Good luck with that as most of the US isn't built for public transit. Hell you can't even walk or bike to work like Europe. All by design though as the US prioritized cars.
True, it's not very precise, though from the text, it looks like it's closer to the upper bound. Either way, the idea is that the ratio is high enough to be cause for concern, and they were given the green light to get more detailed information. So I rather see that as a proof of concept that a monitoring process could - and should - be done, not accurate data.
Oh I definitely agree. I wouldn't even be opposed to limitations like China has done. Not just because of the additional strain on the electric grid, but also because of the greater potential for illegal transactions that comes with cryptocurrencies.
Ironically, anonymity was the Holy Grail in cryptographic money transfer protocols when I was at uni. But I think it was more the desire of the users than the governments. And, well, it was a good research subject with potential publications. But here in the real world, we sometimes hear about plans to remove all physical money to increase traceability - our 'regular' electronic wallets and other online systems are not anonymous, which is nice for those who fight against tax evasion and so on. I suppose the existence of cryptocurrency must seriously hinder those plans.
I'm only against the technology in its current state because of the consumption and the increased demand on chips (and the volatility of this money, and also ridiculous applications like NFT), but I believe researchers can at least improve its efficiency enough to make the consumption negligible. As for the illegal use by criminals, I honestly don't know what to think about it yet. Haven't they always been able to work around exposure to remain undetected? Perhaps it's becoming too hard for them with today's technology, and cryptocurrency is their last hope? No idea; I've never really looked into it.
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Sapolski is always a treat to listen to, but he also brings compelling evidence. I doubt there's any way we'll ever prove this sort of theory, especially since all forces and interests are bound to be against this sort of paradigm shifting idea, since it cuts at two things human value so much: the idea of meritocracy and punishment.
But it is interesting none-the-less.
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It's interesting, but I think it's difficult to discuss free will without precisely defining what they mean by that.
Does it mean that everything is deterministic from a physics point of view? I'd argue there's enough randomness to prove otherwise. By definition, free will is opposed to fate (and to others' will, but that isn't relevant here). Fate is the belief that everything that occurs is determined and that you could predict anything, no matter how far in the future. We know from quantum physics that this isn't true and based on old models against which there is a lot of evidence.
Does it mean we're not deliberately choosing something but that it's the outcome of how the past has set our brain in its current state? I'd argue it's only a matter of vocabulary and that free will is the process of deciding based on experience (deciding something at random is hardly 'will' or 'free', and not really interesting anyway, so I'm discarding that silly question from the host).
Does it mean the sensation we have of making a choice, and whether it's an illusion or not? This discussion would depend no what self-consciousness means, which is another rabbit hole entirely.
I think that, however we see it, what we do is often the result of our experience, and that's the important point. That's what makes survival more likely. Ironically, starting to debate about that and thinking it's only due to fate might be counterproductive.
PS: I've only watched a part of the video yet. It is interesting.
Does it mean that everything is deterministic from a physics point of view? I'd argue there's enough randomness to prove otherwise. By definition, free will is opposed to fate (and to others' will, but that isn't relevant here). Fate is the belief that everything that occurs is determined and that you could predict anything, no matter how far in the future. We know from quantum physics that this isn't true and based on old models against which there is a lot of evidence.
Does it mean we're not deliberately choosing something but that it's the outcome of how the past has set our brain in its current state? I'd argue it's only a matter of vocabulary and that free will is the process of deciding based on experience (deciding something at random is hardly 'will' or 'free', and not really interesting anyway, so I'm discarding that silly question from the host).
Does it mean the sensation we have of making a choice, and whether it's an illusion or not? This discussion would depend no what self-consciousness means, which is another rabbit hole entirely.
I think that, however we see it, what we do is often the result of our experience, and that's the important point. That's what makes survival more likely. Ironically, starting to debate about that and thinking it's only due to fate might be counterproductive.
