0:00 Dear viewers, welcome to a new episode of the program “Speak Up”, of course. Today our episode will be about free will, and with us is our beloved brother David, the caveman, meaning the man who was delighted to hear the voice of course. Today our episode will be about: oh, anyway, my friends, I am very sorry for the delay that happened to us for a few minutes. I welcome all the friends present. They will be present. Sorry if I was not able to go to all the names present, of course, our beloved Abu Al-Hakam. Finally, Sa’i returned to us from yesterday. He was with us as well. Anyway, my friends, whoever wants to send any questions, and of course, the questions are
0:47 open to all friends who want to send questions. My brother Abu Al-Hakam will send me the questions on Skype. Whoever wants to send questions on Skype, welcome. Anyway, in the episode we will discuss free will, and do we really have free will, and what is free will? And what is the whole will to discuss all these topics and all the questions that are raised and here we also discuss them in the beginning let us welcome our brother and beloved David Welcome David Good evening Jan to you and to everyone An episode a long time ago I promised you and I broke my promise to you So today we will be busy with it and when I made the announcement the truth is I saw that people are interested in the episode so let us see what we want to do What do we want to
1:36 discuss in the subject If I noticed something let me tell you about it from the beginning that people have confusion or a mistake between the freedom of will that we want to talk about now or what I understood your question about the freedom of will, what does it mean and between you as a human being being able to do something that you do not like to do These are two completely different subjects Freedom of will or free will is a matter and the subject that you are good at doing something that you have in mind to do for one reason or another is a completely separate matter So from the beginning I mean I want to clarify this point to the friends because I noticed With the comments and questions that
2:23 came to me, the matter got confusing. Anyway, let's start, David. What is will? What is will, regardless of whether it is free or unfree? Hello, my friend, the idea is that you are the will itself, or your desire to do something. It is the idea of will, that I have a will because I am filming this episode with you. Hello, I don't want to get into the subject with philosophy and philosophers. What did they say about the subject because we don't want to look at a lot today because I mentioned the questions that came to us a lot. I know in this subject and I know that a lot of questions will come, people want something more practical, something
3:09 more practical, so there is no need for us to get into the philosophical schools of compatibilism, incompatibilism, determinism, indeterminism, liberalism, etc., optional skepticism, blah blah blah, complementarity. We don't want to get into all these details. It's like this, or this is how I see it, unless someone wants to get into it and asks me about the details, we can get into them. But these are definitions and such classifications and philosophical quarrels, no I expect most of the people who follow us are interested in understanding these matters, as much as they know the subject that when I want something, I decide something, I want something, is this decision mine, how did I make this decision in the first place, how did I decide that I wanted to do this thing? This is the first point. The second point is, now I decided to do this
3:57 thing, am I going to do this thing or not, is there anyone who will prevent me from doing it or not? This is the second point. And between me thinking about doing something and deciding to do this thing, there is a third point here in the middle, you say that now I thought about doing something, is it right for me or not? There are practical stages, or I am trying to make the cat happy, I felt that I should smoke now, or I should drink water, because it is easier. This is the first feeling that came to me, now I wanted to drink water. Okay, here I have two options in front of me, either I hold the cup and drink it, or I ignore the matter and keep talking to you, waiting for comments or something like that until
4:44 I drink the cup of water. The third possibility is, am I Should I drink a glass of water or not? Maybe your channel’s rules say, brother, you are not allowed to drink water while you are talking to me on air, for example, or for some other reason, or a rule that I set myself that, brother, I do n’t want anyone to see me drinking water. Maybe I am making the decision in my head. So, practically speaking, there are three levels. Our friends must be aware that while we are talking about this topic, the topic goes through three stages. It is not a single hit, for example, that I want to drink water and I drank water like this. No, the topic is not... Okay, how does this process take place in our body, in our brain. How does it start from the beginning? I mean, now, in my opinion, this topic,
5:32 just as the topic of discussion is ontological, or existence and nonexistence, and existence and the origin of the universe and what came before the universe and so on, its entire history throughout history, all of it until 50 years ago, maybe from now on, it was a philosophical discussion. The topic is completely philosophical research, but practically, we are saying that existence or matter and nonexistence or nothingness are physical matters, and thus we are forced to see Physicists, what are they talking about in this subject? Thus, the discussion about the existence and non- existence of something and nothing was transferred from its
6:18 philosophical being to its material or physical being, although there are still people who ignore this subject and continue to discuss philosophically, in a story and rationally, that is, this is their choice. However, the matter says that it is a physical matter, the same point, the subject of the time when I am thinking about free will or the will or that I want something. Also, throughout history, there were philosophical schools. The debates or the saying about free will as being our subject began, meaning after the three great philosophers of Athens, approximately since the days of the Stoics, when a fundamental point began to crystallize, they fell into it, which is that politics or democracy was known as
7:04 democracy in Athens. Democracy cannot be achieved unless individuals’ decisions when they want to elect or decide a certain matter are a free decision stemming from their own decision. So, from here it began, meaning a state of imposition, and thus we must consider that all people have become taken for granted that All people have free will because if it does n’t exist, free will, and let’s say that people don’t have free will, they go and elect the person who affected them the most with his advertising campaign or who when they grew up in their environment when they were raised with their parents, their fathers, mothers and family were heading towards a
7:51 certain political direction for the party or for that matter, so this person doesn’t have free will and I don’t respect his opinion when he wants to come and vote, it’s a disaster that will completely destroy democracy. Therefore, for the sake of this point, a condition was imposed or it was taken for granted that all people have free will, and from those days until today, as I said, the philosophical schools, perhaps there is no philosopher who is not classified in one of the philosophical schools on the subject of free will and debates, but the reality today says with the new development that happened in the last 50 years in neuroscience and psychology, I have come to know that any decision A person makes a decision resulting from the brain, and the brain is a
