I've figured out how to change the stars by stopping hurricanes. Don't worry, I've technically already done the easy part and changed the stars. My parents were teachers and for over 3 decades, they taught their students my constellation. Those kids will teach their kids. So on and so on. See, stars changed. I just need help to make it legit and with the rest. I need to get to Texas ASAP. No, I'm not kidding. Yes, I'm serious. I get 7 things. One of them being to change the stars and remember, crazy is a compliment. Figured Neil has taken on the IAU and won. He's the best place to start. If, rather when, it works it could be converted to a larger scale and EASILY regulate temperature, end drought, stop wildfires in the west. Let me know if you're interested, please and thank you. It'd be wrong of me to not, at least, try. This is me, trying. More, hopefully, to come.
You must please provide closed captions! This information is too important to sequester it from people who are hearing impaired or who speak English as a second+ language.
Haha. Anytime I see Sean Carroll’s name, I always think back to the time he debated Bill Lane Craig. It’s one of my favorite debates….except for all the Hitchens debates. Who unfortunately also debated Bill…
Where is this quote from? I’d like to read up on it. My own personal theory is that free will is something we think we have but within the boundaries that everything that has happened in the past was always going to happen, and everything that will happen in the future is always going to happen that way. I’ve learned there are plausible scientific concepts which say our lives are a story book and the past is the book we’ve already read, and the future is the part we are yet to read through, but it has already been written and has chapters and an ending.
My modern perspective on the question "do I (we) have free will?"- First.. you have have to think deep and long about what is "I" or the "self". I think that if one is willing to accept physics and spacetime then they have to admit that everything is just borrowed, re-emulated versions of what came before. I mean look at a kid who is a splitting image of their parent. Their jeans are similar, their perspectives, morals, strength, weaknesses, ability to conceptualize...even things like that.. are all related directly to their nurture,nature,and environment. So if you can accept that, once you start thinking about Free Will and the self and wear this so called Free Will is coming from you can start to get a more realistic understanding of what is going on. Remember like we were joking about.... It's complexity 😋
One of the most interesting dialogues and Q&A in 2022. A must watch. The topics are so interesting, but the overall attitude is so relaxed. Just mesmerizing.
My two favorite astrophysicists on the same podcast! This is awesome. I didn't know Sean's new book came out. I'm still making my way through his book, Something Deeply Hidden.
I don't think I've tried to talk someone out of their free will. I WILL say that believing we have free will must be very important to our survival for us to cling to it so strongly.
Sean Carroll is now one of my favorite physicists. I love his depth of knowledge and flexibility of thinking. People like him and Brian Greene, appear to me, to be on the cutting edge of human understanding of the universe. And I'm sure I'm missing others that I will soon discover as well. One thing that sometimes bothers me about scientists in general, is a level of arrogance about our understanding of various systems. But we don't know what we don't know, therefore we always need to keep a partially open mind. The more I learn about the universe, the more humble I become relative to it, becasue I can start to see how much I don't know, and that some of the concepts the universe incorporates might not even be grasp-able to my (or even any) human brain at his time. When humans have lived 14 billion years, maybe we'll know it all. Until then, I'm going to be listening, learning, and ever evolving. And as always, thank you to Neil and Startalk co hosts and guests for bringing this great content to us!
just a question. If in the vacuum of space once you start moving in any direction you will not have anything to slow you down, thus you go on forever without stopping unless you hit something (like a planet or star) because your momentum does not slow. so why is it that reaching lightspeed through "speedcreep" where we accelerate then shut off the thrusters. our momentum at that acceleration would become our new base line , thus if we then power up the thrusters again and accelerate from our new base momentum, rinse repeat. the real issue with high speed travel in space is how to controllably stop because it will take far more energy to stop then to creep up to full speed. is this accurate or am I misunderstanding something?