PS: I've only watched a part of the video yet. It is interesting.
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Yeah, they get into most of what you mentioned. I think the conclusion I would take, from Sapolsky's point of view, is that it's all pre-determined based on the huge amount of history, genetics, etc, both personal and everything else.
But, and this is where he diverges slightly, this does not mean that things cannot change. Things do change but they do in a pre-determined fashion.
Because Conover asks him, then why write this book, if it's all pre-determined, and to paraphrase, he basically says that he was pre-determined to write it (by the huge baggage of history, genetics, etc) but him writing and exposing others to the idea will still cause changes to what's going to happen.
Personally, I think he presents good evidence as to why it could very well be the way he says it. But unfortunately I don't think it's something that will ever be proved scientifically and beyond the shadow of a doubt. Maybe when we invent time-travel.
But he does bring solid evidence. Basically what do we believe, that there's a soul/spirit/consciousness that we cannot explain, that's part of the self but disconnected enough from the biological self that it can go against it.
Or whether we believe that the endless amount of history bares down on us and it's nigh impossible to escape it.
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I'll have to watch the other part later. Those are all teasing questions, aren't they? I've read some theory that consciousness was a meta-level of the brain organization that allows for introspection and planning at a higher level, but it looks like it'll never be possible to know for sure.Personally, I think he presents good evidence as to why it could very well be the way he says it. But unfortunately I don't think it's something that will ever be proved scientifically and beyond the shadow of a doubt. Maybe when we invent time-travel.
But he does bring solid evidence. Basically what do we believe, that there's a soul/spirit/consciousness that we cannot explain, that's part of the self but disconnected enough from the biological self that it can go against it.
Or whether we believe that the endless amount of history bares down on us and it's nigh impossible to escape it.
Free Will does not logically exist. If I 'will' to fly by jumping off a roof, I will fail. However, Freedom of CHOICE does and should exist. I can freely choose to do something, but I may have no control over the results despite what I might 'will' to happen.
I think it's a philosophical term. In French it translates a little differently, to something that is closer to free choice/decision. But 'free will' doesn't sound wrong to me: the will to do something doesn't mean it will succeed or even that it's possible to do it right now. It means the will to do it exists and is yours, not someone else's. You're in control of the decision making, not the outcome.
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The point Sapolsky makes is that there is no scientific proof that free will exists, and there probably never will be proof since I'm not sure how you could prove that. You'd have to prove that the soul/consciousness exists of the body/brain but still decoupled enough from the body to go against what the body/brain wants/is forced into.
On the other hand there is proof that all of our decisions are affected/determined, to a larger or smaller degree, by the avalanche of previous "decisions", historical events, genetics, etc etc.
So just going by probability, even though it will likely never be proven scientifically that all decisions are determined, theoretically currently there's a bigger chance that they are determined and that free will is an illusion.
To me using the experience of making a choice as proof that free will does exist seems similar to the Decarte saying "I think therefore I am". You really have to dissect what 'think' and 'am' means, but to me that never made much sense as a proof of existence. At least in the form of existence I'm thinking of. In other forms, you could probably say it does work.
EDIT: in the above video Sapolski mentioned he had a recent debate with Daniel Dennett, on the topic. Haven't watched it yet, but I assume it's this one:
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It could well be - though it's funny, because an illusion implies a form of consciousness. But if it's determined by someone's history, one could say that they still makes decisions based on their own, by opposition to being forced by 'fate' or other people. That's why I find the debate's a slippery slope. Does free will mean that one needs to be able to make decisions that go against all logic and wisdom from one's experience? And even if that's the requirement, couldn't we say that it's how the brain works, weighting impulses coming from multiple dendrites that are sometimes in conflict? For example, when we want something because we know we'll like it, even if we also know it's unhealthy and might make us sick?
