Do Human Brains Have Free Will? | Episode 609 | Closer To Truth
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- čas přidán 1. 08. 2024
- Free will seems the simplest of notions. Why then is free will so vexing to philosophers? Here's why: no one knows how free will works! Science, seemingly, permits no "gaps" in which free will can operate. Featuring interviews with John Searle, Rodolfo Llinas, Eran Zaidel, Roger Walsh, Mike Merzenich, Henry Stapp, Colin McGinn, and Christof Koch.
Season 6, Episode 9 - #CloserToTruth
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#Neuroscience #FreeWill
Sir your voice is overwhelming!
Thank you for another great video!
For me personally, as a Thelemite,
I'm deep in this conversation on free will.
(and i have to think of "true will " in context of the conversation )
I appreciate this channel for opening up this subject for discussion.
These videos really get you thinking in a new way. I love it!
I'm don't have free will. CZcams algo controls me.!
Thanks so much
I have been thinking about this problem a lot and I have a few ideas.
There are ways to make free will work in both deterministic universes and probabilistic universes.
For a deterministic universe, free will is possible if the laws of physics are humean or anti-humean. That is, if the laws of physics say what "will happen" vs what "must happen". It's a very subtle difference - the first allows for free will but the second doesn't.
For probabilistic universes, like what quantum mechanics proposes, you can have free will that is compatible with the laws of physics if there is something (say, a soul-like entity) that has access to all the branches of the universe and chooses one of them (collapses the wave function on that branch). Of course, this is very roughly speaking. In that case, your decisions would be compatible with the laws of nature (since you're choosing one of the available branches), but you'd have to come up with something that does the choosing and a way for the choosing to occur.
I propose something better: something that is completely natural, is based on the current laws of physics and it's... "somewhat free". It is also compatible with personal identity.
My proposal is this:
Suppose I am hungry. I walk down the street and I see some guy eating a croissant. I think "I'm hungry, let me kill this guy and get his croissant to satisfy my hunger". What does this mean, neurologically? Well, visual information entered my eyes, was transformed into electrochemical impulses, reached my visual cortex, was interpreted, was transformed into the qualia of seeing, then into the conscious awareness of "some guy with a croissant next to me".
Then, based on my somatic markers (to use one of Antonio Damasio's terms), meaning, the way I am "feeling" (hungry, in this case, which is a neurological state of some neurons excited and other neurons silent), my neural network came up with a useful idea: kill the guy to get his croissant and solve the problem of hunger that I'm facing. Of course, this is only one idea: another idea is to steal his croissant, another is to ask him nicely to give me half of it, another idea is to completely ignore him and buy a croissant myself and so on and so forth.
But, somehow, this idea raised to the surface. So what happens next? Well, the "idea" (meaning, a certain neural pattern) stimulates the frontal cortex which (hopefully) overrides it. The frontal cortex is saying (through its own neural patterns) "This is completely crazy! No way I'm doing that! I will go a buy a croissant myself, instead". And you take the decision to ignore your previous "crazy idea" (according to the frontal cortex) and go and buy the croissant.
Now why would that be? Did you choose "freely" to not kill the guy but buy a croissant, instead? Well... yes. Yes, you did. Of course, this "choice" was "just neural firing patterns" that felt like thinking "This is completely crazy! No way I'm doing that! I will go buy a croissant myself, instead." - the patterns where such that it stimulated your auditory cortex in such a way to "hear these inner words in your head". But what about the freedom to act like that? Your brain's structure, genetic make-up and accumulated experience were the factors that determined this action - the causal factor are these things, that's what it means to be "you". There is no contradiction or paradox.
...and then one dies, and realizes they're still conscious, thinking and feeling, and that it was not their brain or body who was creating their consciousness.
@@markelbaslo7362 Lol okay bud
"Free will" is all about choices we make, but if the universe splits to parallel universes all the time everywhere, then we are constantly making all the possible choices that do not violate the laws of nature and logic, without being aware of that. I need to choose if to walk right or left in the crossroad, in the universe I went right I feel I choose right freely according to the best of my judgment, and in the universe I went left I feel I choose left freely according to the best of my judgment. If free will was true than what we do was more related to what we think we should do.
The take away? Well it’s quite simple: when John Searle says his “daddy.” That’s all
Very interesting, thank you!
It's very difficult to determine if there's "free will" when you dont even bother to define what "free will" is in the first place.
The possibility to decide without any determining cause.
Because it can't be defined. The concept itself makes no sense. No one could even coherently describe what it is.
@@luamfernandez6031 Ok, so if that's the definition, "free will" is just a perfectly random effect. The only such events that I'm aware of are quantum effects. But, that's not how humans (or anything with a brain) make decisions. I dont think "what should I eat for lunch" and sometimes think "I'll eat a chair!". Never happens. Why? Because humans dont think based on purely random events in the brain, or elsewhere. So... free will in that case does not exist. Glad we settled that.
@@Nayr747 It's just freedom, nothing would be able to cause or control your actions but you.
@@luamfernandez6031 Now define "you".
Love it
When someone asserts that free will exists, that also assumes that the self also exists, because there is an "I" making decisions. Why do we assume that the self exists? Is it possible to have an experience of not having a self (psychedelics & meditation) ? What is this feeling of "I"? If there is no "I" making decisions, then does that mean they're happening by themself?
(Note for thought*)
Socrates' view on free will, believing that the unexamined life is not worth living, was the wisdom and will for self-control, which for him required reflection or conscience, in other words, for Socrates free will is impossible without self-control, for people without self-control arent capable of free will because being slaves to their passions they lack the free-will required for self-control.
"Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law"
"Love is the law,"
"Love under will"
There you go. That's along the lines of where I was going with my other comment. I wonder what a human's will would become, if the digitization of the human mind becomes a reality. If biological urges are eliminated and reality is perceived through different sensors, would there be any humanity left?
no.
Quien decide no es el Ser, sino el mono que nos habita. Las neurociencias lo demostraron. La acción del Ser es la acción Consciente. Instantes antes de usar una palabra no tenemos consciencia de ella; el mono que nos habita selecciona las palabras que empleamos.
What’s interesting is every single time we make a choice it’s based on judgement, aguments or instincts which means it depends on the past. But if we want to choose between two numbers 1 and 2 there is no reason why you would pick 1 over the other. In this case you simply pick it randomly so you don’t know where the choice is comming from as if you didn’t even made a choice. Then if you choose between instinct and logic it’s almost like the same thing you don’t know why you did it 😝
what if the option is robbing or working you can choose and you know why you choose it
@@rezzafer Some people's brain chemistry and environment leads them to working, and some to robbing. Some people do both at a basic level. A lot of people work their way to the top and start robbing people with sophisticated economic and political systems.