Look up the rocket equation. You'd need a gigantic rocket to start plus you'd need to carry enough fuel to eventually slow you down. More fuel = more weight. More weight means you need to add more engines which again adds more weight which needs more fuel.....which is more weight. It's a revolving door lol
@@nickbisson8243 why would weight matter in space where there is no gravity to create weight from the object's (in this case the ship) mass. if we were talking about in atmosphere, your right. the rocket equation would help but not for this scenario. once in space and "fair enough away " from the earth to be effectively outside its gravity, weight is nothing more then what you get from going to close to a planet or near a star. in my question I specified we start in the vacuum of space. once in space the "weight" of said fuel means nothing. so to reiterate (this time using numbers to help get the idea) when in space why wouldn't thruster cycling lead to incrementally faster and faster speeds? like if we have (just using simple numbers don't read into it) a 100kg drone with a thruster set that produces 147.1N's of force in the same direction and we cycle it ten times in space once we start with momentum we don't stop with out effort(IE: reverse thrusters) thus would cycling the engine not be the same performance wise to having had a thruster set capable of 1471.0 N's from the start? Sorry if this is doesn't make sense, writing is not my forte.
On free will, each choice seems to be the result of an evaluation. Two options are weighted, but with our own metrics. Those metrics depend on our past experiences and our character, also build by our past. It seems very mechanical and predetermined. Sure we have will, like trying to explain my point of view or accepting it as valid. But nothing shows that it constitutes free will. Free will seems like you could go against all odds and do what you will not do, which is never happening by definition. And if by chance there was a brain circuit that gives random output, there again, it would be random will, and not free will. So even if you wake up one day and decide to do a parachute jump for the first time, it is the result of your life's experience, not a free choice.
I really can't get what compatibilists are arguing. You have free will, because that's the best way you can describe your experience... Like really??? "Our perception of what's going on is completely compatible with the idea that we have free will". And that gives us free will?? Are you serious? Our perception is also completely compatible with the idea that the earth is not moving or with the impression that we are something special or with a lot of stuff that's actually not true! If your perception is completely compatible with some idea, that lends by no means that idea credibility. You can have an idea that is completely compatible with your perception, but your perception could very well be wrong - and that would render your idea wrong as well.
If anyone is wondering how to do Neil’s calculation at 7:05, 100 halvings gives you 1/(2^100). Using the classic approximation 2^10=10^3, we get the estimate 1/((10^3)^10)=1/(10^30). 29:21 I would just want to push back on Sean a little because I don’t think his point here made sense. If I try persuade you of something, then I must be operating under the assumption that you are _persuade-able_ . That is to say, some of your positions can be determined by persuasion. That is completely consistent with a _lack_ of free will.
In the quantum physics aproach you can describe particles as a wave function that collapses during the measurement ( interaction with EM radiation) . Maybe large objects are not in superposition just because they interact so heaviliy with themselves and light that they are constantly in a state of wavefunction collapse, so they are localised and interact gravitationally according to classical physics and general relativity. Therefore the explanation of dark matter would be that there is no EM interaction so Dark matter particles actually stay as the wavefunction all the time maintaining superposition due to inability to being "measured" or more precisely inability to interact with light , interacting through gravity diffrent that normal matter does because of their constant superposition and inability to collapse its waveffunction, emanating some kind of dispersed gravity based on probability ? i dont have the capability to make any calculations about it but i'd be thankful to know any mistakes in this approach.
Free Will is a deep question. If we are a simulation, then there is no free will and destiny has been determined, but not by humans. Free Will means that we can change our destiny and I don't know if we can.
Dr. Lenny did an interesting presentation at the world science festival to try to reconcile quantum mechanics and relativity using the holographic principle and quantum entanglement I hope y'all mention this.
They haven't differentiated between epistemological freewill vs ontological freewill. Epistemological freewill is the pseudo-freewill of ignorance since we don't everything. But ontological freewill is impossible because we all follow precisely the laws of physics.
Every decision we make creates another universe in which we didn’t make that decision. To conserve the energy of creating new universes, the current universe does not allow for free will, thus we are determined to follow only the path that was started at the creation of this universe by only giving the illusion of choice.
