Free Will and Choice – Lesson 18

Table of Contents

• Legal implications of determinism and libertarianism
• The plan for the summaries and the appendix on determinism and Judaism
• The six points of physicalist determinism according to Michael Gazzaniga and the critique
• The logical gap and the libertarian possibility that the will affects physics in the brain
• Occam’s razor, a “world of shadows,” and the burden of proof
• Inner observation, Schopenhauer, Descartes, and the preference for the mental as the foundation
• Rules of decision: “the burden of proof rests on the claimant,” lex specialis, and the Chazon Ish
• Questions from the audience: burden of persuasion, the need for physical analysis, and the status of intuition
• Statistics of positions in science and philosophy, and the distinction between creators and researchers
• How to relate to the majority view, and concluding the lecture toward the religious aspects

Summary

General overview

The speaker argues that the debate between determinism and libertarianism mainly affects the question of exemption from criminal responsibility, not the very possibility of punishment itself. The reason is that if punishment is justified as a mechanism of correction and deterrence rather than as payback for “wickedness,” then even someone acting from an irresistible impulse should fall under the same corrective logic. He then moves to summarize a long line of argument and presents a personal way of deciding between the positions through logical analysis, “legal” principles of decision, and the weight of intuition and inner observation of free choice as against the determinist thesis, which tends to define basic human experiences as illusions. He says that in the next sessions he will move on to the appendix about the relationship between determinism and Judaism, and the religious implications of the topic.

Legal implications of determinism and libertarianism

The speaker states that determinists can justify judgment and punishment as mechanical tools of correction and deterrence, in which the punishment itself or the threat of punishment creates a future barrier that prevents sin without assuming any free “reconsideration.” He argues that the important practical difference is דווקא the question of why the legal system exempts people because of lack of culpability when they acted under an impulse they could not overcome, because in a deterministic world the whole language of guilt and exemption has no meaning if punishment is aimed at correcting the brain. He distinguishes between “external compulsion” in a case of coercion under gunpoint, where there is no brain problem to correct but rather a need to prevent the threat in the future, and “internal compulsion” stemming from impulses or psychosis, where he sees justification for correction similar to that of a “normal” criminal.

The plan for the summaries and the appendix on determinism and Judaism

The speaker announces that he is entering the summary stage of a line of thought that has gone on for months and has two parts: a general summary leading to a decision whether or not to accept determinism, followed by an appendix on the relationship between determinism and Judaism and whether a religious person can be a determinist. He adds that after that he will get to several religious remarks about determinism, and he ends the lecture by saying that the philosophical-scientific discussion “ends” here and that from this point on he will deal with the religious implications.

The six points of physicalist determinism according to Michael Gazzaniga and the critique

The speaker presents Michael Gazzaniga’s summary of physicalist determinism: the brain is a necessary and sufficient condition for the mental, the brain is a wholly physical entity with no spiritual component, the physical world is fixed and has no “degrees of freedom,” therefore the brain is determined deterministically, and from that it follows that the mental is also determined deterministically, and therefore the experience of free will is an illusion. He presents Gazzaniga’s reply, according to which assumptions 1–2 are agreed upon, but assumption 3 is disputed because of quantum theory, chaos, and emergence, and therefore the deterministic conclusions collapse. He disagrees with Gazzaniga and argues that chaos is still a deterministic framework with only a computational difficulty, that quantum theory offers indeterminism of “randomness” rather than free choice, and that strong emergence lacks any indication and in effect amounts to giving up physicalism.

The logical gap and the libertarian possibility that the will affects physics in the brain

The speaker argues that one can accept assumptions 1–3 and still reject the conclusion that the brain is determined deterministically, because a libertarian view allows for the will to influence the motion of electrons in the brain without any physical force acting—in other words, an influence of the psychic on the physical. He defines “the mental” as sensations, judgment, and mental processes, and excludes the will as something that is not acted upon by the brain but rather acts upon it. He says that telekinesis is in principle possible, but he has no reason to assume that it actually happens without evidence, and he acknowledges that the assumption of mental intervention in physics is highly controversial.

Occam’s razor, a “world of shadows,” and the burden of proof

The speaker argues that Occam’s razor decides only when two theories are equally good at explaining the facts, and he rejects the claim that determinism and libertarianism are equivalent in that sense. He presents determinism as a thesis that requires a very broad “list of illusions,” to the point of describing reality as a kind of matrix in which judgment, choice, morality, condemnation, and deliberation are all illusions, and he argues that the intellectual price of simplicity just doesn’t make sense. He states that whoever claims that the basic intuition of free choice is an illusion bears the burden of proof, and he argues that there is no decisive evidence for determinism—not from neuroscience, not from physical causality, and not from philosophical arguments—whereas the determinist again and again falls back on the answer: “it’s an illusion.”

Inner observation, Schopenhauer, Descartes, and the preference for the mental as the foundation

The speaker compares outward scientific observation with inward observation, and argues that recognition of free choice rests on inward observation with the same degree of validity. He cites Schopenhauer on Kant, noumena and phenomena, and argues that the human being is the only thing perceived “from within,” and therefore it is hard to claim illusion there, because there is no gap between the observer and the object. He uses the principle “I think, therefore I am,” and argues that it proves first of all the existence of the thinking subject, not its physical embodiment, and he concludes that the mental is more basic than the physical because through it we perceive the external world. He argues that deterministic physicalism “saws off the branch it is sitting on,” because if everything is illusion, then trust in reason and science—as part of the cognitive process itself—is also undermined.

Rules of decision: “the burden of proof rests on the claimant,” lex specialis, and the Chazon Ish

The speaker uses legal concepts as a model for deciding between determinism and libertarianism, and states that the burden of proof lies on the determinist, and if he brings no evidence, he loses the decision. He adds the principle of lex specialis, according to which a specific norm overrides a general norm, and illustrates this with the tension between “You shall not murder” and “those who desecrate it shall surely be put to death,” so that the specific limits the general without erasing it. He applies this to the tension between the general principle of causality and the specific human intuition of choice, and argues that giving preference to choice limits causality only in the domain of choices and preserves both principles. He cites the Chazon Ish on a situation in which an implausible claim can shift the burden of proof even when the other side is the claimant, and applies this to the deterministic claim, which piles up many illusions and is therefore a shaky claim that requires evidence.

