Transcription
my intuition tells me that Consciousness
somehow emerges your brain and my brain
and everybody's brain is made up of
molecules and atoms and particular
configurations if the particles don't
have that how is it that by putting a
lot of particles together you do yield
an inner world of sights and smells and
emotions this inner world that we all
have playing out inside of our heads
where does it come from maybe the
particles do do have some kind of
version of Consciousness a little bit of
Consciousness in the electron in the
Quark in the proton this chair from this
perspective would embody a certain
rudimentary kind of Consciousness
because the ingredients themselves would
embody that if that's all that
Consciousness is then you pretty
inviolably come to the conclusion that
there is no free will religions a
beautiful really spectacular invention
of the human mind of course physics can
allow for
[Music]
God it's a great honor having you here
and my opening question to you is don't
you think that we were not programmed to
understand the universe but does only to
survive
absolutely our brain
like the rest of our bodies like every
species on planet
Earth is here because it
survived and it survived because
survival of the fittest we evolve over
time to have the capacities that allow
us to get the next meal or to find
shelter or to avoid a predator that's
why we are here and our brains do that
by finding patterns in the external
world because if you see a pattern out
there you've got to leg up in the battle
for survival if you can maybe predict
with some certainty what's going to
happen next while your competitor can't
you're more likely to win to survive
that's why we're here so as a physicist
you are fighting with nature I wouldn't
say that we're fighting with nature what
I would say is once our brains gained
the capacity to recognize patterns that
aided survival that capacity then went
overboard it evolved to a place where it
could spot patterns that are irrelevant
to survival and then as we began to
conquer the natural world where we
didn't have to spend all our time
gathering fruit and nuts or throwing a
spear at an antelope when we had enough
time we could use that pattern
recognition capacity to start to think
about things like the pattern of the
motion of the planets the pattern of the
motion of objects that we throw or even
then the pattern of the motion of the
electron in the atom or the pattern of
the energy that comes out of the
accretion disc around a black hole these
are just extensions of our capacity to
recognize patterns that were at first in
the service of survival but now we have
not fought against nature we've
leveraged that capacity to go even
further what's about the molecules can
molecules be involved in the natural
selection process I think molecular
Darwinism as we often call it is a vital
part of how the world has evolved many
of us when we learn about evolution by
natural selection in school at least
here in the United States it's always at
the level of living systems living
systems they have progyny the progyny
won't have exactly the same
characteristics as their parents
and those new characteristics which Aid
in survival they will spread widely
because the bearer of those
characteristics will have a better
chance of living to the age of
reproduction now that's only at the
level of living systems there's a
version of that that happens at the
level of molecules molecules can have
children so to speak they can have
progeny molecules can learn the trick of
replication and once a molecule can make
a copy of of itself we recognize that no
coping process is ever perfect there
will always be mutation slightly
different molecules and those mutations
that Aid in the process of making more
replicants they will spread widely so
the molecular demographics will become
dominated by those molecules that can
reproduce swifter faster with greater
economy and greater stability so in that
sense molecules themselves fight other
molecules UL chemical combat that
ultimately yields refined molecules and
those are the molecules that ultimately
make up living systems what's about the
enthropy in the universe can the actions
the molecules increase effects increase
enthropy in the universe yeah every
physical process by and large except for
you know very unlikely events results in
an increase in entropy for the basic
reason that entropy is simply a measure
of the number of ways that a given
system can be realized and if there are
more ways that A system can be realized
it's more likely that that configuration
will come to be and so over time entropy
increases at every level at the level of
molecules at the level of living systems
at the level of the universe now it may
not always seem that way because we can
do things things that seem to decrease
the amount of entropy decrease the
amount of disorder we can order a system
using our brains and using our
volitional capacities but if you take
into account the amount of entropy that
our bodies create in the process of
yielding that ordered system then the
overall entropy always increases over
time uh entropy and evolution of the
Universe are what mainly determine
operations in the universe all
operations in the universe yeah when I
think about the dominant forces at work
guiding the cosmic Evolution I do think
of it in terms of entropy and evolution
entropy is this drive toward ever
greater disorder evolution is this drive
toward ever greater refined systems that
are able to replicate with greater
capacity and so they kind of seem like
at opposite ends of the spectrum entropy
driving us toward disorder evolution in
a sense driving us toward order now in a
sense there for these two forces they
kind of battle against each other during
the unfolding of the cosmos ultimately
