Can Free Will be Saved in a Deterministic Universe?

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Physicists have a long history of sticking our noses where they don’t belong - and one of our favorite places to step beyond our expertise is the question of consciousness and free will. Sometimes our musings are insightful, sometimes incoherent, and usually at least somewhat naive. Which a fair description of this show, so of course Space Time needs to weigh in physics and free will..

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Hosted by Matt O'Dowd
Written by Matt O'Dowd & Bahar Gholipour
Graphics by Leonardo Scholzer, Yago Ballarini, & Pedro Osinski
Directed by: Andrew Kornhaber
Assistant Producer: Setare Gholipour
Executive Producers: Eric Brown & Andrew Kornhaber

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[hoodglasses]

When PBS Spacetime uploads, I click. Not sure how much free will is involved there.

[KingOpenReview]

"I'm gonna end the episode without saying "space time."
Actually, quantum mechanics forbids this.

[BaharGolipour]

Hey everyone, I'm so excited about my first co-writing effort with Matt.
(I'm especially proud of the last line!)

[hemant]

"we must believe in free will, we have no choice"

[davelacey]

Came for the science, stayed for the existential crisis!

[visimut]

Things I took away from this episode:
Atoms are not made of appleness

[Mekratrig]

Ivan Pavlov went shopping & heard a bell ring, and he said “damnit! I forgot to feed the dog!”

[SnowySleet]

I flipped a coin to decide, and apparently I do have free will. Take that determinism!
Oh wait a minute...

[NicholasRehm]

I see a video, I click. No free will here

[sammarks]

This channel has a knack for posing a straightforward question, and answering it so thoroughly that I come away more confused than ever.

[arkaivos]

Hahaha, I was asking myself how were you going to end this espisode saying “Spacetime”. That was witty :D

[topchessgames]

13:19 "I am now going to exercise my free will to not end this episode with me saying "SpaceTime"..." - oops...

[antitna]

I'm usually able to say "Space Time" when he does. You got me this time. Best ending ever :D

[keenemaverick]

Reminds me of Dr. Farnsworth's Death Clock.

"So it predicts exactly the time you die?"

"Well, it can be off by a second or two, what with 'free will' and all..."

[angeldude]

Probably the strangest situation is when you preform an action, seemingly by free will, and then you think back on your own history to find the events in your life that would've led up to such an action. With or without free will, we are ultimately products of our environment, and had I grown up in a different environment, even if I had the same genetics, I would've made very different choices due to experiencing different situations. Sometimes a chance happening somewhere can change your fate in a way far beyond what mere choice alone could do without that luck.

[astrobullivant]

This is a fascinating discussion, but I'm afraid it'll never end.

[Jacob-dfhr]

This idea sent me into a 6 month existential crisis that I only got out of because I decided that, determined or not, experience is still novel to the person experiencing it.

[soccerrefereeclips]

I read the title as “does physics negate free wifi”

[aiksi]

I can't really comprehend nor understand what is even being described anymore

[technomage]

"In the end this is all semantics"
I've noticed this is frequently more and more an issue the deeper we go. Our normal intuitions, semantics, and our way of perceiving and looking at things seems to break down.