Questions from the audience: burden of persuasion, the need for physical analysis, and the status of intuition

One participant argues that the difficulty of explaining how a non-physical will affects the physical shifts the burden of bringing proof onto the libertarian, and the speaker replies that the view of free choice rests on inner observation and that evidence must be brought in order to overturn it. Another participant accepts the priority of inner intuition and asks why all the physical analysis is needed at all, and the speaker replies that the existence of the mental does not prove free choice, and that one can be a deterministic dualist as well. He adds that intellectual honesty requires being willing to give up one’s starting points if evidence is presented against them, and therefore one must make sure there is no “proof that I’m wrong.” He explains that the role of the thought experiments at the end of the discussion is to clarify intuition after science and philosophy have failed to decide the matter in any overwhelming way.

Statistics of positions in science and philosophy, and the distinction between creators and researchers

The speaker says that, in his impression, among brain researchers there is a large majority of determinists, but he argues that brain researchers have no added value on this issue because it is a philosophical question. He refuses to characterize “percentages” among philosophers because it is hard to define who counts as a philosopher, and he distinguishes between philosophers and professors / researchers of philosophy, similar to the distinction between writers and researchers of literature. He expands on this with an example from Jewish law and scholarship through a debate about conversion involving Avi Sagi and Zvi Zohar, and presents the difference between documenting positions as a researcher and participating normatively in the discussion as a person of Jewish law, including the claim that some things are simply “a mistake” and not a “halakhic position.”

How to relate to the majority view, and concluding the lecture toward the religious aspects

The speaker says that the fact that many people, and wise people, disagree with him pushes him to think harder, but once he has reached a conclusion he does not decide by majority vote. He brings an anecdote about Rabbi Yonatan Eybeschutz in connection with the phrase “follow the majority,” and a piece of meat with a seal on it, in order to distinguish between a situation of doubt and one in which there is no doubt. He makes clear that he does not dismiss those who disagree and that he is open to being mistaken, but as long as they have not proven otherwise, this remains his conclusion. He ends by saying that the appendix on the religious aspects of the topic will begin next time, and that up to this point the discussion has been the philosophical-scientific line of argument, which does not depend on Jewish law, Torah, religion, or faith / belief.

