Can Free Will Possibly Exist?

[Sidhe]

No, but pretty much every reconciliation between the two involves nondeterminism. It's fair to say that if they ever are reconciled, (and the few points where they do overlap within current theory) are going to be nondetermininistic.

That's a bold claim.

AFAIK the only experiment that suggests QM is non local, and non deterministic is the Bell's inequalities thought experiment. Note the word thought. And to be honest that is hardly a basis to assert that there are no hidden variables scientifically. The fact is our understanding of the quantum world could be flawed, so to say that it is accepted or proven or even has strong evidence is very difficult to do as there is a lot of head scratching, particularly when you have a measurement issue.

That said I tend to agree with the idea of no hidden variables and non locality, looking at the quantum weirdness issue. The problem is relativity doesn't like non locality, it maintains information cannot travel faster than light, so there's a seeming disagreement between the theories, which is explained by the idea that QM does not behave classically amongst other things.

Einstein's theories rely on locality and hidden variables. Thus the EPR paradox. Mind you I think the universe is probably ultimately undeterministic, but most people aren't sticking there necks out and claiming it is definitely, or scientifically proven. It's a bit of a moot point.

Many Worlds Interpretation is deterministic. Although it has no need of hidden variables as such.

It's a real issue of philosophy in physics, it is accepted that the most popular theory upholds non locality and non-determinism and to be frank I tend to agree, but there's a lot of discussion on the issues, it's not as clear cut as some would claim.

I think free will exists.

 

[Bill3000]

What do you mean by fuddling?

Tinkering with various parameters of reality to make us exist. What I mean is setting values of the fundamental constants of the universe to certain values as a result of a more underlying physics.

Think of it as a computer application - God would write the code which created the application, but he wouldn't create the programming language he wrote it in. In such a way, God is constrained in some ways. I'm suggesting that it's a more logically consistent position.

Other than being inable to do the logically impossible, God would be constrained by this "supraphysics".

Anyway, it's a bit off topic to the question, I guess.

AFAIK the only experiment that suggests QM is non local, and non deterministic is the Bell's inequalities thought experiment. Note the word thought. And to be honest that is hardly a basis to assert that there are no hidden variables scientifically.

No; there have been experiments based on Bell's theorem.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bell_test_experiments

Over the past thirty or so years, a great number of Bell test experiments have now been conducted. These experiments have (subject to a few assumptions, considered by most to be reasonable) confirmed quantum theory and shown results that cannot be explained under local hidden variable theories. Advancements in technology have led to significant improvement in efficiencies, as well as a greater variety of methods to test the Bell Theorem.

 

[ComradeDavo]

I believe in free will, and i'd liek to think I have it.

 

[Sidhe]

No; there have been experiments based on Bell's inequality.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bell_test_experiments

Yes and this experiment is widely dissected as having possible flaws as well as I say; it is the most coherent theory so far, but as to saying it somehow answers the questions, that is not strictly true there are many people willing to point out the holes in the theory and the experiment. In fact that page contains some of them.

I'm not saying I disagree I'm just saying it isn't as clearly defined or accepted as most people seem to think.

A strong assumption has had to be made, however, to justify use of expression (2). It has been assumed that the sample of detected pairs is representative of the pairs emitted by the source. That this assumption may not be true comprises the fair sampling loophole.

In addition to the theoretical assumptions made, there are practical ones. There may, for example, be a number of "accidental coincidences" in addition to those of interest. It is assumed that no bias is introduced by subtracting their estimated number before calculating S, but that this is so is not considered by some to be obvious. There may be synchronisation problems — ambiguity in recognising pairs due to the fact that in practice they will not be detected at exactly the same time.

Nevertheless, despite all these deficiencies of the actual experiments, one striking fact emerges: the results are, to a very good approximation, what quantum mechanics predicts. If imperfect experiments give us such excellent overlap with quantum predictions, most working quantum physicists would agree with John Bell in expecting that, when a perfect Bell test is done, the Bell inequalities will still be violated. This attitude has lead to the emergence of a new sub-field of physics which is now known as quantum information theory. One of the main achievements of this new branch of physics is showing that violation of Bell's inequalities leads to the possibility of a secure information transfer, which utilizes the so-called quantum cryptography (involving entangled states of pairs of particles).

 

[El_Machinae]

If you don't have free will, then how can you be responsible for your actions? If you aren't responsible for your actions, how is it just to punish you for them?

I have no choice but to punish!

 

[punkbass2000]

Read the later part of my post. Both space and time has an effect on matter in General Relativity. Heck, the very fact that it affects the motion of matter means that it has a physical basis.

Of course, the problem is that you probably defined "illusion" in a such a way that it is an ineffective definiton.

It's not ineffective, no. It is to say that time and space are relative; That which is not illusion is absolute. Here and now is real; your inceptions of 'there' and 'elsewhere' and 'before' and 'after' are illusory.

 

[punkbass2000]

Illusion is reality. Everything that isn't part of our personal reality isn't real imo. So definitely free will exists.

Indeed. This is one side of the coin.

 

[Bill3000]

I forgot something here.

