Stories
Slash Boxes
Comments
typodupeerror delete not in

+-   Do subatomic particles have free will?-> on Saturday August 16 2008, @12:39PM Anonymous Coward

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 16 2008, @12:39PM
math
An anonymous reader writes "The article 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 you are willing to give up human free will, in a very strong sense."

Link to Original Source
submission

This discussion was created for logged-in users only, but now has been archived. No new comments can be posted.
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
 Full
 Abbreviated
 Hidden
More
Loading... please wait.
The distinction between true and false appears to become increasingly blurred by... the pollution of the language. -- Arne Tiselius