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If We Have Free Will, Then So Do Electrons
Posted by
kdawson
on Fri Mar 20, 2009 07:48 AM
from the hard-to-pin-down dept.
from the hard-to-pin-down dept.
snahgle writes "Mathematicians John Conway (inventor of the Game of Life) and Simon Kochen of Princeton University have proven that if human experimenters demonstrate 'free will' in choosing what measurements to take on a particle, then the axioms of quantum mechanics require that the free will property be available to the particles measured, or to the universe as a whole. Conway is giving a series of lectures on the 'Free Will Theorem' and its ramifications over the next month at Princeton. A followup article strengthening the theory (PDF) was published last month in Notices of the AMS." Update: 03/19 14:20 GMT by KD : jamie points out that we discussed this theorem last year, before the paper had been published.
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Do Subatomic Particles Have Free Will? 608 comments
An anonymous reader sends in a Science News article that begins: "Human free will might seem like the squishiest of philosophical subjects, way beyond the realm of mathematical demonstration. But two highly regarded Princeton mathematicians, John Conway and Simon Kochen, claim to have proven that if humans have even the tiniest amount of free will, then atoms themselves must also behave unpredictably." Standard interpretations of quantum mechanics, of course, embrace unpredictability. But many physicists aren't comfortable with that, and are working to develop deterministic interpretations of quantum mechanics. Conway and Kochen's proof argues that these efforts will be fruitless — unless one is willing to give up human free will, in a very strong sense. The article quotes Conway: "We can really prove that there's no algorithm, no way that the particle can give an answer that is unique and can be specified ahead of time. I'm still amazed that we can actually manage to prove that."
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I knew it! (Score:5, Funny)
Re:I knew it! (Score:4, Insightful)
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Re:I knew it! (Score:4, Funny)
Hey! Don't bogart that thing, pass it around.
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Re:I knew it! (Score:4, Insightful)
When the only tool you have is a hammer, every problem resembles a nail. The universe seems mathematical if you use mathematics. If you wear blue glasses, the sun itself is blue.
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Show me the fasification (Score:4, Insightful)
And yet I close my eyes and I see symbols, emerging from those computations, right???
"this is your fallacy"
So where's the falsification, individual ants don't "know" the optimum search method but nevertheless the ant's nest performs that feat.
"you have no understanding of neurology."
I never claimed to have an "understanding of neurology" but zero is a little harsh. If you're not just shooting your mouth off and do know something then show me the falsification...
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Re:I knew it! (Score:4, Informative)
There have been physicists who've gotten wrapped up in the "cult" of mathematics. Stereotypically and anecdotally as a generality perhaps but the 'cult of math' effect is not really limited to any particular discipline, it's more to do with the person and their inclinations and the institutions they are a part of, I've seen great economists, engineers, and intelligent businessmen have similar opinions.
It all comes down to what you've been exposed to.
As long as you keep it in your head that math is the language used to describe the model, you don't fall into the trap you're describing. That's what it is, a language. Nothing more, nothing less.
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Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:I knew it! (Score:5, Interesting)
Isn't it? In the paper that the story links to, the authors refine their use of the term "free will" to mean that the universe is "not determined by the entire previous history of the universe." That sounds a whole lot like "random," which (it seems to me) must surely mean "not subject to cause and effect."
I would welcome pointers to layman-appropriate corrections if I'm wrong.
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Re:I knew it! (Score:5, Insightful)
If a layman could understand it, it wouldn't be worth publishing a scholarly paper about it.
Naturally, the converse -- "If a layman couldn't understand it, then it must be worth publishing" -- isn't true, but it's a reasonably effective way to increase your publication count.
[/cynicism]
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Re:I knew it! (Score:5, Insightful)
If a layman could understand it, it wouldn't be worth publishing a scholarly paper about it.
If you can't explain it to a layman, you don't really understand it.
From this it follows that: If it's worth publishing a scholarly paper about it, then you don't really understand it.
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Re:I knew it! (Score:4, Insightful)
No, at the bottom, the universe is non-deterministic. Quantum events adhere to statistical measurements, but any given event is truly random. You can say that half of the uranium in a given sample will decay in a certain amount of time, but you cannot predict when any single particle will decay, and it's not just because you don't have enough information. It's because the event is truly random.
