Quantum Mechanics and Free Will

Free Will and Determinism Track

Timothy Heumier, Ph.D., Mathematics

Enson Chang, Ph.D., Mathematics

Opponents of the concept of free will have sometimes relied on determinism, asserting that nature’s particles undergo processes that are determined by their momenta and positions. Once these are established, everything thereafter is determined, rendering free will impossible. On the other hand, proponents of free will have offered up the physics theory of quantum mechanics (QM) to state that determinism is not valid and so free will is indeed possible. In the first part of this talk, we discuss the probabilistic nature of QM, and a two-slit instrument is used to illustrate the particle-wave duality of light and its interpretation that is central to QM. We also discuss quantum entanglement and Bell’s theorem, which disproves the hidden-variable notion of QM, illustrating that nature is nondeterministic. In the second part, we discuss how proponents use this nondeterminism to promote the possibility of free will, and give a few comments and observations about such use.