The Physical Reality of Free Will
By: Harrison Crecraft
Tags: Philosophy, Time, Physics, Science, Free Will

Physics holds that Free Will is an illusion, but is this conclusion really mandated by physics? Physics’ denial of free will is a consequence of its view of time as a deterministic sequence of causes and effects. Determinism means that the future, as well as the past, is set in stone, and time is simply the playing out of fate. Even while quantum observations are fundamentally random, physics describes the quantum state, as it exists in isolation, unperturbed and unobserved, by the deterministic laws of physics. Physics regards both randomness and free will simply as artifacts of our imperfect perception. The disconnect between physics, and our deeply held beliefs in free will and chance, justifiably undermines many people’s fundamental faith in science. The problem is not with science itself, however; it is with physicists’ interpretation of what science says about physical reality.

The Oxford dictionary defines science as “the systematic study of the structure and behaviour of the physical and natural world through observation and experiment.” If the most detailed physical observations of quantum systems are intrinsically random, we need to ask: then what is the scientific basis for interpreting physical reality as fundamentally deterministic?

Determinism is a logical consequence of classical mechanics. Classical mechanics defines the physical state, which expresses everything that is measurable and empirically knowable about a system, by perfect measurement. Perfect measurement reveals (in principle) the precise positions and motions of a system’s parts and the forces acting on them. Application of the classical equations of motion to a precisely defined physical state leads to fully deterministic change across all time, past and future. Pierre Simon Laplace famously expressed this idea in 1814:

“We may regard the present state of the universe as the effect of its past and the cause of its future. An intellect which at a certain moment would know all forces that set nature in motion, and all positions of all items of which nature is composed, if this intellect were also vast enough to submit these data to analysis, it would embrace in a single formula the movements of the greatest bodies of the universe and those of the tiniest atom; for such an intellect nothing would be uncertain and the future just like the past would be present before its eyes.”

The discovery of quantum mechanics and Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle upended the idea that the positions and motions of particles can be precisely measured, even in principle. Yet, the classical belief in the fundamental determinism of physical reality has proven too deep to abandon. Despite the empirical fact of quantum randomness, physics has concluded that the quantum state, as it objectively exists in isolation prior to observation, is fundamentally deterministic. The reality of a system, as it exists in isolation and unobserved, cannot be empirically validated, however; it can only be based on an interpretation of observations. Physics’ determinism of physical reality is ultimately founded on circular logic and assumptions rooted in classical mechanics .

The flimsiness of physics’ interpretation of fundamental determinism is manifested by its inability to address what actually happens at observation or measurement to effect the random outcomes of measurements. This is the unresolved measurement problem, famously illustrated by Schrodinger’s Cat experiment. The credibility of fundamental determinism is further strained by its logical implications. These include the inevitable conclusion that Schrodinger’s cat could either exist in a superposed state of live-dead, at least in the limit of perfect isolation prior to observation (see Copenhagen Interpretation), or as a live cat in one branch of an exponentially dividing universe and as dead cat in another branch (see Many Worlds Interpretation).

Common sense tells us that it is time to abandon the unfounded assumption of fundamental determinism and its untestable mind-bending metaphysical implications. It is time to acknowledge the empirical reality of randomness as fundamental reality.

In an essay Is Quantum Randomness Fundamental? I describe the wrong turns taken by physics, first when it interpreted thermodynamics, and second when it interpreted quantum mechanics, in terms of classical mechanics’ assumption of determinism. As a consequence of these wrong turns, physics ascribes the thermodynamic arrow of time and quantum randomness as subjective artifacts of observation, and not as objective properties of physical reality.

The essay offers an alternate interpretation, based on two well-documented empirical facts: absolute zero can be approached but never reached, and no system can be perfectly isolated from its ambient surroundings at a positive absolute temperature. The universe, by definition, has no surroundings, but even it has an ambient boundary, defined by the vacuum state with a positive absolute energy (and a positive ambient temperature). The Dissipative Conceptual Model of physical reality (DCM) starts with these facts and a common-sense definition of perfect measurement. Starting with these assumptions and based on empirical observations and logical deduction, it interprets physical reality as fundamentally random and irreversible. It describes time as the unfolding of the present from an indefinite future of possibilities. The DCM restores our free will to make choices, not dictated by the past or etched in stone, and to actualize our present from the potentialities that the future holds for us.

Read more at https://harrison-69935.medium.com/the-physical-reality-of-free-will-a-conversation-f979b3a2df41