Sean Carroll

The problem with words like matter is you can say it and people think they know what you mean, and maybe they don't really know what you mean.

And then it's the burden of the speaker to try to be as clear as possible.

Josh says, Christian List made a compelling case that your own compatibilist intuitions are philosophically defensible.

But I think former Mindscape guest Robert Sapolsky, who you helped with his quantum mechanics chapter, sits in more the hard incompatibilist camp alongside philosopher Derek Perenboom.

Given that List argues the whole levels of description framework dissolves the incompatibilist threat, do you think you've swayed Sapolsky's mind or is it time to get him and or Paraboom back on the show to defend their stances?

So it is not time to get anyone back on the show to defend their stances.

The point of Mindscape is not to have debates back and forth.

I'm glad to have people with different perspectives, but we don't have episodes that respond to other episodes.

That's just not how we work.

But I don't think anyone's mind is being changed or anything like that.

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.