Last time I spoke about the implications of the libertarian view in court. I tried to show that, first of all, the implications are not all that trivial, but they do exist, and they actually show up in directions opposite to what we would expect. In other words, I said that people think that if you’re a determinist, then there’s no justification for judging people, punishing people, because they were compelled to do what they did. But I explained that determinists do have justifications for why we nevertheless judge people, punish people for their actions, in order to correct them in some kind of mechanical sense. The punishment, or the threat of punishment itself, basically creates deterrence so that you won’t come to sin, and all this is done deterministically—not so that you’ll reconsider in your mind, but because it itself creates some barrier that will interfere with your sinning in the future. The practical difference actually goes in the opposite direction: not how it is possible to judge criminals and punish them, but rather why we exempt criminals when they are not guilty. In my view, that is the more significant implication of the debate, because when a person acts under an impulse he cannot overcome, then in the legal world it is usually accepted to exempt him from criminal responsibility. You can place him under observation, give him treatment, protect society so that he won’t cause harm, but he does not deserve punishment; a sanction is not due to him because he was not responsible for his actions, he is not guilty. And about that I said that precisely here, I think the determinist falls apart, because that exemption is not justified in a deterministic world. If the purpose of punishment is not a sanction that someone deserves because he is wicked, so-called—there are no wicked people, there are people who have this kind of brain and people who have another kind of brain—but rather the justification for punishment is to correct the brain so that he won’t sin next time, then what difference does it make if this was under an irresistible impulse? You need to fix his brain so that those impulses won’t appear in the future. And therefore this whole discourse of guilt and exemption from guilt and punishment and things of that kind has no meaning; it’s simply not relevant at all. By punishment I don’t mean external punishment. Let’s say external punishment can indeed involve an exemption—that is, if someone threatened me with a gun and as a result I committed a crime, then here even the determinist, I understand, can exempt me, because basically I don’t have a brain problem that needs fixing. I acted under threat of a gun, so all that needs to be done is to make sure no one threatens me with a gun in the future, but there’s nothing to fix in me. But if I’m talking about internal punishment, like an irresistible impulse or some sudden temporary psychosis, then in such situations it’s just part of my brain structure, and there is no less justification for punishing—correcting—such a person than there is for a normative person who committed a crime. Therefore, in my view, the implication of the debate is not in the question of how to punish offenders, but the opposite: how to exempt people who are not offenders—that is, how to exempt people who are not guilty. In my view, that is the more significant implication of the debate. Okay, now I want to move to the summary stage of this whole process that we’ve been at for many months already. In the first stage I’m going to do two summaries. The first summary is to look broadly at the road we’ve gone through and see what conclusion it brings us to. Is there determinism, is there not determinism, what conclusion are we actually supposed to draw from everything we’ve seen? And the second summary will deal—not really a summary, more like a second appendix, let’s call it—with the relation between determinism and Judaism. In other words, can a person be committed to Judaism, a religious person let’s call him, and at the same time be a determinist? And afterward I’ll get to a few religious remarks about determinism in general. That’s more or less what lies before us. I’ll begin with the decision, or how one decides, each person for himself, whether I am a determinist or not. First of all, I’ll share the file with you. I brought here a summary by one of the well-known brain researchers, Michael Gazzaniga, who basically summarizes the physicalist deterministic view in the following way. By the way, he summarizes it in order to challenge it—he’s another one of those who apparently… His summary works like this. There are basically six claims in the physicalist deterministic doctrine. The brain, first assumption, constitutes a necessary and sufficient condition for the mental. In other words, everything that happens to us on the mental plane is grounded in neural processes in the brain: moods, tendencies, talents, decisions—everything is basically the result of neural processes in the brain. Second assumption: the brain itself is a completely physical entity. There is no vital component in the brain—forget vital, vital can be tied to biology—but no spiritual component. Rather, everything is physics; the brain is completely physical. Assumption three: the physical world is fixed. There are no degrees of freedom there, meaning that in the physical world, if a given state is defined in a certain way, from that point onward you can know everything that will happen, in principle. It may be that you can’t calculate it, but in principle you can know everything that will happen. That is assumption three. Four is already a conclusion, meaning the first three are assumptions; four is already a conclusion. The brain itself is basically determined deterministically. Why? Because the brain is a physical entity, and the physical world is determined in a deterministic way. Conclusion: the brain is determined in a deterministic way. Five: according to assumption one, that the brain is a necessary and sufficient condition for the mental, and conclusion four, that the brain is determined with no gaps, as it were, deterministically, the conclusion is that the mental too is determined with no gaps. In other words, what we decide, what values we uphold, and so on, that too is determined in a deterministic way. And conclusion six, based on five of course, is that our experience, our consciousness of free will, is an illusion, because in fact everything is determined in a deterministic way. That is basically a summary of the picture of physicalist determinism. Now, when Gazzaniga wants to contend with this claim and show why there is in fact room to speak about free choice and all our spiritual dimensions, he basically says that assumptions one and two are completely agreed upon among researchers: that the brain is a necessary and sufficient condition for the mental, and that the brain is a completely physical entity. That, he says, is completely agreed upon among researchers. There’s no dispute about that. Claim three, he says, is subject to serious dispute, because there are quanta and chaos and emergence and all those things, and therefore claim four—that the brain is determined without gaps—is not true, and consequently neither five nor six is true. That is basically his argument. Now I’ll sharpen the difficulty and say that I disagree with him, and I do accept claim three. He finds the bug in this argument in claim three—that the physical world is fixed, that there are no gaps in it. He says: there are quanta, chaos, emergence, etc. We’ve already seen all these things, but precisely what we saw is that all these things don’t touch the discussion. This is not even a philosophical problem; it’s almost a problem in understanding physics. That’s actually a bit more surprising coming from someone like him. But my claim is that chaos is a completely deterministic framework; the calculation is just very complex, and therefore we can’t perform it. In order to know what will happen after n units of time, you need e to the power of n computational time. In other words, you need exponential computational time, or even more than exponential. And because that’s so, it’s basically impossible to make predictions about the future, but as I said there, it’s impossible to make predictions because of a technical problem. In principle, however, the future is fixed deterministically. So chaos is irrelevant here. I explained that quanta also don’t touch the issue, because in quantum theory the alternative to determinism is indeterminism. In other words, what happens there is randomness, but randomness is also not free choice. Therefore quantum theory does not allow free choice any more than the classical deterministic picture of the world. Since free choice—I explained this at the beginning of the whole discussion—is a third mechanism: it is not determinism and it is not indeterminism. Indeterminism means some kind of lottery, arbitrary decisions. In free choice, we understand that our actions are the result of deliberation, and therefore we have responsibility for them; it’s not some lottery that happens to us, some arbitrary thing that just happens by itself. So quantum theory too is irrelevant. And regarding emergence, I explained that there is strong emergence and weak emergence, and strong emergence has no indication whatsoever, so all that does is simply say that we have free choice. Or in other words, it simply shoots the physicalist assumption in the foot. Therefore, in all three of these areas, or these three places where one might have thought there was a gap in the physical world, there is no gap—or at least no relevant gap. In quantum theory there