Related papers: Free Will and Physics
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…
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'…
We study the concept of free will by defining a mathematical model that extends Newton's laws of motion, in such a way that bodies are replaced with agents endowed with free will. In our model the free will of agents is not entirely free,…
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…
It is argued that it is possible to give operational meaning to free will and the process of making a choice without employing metaphysics.
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…
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…
We present the foundations of a new emerging interpretation of quantum theory bearing wide-range implications. Physical basis of the interpretation is non-questionable yet relatively new--it relies on the different structures…
In a previous paper (arXiv:1008.3661v1[quant-ph] 21 Aug 2010), we have given a purely logical proof of the Conway and Kochen Free Will theorem in QM: the freedom of the observer implies the freedom of the observed particle. Here we show…
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…
Any scientific attempt to explain consciousness is tasked with reconciling the third person objective perspective of science with our first person subjective experience of the world. A good point of departure is to consider situations in…
In this article, we propose to use the formalism of quantum mechanics to describe and explain the so-called "abnormal" behaviour of agents in certain decision or choice contexts. The basic idea is to postulate that the preferences of these…
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,…
From what is known today about the elementary particles of matter, and the forces that control their behavior, it may be observed that still a host of obstacles must be overcome that are standing in the way of further progress of our…
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…
We revisit the vexed question of how unpredictability can arise in a deterministic universe, focusing on unitary quantum theory. We discuss why quantum unpredictability is irrelevant for the possibility of what some people call `free-will',…
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.
We introduce an atomic formula intuitively saying that given variables are independent from given other variables if a third set of variables is kept constant. We contrast this with dependence logic. We show that our independence atom gives…
In this article, I develop a formal model of free will for complex systems based on emergent properties and adaptive selection. The model is based on a process ontology in which a free choice is a singular process that takes a system from…
Capacity of conscious agents to perform genuine choices among future alternatives is a prerequisite for moral responsibility. Determinism that pervades classical physics, however, forbids free will, undermines the foundations of ethics, and…