Uncertainty and Probability—in Halakha, in Thought, and in General—Lesson 29 – Rabbi Michael Abraham

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Okay, let’s just place ourselves in context. The time before last—or really also last time, I completed it—we talked about an explanation for the law of fixed status that is based on the idea that with human actions you can’t reason according to statistical principles, because human actions are the result of a person’s decision, of what the person wants, and therefore distributions don’t determine the result. Probabilistic distributions determine the result where we’re dealing with random processes, not with intentional, directed, conscious processes, results of judgment and human decisions. At the end of last time I started talking about situations in which we do use probability with respect to human actions. I brought Maimonides in chapter 6 of Laws of Repentance, where Maimonides says that even though the Holy One, blessed be He, told Abraham our forefather in the Covenant Between the Parts that Pharaoh and Egypt would enslave them, there is still a claim against the Egyptians—they were punished—even though, after all, seemingly it wasn’t in their hands. The Holy One, blessed be He, had already said four hundred years earlier that they would enslave Israel, so what do you want from them? So Maimonides said that every single Egyptian had free choice whether to enslave or not to enslave; the decree was on Egypt as a whole. And in such a case, basically, each Egyptian individually could enslave Israel, and on the one hand—that is, each one has freedom, and therefore if he enslaved Israel he deserves punishment. On the other hand, you can still speak about prior determination, because the determination is about the collective; it’s a general determination. And the Raavad already comments on this: why is Maimonides making such a fuss? First of all, in the previous chapter he already said that even if the Holy One, blessed be He, knows in advance, that doesn’t mean we don’t have free choice, so what exactly is bothering Maimonides? So about that I said that what bothers Maimonides is that this knowledge in the Covenant Between the Parts was conveyed to Abraham our forefather; it didn’t remain with the Holy One, blessed be He. And therefore knowledge that was conveyed to a human being does dictate the outcome; it’s not like the knowledge of the Holy One, blessed be He—even if you say that the knowledge of the Holy One, blessed be He, dictates the outcome. But the Raavad still asks: fine, so I understand that this bothered Maimonides, but how does Maimonides’ answer help? What Maimonides says about the collective—a collective is made up of individuals. Meaning, if you say that the collective will enslave Israel, that basically means you decreed upon the individuals to enslave Israel. What do you mean? Suppose we have a hundred Egyptians, and ninety-nine chose not to enslave Israel. Then the hundredth Egyptian has no choice, because if he too decides not to enslave Israel, then it turns out that what the Holy One, blessed be He, knew was wrong, and that can’t be. Therefore the Raavad says, yes, these are almost childish words—how can Maimonides say such nonsense? Meaning, it’s not an answer. So what is? The knowledge of the Holy One, blessed be He, doesn’t dictate the outcome—which is basically what he already commented in chapter 5. And then I said that Maimonides is really talking about a certain kind of mechanism, like the law of large numbers. What do I mean? When I throw a die—suppose the die is fair—then if I perform a large number of throws, I know that the distribution of the results will be one-sixth on each face of the die, a fair die, okay? Now I can, that is, predict in advance what the result of the experiment will be. If I throw the die many, many times, I can tell you in advance what the result will be. But of course this knowledge is knowledge about the overall set of results. Suppose I made six billion throws: I know there will be a billion throws of one, a billion of two, a billion of three, about a billion of each result. But I have no way whatsoever of knowing what the result of throw number 532,421,000 will be. I have no way to know that. The chance is one-sixth for each face, but I have no way to predict the result of that throw. And so it comes out that although… the specific event, the individual event, is a free event—any result can occur—at the collective level I can tell you exactly what will come out. Meaning, I have a kind of prophecy about the collective; I know in advance what will happen there, even though every single item within that collective has complete freedom. And after that I added that it’s not despite the fact that each item has complete freedom, but because each item has complete freedom. Meaning, if the throws were dependent on one another, then I couldn’t say in advance that one-sixth of the throws would land on each face. This result of the law of large numbers exists where there is independence between the throws. Or no dependence between the throws, yes—there is independence; there is no dependence between the throws. So therefore it’s not only despite the fact that in every throw there is complete freedom and any result can occur, but because in every throw there is complete freedom. And of course this deepens that absurdity that says that although on the individual level there is complete freedom—you can, any result can come out that you want—on the collective level I know exactly in advance what will happen. I can predict very precisely what will happen. Of course, the larger the number of throws, the more accurately I can predict it, predict it. But if the number of throws is very, very large, I can predict with complete precision what will happen on the large scale, on the collective level, while at the same time each individual item has freedom. Exactly what Maimonides says: each Egyptian could have enslaved Israel or not enslaved Israel; he had freedom. How does that fit with the fact that the Holy One, blessed be He, determined it? The law of large numbers. Basically what comes out is that He said that Egypt as a whole—there will be Egyptians who enslave Israel. Who are “the Egyptians”? Each one has his own degree of freedom. Each one can decide yes or no. But in practice, there will be thirty percent who enslave Israel, or something like that.

[Speaker B] Wait, but that jump from a die to free choice—based on what? The die is certainly completely deterministic.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I’ll talk about that; that’s where I’m heading. I mean, I brought it as an example of using statistics on human decisions, not on dice. And I want to discuss that in light of what we talked about in the previous lecture. So I’m getting there. So Maimonides’ claim, basically, is that you can apply the law of large numbers to human behavior, and therefore on the collective level you can predict in advance what will happen, while on the particular, private, individual level, every individual has the freedom to behave as he sees fit, just like throws of a die. Now, what does this actually mean? It means I’m using a tool like the law of large numbers, which is after all just a probabilistic tool, while the phenomenon I’m dealing with is a phenomenon of human decisions. The Egyptians each decided whether to enslave Israel or not to enslave Israel. So if these are human decisions, we saw that probabilistic considerations aren’t relevant to them. So why are they relevant here? Or as Shmuel commented earlier: fine, dice throws are random, but here these are human decisions. How am I even making the comparison between the law of large numbers in dice throws and the law of large numbers with respect to human behavior? In this context, I also wrote a column on the site, column 539. Thank you very much, let’s say on behalf of

[Speaker C] Minister Nir Barkat’s office, the response was given: the minister works for the public and public service.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] So over there I spoke about—it was when my son came; he worked at Facebook. And one fine day he comes to me and says, listen, it’s really frustrating, what I see there from the heights of Olympus at Facebook. What do you mean? I can tell you in advance that in Melbourne at eleven o’clock cottage cheese consumption will rise by fifteen percent. I mean, what does it mean, “tell you”? I can determine that that’s what will happen. Meaning, if I run a certain campaign of a certain type and target it at the residents of Melbourne, and I make sure it goes live toward Monday at eleven in the morning, then already now I can tell you: Monday at eleven in the morning, cottage cheese consumption in Melbourne will rise by fifteen percent. Meaning that when you look from the rooftop perspective of Facebook, you look at the world—through computers of course—you look at the world, then you basically see that humanity is just like ants. Meaning, it’s some collective behavior that you can manipulate. You turn a knob and the results are determined with real precision. Meaning, somebody… someone who knows how to run this business, and you’re working with numbers that are large enough, then the result comes out really accurately. This basically means that human beings live with a very strong feeling of freedom, where each of us feels free and feels he can do whatever he wants and so on, while in reality we’re slaves of slaves. Meaning, in the end Facebook, with a knob, controls us like an anthill. And he said to me: how does that fit with a conception of free choice, of freedom, and all these things? So what I answered him was what I said earlier, following Maimonides’ approach. Meaning, when you predict collectively what will happen in a certain place, that prediction concerns the collective behavior—how all the residents of Melbourne will behave. I don’t know how many people there are there, but every single resident of Melbourne has free choice whether to buy cottage cheese or not to buy cottage cheese. But in practice I know that, overall, among all the residents of Melbourne, after I activate the relevant campaign, there will be a fifteen percent increase in buying cottage cheese. Or another example: he says, in the Mahane Yehuda market, every Thursday night it’s always packed with people, unlike other evenings when that doesn’t happen. Now, if you check, I assume you’ll see it’s not the same people every time. There are many, many people who sometimes come and sometimes don’t come, but in practice it always comes out that on Thursday night the market is packed, even though each time it’s different people. So what does that mean? It means that the individual people act in a completely free way; each one can do whatever he wants. But when you look at the collective phenomenon, I can tell you exactly in advance what will happen. Every Thursday night the market will be packed. Who will be there, who those people are who choose to come to the market on Thursday night—each time it will be different people, or at least some of them will be different. Therefore on the individual level there is complete freedom, even though on the collective level I can tell you exactly what will happen. And if I trigger something else there in the market, then I’ll tell you that there will be another ten percent of people next Thursday because I’ll run some Facebook campaign calling on people to come to the market or something like that. And again, every individual person has free choice, whether he’ll come or not come. It doesn’t even have to be that it’s the same people as before, just with another ten percent. No—it could be that some of those who were there last week won’t be there at all, but in practice, if you look at the totality of people, there will be ten percent more. And he knows that in advance; from experience he already knows how these things work. Yes, one of the amazing things I once heard in the name of Rabbi Weitman—he’s the rabbi of Tnuva, and the brother-in-law of Rabbi Blumentzweig who was head of the Yerucham yeshiva—so he told me about this matter in Rabbi Weitman’s name, that Rabbi Weitman says: you wouldn’t believe how effective advertising is for cottage cheese. That’s why I remembered cottage cheese. How effective advertising is for cottage cheese. And now, it’s unbelievable—really, there isn’t a person in Israel who doesn’t know this product well. Yes, it’s an Israeli product, cottage cheese. There isn’t a person in Israel who doesn’t know this cottage cheese product well. So why does it matter at all that suddenly Tnuva launches a campaign about cottage cheese? What in this campaign causes me to buy more cottage cheese? I know cottage cheese, I know myself—if I like cottage cheese I’ll buy it; if I don’t like cottage cheese I won’t buy it. Why should their campaign affect me at all when the product is a completely familiar product? I mean, there’s absolutely nothing, nothing new here. Other than that cottage cheese is refreshing and a foretaste of the World to Come, or I don’t know, some cheerful song praising cottage cheese, okay? But that didn’t tell you anything new. Meaning, no—you don’t really think it’s a foretaste of the World to Come. Either you like cottage cheese or you don’t like cottage cheese. So why should it affect you? Now he says: you wouldn’t believe how much it affects. He says, he’s there at Tnuva; he says, I know the data—you wouldn’t believe how much it affects. They launch a campaign on cottage cheese, and after three days sales rise dramatically.

