On the notion of free will in the Free Will Theorem

Abstract

The (Strong) Free Will Theorem (fwt) of Conway & Kochen (2009) on the one hand follows from uncontroversial parts of modern physics and elementary mathematical and logical reasoning, but on the other hand seems predicated on an undefined notion of free will (allowing physicists to "freely choose" the settings of their experiments). This makes the theorem philosophically vulnerable, especially if it is construed as a proof of indeterminism or even of libertarian free will (as Conway & Kochen suggest).However, Cator and the author (Foundations of Physics 44, 781-791, 2014) previously gave a reformulation of the fwt that does not presuppose indeterminism, but rather assumes a mathematically specific form of such "free choices" even in a deterministic world (based on a non-probabilistic independence assumption). In the present paper, which is a philosophical sequel to the one just mentioned, I argue that the concept of free will used in the latter version of the fwt is essentially the one proposed by Lewis (1981), also known as 'local miracle compatibilism' (of which I give a mathematical interpretation that might be of some independent interest also beyond its application to the fwt). As such, the (reformulated) fwt in my view challenges compatibilist free willà la Lewis (albeit in a contrived way via bipartite epr-type experiments), falling short of supporting libertarian free will.

An Operationalist Perspective on Setting Dependence

“…This is of course in no way a knock down argument because it relies on several presuppositions that may be rejected. 21 After all, setting dependent ontic models are merely a tool to get a better grip on setting dependence and are not meant to be the template for setting dependent theories. But they do reveal the difficulties involved in finding a proper setting dependent theory.…”

“…My starting point is the recent paper by Landsman [21], which I think is one of the most serious attempts of analyzing the role of free will in the free will theorem 14 and, by similarity, in Bell's theorem. 15 Theories of free will roughly fall into two camps: libertarianism, which requires indeterminism, and compatibilism, which is compatible with determinism.…”

Illúzió a szabad akarat? Idegtudományi-pszichológiai-filozófiai megfontolások

“…A random, sztochasztikus jelenségek lényeges szereppel bírhatnak számos biológiai rendszer, így pl. az idegrendszer működésében, mely lehetőség összefüggésbe hozható a szabad akarat problémakörével (lásd fent többek között Eccles, 1985;Landsman, 2017). Az említett szerzők felfogása szerint ez nyitva hagyja a szabad akarat megvalósulásának lehetőségét, míg mások ezt nem fogadják el (Hawking és Mlodlinow, 2011).…”

The Influence of Quantum Physics on Philosophy

“…We also would like to mention Baltag and Smets (2005) on 'quantum actions'. Finally worth to mention is Landsman's employment of topos theory to provide a new mathematical characterisation of quantum mechanics with Copenhagen overtones ('Bohrification'), which mathematical structure generates nothing less than an intuitionistic quantum logic (see Landsman's (2017a) tome of nearly 900 pages, Chapter 12).…”