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P141 Beginning

The question of the existence of free will acquires its great

philosophical-religious importance only inasmuch as itrelates to the

concept of the moral responsibility of man,

If man possesses a free will so that he can choose his actions, and if

there is a "good" andd an "evil" way of acting, and if it is true that

one "should" be good, then one can say that it is logically possible

that man is "responsible" for his choice, and

that he should choose the good.

The issue which we will explore in this article is the question of

whether the picture of morally responsible man is compatible with the

fundamental outlook of modern physical theory: specifically whether

the idea of free will is compatible with quantum theory in particular,

and with the logic of causality in general.

We intend to show that they are not compatible and to discuss briefly

the ramifications of this incompatibility (Parts II and III). We then

present speculations regarding the possible physical and cosmogical

basis for free will (Part IV). We present our conclusions in Part V.

Part I

The Situation prior to Quantum Physics

The Concept of Natural Law

The very first mathematical equations relating to natural phenomena

were those developed by Kepler in about 1600. He was convinced that

the real world is one ofquantitative characteristics-as opposed to the

Aristotelian belief that the world is composed of qualitative

characteristics-and that genuine causes of phenomena-must always be in

the nature of some underlying mathematical harmony. According to

Kepler, these harmonies originated in the creative mind of G-d, and

are the causes of phenomena, not merely their description. Galileo, a

contemporary of Kepler, and the founder of terrestrial dynamics (the

physics of falling bodies,

, pendulums and so forth), believed that natUre acts "inexorably...

through immutable laws which she never transgresses", (See Burtt.)

Thus, instead of the Aristotelian view of events "unfolding" in a

process representing "the actualization of potentiality" -Le. working

to fulfill some future

i goal (teleology)- there arose the new idea of a chain of cause and

effect regulated by immutable natural law. The occurrence of an event

was now seen to be caused (determined) by prior physical events rather

than by some metaphysical "longing to achieve "perfection"

or "completion".

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P142-3

Thus, as a result of the revolutionary discoveries of Copernicus,

Kepler, Galileo and Newton, the belief grew that all observed

phenomena should be described in quantitative terms. The predictive

and explanatory power of the new theories as well as their

mathematical exactitude con¬vinced all scientists that a set

of "natural laws" was operative in the universe governing all its

processes.

Furthermore, in a process culminating in the development of the theory

of evolu¬tion, man himself came to be considered as having arisen via

natural law: from the inanimate to the animate via natural pro¬cesses.

Similarly, the universe as a whole was considered to have emerged into

existence without the benefit of any super¬natural agency. As a

result, it was postu¬lated that since man arose within a natural

universe via the operation of natural law,

there would be no reason to suppose that the laws governing processes

in man are any different than those governing the rest

of the physical universe-that is, it would be only reasonable to

conclude that even man's mental processes are governed by "naturallaw".

Natural Law versus Free Will

From this it follows that those mental processes which man

labels "free-willed choices" are actually physical processes occurring

entirely according to natural laws of cause-and-effect. That is, they

are in reality totally "determined", not free; "Free will" would thus

have to be consi¬dered a physical impossibility, belief in it an

error, and the sensation/experience of making "free-willed choices" an

illusion. It is of course an illusion caused by natural processes in

the human brain, having their

origin in the natural processes (evolution

which led to the formation of the humar.

brain. However the fact that an illusionl

arises naturally makes it no less an illu¬sion.

This seeming opposition between the orderliness of the universe (which

leads us to postulate the existence of ~'naturallaw") and the alleged

phenomenon of free will (which is impossible if natural law governs

all) is however not unavoidable. We can avoid a clash between the two

if we do not insist that an immutable natural law exists. Instead of

assuming that "natural law" prescribes immutably the path of events,

we postulate that "natural law" is merely a description of the path of

events. This approach will now be explained.

Causality and Determinism

The "law of gravity" as it was f~rmu¬lated before the modern period

stated that all things tend to fall to the earth. This was based on

observation, not on some brilliant theoretical deduction. If it had

been the case that rocks fell but wood rose to the sky, the "law of

gravity" would say "rocks fall and wood rises". If on Sundays and

Tuesdays rocks fell but on other days they

stayed where placed, the "law of gravity" . would say"...". Even in

such a universe'. this "law of gravity" would be "prescriptive"",

because it could predict what would

happen to rocks and wood if the day of the.: week were known. However,

if everyfew.' minutes there was a change so that some- '1 times rocks

fell and sometimes not, some- .

times water flowed and sometimes not, then a complete description of

events could be made only after they had occurred. However, once a

complete list were made then it could be called the "law

of gravity". This law could state e.g. that last Tuesday at.g AM rocks

fell and at 9:05 they rose and at 9:08... This would be, however, a

descriptive rather than a pres¬criptive law since it describes but

does not predict. However, it is a fact of mathemat¬ics that no matter

how complex this law would be, it would be possible to express it

mathematically so that one would have a formula, a mathematical law of

nature, to describe the entire history of the universe.