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If particles have free will (Score:5, Funny)
Then that means that they can impose their will on other particles. In short, one will will the will of particles to impose your will to will other particles in your will to your will.
Particles don't exist (Score:4, Insightful)
"Particles" are just a modeling tool. They are a means of conceptualizing mechanical causes for the behavior of the world as we experience it.
So far, they have proven to be a very useful means of said modeling. The predictions that particle/force-based models make are quite accurate these days, and have been successfully applied to do a huge variety of useful work (playing world of warcraft being my particular favorite). Accurate predictive power is the final judgment of the scientific process, so from that perspective particles are sure winners.
But the fact remains that particles are abstract representations of phenomena which we cannot directly perceive (we infer the behavior of subatomic particles through detection devices which were themselves built upon these inferences, for example). The popular visualization of tiny little solid spheres bouncing around was rejected based on evidence gathered way back in the 20's, and rival visualizations that also have predictive power had been proposed since the dawn of recorded history. However, these are technical details which need not confuse non-scientists, so simply saying "particles are where it's at" makes life a lot simpler.
The issue of free will is not properly within the domain of science. Science doesn't study that sort of thing. Free will is the proper subject matter of philosophers, theologians, and so on. Trying to determine its scientific validity is trying to talk about aviation technology using only the vocabulary of gardening techniques.
"Do particles have free will" is an absurd question. You may as well ask about the nutritive properties of thrust and lift. That visualization just doesn't fit the subject matter.
The inclination to think of things in these terms comes from the popular notion that science has the market cornered in "truth," and that the word "truth" has a single and unambiguous meaning within all conceptual domains (which it clearly does not). We think, "science proves or disproves things, right? So lets get the final proof or disproof of free will." But I maintain that we are confusing ourselves by asking the questing incorrectly, and of the wrong people.
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So what you're saying is... (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Yes sir, President Bush.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
If free will then free will (Score:5, Insightful)
I am sorry this proves nothing in the deterministic debate. All it says is If the observers have free will then teh particles must have free will. It does not answer the question: Does the observer have free will?
Re:If free will then free will (Score:5, Interesting)
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Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Indeed. Lots of people are under the impression that free will is a function of randomness. Sorry guys, but randomness is insanity. I would prefer that my actions flowed deterministically from my inner mental state. How else could I act according to my convictions?
Anyway, the question is only relevant in the context of religion. Without a bearded guy giving out passes to heaven, it doesn't matter whether the
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Indeed. Lots of people are under the impression that free will is a function of randomness. Sorry guys, but randomness is insanity. I would prefer that my actions flowed deterministically from my inner mental state. How else could I act according to my convictions?
Randomness does not imply equal probability for all possible outcomes. While it may be mathematically possible, it's a safe assumption that the randomness of quantum mechanics will not cause you to jump off the next bridge you come to instead of just crossing it normally.
Re:If free will then free will (Score:4, Interesting)
In psychology, this the question of free will is important because it can change how a psychologist views abnormal behavior (and even normal behavior). It can change how psychotherapy is conducted. A lot of people don't think about the philosophical theory underlying science but this discussion of free will is not just for religion, it affects all science for you can take a deterministic approach to science or you can take a non-deterministic (e.g., free will) approach.
One last thing, you show a free will bias (at least non-deterministic bias) in your post: "Our actions ought to progress lawfully and predicatably [sic] from the programming that we've built into our minds" (emphasis added). That's using non-deterministic language to explain determinism. Most people just assume free will while most science assumes determinism. However, even the scientists usually assume free will in their day to day life (there are some who don't but they are rare). That's the funny thing. Science usually assumes determinism but people in general have a strong - innate you could say - bias towards non-determinism and free will.
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Re:If free will then free will (Score:5, Informative)
Whether the universe is deterministic or not does not really have a great deal to say to the free will debate.
The usual argument runs something like this: If the universe is deterministic, then we cannot have free will, because our actions are determined.
The trouble is with this view is that it equates free will with indeterminacy.
By this argument, to have free will there must be some fundamentally unpredictable element that contributes to your will in order to make it free. (If it were predictable then it would not be free, goes the argument.) But saying that something is fundamentally unpredictable is the same as saying that it has no deterministic cause. If that is the case, then the 'free' part of your will must be something that you - your mind - doesn't determine. But if so, then can it really be called your will?