I just refuse to choose until I know what 1 means and what 2 means.
It's an illusion inside an illusion. When you play a 1 video game its seems you have free to drive a car, change clothes, choose a weapon, enter a room, pick up an item. It is free will but only within the limits of the program. If there was only 1 game you would never know what you were missing! Another game might have trains and shipping logistics. Tour options for freewill are just focused on different choices. Each game could be a universe unaware of each others physics. I would say we are in only 1 possible game/universe so we can't not tell. We have free will within the limits the wave function. The catch is we can't go back so its always guiding and limiting our possible choices. If someone is attacked by a bear a loses an arm. The next day your free will options would be different. The options appearing in your subconscious would change. You would have knowledgeof a bear attack and approach the differently. Also the lack of an arm would prevent your free will from working. Somethings you could not do anymore. This would just change your choice options in the program. Eventually your freewill free would drift towards things that were options. If everyone one only had 1 arm than you wouldn't know what you were missing. That would be a normal game. LOL I always comment an each time I can explain 0003% of what I actually think! Freewill is another one that's connected in a weird way :0
Well I'm an alcoholic that's been sober almost 11 years, so I know that I have free will about whether or not I use alcohol. That's Undisputed.
That proves nothing. It's actually evidence against free will if you take into account all those pints you drank until 2009.
I'm a sober alcoholic since 30 years. I have friends who died from their alcoholism. I got away not because I was smarter and made a decision, but because I was not good at enduring pain. To continue drinking was emotionally more painful than to stop, so I just gave it up. Never had a relapse, and all this is probably because I went to a rehabilitation center and continued wit AA (Alcoholics Anonymous) 4 times a week for 13 years. Other people told me to go to rehabilitation, and others told me to continue with AA. I just followed what they said, because my ways had not worked before.
It's interesting, because for some people I have known, the very label of being an alcoholic with "no free will" seems to become a self-fulfilling property, and they worsen.
It seems to me, the more people believe in their free will (or ability to improve themselves, even slightly) the more they are likely to make headway against alcoholism.
I'm not sure that's the same as "absolutist free will" -- but there are definitely degrees of freedom.
Congrats on making the most of your degrees of freedom.
We all have our own will. Perhaps that is all and perhaps it is all we need to feel free.
You are free to do as you want.
You are not free to choose what you want.
"If you wanna find some quality friends, you gotta wade through all the dicks first"
_Eric Cartman_
Always remember to Credit the one Who said the quote you are using;)
@@GlossRabban fair enough. I wouldn't consider it to be a quote per say, more like the paraphrasing of a general idea.
But you are right. In my experience, I would have to trace it back to Sam Harris. Although I could quote other sources such as like Alex O'conner, (aka CosmicSkeptic) or Sabine Hossenfelder that really hammered this point for me.
@@Renato404 Ahh ok:)
But I am pretty sure they got it from Arthur Schopenhauer.
“The faculty of the will to choose without the choice being determined in any way”…
Robert Kuhn muddles up all the good work he does with this series by bringing in "God" into the name of the series as well as conversations of the series. A clear indication of somebody confused with himself while being an apologist for religious hocus pocus that we've made up with the poorer part of our imagination and the weaker part of our emotions.
Sorry. I KNOW that God exists - without doubt. God should be the starting point, then EVERYTHING makes sense.
@@garychartrand7378 That's strange. I know the god doesn't exist. The prehistoric man just made it up during hallucinations.
@@garychartrand7378 What kind of clothing does he wear? It is a "he", right?
@@ddandrews6472 I am really interested in how you 'know' that God doesn't exist. I KNOW that God DOES exist because of the miracles He has performed through me with WITNESSES and many more without witnesses.I have also interacted with Him/Her/It EVERYDAY for the last 14 years. You non-believers are ignorant. You don't know what you don't know - the knowing of which would change EVERYTHING.
It's OK though. Thanks to God's Perfect System not one of His children will be left behind. Of this you have no choice - but He will NEVER force you. It's just that there's a faster way - if you wish. God Loves you, and I love you - of this you have no choice. I don't have to like you but it is necessary that I love you. Hint : what's slowing you up is Fear. This Fear is totally coming from Ego. The soul is fearless. Have a good journey. We are ALL heading to the same place. I'll see you there eventually.
@@garychartrand7378 One more religious lunatic watching "Closer to Truth". There is no shortage of you people here. This is supposed to be for people who employs critical thinking or at least some form it, yet this program attracts loonies like you. That's why I don't watch some programs of this religious apologist anymore. This is religion disguised as science.
the underlying theme to this debate and many other conflicting theories of dimensional mechanisms is paradox, it already binds and gives relevance to free will and determinsim....Paradox is what actually matters, it already exists without doubt...
It's simple, you have will power, and you are free to use that will power, hence you have free will. Free will is just something that rides along the stream of consciousness.
Your will is caused by causes outside of yourself at a full spectrum deterministic level and quantum mechanics does not add anything but a bit of randomness to the determinism which still leave no space for free will
@@jamespaternoster7354 Doubt, we are all free to doubt and since doubting is something willfully done we have free will to doubt.
@@williamburts5495 your not responsible for your doubt and the doubt is determined on every level so nope still no free will
@@jamespaternoster7354 Well, aren't I free to doubt everything you just said? Answer: Well, why yes I am, therefore free will exist.
@@williamburts5495 it’s not your fault your not persuaded, it will just be that in your life to date you have heard things or been taught beliefs (environmental determinism) that have led to you making a decision. As with all decisions they lead inevitably from preceding causes that are not within anyones control. Free will is a strong illusion but in the end it’s all neurobiological action that is caused by environmental determinism and biological determinism together forming you life and it’s outcome’s many of your traits are epigenetic meaning you have no choice or control over the traits that you have the rest is formed by environment which your not responsible for or able to control. I’d recommend you read the science of fate by Hannah Critchlow and behave by Robert Saplosky and free will by Sam Harris to gain an understanding of the truth and determinism
Would help to better understand how free will, subconscious and brain might interact. Perhaps subconscious brings free will into the brain, which then is embedded in all the activities of the brain.
so at 21:10
he says determinism is not free
he also says randomness is not free
but we are looking for the answer to the 'free'
question is 'what is free will'
I think we can narrow the question to
"what is free"
so what is it ?
any ideas ?
no examples please
ideas
what is it exactly ?
