Robert Sapolsky on free will

June 9, 2017 • 1:45 pm

UPDATE: In a review in The American Scholar, Michael Shermer gives Sapolsky’s book a very positive review, and also has a few words of his own on free will. Shermer’s assessment:

The book is Sapolsky’s magnum opus, not just in length, scope (nearly every aspect of the human condition is considered), and depth (thousands of references document decades of research by Sapolsky and many others) but also in importance as the acclaimed scientist integrates numerous disciplines to explain both our inner demons and our better angels. It is a magnificent culmination of integrative thinking, on par with similar authoritative works, such as Jared Diamond’s Guns, Germs, and Steel and Steven Pinker’s The Better Angels of Our Nature. Its length and detail are daunting, but Sapolsky’s engaging style—honed through decades of writing editorials, review essays, and columns for The Wall Street Journal, as well as popular science books (Why Zebras Don’t Get Ulcers, A Primate’s Memoir)—carries the reader effortlessly from one subject to the next. The work is a monumental contribution to the scientific understanding of human behavior that belongs on every bookshelf and many a course syllabus.

I guess I’d better read it now!

*********

Robert Sapolsky is a professor of neurology at Stanford, and is well known for his popular writing, especially on anthropology. He got a MacArthur “genius award,” and, like me, was raised Jewish, became an atheist, and got the Freedom From Religion’s “Emperor Has No Clothes Award“. I haven’t read much of his stuff but I know a lot of readers like it, because they recommend it to me all the time.

I’ve started liking him since a reader whose name I’ve forgotten (apologies) recommended that I read an interview Sapolsky had at Vox with Sean Illing, “A Stanford scientist on the biology of human evil.” The occasion was the publication of Sapolsky’s new book, Behave: The Biology of Humans At Our Best and Worst, which is Amazon’s #1 best seller in Biology (I haven’t read it). The interview is wide ranging, and I’ll reproduce just one bit on a topic that interests me. I’ve put asterisks on the last three sets of questions and answers, which form the crux of the discussion and clear up some common misconceptions.

Oh, and I guess he’s not a compatibilist. 🙂

Free will is an illusion

Sean Illing

Okay, but in the book you come awfully close to concluding something very different. Specifically, in your discussion of free will, you reluctantly embrace a deterministic account of human behavior. You argue that free will is, in fact, an illusion, and if that’s true, I’m not sure how “malleable” we can be.

Robert Sapolsky

If it seemed tentative, it was just because I was trying to be polite to the reader or to a certain subset of readers. If there is free will, it’s free will about all sorts of uninteresting stuff, and it’s getting cramped into tighter and increasingly boring places. It seems impossible to view the full range of influences on our behavior and conclude that there is anything like free will.

Sean Illing

That’s a bold claim…

Robert Sapolsky

You’re right. On the one hand, it seems obvious to me and to most scientists thinking about behavior that there is no free will. And yet it’s staggeringly difficult to try to begin to even imagine what a world is supposed to look like in which everybody recognizes this and accepts this.

The most obvious place to start is to approach this differently in terms of how we judge behavior. Even an extremely trivial decision like the shirt you choose to wear today, if dissected close enough, doesn’t really involve agency in the way we assume. There are millions of antecedent causes that led you to choose that shirt, and you had no control over them. So if I was to compliment you and say, “Hey, nice shirt,” that doesn’t really make any sense in that you aren’t really responsible for wearing it, at least not in the way that question implies.

Now, this is a very trivial thing and doesn’t appear to matter much, but this logic is also true for serious and consequential behaviors, and that’s where things get complicated.

*Sean Illing

If we’re just marionettes on a string and we don’t have the kind of agency that we think we have, then what sense does it make to reward or punish behavior? Doesn’t that imply some degree of freedom of action?

*Robert Sapolsky

Organisms on the average tend to increase the frequency of behaviors for which they’ve been rewarded and to do the opposite for punishment or absence of reward. That’s fine and instrumentally is going to be helpful in all sorts of circumstances. The notion of there being something virtuous about punishing a bad behavior, that’s the idea that’s got to go out the window.

