Related papers: A Personal Point of View about Scientific Discussi…
Free will is sometimes summarised in the philosophical literature as the subjective impression felt by an individual that he or she is the ultimate source or cause of his or her own choices. The two most common arguments for denying the…
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…
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…
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…
As scientists we like to think that modern societies and their members base their views, opinions and behaviour on scientific facts. This is not necessarily the case, even though we are all (over-) exposed to information flow through…
We strengthen the Free Will Theorem, which proved the spontaneity of particles, based on the free will of the experimenter. The new result is unconditional, and does not require the experimenter's free will to prove the particles'…
The claim of the freedom of the will (understood as an individual who is transcendent to Nature) in the name of XXth century scientific knowledge, against the perspective of XVIIIth-XIXth century scientific materialism, is analysed and…
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…
Free will is fundamental to morality, intuition of self, and normal functioning of the society. However, science does not provide a clear logical foundation for this idea. This paper considers the fundamental scientific argument against…
Physics has long lived with a schizophrenia that desires determinism for measured systems while demanding that experimenters decide what to measure on a whim. Intriguingly, such a free will assumption for experimenters has thwarted many…
We consider the paradoxical concept of free will from the perspective of Theoretical Computer Science (TCS), a branch of mathematics concerned with understanding the underlying principles of computation and complexity, including the…
It is argued that it is possible to give operational meaning to free will and the process of making a choice without employing metaphysics.
I present my views on the future of America's program in particle physics. I discuss a variety of experimental initiatives that do have the potential to make transformative impacts on our discipline and should be included in our program, as…
We respond to Stephen Adler's comments on our paper "The Free Will Theorem",and add some further observations.
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,…
Conway and Kochen have presented a "free will theorem" (Notices of the AMS 56, pgs. 226-232 (2009)) which they claim shows that "if indeed we humans have free will, then [so do] elementary particles." In a more precise fashion, they claim…
This article focuses on the connection between the possibility of quantum computers, the predictability of complex quantum systems in nature, and the issue of free will.
An important side effect of the evolution of the human brain is an increased capacity to form opinions in a very large domain of issues, which become points of aggressive interpersonal disputes. Remarkably, such disputes are often no less…
On the basis of three physical axioms, we prove that if the choice of a particular type of spin 1 experiment is not a function of the information accessible to the experimenters, then its outcome is equally not a function of the information…
We present a brief non-technical introduction to the standing discussion on the relation between Quantum Mechanics and Determinism. Quantum Mechanics inherent randomness in the measurement process is sometimes presented as a door to explain…