Why Sam Harris and Jordan Peterson Disagree. This episode of Wonderland tackles the timeless tension between free will and determinism, providing a synthesized approach that shows how both of these perspectives go on to inform our ethical intuitions and religious systems.
Have you looked into compatibilism, which argues that determinism is consistent with free will. To say that one is free to choose something, on this account, is something like to say that they could do it if they wanted to. Thus, we still have free will! Compatibilism is the most common view of philosophers, according to the phil papers survey. (Only pointing this out because you pretty much dismissed free will out of hand, but argued we can do without it).
Yes I'm familiar with it. I don't find the argument very compelling the determinist critique of free will remains standing (your choices stem from causes external to yourself).
The compatibilist agrees that your choices stem from causes external to yourself. But that doesn't imply we don't have free will unless we think some false things about what it means to have free will. It seems intuitively like we have free will -- and this intuition survives thinking that determinism is true. Even if the laws of the universe ultimately determined what you choose, it still seems that you were free to choose it, in some sense. The way to make sense of this is just to declare that you have the freedom to do X if you could do X if you so choose. That way, free will and determinism are compatible.
This is amazing. Would love to have you on my podcast to discuss eastern philosophy (Hinduism/Buddhism), psychedelics, and free will. I’ve interviewed both Sam and Jordan and think they represent the Yin Yang dichotomy quite well
It's been quite a while since I've read on first principles and the feeling I get after engaging with the general clarity of your thought and expression is like the smell of fresh rain
Here's where I disagree: I would say you make a similar mistake as you argue JBP makes in assuming God is necessary - at least in concept for morality - in your taking atheism for granted. This is likely to have a mirrored effect in terms of being unconvincing to those who do not. And consider that Peterson doesn't take God for granted, rather something like that He is necessary as a possibility. The capital 'H' He is where I think our culture deals with a fractured attractor state. We tend to think that either there is He or there is not, as you assert in saying science has shown comprehensively that we live in a material world (if I read that right). My own uncertain notion is that this seems to be the kind of world that eternal beings would create for experiential reasons. The most interesting thing to a being without a lifespan would be to have the chance to live with a ticking clock, not knowing if it ever repeats, with a first and a last experience of each kind available in a particular existence
The problem with that is that it doesn't provide a very strong moral narrative. Where Peterson chooses perhaps rigidly "the possibility of God" I have the possibility of this being an amusement park for demi-gods. That's putting it with the least substantial interpretation on it but it is inevitably an influence to the moral thinking my possibility can lead to. Peterson's possible world creates a strong link to the moral history and value of Christianity and it may be that he chooses it deliberately for that reason most of all, because of the moral psychology of it, aside from also believing it to possibly be the real and actual truth to some degree. The problem as I see it is that any alternative to that may not be able to compete with ideologies and secular religions, certainly not my 'visiting demi-god' imagining
I venture to characterize your belief on free will as that it exists partially in a give and take flux within the complex system as an emergent property that doesn't exist in lower levels. I think you argue that life is determined yet we have an ability to alter the influences that determine our every choice. My take is that if we have that top level agency then we must have some of the same type of agency throughout our choice making. I don't see where you can allow it at all but confine it to a top down deterministic influence. If you can choose your influences you can also navigate with or against them in smaller domains I would think, though the higher level choice may be more determining
Anyway I do see the idea of free will as emergent or as partially existing as a choice of your determinants to be persuasive as making a case for free will occurring to some extent within a materialistic framework in a way I have not concieved of before. I have always believed that if free will exists, and if objective morality exists then there must be a supernatural element to existence, or something non-material that does not exist in the realm of mechanical "action and equal reaction" physical reality. When I first lost general certainty in the religious narrative of my upbringing the most horrifying thing to me was how it seemed to imply that there is no such thing as objective immorality. Many people reject God because of evil, I recoil at 'no God' because it would mean evil didn't exist, that the most horrible human act had no greater significance than an assault by one ant in Wonderland on another. Ultimately my provisional belief that free will and moral significance exist leads me to believe in 'something'. Interestingly, I can sense my preset is to not really believe in it on an experiential level. As Peterson - and Lewis before him - note, the location of our most respected belief is in the sure existences of physical science which leads to a default phenomenology of a mechanistic universe. But that is a cultural artifact like your mention of having been brought up to have no religious allegiances and my rational sense is that free will exists and that means there is more than a mechanical universe and with more (provisional, rational) certainty that morality exists and if so it cannot be an emergent property of a mechanical universe. My own beliefs are kind of nested in each other, a core level intuition that morality exists, an overlapping main perception of the physical, if not social, world as mechanistic and a final rational argumentative level that the core intuition requires more than that
Have you looked into compatibilism, which argues that determinism is consistent with free will. To say that one is free to choose something, on this account, is something like to say that they could do it if they wanted to. Thus, we still have free will! Compatibilism is the most common view of philosophers, according to the phil papers survey. (Only pointing this out because you pretty much dismissed free will out of hand, but argued we can do without it).