is a gap, but an indeterministic gap and not a gap of choice. And regarding the tiny scales and all that, I explained in several ways why that doesn’t concern us. So basically assumption three is also correct. So it comes out that basically everything is correct. So where is the problem after all? In other words, Gazzaniga is mistaken. This whole structure is made up of correct assumptions. It’s a wonderful logical exercise. After all, they present you with a valid argument that leads to a conclusion. You don’t agree with the conclusion, but the whole argument remains valid. Anyone who challenges it, I think, is mistaken. So what is going on here after all? There is some more fundamental bug here. It seems to me that the point is either in assumption one or in assumption zero—or let’s say maybe in assumption, you know what, in assumption three you can look at it this way. What do I mean? After all, I explained that the libertarian worldview also says that our brain processes, or our neural processes, determine mental events. But our will has the ability to move electrons according to the libertarian view. In other words, there can be electrons in the brain that move without a physical force acting on them, but rather because I wanted or decided to do something, or think something, or something like that. And then that means one of two things: either the brain is not a necessary and sufficient condition for the mental—and here I tend to think that’s not true, it is a necessary and sufficient condition for the mental. I only claim that the electrons in the brain—the brain itself is indeed a completely physical entity, that too is true—and yet conclusion four, that the physical world is fixed, is a little questionable. It is a little questionable not because there are gaps in physics, but because the libertarian assumption says that the will can move electrons, can intervene in physics. And therefore to say that there are no gaps in the physical world is true in general, but not in the context of the brain. And therefore assumption four, that the brain is determined… I would say that I deny conclusion four. Even though the first three assumptions are true in principle, conclusion four, which seemingly follows from them through valid logic, I think is not true. The brain is a physical entity, the physical world is fixed, because in physics itself there are no gaps, but that does not mean that there cannot be an influence of the psychic on the physical, or of the spiritual on the physical. And therefore it is incorrect to infer from here that the brain is determined deterministically by physical data. There are electrons in the brain that will move without a force acting on them, even though the brain is a completely physical object, and even though there are no gaps in the laws of physics. In other words, I accept assumptions one, two, and three. It’s an interesting exercise on the logical level, because many times when a logically valid argument is presented to us, it has enormous persuasive power. There’s a kind of spell that the logical argument casts over us. And many times we don’t notice that between the layers there is some additional assumption here, or some certain gap, or some leap between the assumptions and the conclusion. And I think there is such a leap here. I can accept the first three assumptions and not accept conclusion four. Rabbi, then what is the mental? If the mental is according to the Rabbi’s definition, then it’s basically free choice. Meaning, there’s something that activates me? No, it’s just a definition. When I speak here about the mental, I mean our feelings, our judgment, and all kinds of things of that sort. In other words, the spiritual, inner processes that occur within us—except for the will. In other words, my will is not something that acts on the brain, nor is it acted upon by the brain. According to this approach, is the brain the only physical creature that can be influenced mentally, or could there be additional bodies too? What’s called telekinesis? In principle, it could be, but I have no reason to assume that it happens. But it could be. If you bring evidence, then fine. As part of the libertarian worldview, I have to assume that about the brain here. There has been a lot of criticism about this, all those things are very, very disputed. I’m not sure how much substance there is there, but I don’t know, I haven’t examined it deeply, and in principle it could be, I… I can’t deny it. Sorry, but the will… the will itself is not a physical force, right? Right. So how does a non-physical force nevertheless activate physical elements? That supposedly contradicts the whole… You’re jumping to the proof stage here. No, you… wait, who has the burden of proof? We’ll see in a moment. Right now I have presented the opposing thesis to Gazzaniga’s thesis of six points. Yes, but it isn’t reasoned. This bit that the will can move… I haven’t gotten there yet. I haven’t gotten there yet. I’ll get there. Right now I’m just setting the two options side by side. Okay, just as Gazzaniga hasn’t proved anything—meaning nobody has proved anything. I’m simply presenting two options here, and afterward we’ll have to ask ourselves: okay, how do we decide, how do we choose which of them I believe in or uphold? I’m only saying that the structure he presented here is not a valid structure. I can accept one through three and disagree with four. Whether to disagree or not disagree with four—that may require arguments in its own right. But first of all, I can. In that sense, this argument does not compel determinism. That’s what I wanted to claim here. Okay, there’s another question here—not only how the will can influence, but who says there is anything external at all that is the will? Same thing. Okay, same thing. As if you could say… You could say that there’s an influence of aliens here. Yes, right, you know, his arguments are based on the minimum components he needs in order to explain. You add will, desires, aliens. So let’s indeed see—that joins the previous question, you’re right. There are two questions: who says there is a will, and who says—and how—the will can influence a brain that is a physical creature? So look, here we really get into the question of how we decide between these two possibilities. And here I want to make the following claim. On the one hand, as you said, there is simplicity. I have to introduce another element into the picture that he doesn’t introduce. Occam’s razor would seemingly give him the advantage. On the other hand, Occam’s razor is a principle that helps me choose between two theories that both explain all the facts and both seem equally reasonable. When I have two such theories, then I can decide which is simpler and choose accordingly. But the question is whether these two theories are really equivalent. I want to claim that they are not. For example, maybe I’ll give an example. Suppose I have a theory in which there is an electromagnetic field, okay? The theory of electromagnetism. There’s an electric field and a magnetic field and so on. And then someone comes and says, wait a second—why assume there are two fields? Maybe there is only one, only an electric field, and there is no magnetic field. That is much simpler. True, it’s simpler, but it does not stand the test of the facts. In other words, simplicity is not an independent criterion. Simplicity is a criterion after I already have two theories before me that both explain everything, or both are equally plausible. Then I say: fine, if this one is simpler, I’ll choose it. But between two theories where one is preferable to the other, the fact that the preferable one is less simple does not mean I won’t accept it. Yes, it’s like I once saw someone arguing against Occam’s razor. He said: after all, quantum theory is the last thing in the world, and relativity theory too, that one can call simple theories. So in fact Newtonian mechanics should be preferable. Why do I choose quantum theory, modern physics? The answer is simple: because it’s true. As Michio Kaku said—the Japanese physicist who wrote all kinds of popular books—he says quantum theory is a very problematic theory, full of defects, unconvincing, complicated; it has only one small advantage: it works, it’s true. In other words, that’s exactly what I’m saying here: Occam’s razor, or the principle of simplicity, comes in only when I’m facing an evenly balanced dilemma. I have two possibilities, each one sounds plausible to me, explains all the facts, and now the question is which is simpler. I claim we are not in a balanced situation, and that is the important point. Why? Because libertarianism actually gives an explanation for many, many things that a determinist cannot explain. Again, he can explain them with all kinds of ad hoc claims about illusions and so on. The list of illusions that the determinist, or the list of things that the determinist classifies as illusions, is insane. In other words, almost everything we feel on earth, the determinist will tell us, is an illusion. It is an illusion that we judge, it is an illusion that we choose, it is an illusion that there really is a person who has an irresistible impulse, it is an illusion that there is morality, it is an illusion that we condemn people. And I’ve mentioned only a few illusions out of many dozens. From the determinist’s point of view, we live in a world that is the Matrix, a world of shadows. In the end, we live in a world that we imagine to ourselves, and it is entirely an illusion from A to Z. We are basically an automatic machine that behaves with no connection, and all our feelings and decisions and hesitations and morality