entropy wins if you look at the far
future of the universe as we can
understand it using our mathematical
equations that describe the laws of
physics it's pretty clear that every
ordered system in the universe
ultimately
decays falls apart every single system
every single system so Stars ultimately
run out of nuclear Fuel and either
explode or turn to a a simmering
smoldering Mass they lose that beautiful
ordered structure that gives rise to
heat and light that comes out of a star
during its living system even black
holes ultimately stepen Hawking taught
us mystery of black hole a big mystery
of black holes but there's some aspects
that we understand well and Stephen
Hawking taught us that black holes emit
radiation slowly but they emit radiation
over time so their configuration
ultimately gives rise to a bath of
particles disordered particles that waft
through the universe so every system
that May embody order at a given
cosmological Epoch ultimately
disintegrates falls apart gives rise to
a disorderly end product we have a
mystery of black hole we will back to
the topic but we have also mystery of
human
consciousness
uh all we know about the human
consciousness is that I have
Consciousness you have cons ious this
director chair does not that's only one
thing we know about the
Consciousness well there would be people
who would debate even the statement that
the chair doesn't have Consciousness I
agree I don't think that it does but
when we try to understand the basis of
Consciousness we run up against what's
known as the hard problem and the hard
problem is simp simply that your brain
and my brain and everybody's brain is
made up of molecules and atoms and
particular
configurations if the individual
particles don't have inner worlds of
subjective experience conscious self
awareness if the particles don't have
that how is it that by putting a lot of
particles together you do yield an inner
world of sights and smells and emotions
this inner world that we all have
playing out inside of our head
where does it come from some have
suggested that the starting point of
that puzzle is incorrect maybe the
particles do have some kind of version
of Consciousness some kind of Proto
Consciousness a little bit of
Consciousness in the electron in the
Quark in the protons and maybe that
little inside of things and therefore
this chair from this perspective would
embody body a certain rudimentary kind
of Consciousness because the ingredients
themselves would embody that this is not
an approach that has convinced me but I
understand why people introduce this
idea because I cannot answer the
question of how can a collection of
mindless particles gain mindfulness how
does that happen nobody can answer that
question for you it's it's more physics
biology or chemistry well my view which
comes from years of thinking about these
puzzles and my intuition as a physicist
my intuition tells me that Consciousness
somehow emerges an emergent phenomenon
when you have particles molecules atoms
in a sufficiently coherent Arrangement
but if you ask me how does that happen I
remain at a loss because I don't know
and nobody knows the mechanism by which
Consciousness emerges from orderly
structures my guess is that one day we
will understand how that happens but
there are some who say that's too
optimistic a Viewpoint you can't get
Consciousness from something that's not
conscious you can't take a bunch of
particles Each of which has no
consciousness whatsoever put them
together and have Consciousness emerge
some people feel that very very strongly
maybe Consciousness is born in the
quantum phenomenon we spend so much time
with r Penrose he deeply believe that
the human consciousness is born in
Quantum level in a Quantum phenomenon
deeper inside a human brain yeah I have
I have no doubt that quantum physics in
some way shape or form is important to
Consciousness because quantum physics is
important into the way physical things
in our universe behave and those
physical things include of course the
particles that make up the atom and the
atoms that make up the molecules and the
molecules that make up the cells and the
cells that make up the brain which
somehow has conscious awareness so
quantum mechanics has to be at some
level part of the story but I do not
think or at least I do not see any
evidence that the structure of quantum
mechanics per se necessarily yield s
Consciousness to me it's more it's the
laws of physics together with the
orderly structures that are the
substrate within which Consciousness
takes place and so I don't see a direct
root from quantum mechanics to
Consciousness at least not in the way
that I think Roger has imagined it uh I
remember my interview uh with Robert
sapolsky from Stanford University and
I need to ask you about free will if do
you feel if do you understand the
difference between Free Will and
Consciousness Professor sapolsky deeply
believed that there is no free will we
are biological machines everything is
determined by the cells by molecules uh
by atoms do you feel the difference
between Consciousness and will yes so
the question of Free Will hinges on your
perspective regarding
Consciousness if you believe as I do but
I do not have proof but if you believe
that Consciousness is ultimately
reducible to physical processes
biological processes chemical processes
if that's all that Consciousness is then
you pretty inviolably come to the
conclusion that there is no free will
why is there no free will it's so sad it
is sad in a way but in a way it's
actually I think quite liberating but
again the argument is if the ingredients
from which Consciousness emerges the
particles the molecules the atoms if
they are governed by physical law you
and I and nobody else has the ability to
intercede in the lawful progression the
lawful behavior of those particles so
