I don't believe in free will. This is why.

Whenever i watch a Sabine video about free will, it is never by choice.

"To be a YouTuber you don't need to know anything!" CLASSIC 😂

I love videos like this because regardless of whether you agree or not with the presenter, they encourage you to think and ask yourself hard questions about what you actually believe in. So much of what we consume with our eyes and ears nowadays attempts to push an agenda or manipulate rather than stimulate thought and discussion.

I am so happy I found your channel Sabine. Thank you!

I don't believe in free will, but I do believe in reasonably inexpensive will.

I used to worry about this, but then I realized that it feels like we do, and that's the best we can manage.

I always tell people this (that there is no free will). My 2 main arguments are: 1) if there was a universe that was an EXACT copy of this, down to every exact particle and force, and they were both returned to motion at the exact same instant, we would never expect them to deviate. nothing could cause them to. 2) the rules that the universe obeys are exact and absolute. everything we have built and discovered shows this. I even feel like quantum "randomness" and observer based results are just effects of forces we don't yet understand, but are still exact. when the universe was set in motion, whenever that was (maybe big bang), it was done so under these exact rules, and was always going to play out in an exact way. We have the rules and we have the matter. Even though its irreducibly complex, that doesn't mean what we call life is any less of a series of effects from a cause. the response is usually some shit like "well I could have done X but I chose to do Y" and what I try to explain is that your brain and your actions are not outside this cascade of effects from the start of the universe, under the rules we have. You were always going to do exactly what you did. When you made said choice, you were always going to have the exact debate in your head that you had, and made then made the same decision. Your mind is nothing more than the imposition of your environment on your genetic "palette", and both of those things were exactly predetermined. so the outcome would always be the same. Everything that led to that "decision" : the past events you experienced, the brain you had that forgot some things and remembered others, the people around you all trapped in the same structure ... again while ridiculously complex, are just a playing out of a preset of conditions, under an exact set of rules. i just think the idea makes people uncomfortable so they resist it. of course it FEELS like we have free will, and make decisions, and of course this is just theoretical and has no impact on society, or the concept of responsibility, it's simply what I see as the only way the universe can exist.

Thank you for taking the time to do this

Sabine trolls the internet in her own dry humor way and I am constantly here for it. 😂

"A man can do as he will, but not will as he will" - Arthur Schopenhauer

I quote Sapolsky "I was 14 when I stopped believing in free will"

I think alot of people are uncomfortable with the lack of free will because it kind of implies someone could predict their entire life and future behaviours, kind of making them into a robot. A piano key. But the issue is, i think its impossible to calculate/predict this, because the calculation is reality itself in some sense.

Am I the only one who can't wait for the days when a photon can go left or right without being judged for its motives?

I'm a psychologist (albeit a junior one) and in my time I have come across people who have had some realisation (or sometimes they may say 'epiphany' ... rarely in a positive tone) that they don't have free will. It is very rare that this is based on the realisation that comes from understanding quantum mechanics or differential equations, but simply from learning over time how much of the world around them dictates their choices (or rather, limits them). The crisis that emerges is not one to be sniffed at; how would you feel if you had the thought that nothing was in your control? That you were on a fairground ride that you had never chosen to be in and that whatever curves, splashes (or even horrors) were always going to happen regardless of how much you loved of hated being on it? You are on a fixed rail in a single direction and all you can do is hunker down or throw your hands up in the air. Well, in my very humble opinion, I believe determinism to be the correct answer to the the question of free will, but the challenge is how to then answer the devastated people who, for them, this is hideous, terrible and stripping them of the meaning of their existence. I am kinda fortunate that I am a research psychologist and rarely client/patient/service user/insert-correct-name-here facing but also have the task of being pointed at by people who find out what I do and being ordered to "reveal your secrets!" Well ... from what I have seen: some people who seek out psychology due to past trauma (which is pretty much everyone) can take from this a certain comfort: if this was always going to happen to them, then they had no say and they no part and it was not their fault (which is never is), and sort of ... accept that this was 'fate'. They couldn't have done anything to stop it and absolve themselves of the self-hate and self-blame that is often par of the course for these people. Others become extremely bitter: for them, the fact that this would have always happened to them and that no matter how strong, how resilient, how brave they were, would never have made a difference. The cold, indifferent world would have always won. So, the absence of free-will to the individual (who is probably not a physicist/philosopher/etc.) seems to be more complex than the concept itself, because on our level it really does not matter at all if is exists, but what follows from the question of it. Outside of the noble disciplines of the physical sciences, the real world implications are way (WAY) more significant, and the idea may be thousands of years old, but the actuality of it is so new because the noble(er? 😛) disciplines of the social science are still trying to catch up. Some people may paraphrase the Tolkien quote: "Go not to the psychologists for an answer, for they will say both 'yes' and no'." And .... they have a point. My advice is probably going to be: go to a psychologist if you are seriously considering your existence and the doing so is having detrimental effects on your life. My other advice would be: you have as much free-will now as you did before this video/that appointment/that realisation, and consider what you could do now ... which is almost anything you can imagine. If you want to stop reading this rambling comment: do so! If you want to dress up like a chicken and move to Norway to study pine trees and howl at the moon every night: do so! If you have a choice (real or imagined) then that has to be worth something .... right?

Wow. I am a biologist whose dream died. I feel your pain. The 3-5 year grant period wrecks those who want to go down untrodden paths. I love your videos.

Your way to explain things is not just really clear but also hilarious😄

"If you wanna become a youtuber, you don't have to know anything" I love this woman

"I'm a physicist, please see a psychologist." This cracked me up! Between the content and Sabine's humour, my poor pea brain can barely take it. I love this channel.

I'm a medical doctor . I happened to like physics and I find your channel is hervorragend. Keep up the good work!

This video was even more interesting than most of your videos. I love existential discussions! Personally, I believe that particles do have free will on some level, but your perspective sounds much more practical than mine.