This seems obvious to me, and I have tried for several months here in this forum and elsewhere to understand why some people accept physicis and yet believe "free will" happens.
63,971 views May 10, 2024
From the video description:
Robert Sapolsky, PhD is an author, researcher, and professor of biology, neurology, and neurosurgery at Stanford University. In this interview with Big Think’s Editor-in-Chief, Robert Chapman Smith, Sapolsky discusses the content of his most recent book, “Determined: The Science of Life Without Free Will.”
Being held as a child, growing up in a collectivist culture, or experiencing any sort of brain trauma – among hundreds of other things – can shape your internal biases and ultimately influence the decisions you make. This, explains Sapolsky, means that free will is not – and never has been – real. Even physiological factors like hunger can discreetly influence decision making, as discovered in a study that found judges were more likely to grant parole after they had eaten.
This insight is key for interpreting human behavior, helping not only scientists but those who aim to evolve education systems, mental health research, and even policy making.
I think the problem with Sapolsky’s argument against free will is that it is totally inductive. You can’t prove a negative inductively. That is, you can’t prove that free will does not exist by citing any number of instances where we do not have free will or a long list of influences that diminishes free will. There will always be the chance that the next instance will demonstrate some freedom despite the number of influences that constrain it.
This inductiveness is also the reason we fight so much about the definition of free will. Some people like to have a more inclusive definition of free will, but others argue that this much free will is not possible. I argue for a very wide definition of free will, but I’m not going to argue against any more restrictive definition that is valid nonetheless. Why argue over the degree to which we have free will when there are those that are convinced free will is just a useful illusion?
I think Sapolsky's argument is a straw fallacy and frankly the most often fallacy used by the hard determinist in order to make his case. Yes I agree inductive arguments are poor arguments. Rather they are invalid arguments for the reason you expressed.
Did you notice what the Op did (by implying Sapolsky works at Standard he speaks for the SEP)? I was going to give the Op the upvote just for trying to pull that one, but once I got into the meat of the Op Ed, I just couldn't bring myself to do it. It was rather ingenious to try to attack the integrity of SEP by insinuated if Sapolsky is wrong Stanford wouldn't let him work there. I don't recall once the Op quoting the SEP so chances are he sees that as a threat. Numerous articles in the SEP seem to run counter to the arguments Sapolsky tends to make.
The SEP is written by philosophers. Sapolsky is contemptuous of philosophers and does not understand even basic philosophical positions.
Absolutely, our nature/nurture are causal factors which shape our schemas and arguably have the greatest influence on our lives lived.
The illusory aspect of freewill however seems to act more as a red herring than a qualifier, distracting from the more salient points, as you already mentioned, policy reform, education, compassion, and rehabilitation over punishment.
Thank you. Indeed: punishment rarely works on humans (of all ages), yet it must still be done even though "free will" does not happen. A good education and a living-wage job keep many people from committing crimes. Compassion and kindness is to be applied even with monsters who have demonstrated that they would love to set on fire the people who wish them well.
People "turn out" the way they are by acting and reacting to external stimuli / environment, genetics, and by injury/ disease. It is every human being's social duty to treat abusive and criminal people fairly, honestly, equally, even though they are "bad" people: no less than our duty to everyone else.
They must be punished for their crimes and abuses even though they do not have "free will:" far too damn many people look at the consequences to themselves of being "bad" and refrain from causing suffering--- instead of refraining from causing suffering because inflicting suffering is evil.
I look at homeless people living on the streets of Santa Fe, New Mexico, and I see suffering instead of "free will."
How is it "free will" when a five-year-old child must live in an iron lung due to polio-meningitis?
How do you think punishment would work if determinism were false, and as a result human behaviour was not determined by prior events, including the fear of being punished?
You can look at empirical evidence today, punishment works the same regardless if determinism is true or false, because people do whatever their lived experience entails. Deterrence is one aspect among a giant complex system of decision making.
