Abstract: Quantum Physics generates both order and chaos . Quantum Physics is NECESSARY, and sufficient, to generate Free Will (this is a new argument). Reciprocally, we can will the will we want, to some extent, by setting up new Quantum Hilbert spaces inside our minds, according to our will to will whatever we will (new argument too). These new arguments roll both over the dishonest multiverse and traditional lusty, weak willed philosophers such as Schopenhauer.
***
Wherever we look at the universe, we see order. For example galactic clusters and white granite splashed by spectacularly blue azurite at the foot of K2, the second tallest mountain on Earth. Yet, (standard) cosmologists claim it all started with chaos. Life is also exquisitely ordered: look at a Scorpion Fish, it’s ready to kill any adversary. Yet its ancestor is supposedly molecular chaos.
At some point, say around 1800 CE, some colossally naive scientists thought enough physics was known to predict everything. (A few years later, between the rise of evolution theory of Lamarck and Cuvier, and the resurfacing of the wave theory of light, and the evidence of the electric and magnetic forces, that naivety discreetly dissipated…)
Those silly physicists had discovered the following. Given a simple second order differential equation, F = ma, and appropriate initial conditions, one could predict the evolution of some system perfectly, if one supposed it was submitted to just one force, gravity. Some saw in this physics illustrating the problem of “grace” as in the Christian religion: perfect predestination.
Henri Poincaré showed that mechanical determinism failed if one considered more than two bodies. In the 1880s, while studying the three-body problem, Henri found that there can be orbits that are nonperiodic, and yet not forever increasing nor approaching a fixed point. And then two other forces (weak and strong) were discovered, and bodies also disappeared, becoming “fields”.
In a fundamentally similar fashion, it has been found that “Three neurons, Free Will“. Moreover, as a single neuron is made of many semi-independent entities, it’s likely that this single neuron itself exhibits what looks like “Free Will”, or, at least, unpredictability.
Quantum Uncertainty makes the detailed evolution of the universe unpredictable: maybe one can predict that strings of super clusters of galaxies will be created, but the quantum molecular chemistry in the brain is unknowable and unpredictable, even if it were known at some point [multiversalism is a infinitely silly theory designed specifically to save determinism in spite of the Quantum; 1].
Even if the initial conditions of a Quantum System are fully known, its evolution is unpredictable (see 2-slit). Yet, run through enough times, it generates obvious order! See 2-slit again! Run once, it also generates order, just, it’s less obvious.
Ligand-gated ion channel function. This is how messenger molecules control physical outcomes inside the cell. From Membrane Receptors. My point is that the molecular environment can be changed, at will… And said will is deterministically isolated, to a great extent, thanks to Quantum Uncertainty, a fundamental consequence of the wave nature of reality.
This way we can steer free will, by setting up the nature of the Quantum system. Indeed, we can order around the Quantum ordering mechanisms! We can decide to set-up a 2-slit, or not. We want to will what we want to will, and we can make it so (this is confirmed by the entire story of civilizational progress, and this is the secret of why it happened, even if some hypocrites doubt it ever did) .
Quantum Physics gives Quantum Systems the all-knowing ability to select optimal solutions: an electron will for example find the one and only way to sneak through a potential barrier (as with the chlorophyll molecule). Thus Quantum Systems act in a micro-divine way (this is the deepest secret Quantum). Nobody knows how this works, but it’s a fact (and it’s nonlocal!) For example, entanglement makes it so that a measurement in one locale corresponds to the one then made at a (potentially arbitrarily large) distance (found long after the fact; this has been checked experimentally).
This magical all-knowing Quantum physics brings the ability to generate large scale order (already obvious in the simplest Quantum Systems, such as the 2-slit), including in biology. Psychological inversion, by setting up the Hilbert Spaces in which Quantum Physics happens, is all we need to go back from those micro-divine Quantum acts to butterflies flapping their wings, causing hurricanes.
***
Let’s be more specific: a monk (say) in Tibet could learn to control (some of) his neurohormones, and thus set-up different Quantum Hilbert Spaces in his brain. This is basically what all specifically trained brains achieve (for example growing their hippocampus). This way consciousness can down-influence Quantum events by changing its ways.
Any serious, out-of-the-ordinary experience, will change the brain environment, including at the Quantum level, be it only by changing much of the molecular environment. So, by consciously engaging in such brain change, we can change the Quantum Physics in the brain (and often get somewhat predictable effects!)
Ultra-Determinists will object that one’s psychology, my alleged partly free agent, is not really free, but fully predetermined… But there is no full-predetermination, because of Quantum local uncertainty [2]
***
OK, let’s dare to flap our wings a bit more. Quantum Physics computes with waves, which use, per their nature, arithmetic advanced enough to be subject to the Incompleteness Theorems of metamathematical logic. In other words, choices are being made, continuously, as required by the Godel Incompleteness construction… Choices correspond to Quantum Collapses (aka “Decoherence”) Are these Quantum events qualia?
Final point: even if one had some sort of Sub Quantum Physics Reality, it would have to be nonlocal… thus non-locally predictable. But, once again, we can consciously organize this whole order-generating casino. So we are on the borderline between free to will the will, and having to suffer the consequences.
***
And now, to change my brain’s molecular Quantum Environment, I will go do a hard run in the wild woods, among cliffs, snakes, poison plants, and searing heat… The brutish, but very effective way, to enforced wisdom, and advanced Quantum plenitude…
Patrice Ayme
***
***
[1] The Multiverse was created to save micro determinism in the cheapest way: each time something happens, claim the other thing happened too… In another universe. Thus the general Quantum Process generates an infinity of universes, and, at the smallest nanometer scale an uncountable number of universes would be generated at any picosecond… This is of course ridiculous, as much less grotesque avenues (De Broglie-Bohm, SQPR, Quantum Trajectories) are disponible to understand Quantum Physics by explaining “collapse”.
***
[2] Multiversists are careful to avoid the question of entanglement at-a-distance… Because it denies local determinism (from their point of view). Unfortunately for them, the experience of entanglement at a distance has been run without human choice, by letting choices be made by distant light fluctuations…
***
P/S1: The awareness argument can be inverted to “prove” (make plausible) the existence of nonlocal Sub Quantum theories, namely, SQPR, De Broglie-Bohm, Quantum Trajectories… See:
***
P/S2: The essay above was partly inspired by an excellent article of Mr. Ellis:
https://aeon.co/essays/heres-why-so-many-physicists-are-wrong-about-free-will
But the arguments used by yours truly are much more direct (for example I am not afraid of Quantum Uncertainty; Ellis avoids it, because he says he is scared of the multiversists, who dominate physics presently, and deny uncertainty… Silly ones…)
George Ellis, Templeton Prize, 2004, is the Emeritus Distinguished Professor of Complex Systems in the Department of Mathematics and Applied Mathematics at the University of Cape Town in South Africa. He co-authored a very famous book, The Large Scale Structure of Space-Time (1973) with Stephen Hawking.
Patrice Ayme's Thoughts 