Two Astrophysicists Debate Free Will

Charles I want to compare notes okay on free will oh one of my favorite [Music] things here's my take it is true that at some level of resolution that we can observe causality is absolutely true given these initial conditions this is what will happen afterwards that's the physicist phys speaking so if you take it to its logical conclusion then there is no free will because everything is predetermined by things that everything has an antecedent whether you know it or not something is causing it to happen something precipitated the thing that caused the thing that made it's always going to happen but there is also stochastic uncertainty in the universe it's built in there's randomness there's unpredictability yeah and so you have to ask I think if you're a physicist what level of chaos actually affects you to the extent that you could actually make an instantaneous decision based on other stuff let's not necessarily in your past experiences or what you have just seen in your current environment but wouldn't all those past experiences and your current environment despite the fact that if you're introducing an element of chaos so that you've never experienced this ever before your experiences that you have had would then inform your decision about the thing that you've never experienced your inform is the word oh is it in orate right or require right that's the thing there yeah let's say you're in a a room with a whole bunch of audience members you tell a joke right it falls flat in that moment you have many things you could do to turn it into a laugh Point true right you hear silence and you be like oh that was good and everyone laughs or you know you make is this m on Old you know what do you do do you have the freedom to choose one of several choices that you had designed from your past that you prepared to deal with that eventuality or is the choice made for you already but if he was less experienced he might not dig out of that hole as effectively or efficiently exactly but you've been in a 100 cases where you had a joke bomb you have data on how to pull out of it so statistically you have a chance of getting people smile instantaneously you don't even realize that it's happening it's in the moment the moment right did you have free will to not see that's right so now that would be interesting because here you are in a place where your instinct your training and 10,000 10,000 hours whatever it is Will as a reflex cause you to say this this and this and then people go wow that was great look how he turned it around so Charles can I say in that comment yeah that he preloaded his neuros synapses so that in that moment they all tripped right they tripped meaning triggered to go to the solution to that problem right same is true but then I wouldn't have free will at that point it would just be a response what I would have is a response to a situ not necessarily I wasn't really choosing that it chose it for you it chose it for me you have five choices and then your system choose chooses one of the five or in that moment in that moment right and so in that moment you are not exercising Free Will did you set it up though with free will in the past so that you could react this way deterministically but you actually were in control of the circumstance right here's another physical example of that a football player is trying to sack a quarterback the quarterback Jukes left the person trying to sack the QB doesn't have enough time to think about whether to move left or right or up or down it has to react based on years of training and practice and experience so in that moment that action is not free but in the setting up of that moment if it was free enough does that constitute Free Will from a physics perspective it might not then again again from a psychological point of view or from a biological point of view it might well what good are you if you're not landing on one side or the other I don't need you to say it could be this it could be that and I'm right both ways whichever the the actual answer is I was right yeah well he's saying I don't really have the free will to make that determination I'm going to be right or or wrong let's get let's just ask an opinion in my opinion I would like to have free will exist in this universe even though philosophically it can be argued that it does not exist are you happy with a world where you perceive free will even if it isn't maybe this has to do with the movie arrival right starring Amy Adams where if you know how your future is going to turn out would you like to live your life anyway right and the answer is yes I would but I still would like to think that the future is not yet predetermined no no but I know what it's different I'm not saying it's predetermined and you know it M I'm saying would you still be happy with life if someone if some alien said look dude you're your life is predetermined there's nothing you can do about it Keep On Believing you have free will and then they go back to their Planet you're a puppet on a string a puppet on a string free free your free will puppet on the string what I would say in that case is that I would hope that the knowledge that I have that uh puppet on the string circumstance allows me to circumvent it I can find a way if you know it's fate right you've seen so many uh Greek mythology stories where you try to avoid the fate of uh whatever the gods have act of avoiding like edus for example would be the most uh famious example sorry so so the bottom line is yes I would still be satisfied with trying to do something different because even the illusion of trying to do something different is in itself a form of Free Will physics wise though that's the challenge right so so Neil if you had to right now decide that Free Will does exist or doesn't exist what would you prefer I'm my thinking over the recent years because I didn't used to think about this at all my thinking of recent years is leaning towards the absence of Free Will for practically everything we think and do in our lives and I base that on the fact that over time things that we have done as people in our species at one time was you are totally to blame for that or something you did or something you we've learned no this person is more susceptible than you are to addiction right there's a biochemistry there this person cannot just be made the life of the party because they're on the autism spectrum they don't control that in the way you might think they should just because you're the life of the party as you add up all of these things let's go back to