AFAIK the only experiment that suggests QM is non local, and non deterministic is the Bell's inequalities thought experiment.

Bell's theorum does not state that QM is both nonlocal and nondeterministic. What it does state is that there can be no hidden variable theory which is local; that does not mean that QM is nonlocal. Relativistic QFT is local.

Yes and this experiment is widely dissected as having possible flaws as well as I say it is the most coherent theory so far, but as to saying it somehow answers the questions, that is not strictly true there are many people willing to point out the holes in the theory and the experiment. In fact that page contains some of them.

Well, the thing is that despite the problems it has, the results have been shown to a large degree to verify nondeterminism. Every experiment has some errors, but the vast majority of experiments have agreed with Bell's theorem.

 

[Eukaryote]

My POV is that either:

Fate is a ridiculous idea so free will must exist and fate is simply an illusion
Or
Fate exists, you can feel it.


In short, I don't know, so I voted for the last option.

 

[puglover]

If you don't have free will, then how can you be responsible for your actions? If you aren't responsible for your actions, how is it just to punish you for them?

This all comes down to the question of what the purpose is for law in a fated universe. I believe that law and punishment exist to reveal good and evil. And consequences are simply a necessity for growth in good, even though the action and consequence were fated to happen.

 

[Bill3000]

It's not ineffective, no. It is to say that time and space are relative; That which is not illusion is absolute. Here and now is real; your inceptions of 'there' and 'elsewhere' and 'before' and 'after' are illusory.

That is ineffective, actually. Spacetime as a whole is not relative, so you cannot say that "space and time is relative and thus an illusion". The coordinate systems will change depending on the state you are in, but there is still an underlying structure in the change - thus it's not really effective to call it an illusion. To call space and time an illusion is like saying that something being solid is an illusion - it ruins the point of labelling something as an "illusion." Whether or not something is ultimately solid in all frames of reference is irrelevant to an effective definition of what solid is.

Illusion is defined as a sensory distortion to what reality is, but you're essentially saying that reality is an illusion, which defeats the point. Coordinate transformations do not change the physics of the universe.

 

[Bozo Erectus]

A simple test to see if humans have free will.

Get a marker and a blank piece of paper and write on it either the letter A, or the letter B.

Ok, lets say you did it. You picked one and drew it on the paper.


Can you go back and pick the other letter instead? No, its done and cant be undone. Do you know why you picked the letter you did, and not the other one? No.

Not a heck of alot of free will involved is there?

 

[Bill3000]

Do you know why you picked the letter you did, and not the other one? No.

Yes I do! I chose B because that is the first letter of my name, and thus is prettier.

Argument from ignorance. You can choose something without consciously knowing why you chose it; we have a subconcious. It does not mean that a choice was not made, which is what the lack of free will means by definition.

 

[Erik Mesoy]

How about if I write "either the letter A or the letter B" on my piece of paper? Is that like quantum, which can't be predicted because it does stuff different from the normal choices?

 

[Elrohir]

A simple test to see if humans have free will.

Get a marker and a blank piece of paper and write on it either the letter A, or the letter B.

Ok, lets say you did it. You picked one and drew it on the paper.


Can you go back and pick the other letter instead? No, its done and cant be undone. Do you know why you picked the letter you did, and not the other one? No.

Not a heck of alot of free will involved is there?

I just did that, and I disagree. I wrote the letter A because A comes before B, and I felt like it. And now I've scribbled the A away, and drawn and X, because X's are cool!

Your little test no more proved humans don't have free will than my response proved that we do. That's because it's not ultimately provable either way. (Like anything, really)

 

[puglover]

Yes I do! I chose B because that is the first letter of my name, and thus is prettier.

Who chose your name? Didn't your parents name you "Bill?"

 

[Bozo Erectus]

My point is that we make choices constantly every second of the day. How conscious are we of all those 'choices' we're making. And once made, theyre irreversible. In other words, we're like ball bearings rollin' down a groove

 

[aneeshm]

It's not ineffective, no. It is to say that time and space are relative; That which is not illusion is absolute. Here and now is real; your inceptions of 'there' and 'elsewhere' and 'before' and 'after' are illusory.

Let's not forget that even though reality may be relative, it's still relatively REAL. The word "relative" itself implies some real standard of measuring "reality" or "realness".

Here and now is real. Consciousness is real. The world at this point in time is real.

 

[Elrohir]

My point is that we make choices constantly every second of the day. How conscious are we of all those 'choices' we're making. And once made, theyre irreversible. In other words, we're like ball bearings rollin' down a groove

So you're saying that we don't have free will because we don't understand everything about why we make the choices we do?

 

[aneeshm]

A simple test to see if humans have free will.

Get a marker and a blank piece of paper and write on it either the letter A, or the letter B.

Ok, lets say you did it. You picked one and drew it on the paper.


Can you go back and pick the other letter instead? No, its done and cant be undone. Do you know why you picked the letter you did, and not the other one? No.

Not a heck of alot of free will involved is there?

The omnipotence versus free will paradox is not really relevant to this debate, is it?

Judging by this definition, the only being possessing free will is an omnipotent one not bound by time.