I feel that *Sean is being a bit short-sighted* about "us not being able to do anything when we discover what dark energy is". Do you think when Einstein discovered the photoelectric effect he had any idea all things we'd be able to do with that solar panels, LASERs and all the things we've been and to do with those technologies. .
We have the will to choose, but only within the boundaries of our current understanding of the universe. Free will is a bad phrase, mainly because it is left to interpretation as to what it means. But if you take it at its root meaning (unforced or free choice) then it is only logical to assume that we do not have free will.
ive boiled my free will argument down to this: is it possible for any event in the universe to occur outside of cause and effect? no. "any event" includes our thoughts, feelings, and choices. therefore, free will is impossible. self awareness does exist (which is all descartes really proved) and since humans have access to abstract thinking, language, and self reflection, we conflate that experience with free will. free will is a concept which adds immense, unnecessary misery to our civilization, because it discourages compassion and empathy, and places obstacles/stigma in the path of our understanding of mental illness.
I know how to reconcile gravity with quantum mechanics, but if I told you I would take away any chance you would have to enjoy the satisfaction of solving it yourself. 🤔
Lord of the Rings is not a trilogy! It’s one book which has 6 parts, and the parts were assembled in pairs, and each pair is a Volume of it’s own name.
When anyone asks whether we have "free will", they should be asked in turn what exactly they even mean by "free will". That we sometimes make decisions free of any *external* influence at the moment? Of course we do. That we sometimes experience momentarily indecision and have internal impulses simultaneously in conflicting directions? Of course we do. That we are somehow "free" of the internal workings of our own brains as we make a decision? Of course we are not. So the bottom line answer is, "No, we do not have 'free will'. It is a sentimental illusion surrounding a fuzzy, poorly defined concept."
Randomness means something that has no order 😑 determinism means something is not random it’s supposed to be that way but it can change or be bent like chemistry you can change the color of the flame like copper is green lithium is red however 😑you can’t change a chemical reaction HCL will always react with aluminum or water and iron make H20+FE= FE02 witch is rust you can’t just choose and say water will NOT react to iron no matter what 😑but you can slow down the rust forming that’s determinism however SUPER determinism is our dna the only reason you exist is beacuse of your parents without them you would not exist 😑their is no multiple universes their are no multiple YOUS their is only 1 you meaning the REAL you 😑meaning the odds of planet having life are 1 😑and you don’t have a choice if the universe NOT the observeable universe the WHOLE universe had a beginning it will end if the universe has no beginning it will NEVER end 😑space and time are infinite if you reach the end all you find is more space 😑and time is only realated to the observer 😑and their is no telling how much time has passed before we were born the odds of a planet having life are 1 so if your saying the universe is only 14 billion years old if you do the math that means the odds of life are 1/14 billion death is nothing new in fact I have learned that your life is like the Big Bang and Big Crunch 😐and to prove it before you were born you were nothing as you were born your dream your are alive your at your prime you get old you die you dream you decay and become nothing once again 😑so the question do we have free will ? Yes but it’s not like we are gods 😒to know the universe you need to understand everything 😑and as your brain will decay your brain is responsible for memory if you can’t remember your past life what makes you think you will remember this one 😑? Death means to sleep being born means to be awake from death
Attended dr Tyson’s event “ astrophysicist goes to the movies II” last night. And now here he is again just a day later on my phones screen with a new startalk episode. I love it!
Free will is much more than just a choice, it’s a metaphysical ability. Free will is the brain’s ability to focus or not to focus. Philosophers have answered the question years ago, most scientists have yet to catch up.
You were always destined to make that comment. If choices are not determined, they are random as anything that isn’t randomflects some underlying disposition or necessity that determines it.
@@dwayne_dibley the underlying disposition is a natural ability of the human brain - focus. The ability to focus, or not to focus, results in a concept we call free will. Claiming we are mentally determined, is to claim we can both focus, and not focus at the same time, on the same idea. Are you focusing on refuting my comment, or not refuting it? You cannot be both. Like infinity, random is an abstract concept, it does not exist.
