i'm imagining they're having this conversation in a chuck e cheese, and they have taken a party table, denying a family's access to it

To the prospective viewer: Harris wanted to talk about whether or not a murderer has the ability to be anything else, and Dennet wanted to talk about whether or not that murderer should be punished for his crime. They went on like this having two separate conversations for an hour and a half. You as the viewer get to see both of their view points elucidated on these two separate subjects, but it would be a stretch to call it a debate.

Lol I love how Sam is trying to be civil in the beginning but Daniel just goes straight for his guts and won't let off...

Dan could never admit that his opinions might be incorrect.😂

Dennett doesn't make a lot of good points in my oppinion here, he also doesn't seem to fully grasp the points.

36:32 “moral responsibility is something that we have to redefine, in the way that you are eager to redefine free will”….. 😂 Sam is such a savage!

To me Sam Harris is a lot more convincing. Most of the arguments by Daniel Dennett are based on a semantical distortion of the term "free will" into something vague and undefined, which is the case with most supporters of free-wiil among scientists, and I really don't understand why anyone would do that. You want to talk about something else rather than an actual free will? - Come up with a different term, and stop confusing your audience.

By Dennett’s definition of free will ( Compatibilism dressed up), a computer chess game has free will.

Something is causing you to think you have a free will.😂

Sam opens by praising Dan for his WILLINGNESS to reconsider… except of course he deserves no such credit because he had no control over that.

Sam Harris, "Feel free to react to that..." to Mr. Dennett.

59 minutes in and Dan still hasn’t articulated his point in any solid fashion.

This is why YouTube is amazing. Being able to listen to this intellectual journey between two giants for free is truly unbelievable. Thank you, Sam Harris. And RIP Daniel Dennett—you are deeply missed, especially at a time when we need voices like yours the most.

I can’t help but get the feeling that Daniel is playing to a level far below his intellect, dancing around the surprisingly simple definition of free will with confusing word salad.  It shouldn’t be this difficult.

00:00 - Harris's introduction (history of the debate).

02:25 - Dennett's introduction (history of the debate).

05:15 - Dennett calls Harris a "compatibilist in all but name"; lists points of agreement.

08:02 - Harris returns to the history of the debate.

11:22 - Dennett explains his "tactic" with regard to free will: "sure it exists, it just isn't what you think it is".

13:42 - Harris accuses Dennett of changing the subject; compatiblism drops core features of free will.

14:19 - Dennett accuses Harris of clinging to a limited definition.

15:08 - Dennett introduces the idea of "degrees of freedom" from engineering; this is the real "freedom" in "free will". Most humans have all the degrees of freedom they need for moral responsibility as well as control of these (unless they are being manipulated). This has nothing to do with determinism or indeterminism.

19:12 - Harris claims that the durability of the notion of free will is based on people's first person experience i.e the illusion that they are the author of their thoughts, intentions and actions. Harris claims to have once felt that "he could have done otherwise" but has now transcended this illusion.

22:36 - Harris pitches his Atlantis analogy; taking this vivid first person feeling of freedom out of free will is like substituting Sicily for Atlantis.

24:02 - Dennett summarises Harris's position: "If you don't think free will is magical, then you don't believe in free will". He disagrees. Compatiblist free will explains moral responsibility, justifies the way we treat each other, explains who we hold responsible and who we don't. Dennett thinks this is good enough.

25:28 - Dennett confronts Harris point's about the first person "feeling" of free will. It's not about how you feel, it's about the theories you explain your feelings with. Compatiblism can account for the feelings people have in a perfectly naturalistic way, including the feeling of "could have done otherwise".

27:22 - Dennett pitches his chess program analogy: In cases where there are two equally good moves a chess program will consult a random number generator. If by the end of the game a particular move looks like a mistake, the designer may say "oh well, it could have castled". The distinction the designer is drawing is between a completely disabled chess program that couldn't under any circumstance move the castle, and a well-designed chess program that could indeed have castled given a different random number.

28:48 - Harris objects that if human decisions rely on the equivalent of a random number generator - e.g. a single charge on a synapse, or a mouthful more of lunch - then that completely undermines the illusion that most people have of being in control of their decisions.

30:01 - Dennett discusses the red-herring of indeterminism. People want to be completely free of determinism, but indeterminism wouldn't make them free either. So we have to look to something else.

30:44 - Dennett is unmoved by Harris's point about tiny randomness dictating one's decisions; we all know what it's like when we have thought hard about a decision, but there's good reasons on either side, so we perform a kind of mental coin-flip. But not all decisions are like that. When the evidence and the reasons are overwhelmingly on one side, we go with that.

31:59 - Dennett relates his dispute with believers in libertarian (i.e. uncaused) free will. Dennett presents these people with the case of Martin Luther who, on trial for his heresies, claimed he was so moved by truth that "he could do no other". The libertarians claim that his decision to promote his heresies must have been uncaused, but Luther says no - he is caused by his reasons.

