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The free will theorem of John H. Conway and Simon B. Kochen states that if we have a free will in the sense that our choices are not a function of the past, then, subject to certain assumptions, so must some elementary particles. Conway and Kochen's paper was published in Foundations of Physics in 2006. [1]
In 1967 Kochen and Ernst Specker proved the Kochen–Specker theorem in quantum mechanics and quantum contextuality. [7] In 2004 Kochen and John Horton Conway proved the free will theorem. The theorem states that if we have a certain amount of free will, then, subject to certain assumptions, so must some elementary particles.
[35]: 247-248 The free will theorem of John H. Conway and Simon B. Kochen further establishes that if we have free will, then quantum particles also possess free will. [ 36 ] [ 37 ] This means that starting from the assumption that humans have free will, it is possible to pinpoint the origin of their free will in the quantum particles that ...
In 2004, Conway and Simon B. Kochen, another Princeton mathematician, proved the free will theorem, a version of the "no hidden variables" principle of quantum mechanics. It states that given certain conditions, if an experimenter can freely decide what quantities to measure in a particular experiment, then elementary particles must be free to ...
The problem of free will has been identified in ancient Greek philosophical literature. The notion of compatibilist free will has been attributed to both Aristotle (4th century BCE) and Epictetus (1st century CE): "it was the fact that nothing hindered us from doing or choosing something that made us have control over them".
Free Agents author Kevin J. Mitchell makes a neuroscientific case against determinism.
John Conway and Simon Kochen used a Kochen–Specker configuration from the book in order to prove their free will theorem. [17] Peres' insistence in his textbook that the classical analogue of a quantum state is a Liouville density function was influential in the development of QBism. [18]
This type of argument gained attention when an instance of it was advanced by John Conway and Simon Kochen under the name of the free will theorem. [28] [29] [30] The Conway–Kochen theorem uses a pair of entangled qutrits and a Kochen–Specker configuration discovered by Asher Peres. [31]