If we can’t change the past, and everything happening now is determined by the past, then we have no free will. Your decisions now will always be framed from past events and experiences.
Probabilistic & opportunistic will, might be better description for "free will". As game theory using a chess board as an example. There are a finite amount of moves (choices) within the standard rules of our given world. There are many factors such as awareness, response, emotions etc. If you were a piece on the chess board which has no awareness about how many moves you could make then that may not allow you to move. This is acquired through education & expanded thought to see further across the board. Another concept is a river & a fallen tree. The animal could not cross the river until the tree fell across allowing a bridge to be created. In life, we need more education bridges across problems instead of street signs already designed to keep you running in circles.
Just came to my mind recently, like there is matter and energy, and gravity makes matter attract each other, maybe Dark Energy (that quasi pushes matter apart large-scale) is simply Anti-Gravity, that separated from Gravity some time after the Big Bang. Not that I know a lot concrete about physics, but who knows?
Tes, it has been theorized. It's actually some what likely, as my personal hypothesis, that Big Bang created such a large force, that I pulled the Universe apart so greatly it's ripping it apart, leaving behind Dark Matter. Or another way of putting it, it's possible that, that's the way another universe is showing it's face to us.
Or the quantum effects within spacetime itself create what we call dark energy Spacetime is pulling itself apart. There's also something called inflation which started the Big Bang.
I would say that to a degree we all exist (if you can call it that) within a set of parameters... albeit broad ones. Some might call it a simulation. Therefore we have 'free will'... within said parameters.
The flatulent Superman talk in the "Cosmic Farts" section reminded me of an old Larry Niven piece (from the 70's I think?) called "Man of Steel, Woman of Kleenex" which basically concluded that when Superman reached climax with Lois, he would... well... essentially cleave her in half. o.O The man has inhumanly powerful muscles after all....
I've watched a lot of Sean Carroll on RU-vid, and they are all enjoyable. But in this discussion he comes across the most relaxed, funny, slightly cheeky, and good-natured that I've seen so far. Good chemistry between these three. Hope they do another one sometime.
it's like i told my mom--to paraphrase: 'everyone is in their own psyched out perception. someone could be a dog in their mind, but outwardly appear as a human, and vice versa.' so i essentially needed to 'play' the game of Life by teaching animals what it means to be Human. i started to figure out that if i could SOMEHOW teach binary to an animal, i could create some pseudo-bridging language that we could both utilize (using the ability of 'neuroplasticity' to my advantage) and slowly teach it what it means to be a Human-Being, if they are going to coexist with us, in a Human dominated world. we already keep them as pets, so in a sense, it is almost too late for them to resist anyway. and if i could teach any hypothetical animal what it meant to be Human, then...it must mean something to be Human. i know it is circular logic, but at this point, it seems increasingly more like 'Common Sense'. thinking ahead, you could train any A.I. by showing it what it means to be at LEAST Human, since Humans are so distinct from the average non-human animal, that WE are the ones that have to create pseudo languages JUST for animals to communicate back to US. just a flex of our intellect, on one hand, useful on the other.
Wait, isn't your ability to make decisions, aka your free will, governed by chemistry and the laws of causality? How then, would someone convince someone else that there is no free will if any decisions they make are made by a cacophony of causal connections? How does one escape the causal connection? You cannot. You are not "free" of it, therefore you are played. Your chemical brain reacts, and you cannot "not decide". You have no free will, Sean.
Complex is a description of the system and the amount of parts and connections it has. Complicated is about how difficult it is to live with the truth of the system. A complex relationship is one with a lot of different pieces that interact. A complicated relationship is like the one I have with sugar. It’s just me and sugar, but it’s hard to live with the fact that I love something so much that it’s not always good for me.