when you in your mind make a decision or
have a thought ultimately if that
conscious awareness is nothing but
molecules moving one way or another you
can't control those motions and
therefore you can't control what's
happening inside your head you mean that
we are not determined to answer the
question what Consciousness is well it
depends what you mean by determined so
there's two kinds of determination
within physics and they've been used in
different periods of time in the old
classical physics prior to quantum
physics the idea of having a determined
system is you tell me the state of the
system right now the positions and the
velocities of all the particles and I'll
simply use the laws of physics to
predict what that system will be like 5
minutes later or an hour later or a year
later the initial conditions and the
laws of physics determine how things
will be period end of story that's
classical physics quantum physics which
has supplanted Classical physics says
something a little bit differently it
says tell me how things are now as best
as possible describe the state of the
system and I will use the laws of
quantum physics to predict the
likelihood that things will be one way
or another way or another way still in
the future you can only predict
probabilities but those probabilities
are just as determined in quantum
physics as the outputs were determined
in classical physics it's just just
you're determining something else so to
my mind you can sort of have your cake
and eat it people worry if I don't have
free will does that mean you can predict
what I'm going to say in two seconds
answer is actually no the best you could
do is predict the probability that I'd
say one thing or another or another
still and so there's an open quality to
the Future in quantum physics that you
would not have in classical physics so
yes I do not believe that I have free
will but I also understand that you
can't use the laws of physics to predict
with 100% certainty what I will do
because you can only predict
probabilities of one or another outcome
what's about a human thoughts I remember
your own quot that human thoughts itself
it's a lifetime limitation in the
universe what does it mean well if you
believe as I do that thought
are physical processes that there's
no structure beyond the physical that
somehow is the place where thoughts
originate and take place I'm not going
to go to any of those ideas I don't even
know what they mean so if I think of
thought as a physical process every
physical process results in an increase
in entropy
energy little bit different every
thought and every physical process
requires energy
but the output of the process through
which that energy is used is to increase
entropy the amount of energy can stay
fixed but the energy degrades over time
and that degraded energy is what we mean
by disorder or entropy the reason why
this is important is the following right
now as we're talking I am producing a
lot of entropy hopefully not in the idea
that I'm communicating but rather
because I am giving off heat I am
emitting waste to the environment and if
you had the right instrument you'd see
the infrared light coming off of my head
that is turning energy into less useful
energy that infrared radiation is hard
to make use of that is what we mean by
entropy in this room this room is very
good at being able to absorb the heat
the waste the entropy I'm producing but
in the far future fut as the temperature
of the universe comes down you can argue
convincingly with mathematics that there
will come a point when the universe
can't absorb the entropy it can't absorb
the heat that thought itself creates at
that point if a thinking being thinks
one more thought they will burn up in
the entropic waste produced by the
process of thought itself they will die
there will be no further capacity for
thought to take place human being
determine entropy human beings create
entropy create entropy yes as does every
other living system as does every other
physical process in the universe how do
you define the truth what truth is for
you well I think truth comes in a number
of
varieties there is something that I like
to think of as objective truth which
speaks to the qualities of the external
world that we attempt to describe using
mathematics be it the general theory of
relativity be it Quantom mechanics these
are
mathematical approaches to try to get at
the truth of the physical processes that
take place in the universe that have
been holding sway since the Big Bang
giving rise to stars and galaxies and
planets and on this planet living
systems there's also another variety of
Truth was a more internal subjective
truth these are the truths that every
human being yes these are the truths
that every human being holds within
their mind there are things that deeply
matter to me my family my parents the
things that I spend my time on my
perspective on the political situation
these are vital truths to me as a human
being but but they're not objective not
everybody will agree that these are
fundamental truths of the universe
they're things that matter to me as an
individual human often we get these
mixed up things that people think of as
objective truths often times are just
subjective truths that matter to them
and having a clear understanding of the
truths that are external and out there
versus the ones that are internal is a
vital distinction to
make I ask you because I I found your
Tweet uh published maybe two three years
a days ago about the mathematics and
ideas
that you think that we can discover
mathematical idea it's fully different
approach that represent all
mathematicians that I know yes most
mathematicians mostly people think that
mathematical idea exist
they are who created nobody knows that
but they are you think that we can
