The Most Unsettling Brain Condition (& What It Teaches Us About Reality)
Try Waking Up for free for 14 days and get 20% off here: https://wakingup.sjv.io/m4Jx2M. There, you can check out not only Sam’s complete Free Will series but dozens of other series and meditation practices that are sure to change the way you think and feel.
In this video, we explore the nature of thoughts, examine what a certain brain injury reveals about who we are, and question the foundations of free will. The implications are… everything.
Get my new book, “The Terrible Paradox of Self-Awareness”: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0FCDCCNJR?&_encoding=UTF8&tag=andrewsmcmeelpublishing-20
Other retailers (listed under Paperback and eBook): https://publishing.andrewsmcmeel.com/book/the-terrible-paradox-of-self-awareness/
Free Pursuit of Wonder Newsletter: https://pursuitofwonder.ck.page/newsletter
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/pursuitofwonder
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/PursuitOfWonder
Check out Pursuit of Wonder books here: https://www.amazon.com/stores/Robert-Pantano/author/B08DCRJ85C?ref=ap_rdr&store_ref=ap_rdr&isDramIntegrated=true&shoppingPortalEnabled=true
(Also available to more international locations here: https://pursuitofwonder.com/store)
If you are interested in further supporting the channel,
you can contribute to our Patreon here: https://www.patreon.com/pursuitofwonder
Special thank you to our very generous Patreon supporters:
Diana Yun
Long Hoang
Joseph Geipel
Axel Alcazar
David Piadozo
JacquelineLS
Zake Jajac
Alan Stein
Christian Villanueva
George Leontowicz
@odysseus8944
September 12, 2026 at 7:21 am
The brain is not controlled directly just like the heart or lungs are not controlled directly (or any other organ for that matter)
@jorp_the_pauper_porpoise
September 12, 2026 at 7:21 am
'PISS, AHHHH'
@BaronVonNeil
September 12, 2026 at 7:21 am
if your thought was a prediction of an infinite spiral of self-predicting thoughts about themselves, you would technically be correct, since infinity still is infinity + 1.
@brettdavidson1140
September 12, 2026 at 7:21 am
You lost me at Sam Harris. He is a fraud. A man who's religion is Scientism at the expense of millions dying and losing there business during COVID is absolutely unforgivable. Check with any Zen Master and they will help you sniff him out. He stinks.
@LifeAsANoun
September 12, 2026 at 7:21 am
I immediately thought, "Thought," and then thought, "Beans."
@daxross2930
September 12, 2026 at 7:21 am
It’s nice to put a face to the voice
@daxross2930
September 12, 2026 at 7:21 am
Well, it just sucks because it feels like we have free will so it would be nice if that feeling that we are making a choice would go away. I’d be a lot happier.
@pinchopaxtonsgreatestminds9591
September 12, 2026 at 7:21 am
The problem with this video is that I can see all of your mistakes. Your confusion is due to lack of study on nature. If you put 30 years into studying nature you would not be so confused, but it seems that you instantly want to understand everything. For example the hole in the brain makes you believe in the brain as the cause of your thoughts. But the brain isn't causal, it uses the first cause to create an effect. The first cause is dark matter which feeds into the brain through quantum pathways. This is like water being soaked into a sponge, and you put a hole in the sponge, and it no longer has the locality with the water. Answers like mine require a lifetime study of nature, yet the people that you are listening to have done no study (Like this Sam guy that seems to know nothing). Causation has been the confusion of most scientists in fact, and Einstein made many mistakes himself. He saw a rubber mat, and used it as causation for gravity, and yet the rubber mat was an effect of gravity. Gravity had been flowing into the steel balls, and bending the mat, so really gravity was a flow, and not the bend. The cause of your thoughts is dark matter, the brain creates an effect from the cause. That solves your confusion, but it's not an instant result for you, because you still have to be able to understand my answer. It may still take you years to understand my answer even though I gave it to you to help speed you up. If Einstein never really understood nature it means that people confuse effects with causes. Free will really means first cause. So you are looking for the cause of a thought, and scientists are not even using those physics yet. I am always 20 years ahead of science however, but that makes me hard to understand, especially for someone that does no studying.
@Jimraynor45
September 12, 2026 at 7:21 am
For those who insist on the absence of free will, consider the axiom that in order for that to be the case, it would essentially require that there is no variance among humans in terms of free will. We all simply don't have free will and there really isn't an exception. However, that makes little sense. Name any trait, feature, or ability of humans and there will be variance among humans. Our eyesight, hearing, our blood pressure, height, genetics and etc. It would be impossible to find any trait of a human and find that it is universally the same among all humans. Now, one might say, that humans are incapable of any free will at all similar to how we can't fly or breathe fire, but is that actually the case? Saying it is literally impossible for us to have free will is quite the leap. It is essentially an admission that you have some fundamental understanding or a truth of the universe. All you need to do is accept that some people might have some free will. Just because you don't know how or why they achieved their free will is not as important, because how this free will was achieved may merely point to an absence of your knowledge or nature of the universe. If you have to choose between an absolute, (the absence of free will) versus an unknown variable mystery, I think we know which one we should consider more thoughtfully.