8:38 physical mass. As a result, I can do a population scan of it, for example, with functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). I can see the areas that are active and those that are not active, and so on. So, scientists have started to do some experiments on this topic. Based on the natural experiments that are being done and the studies that are being done on the brain regarding the topic of our topic today, there is almost a consensus, almost no. I don’t know if there is definitely a consensus, because I haven’t done a survey of my opinion among all neuroscientists. But I have not come across a self-respecting neuroscientist who tells you that you have free will. You decide something, like an idea descending from the sky upon you. You decide to
9:26 do something, carry out a certain command, or say a certain idea. Even everything that I am saying now, of course, is not an idea that descends upon you from the sky and you say it, or it comes out of nothing, or no. Practically anything in your brain is your brain. See, I explained the topic in my time in a way that I like to return briefly, first to friends. In my point of view, For the brain metaphysics division Of course, it is not an anatomical division. Let us imagine the brain, for example, has three main sections. The main section is our instincts section. All the dervishes in society will come and say to you, brother, who taught the
10:12 infant to hold his mother’s breast and suckle, and who taught him to cry when he is in pain? These are things you do not need to learn. These are matters of natural selection. Just as it selected the physical or bodily matters in us, natural selection also selected these psychological instincts or psychological drives in all people. Any human being, meaning, without you teaching him anything, is born free and alone. In the beginning, hunger will make him cry. He will be afraid of strangers, he will be afraid of high places, he will be afraid of insects, he will suckle from his mother’s breast, but to suckle, he stops drinking and sleeps, etc. Give him time to reach puberty. He will have
10:59 sexual desire, he will be attracted to a certain person and love him, he will have sex, he will have children, he will love his children and be kind to them. The program All of this is an instinctive program, and it is not only about us as humans. This is present in all other animals. This is something they share because without this mother, without these instincts, without this basic system, about us, or consider it our operetta system, a program system, an operetta system, I don’t know in Arabic, this is the system that will operate for you. For example, when you buy a computer, an operating system must be installed on it for you to deal with it, otherwise it is just a piece of plastic. If it does not have an operating system, let’s say in Arabic the operating system. The operating system is completely on it.
11:45 Any computer that you want to buy must have an operating system, sir. If it does not have Windows, if you are assembling computer parts, you will start with your BIOS. You have a system that you start with, then you make an F- Disk and download things with DOS to move later to Windows. Or if you are buying a mobile phone, it must have the Android system and be familiar with all the functions and funk schemes of this mobile phone. Otherwise, any part that does not know this system or how it works is a completely outdated piece without any The benefit of my computer when I downloaded Windows 10 I told you that you don't know about the camera of the webcam on the laptop, not the mobile. My laptop doesn't know about the webcam, so my webcam has become completely useless because it doesn't communicate well with the
12:30 operating system. Now, if you must have this operating system, which is the instincts, get rid of it. We ask that we get out of the hole. Everything you think about, you get hungry, thirsty, etc., scared, things get tired. This is a tab for the basic operating system. Let's come to the second point, the instantaneous section, which is the memory section, for us in brief, is divided like houses into two cards: fast memory, instant memory, random access memory, random access memory, translated into Arabic, which is RAM, I call it RAM in short, it is present in all your mobile phones and all computers. You have the second part, which is the main memory,
13:15 your hard disk or flash memory, on which you store. You have the third section, which is the CPU or the central processing unit or the processing section. Which is what you will interact with and perform your cognitive and thinking processes now, just like a computer. If you have a computer with Windows on it, you will only work on your computer and you cannot do anything else on it. The truth is, if you want to write something, you must download a Windows program. Oredi downloads basic programs for you to run on the computer, but they are not part of the basic operating program. You want to draw, you want to write, you want to do anything. You need programs that you download and interact with. Now, the same thing. The human brain
14:02 works alongside the instincts department. Anything else you want to think about in order to think, you need a program to think through or by means of it. This program is what we learn and acquire from our environment. In addition, when you want to think about any topic or process any matter, you want to process it based on the data or information stored in your brain. Otherwise, this matter loses its meaning completely. If I say to you a word that you do not know now, then the word has no meaning to you at all, neither directly nor indirectly. I say it to someone else who understands. Meaning, he interacts with it completely. It could be a warning, for example, it could be an
14:50 insult. It could be a very nice word for you, but it has no entity. It is just a sound that you said. You may not distinguish it as a word. If it is a strange language, such as Chinese, for example, “Hello.” So, if we tune our program, we tune our program so that we can decide, work, and think about anything. With the word “thinking,” you think about any topic you need because you do this thinking based on the data you have until you come up with an idea with a specific conclusion. This is what we do with the child from a young age. We teach him everything around us. We teach him what is wrong. We teach him a certain behavior: this is wrong, this is moral, this is immoral. We begin by teaching him religions: this is permissible and this is forbidden, and
15:36 so on, etc. From teaching him writing and reading, to teaching him physics and mathematics and all matters of life. Thus, every human being among us, when he wants to think about a specific topic, his thinking is based on the data that he has. This is how it is when you talk to someone who is his age. At 20 years old, when you talk to him, he thinks about the subject differently. A 10-year-old will think about it more superficially, most likely, while a 20-year-old will think about it more deeply. A 30-year-old will think about it more deeply. A 40-year-old will think about it more deeply. And so on. This is what we say about a person who has become more aware, who has gained experience in life. His handling of the same situation completely, his thoughts about the same subject will differ now. This is on the one hand. On the other hand,
