So it's in itself refuting. It's incoherent in a deep way objectivism says. So it seems that doesn't seem that hard. Why doesn't Sam Howitz, somebody like Sam Howitz not get the self refuting part of it? I think if you push them, they start to feel and they start to get uncomfortable. It's not. So I said there's some other places in blossoming where you can find someone making an argument like this, but it's not widespread. It's not. If you take a first year class where free will is off, I mean intro to philosophy where free will is off in the topic, it likely won't come up this kind of issue and problem with determinism. So objectivism really expresses that, I mean it causes the contradiction of determinism, that there's some fundamental problem. And it's how you know that not that you know that free will is a fact. You know that introspectively, but it's an inescapable fact. And the inescapable is if you try to deny it and try to be a determinant, you can do it. In that sense, is it an axiom? Yes. So objectivism, it's a starting point, not for all knowledge. So axioms of defining starting points and the basic axioms in objectivism are starting points for all knowledge, the first of which is existence exists. What is is. There is something and all knowledge is the exploration of what exists. So it's the starting point and all knowledge just is a further exploration of the things that exist. But the starting point is you're aware of something, you're aware of existence. So that's an axiom for all knowledge. For free will, it says it's an axiom for conceptual knowledge. So knowledge or awareness of reality begins with you being aware in a sensory, perceptual way, using your eyes or ears, your stuff, you see stuff. That does not involve free will. When you start to think and construct arguments and draw conclusions, is religion right or is it wrong? It was something we were talking about before. How should I try to solve this problem at work? You're now not just using your eyes and ears and you're using your mind, you're thinking. And there it's you're able to do that because you have this kind of control over your mind. And that is you couldn't even think about like how should I attack this problem? What should I believe? What is true? What if you didn't have that kind of control of your mind? You knew it because you're exercising that control. So it's an axiom in regard to conceptual knowledge to thinking. Okay. From Jackie's point of view. Of course, one of the big issues that comes up with free will is the idea that if we have free will, it somehow violates causality, the law of causality. You know, how does one deal with the whole causality issue? I think there's a couple of things at least that one really has to take seriously. So one is the issue of materialism. And most people today, including most scientists are materialists. Not certainly not all, but it's the dominant force and certainly in philosophy. It's the dominant force today or dominant viewpoint. And materialism is the view that reality is ultimately made up of matter. It sometimes will put matter in motion. It's the kind of view bequeathed to the West as a result of the scientific revolution of the Newtonian worldview that everything is just matter. And it was sometimes we put atoms or whatever in motion. And that's how we have to look at everything. And that's replacing idealism. So the two major, you could call these metaphysical views because they're about the fundamental nature of reality. The older view was idealism, which says some kind of mind or consciousness is really at the root and heart of reality and in control of everything. And everything boils down to explaining it by reference to what a mind or consciousness is doing. I mean, again, in Western thought, that view comes predominantly, though not exclusively, from religion. It's God's consciousness, and he's behind everything. And when you say he's behind everything, that's meant literally. He's behind everything. And then they have the problem of free will as well and integrating free will with the idea of a consciousness that's in control of everything. And then massive writings in Christianity, Judaism, about trying to solve the problem of free will. Yeah. And I mean, if you think of God as he's omniscient, he's all powerful, he's all good. So he knows the future, and there's all kinds of issues about that, about well, isn't everything determined? He knows what's going to happen. It means you're not selecting among alternatives. It's already, he knows what you're going to select. There's no real selection going on. So yeah, it is a huge conundrum for a religious worldview. But part of what happened then is free will became associated with idealism. That when we're talking, and if you think of God as even if mankind don't possess free will, God usually is thought of because it's a constraint. If he's not free, then he's constrained with what's constraining him if he's the ultimate source of reality. So he's unconstrained, he's unlimited. That came to me to be associated with that, what it's like to be free. Free will got more and more pushed on the side of a mystical worldview, a world without identity, that's part of what it means. Unlimited, he's infinite, he's unconstrained. I mean, this got idea that A is A and things have a nature. Yeah, that's for us, but not for God. He's beyond that. And free will got to be pushed on that side. And then if you're talking, well, no, if we don't believe in miracles and a will controlling everything and all of reality, then and the scientific worldview is pushing against that. It became, no, we're tossing out the idea of a God in control of everything. It's natural forces. That then came to be seen as well, it's all material forces. And you've got this kind of view that the free will is on the side of the supernatural of mysticism, of the religion that we're discarding. And determinism then is on the side of science and particularly if it's material. And the person