In this episode, I speak again with my best friend Dave in a discussion mostly about free will and morality, among other topics. In this discussion, we talk about some of the different ways one can talk about manifested things such as objects like tables and chairs, as well as concepts like morality, free will, etc. within our experienced, relative world, or a "higher level" of reality, and the fact none of these things actually and ultimately exist within another level of ultimate reality in which there is only consciousness or stasis, and change or discreteness. We discuss how there is in fact, no genuine morality in light of the fact of determinism, and therefore there can only be, at best, action taken with others out of pragmatic necessity. In other words, we put people in prison to protect ourselves and others from these individuals, not necessarily because we deem them "evil" or "bad" people, which is an impossible judgment to make about others in light of determinism since with the truth of determinism, one cannot do otherwise than what they in fact did. I discuss my shared misgivings with Sam Harris regarding some "compatibilists' view that determinism and free will can somehow coexist at the same time. I argue the only way this makes sense is to argue that at the relative "higher" level of reality we need out of pragmatic necessity to consider ourselves and others moral agents with free will even though the truth of determinism makes this an ultimate impossibility. In our discussion we also discuss our thoughts on some conversations on the "Making Sense of Free Will" episode on Sam Harris' "Making Sense" podcast episode released February 14, 2023 in which Sam talks with author and physicist Sean Carroll, mathematician and author Jedea Peral, and biologist Jerry Coyne among others.  

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