[Speaker D] But it’s like that everywhere, not just cottage cheese. Every ad penetrates a person’s subconscious.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Of course, but I’m saying I used cottage cheese as an example. Obviously I know it’s not just cottage cheese.

[Speaker D] No, but the whole public behaves like sheep, so whatever you feed them, they’ll eat it, and that’s it. Sony or cottage cheese or anything like that.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Right, I wasn’t making a claim about cottage cheese. Cottage cheese is just an example; I didn’t mean this happens only with cottage cheese. In general these things happen. A friend of mine once told me—he used to work in advertising—that many years ago in the United States there was, at least at that time, I don’t know if it still exists, a town where they paid all the residents money and attached to them some kind of meter or measuring device that tracked them and recorded everything they bought all the time, all the people in the town. Everyone. An entire town that was an experimental lab for advertising companies. And then they would run experiments. Suppose now we do an ad campaign for cottage cheese. Immediately I can see, because there is documentation, every person who bought cottage cheese is instantly recorded. I can immediately see the effectiveness of the ad. Meaning, he says, you can literally move those people around just like marionettes in a puppet theater. And you can simply control people’s behavior, and you immediately see the feedback. And from that you learn which ad works, which ad doesn’t work, you make slight changes, you check whether cottage cheese consumption went up. Meaning, it’s really like a playground where advertising people can test in real time how different advertising campaigns work. In any case, back to our issue: what I want to claim is that this shocking picture—and it really is shocking—does not in any way contradict the claim that people are free. Not only are they theoretically free—you could say they’re free, but they choose not to use their freedom. No, no. They also use their freedom. They are free and they behave freely. And the proof. What?

[Speaker B] How can you say that? After all, if all of Facebook and all the similar systems, the other networks, all recruited themselves for some reason on one day and decided to invest all their resources, all their trillions, in cottage cheese next Monday, then the point of choice will remain very, very meager in the end.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes, it will remain meager. Exactly—that’s the point.

[Speaker B] No, but what kind of choice is that if you’re one in a billion who can choose? That’s just an illusion.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, no, I’ll get to that in just a moment.

[Speaker B] I’ll give the rabbi an example. Today I had a patient in the clinic. He came with torn jeans stained with all kinds of spots. It was clear to me that he bought them that way, but I still chuckled and said to him, you know, you need to fix that, notice it got very dirty here. He said to me, what are you talking about? I ordered it that way, it cost me a lot of money to order it, I don’t remember from what country. Now I, of course, knew that in advance, but I asked myself, if he had come thirty or forty years ago with these jeans, I would have asked him, how do you feel about that? He would have said, it’s really the result

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] of environment, the result of fashion, of trends, and the like.

[Speaker B] It’s not only fashion; it’s really education, imposed norms—we’ll talk about it.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] There’s—you’re reminding me—you know that when you buy something without sugar, you pay more for it. When you buy jeans with less fabric, you also pay more for them. Meaning, in our world, the less merchandise you get, the more you pay for it. The more things they remove from the product, the more the price goes up. You buy lactose-free milk, whatever—you pay more because the lactose is missing. It’s a world where if you have holes in your jeans, they cost more even though there’s less fabric. I’m not even talking about women’s dresses, where the less fabric there is, the more it costs. The saving on fabric is really a fascinating phenomenon in women’s fashion. In any case—and that’s not a saving

[Speaker D] in money, meaning the saving in fabric is

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] inversely proportional to saving money. In any case, the claim I want to make is that on the individual level there can be freedom, while on the collective level I can tell you in advance what will happen. The behavior is like a deterministic herd. Which is really a reflection of the law of large numbers, but this time it’s the law of large numbers dealing with the behavior of people—that is, with people’s decisions—and not with the throwing of a die. Just before I continue, I’ll just make one more remark. Even when I talk about throws of a die—and I think we talked about this right at the beginning of the series—even when I talk about throws of a die, in fact throwing a die is not a random event. There’s nothing random there. It’s Newton’s laws. Meaning, you throw the die, apply force to it, it flies, and one can in principle do the calculation. In practice it’s a very complicated calculation, but in principle you can do this calculation, and I’ll tell you on which face the die will land. There’s nothing random there. Therefore this feeling that probability describes only random events is a mistake. On the contrary: probability never describes random events. That doesn’t happen at all. When events are events—when we describe events through probability, like a die or a coin toss or things of that sort—these are always deterministic events. It’s just that we don’t know how to do an exact calculation of where, on which face the die will land, or on which side the coin will land, so I use statistical tools because I don’t know how to do the calculation; the calculation is complicated. But on the principled level there is such a calculation. Meaning, one could do that calculation. There’s really nothing random here. And if you say that it depends on the force I apply to the die and the angle at which the die is launched—which seemingly isn’t Newton’s laws, it’s how my finger sends the die on its way—I’ll say yes, but my hand too, when it moves, is the result of Newton’s laws. So go one step back, but in the end, in the end, the processes are mechanical deterministic processes.