We can see that if we took the history of any universe, even one where

the laws change chaotically every minute, we could write down its

entire history, even express

it mathematically, and call it the "natural law" of that universe. We

would be justi¬fied in calling it this because every event could be

derived from this "natural law"... However, this would be a

descriptive rather than a prescriptive law.

In contrast, imagine a universe in which prescriptive natural laws are

available, and in which these laws maintain their validity always and

everywhere, and where only a very few basic laws are needed to predict

any event anywhere. In such a universe, rather than considering

natural law as a "description" of events, as it would be in a

chaotic universe, we are tempted, after meditating on this regularity

and encoun¬tering it everywhere and always. to con¬sider that events

must occur in accordance with natural law.

This approach, which postulates that nature "must obey" natural law,

obviously considers natural law to be far more than merely a

convenient (mathematical) des¬cription of how events occur.

However, neither approach is conclu¬sive; both have equal logical

validity. Although we are more used to the latter approach-where

natural law dictates how events must occur-the former

approach-where "natural law" is merely I

a description of how events actually occur -is entirely valid.

What we are actually saying is that "causality" is not a priori truth:

if effect Y always has followed from cause X, we do not say that if X

occurs then Y must follow it (i.e. that Y is "determined" by X. or Y

is "caused" by Xj, but ratherthat "so far Y has been observed to

follow X".

Thus it is entirely possjble that at some time X will occur

without "causing" Y to occur. Conversely, Y can occur without having X

occur prior to it. If this is so, then even the apparently immutable

order of our universe does not logically imply that all processes

occur in accordance with causality: there would be then no logical

necessity to consider mental events as fol¬lowing causal laws everi if

they were totally natural phenomena. Thus human

free will could exist even in a seemingly deterministic universe.

However, although it is true that logic does not compel us to assume

causality, nevertheless physics does assume the existence of a causal

structure to the uni¬verse and its processes: indeed. one of the

accepted signs of a true theory of nature is that it is "elegant". All

great physicists have believed deeply that a simple order permeates

all the phenomena in the uni¬verse, and that one great-yet elegantly

simple-equation/law can describe all of nature. This belief in the

unity of nature and in the elegance and simplicity of its laws has not

only inspired generations of physicists, but it has led them to

searches which have so far confirmed the validity of that belief.

Along with this belief in the operation of law in the universe was the

belief that everything within the universe -including man and the

mental activity in his brain¬

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P144-5

act of G-d. In order that man be responsible for his actions it must

be true not only that it was physically possible for him to act

otherwise than he did but also that he was free to choose h is action

from a mong these available alternatives. Under these condi¬tions, we

can say that free will exists. If on the other hand it was not

physically possi¬ble for him to choose any of the other alter¬natives,

or if there were no other alternatives to choose, then his act is an

automatic one, and is caused by the condi¬tions of the universe as G-d

created it. As such, it is an act of G-d, and not an act for

which' man can be said to bear responsibility.

Two of the fundamentals of Judaism are that man is commanded by G-d to

shun certain actions and to actively pursue oth.. ers and that man is

responsible for his actions. This implies that it is up to man'

whether or not he will do these actions, Le.

that man has a free will. Science, on the. ¬

other hand, has raised a number of objec¬

tions to the idea of free will. ' .

According to the philosophical interpre¬

tation of scientific determinism presented above, all phenomena are

governed by nat¬ural law: Le. all events always' occur in

I accordance with certain cause-effect rela¬tionships, and only in

accordance with'

them, as though they were obediantly

following some all-powerful set of laws. We thus call these regular

cause-effect rela~

tionships "natural law". As a result, if one possesses all the

relevant information characterizing a system (any system) at anyone

point in time, then since event must follow event in accordance with

nat¬

. ural law, if the natural law is known it is possible to compute the

exact state of that

system as it would be at any other time, past or future.

Since event follows event in a way immutably set by natural law, we

say that events are" determined" by prior events, and thus we say that

the state of the system at present is determined by the state as it

was at a previous time. Implicit in this philo¬sophy is the belief

that all observed pheno¬mena are subject to natural laws. For example,

although thoughts, emotions and decisions are mental phenomena, they

are detectable by human consciousness and are therefore considered to

be operating subject to some (albeit as yet unknown) natural law.