and condemnation and arguments and all that—everything is nonsense, it’s all illusions. Now, to say that this is a theory equivalent to a theory that says all these are real things, that what I feel really is there—that’s like saying: why assume the existence of an external world? The fact that I see it, hear it, touch it, taste it, and so on—so what? It could be that all of that is an illusion. So what is simpler? Why not add only the existence of my consciousness and not the existence of the external world? You can assume only my consciousness without assuming the external world—a much simpler theory. Why, I assume, do most of us not adopt it even though it is simpler? Because it doesn’t make sense. It doesn’t make sense that all these things are around me, that I perceive them, recognize them, experience them, and then I’ll say that all of them are illusions, they don’t exist. So true, that yields a result that is supposedly simpler, with fewer entities, okay? That is the original razor of Occam: as few entities as possible is the criterion for simplicity. But it doesn’t make sense. And I am paying a very heavy intellectual price for that simplicity, and that simplicity is not worth the intellectual price. And I think the same thing is happening here. We have a basic feeling that we have free choice. I think everyone has that feeling. And people try to convince us that this feeling is an illusion. I claim that someone who wants to convince me that one of my basic intuitions is an illusion—the burden of proof is on him, not on me. Now if he brings evidence, then I must be honest and accept the evidence. But who has to bring the evidence? The burden of proof is on him. And now we can try and check whether he has met that burden, whether he has really brought evidence. And my claim is that he has not. Because the evidence in favor of physicalist determinism, as we saw all along the way, does not exist. Not neuroscience experiments, not physical causality, not philosophical arguments—not in any component, not philosophy, not science, not the gaps in science, and in the very end, not personal diagnostics either, not the thought experiments we did at the end of the process. None of them really gives evidence in the deterministic direction—quite the opposite. There are, in my opinion, very good arguments in favor of libertarianism, while the determinist always answers them by saying: that’s an illusion. That is the excuse he will always give. In other words, in the end he has to present a world of shadows around us that is simply manipulating us. We do all kinds of things because we are compelled, because it’s mechanical, because everything is blind calculation, and all our surrounding feelings and all our perceptions are all illusions. So I think with equal force one could say that the existence of an external world is an illusion too—no less, even more reasonably perhaps. Because who says there really is one? Schopenhauer once said, looking at this, that Kant distinguished between the thing in itself and the thing as I perceive it: the noumenon and the phenomenon. And Schopenhauer said that there is one thing in the world regarding which I have a grasp of the thing itself, not merely of how it appears to my eyes—and that is myself. Someone here mentioned “I think, therefore I am”; this connects to that. Schopenhauer basically claimed that when I look at myself, I look at myself from the inside. When I look at the table, I perceive it from the outside, or the wall, or anything around me, or all of you. I perceive you from the outside. So I understand how you appear to me, but I cannot know what you are in yourselves, because I have no inward look at you; I look at you from the outside. The only thing I can look at from the inside is myself. And therefore the claim is that when I perceive myself, don’t tell me I have illusions, because I perceive myself from the inside. Illusions always happen when the external appearance does not reflect what stands behind it. But here I am not perceiving from the outside. To tell me this is an illusion is basically to tell me that even about myself I am looking from the outside—and not only from the outside, but I am also missing it. Now who? I miss myself? I look at myself from within? So who is confusing me? In other words, who stands between me and the object at which I am looking? After all, I and the object at which I am looking are the same object. Nothing can come between them. If there is something of which I am certain, it is this. And all the deterministic arguments, including the scientific ones and everything else, are in my eyes less certain than this statement. If anything, I would sooner doubt all the science on earth, because science is something I grasp by means of observing the world, and in the world I look from the outside. And maybe I’m mistaken—maybe I’ve been confused? After all, if everything is an illusion, then the scientific perception too is part of that same illusion. I too arrive at it through my judgment and my mind. Who says it’s true? The deterministic and physicalist outlook saws off the branch on which it itself sits. So that too is an argument against it. But beyond that, I’m saying, first of all—even before the arguments against it—it is the one that has to bring evidence if it wants to come out ahead in this debate, and it has no evidence. Not only does it not have evidence—there is evidence against it. And therefore I think that in legal language, as you know, “the claimant bears the burden of proof.” As rules of decision in law and in Jewish law, they have two functions. One function belongs to procedure. Procedure basically says who has to open the discussion, bring evidence. That is usually the plaintiff. “The claimant bears the burden of proof.” But these rules of decision also have another meaning: assuming the evidence was not brought. Fine, so the procedural rules are over, the trial is over. Now you have to decide. These rules—“the claimant bears the burden of proof”—also take part in the decision itself, not only in determining who speaks first in court. Because if the burden of proof was on you and you did not bring evidence, that means you lose the case. In other words, the decision rules do not only say that you need to bring evidence; they do not only say that you are the one who has to speak first. They also say that if you didn’t speak—that is, if you didn’t bring evidence—you lost the discussion; the ruling goes against you. And in that sense I am saying that it is enough for me to say that the burden of proof is on the determinist, and that he has not carried it—that is, he has not brought the evidence—in order basically to say: okay, then the required conclusion is the libertarian one. I’ll say more than that. I mentioned this in the past too: the principle of lex specialis, another legal principle. We are dealing here with a decision between two things. In the book I presented this as a legal discussion. There is a prosecutor and a defense attorney, and the question is what the judge will decide. So I’m just summarizing it here. My claim is that there is another legal rule of decision, beyond “the claimant bears the burden of proof,” and that is lex specialis. Lex specialis means that when two principles clash, the more specific principle overrides the broader one. I already mentioned this. And my claim is that what stands on both sides of the divide in this debate is, on the one hand, the principle of causality—that everything must have a cause—which is basically determinism, and on the other hand the feeling that we have free will. Right? If we want to distill the focal point of the conflict, of the dilemma, then it is causality versus the intuition of free will. Now, assuming these two views, these two claims, both seem very reasonable to me, and I accept them both, what am I supposed to do here? Our cousins the lawyers tell us that one should prefer the specific principle. Now the question is: which is the specific principle here? I’ll give an example. For instance, there is a prohibition in the Torah against murder, but someone who desecrates the Sabbath with witnesses and warning is liable to death. Now I am in a dilemma: should I kill him or not? On the one hand there is the prohibition “You shall not murder,” and on the other hand there is the obligation to stone the Sabbath desecrator when he did so intentionally, with witnesses and warning. What do we do? The principle is that the obligation to kill the Sabbath desecrator is the specific obligation. “You shall not murder” is a general principle. Therefore the specific norm should be preferred over the general norm, and one should kill the Sabbath desecrator. You can explain it this way: suppose I preferred the general norm and I said that “You shall not murder” takes precedence, and therefore I will not kill him. In that case, the verse that says “Those who desecrate it shall surely be put to death” could be deleted from the Torah scroll. How could it ever be applied? Every time I come to apply it, it would involve the prohibition “You shall not murder.” On the other hand, if I prefer the specific principle—that is, if I prefer the obligation to kill the Sabbath desecrator—I do not erase the verse “You shall not murder” from the Torah. The verse “You shall not murder” remains. In all other contexts, apart from someone who desecrated the Sabbath. In other words, that option leaves both principles in force, and therefore it is preferable. If I preferred the prohibition “You shall not murder,” then the second principle would disappear from the map; it would not exist at all. One would have to give it up