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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."
For the flood of obnoxious misinterpretations that will inevitably result. Highly mathematical result? Check. Reported in a pop science publication? Check. Arguably related to objects of emotive importance to humans? Check.
The only question now is how ghastly the claims will get. "OMG Te7 Princeton scientists proved free will11!" "Does quantum physics prove God?" "Free Particles the end of Materialism!", etc, etc.
If anything deserves to be modded up, the parent here does.
There is no free will in humans, bacteria, or subatomic particles.
What is guiding us to believe we have free will? Its a chemical process in our brain that we don't understand that makes us feel better. It took me months or years to get over the fact that there was no free will, but its OK by me now.
There are a number of things that humans believed for thousands of years that was simply wrong. People believed the earth was flat, the center of the universe, people are made in God's image, (I could go on and on) and all of that is simply false.
Now, I talk and act as though I have free will because it is ingrained in our culture and language, but I have yet to of read any scientific study that has any evidence that there is free will (obviously I didn't read the article yet either :), there are a number of studies to provide evidence to the opposite (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Learned_helplessness).
Now, I am not saying that beliefs true or false have a profound effect on our behavior and even physiology, but that does not mean that there is free will.
If there were free will, then why in the world do so many people do things that are simply not in their best interest? If there were free will, why are so many people screwed up by their own "choices"?
Better yet, someone who is about to mod me down, provide a test or evidence of free will. If there were free will, I would like to enhance mine and will myself into eternal bliss.