If We Have Free Will, Then So Do Electrons 610
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.
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.
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.
Re:If particles have free will (Score:1, Informative)
A) it's "sup dawg"
B) it's "we herd"
C) it's about particles
"Sup dawg! We herd u liek free will so we put some free will in your particles so they can choose while you choose."
Re:Is this a joke? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Misleading (Score:3, Informative)
Re:I choose... (Score:2, Informative)
Any person of a mystical persuasion can tell you that there are other planes of existence that we have trouble measuring, but they impact ours.
So can any drug addict. This reasoning sounds a lot like the "lucas argument" in maths. Perhaps google it.
Also keep in mind that there isn't a single human who can argue in favor of these "planes" one billionth as stubbornly as a well-chosen markov chain can.
Humans ("of the correct persuasion" has always been an addendum to that line of reasoning) are special. They are magical being capable of overcoming the physical limits that apply to everything else. Right ...
You're the type of person that believes politicians raise taxes to help us ...
Once a large enough starts preaching something like that, though, it tends to blow up rather badly in all our faces.
How about you don't dismiss all religions of the past, but instead follow one, knowing that science will tell you what the different religions do : ...
a certain religion built america, and is the source (quite literally) of rights and of all of the VERY rare states that aren't totalitarian
another religion built the middle east. Visit the place once, especially the poorer parts. A word of caution is in order : a single look upon the poorer parts of Dubai will make any moral human being loose any and all respect for the supposed "beauty" of that city.
How about you treat religions for what they are : collections of habits, truth and mythology that together serve to build & continue a society of humans.
The whole point of different religions is that they're different. You should read about evolution once or twice. The reality is, quite simple, not that there is a "common truth" to all religions, but rather that one religion is more effective than others. That religion, no matter how peaceful it may appear, it may even genuinly want and strive for peace, nor how violent it's tactics, even if they commit jihadi massacres regularly, only one will be left for the future.
The only truth that an effective religion, no matter which one, provides is that doing what it says, by following it's dogma, you will make that religion more successfull (mostly by being successfull yourself, but there are exceptions)
These patterns of actions, these dogmas that drive people to act in certain ways are what forms societies, and cultures.
Take away the religion, and the society will vanish. Take away, or change the society enough and the religion will suffer. These two effects, after an initial push, tend to feed on one another, causing predictable events to occur with ever increasing speed until ... well until the thing that happens to everything involved in any "ever increasing" thing.
Re:I knew it! (Score:3, Informative)
Unfortunately mathematics has a cult like tendency to draw people in, in the real world numbers don't mean anything without someone vetting the numbers.
FYI: Those someones are called physicists and cosmologists.
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.
Re:I knew it! (Score:2, Informative)
If you can't explain it to a layman, you don't really understand it.
Are you actually familiar with high-level mathematics or physics? Because that's just not true. I don't care how well you understand the third isomorphism theorem for groups [wikipedia.org], there is no way to explain its meaning to laymen. You can only resort to either 20-minute crash courses in group theory, or explanations that don't actually explain anything, like:
I'm a mathematician, but I'm pretty sure the same is going to be true for some results in advanced theoretical physics. People who think they hear good explanations of this stuff as laymen really just don't understand how inaccurate the explanations are, and how many things are left entirely unexplained.
In addition to that, I'd say that there are plenty of people who understand things well but are very poor at explaining them. Some people just aren't any good at communicating or figuring out the cause of other people's misunderstandings. That doesn't mean they don't understand the subject matter. If you can't even explain it to professional colleagues, then you probably don't understand it.
Re:Disturbing (Score:3, Informative)
> That is, if I am correct in interpreting your statements as presuming that quantum
> mechanics is apart from "traditional" physics.
Quantum mechanics is traditional physics.
Re:I choose... (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Disturbing (Score:2, Informative)
He's not saying that this is so because humans are made of electrons. From the premise "If people have free will, then particles have free will" (proved), and the premise "Particles have no free will" (they being incapable of thought as we know it), it follows that people do not have free will. If they did, particles would certainly have free will.