Sunday 8 March 2015

"Quantum physics proves free will is true and determinism is wrong!"

This is something people often say to me: "If you look at the double slit experiment and the quantum eraser experiment, you see that determinism is an old classical physics idea that has been superseded. The observer determines reality. Therefore, free will exists."


And my response:

Quantum physics cannot show that determinism is wrong. That is impossible, because there is no way to prove that randomness exists (even Bell's Theorem may in fact indicate superdeterminism despite the general understanding of it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bell%27s_theorem#Superdeterminism). We don't know if there is a better way of expressing quantum physics aside from probabilities. So far, our formulas work based on probability. But in the future, we could have more exact math. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hidden_variable_theory

And even if randomness were somehow the case, that still would not allow for free will, which is logically impossible regardless of what physics you may think you know. If your choices are generated at random, is that what you call free will? Information Philosophy has an interesting take on this, showing how it is *possible* that randomness co-exists with determinism, such that creativity comes randomly out of some infinite pool of possibility, and is then narrowed down deterministically. In this way, there is indeterminism, in the sense that the future can never be known, yet causality is not broken. "Free will" is redefined as "freedom, then (determined) will" or "free/will." According to Buddhism, the future can be known, so I'm not sure that this I-Phi stuff has any merit apart from being a theoretically interesting proposition.

The observer effect has nothing to do with free will, either. In fact, the observer doesn't need to be a human. It can be an instrument (and it is, always--no experiment on quantum physics is done without instruments, and those observing instruments cannot observe without also influencing the behavior of that which they are observing, just as your eye cannot perceive a photon without capturing it from the scene).

You are positing something that is neither random, nor deterministic. So what is it? What makes "free will" tick? Why choose one thing over another thing? You say it is very subtle. But if it is too subtle for even you to understand, perhaps it is just a simple delusion. So far, nobody has been able to give any logical argument or even been able to define free will logically. If you can do that, you might win a Nobel Prize.

P.S. Please see my post on determinism vs dependent origination.

Also see my post on whether consciousness can create conditions instead of vice versa.

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