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Related papers: The General Free Will Theorem

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We show that the authors in the title have erred in claiming that our axiom FIN is false by conflating it with Bell locality. We also argue that the predictions of quantum mechanics, and in particular EPR, are fully Lorentz invariant,…

Quantum Physics · Physics 2009-11-13 John Conway , Simon Kochen

The so-called "free will axiom" is an essential ingredient in many discussions concerning hidden variables in quantum mechanics. In this paper we argue that "free will" can be defined in different ways. The definition usually employed is…

Quantum Physics · Physics 2007-05-23 Gerard 't Hooft

Many physicists believe that the EPR experiment exhibits instantaneous non-local effects. I argue below that an application of Born's Rule to EPR shows no such instantaneous effects and that EPR is consistent with full Lorentz invariance. I…

Quantum Physics · Physics 2017-10-04 Simon Kochen

Since quantum mechanics (QM) was formulated, many voices have claimed this to be the basis of free will in the human beings. Basically, they argue that free will is possible because there is an ontological indeterminism in the natural laws,…

Quantum Physics · Physics 2010-09-07 M. Lopez-Corredoira

This article contains a review of Nelson's analysis of Bell's theorem. It shows that Bell's inequalities can be violated with a theory of local random variables if one accepts that the outcomes of these variables are not predetermined prior…

Quantum Physics · Physics 2014-09-30 Benjamin Schulz

The abstract concept of indeterministic free will is distinguished from the phenomenon of free will. Evidence for the abstract concept is examined and critically compared with various designs of automata. It is concluded that there is no…

General Physics · Physics 2018-02-15 Mark J Hadley

The issue of whether we make decisions freely has vexed philosophers for millennia, Resolving this is vital for solving a diverse range of problems, from the physiology of how the brain makes decisions (and how we assign moral…

History and Philosophy of Physics · Physics 2025-06-30 Tim Palmer

A theory governing the metric and matter fields in spacetime is {\it locally causal} if the probability distribution for the fields in any region is determined solely by physical data in the region's past, i.e. it is independent of events…

General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology · Physics 2009-05-21 Adrian Kent

The before-before experiment demonstrates free will acting from outside space-time. The experimental violation of the Leggett's inequality supports the view that it is not appropriate to attempt to limit this freedom in Nature by forcing it…

Quantum Physics · Physics 2008-01-22 Antoine Suarez

Bell's theorem is purported to demonstrate the impossibility of a local "hidden variable" theory underpinning quantum mechanics. It relies on the well-known assumption of `locality', and also on a little-examined assumption called…

Quantum Physics · Physics 2017-07-12 Steven Weinstein

In quantum gravity there is no notion of absolute time. Like all other quantities in the theory, the notion of time has to be introduced "relationally", by studying the behavior of some physical quantities in terms of others chosen as a…

Quantum Physics · Physics 2009-03-12 Rodolfo Gambini , Jorge Pullin

The impression of free will is the feeling according to which our choices are neither imposed from our inside nor from outside. It is the sense we are the ultimate cause of our acts. In direct opposition with the universal determinism, the…

Multiagent Systems · Computer Science 2018-02-27 Eric Sanchis

Before Alan Turing made his crucial contributions to the theory of computation, he studied the question of whether quantum mechanics could throw light on the nature of free will. This article investigates the roles of quantum mechanics and…

Quantum Physics · Physics 2015-06-17 Seth Lloyd

Free will discourse is primarily centred around the thesis of determinism. Much of the literature takes determinism as its starting premise, assuming it true for the sake of discussion, and then proceeds to present arguments for why, if…

History and Philosophy of Physics · Physics 2026-01-15 Henry D. Potter , George F. R. Ellis , Kevin J. Mitchell

It is often argued that bottom-up causation under a physicalist, reductionist worldview precludes free will in the libertarian sense. On the one hand, the paradigm of classical mechanics makes determinism inescapable, while on the other,…

Neurons and Cognition · Quantitative Biology 2016-10-11 Salvador Malo

Quantum theory in a global space-time gives rise to non-local correlations, which cannot be explained causally in a satisfactory way; this motivates the study of theories with reduced global assumptions. Oreshkov, Costa, and Brukner (2012)…

Quantum Physics · Physics 2014-10-10 Ämin Baumeler , Adrien Feix , Stefan Wolf

It is argued that recent experiments refuting nonlocal realism, can also be considered as experiments refuting time-ordered nonlocality and, hence, confirming the result of the before-before experiment. However, the before-before experiment…

Quantum Physics · Physics 2007-08-16 Antoine Suarez

It is shown that the before-before (or Suarez-Scarani) experiment refutes hidden variable models with a deterministic ("realistic") nonlocal part, and the experimental violation of Leggett-type inequalities models with a random nonlocal…

Quantum Physics · Physics 2008-09-23 Antoine Suarez

Free will is an old philosophical enigma that has been recently revived by neuropsychology. We restrict ourselves to the problem that determinism seems to allow only an illusion of freedom but random decissions do not contain any freedom…

Classical Physics · Physics 2007-05-23 Petr Hajicek

Tests of Bell's theorem rule out local hidden variables theories. But any theorem is only as good as the assumptions that go into it, and one of these assumptions is that the experimenter can freely chose the detector settings. Without this…

Quantum Physics · Physics 2015-06-18 Sabine Hossenfelder