16:25 when people are programmed in this life, it is all our movements that we work in, all the actions that we do. Every person we meet in our life, where something is stored in my brain, information will be stored. Maybe you, Jan, before the conversation, you were telling me about some things that I learned from you. It became information for me that a quarter of an hour ago I did not know. Certain details about life in Britain. Now I am like a commentator on it. It is the same thing. Any experience that you have in life, you have certain experiences. For example, if a situation happened to you, this situation was with a certain person, and this person wronged you. Later on, your
17:11 brain will alert you when you are going to do this situation that this situation will result in harming our brain, for example, it resorts to something called generalization. This topic was very essential in our previous lives, meaning that if you had a certain situation, you generalize that any situation similar to this will produce the same result. Therefore, we find in our subconscious, if you had a bad situation with a Thai person, you will find yourself saying, “Here you are cursing Thais, brother, and Thais are a forbidden country and it is not good,” and so on. And if I had a situation where I was with a nice and kind Thai person, I will give you the exact opposite. By
17:57 nature, you listen to any conversation with any person and you will always find him making generalizations from small matters, although this topic does not make sense at all. Like Cal Popper says, “It is not logical that no matter how many white swans you have seen, you would generalize that all the swans in the world are white.” There may still be one white swan. Black, you didn’t see it. However, our brains, natural selection, preferred us over this case of any generalization that we are doing because it was safer. No, my brother, than it is better if I had a bad situation with a Thai person and I generalized that all Thais are bad. It is better than me coming across another Thai person and causing a serious disaster that might kill me. The second time I wasn’t raised properly the first time, so it is
18:44 better to generalize, my brother, that they are all bad. And so on. If we are programmed by selective breeding that he follows a certain approach in our way of thinking, we have cultures all around the world, all of which give birth to me. Any boy who comes is a new being who enters and becomes a member of the culture. We are programmed over a long journey with our cultural program. Melody number three. Each one of us has a different life than the others. It is true that there is a general culture that brings together all the sons of a certain society, but as a result, David and Jan, each one of them walked a different path in life than the other. The two brothers are from the one from the father And a
19:31 single mother whose life is different from one another met with different people who had different problems, different circumstances, and so on. So each one of us has his brain programmed by his own experiences in a way different from the other. Here, when you want to come to decide that I want to do this thing or I don’t want to do this thing or think about this matter or not think about this matter, the whole matter is based on all this old experience of the most beautiful thing that neuroscientists discovered, that our consciousness is a very
20:17 small part of the activity in which the brain is located. Estimates of our consciousness are only 10% of everything from all brain activity. 90% of the activity that the brain is constantly doing is unconscious activity. So, the beloved is inside our brains, there only for the person to feel that you are concerned with
21:04 the matter, but practically the whole matter is done in your subconscious, according to the expression of Allen Snyder, who said this. As I told you, what happens to us is that our brains or our subconscious mind is always working until it It understands the environment in which we live and understands and perceives the reality in which it is and issues decisions and orders for us to implement based on this reality that we are doing and walking in. As you walk in the street, you see things around you, big influences coming to you, your brain by means of a small device inside it called the thalamus in Arabic. This device filters, it always filters everything you
21:51 see, it gives you alerts to important things, the rest of the unimportant things that it thinks are not important, which in its opinion is your brain, not you. It may be a very important topic, but from its point of view, it is an unimportant topic, so it deals with it by means of your subconscious. Then, the moment you feel that a certain idea has come to you or you have decided to do a certain thing or you want to implement a certain topic, whatever it may be, from eating and drinking and so on, because you are expressing philosophical thoughts, it is the topic of the moment in which your subconscious informs your conscious mind that it has thought of this point or it is the such-and-
22:37 such idea or done this thing. So-and-so, you are saying that an idea came to me. It did not come to you as an idea from the sky. It came to you from your subconscious. Or you say I want to do such-and-such, I decided to do such-and-such. You did not decide, because you decided, as much as you were thinking consciously. But what is practically happening is that this feeling comes to you based on the conclusion that came out of your subconscious, which is what occupies the largest part of the brain. The conscious part of the brain is only 1 mm covering our brain, only 1 mm of cortex, according to one of the delicious analogies. He tells you, like the cap, which is the nylon that you wear in the shower, or you want to go to the pool so that your hair does not get wet. It is the thin nylon, its thickness is half a millimeter, for example. The
23:24 same idea. This section, the cerebral cortex, is responsible for your consciousness only, with its different sections: visual, motor, and so on. But the rest of the brain mass is constantly performing unconscious actions. Do you prefer to have something to do with it? Frankly, David, the issue of the ego is the relationship between the conscious brain And the unconscious means today, as you said, these thoughts are the unconscious part that has made its decision and done its research and everything is ready. Then it gives you the direction for the conscious part and tells you to implement this thought. Okay,
24:14 who am I? I cleared this state. I mean, the decision was made by the unconscious part. Then you came and, by God, you said, “This is my free will. I will do this.” You, on the contrary, received orders and you will carry them out, and it is not a free will. I mean, how do you see the relationship between it and it? Who am I in this state? What is free will? Have I cleared free will in any way? This is what the integral philosophers say on this subject, like Daniel Dennett, for example, the American philosopher who your colleges know because he has many lectures on YouTube. He is an integral philosopher from the point of view of will. His view of free will is an integral view of the integral school. I tell
25:01 you, if all the causes of your thoughts are things other than Conscious, however, it will remain your thoughts, your will, and your actions. Now, the subject of me, where did I settle in this mess? Who is the ego? Where is its location? The ego? My point of view on the subject, of course, philosophers discuss this story a lot. The point of view of the subject of Jan says that if now my hands were cut off or my legs were cut off, or my hands, legs, eyes, ears, and so on, all the organs of my whole body were lost, will you say when people introduce me to them, will they say this is David, missing two