If determinism were true, from an ethical standpoint we would be using imprisoned humans as examples to instill fear to deter other humans. Kind of fucked up tbh. I'm sure human civilization can come up with better ways to deter without making human beings as examples
It might be "kind of fucked up" but it assumes that human behaviour is determined. There would be no point in it otherwise.
I agree with all you say, except the part that free will doesn’t happen. Compassion, honesty, and duty to our fellow man is paramount. Illness and suffering is not a matter of free will. They will be with us regardless of philosophical outlook.
--..-.-that's like saying that motion is impossible, just because you can build a road and put a sign "walking path"---..
Why would you think physics rules out Free Will?
I think you have an intuition about it, but likely un-examined assumptions you are making, leading to that conclusion.
Here's an example of Free Will in action.
It's a nice day and I'm deliberating between two possible actions: driving my car to the nearby convenience store, or walking to the store. I'm capable of taking either action if I want to. If I choose to take a walk I could have taken the car if I'd wanted to. I'm an autonomous agent, in control of my actions, and I can have second order supervision of my motives. I may want to drive my car because it would be easier, but I may also have a motive to walk to keep in shape. As I can "reason about my reasons" I can reason about which motive I have better reasons to act upon, e.g. which will fit more coherently in my wider set of goals (e.g. being healthy). In either case I'm aware of being responsible for my actions, e.g. if I take the car I'm aware of the good reasons I have to drive responsibly and not harm someone, e.g. by speeding through a school zone etc. So I'm a moral agent as well.
Insofar as those two actions are possible for me to take if I want to, and I am not impeded from taking either action, nor being threatened or facing undo coercion instead of acting on my own motives, then it's a Free Willed Choice.
What is it about physics that rules that out?
If determinism is true, you are impeded from the action you don’t choose at the time you choose the other thing. The unchosen option was never a realizable possibility, so choosing it is not something that can really happen.
If determinism is true, and the options are a to the exclusion of b or b to the exclusion of a, and you were determined by the laws of physics to choose a even before you were born, all your “deliberations” are a little imaginary cartoon in your mind that can’t make b a real possibility.
And why would that be a problem? If I prefer the thing that I did choose, why would I want to choose the other thing? The complaint is meaningless.
Again, if the laws of physics require me to choose what I myself wish to choose, then this is not a meaningful constraint.
Frankly, the only "imaginary cartoon" seems to be that the laws of physics have some special interest in my life and my choices. And that is certainly not a real possibility.
Note the addition in brackets. I added it for clarity in good faith to accurately express what I was talking about before you replied.
Anyway, it’s because otherwise, you have no power to abstain from your strongest preference at a given moment, meaning your strongest preference at a given moment is actually not merely a preference, but in fact a compulsion, and therefore not free.
Unlike the lower life forms, our raw instincts and desires do not compel our actions. We find ourselves with multiple wants and desires, and we must choose not only which ones to satisfy, but also how and when to go about it. And, if we want to alter our desires, such as breaking an addiction, we can also choose to put in the effort to accomplish that as well. For example, after many failed attempts, I was finally able to quit smoking.
Apparently, I was indeed able to break that compulsion, by making many choices that carried out that deliberate intent.
All causes and all events are the result of antecedent causes and events.
Physics has its limitations (see the Big Bang theory where the laws of physics breakdown at the singularity and state that everything came from nothing). Sapolsky denies the spiritual element of life and is a hard materialist. People make choices using their conscious mind and consciousness is still a major problem within biology and physics (see The hard problem of consciousness).
Physics has its limitations (see the Big Bang theory where the laws of physics breakdown at the singularity and state that everything came from nothing).
I am not aware of any part in modern cosmology where "nothing" exists. It is a bit annoying to see Philip Klauss and others use "nothing" when they do not mean nothing.
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Can physics explain the plot of Hamlet?
Explain the taste of water using physics or why people don't like the idea of determinism using physics. Try explaining the color blue using physics. If everything could be explained using physics than there would be no reason for philosophy.