who really cemented that that's, yeah, that's the way to look at the world is con. And I mean, people familiar with Iran and Objectivism will know that she blames them for a lot, but not without reason. He put that basically reality has a dual nature. So he's Plato in a new, more modern form. Plato divided the world into, there's two realms, the world of abstractions of forms and this world that's partly unreal, partly contradictory. Has that kind of division in a different form. And he says, there's a phenomenal world and a new mental world. And the phenomenal world is the world of science. I mean, suppose it's a world created by the human mind. It's where science applies. It's essentially material. It's deterministic. But in this other world, determinism and causality doesn't apply. And he says, well, and human beings have a kind of dual nature. They're part phenomenal, part numinal. So from one perspective, we look at human beings and say they're determined from another more sophisticated mystical religious perspective and moral perspective, Conrad. No, there's some kind of free will in a numinal world. We can't explain it. We don't know anything about the numinal world. We can't really say there is such a world, but we have to assume and act as though there is though. And you get that he, that's your choice. Side with science, the material and be a determinist. Or no, try to accept free will, morality and be a mystic. And everyone operates with that. And they make one choice or the other. Some will say the more religious, the more mystical will say, no, there's got to be something to free will. So I guess science doesn't tell you everything. And we can't go by science and reason everywhere. Or else you get the person like Harris who's thinking, no, but I am scientific, I am rational. And that means I need to be a materialist and a determinist. So what would be the objectivist perspective? So we have materialism and idealism on both sides. What, what is objectivism at? Both are wrong. So objectivism in all kinds of different places. And here's another example says your existing categories are not exhaustive. And if you treat them as exhaustive as it, you have to choose materialism or idealism, you're going to run into all kinds of problems and dead ends. And it's going to be a complete disaster, which is what I think happens in regard to this. So, and I learned early on was asked, I mean, this is the sort of the story of, she was asked, are you a materialist or an idealist? And she's very, I mean, as you know, she's very pro science. She's pro reason. So she answered a materialist, I guess. And then she stepped back and said, like, wait a minute, why are these the two choices? And that's so typical of her thinking that it's, and you can feel like she's so independent. So you can feel like you're boxing me in. And why are these the boxes? And so her view is, yes, there is such a thing as matter. Science is a vast accumulation of knowledge. She's so pro the scientific revolution and everything that flows out of that, including industry, technology, aspects of capitalism. I mean, there's really industrial capitalism. I mean, the industrial revolution, everything it brings depends on science. It showcases the tremendous value and knowledge acquired by science. So she's so on that side. But there's also mind and consciousness. And you don't have in accepting all of that, you don't have to pretend these things don't exist or they're an illusion or they're supernatural. So she views, and this is, I mean, this is why she put herself in the Aristotelian tradition. Aristotle is really the only philosopher in his tradition who views the mind as real and natural. So Plato's the view of the mind as real and it's supernatural. It's part of another dimension. It's implanted in you. This is how you get in Christianity, the religious view, the soul is implanted in you from another dimension. That's all in Plato. And Aristotle's the, no, there's not two dimensions, but he doesn't throw out soul or mind or consciousness in throwing out the other dimension. That's what's so revolutionary in his thought and so distinctive in his thought. And why, to say that Aristotle is the father of the West, this is the basic metaphysical reason because everything good about the West comes from a view that the mind is real but natural, operating in a natural world that is knowable, governed by identity, discoverable by science. I mean, Aristotle is the first scientist in a real mean of that term. I mean, I called him the first intellectual and you get this view that the mind's powerful, natural, capable of knowing the world and that's what objectivism says. And so in regard to free will, its view is the human mind and maybe some of the other higher animals. That's a more scientific question, but we know our own minds and that it's operation. The human mind operates by choices, which means it's, you as a human being, you as an entity are making choices. You make them all through the day, every day. It's you choosing, you're the cause, the effect is what you select. And that one form of causality is antecedent factors or, and I mean Newton and that he's understanding the solar system that they can predict. The billiard ball, kind of the billiard ball. Yeah, so it's more sophisticated in the end. But yeah, it's the antecedent factors, this is what we're on. So we can predict the tides and we can predict when a human's common is going to come back and all, and it was, I mean, astonishing that they can do this. That's one form of causality, but it doesn't exhaust every form of causality. It's not all by antecedent material forces. And even in science, when they start discovering different kinds of forces, electromagnetism and so on, they needed a much more sophisticated view than the billiard ball view. And even in, I mean, if you get in science today when they get to the level of quantum mechanics, they'll say no, it's not all antecedent factors, it's not all deterministic