I always come back to the example of epilepsy. Five hundred years ago, an epileptic seizure was a sign that you were hanging out with Satan, and the appropriate treatment for that was obvious: burning someone at the stake. This went on for hundreds of years. Now, of course, we know that such a person has got screwy potassium channels in their neurons. It’s not them; it’s a disease. It’s not a moral failing; it’s a biological phenomenon.

Now we don’t punish epileptics for their epilepsy, but if they suffer bouts frequently, we might not let them drive a car because it’s not safe. It’s not that they don’t deserve to drive a car; it’s that it’s not safe. It’s a biological thing that has to be constrained because it represents a danger.

It’s taken us 500 years or so to get to this revelation, so I don’t know how long it will take us to reach this mindset for all other sorts of behaviors, but we absolutely must get there.

*Sean Illing

So what is true for the epileptic is true for all of us all of the time? We are our brains and we had no role in the shaping of our biology or our neurology or our chemistry, and yet these are the forces that determine our behavior.

*Robert Sapolsky

That’s true, but it’s still difficult to fully grasp this. Look, I believe there is no free will whatsoever, but I can’t function that way. I get pissed off at our dog if he pees on the floor in the kitchen, even though I can easily come up with a mechanistic explanation for that.

*Sean Illing

Our entire notion of moral and legal responsibility is thrown into doubt the minute we fully embrace this truth, so I’m not sure we can really afford to own up to the implications of free will being an illusion.

*Robert Sapolsky

I think that’s mostly right. As individuals and a society, I’m not sure we’re ready to face this fact. But we could perhaps do it bits and pieces at a time.

Sapolsky (looking like a rabbi) and his book

To get a majority, the Tories get in bed with some nasties

June 9, 2017 • 11:30 am

This post is mostly for Americans. since today’s Hili dialogue showed me that we not only have a lot of British readers, but they know a lot about UK politics.

In yesterday’s British elections, the Tories failed to win a Parliamentary majority, having lost at least 12 seats. They now have 318 seats in the House of Commons: less than 49% of the 650 seats.

That presages stalemates, but Theresa May has a solution. She’s courting the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP), which won ten seats. Those, plus the 318 Tory seats, will give them 328 seats in total–just enough to have a majority.

But the DUP is a nasty piece of work. It was founded, for one thing, by the bigot Ian Paisley, and its goal is to keep Northern Ireland in the UK. It supported Brexit, and has a number of other odious stands, with many of its influential representatives promoting young-Earth creationism (see here, here, here,  and here for documentation).

The first link documents DUP members’ opposition to gay rights and gay marriage and their opposition to abortion (a party plank). They appointed a climate change denialist as their environment minister. The DUP campaigned for Brexist. Arelene Foster. the DUP’s head, was implicated in a “cash for ash” scandal that secretly bilked the taxpayers in an energy scheme (read about it here).

Finally, there’s their views on evolution (the other links), which alone puts the party beyond the pale of rationality. (Even the Conservatives aren’t evolution denialists.) As the Independent notes:

Evolution and creationism

The party counts a number of creationists among its senior members.

DUP assembly member for West Tyrone, Thomas Buchanan, last year endorsed an event promoting creationism to be “taught in every school”.

The event included presenting “the biblical case for the sound teaching of children” that will “offer helpful practical advice on how to counter evolutionary teaching”.

DUP politician Edwin Poots has expressed his views that the planet is a “young earth” created just 4,000 years ago.

“You’re telling me that cosmic balls of dust gathered and there was an explosion. We’ve had lots of explosions in Northern Ireland and I’ve never seen anything come out of that that was good,” he told the Radio Times.