Yes I'm familiar with it. I don't find the argument very compelling the determinist critique of free will remains standing (your choices stem from causes external to yourself).
The compatibilist agrees that your choices stem from causes external to yourself. But that doesn't imply we don't have free will unless we think some false things about what it means to have free will. It seems intuitively like we have free will -- and this intuition survives thinking that determinism is true. Even if the laws of the universe ultimately determined what you choose, it still seems that you were free to choose it, in some sense. The way to make sense of this is just to declare that you have the freedom to do X if you could do X if you so choose. That way, free will and determinism are compatible.
Really enjoying the series, btw.
This is amazing. Would love to have you on my podcast to discuss eastern philosophy (Hinduism/Buddhism), psychedelics, and free will. I’ve interviewed both Sam and Jordan and think they represent the Yin Yang dichotomy quite well
Excellent point: "If people are truly free agents, then what I do should have no social consequences outside of myself."
I agree that we need to believe we have agency.
But I can't follow the logic that allows determinism to be consistent with the ability to make choices. They seem obviously contradictory. ??
It's been quite a while since I've read on first principles and the feeling I get after engaging with the general clarity of your thought and expression is like the smell of fresh rain
Here's where I disagree: I would say you make a similar mistake as you argue JBP makes in assuming God is necessary - at least in concept for morality - in your taking atheism for granted. This is likely to have a mirrored effect in terms of being unconvincing to those who do not. And consider that Peterson doesn't take God for granted, rather something like that He is necessary as a possibility. The capital 'H' He is where I think our culture deals with a fractured attractor state. We tend to think that either there is He or there is not, as you assert in saying science has shown comprehensively that we live in a material world (if I read that right). My own uncertain notion is that this seems to be the kind of world that eternal beings would create for experiential reasons. The most interesting thing to a being without a lifespan would be to have the chance to live with a ticking clock, not knowing if it ever repeats, with a first and a last experience of each kind available in a particular existence
The problem with that is that it doesn't provide a very strong moral narrative. Where Peterson chooses perhaps rigidly "the possibility of God" I have the possibility of this being an amusement park for demi-gods. That's putting it with the least substantial interpretation on it but it is inevitably an influence to the moral thinking my possibility can lead to. Peterson's possible world creates a strong link to the moral history and value of Christianity and it may be that he chooses it deliberately for that reason most of all, because of the moral psychology of it, aside from also believing it to possibly be the real and actual truth to some degree. The problem as I see it is that any alternative to that may not be able to compete with ideologies and secular religions, certainly not my 'visiting demi-god' imagining
I venture to characterize your belief on free will as that it exists partially in a give and take flux within the complex system as an emergent property that doesn't exist in lower levels. I think you argue that life is determined yet we have an ability to alter the influences that determine our every choice. My take is that if we have that top level agency then we must have some of the same type of agency throughout our choice making. I don't see where you can allow it at all but confine it to a top down deterministic influence. If you can choose your influences you can also navigate with or against them in smaller domains I would think, though the higher level choice may be more determining
Anyway I do see the idea of free will as emergent or as partially existing as a choice of your determinants to be persuasive as making a case for free will occurring to some extent within a materialistic framework in a way I have not concieved of before. I have always believed that if free will exists, and if objective morality exists then there must be a supernatural element to existence, or something non-material that does not exist in the realm of mechanical "action and equal reaction" physical reality. When I first lost general certainty in the religious narrative of my upbringing the most horrifying thing to me was how it seemed to imply that there is no such thing as objective immorality. Many people reject God because of evil, I recoil at 'no God' because it would mean evil didn't exist, that the most horrible human act had no greater significance than an assault by one ant in Wonderland on another. Ultimately my provisional belief that free will and moral significance exist leads me to believe in 'something'. Interestingly, I can sense my preset is to not really believe in it on an experiential level. As Peterson - and Lewis before him - note, the location of our most respected belief is in the sure existences of physical science which leads to a default phenomenology of a mechanistic universe. But that is a cultural artifact like your mention of having been brought up to have no religious allegiances and my rational sense is that free will exists and that means there is more than a mechanical universe and with more (provisional, rational) certainty that morality exists and if so it cannot be an emergent property of a mechanical universe. My own beliefs are kind of nested in each other, a core level intuition that morality exists, an overlapping main perception of the physical, if not social, world as mechanistic and a final rational argumentative level that the core intuition requires more than that