and so on. So they're ready to accept that in science. But there, and Harris, I mean, Harris is an example of that, but not ready to accept it in regard to the mind that you need some different causal way of looking at it than antecedent factors. And I think the basic reason they're not willing to accept that is they think the mind is supernatural. So we get rid of God and we get rid of ghosts and we get rid of poltergeist and we get rid of a mind that chooses because that's all of it, one phenomenon. They can't escape their materialism and if they let free will in they feel like they've accepted the idealism or they've accepted religion and this is why it's particularly prevalent among the new atheists, this view. Yes, yes. They're afraid that they're somehow conceding by accepting free will. Yeah, but yeah. And that again, I mean, that's con. And it's the way in which, I mean, I'm and insist that philosophy is in control of all kinds of events and debates, even when people don't know it. And this is a good example. It's can't define your basic choice. And they, many people won't even know that can't define this and this is how, but that's what they see themselves as choosing between and I've got to resist the religious supernatural stuff. So I guess I got rid of it. And it's that's the power that philosophy has over people. Because it defines the basic categories and choices and options. And then people operate within that. So you're not saying, though, that free will is somehow equivalent to the quantum phenomena. You're just using the quantum phenomena as another example where it's not the Newtonian form of materialistic causality. Well, it's materialistic probably. But it, I mean, material is a undefined and vague term used in these debates. But if you take it, it philosophically, it means something like external to consciousness, that which consciousness is aware of in the primary sense in the secondary sense consciousness, at least the human consciousness is aware of itself, but it's the external. But science means something more by that when it talks about material. And I think it's still an open question of how precisely to understand the quantum level. No, my point is they're willing to treat the quantum level as not deterministic. So the issue really isn't everything's deterministic. And the problem with free will is you're saying it's not deterministic because they're happy inside. And they will go bend over backwards to tell you how powerful quantum mechanics is and what we're able to do with it. And it's not deterministic. So that's not really in the end the issue. The issue is if I accept free will, I'm accepting the supernatural. And that's what I'm willing to do. And that objective says, yes, there are some accounts of free will. Like if you think it's implanted from God and so on that are supernatural, but you don't have to have an account of free will that is supernaturalistic. And so objective account is a mind has a fundamental control over itself. And this is what is difficult in the conceptualization of it. When you start thinking about choices, you usually start thinking about the antecedent things that lead to it, the choice. And then it starts to look like, well, so aren't those factors then what's determining what you do? So if you think you're sitting in a restaurant and you're ordering dinner and I don't know, you order a salad. And then if you ask, so why did you choose a salad? Well, I mean, my doctor told me I really need to lose weight. I'm on the road all the time. So I'm not eating that well. So here's this salad sounds good. Here's an opportunity to stick to my diet. That's what I'm doing. So it's, well, isn't it then all those antecedent considerations that are determining your choice? And what would free will be the power to say, to hell with all my reasons? I'm doing what I want. So it starts to look both weird and irrational. And this also, if it's someone who's thinking I'm scientific, rational, logical, what free will seems to be is the power to define my reasons. And what the hell's that for? And what Ayn Rand does that I think is very distinctive in regard to free will is she says, yes, you do have trouble when you're sitting at dinner, you have a choice between what you're going to order and you have a lot of choices. But that's not the fundamental choice that you have. So part of what is difficult in conceptualizing free will is figuring out what is the root choice objective and we'll often put it, what's the locus of choice? Or another way to put it, what's the primary choice? And if the primary choice is a choice over content, I'm going to order the steak or a salad. I'm going to wear a blue short or a green shirt today. If that's the primary or fundamental choice, it's why are you doing that? Why blue instead of green? And it seems to be like the indeterminism. I mean, the way it would put, it's similar quantum mechanics in the debate today. The way it was put in the ancient world, it's called Epicurean swerve. And they had a kind of atomist materialist view. And it's why do you do one or the other? Well, sometimes an atom just swerves. And there's no explanation for it. And there's something right about at the primary choice, there's no explanation in the sense, give me something antecedent that produced it. It's not a choice if something determined it. So at some point in free will, you have to say, that's because the person did it. It just happened. It doesn't have antecedents that explain it. And if it's about content, people start to look irrational. Like it's, I don't know, I was in the restaurant and I decided to order a soup. And that's all I was going to eat. And that, well, because something's swerved and that's what happened. And it noticed heresies, like it's inexplicable what I do. Free will starts to look like that. And what objective says is, the primary choice is not a choice about content. So it's not about a choice of actions. It's not a choice about what ideas I'm