Brain Space Time Podcast #7 Kevin Mitchell: Free Agents (in an evolving block universe)
Kevin Mitchell is an Associate Professor of Genetics and Neuroscience at the Trinity College Dublin. He recently published his second book, "Free Agents: How Evolution Gave Us Free Will." It's a rigorous defense for why we (and other living systems) have free will, arguing all the way from quantum indeterminacy, to C. elegans, to how humans can form abstracted meanings over very long timescales. We also go beyond the book, exploring how free will links to unresolved questions in physics about the discrepancy of microscopic laws being time-invariant and macroscopic laws having a time asymmetry (entropy increase over time). And how the 'present' does it exist and how its duration might differ for a fly vs a human. Kevin also does a great job of explaining why top-down causality and meaning are not just some mythical concepts, but how it scientifically makes sense to speak of neural activity in terms of 'what this means for the orgasm', and how coarse-gaining allows hierarchical control structures to do causal work on this 'meaning-level'. In the end, we also talk about what kind of research Kevin would like to see and advice on learning across disciplines.
For Apple Podcast users, find books/papers links at: https://akseliilmanen.wixsite.com/home/post/pod07
- Kevin's Website
- Twitter: @WiringTheBrain
- Kevin's publications & talks:
- Mitchell, 2020 - Innate: How the Wiring of Our Brains Shapes Who We Are book
- Potter et al., 2022 - Naturalising Agent Causation paper
- Mitchell, 2023 - The origins of meaning – from pragmatic control signals to semantic representations preprint
- Mitchell, 2023 - Free Agents: How Evolution Gave Us Free Will book
- Mitchell et al., 2023 - Robert Sapolsky vs Kevin Mitchell: The Biology of Free Will | Philosophical Trials #15 YouTube
- Mitchell, 2023 - Reflections on “Systems – the Science of Everything” Blog
- Other papers/books mentioned:
- Smolin et al., 2021 - The quantum mechanics of the present preprint
Neuroscience and Philosophy Salon website
- My Twitter @akseli_ilmanen
- Email: akseli.ilmanen[at]gmail.com
- Brain Space Time Podcast, my blog, other stuff
- Music: Space News, License: Z62T4V3QWL
Timestamps:
(00:00:00) - Intro
(00:02:40) - The Free Will skeptics
(00:12:56) - Quantum indeterminacy, the weather, and living systems
(00:23:09) - C. elegans and how evolution exploits noise
(00:38:08) - The arrow of time and the quantum mechanics of the present
(00:43:50) - 'How long' is the present for flies vs humans
(00:52:14) - Top-down causality on the biological implementation level
(01:00:03) - Meaning as functional (not epiphenomenal) and Robert Nozick's pleasure machine
(01:05:34) - Interdisciplinary science and education