Physics doesn't imply determinism.
The dilemma argument is a false dichotomy.
Free will isn't the absence of any kind of influence, it's the presence of any kind of freedom.
There's still compatibilism.
Exactly. Sapolsky is good at showing the extent to which biology and conditioning influence our decision-making, but to conclude that we have no control whatsoever over our choices is a logical leap that's unwarranted by the evidence he presents.
Obviously we cannot be free from the conditions we find ourselves in, the more interesting question is whether or not we are free to choose our perspective and therefore our responses to these conditions.
What if someone defines "free will" as unpredictable behavior by a complex agent after consideration of options? Someone else might say "That's not what people mean by 'free will'". On the other hand, it's weird to say the definition of "free will" has to include magic outside the laws of physics, therefore it can't be real (obvious conclusion based on that definition).
Isn’t that what propagated the whole debate in the first place?
Free= absent condition, cost, control
Causality is a condition
Yup. Free from what? Free from physics/causality? Free from current forces external to an agent? Free from prediction?
When people say “free speech” they don’t mean speech that is free from causality. Free from what? depends on the context, and that might vary by person or situation.
Causality
Causality. I am not aware of any human being (or other organisms) rejecting the other usages of the phrase "free will."
Isn’t that what propagated the whole debate in the first place?
Without modern physics, I suppose the subject of "does free will exist" would not exist. The ancient Greeks used the phrase radically different than how scientists use the phrase, if at all: antiquity used the phrase much as many modern philosophers do--- the usage that almost no one disagrees with.
The magic definition is relevant, though, because that definition is the basis of Christianity, the dominant religion in my country. It is important to point out that it does not exist, to disabuse people of their harmful religious views.
Why redefine a term that already has an established and relevant meaning? I’ve always felt that compatibilists should just come up with new term, rather than redefining an existing one.
I think they choose to co-opt the existing term because they want theirs to have the same implications for moral responsibility… but it doesn’t… Compatibilism can provide a rough approximation for responsibility, which can be useful, pragmatically. But ultimately, it doesn’t provide the true moral responsibility that Christians believe their free will gives them.
Understand your point, although where I live I rarely see people defending the concept of "free will" via religious arguments. While I might push back on the idea that determinists have a reasonable definition of free will (why would anyone define it to include magic processes -- that's of course untrue), compatibilists could also accept the definition provided by determinists and then create a new term like "personal agency." The new term could import lots of similar concepts as historic free will: a complex agent is considering options and then acting, the outcome is uncertain, immediate external forces do not seem to be preventing some options. It would then be interesting to see what the compatibilists and determinists agree / disagree on, now that the definition debate and confusion is out of the way. I suspect the debate would focus on how instrumentally useful praise, blame, and responsibility are to society and people.
Ah, I talk to a lot of Christians about free will, so I see the religious arguments a lot.
But yes, I think a majority of discussions about free will could be cut short by establishing definitions at the outset.
I agree that the compatibilist conception of freedom can be useful, essentially as an approximation of responsibility. Praise and blame are certainly useful for the effects they can have. But I do think it is also useful to some to recognize the underlying fact that nobody is truly responsible for their actions. It dissolves hate and expands compassion, in my experience.
I just think we should not downplay how the notion of “sin” has permeated our civilization and cultures. Yes, many rational people don’t believe in magic, but at least in my country, a seeming majority of people do, and that has severe consequences.
As a single example, millions of Americans feel like LGBTQ people deserve suffering because of the way they live their lives. That’s messed up.
I’m not sure this follows for everyone though and I fear that while Sapolsky has admirable intentions he does not seem to appreciate the unintended consequences should his views be widely accepted.
It is easy to imagine, particularly in the current political climate, that if people accepted that criminals aren’t responsible for their actions they should be viewed like defective equipment and disposed of. If you fully accept the belief that there is nothing special about people, we are just a collection of particles operating in a complex but determined manner, that can lead to less compassion and empathy. And when you then view a criminal as someone who does not conform to what is expected of most people, you may conclude there is no point in extending the resources that would be required to potentially rehabilitate that person. A bullet would be much cheaper than therapy.