completely. If I prefer the specific option, that means the broader principle is not erased, but only somewhat qualified. Yet it remains in place. I can remain faithful to both principles. Therefore jurists say that when there is a dilemma of this kind—for example, a contradiction between two laws—the specific law always prevails. The same thing in Jewish law. And I think the same is true here. I have a causal intuition that everything has a cause. I also have an intuition that human beings have free choice. What is the specific principle and what is the broad principle? It is clear that the specific principle is the intuition of choice. Since the principle of causality speaks about human beings and inanimate objects and everything on earth, and the principle of causality says that everything has a cause. That is very broad. What I want is to qualify it, not cancel it. To qualify it and say that with human beings there are exceptions. When human beings choose, there it does not operate deterministically. That is a specific qualification. If I prefer the libertarian intuition over the causal intuition, I am left holding both intuitions. Because I also accept the causal intuition everywhere else except in human choices, and I also accept the intuition of free choice regarding certain events in which human beings choose. And therefore the principle of lex specialis—yes, of preferring the specific—also basically tells me that one should decide in favor of libertarianism. Therefore I think that in the absence of decisive arguments in favor of one side or the other—and we saw that there really aren’t decisive arguments—what remains for me is, first, “the claimant bears the burden of proof,” and second, lex specialis. And from the standpoint of those two rules of decision, it seems to me that libertarianism comes out on top. I’ll say more than that: there are excellent arguments in favor of libertarianism, and we saw them. It’s just that the determinist always says, yes yes, but that’s an illusion. Because I say to him, wait, but we see such-and-such, and he says yes, what you see is an illusion. Wait, but we experience such-and-such. Yes, what you experience is an illusion. So as if he has an excuse for every argument I raise against him, but that excuse constructs a Matrix-world. I don’t know whether to say: okay, then there is no evidence, but I still have the decision rules—or whether I should say: don’t talk nonsense, I have excellent evidence, and don’t tell me that everything I think is an illusion. That is not a counterargument. It’s like in court. I can say: look, I didn’t borrow the money. Someone sues me over a loan, and I say I didn’t borrow it, right? So “the claimant bears the burden of proof,” and the plaintiff needs to bring evidence. So he brings two witnesses that I borrowed. I say: yes, but maybe the witnesses are lying, or maybe they deceived themselves, they live in illusions. It could be, right? It happens to people. Will that be accepted as a rejection of the evidence? In other words, in the end will the judge acquit me just because I am in possession of the money, because “the claimant bears the burden of proof”? Or will he actually say: what are you talking about, don’t waste my time, I have two witnesses. If you want to say they’re lying or delusional or whatever, you have to prove it. It’s not enough to say everything is an illusion. That is not an admissible claim on the same level as the arguments brought against you. When I raise counterarguments and you tell me, no no, everything is an illusion—that is not a counterargument. It’s an excuse. Therefore I think this is even a decision by evidence, not only a decision by decision-rules. And maybe one last remark regarding these decision-rules. The Chazon Ish, in a few places, introduces a very interesting novelty regarding “the claimant bears the burden of proof.” He says there that usually we are accustomed to think that “the claimant bears the burden of proof” basically means that the one who is physically holding the money wins. In the absence of evidence, the one holding the money wins. In other words, the possessor is the one holding the money. Now, what happens when my ox damaged your ox, and that is clear—there are witnesses to it. Okay? But I claim that I guarded it properly. And if I guarded it properly, then I am exempt. And he claims otherwise; the injured party says otherwise. So “the claimant bears the burden of proof” would seem to say that the injured party has to bring the evidence, because “the claimant bears the burden of proof.” The Chazon Ish indeed says that the injured party has to bring the evidence, but he explains it not through the rule of “the claimant bears the burden of proof,” but by saying that the claim “I guarded it properly and my ox gored anyway” is a poor claim, an unreasonable claim. Because to guard properly means to guard in such a way that damage will not occur. Now damage can occur even if one guards properly—the Talmud speaks of such situations—but those are rare situations, because the whole idea of guarding is that the guarding prevents the damage. If you want to claim that you guarded properly and nevertheless the damage occurred, the burden of proof is on you. And the injured party will win the case, the injured party will win the case, even though the injured party is the plaintiff. The injured party is the plaintiff, but he will win the case. Why? And there is no evidence for either side. This one says this and that one says that, and the injured party is the plaintiff, so how will the injured party win the case? After all, there is a rule that the claimant bears the burden of proof. You see here—and there are additional examples—that where you make an unreasonable claim, that too can impose the burden of proof on you. In other words, the plausibility of the claim can affect the question of who is considered the possessor, not only physical possession of the money. Or in other words, one who makes weak arguments or shaky arguments—that itself can obligate him with the burden of proof. Therefore, even if the determinist says: look, you are presenting a view that includes both body and soul; that’s more complicated. I say there is only body. The burden of proof is on you. I say no, because your claims are implausible. So even though your theory is simpler, as I said earlier with Occam’s razor, even though your theory is simpler, you have to bring the evidence, because don’t tell me that everything we both feel, you and I alike, is an illusion. That is a weak claim. For that claim, you need to bring evidence. And since you have no evidence, then it seems to me that you come out on the weaker side. May I ask something? May I ask? Yes. You said that in the legal world there are indeed these two burdens: the burden of producing evidence, and after you are obligated to bring evidence, there is the burden of persuasion. Those are the two burdens. And what troubles me in your argument is that regarding the matter of the will, you did not give an answer that fits the entire physical analysis you made. Your starting point was that everything that happens in the brain is physics. We arrived at the issue of the will, and we were unable to explain why, in the case of will, the will can influence physical elements. And then it seems to me that you are in a situation where the burden of producing evidence shifts to you. And if you can’t carry that, then you’ve lost on the burden of persuasion. So I’ll try to answer that. How do I know the laws of physics, by virtue of which the determinist makes his claims? I know them through observation. Right? Science works through observation. I saw, I conducted scientific analysis, and I arrived at my conclusions. Okay. I also arrive at the feeling, or the conclusion, that I have free choice through observation. Only this time it is observation inward, not outward. And the inward observation tells me that my actions are performed out of free choice. And to deny that, in my eyes, is like denying a scientific result. I don’t see any difference. Since the determinist also experiences exactly what I experience. He only claims that it is an illusion, but he too experiences that his actions are free actions. And now I ask: then why assume that it is an illusion? I observe it; I have observational evidence. I look at myself and I see clearly, I experience clearly, that I have free choice. Therefore, in my view, this is equivalent to all the observations that lead to the principle of causality and the laws of science and all the other things. In my view, this is a datum such that if you want to claim it is an illusion, the burden of proof is on you. That is one thing. Second, I want to say more than that. People don’t notice: there is Descartes’ cogito principle, cogito ergo sum, yes—“I think, therefore I am.” Descartes is basically proving the existence of the human being here by means of a logical argument. He says: if I think, there must apparently be someone who thinks, and since that’s so, then I exist. Never mind—you can quibble about that point, I won’t get into it here—but that is his argument. People don’t notice that this argument proves the existence of the soul and not the existence of the body, because it proves the existence of the thinking object. A thinking object is not the body; it is the mind or the existence of thought. Okay? I’m speaking even in a materialist world. In a materialist world, what I have proved is the existence of thought and of something that thinks. But that that something is bodily—that cannot be derived from the cogito principle. Or in other words, I’ll translate that into non-philosophical