Leonard Susskind: Quantum Mechanics, String Theory and Black Holes | Artificial Intelligence Podcast
Free will 37:00 enthropy 41:00
In a deterministic universe, there is no free will, no miracles, and no chance events. Sometimes mental events or "choices" are considered epiphenomena. The classic view of determinism was expressed by Laplace. Given sufficient knowledge of every particle in the universe, any future event or past event could be calculated with exactitude. (Modern psychology takes completely for granted that behavior and neural function are perfectly correlated, that one is completely caused by the other. There is no separate soul or lifeforce to stick a finger into the brain now and then and make neural cells do what they would not otherwise. Actually, of course, this is a working assumption only....It is quite conceivable that someday the assumption will have to be rejected. But it is important also to see that we have not reached that day yet: the working assumption is a necessary one and there is no real evidence opposed to it. Our failure to solve a problem so far does not make it insoluble. One cannot logically be a determinist in physics and biology, and a mystic in psychology. - D. O. Hebb, Organization of Behavior: A Neuropsychological Theory, 1949).
