Related papers: The Free Will Theorem
Both deterministic and indeterministic physical laws are incompatible with control by genuine (non-illusory) free will. We propose that an indeterministic dynamics can be $weakly$ compatible with free will (FW), whereby the latter acts by…
The Ghirardi-Rimini-Weber (GRW) theory of spontaneous wave function collapse is known to provide a quantum theory without observers, in fact two different ones by using either the matter density ontology (GRWm) or the flash ontology (GRWf).…
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…
The experimental violation of Bell inequality establishes necessary but not sufficient conditions that any theory must obey. Namely, a theory compatible with the experimental observations can satisfy at most two of the three hypotheses at…
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…
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…
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…
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.
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…
It is argued that it is possible to give operational meaning to free will and the process of making a choice without employing metaphysics.
Hidden-variable models aim to reproduce the results of quantum theory and to satisfy our classical intuition. Their refutation is usually based on deriving predictions that are different from those of quantum mechanics. Here instead we…
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…
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…
We explore some implications of the hypothesis that quantum mechanics (QM) is universal, i.e., that QM does not merely describe information accessible to observers, but that it also describes the observers themselves. From that point of…
Retrocausal models of QM add further weight to the conflict between causality and the possible existence of free will. We analyze a simple closed causal loop ensuing from the interaction between two systems with opposing thermodynamic time…
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…
According to the widely accepted opinion, classical (statistical) physics does not support objective indeterminism, since the statistical laws of classical physics allow a deterministic hidden background, while --- as Arthur Fine writes…
It is shown that the Pauli equation and the concept of spin naturally emerge from logical inference applied to experiments on a charged particle under the conditions that (i) space is homogeneous (ii) the observed events are logically…
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…
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…