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If We Have Free Will, Then So Do Electrons
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.
I am sorry this proves nothing in the deterministic debate. All it says is If the observers have free will then teh particles must have free will. It does not answer the question: Does the observer have free will?
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Ah, but if you can prove free will exists, then you can prove evil people will go to hell!
Seriously, this whole free will debate is pointless. Every manifestation of so-called "free will" can be adequately explained by assuming that our human brains can convincingly imitate free will (to other human brains). And that is a much simpler proposition that looking for free will in the fabric of the cosmos (what religious balderdash!).
I pretend to have free will, you believe me, and we're both happy.
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For myself, there's a psychological effect. When I have wanted to disbelieve free will, I also drifted towards victimhood. If I have free will, my choices matter and I can't be a victim. My life is better. YMMV.
If you want your life to be different, live it differently.
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More precisely, if the experimenter can freely choose the directions in which to orient his apparatus in a certain measurement, then the particle's response (to be pedantic--the universe's response near the particle) is not determined by the entire previous history of the universe.
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I've not read the whole thing yet but it sounds like they've managed to prove that if free will exists then there is no non-local hidden variable theorem compatible with the results of QM.
Tim.
God said, "div D = rho, div B = 0, curl E = -@B/@t, curl H = J + @D/@t," and there was light.
It is the theory that has been making steady progress since the introduction of quantum mechanics, using probabilistic interpretations. Progress like the development of quantum field theory, and the standard model.
Your complaints that that the consequences of probabilistic interpretations are absurd are like the complaints of opponents of relativity that relativity's consequences are absurd. The same sort of arguments that you're making now can be turned into arguments that we should be using an "ether-based" theory to explain electromagnetism. One which does all its work in some absolute reference frame, but makes the same predictions as relativity.
Yes, you can do it that way. But it's a pain in the ass, and the only benefit to it is that it pretends to satisfy the philosophical preconceptions of people who believe there's an absolute reference frame. It doesn't actually, it just pretends to. Same with Bohmian mechanics.
If a layman could understand it, it wouldn't be worth publishing a scholarly paper about it.
Naturally, the converse -- "If a layman couldn't understand it, then it must be worth publishing" -- isn't true, but it's a reasonably effective way to increase your publication count.
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If a layman could understand it, it wouldn't be worth publishing a scholarly paper about it.
If you can't explain it to a layman, you don't really understand it.
From this it follows that: If it's worth publishing a scholarly paper about it, then you don't really understand it.
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