No one argues against the other usages of the phrase "free will."
The laws that govern the universe dictate all that has happened, all that is happening, and all that will ever happen; there is no crack by which "free will" can happen.
'Chaotic will' - exactly how I define it myself.
This is a valid argument. I like your definition because it is stated objectively, but unpredictability has a quantification problem. Furthermore, if the options are limited and disparate in their aesthetic results, it would not be surprising that we choose something pleasant rather than something painful. But if you did have a multitude of equally aesthetic outcomes, free will would be confirmed by unpredictability.
What other mechanism can there be other than magic to have "free will" happen?
By defining “free will” in a way that doesn’t require magic. For instance, free will could be defined as behavior based on the selection of one of several options externally available to an agent. The term “free speech” seems largely understood to be about freedoms other than freedom from causality. I haven’t seen people claim “free speech” requires magic.
All "selections" are based on antecedent causes and effects, ergo "selections" are determined about 18.3 billion years before they are made.
But this definition doesn’t claim that the internal selection process of an agent is independent of previous causes or “free” in that sense. The definition claims freedom through multiple available external options. Nothing externally prevents the agent from turning left or right. The internals of the agent could be fully mechanistic, and under this definition a robot can have free will. We would likely only apply this definition to highly complex agents where the exact behavior is unpredictable.
Correct.
Incorrect. Unless the brain trauma actually injures the decision-making function, the person can still choose from the restaurant menu what he will order for dinner. Everybody makes decisions for themselves every day. The range and scope of their decisions will certainly be confined by their environment and their intelligence. But there will always be sufficient room for real choices about real things.
So, Sapolsky is overstating his case. Choices of our own free will undeniably do happen in physical reality.
Yes, indeed. And if you point it out to them, then they can take this into account. But even if unaware of this internal bias, their reasoning will still be shaped by the facts of the case. And any outrageous or extreme deviation from their norm will likely be picked up by a review furnished by the "anomaly detector" in the right-hemisphere, which keeps a reality-check upon the inferences derived by the left-hemisphere's interpreter.
"It [the left-hemisphere] gets the gist of the situation from all the input, tries to find a pattern, and puts it together in a makes-sense interpretation. He also suggested that the right parietal lobe has a system that he calls an anomaly detector, which squawks when the discrepancies get too large." -- Gazzaniga, Michael S.. Who's in Charge?: Free Will and the Science of the Brain (p. 109). HarperCollins. Kindle Edition.
Dr. Sapolsky is talking about a different thing than you are, though. You’re both using the term “free will” but what that term signifies to you isn’t what it signifies to him.
He means it in the way the scientists who believe free will is fundamental to science mean it—an experimenter’s free will decision to choose one experiment over another requires that decision to not be a function of the past.
Freedom from arguably undue external influence is not strong enough to grant this kind of free will. The kind of free will that scientists who hold free will to be fundamental to science are talking about is not what Daniel Dennett (RIP) was talking about.
It’s not the same topic, just the same phrase “free will”.
Indeed. There are two distinct notions of "free will". Ordinary free will is simply a choice we make that is free of coercion, insanity, and other forms of undue influence. Paradoxical free will is free of reliable cause and effect. So, it's a matter of what one expects free will to be "free of".
Ordinary free will is actually used when assessing a person's responsibility for their deliberate acts. Paradoxical free will is used for ... well it isn't actually used for anything other than argument, because it is, after all, paradoxical. (One cannot be free of cause and effect without losing the freedom to cause effects!)
It's not your definition of free will that is wrong it's your idea of what constitutes undue influence. Are only people who are happy with their lives free? I have been built by sexual and emotional traumas, like many people, some of whom had it much much worse, that said, I love who I am, even though I am a bit on the freaky side, to say the least. Was it my choice to be a freak? Even though I am happy with the result are my actions going forward in any way free from the traumas that made me this way? I no longer see myself as a victim, so does that mean I am now free of those influences? That they aren't undue? Because at the time they were awful.