33:25 - Dennett admits that in other cases, chance certainly does enter into our lives, but this doesn't disable us for responsibility. In fact, free and responsible agents recognise that when they act, they are going to be held responsible, whether or not they are in complete control of their decision making.

35:30 - Harris flags a potential disagreement; he thinks his denial of free will has bigger implications for morality than compatiblism.

35:50 - Harris agrees with and emphasises Dennett's point that indeterminism can't give you free will; if you made a choice completely untethered from your thoughts, history, preferences etc. that wouldn't feel like it came from you at all.

36:20 - Harris objects to Dennett's dismissal of 50/50 coinflip decisions as irrelevant. There can be hugely consequential decisions that come down to luck e.g. thinking something and saying it out loud, sending an angry email to your boss or scrapping it. These can come down to how much sleep you've had and so forth.

37:35 - Dennett compares this with the Remain-supporting Brits who didn't vote in the very close Brexit referendum for trivial reasons (e.g. having one more piece of toast instead). They're surely kicking themselves. But we factor these kinds of things in our notion of responsibility. Some people have better self-control in such matters than others.

38:17 - Dennett discusses the role of regret in our thinking about free will. When we've done something we're ashamed of, we like to pretend we're not responsible. "The folk notions have a lot of baggage on them."

38:57 - Harris concedes that they have been talking past one another; for Dennett free will is about degrees of freedom and the ability to act lawfully and meet one's goals. For Harris, you should just deny it, and only then go on to talk about the other things you care about.

39:45 - Harris discusses his favourite example of Charles Whitman, the mass shooter who was found to have a brain tumour, and who himself recognised that he couldn't explain his own actions. Why - if we would excuse Whitman, and give him brain surgery - do we blame people for decisions that come down to a single electron in the brain? Isn't that a tiny brain tumour? Is this a difference with regards to Harris's and Dennett's morality?

41:46 - Dennett quotes Tom Wolfe: "What we've learned from neuroscience is that we're wired wrong". He completely disagrees. No - most of us are wired right for responsibility. It's perfectly true that a brain tumour is exculpatory but that's a special case. It's a mistaken extrapolation to say that every case is like that. It's perfectly possible that neuroscience might teach us that some people are more responsible than we thought, not less.

44:15 - Harris says he isn't denying that some people have more self-control than others - but given that this is all a matter of luck, that changes something with regards to morality. All that exists are genes, brains and the environment. Everything is as it is and nothing can be taken responsibility for. Take the case of Saddam Hussein's son, a murderous psychopath. He's a product of his upbringing. If we could intervene at an early age we would help him. It doesn't make any sense to magically - at some point in later life - treat him like the author of his behaviour.

47:52 - Dennett objects to the way in which Harris is trying to remove the notion of "control" from the universe. There's nothing magic about control. A computer can control an airplane, and when the pilot turns the computer off, the pilot controls it instead. The fact that you can't control every aspect of the world (e.g. your genes) is irrelevant_. A sailor can't control the wind, and he can't control the waves, but he _can control the boat. The very notion of control has to do with responding to the factors outside of your control by reacting with skill in order to achieve your goal.

49:34 - Dennett agrees with Harris that one ought to intervene in a child's early years to turn them into a reliable, self-controlling person. But that's what free will is. Dennett agrees that Sadam Hussein Jr isn't responsible because he wasn't raised with free will.

50:34 - Dennett stresses that moral responsibility is never absolute, it's pragmatic.

50:51 - Dennett introduces the interesting notion that humans do indeed make themselves over time; 21 year old you makes 30 year old you makes 50 year old you. And at every stage we have a responsibility to keep improving and maintaining ourselves as moral agents.

51:47 - Dennett notes that we used to excuse drunk driving because one couldn't be expected to control oneself when drunk. But we've made a wise change to the standard where we hold people responsible for getting drunk, and their friends, and the bartender too. The general moral here is that people can learn to take responsibility for keeping themselves responsible. And in exchange we grant them the freedom of the state.

To be completed...

I’m an hour in and still have no idea what Dans position is. He seems to be simply just explaining how humans should be responsible people?!? Sam is trying to talk about determinism, something Dan should be very well versed in yet it seems that it’s going right over his head. Wtf is going on here?

Sam is describing the paint strokes and Dan is describing the painting.

The paint strokes build an illusion of meaning, as they're arranged upwards towards their macro form. Similar to the survival of the fittest.

30 minutes in. I’m loving this back and forth

This debate is not doing Daniel any justice. He misses the point frequently and says thing like “ I think your wrong” in place of a persuasive argument. I rather read his stuff.

Responsibility morals and luck should be a debate since it has so much effect on if free will is real or not.  These two guys are great and this was great