On the other hand, in a purely deterministic universe, some kind of free will could be possible. Donald MacKay came up with a logical argument that demonstrates that there is no prediciton of an agent's future behaviour that could be given to that agent that the agent would be logically compelled to believe.
There's a reasonable explanation by Dennis l Feucht [arn.org] that Google has just thrown up for me.
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Hear that 'whirring' sound? (Score:5, Funny)
Disturbing (Score:5, Interesting)
That a particle has free-will using the standard definition is rather disturbing. Particles, capable of making a decision implies an inherent intelligence or at least a built-in "table of actions" at some level.
Re:Disturbing (Score:5, Interesting)
Or is that a gross oversimplification resulting from me not being a whizz at maths?
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Re:Disturbing (Score:5, Informative)
The way Conway and Kochen have defined "free will" is, loosely, any behavior that isn't determined by the past. So, no, there's no reason for a particle to be intelligent to "have free will". Plain old wavefunction collapse in the Copenhagen interpretation is a particle exhibiting free will.
Honestly, the actual result isn't particularly interesting, if you believe that human thought and behavior can theoretically be explained by traditional physical processes.
The interesting thing about the theorem is that the proof skips all that, and with a very simple setup, demonstrates that if humans can do something (pick which measurement to make) independently of the past, then elementary particles can too, without making any assumptions on what exactly makes humans act the way they do.
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Wave equation? (Score:5, Interesting)
Inevitable (Score:5, Funny)
I don't fret about it. (Score:4, Insightful)
Obligatory (Score:4, Funny)
unless, of course... (Score:4, Interesting)
Crazy? No - read Barbour. [platonia.com]
Re:unless, of course... (Score:4, Insightful)
If we are purely matter, we have no free will. If there is more to us then matter, then we might have free will. There is no way for physics, the study of matter, to decide whether or not matter is all there is.
Sure there is. If there's "more to us than matter" then it still has to interact with matter somehow. If this "more than matter" exerts a force on our bodies, our bodies must exert a force back. That should be measurable.
If the metaphysical interacts with the physical, we should be able to detect it through physical means. If it does not interact with the physical, then it is entirely irrelevant.
Parent
I thought Rush already said this years ago (Score:4, Funny)
If you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice!
Obvious absurdity (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Misleading (Score:4, Insightful)
It is the theory that has been making steady progress since the introduction of quantum mechanics, using probabilistic interpretations. Progress like the development of quantum field theory, and the standard model.
Your complaints that that the consequences of probabilistic interpretations are absurd are like the complaints of opponents of relativity that relativity's consequences are absurd. The same sort of arguments that you're making now can be turned into arguments that we should be using an "ether-based" theory to explain electromagnetism. One which does all its work in some absolute reference frame, but makes the same predictions as relativity.
Yes, you can do it that way. But it's a pain in the ass, and the only benefit to it is that it pretends to satisfy the philosophical preconceptions of people who believe there's an absolute reference frame. It doesn't actually, it just pretends to. Same with Bohmian mechanics.
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Re:That's rich. (Score:5, Insightful)
Ah, but if you can prove free will exists, then you can prove evil people will go to hell!
Seriously, this whole free will debate is pointless. Every manifestation of so-called "free will" can be adequately explained by assuming that our human brains can convincingly imitate free will (to other human brains). And that is a much simpler proposition that looking for free will in the fabric of the cosmos (what religious balderdash!).
I pretend to have free will, you believe me, and we're both happy.
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Re:That's rich. (Score:5, Funny)
Of course, you couldn't help but say that.
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Re:Yawn. (Score:5, Interesting)
Even if I did choose to change something about my life, it would have no bearing on free will.
The problem with free will is whether you have it or whether you don't it makes absolutely zero difference in your life (we're talking philosophical free will here, not material, so no one give me the snarky "I'm in jail you insensitive clod" response).
Everyone makes decisions with the implicit belief that their decisions matter. Now, if we have free will, then they actually do. If we don't have free will, then they actually don't. Regardless, you make the same damn decision, and it will have the same consequences.
