Slashdot Mirror
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."
If they indeed succeed, some other folks will start to search for underlying nondeterministic model, and so on...
Unpredictability has nothing to do with free will. I can be completely predictable and still be acting freely. Conversely, if my actions are random, how can I be said to have any control over them?
The original poster writes that this hypothesis is a threat to "human free will, in a very strong sense". I'm not sure what he means by a very strong sense, but it becomes clear after doing a little research that none of these people are talking about human free will in the sense that most people perceive it.
The real argument here is about whether the future is fixed. If the universe is purely mechanistic, then no agency -- human or otherwise -- can change the course of future events. But what does that mean for a human being?
Not much, it turns out. So you can't change the future, but thanks to the laws of thermodynamics you don't know what the future is going to be like anyhow. There's still nothing to prevent you from shaping (as opposed to changing) the future with your decisions.
But wait! Aren't those decisions also pre-determined? In a strictly physical sense, yes, they are. But again, what does that mean for us? Not much. A human being is a vastly complex and chaotic system interacting with a vastly complex and chaotic environment. We're driven by chaos theory and the laws of thermodynamics, not by quantum randomness. (Would you really want to be guided by quantum randomness? I mean seriously. . . What kind of "free will" would you get out of that?)
Any argument against free will -- in the way that most ordinary people regard it -- is easily brushed aside. For thousands of years we've been designing and creating things, making plans and then carrying them out. That's free will. To argue against it is like trying to prove that black is white (and then getting yourself killed at the next zebra crossing).
The "average behavior of crowds is deterministic" thing doesn't really work. The sum or average of a set of random variables is also a random variable.
There is a well known result in probability theory called the central limit theorem that says that if you add up enough independent, identically-distributed random variables together you get a normal distribution (i.e. bell curve). Lots of people try to apply this to economics (or in Asimov's case, history), but it doesn't work in practice. Individual actions are not independent or identically distributed. People's actions are correlated to other people's actions. Some people have vastly more influence on the aggregate outcome than others.
So the central limit theorem can't be applied to aggregate behavior. Instead of getting a nice well behaved normal distribution, you'll end up with a distribution that's messy, unpredictable, and confusing, which is fitting, since that's what we humans are.
I believe that we have free will, *and* that the universe is completely deterministic. The two concepts are orthgonal. One cannot have "illusion of free will" any more than one can have "illusion of pain". If I believe that I'm in pain, than I necessarily am in pain, even if the pain comes from e.g. a limb that no longer exists - doesn't matter: if it hurts, it hurts.
Similarly, if I consciously decide my next actions, then I necessarily have free will, regardless of whether the universe is pre-determined. You might argue that in a deterministic universe all consciousness is an illusion - but that's an unreawrding path to travel.
In any case, arguing "if I have free will, then the universe is not deterministic" is not logical - the assumption that "determinism is incompatible with free will" has been argued by philosophers for centuries, without conclusion. Feel free to believe that - many do - but don't state it as a fact.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
Choosing freely and after consideration isn't choosing for any reason, it is simply choosing and after considering the options, non-options, etc. This is a crucial ontological distinction that makes all the difference - even when there is only one choice!
Chocolate or Vanilla? Choose?
Chocolate!
Why did you choose what you choose?
I choose chocolate because once you have tried chocolate you never go back!
That's not a choice, that's a deterministic decision. Nothing wrong with it, but it's not a choice made freely since you had a reason, logical or illogical, you had a reason.
Chocolate or Vanilla?
Chocolate!
Why did you choose Chocolate?
I choose chocolate because I choose chocolate!
Excellent choice!
Thank you. I considered the choices, and I choose freely!
Yes you did. We live in the house of language.