thank you for being here, and i hope you'll find these ideas interesting
I believe that free will does not exist. Although subjectively experienced as conscious choice, human decision-making processes are predetermined by complex causal factors and therefore do not represent true volition. Here’s my rationale:
I am arguing against the existence of free will, primarily from the perspective of physics. I have established three main points that I believe are supported by modern science. If we agree on these facts, I believe it leaves no room for the existence of free will.
Foundations in Physics
The Standard Model of particle physics, which accounts for fundamental particles like quarks, leptons, fermions, gauge bosons, and the Higgs boson, provides a deterministic description of particle interactions. In principle, these laws govern everything in the universe, including humans, which are made of electrons, up and down quarks, and photons and gluons to hold them together. We have formulas for all these interactions, crucially demonstrating that these formulas are deterministic, except for random quantum jumps.
However, due to the astronomical complexity of human physiology and brain function, calculating precise outcomes is beyond any computational capabilities. Whether it’s possible or not in real life doesn’t mean that we can’t draw logical conclusions from it. Just because the astronomical complexity of these interactions is beyond any computational capabilities does not alter the deterministic nature of the formulas; our inability to calculate the outcomes merely reflects our limitations in understanding or computing, rather than changing the fundamental rules governing the system.
One argument against this comes from quantum mechanics, which is inherently probabilistic and introduces an element of randomness into this deterministic picture. In quantum mechanics (specifically in the Copenhagen’s interpretation), wave-functions describe particles’ probabilistic properties, like position and momentum. The Born rule connects these wave-functions to outcome probabilities, stating that the chance of observing a particle with a specific property is the square of its wave-function’s amplitude. This makes quantum mechanics inherently indeterministic, as only the probabilities of outcomes can be predicted, not the outcomes themselves. [1]
So, on top of the deterministic behavior by particle physics, there are occasional and unpredictable quantum jumps whenever you make a measurement. The wave-function still changes deterministically (including gravity is possible, but gravity is also a deterministic theory). This means that our universe is deterministic, with occasional random jumps. The deterministic past is fixed by the past, and the random jumps cannot be influenced by ANYTHING, hence why they are random. This does not provide a mechanism for free will.
The free will theorem
Using these three axioms:
SPIN Axiom: Measurements of the squared (components of) spin of a spin 1 particle in three orthogonal directions always give the answers 1, 0, 1 in some order.
TWIN Axiom: For entangled particles with spin 1, if experimenter A measures the squared spin component of particle ‘a’ along the x, y, and z axes, and experimenter B measures the corresponding component of the entangled particle ‘b’ along only one of these axes (x, y, or z), then B’s result will always match A’s result for that axis.
MIN Axiom: Assume that the experiments performed by A and B are space-like separated. Then experimenter B can freely choose any one of the 33 particular directions w, and a’s response is independent of this choice. Similarly and independently, A can freely choose any one of the 40 triples x, y, z, and b’s response is independent of that choice
Conway and Kochen proved the free will theorem mathematically [2], which states that if humans have free will, then elementary particles have free will. The axioms mention nothing about free will in the first place, but using only these axioms, they were able to prove it.
So what does this really mean? If you think that there is some kind of free will, you need to also conclude that elementary particles have free will too. If particles behave in a way that is not determined by any prior information, then their behavior is inherently unpredictable and not governed by any underlying objective reality. There is no hidden layer of facts or variables that dictate how the particles will behave. Therefore, you would have to conclude that objective reality does not exist, which some people argue.
Emergent behavior
“Emergence” often leads to confusion, so it is classified into two concepts: strong emergence [3] and weak emergence [4]. Weak emergence refers to the idea that complex phenomena can be explained entirely by understanding the underlying simple rules. A weakly emergent phenomenon may look complicated, but if you analyze it carefully using the basic principles and interactions of its components, you can fully understand how and why it occurs. Strong emergence is the idea that some complex phenomena cannot be completely reduced to or explained by their underlying simpler parts. Even if you understand the basic rules governing the components, the emergent properties at higher levels of complexity might still be unexpected or inexplicable.
The biggest problem with strong emergence, in my opinion, is the current lack of clear empirical evidence supporting it. The concept also seems incoherent to me; there is a tension in the very idea of a feature that is both dependent and fundamental. Strongly emergent properties are somehow dependent on the underlying, simpler parts of a system (like how consciousness depends on brain activity). But they are also described as fundamental, meaning they aren’t just a simple sum of those parts. They aren’t fully reducible to or explainable by the underlying parts.
I believe that there is only weak emergence. There is emergent behavior for sure, but all emergent behavior can be explained entirely by understanding the underlying laws. Whether we can do that or not to every emergent phenomenon isn’t a problem; again, that just merely reflects our limitations, rather than the fundamental rules.
Now, if all of these three points were true, it would mean that 1. we’re deterministic, so our behavior is fixed by the past, so we aren’t actually “choosing” anything but merely watching this deterministic “movie” with random jumps play out; 2. even if you argue that there is free will, you would have to conclude that reality doesn’t exist. 3. finally, there would be no mechanism that would allow for the existence of free will under this reality.
sources:
[1] https://www.math.ru.nl/~landsman/Born.pdf
[2] https://www.ams.org/notices/200902/rtx090200226p.pdf
[3] https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/properties-emergent/#StroEmer
[4] https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/properties-emergent/#WeakEmer