epilepsy where before that was even a word you were occupied by the devil did you do something bad or well you knew it was not everyone knew you were not in control of it but today no one is saying did you have the free will to not have an epileptic seizure of course not do you have the free will to not be depressed the person who's ready to jump off the bridge in that instant do they have the free will to not jump off the bridge I don't think so and the more I add up and explore the Human Condition I'm forced to conclude that the direction we are headed is that we are all products of an absence of Free Will and as a result Society needs more compassion for people who do not otherwise fit in mhm see I have the exact opposite position in my own mind I feel that it is because of the absence of free will that you see in most behavior that it is that 1% of Free Will activity that moves Us in the right direction bends us toward compassion takes the Arc of History toward justice but then but going back to what Neil just said there are people who actually suffer from personality disorders that suffer from brain disorders where they can't do what you just said they can't express compassion they can't move a day when no one even thought to analyze it that way as a as a brain disorder just aole yeah exactly that was it now if they can't you can you can show that person Compassion or understanding and therefore Free Will as an entity exists Char you're drawing a line that I have seen be in constant motion over the decades and over the centuries that line that you're saying they don't have free will but I do uhhuh uhuh I I don't know that I can see I have free will over some things and not over others someone can see me and say ah that person needs help in this way and has the free will to help me I see somebody else who needs this help and Free Will together it is a network it's not that any individual you have to draw the line for every individual and even perhaps for society does the criminal who's born in poverty have free will to not be a criminal if most of the people in prison came in below the poverty line so there's some sociological Force operating there that that where we are less susceptible to that Force I think that's a great question analogy let's say this say those folks who have been branded criminals by our society are incarcerated yes we can then who were fortunate enough not to face those same circumstance ances who are not incarcerated can look at these incarcerated people and instead of saying we must keep them away from society welcome them back so that's called restorative justice and that's a free will example of the exercise of Free Will of of society of society toward individuals who may not have had the options had the life experience to you know recover from a a bombed joke I saw an old movie where there's a guy who's a junkie yeah right and he needed help but said no the cops came and arrested him because he was a junkie today you wouldn't do that you would say the person needs help they need right right even if that person had robbed somebody that person needs treatment and the people who cannot shake whatever it is that afflicts them tells me that Free Will cannot be as free as we think it is do you remember the the the the shooter in the University of Texas at Austin I remember that okay there's a movie they man out called the tower yeah where he left a note saying I just want to kill people something must be wrong with my brain please when I die look into this they looked and there was a tumor putting pressure on a part of in fact that's how we learn anything about how the brain works when you have situations like this this person had the free will note he had the free will to write the note so he did not have the will to resist shooting but that's the the line that you were talking about is a partial one why isn't that line always in motion as we learn more and more about how the mind works it is okay so then maybe it's it's it's a con a line of convenience today but tomorrow we're going to find out oh my gosh that person has no real free control over their behavior over their personality over their Tendencies over their treatment of others it's not a line of convenience it is in your words a perimeter of ignorance when Newton said we couldn't explain certain things God must have done it that's a god of the gaps that delineates what we don't know the line you describe I hope is in fact that perimeter of ignorance which we slowly are moving toward and moving so that we do understand what the true nature of Free Will is so this is where people will push back most people are concerned not about uh the actions but the consequences so what they're thinking about is the punitive response to someone who does something wrong and is a punitive response a deterrent for somebody doing something wrong or or doing something wrong in the future especially if they don't have the free will so so there's the other side of this entire analysis is how does society interact with people who are being brought into the circle day by day we're learning what we have control over and what we don't biop physiologically intellectually emotionally yes why do people need anxiety meds do they have the freedom to not they have children that is why that is why I I'm tell you I'm taking them every day and and I got three reasons that I take them every day some kids need them because they have parents okay I'm just saying nice very nice okay so Charles if we're going to exit this conversation if we find a point of agreement it's that this perimeter of ignorance we recognize inside the perimeter there are forces operating against Free Will yes our physiology our neurochemistry yes and physics yes that surely that perimeter May grow yes but it's possible that there's a limit to how far will grow yes Beyond which we have to admit the existence of Free Will yes okay I'll give you that very nice we are a great job it doesn't have to be absolute in One Direction or another it's a bit more fluid okay and I'm okay with that there is uncertainty in the universe I embrace it I'll tell you this much I've been married for 20 plus years I do not have free will on that note Chuck and Charles thanks for help helping us with this explainer awesome the perspectives let's call it uh emergent perspectives on Free Will Neil degrass Tyson for Star talk yet another explainer in the universe keep looking up [Music]

Channel: StarTalk

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Id: LXvv6CbGg8A

Length: 15min 19sec (919 seconds)

Published: Thu May 09 2024