[Speaker B] And the lesson drawn, and human choice, is exactly one-to-one as well. If we were capable of entering the resolution of influences from early youth and genetics and their whole combination, if we were capable of doing that, then we would know with complete certainty what he will choose.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Supposedly. So we’ll get to that too in a moment, and I argue that no. So the claim I ultimately want to make is that our use of probability actually in practice is never done with genuinely random events. I asked, okay, random events are one thing—but why apply it to human freedom? But one has to remember that even when I talk about “random” events like tossing a coin or a die, they’re not really random events. There is nothing random at all. Rather, there is very sensitive dependence on initial conditions or things like that, and therefore the assumption is that this is what in mathematics is called ergodic, meaning that one can use probabilistic tools to describe the matter. But that’s just a parenthetical remark. Still, yes—the only place where we recognize events that are truly random and not merely complex and not calculable is perhaps quantum theory, at least according to the accepted interpretations. But precisely in quantum theory the use of probability is very confusing and seems very unnatural to people. We don’t understand quantum theory. Why don’t we understand it? In the throw of a die we understand perfectly well the use of probability. What’s the problem? What is so complicated about quantum theory? What is complicated in quantum theory is that quantum theory is truly a random event. It’s not an event that is just hard to calculate. Unlike a die or a coin, where it is only hard to calculate but there is nothing random there. Meaning, precisely when we use probability for random events, that is precisely not the natural state of affairs; it’s a state that requires explanation. And in truth it’s not really probability in quantum theory, but I won’t go into that. The concept of probability we usually use is about deterministic events regarding which I lack knowledge, and there are certain conditions, and I apply probabilistic tools to them. So I’m just saying that parenthetically. So now, the claim I really want to make is that human behavior too can be described by probabilistic tools. As I said last time, all of psychology is basically built on this. Psychology tries to describe statistically how human beings behave, including their considered responses, their deliberate responses—not only responses that are made without thought or without a decision-making process, instinctive ones like that. No, even responses that a person decides to make are also described by some kind of statistical distributions, some kind of statistical principles. So this basically means that human behavior can indeed be described by a statistical distribution. Now I want to explain this point a bit more and begin getting to the points that Shai raised earlier. Suppose now—I’m the one who gave this example—suppose now that I make a biased die or a biased coin. But a biased coin, basically, has an eighty percent chance of landing heads and a twenty percent chance of landing tails—not fifty-fifty, yes? It’s not a fair coin. So when I make one coin toss, I can’t know what will come out. It may land heads; it may land tails. Of course there’s a greater chance that it will land heads because the coin isn’t fair, but it can still land tails. But if I toss it a billion times, then I can tell you: eight hundred million times it will land heads, two hundred million times it will land tails. Meaning, even when the distribution is not a balanced distribution, but rather when the distribution is biased—meaning I can shift things—even then, in the end the law of large numbers operates. Meaning, throw it many times, or perform the experiment many times, and you’ll find that the results basically reflect the expectation, the average. Okay, if the average is one-sixth for every face of the die, then if you throw it enough times, indeed one-sixth of the time it will land on each face. And the law of large numbers works even when the situations are biased, when the die is not fair or the coin is not fair—it still works. It’s just that then the results won’t be one-sixth, one-sixth, one-sixth, or fifty-fifty for a coin, but eighty-twenty, eighty percent and twenty percent for the coin. Fine, but it can still predict very well what will happen on the collective level. Now notice that even when I bias the coin’s probabilities, still each toss is not dependent on the previous toss. There is independence between the different tosses; each toss is its own toss and the probability is eighty-twenty. But what happened on the previous toss doesn’t affect the next toss. And that independence exists in this case too. And independence is not unique only to situations where the probability is flat, yes, balanced in both directions. Independence also exists where the probability is not balanced, even when it’s eighty-twenty. And there too, independence is a condition for the law of large numbers to work. Without it, the law of large numbers doesn’t work. And therefore my claim now—and this is already an answer to one of the comments we heard earlier—even when the probability is eighty-twenty, and even when the probability is ninety-nine to one, I still claim that a free person has freedom of choice. He has freedom of choice because he can decide on the ninety-nine and he can decide on the one. And I’ll tell you more than that: when a person has free choice, that basically means, like with the container of balls, that there are ninety-nine red balls and one black ball. When a person has free choice, in the end the fact that there are ninety-nine balls doesn’t mean—if he decides, he’ll pick up the black one, because that’s what he wants. Therefore, when you talk about a person’s actions, the fact that it’s ninety-nine versus one doesn’t mean he has no freedom of choice. He does have freedom of choice. It’s just that this freedom of choice exists on the individual level. On the collective level I tell you that ninety-nine percent of the results will come out this way. On the individual level, you have the possibility of choosing the one-percent option or the ninety-nine-percent option. Right? The medieval authorities (Rishonim), for example, discuss the fact that the Torah says that the Holy One, blessed be He, hardened Pharaoh’s heart. So the medieval authorities (Rishonim) already ask: if the Holy One, blessed be He, hardened his heart, then he had no free choice, so why was he punished? There are various explanations—because he had already deserved it beforehand, and so on. That explanation doesn’t help very much, but there are those who explain it that way. But others basically claim that “the Holy One, blessed be He, hardened his heart” means He changed the relative weights. Meaning, if let’s say under normal conditions the chance that the Egyptians would decide to enslave Israel was two percent—why would they do such a wicked thing? Fine, two percent. Or that they wouldn’t release Israel was two percent. Fine, because the hardening of the heart wasn’t about the plagues; it was about not releasing them. So let’s say that without divine intervention the chance that the Egyptians would release the Jewish people was ninety-eight percent, with a two percent chance that they would not release Israel. Now the Holy One, blessed be He, intervenes and changes the weights, and now He turns it into fifty-fifty. Now the Egyptians can still decide whether to release Israel or not to release Israel.

[Speaker D] It’s not dependence on the Egyptians; it’s dependence on Pharaoh alone.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] What? I didn’t understand.

[Speaker D] It’s not dependence on the Egyptians; it’s dependence on Pharaoh alone.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] It doesn’t matter to me, so Pharaoh—right now I don’t care—

[Speaker D] Pharaoh.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] It doesn’t matter to me, that’s not the point—so, Pharaoh. It doesn’t matter to me, that’s not the point. So the claim is that I’m not talking now about the law of large numbers; I’m talking about something else. What I really want to argue is that, say, as far as Pharaoh’s free choice was concerned, if there had been no divine intervention, then he would in fact have chosen to release Israel. Okay? Now the Holy One, blessed be He, comes and hardens his heart, and therefore he does not release Israel. So people ask: then why is Pharaoh punished? After all, the Holy One, blessed be He, essentially forced him to do it. The answer is no—the Holy One, blessed be He, did not force him to do it. He only changed the relative weights between the two options: to release or not to release Israel. Now it’s no longer two against ninety-eight, but fifty-fifty. Pharaoh still could have decided to release Israel. But once the weights were changed, the chance that this would happen became smaller. And if the weights were changed to ninety-eight versus two, then the chance becomes even smaller that it will happen. But he still could have decided to overcome that and go with the two percent option, and then he would have released Israel despite the hardening of the heart. Meaning, my claim is that this in no way means he has no free choice. He does have free choice. If he had decided to do otherwise, he would have done otherwise. It’s just that, since the relative weights were changed, I can tell you in advance that most likely he won’t release Israel, because I hardened his heart—but he still has free choice.

Now, some of you may know my topographic model of free choice. I want to explain this a bit, because it’s what stands behind what I’m describing here. There is a very great confusion—of the kind I described earlier with my son—there is a very great confusion around the question of whether a person has free choice. After all, in the end, things are determined by genetics, or environment, or education, or the home one grew up in, or whatever. And therefore in the final analysis you can’t tell me that a person chooses freely. The circumstances—including genes, it doesn’t matter—the circumstances, nature and nurture together, and it’s all circumstances, determine what he will do. And the fact that I can’t know in advance what he’ll do is because the calculation is complicated—right? Like a die, rolling a die, okay? It’s only because the calculation is complicated, but in the end there is such a calculation. If there is such a calculation, then that means this is really a deterministic process. In the end, what a person does, thinks, his character traits, whatever—it’s basically a deterministic process, the impact of nature and nurture together. These eternal dilemmas of nature or nurture—it’s always never really defined, but never mind, people love playing around with it.

In any case, that’s why people see in the results of genetics, in the results of psychological or neuroscience research, an attack on the concept of free will. Because it supposedly means that we are operated by our genome, our brain, our environment, whatever—and we are being operated; we are not choosing freely. And so these new scientific findings supposedly attack the idea of free choice.

Now yes, they always say, look, look at the statistics of how many religious people there are among those born in a religious home, and how many religious people there are among those born in a secular home. So that means the home determined what you would be, not that you decided what you would be. True, there are also people who sometimes become secular coming from a religious home, or religious coming from a secular home, so there were other influences that did that—but bottom line, in the end, what comes out is the result of the total set of influences. That is basically the claim.

Now what I want to say here is that this claim assumes an absurd assumption about the libertarian view—the view that a person has free choice, that a person decides freely. This attack on libertarianism basically assumes that libertarianism denies the fact that genetics influences a person; and if genetics influences a person, then that means the world is deterministic and not libertarian. Okay? In other words, if you raise an argument of that kind, what you are really saying is: I understand the libertarian view as a view in which a person acts in a vacuum. And the moment you show me that he does not act in a vacuum, but that certain influences cause him to behave this way or that way, that means the libertarian is wrong. But that’s not true—you’ve built a straw man and attacked it. It isn’t true. The libertarian view does not say that a person acts in a vacuum. The libertarian also agrees that genetics affects us—our traits, our decisions, our feelings, our behavior. That’s obvious. Nobody denies that.

So what is the difference, then, between a libertarian and a determinist? To explain that, I’ll use the parable of the topographic outline. The claim is basically this: imagine some sort of topographic layout—mountains, valleys, saddles, hills, yes, all kinds of topographic terrain, all kinds of landscape. Okay? Now if I place some little ball somewhere on this topographic layout, I can know where it will end up, right? I can calculate its path through the forces acting on it, potential energy or whatever, but in the end I can tell you how that little ball will move. Or if I send a stream of water through there. Okay? Then I can tell you: the terrain layout shows us where the water will flow, right? It dictates where the water will flow.

Now I say: let’s place a human being on this topographic layout—not a little ball and not a stream of water, but a human being. Can I say where the person will go? No. Even though the person is a physical creature and the topographic layout exerts forces on him just as it does on the little ball or on the water, right? Newton’s laws work on human beings too. If I’m standing somewhere where there’s, say, a mountain on this side and a valley on that side, all right? If I’m standing here, obviously gravity is acting on me downward, right? Trying to push me downward. In that sense I am exactly like the little ball or the stream of water—that is, a physical force is acting on me because I am a physical object, okay? But the fact is that unlike the little ball or the stream of water, I won’t necessarily go downward. I can choose to go up, and I’ll climb the mountain even though it is against the force acting on me.