Sapolsky's position is that choices and decisions are being made. They're just not made independent of causes and conditions.
That's certainly correct. But who would expect decisions to be made independent of ones own evolved brain anyway?
Where "the rubber hits the road" is the question of responsibility for ones deliberate behavior. To be held accountable for ones deliberate acts is to be subject to corrective penalty. And it seems that many hard determinists would excuse everyone from correction by shifting all the blame to prior causes, leaving the criminal offender untouchable. That position is untenable.
If someone is making decisions entirely dependent on causes and conditions that they didn't choose (the era they were born in, the parents that raised them, socioeconomic status, skin color, educational opportunities, etc etc) and we continue to assign responsibility and punish humans over things they have no control over, then from an ethical standpoint we would be using imprisoned humans as examples to instill fear to deter other humans. Kind of fucked up tbh. The hard determinist position would be to rehabilitate, not punish.
Rehabilitation is not excusing, it is creating new conditions in an ethical matter so that the cycle of violence ceases. It's easy for you to be pro-punishment when you've had the luck to be born as someone who doesn't have the necessary conditions to commit a terrible crime. Not everyone is born lucky, and our criminal justice system based on punishment and responsibility for actions clearly isn't enough to deter crime. Punishment isn't the only way to handle responsibility.
Well, that's the dream. But there is no way to get from hard determinism to rehabilitation. In fact, if we tell the offender that, due to determinism he is not responsible for his past actions, then it would also be the case that, for the same reasons, he will not be responsible for his future actions. And that defeats the goal of rehabilitation, which is to get the offender to make better choices in the future.
Ideally, the rehabilitated offender would internalize responsibility for his own behavior, such that he would no longer require supervision in a prison. That's when he would be safe to release.
Correct. We get to rehabilitation through a scientific and moral view of human behavior. We learn the causes of criminal behavior through psychology and sociology, not through hard determinism. And those same sciences guide our approach to rehabilitative correction.
Robert Sapolsky has invented his own version of free will, which he thinks requires acting independently of physical laws, and then proves that version of free will wrong by arguing that in fact our actions are not independent of physical laws. The error is not in the argument that our actions are not independent of physical laws, the error is in his definition of free will.
The many-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics rests on a conceptualization of free will similar to Sapolsky’s. It’s not like he just made up the idea that “free will choices” must not be functions of the past; many other scientists also conceptualize free will like that.
I believe a part of the argument as to why physicists in favor of the many worlds interpretation assume this kind of free will goes that if a scientist’s decisions are determined by natural processes, then nature, the thing being studied in science, is actually controlling its own study. It is nature that would determine what experiments the scientist undertakes, and nature that would determine what conclusions he draws. This supposedly renders science unreliable because the scientist cannot do experiments other than those nature determines he will do, and nature determines what conclusions he will come to. Without this kind of free will, the supposed subordinate (nature) in the relationship of nature and scientist is actually the one calling all the shots, which shakes the entire foundation of the philosophy of science.
It’s not a perfect synopsis of the argument and there is more to it. I’m maybe not in the right parking lot but I’m in the right city.
Would that be the definition that says that we don't have it? Another poster on this sub seems to insist that Bell never challenged free will so the Bell tests are inconclusive. The GHZ test went even farther but that is neither here nor there (pardon the pun).
The first delay choice quantum eraser experiment (dcqe) performed by Dr. Kim's team in 1999 literally took the decision to measure out of the hands of the experimenter. QM is contextual so the only two choices are accept this or lie and pretend it doesn't happen in science.
This is why we have to take into consideration what happens in a dcqe. It is one thing to argue conscious has no role. It is another they to try and explain what just happened when the decision the measure or not to measure has literally been taken out of the hands of the experimenter.
