Free Will and Determinism from a Physicist’s Perspective (Sabine Hossenfelder)

The Michael Shermer Show # 294

What is time? Does the past still exist? How did the universe begin and how will it end? Do particles think? Was the universe made for us? Why doesn’t anyone ever get younger? Has physics ruled out free will? Will we ever have a theory of everything? According to Sabine Hossenfelder, it is not a coincidence that quantum entanglement and vacuum energy have become the go-to explanations of alternative healers, or that people believe their deceased grandmother is still alive because of quantum mechanics. Science and religion have the same roots, and they still tackle some of the same questions: Where do we come from? Where do we go to? How much can we know? The area of science that is closest to answering these questions is physics. Over the last century, physicists have learned a lot about which spiritual ideas are still compatible with the laws of nature. Not always, though, have they stayed on the scientific side of the debate.

Shermer and Hossenfelder also discuss: theories of everything • quantum flapdoodle • Is math all there is? Is math universal? • Uniformitarianism and the laws of nature • theories of aging • Emergent properties, or why we are not just a bag of atoms • Is knowledge predictable? • Free will and determinism from a physicist’s perspective • Do copies of us exist? Could they ever? • Consciousness and computability • Does the universe think? • Why is there something rather than nothing? • What is the purpose of life, the universe, and everything?

Sabine Hossenfelder is a research fellow at the Frankfurt Institute for Advanced Studies, Germany, and has published more than eighty research articles about the foundations of physics, including quantum gravity, physics beyond the standard model, dark matter, and quantum foundations. She has written about physics for a broad audience for 15 years and is the creator of the popular YouTube channel “Science without the Gobbledygook.” Her writing has been published in New Scientist, Scientific American, the New York Times, and the Guardian (London). Her first book, Lost in Math: How Beauty Leads Physics Astray, appeared in 2018.

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[jonathansturm]

My admiration for Sabine is almost boundless. So many “I don’t knows” which is fine in a Universe with so many things we can conceive that are determinable. There’s no shortage of answerable questions!

[earlbonie]

I love that Sabine is very strict in restricting her answers to her area of expertise. Socrates would be proud!

[hjalle]

Sabine is a treasure. A skeptic of science and a good educator.

[sherrydionisio]

Sabine is my favorite living physicist. She defines pragmatism and in her ideas, she is always succinct. I imagine her to be more honest, unbiased and humble than most people, though I have never known her. Such qualities always seem to help make any person more believable.

[conjurors-prelude]

Mathematician here 😊. I feel like the reason many lay people think they have discovered grand theories is because of the Dunning-Kruger effect. They just aren’t aware of how little they know. After getting my degree in higher math, I feel much tinier and much dumber. I have been humbled by just how much knowledge there is out there. Also, Sabine is my hero. I’m studying physics now because of her ❤

[manelsalido]

Sabine is a wonderful communicator, and a wonderful person!!

[mkilptrick]

I've been hooked on Sabines YT channel now for a couple of years. She does a good job of explaining complicated subjects.

[edreusser]

You forgot to mention that Sabine's channel is one of the most brilliant communicators on the planet. By listening to her broadcasts I find myself actually able to understand more than I ever imagined being able to. Different ideas like the block universe make so much more sense now. And the whole thing about time. My mind has been expanded in ways I never thought was possible.

[ecstacie]

This was absolutely fantastic. I’ll be listening to it again and mulling the ideas for a long time. I’m definitely going to buy her book, and I just subscribed to her YouTube channel. Thank you so very much for introducing me to this wonderful person!

[davidmarquez]

This was fascinating. As a fan of both, I think Michael did an amazing job with the questions and topics he picked here for Sabine, outside of the purely scientific zone.

[d.r.tweedstweeddale]

I follow Dr. Hossenfelder's vlog & find it quite educational at a level aimed at the level of we curious lay types & get a kick from her personable humour. Thank Sabine on my behalf, please.

[Thomas-gk]

Sabine is such a smart, special, and nice lady. She has to give a lot to humanity ❤

[MrHARRYGOODNIGHT]

I love Sabine's pristine fidelity to her understanding and beliefs.

[Lincoln_Bio]

Sabine visibly dying inside at the mention of Deepak Chopra is comedy gold

[JohnBrown-ndjb]

Thank you, miss Hossenfelder, for promoting real science!

[NeilRieck]

I've been a fan of Sabine ever since I attended her public lectures at the Perimeter Institute of Physics in Waterloo, Ontario, Canada.

[Danny_Handford]

Sabina is an amazing lady! In all of the academic professions from philosophy to physics including engineering, economics, finance, business and politics, people try to baffle you with bullshit. At times, it can be a real challenge to separate the facts from the fiction and to recognize the swindlers and con artists. I think at some point all of us have been fooled by someone myself included.

[DrUdaiSSingh]

I love Sabine! The most sensible physicist who can communicate rationally, logically and in a manner that is comprehensible to all. And she covers so many fields outside physics too. What a gem!

[alanjones]

Many good questions well answered. I'm currently reading her "Existential Physics" and find it refreshing. Her instrumentalist perspective is most refreshing (see Dewey's instrumentalism). I like her use of "ascientific". Many ascientific notions are notions that are claimed to be derivative from science but are really just confusions of metaphysics with science. She makes her own meanings. She is responsible for her life.

[jonathansturm]

On female sensitivity: A friend sent me a video clip he’d taken on the train in Germany. Two women were discussing the problems they had being sensitive to the electromagnetic fields in their homes. They suffered terribly from them attributing all sorts of petty ailments to their sensitivity. My friend pointed out that they were all travelling on an electric train and were in a much more intense electromagnetic field than you find in any normal home.