What’s the difference? The difference is not on the level of what forces act on me. I am a physical creature; the forces acting on me are the same forces that act on water or on a little ball. The difference lies in the question of what I do with those forces. As for the water and the little ball, those forces determine their behavior, their path, what they will do. What happens with a human being is that those forces influence what he will do, but they do not determine what he will do. Meaning, if you place a hundred people at this point, I assume the number of those who decide to climb and the number of those who decide to go down will not be fifty-fifty. More will go down than go up. But still, each individual person has a free decision whether to go up or not to go up. You see how this connects to what I said earlier.

In other words, this topographic layout is simply the hardening of Pharaoh’s heart. The hardening of Pharaoh’s heart basically means this: look, suppose the normal situation was like this and I’m standing here, so I can decide to go right and I can decide to go left with equal probability, all right? Say, for the sake of discussion, because the terrain exerts no force on me either to the right or to the left, because I’m standing on level ground, okay? Now what the Holy One, blessed be He, does to Pharaoh is place him on a surface like this. Now Pharaoh can decide to climb, because he is a human being, not a little ball; he can decide to climb, and of course he can also slide downward, letting the forces pull him downward. His decision, okay?

Now I say: if I place Pharaoh a hundred times in such a situation, then I assume the number of times he will decide to go down will be greater than the number of times he will decide to climb upward. In contrast to the case where he was standing here, where I assume half the time he would go right and half the time he would go left. And if so, then say it would be seventy-thirty, okay? But still, in each of his decisions it is a free decision. He can decide whether he goes up the mountain or down into the valley—a free decision. And yet I can tell you statistically that if you put many people in this situation, seventy percent of them will go down into the valley and only thirty percent will go up the mountain, and if you put them in a situation like this, then half will go here and half will go there.

[Speaker D] What does that mean? That’s just an assumption. What? It’s only an assumption.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, it’s not an assumption, no, it’s an assumption…

[Speaker D] There’s a saying, Rabbi, there’s a saying that no logic can stand up against human stupidity.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Okay, a saying is a nice thing, a saying is a nice thing, but psychologists do statistics.

[Speaker D] Yes, but you can’t predict. Statistics works, statistics works.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] That’s exactly the point. When you come to predict the behavior of an individual person, the psychologist can’t do it, because an individual person has free choice. But if you ask the psychologist what will happen to a large group of people who are in this situation, he can tell you that sixty percent will do this and forty percent will do that.

[Speaker D] And what if they’re cosmopolitans? So what? Then cosmopolitans—so what difference does it make?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Then there are cosmopolitan statistics.

[Speaker D] But they—they don’t go by the rule.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] They do go by the rule; they have their own rule. What difference does it make? There is a psychology of cosmopolitans, so fine—ask the psychologist and he’ll tell you what the statistics say about the behavior of cosmopolitans. Fine, that’s all. So what difference does it make? In the end, when you take a large group of the same type, for the sake of discussion, then the psychologist knows how to say what will happen in the large group. Where does the psychologist fail? He fails when he tries to predict the behavior of a single person. Because a single person can decide to climb the mountain or go down into the valley. The fact that the surface is like this does not mean you can know that the person will go downward—no, he may decide to climb. I can say it, though, about a large number of people.

[Speaker B] Rabbi, but that’s again exactly like the die. If we were to add to the topographic map not only the mountains and hills and physical difficulties, but also—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Add—

[Speaker B] To it—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] The whole world of values, education and culture and faith and what he wants…

[Speaker B] I’m getting to that.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I said I’m getting to that. I’m going to get to that. I don’t agree; I’m going to get to that and explain why I don’t agree. So basically my claim says this: if you put there a little ball or a stream of water, then the topographic layout determines what they will do; you can calculate what they will do. If you put there a person—he can also decide to resist them. Usually fewer people will resist the forces acting on them than people who go with the forces acting on them. Therefore there will be statistics here.

That’s why, for example, from my point of view, there is a very big difference—I wrote about this, I have a column, or maybe even more than one, on whether psychology is a science. And my claim there was: yes, Karl Popper said that psychoanalysis is not a science. But I’m not talking about psychoanalysis, I’m talking about psychology. Psychoanalysis obviously is not a science; it’s not even true, not only is it not science. But I’m talking about psychoanalysis—psychology, sorry. Psychology, what I argue is that it depends what we’re talking about. If you are talking about the statistical psychological rules, then it could certainly be a science. You establish some statistics, you test them, and you can examine them through falsification to see whether they work or not. Okay. But if you’re talking about how to treat a particular person, that is not a science. Because when it comes to how to treat a particular person, you can’t really know whether the treatment will work or not. You can know what happens to a large group and try—maybe it will work for this individual person, and maybe not.

And therefore here I think it is more of an art than a science. Knowledge of the statistics can help you in treating an individual person, but it can’t be the whole story. In other words, part of the story is probably some kind of therapeutic intuition, some ability to read the person in front of you, to think how to treat him. And therefore a specific treatment, unlike statistical psychological research, treatment of an individual person is not a scientific procedure. It is not a scientific thing. It is more of an art than a science. There is scientific data that can help you when you do such a thing—the statistics—but in the final analysis, using them, and that’s why there are different schools and things like that, because it basically means that everyone does what he thinks. There isn’t really—generally I have very little faith in psychology overall—but I think that even when treatment succeeds, it doesn’t succeed because you excel in the psychological discipline, but simply because you are talented at reading people and understanding people and guiding people. General knowledge helps—I mean, the general background can help you—but in the end the treatment itself is more art than science.

And I don’t know how often success is measured—almost never, as is well known, the successes in psychology are hardly measured, except maybe CBT, which is considered an area where successes are measured more. But in other places psychology is like alternative medicine. In other words, psychologists make a living from the fact that people say it helped them, but nobody has done statistics to check what percentage of people it actually helped. In other words, because it’s exactly like alternative medicine or like miracle-working rabbis, it’s the same thing.

[Speaker D] Most people just need someone to listen to them, that’s all.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Okay, exactly. So if you do serious research on whether psychology helps, you obviously have to neutralize placebo, you have to neutralize spontaneous healing, so you have to neutralize the trust a person has in the person sitting across from him. Because, for example, compare it to treatment by rabbis—psychological treatment by rabbis—where those who come to them also have some trust in their abilities, in their powers, and you’ll probably find that they succeed more than just some ordinary person. But not because they know more psychology, but because the person coming to them believes in them more, and that affects the success of the treatment. And when you do scientific research, you have to neutralize those effects. So you do critical studies and double-blind studies and all the scientific rules meant to neutralize the placebo effect and spontaneous healing and all the other things. And such studies are almost never done on the success of psychology. Almost never.

[Speaker F] There are such studies.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] There are, but few. I’ve seen them. Yes, I’ve seen them too. There are a few. In CBT there are more; there they try to do it in a more systematic and more statistical way, and even there I’m very, very skeptical—certainly about the application when you go to treat an individual person. When you’re talking about statistics or the big picture, that’s something else.

[Speaker F] By the way, today one of the first courses in psychology is probability and statistics. Everyone who studies psychology takes it as one of the first courses.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] On that I can only quote what my sister told me when she studied criminology. She told me that almost every course of theirs began with a definition of what science is, with a discussion of the question what science is. I said to her: look, I studied physics and in no course did they deal with that. And the feeling, of course, was that because their courses are not scientific, they are in an apologetic position, so they are constantly trying to explain to you why they too are science. A person who teaches physics doesn’t need to apologize to anyone; he isn’t trying to explain to you why it’s science—everyone understands that it’s science. In certain respects my feeling is that teaching psychologists statistics doesn’t help them in any way—the practicing psychologists, I mean, not those researching psychology, the therapists. Okay? But it gives you a scientific feeling, so in that sense it helps.

Of course, as part of your training to be a researcher—a researcher does need to know statistics. A researcher who talks about statistics, about the large-scale laws, that’s something else; there you do need statistics. But applying it to treatment of an individual person is an art, not a science.

[Speaker B] Rabbi—

[Speaker F] Theoretically—

[Speaker B] It’s possible—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] To treat—

[Speaker F] Even only with the help of statistics, because I take what usually works in seventy percent of cases and I use it with him. If it helps, it helps; if it doesn’t, it doesn’t.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Correct. That’s what people do.

[Speaker F] Right, that’s what people do. So in the end, yes, in the end you can use the methods and the tables, so to speak.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I said that scientific knowledge can help the private therapist, the therapist treating an individual person. The treatment itself is not a scientific procedure, do you understand? It’s something completely different. Scientific knowledge can help him because he can choose directions that generally somehow work. But in the end the work here is not scientific work; it’s art, not science.

[Speaker F] There is data, by the way, that the thing that most affects the success of therapy—or almost most affects it—is the relationship and the click that develops between the therapist and the patient, not the method by which he treats.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] That’s what I said: it’s more art than science. And now I’m saying, maybe there are people who are great artists and maybe they do succeed in treating. I have no idea. I said I have little trust, but fine, it could be—I can’t rule it out—but it’s art, not science.

