/lit/ - Literature

He seems like a decent guy. That said, his free will book is pointless. Determinism is a fact that's utterly unavoidable, logically everything must be causally determined, so necessarily the whole history of the universe is pre-determined. Most people believe in determinism, but believe in free will too. Sapolsky is yes-determinism no-free will. He says free will is a myth because our reactions to any situation are determined beforehand by a combo of genes + habits + mood + bodily condition + neurotransmitters etc. Thus, says Sapolsky, everything we do is pre-determined, and there is no room left over for free will.

The crucial point he misses is that, while the outcome of every situation is necessarily pre-determined, as Hume might put it, this tells us nothing about what "must be" but only what "has been". Maybe a heroin addict of 10 years MUST die a heroin addict, because it appears beyond his control. However, imagine one day he goes to rehab, starts believing in willpower, and miraculously becomes sober. Well, then the whole "fate" idea looks ridiculous -- he had the ability to save his life the entire time.

In fact, you know what? Humans not only have free will, we have unconditionally free will: 100% freedom to do what we want, all the time. No human is *ever* forced to do anything, unless they are drugged or getting raped, etc. I don't understand how Sapolsky can argue criminals shouldn't be held culpable for their crimes, when the CIA and Special Forces have developed interrogation resistance techniques that allow humans to get beaten to death before confessing. Willpower is not some fake thing -- all of us have access to it. So while "The whole history of the universe is logically pre-determined" is true, this allows you to draw exactly 0 conclusions about what must be the case IRL. Maybe a felon has gotten 6 convictions before. Sapolsky would say "Oh go easy on him it's just bad genes". Well, if somehow you rehabilitated him and made him into a productive member of society, what would he say? He'd look like an idiot apologizing for the felon.

>>21539811
Both the Stoics and Nietzsche understand that full control of one's will is the highest aim of man. But neither provided an adequate solution to this problem: Both of their responses boil down to basically "Just do it". What we need is some kind of method or technique for totally dominating one's own will. So far, it seems no one has discovered one.

>erase my late fees now

>>16571815
Stay off 4chan
Stop wageslaving

>>15420649
Your fatal mistake is thinking me one of your slavish kind. Hold still

Human history is a stage play adapted into a novel