It's possible that the free will we experience is a result of the free will of subatomic particles.
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SYDNEY: If humans have free will, then so do subatomic particles such as electrons, say U.S. mathematicians.
"If experimenters have a certain freedom, then particles have exactly the same kind of freedom," wrote mathematicians John Conway and Simon Kochen, of Princeton University in New Jersey, in a recent paper published in Notices of the American Mathematical Society.
"Indeed, it is natural to suppose that this latter freedom is the ultimate explanation of our own," they said.
The quantum world
Quantum mechanics is a theory that uses probability to predict how particles will behave. But on a case-by-case basis, the behaviour of each particle is almost completely unpredictable.
Not accepting such unpredictable behaviour, some scientists have proposed the existence of hitherto unknown forces or properties they call 'hidden variables'. They argue that the randomness of particle behaviour is only a mirage, and the behaviour would be entirely predictable - or 'deterministic' - if only the hidden variables were known.
This, the duo argue, is no longer a valid interpretation of quantum mechanics. "Any such theories must now contain some indeterminism - or 'free will'," said Stephen Bartlett, a quantum physicist at the University of Sydney, who agreed with the general thrust of the arguments made by the Princeton duo.
"Conway and Kochen prove that the randomness does not depend on anything. They prove that the outcomes of these quantum random events are really completely independent of anything that has happened in the past," he added.
The free will theorem
The U.S. mathematicians based their deductions on three unassailable theorems, which also happen to rhyme: 'spin' - measuring a quantum property called spin of an elementary particle; 'twin' - that a pair of particles are correlated; and 'min' - that an experimenter's choice of what to measure cannot be communicated faster than the speed of light.
Free will cannot mean indeterminism
It's embarrassing to see a mathematician as adroit as Conway falling into this silly equation of "free will" and the lack of determinism in some quantum events. It takes about 5 seconds to notice that if free will meant randomly taking one option out of the many on offer (eat your dinner, go for a drive, shoot your neighbour in the head, give all your money to charity) we wouldn't be so pleased with the notion that we have this gift of choice. Philosophers argue about the degree to which a mind can make a truly free choice, but only the Dice Man thinks it's to be equated with tossing a coin, quantum or otherwise.
Tell me something I didn't already know
The idea that freedom to choose is not just an intrinsic "human" ability (or the ability of any organised biological system), but is an essential and vital part of the very particles that our reality is built from is not news to members of the Latter-day Saint religion. Core doctrines of this church have taught this and related concepts for the past 175 years, along with a cosmology that states the universe is full of inhabited worlds, and that all things operate in "one eternal round" (i.e. have a cyclical nature). This and many other concepts seemed preposterously bizarre (especially to a Christendom seized in the clutches of Catholic Medieval thinking) when first stated by the church's founding prophet Joseph Smith, but they grow increasingly closer--in many inpressively significant ways--to what science is discovering every day.
Heady stuff indeed from the mind of a hayseed hill-billy womanising charlatan, who was 14 years old when he kicked off his fantasy-world. Yet the more I study what he had to say and how he said it, the more I am convinced he was not only ahead of his time, but way ahead of the curve. He was either a genuine genius (deranged or not) or he had access to knowledge no other has ever had. In terminology that may be familiar to some, you can think of his concept of God as something like the head of a Type 6 (or greater) civilisation, that not only has the ability to control the energy output of the entire universes, but can actually direct enough energy to create entire universes. So if your "religion" is that "God" is potentially a "spaceman" of some sort (i.e. is a real being that exists "out there"), and you're a thinking person that believes there may be some design or purpose behind existence, you could do worse than investigate the LDS.
Mormons? Seriously?
Very good. Now put on your magical underwear and go baptize someone posthumously.
Free Will, Not "lets sell the Saints!"
I fail to see what mormonism has to do with this article or its possible concepts about mind, etc. This Genius, that as a boy saw both God and Christ in a pillar of light, also claimed that the blacks bore the "mark of cain" and that hot beverages were not good for you..(hence you cant drive coffee in the LDS religion). This is the guy that tried to say some Egyptian Hirogliphs were stories about Abraham or whatever, and they turned out to be simple funeral instructions for egyptian embalmers. This is the guy that claimed that Native Americans were all the lost tribes of isreal, when the DNA now proves that most Native Americans are of Siberian extaction, (thats Oriental, to those who dont know what a mongolian or siberian is.).
So yes, maybe God did appear to a 15 year old boy, once there in the Sacred Grove in the Eastern US in the 1830's, but his Cosmology offers nothing new from Hinduism, that states that thre are 7 levels of reality....to the LDS, three heavens and a "God with Bones like a Man". Religion, almost all religions, are incredibly childish and crazy.
Lets stick to Science if we can. Its the truth of matter, that Science is after. The Saints could care less and they know even less than they care about.
Determinism was wishful thinking anyway
Chaos means no computation is 100% perfect due to non-infinite precision thus there can be no physical Laplacian Demon knowing all via computation. Determinism is a meaningless idealisation, and now it's proven to be so.
Scientific charlatans
The comments were more enlightened than the article. But, let me add, no one has touched the truth of our free will. The scientific approach only assures we are sentient automatons. Here is your proof:
First: Secular Morality provides for universal acceptance of a common goal. If you do not know what the common goal of morality is, then you cannot have free will. You cannot have free will absent this knowledge, because this is something you would always do, if, and only if, you know what the common goal is.
And right now, none of you knows. So, I write here to tell all of you the common goal we all share, that which we would always do, if we knew what it is.
Second: The definitive statement of universal secular morality stating that common goal was discovered only in 2006. This was a philosophic achievement, and, not a scientific one. This statement is categorically true, meaning it is true in every instance with no exception. In this sense it is like the cogito. This statement of absolute moral authority is this:
The moral imperative of life is to live a life that detracts not at all from the lives available to those who will follow us into this world.
Third: Because the moral imperative is categorically true, in order for anyone to express their free will, they must consciously act in accordance with it.
Fourth: It will take a thousand years, but rest assured, Categorical Knowledge based upon the moral imperative will supersede and laud over all empirical knowledge.
This is true because what is important is not science, but free will. It is important because we all know, we are not automatons, scientific, sentient automatons or otherwise.
Free will
The truth of our free will (that is, the existance of it, not the denial of it) has been known since 1952.
Free will
This is complete bunk. Where has science gone? [I have a degree in mechanical engineering, so I do understand science and the scientific method, etc.]
Relating free will to sub-atomic particles is relating something that is outside the physical universe with something within it. That is utterly rediculous.
Michael John Boyack Hodgson
Free Will and the Brain
Inside the architecture of the Brain, are tiny little tubes...Microtubuels. These tiny tubes have electrons trapped within them, that vibrate up and down, except when someone is under anesthesia...why? These electrons are there for a reason, but what is that reason? We do not know what free will is, because we dont know what Consciousness is. I doubt that by the end of this Century, we will know what Consciousness is either. So free will, is still just something to argue about. Dr.Pratt.
Is that not the point? It
Is that not the point? It basically shows why all those new age thinkers who want use the quantum as a reason for believing in free will are going to have to redefine free will to the point of absurdity.