Do Subatomic Particles Have Free Will?

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."

!news

[fractic]

The article was from 2006. Here's a link to wikipedia [wikipedia.org] for some details.

How about a link to the actual article?

[Anonymous Coward]

http://arxiv.org/abs/0807.3286

Re:Uh, what?

[Anonymous Coward]

There's already considerable evidence that humans don't have free will, but that free will is (essentially) an illusion created by your brain.

So, no, particles do not have free will.

Let A be "Humans have free will." and let B be "Subatomic particles have free will.". Conway and Kochen says A->B. You assume ~A and draw the conclusion ~B. That's not justified. I'm sure there is a Wikipedia entry on this logical fallacy.

Re:Free Will != Unpredictability

[nasor]

Generally when people talk about "free will" in this sort of sense they mean that if you must choose between A or B, before you make your choice there is some non-zero possibility that you could pick either A or B. If your choice is governed by the mechanisms of a deterministic universe, there is really no possibility that you could pick either one; your choice is predetermined, and an observer with enough information could calculate with certainty what your choice will be before you make it. If you want to say that being free is simply being unconstrained to do what you try to do, then a robot following a program is "free," so long as nothing interferes with it trying to do what it is programmed to do.

Yes, it does.

[node 3]

I can be completely predictable and still be acting freely.

No, you can't. If I can know right now every action you are going to take, from now until you die (ignoring the edge case where you die instantly), then you are not exercising free will. Why? Because your actions in the future are being completely determined by the state of things right now.

That's what distinguishes determinism from free will.

Conversely, if my actions are random, how can I be said to have any control over them?

Not "random", but "unpredictable". There's a *huge* difference.

Re:Uh, what?

[Anonymous Coward]

And for those who haven't studied that notation... "A->B" is "A implies B" (if A, then B)... "~A" is "not A". "A->B" is the same as "~A V B" ((not A) or B)

Re:Wide Interpretation of Freewill is at fault

[esmoothie]

If you believe that you would not act, and think exactly the same then you believe Free Will is beyond quantum mechanics; otherwise Free Will is just the synergistic response to a complex organism that has the capability to think of itself.

Actually, no. Ignoring the no cloning theorem [wikipedia.org] for a moment, if two particles are in the exact same quantum state, then they can collapse to two different values. This is precisely the indeterminacy of quantum mechanics.

Re:This is exactly what free will boils down to..

[Anonymous Coward]

Douglas Hofstadter has some interesting thoughts on exactly that in "I am a strange loop", and there's also Roger Penrose and "The emperor's new mind". Both are excellent reads.

Re:Uh, what?

[jabithew]

This [wikipedia.org] is the fallacy you refer to.

Wikipedia is very, very good on mathematics and logic.

Re:Uh, what?

[extrasolar]

You happen to be correct. It is called bulverism:

Bulverism [wikipedia.org]

Re:It's turtles all the way down

[Anonymous Coward]

but, doesn't the Bells theorem: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bell%27s_theorem

say that there is nothing 'beyond' quantum mechanics or something similar..