Knowing the state of the entire physical universe at any given time

allows one in theory to predict its state at any future time; and, as

part of the physical universe, thoughts and emotions would be

predictable as well.

-operates in accordance with this law. Thus, scientific attitude rules

out the exist¬ence of free will even though it is not necessarily

constrained to do so.

In any case, we will see that even if one denies the existence

of "natural law", and thus of causality, one encounters a very

basic difficulty inherent in the logical con¬tent of the idea of free

will: free will seems

to be possible only if it involves processes

which give the lie to its being free. This logical inconsistency in

the very concept of free will is explained farther on in this article.

.The Religious-Scientific View before Quantum Physics

Before proceeding to a discussion of

quantum physics, we shall examine the problem of free will versus

determinism from the viewpoint of a religious scientist before the

advent of quantum physics. Such a person would believe that the

natu¬ral law operating in the universe is a crea¬tion of G-d (and

perhaps that the unity it

manifests and the awe and sense of beauty

it engenders are reflections of the Divine unity'and majesty).

Using this approach of a universe

created by G-d, which is run according to a set of divinely created,

immutable pres¬criptive laws of nature, we can presentthe conflict

with free- will even more graphi¬cally, as follows.

The Universe as G-d's Machine

Assuming that G-d created the uni¬verse and natural law, then any

actlevent which follows automatically from the initial state of the

universe is indirectly an

Of course, the necessary calculations might well be so long and

difficult that the entire human race with all its computers might not

be able to complete such a pre¬

diction. Nevertheless, the problem is at least theoretically soluble.

That is, given all thoughts, emotions, actions motions, positions...

of all the particlesl entities in the universe, as they arel were at

any point in time, their future thoughts, emotions, actions, motions

and positions could be exactly specified. For example, your thoughts

at this very moment were determined by the previous state of the

universe (which includes the previous state of your brain and of your

surroundings). That state was determined in turn by the previous state

and so on, so that your thoughts now are actually de¬termined by the

very first state of the

universe.

The possibility has been raised that

even were such a calculation made, the amount of information to be

processed would be so vast that even in theory the result could be

obtained only after the pre¬dieted event already occurred. For

exam¬ple, a prediction otthe state of the universe one year in the

future would take more than a year to calculate.

However, in our case, this is irrelevant: when we say that the future

can be pre¬dicted, we mean that it is determined¬even if the

prediction of events requires a longer amount of time than the actual

occurrence of the events, if they can be predicted at all, then this

is proof that the events are determined.

Thus, if the exact state of the Big Bang were known, one could (in

theory) predict all the actions, thoughts, works of art and philosophy

and science, all acts and words of kindness and brutality, love and

hate, of all humanity for all time.

Thus, if the theory that the universe is

(totally) deterministic is correct, then every act that we consider to

be spiritual, good, meaningful or beautiful is merely an inev¬itable,

automatic consequence of the Big Bang.

It is not even necessary that it be possi¬ble for man or any physical

being in our universe to be able to predict the unfolding of the

universe in order for this to be true.

Obviously, if G-d created the universe with

its physical laws in such a way that it would develop in one and only

one way, then everything that occurs in that uni¬verse is an automatic

result of G-d's creat¬ing the universe. Whether or not we can predict

events, they are nevertheless determined.

Determinism versus Free Will

Now, if human acts are truly automatic results, we can neither claim

credit for our meritorious deeds nor be held responsible for even the

most reprehensible crimes,

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P146-7

Rather, since G-d created the Big Bang, and all our actions follow

inevitably from it, then G-d is the direct cause of all that "we" do.

Humanity and the rest of nature are merely the puppets through which

the uni¬verse acts out the drama programed into

the Big Bang by G-d.

Indeed, if the universe actually does develop in this totally

automatic way, then it is in reality merely a very large machine of

which we are simply a small part. Like the motions of a machine, our

actions are

devoid of any moral or spiritual meaning.

The motions of a machine cannot be "good" or "evil"-they just "are".

As determined, automatic events, our actions,

thoughts and emotions are thus neither "good" nor "evi'''-they

just "are".

Yet we all feel very deeply that our actions do possess meaning and

that there does exist a distinction between right and wrong, good and

evil. Is there any way to overcome this paradox? Can our actions have

meaning?

Clearly, in order that we could consider our actions to have any

meaning, we would have to believe that in some way we could control

what we do.

If we control our action, then at least to some degree we are neither

puppets nor machines; our actions can carry with them a measure

of "responsibility"; and they therefore have the potential to be

mean¬ingful. However, for it to be true that we indeed control our

actions, it must be true that, for any possible course of moral action

taken by man, alternative possibili¬ties existed, and man could have

cho¬sen freely from among them. .

