0:00 A brain scan can detect the start of a physical action up to three hundred milliseconds before the person consciously decides to act.0:09 Mm-hm.0:10 And that right there is the perfect, and maybe terrifying, bridge from where we left off last week.0:17 We were talking about Laplace's Demon, this idea of a totally predictable, clockwork universe.0:24 Right, if you knew the position of every atom, you could predict the future.0:30 And this feels like that idea, but happening inside our own skulls.0:35 If my brain has already set the wheels in motion...0:39 where am I in that process?0:41 Am I even there for the decision?0:43 That's the question, isn't it?0:45 It throws the whole concept of free will into crisis.0:49 I mean, we live our entire lives with the deep, intuitive feeling that we are the authors of our actions.0:57 I chose to have coffee this morning.1:00 I chose to wear this shirt.1:02 But if the choice is just an after-the-fact story we tell ourselves about what our brain was already doing...1:10 what does that mean?1:12 This is what philosophers call hard determinism, right?1:16 Exactly.1:16 It’s the idea that every event, including every human action, is the inevitable result of prior causes.1:24 The Big Bang set off a chain of dominoes, and this conversation, right now, is just one of those dominoes falling.1:32 There is no real choice, only the illusion of it.1:36 Okay, so if we accept that...1:38 what happens to moral responsibility?1:41 If someone does something terrible, but their actions were determined since the beginning of time...1:48 can you blame them?1:50 How can you punish them?1:52 You can't, not in a moral sense.1:54 You could still, say, restrain them to protect society, but the idea of just deserts, of them deserving punishment, that completely evaporates.2:05 It makes praise and blame feel...2:07 well, nonsensical.2:08 So what's the pushback?2:10 I can't imagine everyone just rolls over and accepts that we're all biological puppets.2:17 No, definitely not.2:18 The other extreme is called libertarian free will—and no, not the political kind.2:24 This is the idea that, yes, we are special.2:27 That we are, in some way, an exception to the causal chain.2:32 Like a little ghost in the machine that can just...2:36 make a choice out of thin air?2:38 An uncaused cause?2:39 That's the critique, yeah.2:41 It feels a bit like magic.2:43 It proposes that our consciousness can initiate a new causal chain all on its own.2:49 The problem is, it doesn't really fit with anything we know about physics or neuroscience.2:56 Where would this "free" decision even come from?2:59 Huh.3:00 Okay, so on one hand you have a perfectly logical universe with no room for real choice, and on the other you have a kind of magical self that doesn't fit in the universe.3:12 That's...3:13 not a great set of options.3:15 Which is why a lot of thinkers land in the middle, with something called compatibilism.3:22 They try to argue that free will and determinism can actually coexist.3:27 Wait—how?3:27 That sounds like trying to have your cake and eat it, too.3:32 Well, the compatibilist redefines free will.3:35 They'd say a choice is "free" if you are acting on your own desires, without anyone holding a gun to your head.3:43 So, you chose to have coffee because you wanted coffee.3:47 That’s a free act.3:49 But what if my wanting the coffee was predetermined by my genetics, my upbringing, the ad I saw yesterday...3:57 everything?3:58 To the compatibilist, that doesn't matter.4:01 The act was free because it flowed from your internal state, your character.4:06 Even if that character itself was forged by a chain of causes stretching back to the dawn of time.4:14 Oh, I don't know.4:15 That feels like a cheat.4:17 It feels like you're just a very complicated puppet that happens to love its strings.4:23 It doesn't feel...4:24 free.4:25 I know.4:25 It saves a version of responsibility, but it might sacrifice the feeling of ultimate authorship that we all hold so dear.4:34 And maybe that initial brain scan isn't the smoking gun we think it is.4:40 What do you mean?4:41 Maybe the "I" who chooses isn't just that split-second conscious awareness.4:47 Maybe "I" am the entire neural process—the unconscious buildup and the conscious recognition.4:53 Maybe the feeling of deciding isn't the decision itself, but the final report that the decision has been made by my whole self.5:03 That's a little easier to sit with.5:06 But it still leaves that question hanging in the air.5:09 If I make a choice I deeply regret...5:12 what part of me is doing the regretting?5:15 And what does it mean to promise yourself you'll choose better next time, if "next time" is already on its way?
