Sapolsky all wet on "No free will means Yes determinism"

And, thoughts and claims like what Robert Sapolsky is apparently putting into a new book show why, scientism-peddling scientists aside, science still needs philosophy.

I've long said "mu" to the issue of "free will VERSUS determinism," and have gone beyond even that with the wonderful insights of the late psychologist Daniel Wegner, on "The Illusion of Conscious Will."

Just because conscious will is an illusion doesn't mean that determinism is the only counter-answer. That's why I said mu so many times years ago, and also why, per Idries Shah (a philosopher!) this is clearly an issue with more than two sides.

And, specifically, what Sapolsky is talking about is what I've called psychological constraint. It's no more deterministic than our genes are, and an evolutionary biologist knows our genes aren't determinist. Yes, bad childhoods on average, per sociological survey, means that the average person with a bad childhood is more likely to become an addict or whatever. It doesn't at all mean they're predestined for that. It also ignores, as I discuss here, just what words like "agency" and "intentionality" mean.

I have read Sapolsky's most recent book before "Determined," "Behave," and noted that it exhibited muddied and muddled thinking, and I have no doubt this is more of the same, and not worth reading. In fact, on that linked review of "Behave," I said then that Sapolsky needed some philosophy. I also said he was getting close to scientism in general and ev psych in particular. I wouldn't be surprised if "Determined" is yet more that way.

To put it another way? As I said long ago on my main blog, "determinism is often simplistic."

Or, and as Sapolsky demonstrates in this Nautilus interview, determinism is often nothing more than a tautology for methodological naturalism, or more, philosophical naturalism or monism (monism in a non-duopoly, materialist-only sense, and not suggesting anything like Leibniz's monads). This alone, contra a Sapolsky or a Stephen Hawking, shows why philosophy is not dead and why scientists need to stop saying that and stop believing that.

It is interesting that, in that piece, both Sapolsky and neuroscience professor, and free willian, Kevin Mitchell, refer to the Libet experiments. See my most recent thoughts on them here. Mitchell also appears to have not read Wegner. And, shock me that Sabine Hossenfelder, who has plenty of "incoherence" herself, attacks free will as being incoherent. Yet more reason to be glad I deblogrolled her on my main site.

Finally, I reject Sapolsky's idea that determinism is something that, essentially, we need to believe in even if it isn't true, for political science and human sociology reasons.

And thus, I continue to say mu on free will vs. determinism.