going to accept. It's a choice about the activity your mind engages in. The processing your mind engages in or doesn't engage in. So that we're self-determining for objectivism means in the primary sense, we determine the course of action that our mind engages in. And we start to get this power as we go from an infant to starting to learn language and abstract and have a conceptual mind. We can use words. We can talk. You start to have a fundamental power over your mind and it's a power of am I orienting my mind towards the world, towards reality, towards the facts and trying to the best of my ability and resources to grasp what's out there. And I have that fundamental control over my mind and it's the processing and it's all late. There are choices, but there are later choices about, okay, well, what am I going to think about how am I going to try to tackle it if I'm a kid? I'm building a tower of blocks that falls down. Okay, how am I going to try to build it in a better way so it doesn't fall down. You have all kinds of things about specific content. You live in the world in a specific content with all kinds of things going on that you have to make choices about. But deeper than that is my tower of blocks fell down. Am I just going to start crying and sulking and hoping someone comes along and fixes it or am I going to engage my mind and say, okay, how can I do this better? What happened here? And that's the control you have. So it's a control over the activity and processing of your mind. And the way it's put in objectivism, you're the power to focus your mind or to leave it relatively unfocused or completely unfocused. And that's a very different account than the traditional account. And this is what I said earlier on. What objectivism says is, even though the fact of free will is self-evident, to properly conceptualize it so that it doesn't look strange and irrational, that is difficult. And that's what a theory of free will is about how to conceptualize the phenomenon fully and in a non-contradictory way. And that's what the objectivist theory of free will is trying to do. Now, I've seen people try to explain even that materialistically by using quantum mechanics. So even that choice to focus or not is just the randomness of quantum mechanics. So at least that's the explain... Quantum mechanics today is explained as random. They explain human free will. That choice to focus or not to focus as a random thing. How would you answer that? How do we answer that? Well, again, the primary evidence is that, introspectively, it's not true. That it's not, oh, I found myself focusing or I found myself thinking. And I don't know why. So that is your basic choice. But they call it the basic choice is that you're aware of yourself making it. It's not happened. So all these randomnesses, stuff happens. What free will is and self-determination is I made something happen. And those are two very different things. Like, stuff does happen in life. A tree falls on your house. Like, I wasn't expecting it, I didn't do anything. Stuff happens. But that's not what the experience of your own mind and the control you have over it is like. And then there's again, from the other perspective, if that were true, then you have no control over your thinking, no ability to assess it, no ability to think of it's going off the rails to redirect it. Why put any stock in the conclusions you reach? Why are they any better than what anyone else reached? And there's no answer to that. When at the conceptual level, if you don't have control over your mind such that you can say, I'm orienting it towards reality, I'm pursuing the truth, and therefore I can trust my conclusions because I know that that's what I'm doing. If you don't have that power, then you don't have any perspective on your own mind that I can rely on it. That I should view the conclusions I've reached as true because I put in the effort to reach the truth. If that's all just happens, you're completely out of control. And notice, like Harris is trying to use him as a little bit of a punching bag. He's trying to persuade people. What are you doing when you're trying to persuade people? I know, I never understood that. Yeah, I mean, you're not trying to find some antecedent factor out there. If I just arrange his room in such a way, he'll come to agree with me because the lights are a little different. And so if you thought that, you would be like the nudge people. We're going to construct your environment such that we're going to push you towards the right. And I mean, all over in today's culture, people are determined. So there are people who think that, that that's how people reach their conclusions. If I just restructure their environment in a certain way, I can manipulate them. But Harris doesn't think that. He's trying to actually persuade people. And that means they have control over their mind and they can think about it and say, yeah, you're absolutely right about this. And it's not determined by antecedent factor. No, it's shocking to me. The arguments people get about free. I mean, why are we arguing? If we really are deterministic, what's the point? And notice that when you're dealing with other animals, the lower the animal, the less you argue with it. So you don't, I mean, a snail on the ground, or you're not the move, get out of the way. You might with your dog, you think they, so there's a perspective on the higher animal that you think they might have some element of free will that, but you know, with a snail or a worm or a snake, and that's because you view it as, they don't have that control. So what's the point of it? Do you think that there is, or there will be one day, a scientific explanation for free will? Is that question even? Yes, but it depends what explanation means. So if that means an antecedent factor, no. But in the same way, I think there will be a deeper perspective on quantum mechanics. Yes, but it's not going to be that it all of a sudden, everything about quantum mechanics