[Speaker D] In the end you get to a psychiatrist and get a pill.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] In any case, the claim I want to make is that when you look at the topographic layout, at this model of the topographic layout, it helps greatly to illustrate the fact that a person is not a little ball. Now I’ll explain what I mean. Let’s now say that this topographic layout—what Shmuel commented earlier—let’s say I put into this topographic layout all the influences that exist on a person. Right? It isn’t really mountains and hills; those are just metaphors. Rather, all the drives and influences, everything generated by genetics, by nature, by nurture, by the whole environment, by everything—all the influences acting on a person.

The determinist will say that the moment this map becomes a complete map, meaning that it includes all the influences, then the person is a little ball. Meaning, I can tell you exactly what he will do, exactly like a little ball or a stream of water. The libertarian claims that even if you make a complete, absolute map that includes all the influences, and you understand all the influences completely in the statistical sense—what affects what, okay?—and you build a precise map of the specific person standing before you, completely, all his influences, document his entire biography—of course this is science fiction, but say for the sake of discussion—

[Speaker B] Including his scale of values, including his beliefs and what he thinks the values are.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Including whatever you want, including whatever you want—I claim you still won’t be able to predict what he does. That’s my claim, and I claim that this is—not claim, rather this is the meaning of the libertarian view. And you can argue about it. Whoever argues about it is a determinist. Fine—that is the argument between libertarians and determinists.

[Speaker B] But this person moves around in this topographic map with his values located inside it, all his beliefs are located inside these mountains and hills, translated into mountains and hills.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] And if he decided to change a value? But out of what?

[Speaker B] He became religious. But out of what? What is there?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Out of nothing, because that’s what he decided.

[Speaker B] But why? What drove him? Just like that, nothing. So then it turns back into randomness.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Not random.

[Speaker B] There’s nothing behind it? Not at all? A whole world of values, beliefs, what he is attached to, what he wants, what he thinks is important, what he thinks is true.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I’ll comment on that, I’ll comment on that briefly to explain.

[Speaker B] Including faith and everything. And in the end he decides on something else. I ask him why, and the answer is: just because.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, not just because. So I’ll explain. There is an argument—this is a very common argument in favor of determinism. At one point I attributed it to Peter van Inwagen, but it turned out he isn’t the author of the argument, he only refers to it. But the argument is very common; you can see it in every discussion of determinism. The argument goes like this: every event that happens either has a cause or has no cause. A cause means a sufficient condition, yes? Meaning if the cause occurred, then the effect will necessarily occur. Okay? So what I’m basically saying is that an event either has a cause or it doesn’t. There is no third possibility.

Now if an event has a cause, then when it happened it was a deterministic event. The cause basically determined what would happen, right? If it has no cause, then what happens… it is just some random thing. And since there is no third possibility—either there is a cause or there isn’t—this means that a person has no free choice. Because either he acts deterministically or he acts arbitrarily, for no reason. There is no third possibility. Therefore this argument basically says that a person has no free choice, because conceptually there is no such thing as free choice. There is no third concept beyond determinism or randomness. That is basically the claim. This is not an empirical argument. It is a philosophical argument. Okay? A conceptual argument.

Where is the mistake in this argument? I claim there is a mistake. Where is the mistake? The mistake is not in saying either there is a choice or there isn’t—that’s just a simple logical rule, yes? The law of the excluded middle. Either there is choice or there isn’t… either there is a cause or there isn’t a cause. That’s obvious regarding your event. The mistake is in the question of what happens when there is no cause. This argument assumes that when there is no cause, that means the action was random. And I claim that is not true. The fact that there is no cause opens up two possibilities, not one. One possibility is that the action is random, just arbitrary. A second possibility is that the action has no cause but does have a purpose. It has no cause, so it still falls under the heading of an action without a cause. But the action is done for the sake of a purpose.

Suppose that when I choose, I don’t know, some value, a commitment to some value, I don’t do it because something caused me to—that is my libertarian claim; you can argue, but that is libertarianism. Okay? I don’t do it because something caused me to; rather I do it in order to. In order to create a better world or something. I want to make a phone call in order to set up a meeting with my friend tomorrow morning, so I pick up the phone now, and the reason why I picked up the phone is the purpose—the meeting tomorrow morning—not some cause that happened earlier, assuming that picking up this phone is a free choice. That is the libertarian claim.

Now someone who is a determinist, like Shmuel, will say: no, that is mistaken, there is no such thing, there is only either causality.

[Speaker B] No, I’m saying that even this nice wording of “purpose” or “meaning” is in the end still—I am at point A. If point A is perfect from my perspective and nothing needs to be done, then I wouldn’t do anything. I think point A is not good in my eyes, something is lacking, something needs to change into reality B, and therefore I do something in order to get to point B where what was lacking at point A is no longer lacking. So choosing this word “purpose” does not solve the problem.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Shmuel, you just spelled out exactly what I said before; I just don’t understand why you began with “no.” What you just said is exactly what I said you would say. Because what you’re saying is basically that everything must have a cause.

[Speaker B] No, I’m saying this verbal invention, this semantic move of “purpose,” doesn’t solve the problem.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Again, why do you begin with “no”? You’re repeating what I’m saying.

[Speaker B] No, because the word “purpose” is also a cause.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] There—you’re now saying what I’m saying. You’re basically saying that when I posit a purpose, I am actually acting on the basis of a cause.

[Speaker B] No, purpose is always also—the word itself means a cause.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, a purpose is not a cause. A purpose is from the future. You’re claiming there is a cause for why I choose that purpose, and therefore there is really some cause that moved me to act. There is no option of purpose; there is only either cause or nothing.

[Speaker B] But the concept of purpose says the current situation is not good in my eyes.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Exactly!

[Speaker B] Exactly!

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] And therefore there is a cause! Right, exactly—but that’s what I’m saying.

[Speaker B] So how does the Rabbi want to say that—after all, the Rabbi says that cause is not purpose.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] They are two different worlds. Obviously—I disagree with you! I’m only saying: I said from the outset what you would say, and you said that I disagree with you, but then you repeated what I said you would say. Correct—that’s what you would say, I know, and I don’t agree with you. And I claim that there is action for the sake of a purpose and it is not done because of some cause. Nothing is lacking for me. An altruistic act. Yes, I do it because it is good. Period. I do it for the sake of, not because of. Okay? That’s my claim. Now determinists will not accept this. Shmuel is a determinist; he doesn’t accept it. Fine.

[Speaker D] I’m presenting the libertarian view here.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] One second, I want to clarify the point.

[Speaker E] “For the sake of” is also still ultimately…

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] What I want to say—wait, one second—what I want to say is that the libertarian claims there are three options, not two. When you say there is no cause, that is a heading under which two possibilities are sheltered, not one. One possibility is randomness, and the second possibility is action for the sake of a purpose. Not out of a cause. Without a cause. Action for the sake of a purpose because I decided that I want to reach that purpose. That’s it. Why did I decide that way? Because I want that purpose. All right? So now—it’s not that I do it because I want. The question is why do I want? That has no cause. That has a purpose. Okay? So that is the libertarian claim.

Now let’s go back to the attack. Wait—someone who is a determinist… says that if there is no cause then of course it is just random. But that is precisely what the libertarian claims: no—even if there is no cause, that still does not mean that the action is random or accidental. The action is done for the sake of a purpose. Therefore, you can agree or disagree with the libertarian, but this attack is worthless; it just begs the question. That’s my claim. I’m also a libertarian, but I’m saying: the argument I’m raising here is not an argument in favor of libertarianism. You can be a determinist, and then we have a disagreement. But when you raise this claim against libertarianism, that is a logical mistake, because that claim assumes determinism. So obviously it will attack libertarianism. The libertarian is not bothered by that claim, because the claim is not correct on his view. Yes, it’s like the stone that the Holy One, blessed be He, cannot lift—that too is attacking someone on the basis of your assumptions. That’s not impressive; you need to attack him on the basis of his assumptions.

And therefore my claim, the libertarian claim, basically says that when I discuss an action a person performs, that action is made up of two components. One component is the collection of influences—what I called the topographic layout. The second component is the person’s free decision about what to do with that collection of influences. Okay? That is the second component. Therefore, when psychology makes statistics about many people who are, say, in the same situation, then at most it will produce some statistics about what people do in such situations. It will discover how the influences of the topographic layout operate. But it can never discover what I will do given the topographic layout, because that is the second component, which is free choice, the purposive decision—yes, whether I decide to climb the mountain because I want to see the view, or whether I decide to yield to the physical force and roll down into the valley. That decision cannot be explained by psychological statistics, because it is a free decision. It is not the result of psychological statistics.