25:49 hands, two legs, two eyes, two ears, and so on, or will you say this is just David? David’s being and essence have not changed, as much as he lost parts of his body. And if I had a heart replacement surgery, for example, and brought a heart from someone I don’t know, X from people, would my name be David, missing a heart, with Daniel’s heart added to it, for example? Of course not, my name would remain David. If the heart that works in me was the one that worked for Daniel, for someone named Daniel, and now he ate and the man died. And I donated his heart and installed it in my place. So when we are in a time, I say I am he, the ego is he, it is my brain in its entirety with its conscious and unconscious divisions. I am my
26:37 point of view, I am me as a person, it is my entire brain. Hello, where is the center of the ego in this topic? This is a debate that is still going on today, even among neuroscientists themselves and philosophers interested in the topic. It is still going on today, according to my knowledge, I mean, there has been no consensus on identifying a specific point that we say is the essential point inside the brain that we will call it no, because simply, like I told you in the last episode, as far as I remember, the brain is practically an evolution. Imagine it like an onion with scales on it. This is not like this in reality, guys, but I am trying to bring the idea closer in a way, I mean, theoretically or intellectually. Imagine it like an onion with scales on it. In the beginning, the small one is the
27:22 inner one, very small inside the onion. This is the old basic brain, the old cerebellum that is still present with us here at the bottom of the neck that is present at at at at at at q Molluscs, for example, which are lower than crustaceans, have two lobes of nerve clusters that control their body, their faculties, and everything in it. The brain is very small in reptiles. Reptiles have a very trivial brain, meaning lizards and so on, and their brains are very trivial. They do not have the consciousness that we have, like mammals. Then the primate brain developed more, and we as humans have brains that are more developed than others, our faculties, and we have the conscious cerebral cortex. So it is like an onion, a shipwreck of many scales.
28:08 So, this is my point of view on the subject, if it is also, meaning, if I want to argue deeper on the point, I want to go into a story. Well, if I have a certain brain damage, for example, and my vision center in the brain is struck and completely destroyed, my name will not be David, the vision center in the brain. I understand the subject. If we want to delve into it philosophically, we need to delve into it deeply. So, to simplify the idea, I want to say that the brain as a whole is me. The brain as a whole is me. Even if I am not satisfied with this definition, it is because I certainly must have a specific center in the brain that I consider the basic building block, but as I told you, I do not think that, to this day, there has been a
28:54 consensus on determining what the basic building block is. Thank you, David. In any case, frankly, we have many questions. What do you think about starting with the questions? Okay, let’s go to the questions. The first question, of course, came to you, my brother David, from Abeer. You are saying: Can free will be achieved within any Arab society? Is it individual or collective? And how can I possess free will, and there you want it to restrict me? In the end, I live with two completely different personalities, one internal and the other I coexist with in society. This is a type of question that I told you about. There is, there is, there is some confusion between the word
29:43 free will and the ability to do an action I want to do, or freedom of action. You are the one who is talking about it, Abeer. It is something called freedom of action, not freedom of will. Our talk today is about freedom of will, not freedom of action. So, for the sake of So, I expect this type of question that we always talk about, so there is more than one question that can be... In the same way, let’s see if you want the questions related to free will in the first place, then let’s go and see freedom of action if we have more time at the end of the episode. Okay, never mind. In any case, I just brought it up frankly according to the order. I mean, okay, there is a question from brother Muhammad, who is saying to you, I have a question, I hope
30:31 we discuss it in tomorrow’s episode. Right now, you are saying, as far as I know, that a person does not have free will, but rather makes his decision based on the experiences, events, and expertise that he has been through in his life, and his unconscious mind makes this decision, which scientists can predict by monitoring it with special tools before the conscious mind realizes a few moments. First, I want to differentiate between feelings, sensations, and human needs, and between thoughts. I agree that feelings and human needs do not control me, such that if I smell a certain perfume, I remember a certain person and I do not remember another person who
31:16 uses the same perfume. And if you tell me to remember any name, I remember a certain name and I do not remember another name. Also, when Awareness I cannot prevent myself from feeling hungry or sleepy because these are human needs, but ideas differ. For example, someone who suffers from an obsession or a kleptomaniac cannot prevent himself from stealing even though he knows it is a wrong act, regardless of whether the theft itself is wrong or not. However, the same person can control the rest of his actions, such as if the thought of killing someone comes to him, but he restrains himself and does not do this act. I do not want to assume here that
32:02 the act of stealing is not free and that controlling the rest of the actions is a free act, but it is clear that there is a difference between these two behaviors. Do they anticipate the next action of this person or can they know the reaction of this person who was exposed to a stimulus? It is a two-part question. As for the first part, I mean, our friend himself, I see that he answered himself that when you are in this example of ours, he is
32:49 unable to prevent himself from stealing, while he is able to prevent himself from something else, meaning that he does not have free will in this matter. He described to you that he has an obsession or a kleptomaniac, meaning that he feels a very strong urge inside him that I I want to steal while he doesn’t have this motive because he is killing. In both cases, he does n’t have free will. Hold a knife and tell him to go kill David. You will find him. Maybe as much as you force him, you will find him afraid and terrified. He cannot imagine the matter. They cannot act. While at the same time, if you think that you don’t tell him what he has and it has reached a stage, which is the obsession and theft obsession. This
33:35 person, no matter how many cameras are installed for him and how much he doesn’t know that there is a strict punishment for him that if he steals, he will be punished, he will not be able to prevent himself from stealing. In both cases, he has no free will, neither here nor there. You see how he cannot kill and he cannot prevent himself from stealing. So here is my problem. Here is me. Here, as a society, or as scientists, or as experts, or as officials in this society, my problem is to see what is the reason that made him have an obsession to steal or an obsession to steal. Is it the result of a certain repression in childhood? Is it the result of… A certain complex in childhood. The problem is that a certain incidental event that happened in his