language: when I investigate the physical world and arrive at physical conclusions, I am actually using my intellect, my thought. Therefore if I have no trust in my cognitive capacities, in my mental processes, then I won’t accept the physical world either. My claim is that my perceptions of myself have far stronger validity than my perceptions of the world. Because my perceptions of the world are founded on trust in the tools I perceive within myself—in intellect, in thought, in observation, in analysis. How do I know my eyes work? Because I arrive with my intellect at the conclusion that the eyes are probably reliable and that what they show me really exists in the world. So which is more basic—the physical or the mental? The mental, because by means of the mental I perceive the physical. People think that saying the physical world exists is obvious, and now let’s conduct a debate whether there are also mental, spiritual, inner components, something like that. Okay—I say exactly the opposite. What is certain is that the mental thing exists. That is obvious. You want to claim there is also a physical world in which this whole business takes place? Bring evidence. That is already the secondary argument. The existence of spirit is not the secondary argument; the existence of matter is the secondary argument. Spirit is what perceives that matter exists, so how can one say that the existence of matter is more certain than the existence of spirit? If there were no spirit, I also would not understand that there is matter, because there would be no such thing as understanding. What does “understand” even mean? Yes, “I think, therefore I am”—that is really Descartes’ argument. Therefore this whole outlook, as Ezra said earlier, basically expresses a perspective that is very common among many people—and I think I notice it many times in myself too—that somehow the physical is much more certain. The mental can be debated, the spiritual can be debated; the physical is much more certain. Not at all. It’s exactly the reverse. The mental and spiritual are much more certain, because that I grasp by looking inward into myself. I don’t look at it from outside; I look at it from inside, and it is clear to me that it exists. Now the question is whether there is also an external physical world. Maybe yes, maybe no. In other words, that can be discussed. I of course tend to think there is, but in my eyes that is much less certain than the spiritual. And to say that because of considerations from physics I will deny the existence of the mental and the spiritual—that, in my eyes, is turning the whole picture upside down. In other words, taking the… I completely agree with you, but that is exactly what troubles me, and by the way we reached the same conclusion in the lecture series on the existence of God: in the end we concluded that everything is a result of inner intuition. And then I say, I agree with you, and that’s also the feeling—exactly what you expressed—that I have, and I think everyone has. But then the question is: why do I now need to begin all this physical analysis? If from the outset my feeling tells me that the mental exists, then I already move in the direction of free will; I don’t need to busy myself now with the physical. I partly agree with that claim. I’ll say why. For two reasons, I would say. One reason is that the fact that I have mental components does not mean I have free choice. It only means that the mental exists. But the mental can also operate deterministically. To say that within this mental realm there is also libertarian conduct, meaning that there is free will, does not follow from the mere fact of the existence of the mental. Throughout the course of this discussion I identified the dispute between libertarians and determinists and attached it to the dispute between materialists and dualists, between those who think there is matter and spirit. And I said that overall the dispute really takes place between those two. But on the conceptual level, you can be a deterministic dualist. You can believe that both spirit and matter exist, and still say that the whole business runs deterministically—both spirit and matter. Therefore the claim I am making here is against physicalism or materialism, but that does not necessarily mean we have free choice. To say that we have free choice requires more work. Second, I want to claim that you still need to be honest, and sometimes the conclusion you reach shows you that the assumption on which you based yourself was not correct. That can happen. In other words, if I had done the work that the materialist determinist expects me to do, and I had gone through the arguments and done the research and reached the conclusion that I was mistaken—that there are no spiritual components and we have no free choice, that the whole world is matter—then if I were honest enough, and I hope I would be honest enough, then I would say: okay, then apparently the starting point from which I set out was mistaken. A person has to be honest enough to be willing to admit that even if his starting point was X, the conclusion he arrived at, Y, proves that that X was not correct. Therefore, if I were convinced by the arguments of the materialist and the determinist, and he persuaded me that my starting point—that everything begins with perceptions and free will and judgment and spiritual components, all those things—is not correct because there is scientific proof that it is not correct, then it could definitely be that I would say: okay, then I’ll throw out those assumptions, even though they are very basic for me, because a person needs to be honest. Sometimes even things that are very basic for me can turn out to be wrong. Therefore it was important for me to show that the materialist has no counterarguments. That does not prove he is wrong, but it means I am not forced to give up my starting points. That is the important point. And I did the work on the physics not in order to prove that I am right, but so that there would not be proof that I am wrong. Because if there is proof that I am wrong, then despite the fact that my starting point is of course dualist and libertarian and all the rest, intellectual honesty would require me to give it up. For all the respect due to my starting points, I’ve already had starting points in life that later turned out to be wrong, so that can happen here too. The fact that this is my starting point does not mean I won’t give it up under any circumstances. That would just be being closed-minded. It only means that in order to give it up, good evidence is required—strong evidence. And what I tried to show throughout this whole course is that no such strong evidence exists. Okay. In fact there is no such evidence at all, not only no strong evidence. And therefore I can remain with my basic intuitions. That is also why I ended the course with thought experiments. I explained that the role of the thought experiments is that after I have no evidence either way—philosophy did not decide it, and physics or science did not decide it, and neither did neuroscience—then what remains? What remains is to check where my intuition stands, because then I say that in the absence of evidence I remain with my intuition as long as the other side has not brought evidence. And then I need to check what my intuition is, and we did a series of thought experiments whose purpose was to clarify for each of us where he stands intuitively on this issue. And if I discover that intuitively I stand with free choice—remember Buridan’s man, for example, the thought experiment we did there?—then there, it seems to me, a libertarian view clearly emerges. So I discover within myself a clear intuition, a clear libertarian intuition. Now, when I see that philosophy and physics and neuroscience and everything do not give me a clear decision either this way or that, I remain with my intuition. Why assume those intuitions are wrong without evidence? Therefore this whole effort has value. In other words, this effort won’t decide the issue, but I only need to make sure it prevents the opposite decision, and that is its purpose. I understand, thank you. Now, Rabbi, in the scientific world what is the division between determinists and libertarians? What do you mean by division? Meaning in terms of percentages, or… Listen, I haven’t done statistics and I don’t know. There are statistics about belief in the existence of God. I don’t know statistics about determinism. But from my impression, among brain researchers—let’s leave the other disciplines aside for now because they don’t deal with this all that much—among brain researchers there is a large majority of determinists, maybe even an overwhelming majority of determinists. But as I said, brain researchers have no special added value on this question, because it is a philosophical question. And the philosophers? Among the philosophers? I don’t know. With philosophers it’s harder, because the question is how you define philosophers. Who is a philosopher? With brain researchers it’s relatively easy to know who is a brain researcher and who isn’t; that’s a fairly well-defined discipline. A philosopher is any intelligent person who engages in thought. In other words, you don’t need to know the whole history of philosophy in order to count as a philosopher—quite the opposite. Sometimes that very familiarity interferes with your ability to think like a philosopher, because those who know the whole history of philosophy and the systems and so on are professors of philosophy; they are not philosophers. Just as professors of literature are not writers and professors of poetry are not poets, so too