0:00 Shhh… The little fan is turning, turning, beta.0:04 Making the air soft.0:05 But are you the one who decides what to think in this quiet room?0:11 Or are your thoughts just… happening to you?0:15 That’s a heavy one for a quiet night.0:18 I tell you what.0:19 Last time, we asked if a powerful leader could be both a good person and a good ruler.0:26 But tonight, the question goes deeper.0:30 Can any of us, truly, CHOOSE to be good in the first place?0:35 Or are we just reacting to the world?0:38 Like my old hound dog, Sam.0:40 He don't decide to bark at the mailman.0:44 The mailman just...0:45 happens.0:46 And then the barkin' happens.0:48 Ah, but a man is not a dog, my friend.0:52 A man can reason.0:53 He can look at his own thoughts and ask, "Is this right?0:58 Is this wrong?" Now, I know how that sounds.1:02 But hang on.1:03 A smart fella from Pennsylvania, B.F.1:06 Skinner, he spent his whole life watchin' things.1:10 Rats, pigeons, people.1:12 And he said that feeling of 'choosing' is just a story we tell ourselves AFTER the fact.1:19 A story?1:20 Arre, that is a sad story then.1:23 A much older man, an Englishman named John Locke, he saw it differently.1:29 He said each baby is born like a blank page… a tabula rasa.1:34 A what now?1:35 A clean slate, beta.1:37 Nothing is written there.1:39 Not good, not bad.1:40 Experience comes and writes on the slate.1:44 We see, we hear, we touch… and from this, our reason learns to choose our path.1:50 Mm-hmm.1:51 I hear you.1:52 But Skinner would say that 'writing' ain't just marks on a page.1:57 It's training.1:59 It's, uh, what he called reinforcement.2:02 Reinforcement?2:03 Like a teacher giving a star for good work?2:07 Exactly like that.2:08 You do something, and a good thing happens—you get a treat, a kind word, a paycheck.2:16 Your brain says, "Hey, let's do that again." That's positive reinforcement.2:22 Accha.2:23 And if a bad thing happens?2:25 Then your brain says, "Whoa, let's not do THAT again." You touch a hot stove once, you learn right quick.2:34 It ain't a grand moral choice.2:36 It's just...2:37 cause and effect.2:39 Skinner built boxes where he could teach a pigeon to play ping-pong for a corn kernel.2:46 A pigeon playing ping-pong!2:49 That is a clever trick.2:51 But a man is not a pigeon in a box.2:54 The whole world is his classroom.2:56 That's just it!2:58 Skinner said the world IS the box.3:01 It's a great big, complicated box, but it's a box all the same.3:06 Your family, your town, your job… they're all giving you little rewards and punishments, all day long, shaping you.3:16 I hear you, but—that takes away our dignity.3:19 Locke believed we are born with natural rights.3:24 The right to our own life, our liberty, our property.3:28 These come from God, or from nature itself.3:32 They are not 'given' to us for good behavior.3:36 Well, that's a fine thought to have.3:39 But Skinner would ask, where's the proof?3:42 You can't see a 'natural right'.3:45 You can't measure it.3:47 But you sure can measure how many times a rat presses a lever if it gets a food pellet.3:54 So for him, only what you can measure is real?3:58 What about love, Earl?4:00 What about courage?4:02 Can you put those in a box and weigh them?4:05 Whoo, boy.4:06 No, ma'am, you can't.4:08 But you can watch what a person DOES.4:11 A person who acts in a loving way has been rewarded for it.4:16 Maybe by a smile, maybe by a feeling of warmth they learned to value as a child.4:23 But what if they do it when no one is watching?4:27 When there is no reward?4:29 A soldier who gives his life for his friend.4:33 What pellet did he get?4:35 That's the trick of it.4:37 The 'training' is already done.4:39 His whole life, he was taught that sacrifice is the highest honor.4:45 The reward isn't in that moment.4:48 The reward was the pride he felt every time he was told he was brave, the respect from his fellows.4:56 In that final moment, he was just...4:59 running the program.5:01 Arre, baba...5:02 a program?5:03 Like a machine?5:04 That is what we are to this Mister Skinner?5:08 A complex and beautiful machine, maybe.5:11 But, uh, yeah.5:12 A machine that learns.5:14 He believed if you could control all the inputs—everything a person sees and feels from birth—you could shape the person they become.5:26 Perfectly.5:26 And Locke would say that is tyranny!5:30 He would say that is the worst thing you can do to a person.5:35 To take away their God-given freedom to think for themselves, to make their own mistakes and find their own way.5:44 But are they makin' their own way?5:47 Or are they just following the easiest path, the one with the most treats along it?5:54 Skinner would say all