34:20 life, for example, and he developed a compulsive state that he wanted to prove the opposite to himself, so he started stealing as a compulsive state that he wanted to do if he did not want to do this matter. I compared this point to you, before, with an example, not today, in a past episode, for example, a person, my brother, was in a very strict Islamic environment, and then he became an atheist. His family might have had a certain reason, his father used to repeat a subject a lot, for example, drinking alcohol, and he always tried to monitor him, or for example, that he was talking to girls. His father was always monitoring him, that it was forbidden, that it was allowed and that it was not allowed, and
35:06 so on and so on. It is possible that the matter was a form of repression for him, repression that he had in childhood, at the time he became an atheist, and there are many examples around us. When he became an atheist, he wanted to prove it to himself, but he developed a complex. He developed a kind of compulsive state that he no longer wanted to drink anything but beer, day or night, he did not want to drink beer all the time, for example, to prove that I am And he keeps talking about the subject to prove that I am drinking beer, if it is possible for a person, but a person born in an environment that does not have this dilemma or this is the problem, sir, and if he was Finnish, meaning you want him to drink more than the Finns, he would not have a problem with them in the first place, he does not have a compulsive state about this subject, so he would not have to resort to it permanently, is he free to drink beer
35:54 or drink water. Coming to your second question, and you will tell me, are scientists able to notice? I will tell you something about mathematical probability, or the combination of mathematical probabilities for the actions and behaviors of humans, if you want to calculate it, you will get an infinite number, the number of humans and the mathematical probabilities of all the possibilities that they can do is an infinite number. There is no, I mean, you cannot imagine it, you cannot calculate it basically, based on imagination, it cannot be calculated with you. As much as you try to come up with an estimated number, it will come out as a very astronomical number, but what I am sure of is that any action or any behavior of any person, you can discover the motives and causes
36:39 for his behavior, this behavior Or this trend, no matter how simple the action was, and no matter how trivial the behavior was at all, no matter how big, complex, or important the issue was, and you refuted the truth of all matters. You can, if you have sufficient information about this person’s history, the entire environment in which he grew up, and his life, and you take enough time to get to know this person as an external observer, an expert with your discerning eye, know why he behaves in all the ways he does, and you can predict what he might choose from among the available alternatives. Now, I come to the question that scientists tell you when they
37:24 do this, for example, with functional magnetic resonance imaging, is it true that they know what you will give your subconscious mind or unconscious brain command, what command it decided and sent to the motor cortex or the area responsible for movement in your conscious cortex in your brain, moments before milliseconds, all the way to ten seconds? The results were varied, all the way to ten full seconds. Can you imagine the value of ten full seconds, that you know the world while it is making a scan of you, any decision you want? You make any decision you make, yes, they know, and this exists, and there are many videos on YouTube. I do
38:11 n’t even know if they are translated into Arabic or not. You expect shallow Arabic content, but you see documentaries and filmed experiments presented on YouTube, and you can watch them and read them on the Internet. It is really good to know that the doctor or neuroscientist standing outside the device told you that this person will decide to do such-and-such, choose such-and-such option, and he knew before he did. The same person knows. It is interesting in the subject that he knew before the person himself knows now. This type of experiment is mostly limited to a certain number of alternatives, for example, choose a green button or a red button, choose to drink tea or coffee, or such small, few options, because if you want to put it on a number,
38:59 meaning on an infinite choice, for example, if I am currently sitting, sir, I am not currently sitting, so I am currently sitting, then the predictions are limited to the choices that we might make in the following moments, but a person is not specifically identified, but not specifically identified, a scan is done on his brain. And we know what he will do in the next episode, I mean theoretically the subject is possible, but its practical application in reality, because you are experiencing such an experience, I mean it is very, very, very difficult to the point that I do not expect that this matter was done in the space of the infinite possibilities. Thank you, my brother David. Okay, let us go and take another question from brother Hisham, what he is saying, or let us take Amal, which was better, frankly, is
39:45 there a question: Is there a scientific basis for the concept of free will? And if all the answer is no, is there a biological evolutionary reason for us all to think that we have free will? Now, the scientific reason, I expect the first part of the question, I expect to answer it, I mean I answered it a while ago, maybe the question, I mean, was explained before I said the words that I was saying, from a scientific point of view, from a scientific point of view, neuroscientists are certain that you do not have the freedom to choose in the way you imagine, rather your unconscious mind will make the choice for you, and I told you in a simple or brief way, what are the
40:33 implicit reasons that you are, as a result of the choices Yours is limited by your previous experiences, like this and that. For example, if I come, you come to me, Jan, and I say to you, “I want to invite you to drink something.” Right here, you certainly have absolute freedom to choose the range you want, from whiskey, vodka, gin, tea, coffee, cappuccino, cola, anything. Options are available. Let’s assume that I can provide you with any option you ask me for. In this case, right now, for you, practically speaking, the options are not available in this infinite number. I mean, I don’t know how many drinks there are in the world, like this billion. Right now, first of all, you don’t know all the billions of drinks that are drunk in
41:20 India, China, Thailand, and so on. Up to the point that you know a certain number of drinks that you have had in your life, this is the first point. The second point is among the drinks that you have had in your life, in a group of them that you prefer. You will also limit and pour a very large portion of the drinks that you have had in your life and that will remain. Your options have become the drinks you prefer. The third point in the situation you are in at this moment is your body that will ask you or it will ask your brain for its biological deficiency of a certain substance. Here your possibilities begin to be limited between wanting something cold or hot, something sweet or salty,
42:07 something this or that. You see in your body that it starts to dictate to the brain this feeling that I feel like drinking, I want to eat this and that, and you will come to me, I want to drink, for example, hot chocolate. This means the first point is that your body needs sugars, so it asks your brain to prefer sugars, for example, “Okay, do I want it cold or hot?” In addition to your basic preference based on your past experiences, your body will ask for this matter according to whether you are drunk or cold or so on. The more the options become smaller in your subconscious until you reach, for example, you tell me, “I want to drink a glass of water only,” for example, or you tell me, “I want to drink Perrier,” for example. You are practically free.