professors of philosophy are not philosophers. Many people don’t notice this, but most professors of philosophy have little or nothing to do with philosophy. In other words, at best of course, they know the history of philosophy, what philosophers say, what this or that philosopher said, and so on. Fine. But the question is whether they have some thought of their own, whether they have the ability to decide philosophical questions, whether one can give credit to their views or positions on various philosophical questions—who says? In other words, even if I were to give credit to philosophers, I would not necessarily give credit to professors of philosophy. These are two completely different things, even though when people look… In ordinary speech they tell you, this is a philosopher, meaning he is a professor of philosophy. But nobody would ever tell you about a scholar of poetry that he is a poet. Right? It’s very strange. In philosophy somehow the field became blurred. But I think there is definitely a clear boundary in philosophy between philosophers and researchers of philosophy, exactly as in poetry and literature and every other field. By the way, in Jewish law too. In Jewish law there is the same blurring, where Talmud scholars or scholars of Jewish law often enter into the halakhic discussion itself but with research tools, and that again expresses a kind of blurring between the scholar, who is supposed to look at the field objectively, and the one who participates in creating the field itself. One example of this—I’m already getting into that topic—one example is that once I wrote a provocative article on conversion. Not provocative, but an article that caused a lot of uproar; in my view it was not provocative, it simply described what is true. On conversion. And I wanted to argue that there is not, and never was, in the history of Jewish law a position that waived acceptance of the commandments in conversion. While Avi Sagi and Zvi Zohar, of course, wrote that acceptance of the commandments was an invention of the nineteenth century, and before that it wasn’t there. That’s simply ignorance. So I wrote there that there is not and never was such a position; it is simply ignorance to say that. Then there was someone who wrote a response—he is a law professor who once served under me in reserve duty—and he wrote there in response: what do you mean, there is Rabbi David Zvi Hoffmann who wrote such-and-such. And more and more sources. I wrote there that regarding most of the sources I don’t agree; they don’t say that. I have a dispute with him about the analysis of the sources themselves. Regarding Rabbi David Zvi Hoffmann, at least in one or two places I can agree that this is what he wrote, and then that simply means that there is no halakhic position there on the part of Rabbi David Zvi Hoffmann—there is simply a mistake. And therefore there still is no halakhic position in the history of Jewish law that waives acceptance of the commandments. Oh, so there is Rabbi David Zvi Hoffmann, printed in Rashi script, bound in a black book with gold lettering? Right—a mistake. There are mistakes written in Rashi script and bound inside a sacred book. That does not mean there is such a halakhic position. What do I mean? And I added there too—I said this didn’t end up being published, my response, no matter—but I wrote there that the difference is that he is a professor of law. And a professor of law, from his point of view, is right in his approach. Because if Rabbi David Zvi Hoffmann said it, then from his point of view there is such a position on the halakhic map. That is true. Because in his role as a scholar he is supposed to document the different positions and opinions and not himself be involved. Yes, a clear halakhic authority said it, and Rabbi David Zvi Hoffmann was certainly a clear halakhic authority. On the other hand, I am not a scholar. I participate in the discussion itself, in the halakhic discussion itself. I am a man of Jewish law for this purpose. So I tell you that what Rabbi David Zvi Hoffmann says is not another halakhic position with which I disagree. It is simply a mistake. And therefore I, as a man of Jewish law, am not obligated to maintain academic distance and say there are various views. Views that fall outside the accepted framework simply do not exist. The fact that you wrote it in Rashi script does not mean there is such a halakhic opinion. It does not stand any test of the sources, of the Talmud, of basic halakhic conceptions. So therefore I can always write letters in a book, in Rashi script, saying that there is no God and one need not observe the commandments. So is there now a halakhic opinion like that? And maybe I am also a clear legal authority in other contexts. But I wrote it in a book. So what does that mean—that there is now a halakhic position saying one need not observe Jewish law? No. A mathematician can come and write that two plus three equals six in a mathematics book. Okay? And he is a fully certified mathematician, a well-known and famous mathematical scholar. Fine—but here he got confused, he made a mistake. So does that mean there is a mathematical position that two plus three equals six? No. Now, someone who studies what mathematicians do must also mention it, because he is a scholar, he is supposed to document, not express a position as a scholar. But mathematicians can certainly say there is no mathematical opinion that two plus three equals six. Even if a mathematician wrote it, then he got confused, he made a mistake. Okay? In that sense the difference between philosophy and scholars of philosophy is exactly the same. In other words, scholars of philosophy know everything each person said. To decide who was right or to express a position in the philosophical debate itself—that is not the role of a scholar of philosophy, and he also does not necessarily have any added value in a discussion of that kind. That is more the business of philosophers, though one can argue about whether they have added value or not. Now try to define who a philosopher is. A person who thinks and engages in these issues is a philosopher. You can’t do statistics when your target group is not defined. So not only have I not done that statistic—I don’t know how one could do it. So unfortunately I can’t answer that question, and we’re more or less out of time, so I did the summary, but the appendix we’ll do next time. And that appendix, basically next time, I’ll begin dealing with the religious aspects of the issue. Up to this point this has been a philosophical-scientific process, unrelated to Jewish law, Torah, religion, or faith. From here onward I’ll try to talk—it will take us another one or two times—about, basically, I already stated the course. When I stated the course earlier, I’ve now finished it. It’s over now. In the next two times, more or less, what I want is to look at the religious implications: a deterministic conception that is committed to Torah, to Jewish law, to Judaism, and what the religious conception says about choice and its meaning and importance and so on. Which are really just appendices to the discussion. The discussion ends here. Okay. Rabbi, my question was that since I have no absolute proof, or even strong proof, that I’m right, I take into account the possibility that I’m mistaken, and therefore I say, let’s look at the rest of the world. If there are many people claiming the opposite of what I think, let’s reflect on that. That was the basis of my question. Reflecting is always good, even if there aren’t many people who think differently from me, and certainly if there are many smart people who think differently, that definitely encourages me to think. But after I’ve thought and reached a conclusion, I’m not interested in what most people say. It’s like the joke about Rabbi Yehonatan Eybeschutz, you know, that the priest came to him and said: why don’t you go after us? We’re the majority. “Follow the majority”—we’re the majority. So Rabbi Yehonatan Eybeschutz said to him: I follow the majority where I am in doubt. If I am not in doubt, I do not follow the majority. In other words, if I have a piece of meat with a kosher seal that I found on the street, and most of the stores in that city sell non-kosher meat, should I have to assume it’s non-kosher and not eat it? Of course not. With a piece whose status I do not know, I go after the majority of stores. But if I found a piece with a kosher seal on it, then it is kosher meat; I have no doubt about it. Where I have no doubt, I do not go after the majority. Someone who wants to decide questions by making statistics about what most people say, or even what most smart people say, will not get very far. I don’t recommend that approach. No, no, that wasn’t my intention. My intention was that I need to understand better what they are saying. Fine. I try as much as I can to understand what they are saying, and it seems to me that I tried to describe it and also attack it. I addressed what people are saying; I didn’t ignore it. But after I reached my conclusions, the fact that many people think differently—what can I do? That is my conclusion. Maybe I’m mistaken, by the way. It’s not out of some pride that says it can’t be that I’m mistaken and they are all idiots. I don’t think they’re idiots. There are very smart people there, much smarter than I am, obviously. But fine, these are my conclusions. I cannot lie to myself. And I examined what they say as best I could, and this is my conclusion clearly. Until they prove otherwise, this is what I think. More power to you. More power to you. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Goodbye, goodbye.