What a maroon! What we have, then, is a Conservative PM and, if DUP gets aboard, a conservative majority in Parliament, something resembling the horrible conjunction of conservative leadership we have in the U.S.  I was happy when I heard that the Tories didn’t have an effective majority last night, but now it looks as if they might. And Brexit, despite its implicit rejection in the party’s loss of seats, can proceed as planned.

h/t: Anne

Zubin Madon has the perfect response to the Islamophilic truth haters

June 9, 2017 • 10:00 am

I’ve written this headline exactly as PuffHo would have written it—if they had any rationality. In fact, by some twist of fate the subject of my post, an article by Zubin Madon, an engineer and humanist living in Bombay, India, did appear in the April 2016 PuffHo, and undercuts everything they have written denying the nasty bits of Islamic doctrine and the influence of that faith on terrorism. (PuffHo’s religion editor, Carol Kuruvilla, writes post after post telling us how wonderful Islam is and that we should ignore the man with the bomb behind the curtain).

Now Kuruvilla was editor in April of last year when Madon (who has a website on Atheist Republic, and probably would be dead if he lived in Bangladesh rather than Bombay) published this piece, and I’m surprised it got by, as it tells the truth about not just Islam, but the Regressive Left’s hypocritical coddling of that faith. Madon, who seems to know his Qur’an, is mad as hell about that coddling, and isn’t going to take it any more: viz., the title of his piece, “Terror has no religion—debunking the Regressive Left’s cliches.”

Madon debunks a number of Regressive Leftist talking points about Islamist terrorism, and it’s worth saving this piece for future arguments. I’ll list the points and give Madon’s rebuttal for two of them (indented):

  • Terrorism has no religion. 

It must be a strange coincidence then, that attacks on abortion clinics in the United States are carried out by far-right Christian conservatives, and not Star Wars cultists; that Potterheads don’t lynch people for eating beef, but Hindutva extremists who consider the life of a bovine to be more sacred than that of a human being do. Similarly, when a zealot opens fire in a cafe yelling ‘Allahu-Akbar’, we can be quite certain it’s not a disgruntled Game of Thrones fan who just saw his favourite character snuffed out by the writers.

Yes, the vast majority of religious folks do not go about murdering people. But that does not absolve religious texts of inspiring the few extremists who do.
When Muslims donate to charity, we attribute their altruism to the third pillar of Islam. Why is it that when another Muslim acts as per the dozens of Quranic edicts which — cast terror in the hearts of disbelievers (3:151), expose them to eternal hellfire (4:56), advocate crucifixion & chopping off extremities (5:33), denounce taking Jews & Christians for friends (5:51), smite their necks and fingers (8:12), slay & besiege idol worshippers (9:5)— his/her actions have “nothing to do with religion”? I am not singling out Islamic scripture here. They are no more violent and bigoted than the Old Testament or the Manusmriti. However, we acknowledge that the inquisition was a product of medieval Christian dogma, and caste atrocities are a product of Hindu texts. Why then, do we excuse Islamic scripture of inspiring Islamists?

  • The verses are misinterpreted!
  • The verses have been taken out of context.
  • But the Quran has some very beautiful verses as well. 
  • It’s not religion, it’s lack of education, disparity. (a.k.a. Malala’s Fallacy). 
  • It’s American Imperialism, western foreign policy & the Iraq Wars that are responsible; not religion. (The Chomsky defence a.k.a.  Mehdi Hassan’s fallacy).

Apart from 12-16 million Christians, there are thousands of Bahai, Zoroastrians, Yazidis and Jews living in Islamic nations. If terrorism were simply a reaction to American imperialism, shouldn’t these minorities also form a fraction of terror outfits? Or are they miraculously shielded from NATO bombs and American policies that affect the middle-east? Surely one disgruntled Zoroastrian would cross the Iranian border and join Hezbollah?

This favourite cliche of the Regressive Left fails to explain another phenomenon— the “everyday terrorism” faced by millions of Muslims in the Islamic world. Was the spontaneous and gruesome lynching of Farkhunda outside an Afghan mosque a product of colonialism? Was the stoning of Roxanneh, the killing of Noor Malleki, the murder of secular bloggers in Bangladesh a result of US foreign policy? What does the violence unleashed against homosexuals, apostates, ‘blasphemers’, against Ahmedi and Hazara Muslims of Pakistan & Afghanistan (who are murdered by Sunni supremacists for not being ‘Muslim enough’) and the systemic genocide of ethnic minorities throughout the Islamic world, have to do with George Bush’s Iraqi misadventure? At some point, Bronze Age belief systems must be held accountable for the atrocities inflicted on its followers.