42:52 The will chooses, but you, as a human being, did not choose with your conscious will the choice that you want. That is, if I want to ask you, “Okay, why did you ask me for my opinion?” For example, “Now, can I tell you in my opinion what you want, Henken or this or that?” So here we also go back to the point of your previous experiences. You can first exclude the things that you do not know about the beer brands that are not known to you or that you have not come across. Maybe you basically have a love of exploration and curiosity and you like to try new things, opening your options with new ideas. Maybe you try from your old experiences. For example, you have a bad experience with Carlsberg, so you wait for it. You have a good experience with Henken, so it means we want Henken. And so on. The whole issue is
43:41 happening. You may be thinking consciously or you feel that you are thinking consciously, or most likely you will say, “By God, this feeling came to my mind, I want to drink this or that.” Or you may not have a single thought in mind. From all the drinks and you come and tell me David made me drink anything you like and I will look back at you and he said seriously, you tell me what you want to drink and you may be serious or not a drink seriously, now he means to you that you drink anything because maybe your brain is talking about free will not your brain that what you want to drink you are not Fox I just want to sit with David and talk about free will whatever you want to drink it doesn’t matter the subject regardless of the collection of possibilities are all of them and you have to follow his routine you will find
44:27 that in the end your subconscious mind is the one that decided what you want it doesn’t matter to you what you drink or not it doesn’t matter a certain type or so on. So does the brain or natural selection have a role in making us have free will or not? The truth is not natural selection as much as cultures are what made us have this role I mean ancient primitive man did not originally have this idea and questions and free will and I neither have it nor do I have it Man, for example, 5,000 years ago, from now on, I told you a little while ago that the subject was seriously discussed during Athens, a period after Aristotle, a period that was
45:14 approximately during that period, of course, you will find writings in Plato’s dialogues, certainly a lot was said about the subject of free will and so on, but I am telling you to establish the subject completely, a victory in the days of philosophical discussions, when did philosophical discussions become a time when there was a group of people, as Burton and Russell express in a nice book called In Praise of Laziness and other articles, in his nice article, he is very praising laziness and I tell you that basically civilization was built only on the shoulders of people who were practically sitting around and not working, because the person who is stagnant behind his job and his number, living and so on and wants to pursue stories and farm the land and hunt, he does not have time to think about
46:00 philosophy for you, nor build a civilization for you, nor invent a religion or ideology or an economic system or psychology or anything like that This guy ate later, drank, and we still see this today. But when there was a handful of people sitting around with nothing, they had money, etc., an aristocratic class, or a class of ascetics, in an environment that ensured they ate and drank, they no longer ate much, and they were dying of hunger. These are the people who started to philosophize, they started to practice philosophizing, and these are the ones who started to raise the idea of free will. Natural selection preferred that it is not a subject related to natural selection. On the contrary, natural selection practically, Amal, Amal, perhaps the one who asked the
46:49 question, whether natural selection preferred in us the state of unconscious will. This question of mine should have been the exact opposite. If our will is not free, why did natural selection prefer that our will not be free and that we have a state of reactions or that all my decisions are not conscious of me? This is how the question and the answer to this question should have been because Simply as Al Snyder said, consciousness is slow. Conscious decisions are slow decisions, and our brain needs or natural selection
47:34 thanks to quick actions. That is, if I want to see Jean at first glance and make a conscious, logical, and wise decision that I give Jean the appropriate time to prove to me who he is and what his character is. Jean might be a criminal, he might have drawn his knife completely. The subject is natural selection. Practically speaking, these wise, conscious people paid the price for their logic, which is that their lineages were excluded from the gene pool. While the people who first looked at Jean, I think he didn’t feel comfortable with him, or I think he felt comfortable with him, or any of these unconscious feelings, and we will start building from them, by the way, because the first few seconds of
48:23 watching anyone, maybe Roth has conducted studies on this subject, I don’t remember the name exactly, the first few seconds of watching anyone, are seconds, they are decisive fractions of a second, that your brain gives you an order about how you feel and what your direction is towards this person. Subconsciously, you start to build your point of view about this person based on the orders that your subconscious decided in the first parts of the second. It is illogical, right? It is illogical. What is better than this is that you find the general case that most people, with the exception of the wise few who are
49:10 truly aware, and so is the general case of the people you see on the street. It is natural for you to hear someone say to you, “My heart did not feel comfortable with him from the first moment I saw him,” or “I loved him from the first moment I saw him.” Based on this, take every path and imagine that all your subsequent actions will be affirmative actions or affirmative orders that you continue to see from the first perspective that you saw in your brain. I go back and say, with the exception of a few people who have truly understood and are aware of the man, that it is not my business, I do not want to judge him from the first glance. However, there are studies that have been done on scanning and so on. However,
49:56 if you are, I mean, David, or someone who is a philosopher or someone who is logical, any of the people knows It is not my right to judge a person at first glance. For God’s sake, this talk is completely logical, and I know it and you know it. However, our brains make this judgment from the first part of the second. You see it in it for the first few milliseconds. You see it in it, and after that, I might be one of the people who really look at the subject logically. He goes with the story later. He goes with the story later, as he is throwing away the first feeling that came and gives it time alone. But this feeling is not excluded. This feeling
