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Big ThinkMichio Kaku: Why Physics Ends the Free Will Debate
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Einstein believed that free will was just an illusion, and that awareness of this lack kept him from taking himself and others too seriously. But Einstein was plain wrong, says Dr. Kaku
Dr. Michio Kaku is the co-founder of string field theory, and is one of the most widely recognized scientists in the world today. He has written 4 New York Times Best Sellers, is the science correspondent for CBS This Morning and has hosted numerous science specials for BBC-TV, the Discovery/Science Channel. His radio show broadcasts to 100 radio stations every week. Dr. Kaku holds the Henry Semat Chair and Professorship in theoretical physics at the City College of New York (CUNY), where he has taught for over 25 years. He has also been a visiting professor at the Institute for Advanced Study as well as New York University (NYU).
TRANSCRIPT:
Newtonian Determinism says that the universe is a clock, a gigantic clock thatâs wound up in the beginning of time and has been ticking ever since according to Newtonâs laws of motion. So what youâre going to eat 10 years from now on January 1st has already been fixed. Itâs already known using Newtonâs laws of motion. Einstein believed in that. Einstein was a determinist.
Does that mean that a murderer, this horrible mass murderer isnât really guilty of his works because he was already preordained billions of years ago? Einstein said well yeah, in some sense thatâs true that even mass murderers were predetermined, but he said, they should still be placed in jail.
Heisenberg then comes along and proposes the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle and says: âNonsense. There is uncertainty. You donât know where the electron is. It could be here, here or many places simultaneously.â This of course Einstein hated because he said God doesnât play dice with the universe. Well hey, get used to it. Einstein was wrong. God does play dice. Every time we look at an electron it moves. There is uncertainty with regards to the position of the electron.
So what does that mean for free will? It means in some sense we do have some kind of free will. No one can determine your future events given your past history. There is always the wildcard. There is always the possibility of uncertainty in whatever we do.
So when I look at myself in a mirror I say to myself what I’m looking at is not really me. It looks like me, but itâs not really me at all. Itâs not me today now. Itâs me a billionth of a second ago because it takes a billionth of a second for light to go from me to the mirror and back.
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43 Comments
@bigthink
02/23/2025 - 11:42 AMWant to get Smarter, Faster�
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@Jerry-k4n
02/23/2025 - 11:42 AMUncertainty is not the same thing as free will.
@NumberSix-l5h
02/23/2025 - 11:42 AMI think free will may derive from a mental self representation playing the "Maxwells demon" making choices based on an internal perspective shift relative to the needs of the internal self representation.
@kostisth1436
02/23/2025 - 11:42 AMhis logical leaps are wild
@Peter_Panic
02/23/2025 - 11:42 AMDo they know theyâre lying?
We donât look at an electron !
Itâs not passive .
We âlook âat it the same way a kid âlooks â at a piĂąata with a stick.
No shit it moved, dork.
This highly paid scientist is utterly misquoting Heisenberg.
@littlepotatomaneatstomatoe8160
02/23/2025 - 11:42 AMYes, but if it's not determined but random, that still means you have no free will… you are not dictating the uncertainty. It is dictating you, and you have no control over it.
@tonywilsonmassey9364
02/23/2025 - 11:42 AMIf you can talk to yourself, then I think free will exists.
@aldrinmilespartosa1578
02/23/2025 - 11:42 AMBro the editor is practicing his/her free will lolđ
@zeroonetime
02/23/2025 - 11:42 AMYes, scientifically: THERE IS NO FREE WILL other than the freedom to choose. 010
@theboombody
02/23/2025 - 11:42 AMIf you take the smallest known (perhaps smallest possible) units of time and mass, and calculate the universe's observable size and age using those units, and multiply those quantities together, it's still less than 10 raised to the power of 500. Very huge number, but limited. Now, the chances of randomly typing Hamlet on a typewriter is 1 out of a much bigger number. 10 raised to the power of 130,000 at least. Hamlet is certainly not created by random processes. But it also makes me wonder if there's a ghost in the machine.
@paymonkhodadadi
02/23/2025 - 11:42 AMIndividual temporal indeterministic reality with a collective atemporal deterministic overlay.
