The fact that the underlying laws of physics are deterministic and impersonal does not mean that at the human level we can't talk about ideas about reasons and goals and purposes and free will.
Interpretation
Determinism in physics does not negate human concepts like free will and purpose.
In this quote, Sean M. Carroll emphasizes that while the laws governing the universe may be deterministic and impersonal, this does not preclude the meaningful discussion of human experiences such as free will, personal goals, and the motivations behind our actions. The juxtaposition highlights that one can acknowledge a scientific understanding of the universe while still valuing individual agency and purpose in human life.
In practice
In a philosophical debate about free will, you might refer to this quote to explain that science and human agency can coexist.
Naturalism says that we were not put here for any purpose. But that doesn't mean there isn't such thing as purpose. It just means that purpose isn't imposed from outside. We human beings have the creative ability to give our lives purposes and meanings.
Science isn't just about solving this or that puzzle. It's about understanding how the world works: the whole world from the vastness of the cosmos to the particularity of an individual human life. It's worth thinking about how all the different ways we have to talk about the world manage to fit together.
Science is a way of getting knowledge. It's a method. It's a method that really relies on making mistakes. We propose ideas, they are usually wrong, and we test them against the data. Scientists do this in a formal way. It's a way that everyone can go through life; that's how we should be teaching science from a very young age.
The idea that time is an illusion is an old one, predating any Times Square ball drop or champagne celebrations. It reaches back to the days of Heraclitus and Parmenides, pre-Socratic thinkers who are staples of introductory philosophy courses.
The fact that you can remember yesterday but not tomorrow is because of entropy. The fact that you're always born young and then you grow older, and not the other way around like Benjamin Button - it's all because of entropy. So I think that entropy is underappreciated as something that has a crucial role in how we go through life.
The arrow of time doesn't move forward forever. There's a phase in the history of the universe where you go from low entropy to high entropy. But then, once you reach the locally maximum entropy you can get to, there's no more arrow of time.
Life and death are balanced as it were on the edge of a razor
London is too full of fogs and serious people. Whether the fogs produce the serious people, or whether the serious people produce the fogs, I don't know.
People shouldn't expect the mass media to do investigative stories. That job belongs to the 'fringe' media.
We may now have reached a point where this gap in our make-up has become unsustainable; partly because what in the past would have counted as material plenty has become the norm for the majority in much of the world; and partly because the slow retreat of religion that coincided with the spread of a capitalist economy has left a gaping hole in millions of people's lives. (Geoff Mulgan)
Some people seem to believe that for each problem there is a solution readily available - a solution that can be promptly achieved by passing a law and voting some money. I think of this as the vending machine concept of social change. Put a coin in the machine and out comes a piece of candy. If there is a social problem, pass a law and out comes a solution.
Against the background of general freakishness the case of my particular freakishness was lost.
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