And still, and still, if you place a hundred free deciders on such a terrain, seventy percent will go down and thirty percent will go up. Each one has free choice. For each individual, the psychologist will not be able to predict what he will do. But the statistics in psychology will say that seventy percent will go down and thirty percent will go up. And therefore, when I ask about an individual person what the probability is, then I’ll say there is a seventy percent chance he will go down and a thirty percent chance he will go up. In terms of the distribution, I’ll apply the same distribution even to an individual. But what will actually happen? That depends on his choice. Okay, that’s basically the point.

That is, you can phrase it like this: when there are a hundred people, seventy of them choose to go down, thirty of them choose to go up. And now I choose one person out of the hundred at random. What is the probability that I chose a person who goes down? Fifty-fifty? No—seventy. No? Yes. Why? Because I chose a person at random.

[Speaker D] No, but before that…

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes, I chose a person at random from among these hundred people. There are seventy people who go down and thirty people who go up.

[Speaker D] Yes, but out of a hundred, an individual person is the same as a hand inside a box with balls.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, it’s not the same. That’s exactly the point—it’s not the same.

[Speaker D] Why not?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] So I’ll explain. If I know about each person whether he is from those who go up or from those who go down, and I choose consciously according to my taste, depending on whether I like those who go up or those who go down, then you’re right. Then it’s fifty-fifty, because if I like those who go up, I’ll choose them even though they are only thirty percent of the hundred. But here I’m talking about something else: I put in a blind hand into the cluster of these people—there are seventy percent who go down, red, and thirty percent black, yes, those who go up. So if I put in my hand and choose a person freely, there’s a seventy percent chance I chose a person who goes down, right?

And therefore, when I formulate this with respect to an individual person—someone comes to me for treatment, and I’m a psychologist—then I say there is a seventy percent chance that this psychological treatment will help him, and a thirty percent chance that it won’t. I can say that. That is a scientific statement. But it is a statement that says: if I had before me a hundred people, what is the chance that I picked a person whom this treatment would help? In that sense, it is a correct statement. But when I am discussing this particular individual person and asking whether the treatment will help him—maybe I can say there is a seventy percent chance it will help—but practically, I cannot predict what will happen. Because it depends on his decisions, it depends on his choice, yes, beyond his topographic layout.

And therefore people think psychological laws are not precise because it’s terribly complicated. And the subtext basically says that after I solve all the complications and everything, then the laws will become completely precise, right? It’s just that today we still don’t have enough knowledge. And I claim something else. I say that even after we have all the psychological knowledge, all that psychological knowledge will enable us to do is draw a topographic map for any given person. Give me the topographic map, like his genome map, okay? Give me the topographic map of this person, and say psychology is now perfect, after we’ve finished all the studies and we know all psychological science, okay? Then the laws are completely precise—but they are completely precise in the statistical sense. The laws say that there is a seventy percent chance he will go down and a thirty percent chance he will go up. But no law can tell me what he will actually do. What he will actually do depends on his choice.

And therefore I say that when I say there is a seventy percent chance this treatment will help, or a seventy percent chance that a person in such a situation will behave this way and a thirty percent chance he will behave that way, that is a statistical statement. It is not a prediction of what this particular person will do. At most it can predict: if I have a hundred people and I choose one of them at random, what is the chance that he will be one of those who go down and not one of those who go up? But when I’m talking about an individual person, not about a random selection of one person out of a hundred, then there is some assumption here that the seventy-thirty also applies to him, and that there is a seventy percent chance this will succeed and a thirty percent chance it won’t. That is a very problematic assumption.

And this already resembles—Rabbi, Rabbi, one second—this already resembles the question whether the person will choose upward or downward. If he is one of those who struggle, then he will one hundred percent choose upward. One hundred percent he will choose upward because he is one of those who struggle.

[Speaker B] Right?

[Speaker D] Except—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Except that there are only thirty percent of people like that, people who one hundred percent will go upward. But the person who comes before me is a specific person. This specific person—it really is like putting your hand into a container and choosing the ball that I like. And there, if I like black, I will definitely choose black. Not one percent out of a hundred, right?

[Speaker E] What is the factor in the body that makes decisions? I didn’t understand. What is the factor in the body that makes the decision, whether to choose this way or that way?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Not a factor in the body—it’s the soul.

[Speaker E] The soul? The brain? The intellect? The heart?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Not the brain—the soul. The brain is an organ; an organ does not make decisions. Legs do not walk; a person walks by means of his legs. A person walks by means of his legs and thinks by means of his brain. Wait, wait, there’s noise here. What is this?

[Speaker B] Rabbi, Rabbi, if we suppose that a person can climb the mountain on the topographic map, and the mountain is some kind of gentle hill, then indeed we don’t—there is some percentage. But if this mountain keeps getting higher and higher and higher and becomes Everest and doubles Everest, then—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] He has no choice.

[Speaker B] The Rabbi knows that the more it becomes—no, theoretically he can still go up, he still can. If he decides to climb Everest. Physically he can? No, obviously, I’m not arguing that physically he can’t. Physically he can, but it becomes harder and harder. And the Rabbi will agree with me that the more the mountain doubles itself, his choice keeps shrinking and gradually approaches zero at infinity. The same thing here: if we knew everything about the person, his choice would keep shrinking until almost nothing, if anything at all.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] When you talk about “keeps shrinking,” that depends on definition. But if you want to argue that once I know the topographic layout—that’s what you argued before—that if I know the topographic layout in full, then there is no choice. It’s not that it shrinks—there is none. The terrain determines what he will do. That’s not shrinking choice; you’re claiming there is no choice. That’s a deterministic view.

[Speaker B] Right now I’m settling for less.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I say I’m willing to aspire to infinity.

[Speaker B] The Rabbi will agree with me—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] That this aspiration to infinity exists in every—

[Speaker B] Person, in every choice.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] You’re raising a different claim now. I don’t agree with that either, but you’re raising a different claim. You’re saying it shrinks, and I argue no—the choice does not shrink. What shrinks is the likelihood that he will make use of that choice. But again, “likelihood” in the sense I spoke of earlier, in the sense of: if I blindly take one person out of a hundred people, what is the chance that I chose the person who will go up. The chance is one percent. But if now a person comes before me—I didn’t choose him at random—a person comes before me, it could be that this is the person who always goes up. So regarding him, if I ask whether he will go up, then one hundred percent yes, he will go up. It’s just that I don’t know whether he is that person or whether he belongs to the other ninety-nine people. You understand—that’s a very big difference. And here it is not correct to speak in probabilities; that is a mistake.

That is exactly why here we come back and connect to the distinction I made last time: a person who puts his hand into the vessel. A person who puts his hand into the vessel and lifts blindly, and there are ninety-nine red and one black, then most likely he’ll bring up red. A person whose eyes are open and whose preference is either black or red, I don’t know—if he likes black, he will bring out a black ball one hundred percent, even though there is only one black ball out of the hundred. Except that, say, people are divided between black-lovers and red-lovers, and I don’t know who the person before me is, so I don’t know that he likes black. But assuming that a specific person stands before me, then it could be that this specific person is a person who likes black. If he likes black, then there is a one hundred percent chance he will take out black.

[Speaker B] A person comes to me, and I say to him: listen, here are a hundred framed pictures, photographs, and you commit to hanging one of them in your living room this year. There are… you can choose freely whichever picture you want. There are ninety-nine pictures of Hitler, and one picture of Rabbi Kook. Please choose. And he is a Jew who observes Torah and commandments. What is his choice—to choose the picture of Hitler and hang it in the living room and do that?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Wait, wait, wait—

[Speaker B] But I didn’t understand the example. It’s an example of choosing a ball where it isn’t really a choice.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] This is an example of a situation where you know the person’s state—you simply know who is standing in front of you.

[Speaker B] But he has free choice! What is his free choice in practice? He can choose, he can decide, I’m going to insist on hanging Hitler.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] If there’s a person standing in front of you, you don’t know whether he’s a Nazi or a Jew. Okay? You don’t know.

