Sean Carroll

And I hate to say it because I do like to be fair to people I disagree with.

But generally, when I talk to people who are so-called hard determinists—

which is a bad thing to be and a certainly bad label for what they are.

Again and again, quantum mechanics says the world's not deterministic.

So if you're a hard determinist, you're wrong.

Sorry about that.

But the point is that they don't want to believe in free will.

They're really the anti-free will camp.

That's actually what they are, and that's a respectable position to have.

Determinism is not, but that is.

So the problem is that they absolutely refuse to understand what compatibilism says.

I had this experience with Sam Harris.

I had this experience with Robert Sapolsky.

They try to argue against compatibilism by making a case for determinism.

And I'm just like, do you know what the word compatibilism means?

It means that free will is compatible with determinism.

So you can't argue against the claim that free will is compatible with determinism by saying the world is deterministic.

We've already admitted that that's allowed as a possibility.

I think, by the way, it's not true, but it's allowed.

If it were, I would still believe.