TagJohn Horgan (on free will)
At Scientific American, free will seems very much alive
The concept is incompatible with their “mind is just the brain” thesis but they can’t let go of it anyway
The Free Will Debate Really Heated Up This Year
Many commentators are weighing in; surprisingly, perhaps, well-known materialists are disputing the claim that there is no free will
At Scientific American: Does Quantum Mechanics Kill Free Will?
Physicists take sides. Sabine Hossenfelder thinks superdeterminism enables quantum mechanics to kill free will; George Ellis disagreesOne of the most interesting science writers of our era is John Horgan, who has managed to infuriate so many of the right people (to infuriate, that is) while giving the rest of us something to ponder. In a recent column in Scientific American he takes on the question of whether quantum mechanics (quantum physics) rules out free will. At first glance, that might seem unlikely. Isn’t quantum mechanics (QM) the ultimate in things you can’t determine in advance? Ah, but some physicists think they have found a way around that: superdeterminism. Sabine Hossenfelder explains that, if we knew enough, we would see that everything is determined anyhow: “The reason we can’t predict the outcome of a quantum measurement,” she Read More ›