50:43 will come. You will remain as much as you were a philosopher and logical person from the first part of the second. You will see a man in it, or you will see a certain matter, or I will present to you any matter in life from the first part of the second. You will make a decision about it, maybe later, with your logic, you will change this decision. As for ordinary people, they remain in it. Now, the advantage in the subject, I will return and tell you, is that it is a decisive matter in our lives. Natural selection has a lot of merit in our evolutionary history. There is an example that I included in my book that I am working on. I would like to say hello. I put forward an imaginary example of one of our ancestors, a man who was lying down, doing nothing, sunbathing,
51:28 and everything was fine, etc. He saw the grass moving in front of him. Now, if this man decided to close his eyes and look out, he would sound relaxed and comfortable, and so on. He might open his eyes a lot and he would howl because there was a tiger, for example, that jumped, bit him, and started to prey on him. Well, what natural selection preserved for this grandfather of ours, who, when he saw the grass moving, assumed in his head that he might be in danger because of the grass moving, so he jumped and ran away to the tree. Well, now, if this man actually did jump and run away to the tree, and while he was jumping on the tree, there was a tiger emerging from the
52:15 grass and attacked him, but the man caught up and climbed the tree and that was the end of the story. Natural selection will prefer this case. People who started to deviate in their thinking about the future, that whenever they saw moving grass, they would assume that there was a tiger hiding behind it, knowing that it might not This is the truth, and for this reason, we have started to make some kind of generalizations. It is possible that one of the people had a very bad situation with someone who looks similar to me, and the moment he sees me, he will tell you, “I did not feel comfortable with David.” Well, I have never seen him in my life, and he has never involved me in the bad experience that he went through a long time ago. But his subconscious mind will remain in this state, which is that he thinks that
53:01 David is like him, like the one who looks like him, he will offend me, and thus without me dealing with him as an example. So, go ahead, thank you David. I mean, and love at first sight, I think, is the biggest proof of this, if we consider it. In any case, let’s take another question from our brother Hisham. I am saying that you have studied well the illusion, the illusion of free will. My question, our brother David, is why do I sometimes see you get angry with people who did not understand, for example, your idea, and you know that they do not have free will? A question, although there are many, few cases,
53:46 and it is not my case that I am getting angry, it is that you get angry because of them. I imagine Being biased towards people means you give me everything, frankly, it is the same as not being biased towards people. He did not understand, meaning you get biased towards them. I think the expression is wrong, but I understood the idea. See, my friend, first, I am not being really angry. It is a point you have to put in your head. For example, if I am really, it is clear that I am agitated. If you are always following me, you see that in whatever topic I am talking, I am overly serious. I know this, and this is something bad about me, but I am one of the people who is overly serious. When I am talking about any topic, people
54:32 remind me of, meaning, why are you angry? But I am not angry. I am now when I am in this state, and I am answering someone. Sometimes my answer is a kind of like I am shaking this person. Be careful about the topic. Like in the last episode or the one before it, when you were telling me about the people who were commenting, and I was answering with a kind of severity. My severity was a kind of wake-up call, not a kind I am mad at him because I am in the same episode. I told you that when I see these notifications, these comments are coming to me simply. I mean, I put the mobile aside or if I scroll with the mouse or whatever. It is not me who made him angry, as if he insulted me. No, no, no, that is not the issue.
55:19 But when it was brought up, I was taking it seriously because it is a serious issue, not a funny issue. It is not the issue that you are making fun of me, one person out of a billion. But the issue is that you, as a person, are looking at things lightly or you are judging me, for example. And just as you are judging me, you are judging other people based on the ideas that are in your head, and you are crossed over your legs, smoking a cigarette. This is what I am thinking of. So I will answer you with someone who said, “Be careful, the issue is not a joke, not because I insulted dignity and such, and I got angry.” No, no, that is not the issue in this way at all. Thank you, David. Okay, let’s take a question from Sarah. He is saying, “Good evening.” David, please
56:06 talk today about atheists who find it difficult to deal with Others in our Arab societies I am not religious and sophisticated in my dealings while those around me among Muslims are extremely rude, hypocritical and rude, knowing that I did not tell anyone that I am an atheist, frankly, the question I do not know whether you have the right to answer it or not, I will come back and tell you the same problem, this question is mixing between freedom of will and freedom of action or doing something, so if we have questions about freedom of will, let us cover it first, then we have time to answer, okay, one minute, my
56:53 limit is that I have a voice that is heard, okay, a positive person, I am saying an objective, liberated and rational subject, I thought that God is all-knowing and that He alone is the All-Knowing, All-Aware, but in reality the matter became clear with conclusive evidence and proof that a caveman is the one who knows everything and that the true knowledge of the unseen is not mine, thank you for the compliment from our friend, but I do not know the unseen and I am simply that I came out perhaps more than some other people on matters that existed in advance, I mean I did not Make a discovery in a lab or a laboratory or find out things that didn’t
57:45 exist before. Okay, frankly, let’s go to but okay, let’s answer Sarah’s question if you want two questions that we didn’t answer, I think Abeer and Sarah. Let’s go to Abeer’s question first because friends, I think they don’t ask extra questions, so let’s go to Abeer’s question that we didn’t answer. Thank you, the great thinker David, for this episode. I want to ask you, is there birth freedom in the world in general and in Arab countries in particular? Well, what our friend is talking about is the subject of freedom of action and not freedom of will. Freedom of action always exists within limits. I mean, I don’t
58:33 imagine that there is a person who is free to do exactly what he wants, I mean without any restrictions, because when we want to be living in a society, we are forced to give up part of our freedom of action in exchange for exchanging this subject for the fact that we live in a society. As for a person, he is free to do absolutely what he wants. I mean, I don’t imagine that possibility exists anywhere in the world. Of course, it differs from one society to another. For another society, some societies are more restrictive, while other societies are less restrictive. Oppressive societies and backward countries are more