@jerrymeadows5059
02/23/2025 - 11:42 AMI don't doubt the brilliance of those who insist that sufficient knowledge exists to explain things like existence via scientific analysis, but I have serious doubts about whether or not and/or to what extent the knowledge that exists is indeed sufficient to reliably point us even in the right direction of the larger questions of existence. We have an infinitesimally small understanding of even seemingly minor things such as how neurons flashing in the brain determine human activities and yet we insist that our theories about everything in the universe are scientifically valid because they make sense in the laboratory. Many of the same brilliant minds assumed above seem to approach these larger questions in the same way as they insist upon the validity of the Fermi Paradox, which is to say- if there are answers out there that tie directly to existence, don't you think we would have found them by now? Personally I tend to think we are too stupid to appreciate our own stupidity, but we seem to be happy about it.
@HandyMan-p3t
02/23/2025 - 11:42 AMThere's no such a thing as free will. All things are bound by the laws of the universe. And everything is restricted to circumstances. Having limited or a wide range of choices is not free will.
Furthermore, the uncertainty principle just means that our perception is limited, not that a single electron can be in multiple places at once. The cloud is merely a range of possibilities with an undetectable certainty.
@Julio_Siqueira
02/23/2025 - 11:42 AMLost almost two minutes of my precious time. đĄđ¤Ź
@Jamesgarethmorgan
02/23/2025 - 11:42 AMEr – no – seeing as 'I' have no control over those random processes what he says makes no difference whatsoever to the question of free will. You'd think somebody that bright coulda figured that out for himself. IQ ain't everything is it?
@MP-mn6we
02/23/2025 - 11:42 AMI see a lot of Dunning-Kruger effects in the comments below and most everywhere else I see humans.
@stevecox-y5k
02/23/2025 - 11:42 AMSuper determinism could explain quantum entanglement but I donât think it could ever be proven.
@domalec
02/23/2025 - 11:42 AMI thought you lot don't believe in God. Or is it just a figure of speech?
@rayarjomand6533
02/23/2025 - 11:42 AMPre-determined by who ? Where do you draw the line ? Who cares about determining at exact time in the future that I take a crap and how much crap to the miligram ? No 1 will even notice it if I die now, forget the timing of my taking poop. If there was even god, why would he even care or give a poop.
@eltonron1558
02/23/2025 - 11:42 AMIf I don't eat broccoli, it's because I Willed it, be.
Thank God a vile, horrible weed will not enter my will.
@u2verparacreer743
02/23/2025 - 11:42 AMI choose to write this and nobody choosed for me. And i didnt planed it one hundred billons years ago. No more to add. Its a fact. ÂżWhy cientist should question a FACT like that? I exist, i choose. đ¤ˇđťââď¸
@PathFinder-t6p
02/23/2025 - 11:42 AMwe cannot know both the position and speed of a particle, such as a photon or electron
uncertainty verse determinism just because I can determine what choice you will make doesn't mean you have no choice
@hangtuahTRADING
02/23/2025 - 11:42 AMAt the beginning there is only God and He named Himself, âAllahâ. He had commanded in the Quran to the effect:
Say, âHe is Allah, The One and Only.1
Then He created all creations. He had commanded in the Quran to the effect:
For to anything which We have willed, We but say the word, âBeâ, and it is.2
However before He says the word, âBeâ, He had made ready a perfect and all comprehensive Divine Plan. He had commanded in the Quran to the effect:
When He hath decreed a Plan, He but said to it, âBeâ and it is!3
And that Divine Plan is called, âLoh Mahfuzâ. It is a perfect and all comprehensive Plan created by The All-Wisest, Allah. He forgets nothing in this Plan and as such there can be no amendment. He had commanded in the Quran to the effect:
With Him is the Mother of the Book (Loh Mahfuz)4
Nothing have We omitted from the Book.5
Nor is hidden from your Lord (so much as) the weight of an atom.6
No change will you find in the practice (approved) of Allah7
And the command of Allah is a decreed determined.8
Many had compared His command, âBeâ to that of the âBig Bangâ and recently scientists too had attempted to emulate the âBig Bangâ. However, the attempt is destined to fail because there was absent of the Divine Plan (Loh Mahfuz) which is the prerequisite for the âBig Bangâ to work. Allah had commanded in the Quran to the effect:
It is He who created all things, and ordered them in due proportions.9
Verily, for all things has Allah appointed a due proportion.10
This Divine Plan fortified the fact that there is an Intelligent Design. Thus we can see the physicals of human being with the head on the top, the body and hands below that and the legs at the bottom remain constant all over the world. Similarly, the trees too have their leaves on the top, stem in the middle and the roots at the bottom. Animals give birth to animals, human to human and so on. We can note many more similarities not only on physical aspects but also on the non-physical as well as environment where they live. All these denote the Divine Intelligent Design. Allah had commanded to the effect:
Verily, all things have We created in proportion and measure.11
Lest you think that the Intelligent Design is due to the Divine Plan (Loh Mahfuz) alone, you are greatly mistaken. It is actually the result of the partnership between the Divine Plan and the Divine Essence. In respect of the latter, at the beginning there is God and nothing was with Him. So when He commanded, âBeâ and creations were created, this begets the question, âFrom which source the creations were created from?â If there was another existence apart from Him then the concept that at the beginning He was alone collapsed and collapsed too the foundation of Monotheism.12 Such being the case, it is indisputable that the source of creations is He, alone. Thus Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) had said to the effect:
You are the Essence from which creations evolved.13
And Allah had commanded in the Quran to the effect:
I am The First.14
Although He is unknown (a Hidden God), His Essence is without doubt the source of all creations and so He is conveniently referred to as The (Whole) Essence.15 The Whole Essence is immeasurable and unfathomable.
Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) had said to the effect:
Verily Allah is the Glorious Essence16
There is no God but The Essence.17
Thus when He commanded, âBeâ, His Essence manifested in accordance to the role given in the Divine Plan (Loh Mahfuz). Allah had commanded in the Quran to the effect:
I am The Manifest.18
The next inevitable question is, âIs The Whole Essence manifested into all creations?â To this end, we have the following answers:
According to the Concept of Wahdatul Wujud, all the creations are He in manifestation. Hence they said, âOne in all, all in One.â19
According to the Concept of the Light of Muhammad, before commanding, âBeâ, part of The Whole Essence became the Light of Muhammad then the remaining part of The whole Essence commanded, âBeâ to the Light of Muhammad and beholds creations were created (from the Light of Muhammad).20
According to the Concept of Wahdatul Syuhud, the only real existence is God and creations are an unreal existence.21
According to the Concept of Dzatiyah, a little of The Whole Essence is used as the source of all creations. How little of The Whole Essence was used as source of all creations, according to:
a) The Bang Theory- lesser than an atom. 22
b) Prophet Jesus â Lesser than a particle of sand.23
c) Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) â like the full moon in the sky (you can block it with your thumb) but Allah is greater than this.24
It has to be stressed at the outset that we subscribed to the Concept of Dzatiyah.
In the light that a little of His Whole Essence is the source of all creations hence creation alone or as a whole can never be God.
The whole creations are but the manifestation of The Little Essence. The manifestation hides The Little Essence and thus He commanded to the effect:
I am The Hidden.25
The Bibliography
1 Al Ikhlas (112):1-2
2 Ah Nahl (16):40.
3 Ali Imran (3):47.
4 Al Raâd (13):39
5 Al Anaâam (6):38
6 Yunos (10):61
7 Al Ahzab (33):62
8 Al Ahzab (33):38
9 Al Furqan (25):2
10 At Talaq (65):3
11 Al Qamar (54):49
12 Imran Hoesin, Islam and The Changing Order, 9 (1991).
13 Sunan At Tirmidzi Bk. 5, 342 (1993).
14 Al Hadid (57):3
15 Footnote of Al Fatihah: Al Quran in Malay printed by the Prime Minister Office of Malaysia and Saudi Arabian Authority.
16 Sahih Muslim Bk. 1, 95 (1994)
17 Sahih Muslim Bk. 4, 570 (1994).
18 Al Hadid (57):3
19 Hamka, Perkembangan Tasauf Dari Abad Ke Abad, 157 (1976).
20 Syekh M. Nafis Al Banjarie, Ketuhanan Permata Yang Indah Berserta Tanya Jawab (Ad Darunnfis), 159
21 Muhammad Abdul Haj Ansari, Sufism and Syariah, 113, (1986)
22 Readerâs digest Knowledge Quest: Planet Earth and the Universe, 40.
23 Gospel of Barnabas 132.
24 Sunan Abu Dawud Vol 3, 1324 (1990).
25 Al Hadid (57):3
@thereisnomiracleperson9234
02/23/2025 - 11:42 AMWell free will simply means in deeper level we are small gods who can choose between more than one outcome of some random distortion.
Mathematically we can choose from outcomes of same spontaneous process .
Or in some sense we have some ability to change in process but we are also a process .
Here comes the concept of reincarnation of Hinduism we are soul and we have some tendencies and we never die we experience life and change our tendency and properties by our partial free will and reincarnat with that .
Also religiously we get what we do .
Bad karma gives bad outcomes .
Bad in the sense knowingly betraying and not making better choice according to your awareness to do least hurting and least betraying .