Allow me to summarize this debate:
"There is no scientific or philosophical path to free will. All of our current understanding of the world points clearly to there being no such thing as free will. Moreover, the concept itself is unintelligible."
"Yeah but I really _feeeeel_ like I have it! And psychological feelings are obviously on par with everything we know about the universe somehow. It's not like our feelings are wrong all the time or anything."
Well put. And if we look at the societal impacts of us assuming we have free will, it becomes clear why people have so much trouble giving the idea up. Imagine a world where our judicial system, our meritocracy etc. are based on a false premise of free will. A society based on science that says there is no free will would look totally different. Yes we would still put murderers away so that they don't hurt others, but our understanding would be that they are not to blame, only their luck of getting a certain kind of brain chemistry and cultural/physical environment and history for their lives. On the other hand why should we give a superior position to people who have had good luck with their brain chemistry to be more intelligent or more hard working? Yes of course we want to be able to enjoy as much as we can of a "virtuoso" pianist, but we have to admit that it is not their own choice that brought them there but a predetermined set of conditions. Hurrah!
@@jusuzippol You're describing a better world.
Free will is a contradiction, impossible in principle, not because of determinism in itself, but because of identity, i.e. consistency of personality. In other words, will has to be determined, it is what defines a person, or otherwise, if not uniquely determined, it is equivalent to multiple personality disorder.
Semantics. Call it "Free Choices" or whatever.
Joseph I agree with you..it does end up the way it does but still our brains act and think like they were orchestrated to, like our bodies, and we can think good or bad, be intelligent or less intelligent, remember or not remember, and respond physically or not because the brain commands muscles to do so. ..so it is what we have coined free will and we use what we have been given in that brain to do the job..but I said given!!!! So we think it is free will, we have to...! But really deep down it was a gift, given to us to use, not all gifts being equal. I did not make my brain or body. Not guilty ever!
I want to believe we have no free will.
Free will helping people to feel better would promote human survival and consistent with evolurion.
I just read the brain is a doppelganger of the universe. Similar structure, cool !
Information emerges from physical brain, that mean there's more information that what's in the system's state variables. Can the emergent concept affect future brain physical states? This concept is at the end of the video.
In making a choice, your brain uses processes and memories that have been built up over your entire life based on your personnel experiences. Free will is simply the ability to pull on these resources and choose a course of action based on them. In this respect free will is simply making an informed decision based on your own very personal experience. Whether the decision is predetermined by the laws of physics or not is irrelevant, since it is impossible to determine what that predetermined outcome would be.
@kevinmcnamee6006 yes all you mention are parameters as well as sensory parameters and the parameters on how you feel. The whole bunch of them are prosessed by 'you' and 'you' the software more or less hardcoded in your brain and also rewritten based on all those experiences and tjere will be then finally only one outcome. That could theoretically be calculated but extremely hard so best to say impossible. The calculations are always depending on a gazillion of input parameters that largely change all the time, being extremely timebound, so practically impossible to predict. Tje short tv series DEVS however does a marvellous job explaining and achieving just that.
Yes, there is free will up to some extent which will help in deciding one's future . First of all we have to accept & understand that we are conscious beings or one can say immortal souls. So soul operates the body through mind .when we are going to do something good or bad our soul or conscious tells us by giving good or bad feeling that we are doing something bad, our soul or conscious will try to stop us but its our choice weather we listen to our soul or not. we knowingly do what we want to do, we are not innocents we ignore our conscious which tried to stop us to do wrong, this is the point at which we have free will & when we do something good our soul or conscious is very happy & we all know through that satisfaction level we feel. So i think our soul or conscious tells us before doing it that we are doing something good or bad, it means that we have free will up to some extent.
The brain uses energy to process spike trains that activate synapses between neurons, of which there are 86 billion. If there is a freestanding soul, how is the information thansferred back and forth between the brain and the soul? An invisible bluetooth connection? And from where does the soul get the energy to process the information? The soul is just an impossible concept, unless it's defined as a part of the brain.
@@heytomas1 try thinking of the physical brain as a very sophisticated computer/ transceiver.
"Free will" implies you can have some causal effect (will) on your decision making, but in order for the decision to be "free" you need to do it from outside the causal chain that leads up to that decision. You need to invoke something outside of causation if you want to explain free will (e.g., a soul, free will is an illusion, etc.). You never make choices, you just impose meaning on events after they've happened.
It seems you misunderstand what "you" is. Your body is you. It makes choices. And if these choices are at least partially independent of the current external conditions (and sometimes they are), then these choices are free. It doesn't matter if this "you" is determined by previous events. It is still you.
The only problem is to find a proper definition of free will which does not give free will to simple algorithms but only to more complex entities. But it is not in any way wise to deny the existence of free will. It is a phenomenon of our reality just like love, music, longing etc. You can possibly explain those things in terms of atomic interactions, so you can say that music is just sound like any other sound. But we know it is much more and it has an important impact on the world we live in. Neglecting that gets us nowhere.
@@piotr.ziolo. I think you're the one misunderstanding things here...
@@ferdinandkraft857 Care to give any arguments or you just randomly toss your opinions?
@@piotr.ziolo. If your choices are determined by previous events, they cannot be free. It's an oxymoron.
@@ferdinandkraft857 If they're determined by you, then they are free by definition. Do you claim that our actions are completely determined by external factors? I don't think so.
People are independent agents, they can act even in the absence of any external stimuli. What is making the decision then if not these agents? And if nothing is making this agent do it, then his/her/its decision is free, even if it can be completely derived from the agent's state.
I believe that free will is nothing but an illusion. I had no free will saying that it was determined that I would.
Could free will emerge or grow out of quantum randomness / indeterminacy?
They addressed that, freewill, isn’t randomness. That would be a crazy person.
i like the way sam harris explain it . Quantum indeterminacy introduces an idea of randmness so it is like if your decision was based in the flip of a coin if it is one face of the coin you perform one action if it is the other you perform another action. IT hipotetically introduces alternate possiblities but i isn´t free will because it would´t be you choosing one or the other like i said is like rolling a dice or flipping a coin, you didn´t choose to get a 6 the outcome was not in your control.
This subject is way over my understanding but to me, it seems; determinism provides parameters, quantum mechanics presents options, free will allows choice. Throw in nature/nurture, then free will outcomes reduce to opportunity/character/morality.
Can help to focus on the past that is coming than to focus on the future that already happened.
How we define Free Will?