discover mathematical ideas yeah I would
use a slightly different word I would
say we invent mathematical ideas we
don't discover them to discover them
would suggest that they're out there
waiting to be found you just need to
unearth them somebody else created them
or the universe created them and they're
out there and I don't think there could
be any possibility that this is true
mathematics
is a language that we humans developed
in order to find a very quantitative and
accurate approach to embodying the
patterns that we see in the external
world we invent mathematics maybe that
language there is only two to understand
something that
is that's how most mathematicians will
describe it but the theorems and the
proofs that mathematicians
proudly publish in papers and journals
around the world it's not that they
don't have value but they are truths
that emerge with in the language of
mathematics that we invent there is no
meaning to these statements to these
theorems to these proofs without the
language of mathematics itself and we
invent that language and so take the
Pythagorean theorem A2 + b^2 = c^2 we
invent the idea of a triangle there's no
real triangle in the external world we
invent the idea of a line we invent the
idea of a right angle there's no real
right angle in the external they're
close to right angles but we invent the
ideas and then we find interesting
features about the concepts that we
invent now most mathematicians Rec coil
at this idea because somehow the
validity and value of what they're doing
for many rests upon finding external
truths things that are out there that
will always be true and my answer to
that is the Pythagorean theorem a s plus
b squ plus c s it only has meaning when
it's resonant inside of a head that can
understand it and in the far future when
there are no thinking structures left
when there's nobody able to think
anything at all the Pythagorean theorem
will not exist where will it be if it's
not resonating inside of a mind that can
understand it to say that math is out
there independent of us has as little
validity as saying that there is a deity
out there independent of us doing things
and if you're willing to go in that
direction then I believe you're
undercutting the logical structure of
the insights that we're able to gain
about who we are and what we do can
physics allow for God evidence of course
physics can allow for God it could be
that there is a God I can't prove that
there isn't a God just like I can't
prove that mathematics isn't out there
the best that anyone can do is Marshall
the most convincing argument based upon
things that we know about things that
we've seen that we've observe the data
that we have there is no data there is
no evidence that I've ever seen that
gives me any confidence that the idea of
a God is real that is not proof that God
is not real it's merely giving you
insight into my thinking and the
thinking of many others as well as to
why this might not be true but could it
be that there's a God out there and
carefully has arranged things so that
there won't be any evidence so that the
God has hidden their role in the world
and just maybe given clues that only the
world's priests and imom's and and
rabbis can find maybe but I don't find
that a plausible way of looking at the
world I've found that I can have
conversations with
anyone and we can leave that
conversation feeling good because my
Approach To The World Is Not to undercut
some 's position but rather to hear them
and to see the degree to which their
perspective can be integrated into my
own so unlike some of my colleagues who
say religion should be wiped off the
face of the Earth that it's the most
egregious and awful result of
civilization I don't feel that way at
all I find religion to be a beautiful
structure that speaks to who we are and
what matters to us and the ideals that
we have of course religion can be used
for bad just the way nuclear
understanding can be used for bad or
good and so religion as a tool can have
some very negative consequences but
viewed in the most positive light
religion's a beautiful really
spectacular invention of the human mind
the thing that we're most terrified
about as human beings is our
mortality how wonderful to invent a
structure
whereby our death is not the end of our
existence our death is merely a step
within a much larger story and so that's
a very beautiful way of quelling the
existential anxiety that comes with
mortality awareness that to me is an
internal Truth for those who believe it
it is not an objective external truth
but internal truths matter they're
valuable there is a William James book
from 192 do you know that yes I why
vities of religious experience why we
need religion why we need to be under
control superpower yeah absolutely
William James is a hero of mine because
here you have a a scientist trying to
understand The Human Condition through
the lens of rational thought and
rational Gathering of data and rational
evaluation of people's
experiences and when William James came
out of that experience you know
understanding the worldwide experience
of religion and religious phenomenon
from very different perspectives and
came with a very beautiful perspective
on how religion meets certain needs that
we have how religion serves certain
purposes for we as human beings crawling
around the surface of a nondescript Rock
orbiting around a nondescript star in
the outskirts of an ordinary Galaxy who
wouldn't suffer from anxiety who
wouldn't suffer for Terror and fear to
be thrust into that reality and if
religion can help quell those fears if
religion can tell a larger story that
can make an individual feel that their
life matters in the grander scheme of
things then yeah that's a powerful
structure and it's a powerful role for
this idea that we have invented called
religion