In the News (Psychiatric News): “The sobering side of the neurobiological revolution is that behavior is largely determined—with little or no room for free will—by the psychological, physiological, and evolutionary forces science is now decoding, says Robert Sapolsky, Ph.D.
“The message that neuroscientist, primatologist, and best-selling author Robert Sapolsky, Ph.D., carries about the neuroscientific revolution of our time is both hopeful—promising a new understanding of behavior and more effective tools for treating people with mental illness—and yet also profoundly sobering, challenging our notions about free will. …
“Synthesizing findings from a range of disciplines, Sapolsky describes how any behavior is shaped by events in the environment and responses by the human organism in the immediate seconds prior to the behavior. But these responses are shaped in the hours or days before the behavior by psychological, hormonal, and other physiological responses (usually unconscious) and in the weeks and months and years before that by social and cultural factors—all the way back to childhood, infancy, and the womb.
“And these factors, too, are shaped even earlier by epigenetic changes transmitted across generations and by events all the way back to ‘evolutionary pressures played out over the prior millions of years that got the ball rolling.’”
My Response: This of course, just shows the narrow-mindedness of the professor. On what basis does he draw such conclusions? Let him collect all the data that he is talking about into one volume and burn it. Because he will not learn anything from it anyway and nothing reliable will be revealed before him.
Question: Do you think there is any reliability in his base conclusion that there is no free will?
Answer: This is right. But what is the conclusion from the fact that there is no free will?
Let’s say we came to the conclusion: there is no free will. What is next? If there is no free will, then there is no point in our existence at all.
Without freedom of behavior, freedom of choice, and freedom of decision and decision making, a person is not a person. He is just an animal that acts according to its instincts.
Well, so what? So, we would need to close absolutely everything and think only about an easy way to feed ourselves and rest easy from birth to the grave. Or even better, to invent a pill that would put us to sleep and to fall asleep quietly.
Question: How can we get out of this dead end? Here he comes to this conclusion, but does not suggest what is next. Is there any loophole there?
Answer: The loophole is a very simple one that states that there is no dead end in nature. The apparent dead ends that it sets for us are only there for us to jump over, to overcome the barrier and develop further.
Dead ends are like steps and only exist at our level. How does a small child climb up the stairs? He moves on all fours, with difficulty. This is why we are given these disappointments, ups, downs, and so on. We grow through them.
Question: Does it mean that the growth of a person is precisely through overcoming these dead ends? Should I even feel that there is a dead end?
Answer: Yes. You must understand that the obstacles before you are the steps of the ladder of ascent.
Question: Where am I headed as I go through these dead ends?
Answer: To understand the meaning of life. To attain the meaning of life.
I ascend in order for these steps of ascent to create such desires, properties, and qualities in me in which I could reveal the meaning of life. And it exists! Only I do not see it, I do not feel it, and I cannot formulate it.
As a result of these ascents, when I crawl from step to step like a small child on all fours, trying to climb, I develop my mind and feelings in order to understand the meaning of this ascent.
Suddenly I begin to understand that this meaning lies between the steps. I did not expect that this is the way it would be revealed within me at all. But it is born precisely from my efforts to climb on all fours from one step to another step and so on. Like a child crawling on his knees on these steps.
Question: Is there an end to these steps?
Answer: It is somewhere very far away. Almost non-existent. And what if I begin to feel that this is life?
This is life when at every step you have disappointment, the need to find strength, and the need to find an exact aim or goal. Otherwise, you will not have the strength to determine what for, why, what is the correct goal, the correct decision or not, and so on.
As a result of climbing these steps, you begin to feel yourself growing and creating.
Question: Ultimately, what will motivate me? The desire to pass this dead end or the desire to come closer to something?
Answer: No, you do not even want to reach some final step so much anymore. You begin to feel pleasure in the fact that you are going through them. Between the steps you begin to feel the wisdom, the clarity of these steps.
Question: Do I start feeling this governance?
Answer: This is called “From Your actions I shall know you.” From the steps themselves, from how they were created for you, and at the same time how you were created in order to nevertheless rise above them, from all this you begin to attain the Creator of these steps. This is the main thing.
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From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 3/14/22
Related Material:
Freewill In Rising Above Egoism
Freedom Without Limits
True Freedom
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Comment: The influence of the environment on a person is enormous. For example, an African who grew up in Russia becomes the same as all Russians.