So why the eternal wanking over whether or not we possess a property that cannot be measured and doesn't effect our lives in any way?
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Re:Yawn. (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:Yawn. (Score:5, Funny)
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Martin Gardner (Score:4, Insightful)
Then I read Berlekamp, Conway and Guy's "Winning Ways For Your Mathematical Plays" and found that just as much fun.
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Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Are you sure this is a problem? I'm not a physicist, but I thought that a) "spooky action at a distance" has been demonstrated in a lab and b) there's no way to use it to transmit information at superluminal speeds. Maybe someone with a real physics edumacation could enlighten me?
Re:This sounds silly to me (Score:5, Interesting)
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Re:Worse yet. (Score:5, Insightful)
quote
More precisely, if the experimenter can freely choose the directions in which to orient his apparatus in a certain measurement, then the particle's response (to be pedantic--the universe's response near the particle) is not determined by the entire previous history of the universe.
end quote
I've not read the whole thing yet but it sounds like they've managed to prove that if free will exists then there is no non-local hidden variable theorem compatible with the results of QM.
Tim.
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Re:Worse yet. (Score:4, Interesting)
I wonder if they have taken into account the history of the decision being made, or the machine actually being set in the chosen direction. Now, just from this one quote, it would seem that the act of making a decision may actually influence the history of the universe. So, choice is a part of the entire universe -- the only question is whether or not free will actually exists?
Dayum. To be or not to be.
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Re:I choose... (Score:5, Interesting)
Perhaps there is no such thing as choice. What if you make your choice based on circumstances beyond your control? New Scientist ran a story yesterday Faster-than-light 'tachyons' might be impossible after all [newscientist.com] where some math guys came up with the possibility that we live in a deterministic universe:
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Re:I choose... (Score:5, Interesting)
Perhaps there is no such thing as choice. What if you make your choice based on circumstances beyond your control?
We make all our choices based on external stimuli, which are largely beyond our control. Of all the philosophical nonsense that's bandied about, the whole "fate vs free will" debate is the most exasperating. "Free will" is an artifact of the limits of our perception, and nothing more. Every "choice" we make is nothing more than a cascade of logic (in the electronics/programming sense) based on running recent perceptions through a network of previously conceived notions and instinctual prewiring. It's all completely deterministic. The only time it's labelled "free will" is when the decision system is too complex for anyone to predict the outcome. Dropping a hot potato isn't called "free will" because we understand the grossly simple neurological mechanism that causes it. Dropping a puppy off a cliff is seen as "free will" because there's no telling what twisted up crazy logic went into that decision. In both cases, though, it is a logical necessity that some deterministic mechanism precipitated both end results. Even the theist cop-out of "the ghost in the machine", i.e. the immaterial soul, doesn't really escape the problem. All things happen because of something else. Even the "ghost" argument requires that outside stimulus trigger an analysis based on pre-existing stored information.
So enough with the "free will" crap already. It's like arguing about how much longer the upper line in this optical illusion [wikimedia.org] appears to be
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Re:I choose... (Score:5, Funny)
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Mathematicians should not make pronouncements (Score:4, Interesting)
of Philosophers, and Philosophers should recognise they can only conjecture, without direct access to the mystical experience of unity.
Those bound by the conceptual frame of will and determinism are like the inhabitants of Flatland. Their 2-dimensional mathematics cannot account for Reality.
Trapped in a world that must conform to logical constructs, they are unaware that what they are measuring is their perceptions, not the World. What they observe is merely the particular quality of their minds, not the Truth.
Plato's cave cannot be escaped, by creating more precision in the measurement of shadows! Logic is a useful tool for effecting work and accomplishing a task - but not for perceiving the nature of existence.
The only escape is to defy and revile the "self". Ah. As long as anyone is their "self" they have no "free will" in any meaningful sense, anyway. As Spinoza, a mere philosopher, would have it:
Humans have no free will. They believe, however, that their will is free. In Spinoza's letter to G. H. Schaller, he wrote: "men are conscious of their own desire, but are ignorant of the causes whereby that desire has been determined." (Letter number 62)
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Re:Mathematicians should not make pronouncements (Score:4, Funny)
Hey, Muad'dib, what's going on? How's the Jihad going?
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