this talk of 'freedom' and 'dignity' just gets in the way of solving real problems.6:03 How so?6:04 Well, you wanna stop crime?6:06 Don't talk about 'evil' and 'sin'.6:09 That's not useful.6:11 Figure out what in the environment is rewarding criminal behavior and change it.6:17 Make it so being a good neighbor is more rewarding than bein' a thief.6:23 So you just… engineer a society of good people?6:27 That was his dream, I reckon.6:30 A world designed to make people happy, productive, and safe, by carefully arranging the rewards.6:38 He wrote a whole book about it, called Walden Two.6:42 Hmm-mm.6:43 A planned garden is beautiful.6:46 But a jungle has its own life, its own wildness.6:50 Locke would say that wildness, that freedom to be messy and unpredictable, is what makes us human.6:58 We are not plants to be arranged.7:01 Okay, but consider this, my friend.7:04 If Mister Skinner is right, and we are all just… responding… then what happens to responsibility?7:12 Now you've put your finger right on the switch point.7:17 That's the heart of it.7:19 If a man builds a great hospital for the poor, we cannot praise his good heart?7:25 It was just his… programming?7:28 Skinner would say you can praise the outcome.7:32 You can say, "That's a good hospital." But praising the man's 'inner goodness' is like praising the sky for being blue.7:42 It just… is.7:43 And the other side?7:45 A man who does a terrible thing?7:47 A cruel, wicked thing?7:49 Do we not blame him?7:51 Do we not hold him accountable?7:54 You hold him accountable to stop the behavior.7:57 You put him in prison not to punish his 'evil soul', but to change the environment.8:05 For him, and for others who see what happened.8:08 It's a tool.8:10 So there is no good or evil?8:12 Only… effective and ineffective actions?8:15 In the behaviorist world?8:17 Pretty much.8:18 The words 'good' and 'bad' are just labels we put on behaviors that we've been conditioned to like or dislike.8:28 It's… uncomfortable to think about.8:31 I'll give you that one.8:33 It is more than uncomfortable!8:35 It means the hero and the villain are the same.8:39 Just two puppets whose strings were pulled differently.8:44 Whoo, boy.8:45 When you put it like that… Yeah.8:48 It does.8:48 And Skinner would just nod and say, "Yep.8:52 Now let's figure out how the strings work so we can make more heroes and fewer villains." But Locke would be shouting!9:02 "The strings are in our own hands!9:05 Reason is how we see them, and choice is how we pull them!" And I reckon Skinner would just smile that quiet smile of his and say, "Show me the data." So here we are, beta, in the quiet dark.9:21 Two old men from long ago, arguing in our heads.9:25 One sees a beautiful, free spirit, learning from the world like a student.9:32 That is Locke.9:33 And the other sees a marvelously complex creature of habit, shaped by the world like a river is shaped by its banks.9:43 That's Skinner.9:44 One is a story of freedom.9:46 The other is a story of control.9:49 And you know, I think we live in Skinner's world, but we tell ourselves Locke's story to get through the day.9:58 We all feel like we're the captain of our own ship.10:03 Yes.10:03 We feel it so strongly.10:05 This feeling of 'I'.10:07 I am deciding this.10:08 It is the most real thing we know.10:11 But every advertisement you see, every 'like' button you click on the internet, every sale at the grocery store...10:21 it's all a little piece of Skinner's box.10:25 All designed to nudge you, to reward you, to shape what you do next without you even thinkin' about it.10:33 Arre, that is true.10:35 They are pulling the strings.10:37 So the real question is not, "Are we free?" Perhaps the question is, "Can we BECOME free?" Mm-hmm.10:46 Can we learn to see the box we're in?10:49 Can we see the rewards and punishments that are pushin' us around?10:55 Locke would say yes, through reason and education.10:59 By learning to think for ourselves.11:02 And you know what?11:03 I think Skinner might actually agree.11:07 He'd just call it something different.11:10 He'd call it understanding the 'contingencies of reinforcement'.11:15 Learning how you're being trained so you can, maybe, train yourself.11:21 So the two old men, they meet in the middle after all.11:26 One calls it liberty.11:28 The other calls it self-management.11:31 But both paths begin with opening your eyes.11:34 With seeing the world as it is, and seeing yourself in it.11:39 And what did the little one learn?11:42 Hmm?11:43 That whether you're a soul or a machine, it pays to read the instruction manual.11:49 Accha.11:50 A good place to rest.11:52 Now sleep, kanna.11:53 The story will wait for you.