It reminds me of Roger Penrose using a logical demonstration based on Turing's machine to argue that, contrary to computers, the brain can be deterministic yet not algorithmic, which could be a way to explain the idea of consciousness (then he goes on about quantum interpretation of that idea). Or those philosophical demonstrations that God exists or not, based only on logical reasoning.
It almost sounds convincing, except it also feels too much detached from the real world. I can't help but think such reasoning might take some facts for granted that are just wrong. As we took physics' determinism for granted until we had to admit the classical theory was failing in so many areas, and came up with more complicated models based on probability (and cats), or as we took space as a simple and regular reference frame until we realized it was much more complicated than that.
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To my mind it's predetermined by the laws of physics and any event that preceded that water molecule falling (includes any living thing interfering with it, as a river before it turned into a waterfall. including animals (btw, if free will exists, do animals have it? do you have to be self-aware to have free will, if it even exists)
Bottom line in my mind, with the little knowledge I have on the subject, is both are very hard to impossible to prove categorically.
But there's no denying that we have no scientific proof yet free will exists, while we have strong proof that everything is under the weak/strong influence of past events.
We as humans are also self-interested to believe in free will, so that's another bias.
I'm not even sure this even affects us outside of pure philosophical discussion, and maybe we could make some policy changes on some things. Perception is reality and all that.
But I like Sapolsky's example that when we see a person that's had an obvious mental accident that partially/fully compromised them so as not to make them responsible, we indulge that edge case.
But we do not consider the millions of little events of mental turmoil that might make a person compromised. This in relation to how we legally treat responsibility.
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I don't think there is enough beer in the world to properly discuss this!
I have another approach for the beer.
So at a given moment in time the waterfall (or the human brain) has a clear state. Every molecule, atom, Higgs-boson or whatever has a defined state, like a location, speed, acceleration, charge (or whatever states in existence we haven't discovered yet).
And then there are nature's laws.
It's unclear if they are deterministic or propabilistic.
If we knew the state and the laws exactly and the laws were deterministic, we could derive how the state would evolve in the next "step".
That would mean everything is deterministic and thus predetermined. Not only the waterfall (and the human brain), but everything.
For me that's an uncomfortable thought.
So on the other hand if nature's laws are propabilistic, we have the problem that even if we might gain absolute knowledge of everything, we still wouldn't be able to make reliable predictions.
That's also an uncomfortable thoght.
So to come back to the beer: I rather need it to forget thinking about things like that.
So at a given moment in time the waterfall (or the human brain) has a clear state. Every molecule, atom, Higgs-boson or whatever has a defined state, like a location, speed, acceleration, charge (or whatever states in existence we haven't discovered yet).
And then there are nature's laws.
It's unclear if they are deterministic or propabilistic.
If we knew the state and the laws exactly and the laws were deterministic, we could derive how the state would evolve in the next "step".
That would mean everything is deterministic and thus predetermined. Not only the waterfall (and the human brain), but everything.
For me that's an uncomfortable thought.
So on the other hand if nature's laws are propabilistic, we have the problem that even if we might gain absolute knowledge of everything, we still wouldn't be able to make reliable predictions.
That's also an uncomfortable thoght.
So to come back to the beer: I rather need it to forget thinking about things like that.
Probabilistic or not, it's complex enough that I wouldn't mind either way. It's like knowing that drinking a good beer is only a chemical reaction in the body that gives us that good feeling - it doesn't prevent me from savouring it.So to come back to the beer: I rather need it to forget thinking about things like that.
OK, maybe that sounds a little like...
Yeah, and also it's practically irrelevant. For the forseeable (haha) future we won't gain absolute knowledge of nature's laws and the current world state. So at least from our subjective view the world is propabilistic, and we also (seem to) have a free will.
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Now we're cooking with gasoline!
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Turns out that's not completely true.
View: https://twitter.com/Okami13_/status/1755672654915293626?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Etweet
View: https://twitter.com/Okami13_/status/1755672654915293626?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Etweet