He then has a section on “The Left’s soft bigotry of lower expectations” before concluding:

. .  the Regressive Left has also failed liberal progressive Muslims like Asra Nomani, Irshad Manji and Maajid Nawaz, who are fighting to bring about reform at great personal risk. It is time for true (classical) liberals to stand up and take the fort back from the Left. We must show that it is possible to call out religious ideologies that inspires terror, while at the same time condemn the anti-Muslim bigotry of the far-right. For without identifying the carcinogen i.e. religious extremism, it is impossible to stem the affliction.

That point is as relevant today as it was a year ago. It still amazes me that those Muslim reformers have been demonized by the regressives, and that Nawaz and Ayaan Hirsi Ali were branded as “anti-Muslim extremists” by the increasingly risible Southern Poverty Law Center.

By the way, read Madon’s satirical piece on PuffHo: “Muslim fencer wears a hijab—You won’t believe what happens next!” (That’s the perfect PuffHo title!) It includes this fake quote from Hillary Clinton:

“Liberal, secular Muslims like Irshad Manji and Asra Nomani have ruined everything,” Clinton complains. “By refusing to conform to the ‘hijabi stereotype’, these westernised Muslim women have made it impossible for Left-leaning white saviours to covertly milk this stereotype, in our heroic battle against stereotyping.”

 

My ducklings are growing up

June 9, 2017 • 8:45 am

They’re losing their down and growing primary feathers. There is no amount of Cheerios and oatmeal that will sate them. But I am confident they’ll all fledge now, though I’ll be sad when, on one fine day, I’ll find that they’ve flown away. But that’s what their genes want them to do.

There appear to be two males (drakes) and two females (hens): the male ducklings have fully green beaks, I’m told, and the females brownish beaks with yellow edges.

 

Twitter problems: my innocuous tweets flagged as “sensitive”

June 9, 2017 • 8:30 am

I don’t know how this happened, but for many readers my tweets, most (but not all) of which are simply links to the posts here, are being flagged by Twitter as “sensitive material”. Reader Paul reported that he saw this with 24 of my last 50 tweets; here are a few examples.

There doesn’t seem to be any pattern of what is “sensitive” and what is not, and I have no idea what’s behind this. I’ve called this to Twitter’s attention on both their own Twitter feed and on their Facebook page. We’ll see what happens.

Even my innocuous tweet on the Canadian treat poutine was flagged! Here’s the “sensitive” content trigger warning and then what you see if you click “view”:

Is that “sensitive”? I think not!

SOLUTION: If you’re having this problem, it’s easy to fix by adjusting your Twitter settings. Paul said to do this:

The option to turn off the feature is in the menu obtained by clicking on your user icon in the top right corner of the page: select “Settings and privacy”, then “Privacy and safety”. JAC: Then uncheck the “hide sensitive content” box:

 

Paul sent me an example of the kind of content allowed on Twitter and then his response to the censoring of my poutine post:

Readers’ wildlife photos

June 9, 2017 • 7:30 am

Reader Joe Dickinson sent some photos from California:

Most of the following photos were taken at the base of Morro Rock, a prominent feature at Morro Bay that anchors a very long sandbar, providing excellent wildlife habitat.

This rather chubby California ground squirrel (Citellus beecheyi) was expertly working tourists visiting the rock.

A whimbrel (Numenius phaeopus) was forging in the shallows inside the sandbar.

A pair of marbled godwits (Limosa fedoa) arrived to check out the same area.

Here are those two species next to each other.  It would be interesting to know how bill length and shape affect food selection and/or foraging strategies for two species of similar body size utilizing the same habitat.  Perhaps one of your readers can tell us.

This great blue heron (Ardea herodias) landed on a ledge up on the rock.  He/she looks as if engaged in some sort of display, but I did not see a potential recipient.

