آیا اراده آزاد وجود دارد؟ رمزگشایی از جبرگرایی و فرگشت اخلاق | گفتگو با بنیامین فراهانی

Are we really the owners of our own decisions or is everything predetermined? In this episode of the Hashivar podcast, host Mehdi Shafa, in an in-depth conversation with Benjamin Farahani, examines one of the most fundamental challenges shared by science and philosophy, the issue of free will. This conversation attempts to reinterpret the intersection of biological concepts, evolutionary neuroscience, and its ethical-social consequences layer by layer. In this challenging discussion, different intellectual approaches are criticized, including Robert Sapolsky's hard determinism versus adaptivism and Daniel Dennett's structuralist view. We start with the neurological structure of the brain and the prefrontal cortex and arrive at the question of how our understanding of biological causality transforms society's view of human agency, criminal responsibility, and the concept of justice. A scientific and philosophical understanding of #freewill requires a careful analysis of complex neural systems. From the perspective of #evolutionaryneuroscience, the human brain is in a constant conflict between ancient and modern structures; a process in which the concept of #agency is defined not as a supernatural break in the chain of causality, but as an epistemological necessity for survival. The phenomenon of #culturalevolution and multilevel selection shows us how moral structures have evolved to restrain impulsive behavior; a phenomenon that has ultimately changed society's intuitions about #moralresponsibility, punishment, and even the issue of capital punishment throughout history. 📌 Introducing the guest of the program: Benjamin Farahani (researcher, translator and analyst in the field of evolutionary biology, neuroscience and cognitive science) @Biophilia2023 📚 Books mentioned in this conversation: Determined: A Science of Life Without Free Will by Robert Sapolsky (translated by Abbas Seydin @ParsehShow) Behave: The Biology of Humans at Our Best and Worst by Robert Sapolsky Free Will by Sam Harris Just Deserts: Debating Free Will by Daniel Dennett and Greg Caruso (translated by Abbas Seydin @ParsehShow) The Mind Club: Who Thinks, What Feels, and Why It Matters by Daniel Wagner and Kurt Gray The Brain: The Story of You by David Eagleman ⏱️ Discussion Schedule: 00:00 - Overview of the video and the issue of free will and execution 01:06 - Introduction by the host and the history of the free will discussion on the Heshivar podcast 03:43 - Opening the conversation with Benjamin Farahani and determining the level of expertise of the discussion 05:46 - Differences between Caruso and Sapolsky's views on the concept of responsibility 06:45 - Daniel Dennett's view: Moral concepts as a product of cultural evolution 10:04 - Examining the concept of agency and the breakdown of the causal chain 12:12 - The sense of agency and the experiments in the Mind Club book 15:09 - Responsibility in animals and machines (the historical adventure of the pig trial and Tesla) 17:47 - Why did evolution embed the agency recognition module in our brains? 18:26 - The epistemological concept of agency and the black box of artificial intelligence (ChatGPT) 21:49 - Biological agency and the unpredictability of the next step in human behavior 24:15 - Disturbance in the sense of agency and the study of schizophrenia 25:18 - The intersection of biological, philosophical, and ethical levels in the context of human societies 29:37 - Structural differences between will and free will 32:45 - The function of the prefrontal cortex (PFC) in the face of new phenomena 35:50 - The evolution of conscience, piety, and self-control in the frontal lobe 40:00 - The evolutionary definition of a "willed" human in the interests and stability of the group 42:05 - Competition of neuronal populations in neural networks for behavioral output 44:00 - Investigation of will fatigue and the effect of blood sugar levels on judges' verdicts 45:34 - The battle between the new and old brains; The effect of deep brain stimulation (DBS) on the perception of will 49:42 - Legal and criminal consequences of the hard determinism view on the judicial system 52:34 - Explanation of the concept of freedom in terms of entropy and experimental physics 54:36 - Multi-level selection and the conflict of interests of the individual and the group 55:54 - The interaction of democratic political systems with free will and environmental diversity 58:21 - The expanding circle of morality (Steven Pinker) and the change of human standards in history 1:02:45 - The impact of economics and calorie abundance on the facilitation and cost-effectiveness of moral behavior 1:04:40 - Evolutionary explanation of society's strictness towards innate behavior against the environment 1:07:07 - The complex interaction of genes and environment and the rejection of absolute essentialist views 1:09:42 - Final conclusion: free will as an efficient social construction If we delve deep into th...