@Orlandomatheus
02/23/2025 - 11:42 AMđĽ RUC â Coordinated Universal Rhythm & The Law of Excluded Mirror (LEM²) đĽ
The Coordinated Universal Rhythm (RUC) redefines time as a system of synchronized codes, not just a fixed measurement. Unlike UTC, which assumes a linear framework, RUC acknowledges time as an Unmoved Motor, orchestrating rhythms in space within the eternal now.
â Rhythm is circular in space, not a straight line.
â Universal time is coordinatedâsame numbers for all the planet, no artificial zones.
â The now is a harmonic, static structure.
đĽ The First Immobile Motor & The Reflective Unity of Contraries đĽ
The First Immobile Motor modernizes Aristotleâs Unmoved Mover, shifting from an external initiator to an internal Motor that structures existence.
â "Immobile" aligns with áźÎşÎŻÎ˝ÎˇĎον (not moved by anything else).
â "Motor" captures κΚνοῌν (that which moves).
â "First" (ĎĎáżśĎον) defines the fundamental structuring principle.
đ Time itself is the First Immobile Motorâsustaining all motion while remaining unchanged. â¤ď¸
đĽ The Law of Excluded Mirror (LEM²) & Rhythmic Synchronization đĽ
Classical logic, through the Law of Excluded Middle (LEM), insists that a proposition must be either true or false, with no middle ground. However, when applied to time, motion, and existence, this assumption breaks down.
LEM² (The Law of Excluded Mirror) transforms exclusion into reflection, revealing that opposites do not cancel outâthey synchronize.
â LEM excludes the middle; RUC transforms it into a mirror.
â Time does not divideâit resonates and harmonizes.
â The present is a synchronization point where past reorganizes and future unfolds.
Mathematically, this is expressed as:
R cup M = {x | (x notin x) vee (x in x)}
where:
â R (Free Will) = Choice within the flow
â M (Determinism) = Order structuring the flow
This reveals that reality is simultaneously self-inclusive and self-exclusiveâfree will and determinism are not opposites, but reflections oscillating in timeâs rhythm.
Thus, RUC is not just coordinated rhythmâit is the mirror where contradictions synchronize instead of exclude.
đĽ Exclusion becomes synchronization. The mirror does not divideâit unites. đĽ
@sukantokumar3631
02/23/2025 - 11:42 AMSanatan Dharma : Ok, let me introduce myself.
@lynndemarest1902
02/23/2025 - 11:42 AMIs it possible the brain is just a transmitter/receiver of some unknown signals generated by an extra-material consciousness?
@TheReviewerofBooks
02/23/2025 - 11:42 AMI understand Michio Kaku's point and I try to develop it in this comment.
Determinism is a philosophical current that states that looking to the past we can determine with certainty the following actions/movements/deformation. A being that possesses the knowledge of all nature laws should be able to determine the following steps of history, including thought and free will. Quantum Physics, Kakus's area, has systematically proven that determinism is simply wrong: in the quantum dimension (meaning size), things are not certain; Heisenberg's uncertainty principal has proven that to us. Laplace's Demon (this being idealized by Laplace) can only determine the probability of something happening. So where Free Will stays after the fall of determinism? It stays the same, free will cannot be proven since Quantum Mechanics doesn't bring back Free Will, it only disproves determinism.
Now, my own considerations. Free Will still is a great matter, but we have no evidence that we do have it other than pure arrogance. If God exists and we have free will, God is not powerful or not as benevolent enough to beat evil and if god exists but we do not have free will, God is simply evil. And if god doesn't exist and there's no free will, evil isn't evil, only unlucky.
@phajgo2
02/23/2025 - 11:42 AMItâs either determined or randomized. None of which is free will
@Jaxon5209
02/23/2025 - 11:42 AMThis is an astonishingly idiotic non sequitur. He must have misunderstood the question.
@hansenmarc
02/23/2025 - 11:42 AMIf some of my actions instead of being predetermined are instead chosen by rolling a die or due to quantum indeterminacy that still does not equate to free will. Itâs just a different way in which I donât have free will.
âUnconscious neural events determine our thoughts and actionsâand are themselves determined by prior causes of which we are subjectively unaware.â
â Sam Harris, Free Will
Free will is an illusion. Our wills are simply not of our own making. Thoughts and intentions emerge from background causes of which we are unaware and over which we exert no conscious control. We do not have the freedom we think we have.
