Here's the first part of the article, and then underneath, selected quotes and summaries of the main points: [brackets, mine].
Free will - you only think you have it > > 04 May 2006 > > Zeeya Merali > > Magazine issue 2550 > > Underneath the uncertainty of quantum mechanics could lie a deeper > > reality in which, shockingly, all our actions are predetermined > > "WE MUST believe in free will, we have no choice," the novelist Isaac > > Bashevis Singer once said. He might as well have said, "We must > > believe in quantum mechanics, we have no choice," if two new studies > > are anything to go by. > > > > Early last month, a Nobel laureate physicist finished polishing up > > his theory that a deeper, deterministic reality underlies the > > apparent uncertainty of quantum mechanics. A week after he announced > > it, two eminent mathematicians showed that the theory has profound > > implications beyond physics: abandoning the uncertainty of quantum > > physics means we must give up the cherished notion that we have free > > will. The mathematicians believe the physicist is wrong. > > > > "It's striking that we have one of the greatest scientists of our > > generation pitted against two of the world's greatest > > mathematicians," says Hans Halvorson, a philosopher of physics at > > Princeton University. > > > > Quantum mechanics is widely accepted by physicists, but is full of apparent paradoxes, which made Einstein deeply uncomfortable and have never been resolved. For instance, you cannot ask what the spin of a particle was before you made an observation of it -- QM says the spin was undetermined. And you cannot predict the outcome of an experiment; you can only estimate the probability of getting a certain result.. [next paragraph - QM works well but it's not complete; e.g. the failure to unite QM with general relativity. "A radical change is needed", says Gerard 't Hooft.]. [next -'Hooft has been working on studying a "hidden" layer of reality at scales smaller than the Planck length of 10-^(-35) meters. The 'states" he investigates behave predictably according to deterministic laws. 't Hooft has worked out a kink in his calculations which gave him a negative energy . See www.arxiv.org/quant-ph/0604008.] "Essentially, t'Hooft is saying that while particles in QM seem to behave unpredictably, if we could track the underlying states, we can predict the behavior of particles". "As enticing as 't Hooft's theory may be to physicists, it has an unexpected and potentially frightful consequence for the rest of us. Mathematicians John H. Conway and Simon Kochen, both at Princeton University, say that any deterministic theory underlying QM robs us of our free will". "When you choose to eat the chocolate cake or the plain one, are you really free to decide?" asks Conway. In other words, could someone who has been tracking all the particle interactions in the universe predict with perfect accuracy the cake you will pick? The answer, it seems, depends on whether QM's inherent uncertainty is the correct description of reality or 't Hooft is right in saying that beneath that uncertainty there is a deterministic order". "...are your choices a matter of free will, or are they predetermined?" "What the mathematicians proved is this: if you have the slightest freedom to choose the axes [in the representative experiment involving the spin of a particle] and order of measurement, then particles everywhere must also have the same degree of freedom. That means they can behave unpredictably. However, if particles have no freedom, as implied by 't Hooft's theory, the mathematicians proved that you have no real say in the choice of axes and order of measurement. In other words, deterministic particles put an end to free will (www.arxiv.org/quant-ph/0604079)". "Kochen and Conway stress that their theorem doesn't disprove 't Hooft's theory. It simply states that if his theory is true, our actions cannot be free. And they admit that there's no way for us to tell. "Our lives could be like the second showing of a movie -- all actions play out as theough they are free, but that freedom is an illusion", says Kochen". "Since the mathematicians believe that we have free will, it follows for them that 't Hooft's theory must be wrong. "We have to believe in free will to do anything," says Conway. "I believe I am free to drink this cup of coffee, or throw it across the room. I believe I am free in choosing to have this conversation". Halvorson [Hans Halvorson, philosopher of physics at Princeton] says the debate really boils down to a matter of personal taste. "Kochen and Conway can't tolerate the idea that our future may already be settled,", he says, "but people like 't Hooft and Einstein find the notion that the univere can't be completely described by physics just as disturbing.". "For philosophers, both arguments can be troubling. Quantum randomness as the basis fo free will doesn't really give us control over our actions," says Tim Maudlin, a philosopher of physics at Rutgers. "We're either deterministic machines, or we're random machines. That's not much of a choice." [last, Halvorson says]:, "There are very important questions to be asked about free will, and maybe physics can answer them.". [end of article]. ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor --------------------~--> Something is new at Yahoo! Groups. Check out the enhanced email design. http://us.click.yahoo.com/jDk17A/gOaOAA/i1hLAA/UlWolB/TM --------------------------------------------------------------------~-> To subscribe, send a message to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Or go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FairfieldLife/ and click 'Join This Group!' Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FairfieldLife/ <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> Your use of Yahoo! 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