Do we have freewill?? : to a certain extent within (Time/space/matter) until you earn your wings,then you shall go beyond time/space/matter , you know how the sun makes things grow ,pulling them up out of the soil ,bringing forth fruit (expansion and faster than the speed of light) ,there is another Sun ,outside time/space/matter that causes the growth of the dark energy consciousness ,within each creation cycle of matter or matter serves as a placenta for your soul/dark energy ,dark energy Quantum intelligence is behind the design ,not physics that is what spoke "let their be light" = mental/dark energy alchemy ,dark energy is proof of a living soul ,shape & mold it and stop thinking about the end of it all ,there is no end or beginning , 4th state of matter = being , earn it with virtue,it's beyond the understanding of the material world , ATLANTIS = 450,000 bc /first contact - 12,000 bc ,a great flood and then the beginning of mankind's kingship in Sumer = cradle of civilization
Haven't watched the video yet but the answer is no. Humans are made up of two things, genetics and environment, neither of which we control. While it feels like we are in control and making decisions, its actually our brain/genetics making those decisions. We dont choose the brain we are born with so we arent in control of anything. The entire world is just molecules in motion.
Really? Why doesn't GRAVITY ITSELF POSSESS one IOTA of PRESENCE, SUBSTANCE or FORM of ITSELF to DIRECTLY DETECT, IDENTIFY, ISOLATE or HARNESS on the earth!!?? Donald Hoffman and Lex Fridman admit that GRAVITY, spacetime and Quantum FIELD theory are DOOMED because they are FAKE/INTANGIBLE!! ru-vid.comzSWkjhLD1lU?feature=share
Iol saw this question answered on the RU-vid channel Cracked once: Can you change the laws of physics? No. Can you change the past? No. Then no, no one has free will.
I wish he wouldn't say "you've been lied to" . at the time it was the best information we had about the atom and the quantum world. So we were not deliberately lied to , OK ? Better more accurate information comes along over time, thats what science is.
The electrons swirling around the nucleus exist as a wave of probability, as he said. The nucleus hae mass, mass is what puts a little dent in space fabric (all the combined forces of the area), so even a nucleus is creating curvature that the less dense electron is going to fall into, right? As in free fall, it won't be in a straight line, is that why it's a wave of probability? I'm assuming that the electron is going too fast to actually crash into the nucleus just how earth is traveling too fast to fall into the sun. Maybe that means that the electrons staying in their orbitals because of their speed instead of crashing into the necleus and bumping a neutron out of place, is truly protecting against a nuclear reaction?
That was fun:) congratulations again sean!!:) thank you for all you have taught us! I dig your point about us being able to determine seconds after the big bang… the human mind.. just as interesting as what you study!;)
OK I love this! Although, Sean Carroll will continue to go even further if he realizes that he hasn’t learned everything there is to learn. I can tell Neil is always still thinking outside the box like he doesn’t know everything which is why I hear so he is. It’s always super fun watching these so thank you for sharing them with us!
"...photons Red Shift away...." that phrase alone explained a whole concept to me...as if I took a whole semester...the phrase added a whole layer (instead of just one block) to my pyramid of knowledge.
37:20 Let's hope DC comics are listening as that would be supper funny if they used it (got superman to light his superfart with his heat vision and use it as a new weapon)
28:54 really interesting point to say “it depends on what you mean by free will.” Because I tend to think that people conflate a sense of cosmic free will and an individual free will despite them not being the same thing. In the discussing you guys seem to be talking about individual free will as though it is synonymous with free thought and choosing our own actions. This is not what cosmic free will is. The easiest 1to1 example would be the robots from season 1 of westworld. They are an artificial creation that runs off a program. This unknown to them program gives them the impression of free will. They have their own unique thoughts and make their own decisions, hence individual free will, however all of their thoughts and actions occur because of programming meaning they do not have cosmic free will. This is no small difference. Humans can absolutely have a real-world free-will even if it is on a cosmic and technical level not really free will. Since we don’t know the programing, we cannot be “aware” of our programing. Just because we do everything our biological and chemistry makes us do (lack of cosmic free will) does not mean we as thinking beings cannot make our own choices (individual free will). You simply are unaware of the programing you are following to come to that “choice.”
