Related papers: Does Quantum Mechanics Save Free Will?
Quantum mechanics has irked physicists ever since its conception more than 100 years ago. While some of the misgivings, such as it being unintuitive, are merely aesthetic, quantum mechanics has one serious shortcoming: it lacks a physical…
In a recent paper (arXiv:1111.3328), Pusey, Barrett and Rudolph claim to prove that statistical interpretations of quantum mechanics do not work. In fact, their proof assumes that all statistical interpretations must be based on hidden…
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…
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…
A non-relativistic quantum mechanical theory is proposed that describes the universe as a continuum of worlds whose mutual interference gives rise to quantum phenomena. A logical framework is introduced to properly deal with propositions…
We give a counter example to show that determinism as such is in contradiction to quantum mechanics. More precisely, we consider a simple quantum system and its environment, including the measurement device, and make the assumption that the…
We generalize classical statistical mechanics to describe the kinematics and the dynamics of systems whose variables are constrained by a single quantum postulate (discreteness of the spectrum of values of at least one variable of the…
The problem of the determinism of Quantum Mechanics has been a main one during the 20th century. At the same time, in the context of Logic and Set Theory, the importance of ancient paradoxes as well as the appearance of many new ones, has…
Without invalidating quantum mechanics as a principle underlying the dynamics of a fundamental theory, it is possible to ask for even more basic dynamical laws that may yield quantum mechanics as the machinery needed for its statistical…
Quantum mechanics led to spectacular technological developments, discovery of new constituents of matter and new materials. However there is still no consensus on its interpretation and limitations. Some scientists and scientific writers…
According to quantum theory, randomness is a fundamental property of the universe yet classical physics is mostly deterministic. In this article I show that it is possible for deterministic systems to arise from random ones and discuss the…
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…
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…
Two problems will be considered: the question of hidden parameters and the problem of Kolmogorovity of quantum probabilities. Both of them will be analyzed from the point of view of two distinct understandings of quantum mechanical…
The aim of this paper is to analyze the reconstructability of quantum mechanics from classical conditional probabilities representing measurement outcomes conditioned on measurement choices. We will investigate how the quantum mechanical…
The basic question in the long-standing debate about free will (FW) is not whether FW can be demonstrated to exist nor even whether it exists, but instead how to define it scientifically. If FW is not dismissed as an illusion nor identified…
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…
If the quantum mechanical description of reality is not complete and a hidden variable theory is possible, what arises is the problem to explain where the rates of the outcomes of statistical experiments come from, as already noticed by…
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,…
Quantum theory expresses the observable relations between physical properties in terms of probabilities that depend on the specific context described by the "state" of a system. However, the laws of physics that emerge at the macroscopic…