Abstract
In this paper, I argue that Conway and Kochen’s Free Will Theorem (Conway and Kochen 2006, 2009) to the conclusion that quantum mechanics and relativity entail freedom for the particles, does not change the situation in favor of a libertarian position as they would like. In fact, the theorem more or less implicitly assumes that people are free, and thus it begs the question. Moreover, it does not prove neither that if people are free, so are particles, nor that the property people possess when they are said to be free is the same as the one particles possess when they are claimed to be free. I then analyze the Free State Theorem (Conway and Kochen 2009), which generalizes the Free Will Theorem without the assumption that people are free, and I show that it does not prove anything about free will, since the notion of freedom for particles is either inconsistent, or it does not concern our common understanding of freedom. In both cases, the Free Will Theorem and the Free State Theorem do not provide any enlightenment on the constraints physics can pose on free will.
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Notes
- 1.
- 2.
See, for instance, (Searle 1984; Strawson 1986; Pinker 1997; Clarke 2003; Balaguer 2004; Kane 1996). The basic idea is that laws, deterministic or stochastic, are still ‘in charge’ of future actions, we never are: if we are string puppets, the fact that sometimes the strings may jerk randomly does not change the fact that we do not decides how we move.
- 3.
A more precise statement of Conway and Kochen’s thesis will be made clear later in the paper.
- 4.
The New Scientist (Merali 2006) has also reported it.
- 5.
When discussing some features of the free will compatible with quantum mechanics, they write that their remarks “might also interest some philosophers of free will” (Conway and Kochen 2006), p. 1465).
- 6.
- 7.
See for instance (Loewer 2003).
- 8.
To give an example of this attitude, even if quantum nonlocaltiy seemed to provide a knock down argument against Humean supervenience, David Lewis wrote: “if physics tells me that it is false, I wouldn’t grieve […] But I am not ready to take lessons in ontology form quantum physics as it now is. First I must see how it looks when it is purified of instrumentalist frivolity and dares to say something not just about pointer readings but about the constitution of the world; and when it is purified of supernatural tales about the power of observant minds to make things up” (Lewis 1986, p. xi).
- 9.
One should not take this language too seriously, but for what is relevant to this discussion, one can imagine a particle like a spinning magnet, and think of its spin as its magnetization, so that we can measure the spin of the particle using a suitable magnetic field.
- 10.
Actually, SPIN is not properly an axiom but rather a theorem (Kochen and Specker 1967), so that if quantum mechanics is correct, the results of such spin measurements have to be constrained as SPIN says.
- 11.
Even if Tumulka, Ghirardi and Bassi believe that FIN is exactly the locality condition required in Bell’s proof, there is a vast literature that discusses the various notions of locality: see (Redhead 1989) for a review. Moreover, there is no full agreement on what Bell’s theorem proves, as also remarked in footnote 15.
- 12.
That is, the space distance between the two events is too large for a light signal emitted at one event to reach the other event, so that one event cannot cause the other. [This footnote is present in the original text.]
- 13.
The details of these functions are irrelevant for our purposes.
- 14.
That deterministic quantum theories like the pilot-wave theory must violate parameter independence has been known for a long time, but apparently the fact has not been appreciated enough.
- 15.
Notice that critics disagree on what Bell’s theorem proves: while (Bassi and Ghirardi 2007; Tumulka 2016; Goldstein et al. 2011a) as well as (Albert 1992; Maudlin 1994) claim that it proves nonlocality, i.e. ~LOC, (Menon 2010; Wüthrich 2011) instead seems to think that it rules out local deterministic completions of quantum mechanics, i.e. ~(LOC&DET). If it is the former, then Bell’s theorem provides a constraint for all quantum theories: any quantum theory (deterministic or stochastic) has to deny locality. In contrast, if it is the latter, Bell’s theorem provides constraints only to deterministic quantum theories, and not on stochastic ones. Luckily, this distinction is not relevant from the discussion in this paper. For a discussion of the relation of Bell's theorem and the Free Will theorem, see Cator and Landsman 2014).
- 16.
Also Wüthrich (2011) claims that the theorem is question begging, even if in a different way: while Wüthrich is concerned on whether the Conway and Kochen theorem proves indeterminism, I am more concerned in whether it proves free will, and the literature on free will teaches us that the relation between lack of determinism and free will is not straightforward.
- 17.
- 18.
See e.g. (Kane 1996).
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Allori, V. (2019). Free Will in a Quantum World?. In: de Barros, J.A., Montemayor, C. (eds) Quanta and Mind. Synthese Library, vol 414. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-21908-6_1
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