This supposedly renders science unreliable because the scientist cannot do experiments other than those nature determines he will do, and nature determines what conclusions he will come to. Without this kind of free will, the supposed subordinate (nature) in the relationship of nature and scientist is actually the one calling all the shots, which shakes the entire foundation of the philosophy of science.
We can demonstrate the reliability of science over and over. This forum wouldn't even be possible if not for the reliability of science. However I agree the foundation has been shaken:
https://arxiv.org/abs/0704.2529
But if nature is in control of our thoughts and perceptions, then the argument goes that nature may simply be misleading us into perceiving that there is evidence that science is reliable.
I think that argument is Laplace's demon. That is based on outdated science. In short it is outdated because of relativity and the uncertainty principle and all that comes along with the probabilistic nature of QM. Obviously Sean Carroll is questioning that feature of QM. Nature could still be doing this as you state, however the laws of physics as they stand today don't get us there. Therefore we are talking about fatalism instead of determinism. Under fatalism our thoughts and perceptions would be just as controlled as they would be under determinism.
QM has nothing to say about "free will."
Accepting Bell’s theorem rests on the assumption that scientists have non-deterministic free will. Otherwise superdeterminism stands as a logically coherent incompatible alternative to the theorem.
But it is bad definition of free will which requires that you created and programmed your own mind and all the influences on you. Sapolsky's view assumes that's what it means. It's crazy.
It may well be crazy, but a major school in the philosophy of science holds to a similar conceptualization of free will. Plus, the many-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics (the predominant view among physicists I believe, someone correct me if I am mistaken) rests on the assumption of the “free will” (as in, the experimenter’s choices are not a function of the past) of the experimenter; otherwise other explanations for apparent indeterminism at the quantum level could make more sense than MW. Such as superdeterminism.
Sean Carroll, Michio Kaku, and other free will believing physicists are talking about more or less Sapolsky’s free will, not Dennett’s.
I don't believe this is about varying definitions about free will. At the end of the day the agent or so called agent can either be held morally responsble for what he does. Dennett believed he would and I'm pretty sure Kaku believed he would. Sean Carroll argues as if he doesn't believe in contextuality:
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/kochen-specker/#contextuality
Because two photons can be "entangled" the behavior of one can impact the behavior of another. Typical double slit experiments rely on how the experimenter chooses to measure the quantum but the delay choice quantum eraser experiment let's the entangled twin measure and when we swear up and down that determinism is true, the choice to measure can happen after the experiment is over. This is why our common sense notions of space and time are under attack by quantum physics. Sean Carroll is trying to save determinism by any means necessary and if he has to resort to arguing that we have count versions of ourselves in order to make a convincing case, he seems willing to shoulder that burden. I read a paper by him once where he was denouncing the dcqe using electrons. There is no dcqe that I've ever heard of that uses electrons but I suppose he figures his reader isn't knowledgeable enough to figure that out.
No "school in the philosophy of science" holds any concept at all of free will. No scientific field holds any concept of free will either. That the experimenter's choices are not a function of the past is the Copenhagen interpretation, not Many Worlds. That choices not being a function of the past is "free will" is not a scientific position, it is a philosophical position. You are confusing empirical facts about the world with definitions of free will.
"Free" just means independent from reality, aka an independent "ghost in the machine/soul" that makes choices independent of external and internal factors. I don't see a problem with the definition.
Choices independent from internal and external factors means completely random, unrelated to anything a person wants to do, their knowledge of the world, the fact that they are a human rather than a snake or an insect, or anything else. No-one thinks that is how choices are made.
Then choices are made from causes and conditions not randomness. If choices are made from causes and conditions then there is no ghost in the machine running anything. You have no choice but to comment because you grew up in this era of technology and things happened in your life that got you interested in free will and because of ruminating on thoughts of free will you join the free will subreddit and comment and here we are today. Causes and conditions. Links in a long chain.
She or he has been told this fact a few score times, but it just does not seem to "take."
