Related papers: Some considerations on Determinism and Free Will
The basic problem posed by free will (FW) for physics appears to be not the \textit{physical} one of whether it is compatible with the laws of physics, but the \textit{logical} one of how to consistently define it, since it incorporates the…
Quantum Mechanics is generally considered to be the ultimate theory capable of explaining the emergence of randomness by virtue of the quantum measurement process. Therefore, Quantum Mechanics can be thought of as God's wonderfully…
The aim of this paper is to argue that the (alleged) indeterminism of quantum mechanics, claimed by adherents of the Copenhagen interpretation since Born (1926), can be proved from Chaitin's follow-up to Goedel's (first) incompleteness…
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…
Physicists are increasingly beginning to take seriously the possibility of laws outside the traditional time-evolution paradigm; yet our understanding of determinism is still predicated on a forwards time-evolution picture, making it…
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…
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,…
This pseudo-paper consists of excerpts drawn from two of my quantum-email samizdats. Section 1 draws a picture of a physical world whose essence is ``Darwinism all the way down.'' Section 2 outlines how quantum theory should be viewed in…
An account of determinism and indeterminism in physics, addressed to non-physicist readers, leading up to proposals for how to understand statements about the future and single-event probability, motivated by quantum mechanics.
Many have proposed that free will would use quantum indeterminism. Strict adherence to the Born rule, which follows from the no-signal condition, seems to block this possibility. I propose here that if state collapse really does occur then…
The use of Dynamic Epistemic Logic (DEL) in multi-agent planning has led to a widely adopted action formalism that can handle nondeterminism, partial observability and arbitrary knowledge nesting. As such expressive power comes at the cost…
Recently, origins of non-deterministic behavior and free will in living systems obtain growing interest (see, e.g. Maye A, Hsieh C, Sugihara G, Brembs B (2007) Order in Spontaneous Behavior. PLoS ONE 2(5): e443.…
The concept of 'super-indeterminism' captures the notion that the free choice assumption of orthodox quantum mechanics necessitates only the following requirement: an agent's free-choice performance in the selection of measurement settings…
It is argued that the concept of free will, like the concept of truth in formal languages, requires a separation between an object level and a meta-level for being consistently defined. The Jamesian two-stage model, which deconstructs free…
Starting from general considerations, some ideas of the philosopher Derek Parfit on consciousness, self-awareness, and reductionism are briefly reviewed and critically examined from the standpoint of physics.
This paper argues for the following three theses: (1) There is a clear reason to prefer physical theories with deterministic dynamical equations: such theories are maximally rich in information and usually also maximally simple. (2) There…
Probability theory as a physical theory is, in a sense, the most general physics theory available, more encompassing than relativity theory and quantum mechanics, which comply with probability theory. Taking this simple fact seriously, I…
It is argued that the Strong Free Will Theorem (Conway-Kochen) does not prove nonlocal determinism wrong. This is done by the before-before (Suarez-Scarani) experiment, which is used here to prove the following General Free Will Theorem: If…
We respond to Stephen Adler's comments on our paper "The Free Will Theorem",and add some further observations.
We give a purely logical proof of the J. Conway and S. Kochen Free Will theorem concerning undeterminacy in Quantum Mechanics (Notices of the AMS, February 2009, Vol. 56/2, p. 226). The logical method seems to be very powerful.