Free Will

On Thursday we took advantage of being only a ten minute walk from the University and went to hear a lecture by John Conway who, it was claimed in the NZ Herald, had mathematically prooven the existence of free will. (I'd never heard of him, but Ali recognized the name. He's a prof at Princeton, and is famous for, among other things, inventing the Game of Life. I got the impression he's Very Big Deal in the math world.)

In the event, Dr. Conway didn't actually claim to have proven the existence of free will. What he did claim was a mathematical proof that: If anyone has any degree of free will (and assuming you accept three axioms from physics that no one doubts, such as nothing can travel faster than the speed of light) then, at least some elementary particles have some degree of free will. Which is hardly the same as proving the existence of free will, but he was quite an entertaining speaker and was certainly passionate about his work.

Startingly, for a lecture nominally based in mathematics and physics, he ended up saying essentially that he believes humans do have free will and that he believes it comes from the "freedom" of elementary particles. Sounded more like a confession of faith than a mathematical proof. I don't know enough mathematics to fully grasp even the elementary description he gave of his "proof," but I do have enough logic to grasp that the conditional nature of his premise means he hasn't proven anything like the existence of free will. But a part of me loved the idea that elementary particles had some sort of free will - or even spontaneity. I could totally see where the good prof was coming from. It's a cool way out of determinism, and provides a kind of metaphysical connection between human free will and physics.

Except that Ali the physicist says it does no such thing. He was disturbed that the man would even presume to suggest such a thing. Not knowing much about physics (besides a kind of fuzzy concept of quantum mechanics I got as an undergrad a long time ago), I peppered Ali with questions over several hours and as many beers. He convinced me that physics doesn't leave much room for particles to have any kind of spontaneity - whether you call it free will or whatever. That's why they're called physical laws. If particles can do something else, well, they sure don't show it much. Which, if you think about it for even amoment, is a good thing.

On our way home we talked with a computer scientist. She'd tried to convince her teenage son to come to the talk, but he didn't believe in free will and wasn't interested. The poor woman: she said the lecture had pretty much convinced her that free will doesn't exist. At least she and her son will have something new in common.

Cheers,
Sandie