Meditation 462
Free Will Theorem
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As Dan Shanefield wrote in the previous article, modern science can indeed seem "spooky." To me, one of the spookiest developments to arise out of physics and mathematics is the Free Will Theorem developed in 2004 by mathematicians Simon Kochen and John Conway. Essentially they have proven that if we possess free will, then free will also exists at the level of elemental atomic particles.
If I have free will, then so do the electrons transmitting this text from my keyboard to my computer.
The theorem rests on three axioms; two arising out of quantum mechanics and one arising out of special relativity theory. All three of these axioms are fully accepted within the scientific community as predictions arising out of them consistently match experimental observations.
I'm not going to get into details here; this is well beyond my expertise. However, I will give a few links for those who want to explore further:
- Math profs link particle actions, human free will
- Conway's Proof Of The Free Will Theorem
- John Horton Conway - Wikipedia
One corollary that arises out of the theorem is that if there is one experimenter in the entire universe that possesses free will, then that same free will exists at the level of elementary particles.
It seems to me that if you want to consider that there is a god with free will, then necessarily that free will extends to the basic particles of the universe.
If you want to claim all is predetermined, as some religions would have it, then necessarily, you are claiming god is similarly bound by predetermination.
As to my own feeling about free will, I don't think I had to write this article; I did it out of a conscious decision. Of course, you can claim that my attitude on this issue was predertermined.