This is a good question. _Who_ is free? The consciousness? But is it fundamental or emergent? From what is it _free_ ? From the laws of physics? But then it's unphysical...
“You can do what you decide to do, but you cannot decide what you will decide to do” -Sam Harris
You don’t need to think that much further past this quote to realize that you’re a slave to your neurons. As Homo sapiens, we only need to comprehend as far as our specie’s demands are satisfied so there’s no way we can compute all the traces of our urges which thus results in this illusion of free will. We’re just observing a movie at the end of the day.
Sam Harris can talk for hours, but his shpeel comes down to this. You can't choose "who you are" or "what you want" so you have no free will. How crazy would that be if you had to decide every morning who you were going to be that day, and even sillier that you would have to decide what to want. Free will is there so you can "get what you want." Harris's version of free will is pure sophistry and childish BS.
What would be the actual problem if we abandoned the idea of Free Will? The only practical problem I see, is how then to assign responsibility to certain actions. The reason we need to assign responsibility to actions is to determine how behavior can be influenced by sanctions. Punishing or rewarding someone for something he/she isn't responsible for seems unfair, as the sanction is ultimatively in vein.
Which offers a perfect workaround for the Free Will problem: If we assign responsibility to those, who can be most reliably influenced by sanctions, so that the outcome of a decision to act changes, we can restore the validity of sanctions even in a completely deterministic universe.
Well said and great to see a fellow person embrace logical science 👌😌
We don’t need to be very complicated on the subject. Individuals and societies have the right to protect themselves. So without freewill, we can still hold you responsible, “because you are” just not in the freewill sense, but moralizing and revenge etc, become stupid uncalled for responses.
Either you function well, as society requires or you don’t. Some people can respond to actions against them and learn, some can’t.
I think the problem of free will is deeper than anywhere discussed in this video. Even if there is some mysterious form of mental causation, it is clear that we cannot freely choose the circumstances that underlie our existence: to give some examples, we cannot choose our parents (and therefore we cannot choose our heredity), the place of our birth which for most people remains there place of citizenship, where history will unfold about them in a local sense, and have many causative impacts on them, the economic opportunity we do or do not have as children, or basic level of hereditary intelligence, (already mentioned but a specific element of heredity that is very determination, as for example, whether we would 'choose' to vote for Donald Trump or not), if there is other intelligent life in the Universe, what planet we exist on, or similarly, what universe we may exist in. These kinds of things, and infinitely many others, such as the state of our internal molecular biology at any given movement, form up the background of our existence, not just at the moment of our conception, birth, or early childhood, but throughout our lives, until the moment of of death, which we do not usually have control over either.
It is inconceivable that we can have a broader sort of 'free will' if such basic aspects of our existence so clearly do not come about as a result of free choices. So even if there is some agency located within ourselves, that agency's primary characteristics form completely outside of itself... and are not choices made by the agent.
I have of course made up my own definition of free will, but it seems to me that it is the only meaningful form of free will. Free will must truly be free, unconditioned, or at least not so significantly conditioned as it is by the background factors of our existence. This should be so clear as to not require explanation, but we seem to have a deep psychological need to believe we have something like free will; this need is almost certainly related to human biological evolution (of the sense of self)...
davidson had a good idea with free will in anomalous monism.
there are mental events and physical events. mental events are propositional dispositions. physical events are non mental events. physical events are strictly deterministic and mental events are not.
in that case, there is an asymmetrical supervenience relationship between the mental and physical.
to illustrate: we can be angry long after the physical events that caused us to be angry have dissipated, and, that anger has physical effects, but, we were never guaranteed to become angry in the first place.
how would that work?
in a heuristic system where every event is unique and temporary, a functional system (say, vision for recognizing kinds of objects) must represent through interpretation. there is no guarantee of how such a system will type inputs or that it will faithfully do so. having billions of such 'microrealizers' (shoemaker) under the same constraints where these interact and instantiate other mental events, that's a heck of a lot of deterministic activity going on but only where outcomes are probablistic.
so, when we further have functional systems that evaluate what to do with that kind of information via feelings first (propositional dispositions; belief, fear, hope, anger, anxiety, etc.), the causal nexus has to be seen in those terms.
such systems are themselves fully explainable in physical terms, but what those physical states of affairs realize are probablistic mental events that are not governed by the same laws as those of purely physical states of affairs.
in this way, yes, mental events are ultimately physical events but mental events are not strictly discrete physical events.
free will and determinism are compatible.
Kudos -- 444 Gematria -- 🗽
Still feel that free will somehow causes / determines things, not figure out yet, but have something to do with subconscious.
Brain and mind are different entities.
Brain is just a seat for mind.
Memories can reside in heart also. Few heart transplant surgeries have proven it.
Mind is it's own realm and it's closer to our true self. But, mind has the tendency to believe in physical. If we turn our mind to inner reality, we realize the eternal truth.
'Memories can reside in heart also. Few heart transplant surgeries have proven it.'
WTF?
Can you please share the source?
Could the possibilites of quantum world present choices to people? The random quantum develop possibilites which the brain / mind sees as choices.
Without freewill. Parts of infinite cannot make seperate identity because infinite doesn't need anything like identity self contained.
Why is the question of free will important to us? What does it say about the mind that we're even able to consider it?
The only place where free will may exist, is in our inner life, where imagination creates new situations and ideas. We are gestating entities where our imagination and desires glimpse new possibilities: we need reincarnation where both our present life's distilled experiences and our inner dreams are reconciled. Free will has to be hidden for a new dawn of present experiences to emerge from the past. Philosophers have long warned us to live as if death is always present in order to create a better future: the future is now. Free will hides in the meaning of Time itself.
Is “free will” simply the ability to act autonomously? How autonomous do you want to be to consider yourself “free”? Mendel and Darwin say I’m not free from my ancestors. Kahneman and Tversky say I’m not rational. I’m influenced by advertisements, political rhetoric, diet, and even the smells in the room. Maybe freedom is simply not being actively coerced? Good ad campaigns and political rhetoric comes pretty near coercion, particularly when it’s targeted, such as what happens on social media. Perhaps the ability to imagine various scenarios and their related outcomes, counterfactual thinking, gives me more “freedom” than other creatures? I think this gives me more freedom in the sense that I can better align my decisions with desired outcomes, but I think that is closer to a definition of intelligence than freedom.