[Speaker B] Ah, so it’s because we just don’t know his psychology.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, no, again. Let’s say that in the world there are ninety percent Jews and ten percent Nazis. Okay? A person comes before you. Now you don’t know whether he’s a Nazi or a person—rather, whether he’s a Nazi or a Jew—but you do know that a Jew will choose Rabbi Kook and a Nazi will choose Hitler. Okay? So you can tell me there’s a ten percent chance he’ll choose Hitler and a ninety percent chance he’ll choose Rabbi Kook. But that’s a statistical statement about a hundred people. If one particular person stands before you—not one you chose at random—if you chose a person at random, then there’s a ten percent chance he belongs to the group that chooses Hitler, and a ninety percent chance he belongs to the group that chooses Rabbi Kook. But if a person is standing before you, then his state is already a given state. You don’t know it, but the state is fixed. So if he’s one of the Nazis, then he will choose Hitler with one hundred percent certainty. Right. It’s only that if you don’t know, then you don’t know—so what? Ten percent that he’ll choose Hitler? Right. So that’s why I’m saying there are two meanings to the statement that there is a certain percentage that a person will behave in a certain way. One meaning says: that same person himself can sometimes act this way and sometimes act that way. That’s one possibility. A second possibility says: no, in a distribution of a hundred people, ninety of them behaved this way, ten of them behaved that way, always. Each one always behaves this way or always behaves that way. Okay? Now I chose one person at random out of the hundred. So if you ask me what the chance is that he’ll go upward, I say thirty percent, because I don’t know who the person before me is. But the truth is that this is a silly statement, because the person before me—if in fact he’s one of those people who go upward—then there is a one hundred percent chance he’ll go upward. The probability is only in the question of who the person before me is. But given the person—in the conditional probability—given that this is the person, what is the chance that he’ll go upward? One hundred. One hundred percent. And therefore this is… you have to understand, this is a very important statement, because probability and statistics have meaning in psychological contexts in the first sense, but not in the second sense, or not necessarily in the second sense. In the first sense…

[Speaker B] Rabbi, in the case of a fixed case, let’s say a Haredi person, religious, careful about every minor as well as major commandment, and he walks into some store and now he doesn’t know which store he walked into and took a piece of meat. Okay? But when he entered, he knew whether the store was kosher or not kosher.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] What’s the chance that he entered the one particular store…

[Speaker B] I’m saying, if I know him—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] —that he’s Jewish, then I know he buys kosher.

[Speaker B] What do you mean?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Exactly! Of course. So what?

[Speaker B] Because he chose to go into the kosher place.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I simply know what he chose—he already chose. Even though he doesn’t… he doesn’t remember, I really don’t remember right now where I went in. No, it doesn’t matter, he doesn’t remember—why is that interesting? If I know he’s Jewish, then I know he chose the path that eats kosher. I simply know what he chose. But that doesn’t mean he didn’t choose—he chose.

[Speaker B] It’s just that I know what he chose. When I don’t know what he chose—I was talking earlier about cases where I don’t know what he chose—then I say: if I don’t know what he chose, then it depends in what sense I’m talking about statistics. Rabbi, beyond that, the difficulty beyond the causality we talked about, that the Rabbi talked about, there’s also the issue that if this person just chose out of the blue, with no… beyond the whole world of values and genetics and influences, then how can you tie that to him at all? In what sense is that “me”? Some phenomenon suddenly appears in nature, some phenomenon of decision—it doesn’t characterize me in any sense, it doesn’t reflect me, because I…

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I understand, but what you’re saying is that a person chooses according to his values—but how did he choose those values?

[Speaker B] No, so that’s… fine, so we’ll go back and see where he acquired them.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Exactly, and keep going backward. How?

[Speaker B] He was born into education… education, genetics, and influences.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] And he believes they’re correct? If it’s education, then he didn’t choose.

[Speaker B] No, what do you mean, if it’s education he didn’t choose? No, we… all the things we believe in, did we really choose them? Of course we did! What, did the Rabbi make a very deep and objective calculation whether to be Christian or Hindu?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, but I chose my path, certainly I did. And my path is not the path in which I was raised. It isn’t?

[Speaker B] I didn’t say it’s one-to-one—that we grew up and became…

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] It happened because I chose.

[Speaker B] But it’s a combination of influences and what we experienced.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Okay, fine, that’s the deterministic view. I claim otherwise. I claim that a person has choice. No, he is not merely the landscape of his birthplace. The landscape of his birthplace influences him, but it does not determine what he will do. That’s a very big difference. And the libertarian view basically says—pay attention—what I actually want to say is that with respect to statistics of human beings, statistics have meaning, even regarding people’s decisions; statistics have meaning. But the statistics have collective meaning. The individual person has a choice what to do. Exactly like the law of large numbers. And here I close the circle. What I wanted to show in this whole discussion is how, in the psychological context—or in the context… not psychological, sorry, psychology describes the framework—in the context beyond psychology, in the context of human decisions, you can make statistical distributions, even though every person has free choice. And in that sense it is exactly like the law of large numbers in random processes, or with a die, which aren’t exactly random processes. Okay? That is basically my claim. In other words, surprisingly—and it really is surprising, I wouldn’t have expected this to happen—it turns out that statistics or probability also work for human behavior, and I want to claim that this does not mean a person lives in a deterministic world. It can be a result like the law of large numbers. The law of large numbers says statistics work, but each individual person has free choice, and I’ll say more than that: precisely because each individual person has free choice, the collective statistics work well according to the law of large numbers. Exactly as with rolling a die: precisely because each roll is done independently and has no dependence on another roll, precisely because of that the law of large numbers works. Therefore I claim that there is an analogy between processes like rolling a die and human behavior. You can do statistics on both things. But with human beings, the statistics describe what will happen when I randomly choose a person from a group. But they do not tell me how the specific person before me will behave. Because the specific person before me is either this kind or that kind. If he is this kind, he’ll do this; if he is that kind, he’ll do that. Or he’ll choose freely—I don’t care—but it’s not statistical. Okay? That is basically my claim. But—

[Speaker E] If there’s seventy percent…

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] What? I can’t hear.

[Speaker E] If there’s a seventy percent chance he’ll do otherwise, maybe that’s because there’s a cause? Meaning, maybe there are things that cause and influence him to be that way?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] That means it’s deterministic, right?

[Speaker E] It doesn’t depend on his choice. He’s supposed to deteriorate seventy percent—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Because there are forces that will act on him. I understand. Maybe, yes. That’s determinism. I don’t agree with determinism, so I’m presenting a libertarian view. I haven’t proven the view; I’m asserting it. I’m presenting it. Someone who claims determinism doesn’t agree with me. Fine, that’s perfectly okay; I don’t agree with him either. How does probability… meaning the choice is whether to be libertarians or determinists, right?

[Speaker E] Yes, but I’m saying that the fact that there’s a seventy percent chance he’ll behave otherwise is because there’s a reason. Meaning, there’s something causing it. It’s not just that there’s seventy percent.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I understand—you’re a determinist. A force is acting. I understand that you’re a determinist, I said that.

[Speaker E] I’m not, I’m just asking.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I’m really asking. So I say, and I answer: no, that’s not true. But not in all people… it’s possible. Right, it’s possible, but I don’t agree. I don’t think it’s correct. It’s possible. It’s not that the deterministic view is impossible. I claim it is not true; I don’t believe in it.

[Speaker D] But doesn’t it depend on what public you’re talking about? What do you mean? I’ll explain very simply. Do you think the Haredi yeshiva public, for example, has freedom of choice?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Of course it does. Okay, and their topographical framework is such that if you do statistics on the public, you’ll see that ninety percent will go in the direction of the herd, because there the slope is very, very steep, and ten percent will go against the herd. And are there Haredim who go against the herd?

[Speaker D] What? But in reality that doesn’t happen.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Of course there are Haredim who go against the herd. What?

[Speaker D] They’re no longer Haredi.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Because they decided not to be Haredi. Exactly. That’s what I’m saying. Everyone who is Haredi is Haredi. I agree with that tautology.

[Speaker D] Yes, but you want to build a model, right?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] It’s like saying there is no religious thief, because if he’s a thief then he’s not religious.

[Speaker D] What? It’s like saying there is no religious thief, because if he’s a thief then he’s not religious. No, no, that’s not what I’m talking about. Not that. In principle, in principle, yes, here, I just related to what’s been happening lately, right?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] And that’s not correct. You’re relating to it incorrectly. Why? Because I’m telling you again: Haredim are characterized by the fact that the plane on which they stand has a very steep slope.

[Speaker D] I think it’s ninety degrees.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Okay, ninety degrees, and they’ll climb upward. So… no, not ninety degrees, eighty degrees, yes? Meaning something almost ninety degrees. So that means that indeed most people choose. What do you mean “most”? But we’re talking about statistics, and I don’t know what eighty percent you’re talking about.

[Speaker D] I’m talking about the other eighty percent.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Thank you very much. In the other eighty percent, there are one hundred percent who are like the other eighty percent.

[Speaker D] But they trail off—no, but they trail off, they just aren’t counted. Here in probability they don’t exist.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Again, they aren’t counted because they decided differently. So obviously, if you tell me that anyone who decides differently is not considered Haredi, then by definition Haredim never decide differently. But that’s just a conceptual trick. It’s an empty game. It’s a tautology. It’s like, exactly as I said earlier, there is no religious thief, because if he’s a thief then he’s not religious. Wonderful. Is that a statement in praise of the religious? No. Because it could be that they have a higher percentage of thieves than secular people. It’s just that anyone who is a thief you don’t define as religious, so everything is excellent. Great statistics you have. But it doesn’t mean anything.