is not actually, it's all an illusion or something like that. And the same with free will. It's, yes, though, I mean, I think it's a fascinating area to study neuroscience and psychology and biology from the perspective of thinking, how does free will operate in this whole realm? So what power does it give an individual over his consciousness? What can he do as a result of it? How are we to understand human behavior as a result of it? But also where does free will come from? What are the neuro-physiological conditions that it requires? I mean, you can definitely be incapacitated such, I mean, if you're on a coma, you don't have free will, or you don't have it anywhere. I mean, there's some people who supposedly have some hearing and think, but you don't have it anywhere as a normal person does. I mean, there's all kinds of other things that can happen. All the issues. I mean, Sam Harris brings up the idea of when people have tumors, the dict, in a sense, dictate particular behavior or the effect drugs have on our psychology, which are all true and documented. Yeah. So all of that sounds like interesting areas to look at. Yeah. And it's again, and I mean, psychology has to grapple with this. They would have to grapple with it in the law. So you have a tumor that's impinging on the brain, and it's resulting in different personalities and expressions. Is it, has the person lost complete control? Is there now, there's a sort of mitigating factor, but he still has some control over his mind and its operations, such that you can hold him responsible, though you have to allow that he has a tumor that's doing, there's, and that, I mean, to legal responsibility, can we hold him and then morally, how do you use such a person? There's all kinds of real issues there that science should be investigating, but their premise can't be free wills and illusion. So we don't need to think anything about that. And we'll just look at the other factor. That's the wrong approach. And it's, it's impoverishing. So objective view is not idealism. It's everything's free will and the mind forget about all that other stuff. But either, neither should you do, that's all there is tumors on the brain and so on, and forget about free will and the fact that consciousness and the self-control that a human consciousness has. You have to be trying to integrate those. And that's very, very difficult. And it should be like, this is the frontier of science. I mean, one aspect of science that's enormously exciting. But because they're locked in either materialism or idealism, it's not that, it's not nearly as interesting as it is. And it strikes me the same thing, that that same thing is true of kind of the evolutionary psychology, that is the whole idea of how did our brain evolve and what did it evolve to impact traits or to impact inclinations, however we want to define it. And the interaction of that with free will and what we have control over and what we might not have control over, all of that is just, it strikes me, it's fascinating and interesting. But it seems like most evolutionary psychologists kind of compartment, even if they believe in free will compartmentalize free will to the side and kind of just deal with the evolutionary stuff independent of the free will and then missing out on what's interesting. And I think they bracket it partly because they don't know how to deal with it, but partly because they're materialist determinists in the end, but have some sense that can't be exactly right. But that's what science is and that's what we do. But I definitely think the issue of integrating evolution into a full picture of the human being, so that has to include physiologically and psychologically is an interesting branch of science to be thinking of. I think one has to be cautious about how much data do we actually have in this area. And just when you look at evolution when it's much more at the physiological level, leave aside the psychology and how much is changing in the picture of how human beings evolve because they make new fossil discoveries and so on. And that's already really complicated to figure out how the psychology is evolving and is affected by physiological structures and so on. That I think it's way harder to get data about that. And it's even more complicated than an already very complicated and changing field. So I think there's way too much overconfidence and even is it even science in evolutionary psychology where they're telling stories that sound good, but if you ask where is the data for this, you're surprised by how little data there is. Yeah and it strikes me that we understand scientifically we understand something like life or consciousness. I mean we have so little understanding of what constitutes life from a biological perspective or consciousness that you know and then human consciousness. I mean that's just that's just so much even more that yeah the whole that whole science is still the whole science of biology is young. Yeah well what do you mean by we have so I definitely think we have not that much knowledge about consciousness yet though stuff is known but what do you mean in regard to life? But even life you know what constitutes life you know biological or from a physical scientific perspective we don't know how to create life yet we can't create it in a tube. We don't know what level of complexity what kind of complexity what is it that makes life makes inanimate atoms combine in a way is to create something that is life and I don't think the scientists really have a full grasp of that I think they're getting closer and there's a lot of stuff interesting things going on but and then to leap to that to to people expect us to have a complete rundown a complete understanding of every everything that's involved in human consciousness and free will and everything like that to me is such a leap given where the science is. Yeah and then I mean so by biology is a wonderfully complex field and part of what they're discovering is