Maybe free will is the weighing of expected harm/benefit from a given decision. Do I marry Jane? Well, Jane is very nice, lovely, healthy, etc. But there are other women I could marry. Maybe I want to prioritize my career instead. Different fields of science focus on different aspects of decision-making using words like intuition, emotion, moral values, identity, belief, desire, and reason. Many of these factors are likely to overlap in making a particular decision. It seems to me perfectly consistent with what we already know about the inner workings of the brain that our experience of making a free decision is merely the weighing of these various overlapping realms. Perhaps the articulation of the relevant concepts, expected outcomes, etc. in conscious thought is useful for complex decision making. I still can’t make sense of the “free” part of the decision. Colin McGinn’s “mental causation” is another word for a soul because it has to be free from your neurons in order to give you free will, but of course we know that our psychological experience is our brain because we can use various physical mechanisms to manipulate it.
I still feel like I have free will, but I don’t think I do.
Answer: fat no
It’s a fascinating question. Does knowledge of it make anyone live their life differently?
I think understanding Free Will only affects our ability to sanction behavior. Punishing someone, who was not free in his decision would be futile and cruel.
@@stefanb6539 No you are still responsible for your actions. The punishment and fear of punishment hopefully become causes in the chain that hopefully encourage the right effect.
for me it makes a huge difference, for someone else it might not. there are many implications of that (just one) truth and each hears their own benefits or just dismisses it
@@praviplavokutnik That's an interesting reply. I have a question about what you said if you don't mind.
In what way does thinking you have free will/or not/ cause you to change the way you live your life?
@@danielpaulson8838 It keeps me humble. I know that people's behavior is influenced by something that would effect me in the same way so I try to understand them. I also don't bath in shame and guilt all the time if I do something wrong, instead I learn and go forward. There's much more peace if you stop wasting energy of judging someone else's apparent decisions, which were never their own. And also, ego is much less in control of you if you don't consider yourself the doer of your actions. Instead, seeing life as a movie you are witnessing makes you traveling light.
The brains, dont have Free will.
People do. The brain isn't a seperate personality.
If the brain is like a computer being controlled by software neurons than what that make us?
Kunt of a question, that. Depends how much you can extrapolate yersel. (Or how far you zoom out). Either way, ha ....
Does anyone know how good this guy is at maths?
A hard determinist will tell you that you are totally controlled and powered by whatever state immediately precedes the choice you are making, but then, will tell you that you still have to do the mental work, come up with a plan and make it happen by your own initiative, or nothing will happen. Pretty useless determinism if you ask me.
The " gap " is the hard problem of consciousness and consciousness being an emergent property of the brain will always remain a mystery for science because awareness could not observe awareness as an objective object since that would be an experience within consciousness. Awareness could not observe awareness any more than fire could burn itself or water could moisten itself. Nor could any machine reveal to you your subjective existence because that existence is what gives you the knowing that you exist which is unique only to you. So, seeing consciousness as an emergent property of the brain is unfeasible.
Since free will flows along the stream of consciousness it will also always remain just a mystery that we can't see to be reducible to physic stuff. Do we have some freedom? I believe so, a native Indian saying says, " within a person are two wolves, one good, the other evil, and whatever wolf we feed the most we become. A human being is a lump of impulses and when we learn to control those impulses we can make our life peaceful for life.
Do past experiences affect us? Answer: Yes, because they condition our psyche as the saying goes violence begets violence but that is related to experience and not biology. So, as I see it, biology doesn't make you the person that you are, so it doesn't determine the type of person you are because people can change and cultivate themselves through spiritual practices.
There is a difference between expectation and anticipation. If I anticipate an act I can choose a response beforehand. But if I am not aware that the action is going to occur my response might be different. I'm more independent now than I was at the age of five, and I was more independent at the age of five than I was as an infant. Here, independence means that I can control my responses and modulate when they will occur. Finally, we are all going to hit the brick wall, but we get to decide how fast or slowly we approach it, more or less. Our nature (awareness) responds to what occurs to it and generates will in a way that is partly heritable and partly determined by our choices.
It’s self-refuting to deny freewill.
I am wondering if on determinism we should rename evolution to progressive deterministic development since there is no randomness and no survival of the fittest (who will be a prey and who will be a predator, their speed, their capacity to make "free choices" isn't really there etc.) but we could calculate all of those if we would know initial conditions and all the laws of the physics.
So I watched that whole thing to learn that the answer is we do not know?
Oh well, it was still interesting. I love the mystery of it all. If we knew everything life would be boring.
Questions take us closer to truth, but answers lead us astray.
such is the nature of philosophy, we never really find solid answers.
The brain is part of the body, so the question should actually be: Does the human body have a will? He has that, and he lets it be felt permanently in all basic needs.
Maybe determinism and free will can be combined in some way, rather than opposed, perhaps even restricting determinism for free will.
It’s called compatibilism
I don’t understand why the randomness of quantum mechanics is such an anathema to free will. Isn’t this what we would expect from a fully independent being with free will? If not, what is the answer we are looking for to help us define (or constitutes) free will?
Yep, most physicists don't even understand what randomness is and how it and probabilities are RELATIVE to the observer.
@@A3Kr0n Sure, here's a concrete example: imagine you are playing Texas Holdem with two other players (call them A and B) and get dealt pocket aces (i.e. two aces). Also suppose you accidentally drop one of your cards (face-up) on the floor and player A sees it while player B doesn't..... Now note that the probability of you having pocket aces is different from each player's relative points of view (including your own).
If a coin is flipped randomly is the coin exercising free will? Randomness is clearly not a decision.
@@A3Kr0n Here's a bonus example for you: Imagine that a true free will being personally chooses one card of out of a deck and then displays it to some naive physicist who wants to predict the outcome. Now note that from the naive physicist's perspective, the outcome seems random, and the best he can ever do is give a probabilistic prediction. Hence for the physicist to then declare that the being displaying the card does not have free will due to "randomness" is not only naive, but just flat out wrong.
@@Nayr747 TERRIBLE coin example :) ... The exact internal processes by which quantum mechanical observations manifest is unknown. In other words, all physicists can observe in a quantum mechanical "coin flip" is the outcome (head's or tail's), and not the actual "flip". Therefore, extrapolating "no free will" on a quantum "flip" you basically know nothing about is fallacious and downright stupid.
free will is the possibility to chose - make mistakes or not
Wow!
Free will.. on life support.
Consider this. Our thought and behavior result from hierarchical neural networks. Lower level (deterministic) neuronal activity produces higher-level "emergent" activity that has additional characteristic than those of what produced it - the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. That is "self", "consciousness," and "free will." You can study each and never discover what produced it. These emergent phenomena do not strictly depend on antecedent events; they become new entities that can produce thought, behavior, and self-control, and decision-making. In this way, humans have free will (subject to genetics, early childhood development, life experiences, and any forces extant at the time of a decision that would bias the decision). Thus, humans have constrained free will; they have choice, and in most cases, humans are responsible for their words, behavior, and actions.