â Sam Harris, Free Will
âIn order to prove thereâs free will, you have to show that some behavior just happened out of thin air in the sense of considering all these biological precursors. It may be possible to sidestep that with some subtle philosophical arguments, but you canât with anything known to science.â
â Robert M. Sapolsky, Determined: A Science of Life without Free Will
@jaeheeyoon6617
02/23/2025 - 11:42 AMWe are slaves over the universe's dice. We could have used a wheel, or drawn lots, but no. We used dice, which makes our choices not free.
@glkeele
02/23/2025 - 11:42 AMBut dice aren't random…
@thecrazy_craft
02/23/2025 - 11:42 AMEven if the position of an electron that influenced your decision was random, you never decided what its position is when you observed it. Therefore, you never actually chose anything. Your decision was made for you by the laws of physics, not you. You might not have been able to determine the outcome 13.8 billion years ago, but you still had no influence on the final result.
@15blows
02/23/2025 - 11:42 AMSo god isnât all knowing and absolutely sovereign? If my free will is a wild card and I and only I decide my actions, does god have sovereignty over me?
@Rägarded
02/23/2025 - 11:42 AMThis argument is like saying that if you roll a dice you could choose which number you got. Even if there is true randomness at the quantum level, how we will respond to that random input is still determined.
@staubsauger1
02/23/2025 - 11:42 AMRandomness is not free will
@solarionispirit2117
02/23/2025 - 11:42 AMpractically that one billionth of a second does not count
@LanIost
02/23/2025 - 11:42 AMJust because something is HARD to determine, or seems random, doesn't mean we have free will. It just means it's HARD to determine. If you still took a snapshot somehow of every particle you'd still be able to run the simulation and progress time. Futhermore, things at much smaller scales don't typically affect things at bigger scales. You don't need to know the weight of your city to calculate the gravitation pull of the Earth.
Back in the day when we didn't know what things were made of we could easily say that being human was something 'special' compared to, but the truth is we are made of the same things as a basketball, and the sun.
This is depressing for me because as much beauty as I find in the fact that from some 'simple' rules you can get all these emergent properties of life, I WANT myself and others to be able to make decisions. I don't WANT to be a vessle simply witnessing my own life.
I've heard some detractors say "well if there is no free will then what is the point of 'feeling' something if we can't make a decision. Why FEEL love, or PAIN." But the answer is simple, those are things that the collection of neurons/cells in our brain USE to influence its decision. The fact that we "FEEL" it, and that we "FEEL ALIVE" at all honestly might just be an emergent property of it, almost like a 'bug' in the code.
The idea that a ball can't 'choose' a direction but WE somehow can is very human centric, and would require some sort of cosmic 'joystick' to do this, yet we've made it almost all the way down and a mechanism for this doesn't exist.
The only way we aren't 100% deterministic would be for 'us' to exist on a level that is fundamentally 'lower' than the quantum physics we currently know about, that would push UPWARD towards the cellular level. But if that is the case, then why can't these things that are at this hypothetically 'lower' level, 'push up' and control a ball as well? EVERYTHING is set in stone EXCEPT for us?
From a purely logical standpoint I can say that the ONLY thing that makes sense is that we are 100% determanistic. … The thing that gives me hope is that I have to remember … it's crazy that our universe exists AT ALL, so maybe we fundamentally ARE special and LIFE itself is like it's own state of matter thats great achievement IS the ability to change the universe.
And then I remember I'm not religious and it's about the only thing that makes me wonder if I should be. But if there is a God I sure hope he's not going to send me to hell SIMPLY for using my brain trying to figure this out and potentially getting the exact details, that aren't just laid out, wrong.
@johnprentice1527
02/23/2025 - 11:42 AMThe "fallacy" I see with Heisenberg's uncertainty principle is our concept of uncertainty. Yes, WE cannot be certain where an electron is at any moment, but that doesn't mean that that electron was not predetermined. It just means that WE cannot know. There is no randomness. Things APPEAR random because we do not (yet) understand the fundamental forces at work. By the way, if I have this all wrong, please feel to correct my misunderstanding of the issue.
@proto_arkbit3100
02/23/2025 - 11:42 AMIts so depressing to imagine a world where our choices and emotions are illusions
@Moros_Chronis
02/23/2025 - 11:42 AMI've read a fair few of the comments, and I noticed how everyone completely missed his point, party due to the title of the video, I suppose. The point is that, because we know for certain that true randomness exists and that the universe is not fully predetermined, it is completely possible for free will to exist, however this is not proof that it does, merely a guarantee that it could.
@petrbokotej6196
02/23/2025 - 11:42 AMNooo, quantum theory us not free will