Can you truly look upon a man intentionally starving himself, from people going against their instincts, addictions and other physical conditions and proclaim they have Zero free will? That everything you see is just some accident of circumstance, despite going against all of our understanding of human instincts and behavior? I tend to think that because we humans evolved from animals with a long legacy of instincts, it's easier to write off everything as deterministic, but the elephant in the room is sapience. That sapience may be like a caged animal held down by the chains of instincts and environment, but perhaps hidden within our consciousness is free will. Perhaps, with the help of a jetpack and training, a man can fly, even if it is quite rare.
@karmacita
September 12, 2026 at 7:21 am
have you ever thought so hard that you started thinking about the thought of thinking of a thought???? Have you ever thought so deeply and stopped mid thought to actively think of/analyze the thinking behind that thought???????????????? I don't know how else to explain this, but this feels like observing & analyzing the controller through the outside of the control room window, watching the controller control things
@StacyGarner
September 12, 2026 at 7:21 am
Or is this just a bunch of word play? Word play is a mother-effer.
@nothing12here-x6j
September 12, 2026 at 7:21 am
oh no you got investors 🙁
@antondelacruz9362
September 12, 2026 at 7:21 am
Magic shows do evoke wonder and awe but definitely not of the sort they used to. We now know with information and practice, we can be magicians. Thats totally different from thinking magic is breaking the laws of reality we are bound to.
@zomb1esn1per14
September 12, 2026 at 7:21 am
But friends, without choices, what would there be to choose? Without influence, why would there be coexistence? And without your subconscious, you cannot grow your conscious. The conscious is the operator, and the subconscious is the computer.
The computer is a part of you and your free will, even if your choices are not directly made by the conscious. Certainly if you mind is impaired then a part of you dies. But if your mind is sound, then you have free will to operate within the confines of the laws the universe imposes on us.
Unlimited free will cannot possibly exist in the defined way. But that does not mean we cannot make choices or have control over our lives. We are not doomed to repeat any cycles. We can change habits and make different choices, and in infinite iterations of the universe where we exist, we become entirely different people with entirely different lives and choices. Who we are is not our face, but a collection of our choices and experiences.
We may not be creators, we may not create something out of nothing. But we are inhabitants of the universe, changing and collaterally making choices due to changes internal and external every single second, an inevitable fact of entropy.
@jotaholanda7879
September 12, 2026 at 7:21 am
Makes the case for a "prime mover".
@konahamaru-x5n
September 12, 2026 at 7:21 am
Please do Correct me if I'm wrong,
You know when we had free will of thoughts …. When we were pre- homosapiens. After that , we all tend to influence each other's thoughts and behaviours… That's what is bound to happen in a civil society.
It was my thought , i would love to change my thoughts if they were presented with good examples !
@chainslayer101
September 12, 2026 at 7:21 am
Through deep meditation, you can learn to stop thinking and eventually choose to just be present, with out words floating through your head. There is a sense of freedom to be able to choose to not think. As a stepping stone to getting there here is a helpful thought……What language do you think in? How did you learn that language? Ponder that. Fun video. Love you guys.
@Elle-et-Al
September 12, 2026 at 7:21 am
I thought about thinking about thinking
@SmashAdams885
September 12, 2026 at 7:21 am
Sam Harris? Really?
@xpndblhero5170
September 12, 2026 at 7:21 am
Our brains do not create who we are, they basically receive the signal from the universe and then we apply it to our lives like life lessons and memories…. That is why some people are different after a head injury. The injury interrupts the signal and makes the person feel different… We can choose different options but in reality we already did every option but the memory of doing it only comes after we make a choice.
@Alt_Lola
September 12, 2026 at 7:21 am
All good until they mentioned youtuber Harris.
@nicholascecaci2932
September 12, 2026 at 7:21 am
“Random particles popping into existence,” just means you are not processing all the information. perhaps our sensory apparatus is not measuring all potential changes…
@pakvanjdam
September 12, 2026 at 7:21 am
Why Sam? That's spinoza's philosophy…
@MaDmanex100
September 12, 2026 at 7:21 am
I am human. And do human things in a manmade city. Lives moves on.
@sleethmitchell
September 12, 2026 at 7:21 am
freedom is nothing more than absence of constraint. action can be constrained or not. thought is a response, not really an action.
@SailorBismuth
September 12, 2026 at 7:21 am
I was thinking about this the other day. Thinking of thought feels impossible, but true thought comes from some secret process in my mind.
@blklagoon76
September 12, 2026 at 7:21 am
I still have free will. It's just instantaneous.
@captindo
September 12, 2026 at 7:21 am
Been watching a lot of Backrooms YTPs lately and “I’m a fucking architect” was right there as it should be.
@Brick001
September 12, 2026 at 7:21 am
0:12 the thought was and will be deez nuts 100% of the time. Check mate
@moto324
September 12, 2026 at 7:21 am
It’s MY BRAIN that wants to do whatever and it can so seems like my free will.
@whosstoke
September 12, 2026 at 7:21 am
You should look into the case of U.G Krishnamurti, interesting stuff if you’re into things like this
@KarlHessey-db6mf
September 12, 2026 at 7:21 am
Hmm sounds about right😅
@kalmkoala9243
September 12, 2026 at 7:21 am
If we all truly had free will. The human race would have never made it this far.
@user76239
September 12, 2026 at 7:21 am
I respectfully disagree sir. I used to wake up and choose violence everyday and not because of consequence or action but just true choice and free will I choose not to anymore?
@elsrflanders1545
September 12, 2026 at 7:21 am
You lost me at sam harris
Comments are closed.