That’s a story. But there is no evidence. And we should be able to trace cause and effect within this emergent reality as we can with other emergent phenomenon.
@@ihatespam2 There is plenty of evidence. Complex, non-linear dynamical systems, emergence. Causation that goes up and down heirarchically such that causation is not linear and due to randomness, the past cannot be constructed from the present, not can the future.
@@georgegrubbs2966 you seem to have a very loose definition of evidence. Things that make you wonder, or allow you to connect dots with ideas are not evidence. Emergence is in no way contradictory to natural science, and is common.
If you have free will, prove it to yourself. Pick something you are not convinced of, then decide to be convinced of it. No pretending, be actually convinced. Use your magical free will to decide Zeus is real or whatever you want. But you can’t. No matter how hard you try. Just like every decision you’ve made, unless the conditions are different you will always make the same decision.
It is amazing to me how our subconscious brain is able to interpret and react at times before we, our conscious brain, is even aware of what's happening. I was sitting earlier watching CZcams and I dosed off just barely- not really all the way asleep but totally unconscious of what was happening around me. All the sudden I wake myself up hollering "Hey, cut it out!" and then I realize- just as I finish saying this- why I'm saying it- my cats are underneath my chair fighting. Now I had no idea they were even in the house when I dozed off- so my brain had to have heard what was happening and reacted appropriately- totally on auto pilot.
The same thing happened when my mother who has congestive heart failure lost the ability to breathe- at 4 am. I was asleep- of course- and somehow, I heard her- she was unable to speak and could only whisper very weakly- all the way from the other end of the house- 30-40 feet away through 3 walls- and I reacted by getting up, getting half dressed, and going to her room- while asleep. I woke up standing in her room, trying to figure out what was wrong with her. Then I realize she can't breathe- call an ambulance- and she turned out to be ok. Thats how we found out she had congestive heart failure- we had no idea before this. So not only am I shocked I heard anything- but I'm also shocked it registered to me that it was that important, that I was able to get up and get dressed, navigate a dark house, etc.- all while unconscious. I remember being totally shocked after it was over and wondering how I ended up in there, what she had said or done- I couldn't remember anything but just waking up standing at her bedside.
Makes you wonder how many things your brain does this with, and you only notice when something goes wrong, and your attention is called to it. I think that's the brain being like "Wait- there's a new variable here- we don't know what to with this... " and so now it has to involve you- it makes a request for you to be present and conscious- and that's when you become aware.
Only 8 dislikes lol, good ep.
Seems to me that trying to tackle free will is pointless until you understand conciousness. And we don't understand conciousness.
There are exorbitantly more things which a man does not want than things that a person wants. Hence there is a natural will in every living being.
There is no free will. Every choice has a price.
Every living entity (agent) has free will, not just humans. Agency/ semiotic theory, relates. Every agent is a mind-body. An agent makes choices from its ecosystem that are contingent on the tools (body) that it has at its disposal. Agents with hands & vocal chords have very different predisposition to agents with scales & fins, or wings & feathers, or fur & paws, and that's why they habituate very different choices. And the choices they habituate wire their neuroplastic brains (Doidge 2008**). Which brings us to the first major error. Human brains are not separate from the body. Brains don't have free will... people do.
The second major error frequently made by many people is the assumption that lesser agents are governed by instinct. They aren't. They too, have free will. But what is mischaracterized as instinct is just free will playing out in a much-reduced horizon of options. A frog in a pond has fewer options to choose from, and this gets mischaracterized by persons-in-labcoats as instinct. There is no such thing as instinct. It's a reduced horizon of options.
.. meaning, a smaller world of fewer options in comparison to the cultural worlds that humans inhabit.
**Doidge, N., 2008. The Brain that Changes Itself. Melbourne: Scribe Publications.
Lot's of statements, but no sign of supporting evidence.
@@ferdinandkraft857 Nice to see you're paying attention. My comment is a synthesis of the semiotics of Charles Sanders Peirce with the biosemiotics of Jakob von Uexküll. It was Uexküll who originally provided the inspiration for the systems theory of Humberto Maturana. In other words, the evidence relates to a developing paradigm in biosemiotic theory. It also ties in with emerging thinking in neural plasticity. This biosemiotic interpretation, imho, will provide for the life sciences what Isaac Newton provided for physics. No woo required.
No god required... though it is open to interpretations along the lines of collective organisation (e.g., universe as god).
Keywords [Peirce, Uexküll, semiotics, biosemiotics]
What strikes me is if you take someone that is born into a cut off world from religion , technology and advances and was never brought up into Christianity. How is this person judged by God if they act upon their response to free Will. Do we have free will or act spontaneously on the environment in which we are grown into. For instance every second that we encounter we react based on that second We encounter free will or just survival.
“The shows are the best. ‘
Along with John Searle, I agree that free will is nonsense but putting free will aside for a moment, I disagree with John's comment made at 6:15 where he said "Is there any part of the universe that we know is indeterministic and the only part we know FOR SURE is quantum mechanics.". I disagree with the "FOR SURE" part of his comment. This comment supports the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics which is fine but it's not fact and is still only a theory. Just because a human is unable to know the outcome of a quantum event doesn't prove that indeterminism or randomness exists. If the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics was fact, then no one would be talking about and supporting other theories of quantum mechanics such as Bohmian mechanics (a.k.a. pilot wave theory) or the many-worlds interpretation where both of these interpretations are deterministic and not random.
Seems pretty well established to me. Unless you want to play the nothing is for sure game.
We do not have absolute free will, but we DO have free agency.
To everyone that knows I didn't know the concept of a multi departments resulted in the dryer baby concept, thanks for the reminder, l would never had dreamed it unless she'd told me and the originals I'm sorry I didn't ask anything from you
Quantum Mechanics is the answer to free will. The observer modifies what he observes. When a person, driven by its desires or lack of something, makes the decision of visualizing what he wants in the future, for example, a trip or making a youtube channel to answer questions, by the same visualization that person materializes what he or she disired to become true. He or she out of infinite possibilities makes something become a material reality by observing it in advance.
Is this a repost?
Free will: The idea that there is a "self" that makes choices that are not wholly determined by antecedent events.
Does it happen? I don't know.
Seems a good definition
The "self" is entirely determined by previous events. Free will doesn't exist.
