Sean Carroll's Mindscape
354 | Christian List on Free Will and Levels of Reality
May 18, 20261h 26m · 14,238 words
Show notes
Did I have any freedom in choosing this particular podcast guest? At the level of particles, fields, and the fundamental laws of physics; no. At the level of human agents navigating the world, yes. Today's guest, Christian List, is a philosopher and political scientist who has arguably done the most to articulate the "compatibilist" perspective on free will, according to which the freedom of rational agents is entirely compatible with underlying mechanisti…
Highlighted moments
the distinction between determinism and indeterminism is really very much a level relative, a level specific distinction.
“if you have an AI technology that is extraordinarily attitudinally volatile, um, uh, then, uh, you know, maybe you just have these very short-lived time slices and those are the kind of meaningful units of agency.”
Transcript
Transcript not available for this episode yet.
More from Sean Carroll's Mindscape
Mindscape Ask Me Anything, Sean Carroll | August 2026
Aug 3, 20263h 57m
362 | Luis Bettencourt on the Universal Properties of Self-Organizing Cities
Jul 27, 20261h 20m
361 | Bonnie Bassler on How Bacteria Talk and Work Together
Jul 20, 20261h 15m
Mindscape Ask Me Anything, Sean Carroll | July 2026
Jul 13, 20264h 3m
360 | Marc Berman on the Science of Touching Grass
Jul 6, 20261h 29m