eCosmology

Does quantum mechanics mean humans really have free will?

If particle movement can't be predicted, then you can't predict the future, Newton thought if you knew the position and velocity of every particle in the universe, then you could predict the future, meaning we don't have free will, but does quantum mechanics mean we do?

Public Comments

1. While there is always uncertainty about the *next* measurement, it's always possible to trace the state of the universe now backwards in time. In other words, you're always going to be able to argue that action B was "caused" by action A, but you may have trouble figuring out what the next action will be. That being said, most philosophers claim that quantum mechanics does rescue people from the free will problem.
2. The Uncertainity Principle applies to the microscopic world of atoms. It is tempting to apply the Uncertainity Principle to the macroscopic world and say that human behavior is governed by it. I think that consciousness and free will are more an emergent property of VERY large groups of particles.
3. Even if Newton was right, you can't know the position and velocity of every particle in the universe.
4. We have no free will, and Quantum Mechanics proves this conclusively. The fact of a probability wave means that there are multiple parallel universes where all of the possible particle locations exist simultaneously. So there are an infinite number of universes where all possibilities of all actions exist simultaneously. just because you do not know which of these infinite universes you live in, does not mean you have free will. You have the illusion of it because you pretend that the other infinitude of possibilities are not in simultaneous existence. Existentially, you have no choice but to have a choice, and therefore, you have no choice.