how much more complex life is and at the cellular level and genetics of it then we may have first thought and yeah so there's definitely there's so much to explore there and then when you're starting to ask like how did this evolve it's well what's the this and we're still grappling with what the this is like where we are now versus okay how did that evolve it's it's it's a really complicated and it should be exciting but one should be very cautious about what's the known versus the unknowns. And then to what extent do you think that this confusion over free will that is responsible for the difficulty in conveying other philosophical concepts that are more you know that it let's say that a political or moral to what extent is this a fundamental issue that in some ways has to be resolved before we're ever going to get people to really get the further down the road in a sense concepts. I think it's one of the most fundamental issues in philosophy because it shapes the whole view of human nature and how you view yourself um and most bad political and moral movements and theories are deterministic so and this is something I ran stressed that determinism and dictatorship go together but deeper than the political most attacks in morality on on man and man's life and his ability to live are deterministic and if you look at at some of these social political movements religion has attacked free will and in many different ways so some are straight out determinists when you look at some of the promised and who set up dictate like Calvin setting up dictate dictatorships in Geneva it's predestination it's you're the chosen or the damn you don't know when you can't do anything about it um and we somehow have some kind of direct line to the supernatural and we know something more than you do so we can put you in your place the that whole picture of people is determined as hemmed in physiologically or in some other way and not possessing a reasoning choosing mind is central and it comes the philosophy is uh a battle between Plato and Aristotle on Ramizan Hermes in the Aristotelian tradition understood in a broad sense and Plato even though he's better than many of the people who follow him is on the side of of denying human beings freedom and morality but if you get like in the republic it's people are there's people who are I mean as we would put it now commoners people who should be soldiers workers there's a very select few the philosopher kings who can really exercise reason but what that means in objectivist terms is who can really use their minds and then control of the minds everybody else is in controlled by so they're more controlled by their emotions or passions and the philosopher king is going to set up everything so the system works as best it can so but it's a blueprint for deterrent for dictatorship here it's philosophers I mean that's what's funny about it but it's philosophers in charge but it's at the end it's because of viewing human beings as determined and teaching people that you should view yourself like that to view yourself as just a soldier that's all you can aspire to that's all you can be and that runs throughout human history um most cultures other than the west had these kinds of assigned places and when the west absorbed all kinds of i i mean religion really comes from outside the west it's a more and oriental perspective on the world um when that dominated with christianity then people didn't view themselves as i'm in control i can chart my course and the scientific revolution was demonstrating at the level of thinking you can do this and every everybody can learn it you told me in physics if you really study it look at the data learn to reason and then it became more not just about thought but about action you have fundamental control over your mind you have fundamental control over your life therefore and everybody can do this and so what the enlightenment is why it's so optimistic is because it views everybody is having free will and the power to reason and the power to choose to exercise it regardless of where you were born and what country but what race and what level of income you have this fundamental control over your life and it's why the enlightenment produced it it comes out of the scientific worldview but in early in the enlightenment it's on the side of free will and someone like Locke who's a central figure here he's squarely on the side of free will and in a good in a very good way that you have some kind of control over your mind you can relinquish that and that's what the people who submit to religion to enthusiasm which means your emotions taken over you can relinquish it but you can keep it too and if you do that you can be on a path to enlightenment in a fundamental way and the whole american system of government relies on viewing each individual as capable of doing this this is why you can be self-governing because you're self-determining in a fundamental way so this issue shapes your view of yourself of mankind and of society in a very deep way and the movements that came after the enlightenment Marxism for instance um and the same is true of Nazism are deterministic and Marxist through and through determinists and don't think you have control over your mind you don't think ideas come from thinking they come from economic forces outside you and and they're and um uh i mean you've been talking yeah now we have identity politics which is you know it comes from your group or your ethnic group your your economic strata but it's not even the Marxist old Marxist economic strata now it really is back to the genes it's it's back to the racial you know and the same i mean you've been arguing uh about the inequality issue and that comes from the egalitarianism and it's you didn't build that and you didn't earn that in the deepest sense what they push is you don't have free will that is so don't think you're responsible it's your environment it took a village to build that it takes society it's you're a product