There could in theory be a "ghost in the machine" but its actions must be determined by its goals, values, knowledge of the world and so on. It wouldn't work if human actions were NOT determined, regardless of whether they are due to brain, a computer or an immaterial soul.
Choices independent from internal and external factors means completely random....
You have been corrected many times regarding that bizarre assertion. The laws of physics are not random.
I said that nobody thinks that choices are independent of all internal and external factors. How is your response a response to that statement?
I don't see a problem with the definition.
Indeed, the concept of "free will" is theological, and does not apply here in the real world.
But this is the type of free will inherent to Christianity and other religions… Christianity is the dominant religion in my country, so this definition is certainly relevant.
Perhaps it is relevant to religious people, but in the real world religion is not relevant.
Considering the outsized influence religious people have in my country, it is absolutely relevant. All women in the US have less rights than they did a few years ago because of religious people. Of course it’s relevant.
Regardless, the point is that Sapolsky didn’t invent this conception of free will. It has been around for thousands of years.
--.--.most of people in the world are religious, so to say that it doesn't matter is the stupidest shit u could say...u are religious as well...your religion is scientism--.-.-u are old and stupid condescending idiot who thinks that each statement coming out of his mouth is law of the universe---.--
No, not even religious crazies believe in anything like what Sapolsky says free will is. Sapolsky says that there is a reason for human behaviour, and that means we aren’t free. So he assumes we could only be free if human behaviour happened for no reason.
And yet this conception of free will is necessary to justify divine judgement and is the most common answer given by Christians to the problem of evil.
Any Christian who believes divine judgement is justified inherently believes they are the sole cause of their actions. If they were determined by their genetics and environment, then their god would be responsible, not them, and eternal reward or punishment would be unjustified.
Similarly, if all human actions are determined by God, then “free will” is not a relevant answer to the problem of evil. God would be responsible for all evil.
No, Christians must believe that they can sin, acting against their god’s will, and therefore be deserving of punishment. Of course this idea of free will is incoherent, but that is what is required for Christianity. Without it the entire project of religion falls apart.
Sapolsky did not create this definition of free will. It’s been around for hundreds of years.
Most Christians believe that God knows the future, which means it is determined. This is in fact a more severe form of determinism than causal determinism: if there are uncaused events then they avoid causal determinism, but under theological determinism, even those events would be fixed. So there is no point in Sapolsky pointing in great detail that every human action is determined, most Christians already assume that, and still believe in free will.
Professor Sapolsky has accepted the laws of physics.
To have "free will" happen, magic must happen.
"Free will" means violating the laws of physics, and how the universe works. It is you and philosophers {vomit! puke!} who have come up with many versions of "free will."
Well, then stop doing it.
...which laws of physics are violated by free will? --- what is exactly magical in free will?--
Where did you and Sapolsky get the idea that free will means violating the laws of physics?
It is a common misconception to think that free will, a concept in psychology, has anything to do with physics.
Physics explains how we can do things.
Physics is about matter and energy, causes and effects.
Psychology explains why we do things.
Psychology is about reasons, preferences, emotions, imagination, knowledge, experiences, nature and nurture.
None of these reasons are causes that inevitably cause any actions.
Voluntary actions must be decided.
Psychology and physics are not independent from one another.
They are different branches of science studying different things. There is no overlap.
Neurotransmitters don't have physical properties?
Psychology does not study neurotransmitters.
How/why is a decision made?
You see or feel something that you don't like and you want to correct that. Then you come up with ideas for how to correct that. Then you select the idea that you think is the best one to try, all things considered. That selection is the decision that will determine what you will do about your problem.
How/why is a selection made?
Read my previous comment.
No, free will is very relevant to physics, particularly how quantum mechanics is interpreted. See the physicist Sabine Hossenfelder’s presentation on superdeterminism on youtube.
Free will as a concept doesn’t originally come from psychology; it comes from religion as far as I know, and then later pops up the philosophy of science.