@@rotorblade9508 the "self" is casually determined by previous events.
It cannot initiate events temporarily free from prior causal chains
@@Raging_Granny_Gamer So some people say *shrug*
@@madmax2976 free will is an incoherent idea with no scientific evidence to support it. Just like god.
How is it that humans possess this magical ability to initiate events partially free from prior causal chains?
If there's no free will how can you trust your own judgements. Or how do decide what's moral?
The same way by being taught or through experience.
Better ask this qurstion first: is freewill a subproduct of physical world? ...
Made me think, do we exhibit free will in dreams?
Human brains are the only brains we know of, including the brains which were part of the species which came before us, which has free will. Humans have the POWER to alter the fate of the universe because of our ability to think freely about the universe. The universe is ordered. Human thought is abstract, but in order to alter the fate of the universe, the human brain must work in concert of the order of the universe. You cannot violate the laws of the universe, this would be the strongest argument against freedom of the will, but daily we are reminded that people decide to violate the laws of the universe. Since most people don't regard themselves as an integral component of the universe, instances where humans wrong one another don't seem important, but the mastery of the universe requires the maximum level of human cooperation. The maximum level of human cooperation is the strongest force in the universe and it is the reason why the universe created us, so if we fail to be the strongest force in the universe, it's because we have free will and rather violate the laws of the universe than work together and be our intended purpose. So, in the future, when people live free of fear from harm from any neighbor, people will ask the question and feel as though they lack free will because being consistantly good for generations will make it seem as though you lack free will, but the truth is that people are mastering what it means to be human, and there is always the freedom, but people know a better way to live.
Furthermore, every animal is different. The reason why a fully charging Grizzly bear will halt if you, a human, stands his ground is because it has no will. It's conscious and has instincts, but it is a naked animal which has to protect its health, and it will halt because it has no way of determining how it relates to you. On the other hand, the same grizzly protecting its cub will exhibit very different behavior, I think this behavior is still instinctual. Bears are solitary animals, and I believe that pack or social animals are the ones which develop wills. For instance, Chimpanze certainly engage in warfare, I believe that dolphins do the same. These aren't free wills, they are still instinctual behaviors they are engaging in, but the social aspect of the engagements is on a higher level than the solitary acts of solitary animals. Our will is the product of evolution, and it is a product of a prolonged evolution as a social family line. Communication is a critical aspect of there being will because it allows many to act as a single force. We had the hands and body shape to build innovatively, but when our brains allowed for abstract communication, we gained freedom of will because the universe is ordered by law, and not itself an abstraction.
If you were a robot you would not think to create free will and you would not. We don't see with our eyes, and inside my body is complete darkness, everything you are is your consciousness and you are conscious of the dreams you remember. Consciousness is what you and every animal relies upon for survival. In each living body, everything of the outside universe is absorbed by the brains you are working with. It's your brains interpretation. Consciousness is essentially accepting the universe as real, and this is a survival tactic for all animals. The will has to do with producing future results, and I think there are some animals, including elephants which have will, elephants have memory and they have a purpose to their migration, and abstraction is the freedom. We are blessed with both abstract thought of the universe, and absolutely everything we experience and know of it is a feature of our brains and consciousness, and we have a physical form which allows us to craft the things which allows us to realize of purpose in the universe. There is no purpose for anything you have in your life whatsoever, unless everything in the universe has genuine purpose. So if you have experienced genuine purpose in you life before, and know that purpose exist from personal experience, you understand that everything in the universe has purpose, and the neurons in your head is the only thing the universe has constructed to understand itself. You are the universe because all you do is absorb all of the universe you can possibly absorb, and you can never separate yourself from the universe, and if you think there is a purpose to anything, you must conclude that there is a purpose to everything, for all time.
Quantum indeterminacy might give rise to randomness, but are we prepared to conclude that we've mastered everything to know at the quantum level. I don't believe there is something mystical occuring in the brain, and everyone ought recognize that a person with a hole in their brain are seriously effected, but for consciousness, I think people fail to recognize the obvious that animals too are conscious, and for the will, there has been 1 billion years of chemistry involved in constructing one, I'm not expecting people living in the space stone age to have the answers to everything, but people ought recognize that the decisions they make are each and collectively each the real value in the universe. The universe doesn't place a value on anything, everything is simply influenced by the forces of the universe. Human decisions place a value on things in the universe, the force is stronger than all of the forces in the universe combined. It's the power of decisions along with work. The universe does no work, only living things do work. Humans do the best work in the universe because we are different from the other animals and have abstract thought of what can be accomplished in the universe. What can be accomplished in the universe is a limit on what works in the universe, not a limit upon what is attempted to suffice or work in the universe, again, to be successful in the universe you have choices to make and are required to make the correct one, which is the true arguement against a free will, but our primitive civilization knows unequivocally that there is a free will because countless individuals make counterproductive decisions which are devastatingly bad. We are not tasked with being perfect, but abstraction means that there is some person who would literally try everything, so, the universal will needs to guide in a fashion which disallows actual free will, in favor of, dynastic collective will.
Determinism, you don't maintain the same consciousness or will throughout your life. Determinism is more to do with being in time. Time is a real aspect of the universe and it is relevant to every aspect of our lives. Our consciousness will relegate something to the subconscious, like driving the final stretch home. Humans are not born knowing anything. We learn just as a cub learns to hunt from the lioness. You are solely your consciousness and will, and as time passes, your will is what's most subject to change, but you become conscious of more of the universe, especially if you continue learning.
I exist not! Do you own the jacket you are wearing? Refer to Kant, but what is the single thing every living thing owns? Their consciousness! All the universe is absorbed into the consciousness, if you are not conscious, you are claiming to own nothing. Ergo, you are nothing, therefore you exist not! You couldn't possibly be this wrong about yourself now could you!
The doctor is correct that we have free will to do according to our neurons in rejection of other's neurons, but this is not an examination into the question of free will, this is an analysis of our interest in "being" free, which is actually a political philosophy consideration. Your unique abstraction is the extent of your free will, and exercise of the will in the universe is a political consideration.
I think what the doctor is describing is a duality and conflict of multiple wills. This type of person need to be approached and taught how to function within the bounds of the law with this duality. A person ought to be judged on the behavior exibited by the individual, and unless the duality is a diagnosable split of true good versus true evil, both halves of the brain can learn not to engage in unlawful activity.