you're not self-determining because you're not in control and all the egalitarians in one way or another are on the side of determinism but as we've talked about determinism is the widespread viewpoint and even the people who think themselves on the side of morality of freedom and I would put like someone like Sam Harris like that is actually on the other side because he's undercutting himself in such a fundamental way by being in a determinist camp so it's a crucial issue today that we've gone all wrong on it I know that any philosophers out there who are advocates I mean because I I've watched Dennett a little bit or even Seoul who are some of the better people and none of them have a even a close to right conception of free will yeah I don't um so I'm not sort of up to speed and the contemporary which means like the last 10 15 years of what is going on when I was still in graduate school I mean there are some people who will talk in a better way about free will but not anyone very prominent um that I in the field I think and part of what's happened in philosophy too it's disintegrated so there's not um people who really have philosophies anymore they have views on particular issues so you might find someone who's good on free will but it doesn't integrate into any kind of worldview really um and it's I mean we've talked about this is similar in economics that you don't have any real theoreticians who are advancing a wide theory they have on particular issues about trade or about monetary policy but they don't have a wide view of the field and theories in it and the same is true of philosophy today it's much worse in philosophy because that's what philosophy is supposed to do so so even if you can find better people it's not you're not getting a better worldview that's integrating free will into it in a in a in a fundamental I mean that is what I'm land does I think um and she's unique in that in the 20th century because she takes she's a system builder in a way a philosopher should be she takes the issue of free will as really important has something new to say and integrates it into a system um and that um it's one of the reasons people should read Iran even if they end up disagreeing with some or all of what she said because this is this is a really important issue and it and it you know just to back to what kind of where we started it's it's you know they they really can't think out of these two boxes that they put themselves into and what I meant off is a completely different world view and and so many people resist resist uh resist readings or they were parallel and it really is a shame because uh it's fresh it's new it's exciting and even if you disagree with it it's gonna it's gonna push the envelope it's gonna cause you to challenge your beliefs yeah and they don't know even if they come and read it they don't know how to approach it so even if you read something by Ayn Rand and you're put off by some particular political view or something she says in morality um treat that as a detail there's a whole perspective here from where she's coming and think about that perspective and that she's has something very new to say about free will and you might disagree with some of the details or some of the applications she makes of it but if you're really interested in getting different world views and I think one should be because this is part of how an ordinary person who's not a genius who can't formulate their own view how you get out of these boxes that the culture pushes you is to read more widely to read things outside of your contemporary framework to get oh yeah there are other ways of looking at the world um and that is what Ayn Rand offers and it's tremendously valuable even if you don't come to agree yeah we should do a session on how to approach reading Ayn Rand something like what the companion the companion to Ayn Rand is doing but yeah we should we should do that that would be all right thanks Anko was there anything else you want to say about free will that we haven't covered well yeah I mean I think the one last issue with which we can just touch on that but it's worth stressing um we've talked about free will more from what Ayn Rand would call and philosophically you would put as the epistemological side the side that you have over your thinking and that you can orient yourself towards reality towards the truth and that you view yourself as having that power and you view other people as having that that's why we try to argue and persuade with them uh from Ayn Rand's perspective epistemology and morality good and evil right and wrong go together and she thinks the primary choice is both an epistemological choice about your thinking and the taking control of your mind but it's also the primary moral choice that so one way to look at it is morality is about a dedication to the truth and and that's putting it in that wide frame is not unique to objective but objectiveism agrees with that that a morality of deep sense is about the pursuit of truth and then acting accordingly but what it says is the reason morality is about that is because that's your fundamental choice this is your primary choice that you have this power um and all there is to say about someone is he exercised that power or he chose not to and you don't explain it by well his mother was mean to him and so it's this is the fundamental control he has and therefore this when you morally look at yourself and others this is the standard by which you assess yourself so reason and morality or rationality morality go they're intricately interconnected for objectives and it's because of its account of free will that it applies in both areas and it's the same issue looked at from different perspectives um and that again so this is what it means to have of your free will that's then integrated into a whole philosophy and it's a very interesting perspective on morale yeah no that would make another great session is just is to is to cover that great thanks alca and