Yaron Lectures: Inequality and the Denial of Free Will (AynRandCon 2016) rebutted

I want to start off this rebuttal of certain things mentioned in Yaron Brook's recently posted speech by saying I am not here rebutting the Philosophy of Objectivism. I am an Objectivist myself as I have mentioned several times in previous articles. Nor is what I say about Yaron Brook on any given subject means in anyway anything he says is the official view of the Ayn Rand Institute. Nor that I am critiquing any other lectures or speeches he has given on other topics on which both him and I see 100% eye to eye. For example his defense of Capitalism and defense of individual rights as the role of Governing.

The only person I am rebuking in anything he said is the individual human 5th Walking Ape called Yaron Brook. Also, it is specifically the subject of Evolutionary Psychology or our Sociobiological nature that these criticisms are about and not that he is defending free will. I like Yaron am someone that believes in free will and in fact has more than one article providing all the evidence for us being able to make choices, and take responsibility irregardless of people proving Evolutionary mechanisms for our psychological mapping.

Within his lecture in which he made statements about how being for economic equality is to be denying free will. He made several comments which much like Gregory before him showed he did not understand our sociobiological nature as the animal we are. He indeed claims that genetics and the environment we are in do not have any substantial impact on choices that we make. That basically next to nothing is baked into us as Gregory had previously said before him. This is incorrect as we have quite a lot that is baked into us and is part of human nature. This includes after affects from our tribalism of passed generations of our species.

This does not mean that tribalism or collectivism is how one should live now. It simply says we evolved in a time and place where we were that way. Prior to the type of modern day post-industrial societies that we live in now. I agree with Yarron 100% that the ideal way to live in the modern day is as much as a rational person as possible. That Reason AKA the facts of reality not faith or mysticism is our means of survival in a world that is not the one our instincts evolved in. You will nowhere in this article see a dispute with the ideal world being one in which not all, but, way more of the population follows reason and facts not their other instincts or "intuitions" or anything like that.

However, I do not wish to live in a world were everyone has all of a sudden become an Objectivist. I want a world where people use reason, where they believe in rational things not Woo Woo or pseudo-science bullshit. I want a world where more people have integrity, act and think honestly, understand and live justly with others in society. Where people do not think other humans are theirs to use for their own ends. They do not need to become Objectivists or even persay use Objectivism to realize the importance of these virtues. Do I wish most of the world lived by the virtues found in Objectivism?; Rationality, Integrity, Honesty, Proper Pride, be Just with others and treat all people as they deserve based on the content of their character. Absolutely! However, that is different from them needing to agree with Objectivism and take it on as their philosophy.

It sometimes seems that Yarron and SOME others at ARI (not all) need evolutionary psychology to be wrong in their mind in order for Objectivism to be defended. However, I have the complete opposite view; if Objectivism cannot be reconciled with facts found out about existence and the human animal passed Ms. Rands time of being on this planet than it is Objectivism that is wrong not psychology proven through the facts found about evolution. Luckily, no Evo-Psych discovery has ever shown Reason is not preferable to delusion quite the opposite. It shows that our evolved natures are prone to all kinds of missteps unless we ground what we know in the facts as understood in the light of the Reason part of our brain chemistry. Living in reality is the optimal way to survive.

Evo-Psych does not say existence does not exist outside of us and our minds take it in. In fact, once again if Yaron and others actually read people like Steven Pinker this is the entire reason we need to understand human nature via evolution. Due to that being how we really got here from the past and that our brain is indeed what we see the outside world with. We need to KNOW how the mind works, so, we can know how to harness our Reason, Rationality and our Will to self-regulate our actions better. How to be the Rational Animal in the most humane way possible for the agent trying to be Rational. In other words how to "take the reigns of what we have been given to be the Angels of our Better Natures."

We are not deterministic beings in any sense in which you could predict specifically what every single human agent is going to do in life simply based on the fact that we are understanding the agents/humans motors inside them. Evo-Psych is not determinism and never has claimed to be determinism as Gad Sadd had told Yaron in person when he was interviewed by him. Knowing the Ultimate Goals of us as a species through our passed like procreation. Or understanding how Kin Selection works doe not remove free will from peoples Minds. We still make choices, introspect and then change actions. We also do this by choice; we can choose to not do it and drift along in life just acting on instincts till we get into trouble as we hit a wall where our instincts harm not help us.

This is why so many people are irrational they are making the choice and reasons could be numerous not to think. This is the Objectivist definition of free will and not a single study has refuted that we can pick to think or not to think about x,y, or z and then to act on the thought or pick not to act on it. We also can work through things like therapy to not pay attention to intrusive thoughts that are bad and not volitional. The fact that therapy such as CBT work actually proves that the Objectivist definition is way closer than most traditional ideas of a human will that require some sort of Ghost in the Machine. Nothing I have said above would be something any Cognitive Psychologist would ever disagree with. This is because there is ample evidence of this ability in the human brain/mind.

As I said previously in an article Evo-Psych is descriptive not prescriptive. It does not say you need to nor should go on the evolved instincts you have obtained. It simply shows what is there, how it got there and what needs to be remembered when trying to be Rational in order to be humane. Like I said on my last critique of a speech by an ARI fellow on Philosophical matters me and Mr. Brook agree 100% we are both Objectivists, but, that does not mean everything that comes out of their mouth is something I will agree on. I agree with him on Metaphysics, epistemology, ethics of rational and ethically performed egoism, the political ideal being Capitalism and even on Aesthetics. Where we disagree is Application of this. Application can be wrong for a Philosophy while the main tenants itself are good, noble and completely in touch with reality. Errors of application can happen from ignorance/cognitive bias. This is what I feel is going on with certain topics by certain Objectivists.