This western gull (Larus occidentalis) has the prominent red spot that, famously, prompts chicks to beg by pecking at the parent’s beak.

As is common at this location, we spotted some sea otters (Enhydra lutris), but they kept their distance, so I will “cheat” with a shot at the same location a few years ago.

Our base for this trip was our favorite d*g-friendly motel in Cambria.  It provides spectacular views of the sunset.  Here, also from a few years ago, is a brown pelican [Pelecanus occidentalis] flying into the sunset.  I’m particularly proud of this photo because, if you look carefully just above the top edge of the sun, you can see a somewhat wispy “green flash”.

Finally, arriving home, I spotted this elegant garter snake (probably Thamnophis sintalis) in our front yard. Ignore the weeds:  I’ll get to it.

Friday: Hili Dialogue

June 9, 2017 • 6:30 am

Is it Friday already? Yes it is: Friday, June 8, 2017. The good news is that although the results aren’t all in, Britain’s conservatives, though leading in votes, appear to have lost their >50% representation in Parliament; and that’s a problem for Theresa May. As the New York Times reports this morning:

LONDON — Prime Minister Theresa May of Britain suffered a major setback in a tumultuous election on Thursday, losing her overall majority in Parliament and throwing her government into uncertainty less than two weeks before it is scheduled to begin negotiations over withdrawing from the European Union.

Mrs. May, the Conservative leader, called the snap election three years early, expecting to cruise to a smashing victory that would win her a mandate to see Britain through the long and difficult negotiations with European leaders over the terms of leaving the union.

But according to results reported early Friday morning, the extraordinary gamble Mrs. May made in calling the election backfired. She could no longer command enough seats to avoid a hung Parliament, meaning that no party has enough lawmakers to establish outright control.

With all but one of the 650 seats in the House of Commons accounted for, the BBC reported that Mrs. May’s Conservatives would remain the largest party. But they were projected to win only 318 seats, down from the 331 they won in 2015, and eight seats short of a majority.

Now I know you’re asking yourself, ‘What about the cats?” Grania reports this, and sent a photo:

Pets at the polling booth has been a Thing; mostly dogs of course, but also a horse, a rat and some cats. Kitteh don’t care none. 🙂

And it’s National Strawberry Rhubarb Pie Day. Now I know some readers like that comestible, but I cannot abide rhubarb in any form, especially in a pie. Why not just make a delicious strawberry pie without defiling it with a bitter vegetable? Why add the rhubarb, when strawberry pie by itself is so good? But I fulminate; this holiday is probably a conspiracy by Big Rhubarb. It’s Coral Triangle Day as well, calling attention to the loss of biodiversity in the world’s epicenter for marine biodiversity:

On this day in 1934,  Donald Duck first appeared in a Disney Cartoon—The Wise Little Hen. Here it is, with Donald appearing at 1:59.  He’s pretty much as he was later, though his beak was longer and hadn’t yet undergone neoteny:
And it was on June 9, 1954, that this famous exchange occurred between Senator Joseph McCarthy and counsel for the Army Joseph Welch. It was the beginning of McCarthy’s downfall and the end of his Communist-hunting in the government. N0te Roy Cohn’s appearance.

On this day in 1973, the magnificent horse Secretariat the won the Belmont Stakes and thus the Triple Crown. Look at this horse run—he won by about 25 lengths! 

 Notables born on this day include Cole Porter (1891) and Michael J. Fox (1961). One notable who died on this day was geneticist and Nobel Laureate George Beadle (1989) wh0 was once President of the University of Chicago. Meanwhile in D0brzyn, Hili is borrowing from the playbook of the social justice warriors:
Hili: I’m spotting a microaggression.
A: Where?
Hili: On the horizon.
In Polish:
Hili: Dostrzegam mikroagresję.
Ja: Gdzie?
Hili: Na horyzoncie.

In Winnipeg, Gus is lolling in the sun, probably stoned on catnip again:

And a short tw**t video from reader Barry, who doesn’t understand the cat’s behavior at the end of this encounter.

https://twitter.com/newworlddd555/status/869772111954554882