Denying free will is to deny you existence as human. We are free, and go to the beach to get a tan, turtles swim to the beach to instinctually lay their eggs. What are all the wonders we can do with the world, and most of us, especially most of the people you have interviewed, spend all of their time in civilization or the city. These are not natural constructs, they are principled in the laws of the universe, else they would not stand. We have a degree of freedom what we can do in the universe, and we have to freedom to dream anything possible. You'll never master the universe until you realize that you were the only thing designed to.
I don't know the mechanism which gives rise to free will, I just know how to observe the fact that it exist in the universe. I live in a neighborhood of houses. Those houses are only there because of free will, otherwise the landscape would be natural, and these house are distinct from bird's nest because they each look different from the other. There are principles which they all must follow to stand as a house, but the variety of houses validate the presence of abstraction, and it is the ability to think of the universe in abstract terms which gives rise to freedom to do all the things possible in the universe.
You realize, no one will read this right?
I'm not an expert. But the problem could be in the definition of causation.
Why not look at the 4 interpretations of aristotle?
Outdated.
The best choice I ever made was to stop clinging to free will.
How?
@@OM10PYE Well. Actually it wasn’t me, it was the universe.
Haha, good one. 🙂
Everyone just assumes, as an unargued philosophical bias, that, whenever we speak of ‘free will’, we all intuitively seem to know what we’re talking about…
If physicalism were true, then how is it possible for the physicalist to change his mind, explain the ‘problem of other minds’, avoid becoming a solipsist, engaging in intelligent discourse…
For the physicalist (like John Searle), it really IS a problem, not so much because it leads him to the absurd conclusion of a Boltzmann brain, but because the alternative, determinism, ineluctably and unavoidably leads him into the realm of the metaphysical where ‘consciousness’ could be synonymous with ‘soul’ or ‘spirit’, all of which raises the question of… God!
But… rather hold to the absurd than even considering the possibility of God having breathed life into the creature to give them their ‘elan vital’!
Could we understand a car if we were born inside the cabin and never allowed out of it. Sure we could do all sorts of things and come to some sort of understanding how it functions but to know everything I believe that only comes from seeing the car from outside. Same problem with the universe and this problem of free will.
We do have free will as we think about it by using our brain but how it works and who made the brain work as it does in various ways is what I espouse! I didn't make my brain or body or free Will!
Who decides is not the Being, but the monkey that inhabits us. The neurosciences proved it. The action of the Being is the Conscious action. Moments before using a word we are not aware of it; the monkey that inhabits us selects the words we use.
I don't think we do have the illusion that our choices aren't predetermined if we pay attention to the experience of making choices.
It does seem like making choices is perfectly compatible with being predetermined to select the option we do.
I think that the idea of the physical, the biological, is linked with determinism. I don't know if this is something that can be changed. The consciousness within the body however, seems to be linked with free will, as in actually being able to make different things at any given time
Are there any quantum neurologist?
psychology is neurobiology. nothing comes out of thin air.
The speaker in blue has his right shoulder shaking while the left isn't shaking.
Parkinson’s disease possibly.
@@cam553 I see. Thanks.
Lol
it is very interesting that when someone is reaching his limits to understand the world and universe, he maybe found something beyond..
Free will is absolutely impossible, even for a God.
Our will is mostly subconscious, that's the strike one against it being free.
Strike two: to have a complete control of your will, you must have an awareness of every minute action you can possibly take at any micro-moment, and understanding of every possible implication of that action.
Since there is practically unlimited number of options, one's brain would be immediately overwhelmed and shut down. Instead, our will is randomly predetermined by a combination of many things: the state of our brain's chemistry at the moment, what we had for breakfast, did we get enough sleep, did we argue or make love, the weather outside, the political climate, cosmic rays causing damage to a particular part of our brain etc, etc, etc. The combination itself is practically unlimited. That's why some people believe in a Flat Earth, and others don't, some people put on a mask, while others refuse, some people take medication, others won't; that's why 30 years ago the current insanity in the White House would be prevented or fixed immediately, but today we can't/won't do anything about it, that's why some people study and understand Science, while others don't, that's why, while collectively we know exactly what causes a lot of problems in our life, and, collectively, we have all the information needed to fix many problems right now, we still won't do it, we can't even be certain when, how or if ever we will get to doing it.
The same as if you would ask whether USA has fee will. Contains many units, needs, competetive intentions, etc etc.. Like brain. Would somebody say that it is about randomness? It is about choices and satisfaction after decision. So why the pain hurts so? It is just signal ending somewhere in the brain..☝️
Imagine I have a card deck an lay the card on the table so that we can see all the card. You get the task to choose the 4 kings, so that it shall be a history of 4 kings, one after the other. First you can choose among four, then among 3, then 2 and at last 1. How many histories can you choose? It will be 4*3*2*1 = 24, it will be 24 histories. You can freely choose the 4 kings in 24 ways. This is mathematics. So then you have a free will, sure like mathematics. No problem. If they say something that is not in accordance with this mathematics, then it is wrong. So if anyone says I don’t have a free will, it is wrong.
So why do they discuss it, what’s the problem? My choice is I result of causality in my brain. Well, this is me, my body is me and so is my brain. I think with my own brain, I don’t try to think with another brain. Isn’t that OK???!!!
There might be another problem, for example that you chose to do something, but you are not able to do it. You want something but can`t get it. Maybe you are not strong enough, not wise enough, you lac information, you are not rich enough to pay for it.
If I shuffle the card deck and let you choose from four cards from it without let you see what card you choose and you still want to choose the 4 kings in the same order, you must be very lucky to succeed. The chance will be 1/(52*51*50*49) = 0,00000015.
Despite humans free will, God does just as he wants, he is mighty enough to implement it. In the Bible it was prophesied that should invade Juda (the rest of Israel) and bring them as slaves to Babylonia, but later the king of Persia, Kyros, would let them go home. While they were in Babylonia, God told Daniel that after Babylonia there would come tree great kingdoms, Media, Persia and the Greek-empire. It is told that Alexander the Great’s kingdom should be divided in four, one of them was the Greek-Syrian kingdom. Here should come a dictator, Antiochus 4. Epiphanes, that pursued the Jews.
How could he know? Why did he let it happen, why did he let his own people suffer that much?
He had a plan. He surely saw something valuable in the Greek culture and Alexander spread it with his empire. But there also was something bad.
When Isac Newton was old he wrote a book about Daniels Book and the revelation in the New Testament. The Revelation seems to be a continuation of Daniels book.
"Do human brains have free will?" The very question itself stem from the assumption of the exercise of a free will. It is not a machine that asks the question. Read John Eccles.