[Speaker D] There are things that are done out of instinct. How do you define that—causal or random?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] So I’ve spoken about this at length; I wrote a book about these things. There are several exceptions to this picture of human choice. For example, if the mountain is so high that physically I can’t climb it, then there is a one hundred percent chance I’ll go downward. I have no choice in that context. Or if, for example, I’m doing something not out of decision at all—I do it absentmindedly—then basically I behave like a little ball, or like water. And again of course I’ll fall downward, just as a little ball or water will fall downward. I’m not claiming that in every situation a person chooses. I’m claiming that there are situations in which a person chooses. And there are also situations in which he doesn’t. An impulse that cannot be overcome is a situation in which the person could not have chosen otherwise. And therefore he is exempt from criminal responsibility. Okay, there are such situations. A libertarian also claims there are such situations. I claim the opposite—in fact I wrote this in an article—that actually the determinist cannot recognize such situations. Because from the determinist’s point of view, all situations are like that.

[Speaker D] Fine, there has to be a cause there.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] How do you exempt from responsibility a person who has an irresistible impulse if you’re a determinist? Everything he did is always the result of an irresistible impulse if you’re a determinist. So what is this? How is the situation defined in which a person has no criminal responsibility? You can’t define it. In a deterministic world, you have to erase that category from the law books.

[Speaker B] Why? Why? That’s how it is.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Because every action you perform is an irresistible impulse. No, but—

[Speaker B] We want to educate you; we want to prevent the next incident. One hundred percent.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Then educate him even if he had an irresistible impulse; put him in prison so that next time he won’t have such an impulse. No, but—

[Speaker B] We’re talking about someone who won’t be affected by those things. If he would be affected, then we really would punish him.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] He’ll be affected in the future, but here he had no choice not to commit the crime. Do you punish him or not? Yes. But in the accepted legal conception, no—he is exempt from punishment. Maybe we’ll hospitalize him, send him for treatment.

[Speaker B] But I’m not punishing him—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] —as revenge.

[Speaker B] I’m not punishing him as revenge. I’m punishing him so that society can function.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] In criminal law they don’t punish him. They don’t punish him. You’ll punish him when you become the legislator, but in criminal law they don’t punish him. Period.

[Speaker F] They don’t punish him, no—

[Speaker B] They don’t punish him in the case of an irresistible impulse because that’s not the case that will undermine the…

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Of course it is. What do you mean? If you punish him, then next time a controllable impulse in him—or in others—won’t arise, or will arise less. What’s the problem? You’re correcting him. For a determinist, the role of punishment is to correct the person. That’s all. So why should I care how guilty he is and whether it was a controllable or uncontrollable impulse? Correct him.

[Speaker B] If it really will correct him, then I certainly do it.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, that’s… I’m telling you it isn’t so. In law, in the accepted legal approach, it’s not like that. You think differently, fine. But in the accepted legal approach, including many determinists I’ve spoken with, they claim that an irresistible impulse exempts you from responsibility.

[Speaker F] On the face of it, an irresistible impulse by definition is also one where fear of prison wouldn’t stop him. If fear of prison would stop him, then morality—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] —was supposed to stop him beforehand. If he had fear of prison, then the impulse wouldn’t arise. Again, it’s all deterministic, after all. But the impulse arises because there are certain causes. After you punish him, you change the circumstances, and there’s a chance the impulse won’t arise.

[Speaker D] But that’s insanity there.

[Speaker F] On the face of it, if it’s an impulse that wouldn’t have arisen had he feared prison, then would they even put him in prison at all?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Not true. Not true. No, an irresistible impulse… that’s true if you’re a libertarian. But if you’re a determinist, then all situations are like that.

[Speaker D] What, for determinists everything is insanity?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Of course. What is insanity? There’s no such thing as insanity. Whatever his brain is built like, that’s what he does. Call it sane, insane—it’s not interesting. However his brain is built, that’s what he does.

[Speaker D] No, that’s a legal definition. It’s a legal definition, not mine.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Again, but for a determinist…

[Speaker F] I think there’s a very clear coherence here. No one is trying to do justice or poetic justice or whatever. They’re trying to prevent the next disaster. If the impulse is what’s called a controllable impulse, an irresistible impulse, although…

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] You’re presenting a consistent deterministic view. The sophisticated determinists will answer this way. But I’m asking about the accepted legal conception. In the accepted legal conception, they don’t punish a person if he is not guilty, if he was seized by an irresistible impulse. Not because it won’t correct him, but because he is not responsible for his actions; he doesn’t deserve a sanction. I claim that this view is not consistent, or not compatible, with determinism. That’s all.

[Speaker F] That’s true, that’s true, but in the end it’s a matter of semantics, because in the end you can still behave with the same practice.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, it’s not semantics. When there is an irresistible impulse, there are many times a situation that will be defined as an irresistible impulse because you’re not guilty and they won’t punish him, but the punishment actually could have helped. And still they won’t punish him because he doesn’t deserve punishment. Understand that in a place where you impose punishment in order for it to help, you still need the punishment to be deserved. After all, if I kill all human beings, no one will murder me, right? So the punishment is very effective—I’ll kill everyone. Why don’t I do that? Because they don’t deserve to die, even though the punishment would help. In other words, in the theory of punishment it isn’t enough that the punishment will help improve the future; there also has to be a justification for imposing the punishment, that the person be guilty. Otherwise you are harming one person in order to benefit another person. What justification is there for doing that? “Why do you think your blood is redder than his?”

[Speaker F] Because in the end they’re trying to find some sort of balance. By the way, if the reality is that an irresistible impulse is considered such even if fear of arrest wouldn’t have stopped it, then indeed it’s not fully coherent. But if they are trying to go by that definition, then that’s the situation.

[Speaker B] De facto that’s the situation.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] There’s a lot of logic in that. And as I said, even a determinist won’t say that we should kill all human beings so they won’t kill me.

[Speaker F] Because in the end, no—the determinist will say that not because he has a problem with not imprisoning an innocent person, but because in the end he’s trying to find the balance, the right point.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Guilty of what, and why? After all, it helps—so why not do it?

[Speaker F] Right, but in the end it’s immoral, I don’t understand.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Rabbi, beyond the justifications—

[Speaker F] It’s immoral.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Exactly. Even in his world there is dependence on justifications, not only on utility. And I’m talking about the question of justification. Why is it not justified to punish for an irresistible impulse? And why is another impulse justified for punishment? There is no such thing as justified and unjustified in a deterministic world.

[Speaker B] Again, Rabbi, if we’re talking—

[Speaker F] about punishment that really won’t help—and let’s assume in wartime situations they’ll do profiling, and even the determinist will agree that you need to arrest, expel, or I don’t know what, impose a siege even on people who are definitely innocent.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Again I say: all the determinists I know do not punish even if it helps, so long as there is no justification. And I’m asking: how can there be justification in the determinist’s world? There can’t be. That’s it.

[Speaker F] Yes, I understand that they really are mistaken. But could there not be a deterministic approach—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] —that is coherent and would work with reward and punishment? Yes, there could be. I’ve already proposed a coherent deterministic approach, I told you. Yes, definitely.

[Speaker E] Yes, but the legal system also doesn’t really fit the opinion held by the libertarians, those who advocate choice, because for example, what happens in a case of lack of knowledge? Ignorance of the law does not exempt from punishment.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Not related. That’s only where there is negligence. Of course it does. Completely compatible with libertarianism. By the way, even determinists agree with that. I don’t understand—what about ignorance of the law? Everyone understands that the legal system assumes libertarianism. All the determinists admit that. They only claim that it’s inconsistent, that it’s not okay.

[Speaker E] I couldn’t understand about ignorance of the law not exempting from punishment.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Only where you are guilty of not knowing—like an unintentional violation in Jewish law.

[Speaker E] I didn’t know the law.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] You didn’t know, but you could have known.

[Speaker E] I could have known? Go through the whole law book? There’s no one who knows the whole law book.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] What is this? Not related. You don’t know the whole law book—fine, responsibility. Or read the whole law book.

[Speaker E] So that means they punish a person even though he isn’t guilty? What?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Not true, he is guilty. You are responsible for what happened here because you didn’t read the whole law book. You took a risk. You didn’t want to spend the time reading the whole law book, you took a risk. Very well—bear the consequences.

[Speaker E] But there is no—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] —person who knows the whole law book. He doesn’t need to know the whole law book. He needs to take risks in a calculated way. In a place where I don’t know the law, I’ll ask a lawyer, and he’ll tell me what the law is. You don’t need to study law for that. You didn’t check? You absorbed the consequence. But if you couldn’t check, couldn’t have known—the law was passed yesterday and you only woke up now. Okay? You couldn’t have known, then no, you won’t be punished. Okay, friends, we’ll finish here. Good night.

[Speaker E] I’d like to say mazal tov, if possible, one more thing.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Thank you very much, yes, it’s always possible. With pleasure. What happened? Thank you very much. What?

[Speaker D] My daughter got engaged. Mazal tov, with pleasure, mazal tov. Thank you, thank you.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] She—

[Speaker E] —got engaged—

[Speaker D] yesterday.

[Speaker E] Mazal tov. Thank you very much.