We usually think that it is free will that gives meaning to life, but what if exactly the opposite is true, that the fact that we don't have free will makes life meaningful?
A couple of weeks ago Bernardo Kastrup, the executive director of the Essentia Foundation, wrote an essay (https://www.essentiafoundation.org/th...) arguing that, under objective idealism, the whole convulsiveness around free will is a meaningless red herring. In his opinion, the free will vs determinism debate misses the point, because fundamentally there is no distinction between nature’s will and what nature is necessitated to do. In other words: what we assume to be free will is, on a universal level, exactly the same as determinism.
In this video ,Hans Busstra sits down with Bernardo Kastrup to discuss this line of reasoning while also trying to make it personal: why do we want free will so badly on a psychological level? Why, as a culture, do we usually associate determinism with nihilism and meaninglessness? The conversation covers Laplace’s Demon, computational irreducibility, and works towards Kastrup's main point: if you can accept that, on a personal level, you don't have free will, you realize that you are being ‘played’ by a universe that—due to computational irreducibility—cannot 'see' where it's going before it goes. Instead of suffering as an effect of 'bad' free will decisions by human agents, suffering becomes part of the inevitable evolution of the universe.
00:00 Introduction
04:33 Why do we want free will so badly?
07:33 Laplace's Demon
09:09 Bernardo explaining computational irreducibility
13:22 Is there a GRAND algorithm? Bernardo on randomness...
16:17 Wa cannot NOT be what we are, therefore in a sense we are fully determined...
17:40 If we truly had free will we would be completely happy
24:04 On compatabilism, the idea that free will is somehow an emergent phenomenon
26:12 Does free will have a function, evolutionary?
32:10 On B.F.Skinner and behaviorism
35:14 How Silicon Valley likes the idea of no free will to nudge our behaviour
38:09 To model a human mind, you need to model the whole universe
38:45 On strong emergence
41:30 We are addicted to free will thinking
45:29 Is your life like a movie that you watch?
48:21 On the WILL of the universe according to Schopenhauer
51:30 If desire and necessity are the same thing, the concept of free will becomes meaningless
53:41 Can the universe WILL something completely else, that would change the regularities we see in nature?
56:03 If we would go back to the initial state, would we end up with the same universe?
57:33 Hans still wants a little bit of free will
59:53 Bernardo on the result orientedness of society
1:02:00 But what if I kick you Bernardo? On moral responsibility
1:06:28 On the ethical implications and Daniel Dennet's plea to stop telling people they don't have free will
1:07:31 Why nihilism is the wrong conclusion
1:08:46 If we would consider ourselves as chips in a computer
1:11:10 We DO have moral responsibility
1:12:52 Our suffering is valuable input for the universe
1:14:58 The two habits of thinking that obscure us
1:18:04 Conclusion by Bernardo, quoting Fred Matser: life is about being played by the universe
Films fragments as quoted in this video, in order of appearance (as a non-profit, Essentia Foundation uses fragments like these, as is common in YouTube edits, under fair use provisions; but if copyright holders do not agree, please let us know):
I Origins (2014)
Cast Away (2000)
Into the Wild (2007)
The Pursuit Of Happyness (2006)
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