59:21 restrictive in this matter. The more we ascend the ladder of civilization to more advanced or civilized societies by the standards of civilization, the individual is able to act freely in some aspects, and in other areas he is more restricted. I mean, how much did he get as a result? If I wanted to look at the matter as a result, the outcome might be similar between the most free countries and the countries that restrict individuals the most. I mean, you are in the most liberal countries, such as the Scandinavian countries. There is no more freedom than this in the world today. You are restricted and shackled by restrictions and
1:00:09 laws. I mean, if I wanted to sit and talk about it to people who live in Middle Eastern societies, they would tell you that how you live, how people live, there are strict laws and a dumping ground for all restrictions on individuals and their movements, but in return, it gives them freedom, for example, you study the study you want. It is possible in a more comfortable way that you choose a job or not choose a job or things like that a little more comfortably than or express your opinion or talk about an important point that you might We allow you to express your opinion and say whatever you want without anyone coming and cutting off your head, but in return, talk as much as you want, but if you want to do what you
1:00:56 want to say, that is another topic. Choose your topic. Sometimes you can say whatever you want, either Aad or Dave. Talk until morning, but if you want to do what you are saying here, that is a completely different topic. So, my friend, you should not mix between these two matters. I mean, when you see societies that do not give you censorship on saying what you want, yes, this does not mean that you are free to do what you want. Mostly, the higher societies are on their ladder of sophistication, the more restrictions there are on people, otherwise the matter would slip away. I always say, comment on the point, otherwise the matter would slip away completely, just like the countries below us, because when you have a
1:01:41 group of individuals living together, if you do not put in place a system to determine their movements that is as strict as a sword, and your application is as strict as a sword, then you will not be able to control them in a practical way. Speak, it is possible. Let me tell you what you want, but doing it is another topic. As for the other question of our friend before we end the episode, our second friend who said she is an atheist, our friend Sarah, she is saying, please talk today about atheists and those who find it difficult to deal with others in our Arab societies. I am not religious and sophisticated in my dealings, while those around Muslims are extremely rude, hypocritical and
1:02:29 fundamentalist, knowing that I did not tell anyone that I am an atheist. Hello, hello, hello. Honestly, there is no conditional link between you being religious and having good or bad morals and you being an atheist and having good or bad morals. The person who is sophisticated in his dealings with others and is religious will become sophisticated in his dealings with others while he is an atheist. The person who is bad in his dealings with others and is religious will become even worse in his dealings with others while he is an atheist. So the topic is, there is no conditional link between religiosity and whether you are good or not. Hello, you You act
1:03:17 in that you are free to express your non-religion in a society like the Iraqi society, I expect she said, so it means that it is still difficult today, it is not as easy as she is, but this is what we are trying to work on so that we can at least reach a point where we improve our ability to express ideas, so that people are free to express their ideas with elegance and respect in these societies, even after us, with the hope that we reach a point where people are free to do actions or do things, I mean, they like to do them, like the book that came, so
1:04:02 this means my answer to the subject, if we do not have questions, we can end the episode, of course, but I saw a question from the brother, I think just for one minute, the brother Jack, I think I am saying hello John David, I do not know if my question was asked in advance, because I did not follow the episode from the beginning. My question is: Does a person possess complete free will, and what is the measure of that will, or was it asked in any case, I think, I mean the entire episode responds to the question of the brother Jack, I think in any case We have reached the end of our episode and I see that there are no more questions. I don’t know David,
1:04:51 if you would like to add anything or one last thing in the episode, here you go, my friend. Look, I am always afraid when I talk about a topic, some of the real topics, among them the topic of free will, because in people’s affairs, not all people are ready because they know it without it posing a danger. Let us name it for others and for yourself. It is very important that people know when I am saying that there is no free will, this does not mean that
1:05:38 you can do whatever you want, yes, in the sense that you tell me, brother, I want to rape a girl and I want to steal and I want this and I want this and I want that, and David said that I do not have free will. Now, if you were to reach a stage where you do these things at the moment that I heard from David that you do not have free will, throwing everything else in life to the wall, it means that you have a psychological catastrophe. You need psychological treatment and quarantine immediately, immediately, completely. I mean, as the scientist Robert Soski put it, this person is like this, he is special like a car
1:06:25 without anyone. Without brakes, without brakes, I can't leave it in society, not for a moment. I can't leave it walking in the streets, not for a moment. Right, I'm not saying that if a car doesn't have a problem with the brakes, for example, that means it's the fault of the car, because it's not the fault of the car. If, for example, the oil in the oven is gone, or the ignition and driver run out, the car is not at fault. But at the same time, I don't want this car to be on the streets at all. I must immediately quarantine it and repair it. And if someone like this thinks that he is doing any immoral act
1:07:12 or any act that harms others, just because he got the green light now, that he doesn't have free will, I won't go further, like Dan Daniel. I'm telling you that you remain responsible for your actions. No, I'm telling you that in this state, you don't go further, like these integral philosophers. I'm telling you that in this state, you are mentally ill. You need treatment just like a car without brakes. I will intercede for the car and at the same time I want to send all the police patrols to stop the car and put it on its roof and take it to the quarantine center to rehabilitate and maintain it and so on before we make sure that it is out again to drive on the streets until
1:07:59 we test that the car actually has brakes. So the point here is that you do not do such actions and think that I am giving you the
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