However, these conditions were

negated by physics. It was an accepted doctrine in physics that each

event occurred as a direct, inevitable result of other events. There

are no alternatives

possible. The event occurs as it does because it cannot occur

otherwise. It is "determined".

The idea of undetermined processes seemed contrary to the spirit of

science

and of physics in particular. Thus, many

people ceased to believe in free will so that

they would not be forced to give up a belief

in science and predictability. It was postu¬

lated that our feeling that we possess a

free will is only a fantasy (caused perhaps

by that strange phenomenon we call con¬sciousness). Non-religious

scientists flirted with the idea of man as an evolved mechanistic

organism without free will, and religious scientists were on the defen¬

sive (trying to justify belief in the acausality

of free will).

And then came Quantum physics".

Explanation of Quantum Physics

According to Quantum physics, events at the most fundamental level are

not determined but can instead occur in more than one way. In order to

know how an event will occur, one must use the Quan¬tum formulas to

determine both the dif¬ferent ways the event can occur and also the

relative probability of each such different way of occurrence. Then

nature rolls the dice and chooses one of these ways.

FIGURE

Way No. Code Nos. Relative

Probability

A 1-10 10%

B 11-15 5%

C 16-50 35%

D 51-77. 27%

E 78-100 23%

For example: quantum formulas applied to process X show that there are

five ways for it to occur: A, B, C, D and E. The formu¬las show

further that item A has a 10% probability; B 5%; C 35%; D 27% and E 23%

_ Nature then constructs the following table in its mind (see Figure)

and then rolls a one-hundred sided die. The 100 sides are numbered

from 1 through 100, and thus each number has an equal chance in each

throw. If the number on the die is between 1 and 10 then event X

occurs in way A. If the number is between 51-77, it occurs in way D,

and so on.

Every physical process is governed by physical law, and every event

occurs in some specific circumstance. By combining a knowledge of the

relevant physical law and the relevant circumstances with the

rules of Quantum physics, one can exactly determine the relative

probabilities of each "way of occurrence" for every type ofphysi¬cal

process, under any circumstance.

Since the relative probabilities are exactly determined, we call

Quantum pro¬cesses "probabilistically-determined" pro¬

cesses. However, to stress the factthat the actual choice is made

using a random procedure (nature's "dice") we call Quan¬tum

events "probabilistically-determined random events" (to be abbreviated

here as "PDR" events).

Part II

Free Will

To many people, this weakening of determinism seemed to present the

possi¬bility that free will does indeed exist; since there is indeed a

multiplicity of options

available at each decision point, our deci¬sions are not uniquely

determined.

However, it would seem that this was a misplaced hope. It became clear

that although there is indeed a multiplicity of physically possible

options for each event, the choice of which possibility to select is

not up to us, but is rather up to pure chance (nature's dice).

Quantum Physics and Free Will

According to Quantum physics, the uni¬verse is governed by

probabilistically deter¬mined randomness (PDR). We can imagine the

development of the universe in the fol¬lowing way: outside the

universe there is a "random number generator", and every time a

Quantum process is to occur in the universe, the universe picks a

random numberfrom the generator and causes the events to occur in

accordance with the

chosen random number. Therefore, any event in the universe is

partially predeter¬mined by the initial stateofthe universe and is

partially random, i.e. it is PDR. Human beings are part of the

universe, as are their thoughts, emotions and decisions. As such,

all actions, thoughts, emotions and deci¬sions of all people of all

time are partially predetermined automatic events, and

par¬tiallyrandomones, i.e. they are PDR events.

Obviously the thought '" am dead" does not reflect reality; nor does

the thought "the world is flat". However, one can imagine

circumstances which would lead to the arising of such thoughts. That

is,

although all thoughts always result auto¬matically/randomly from the

initial state of the universe, the contents of a thought need not be

true. Thus, although thoughts such

………

P148-9

random" will exist in the universe, even though deeply held beliefs in

free will exist, nevertheless if quantum physics is correct then there

is actually no free will, and all thoughts are determined/PD random.

Probabilistic Quantum Free Will

Since free will assumes that more than one option is available in each

decision, it thus is in this respect compatible with quantum physics.

However, free will seems also to conflict with quantum phys¬ics since,

according to quantum physics, events are decided by a random process

while free will requires a very non¬random, deliberate choice.

One could, however, seemingly get around this difficulty as follows:

Very little is known about the human mind/brain. It is quite possible

that if the laws of the mind were known, it would turn out that when

quantum physics was applied to them, the result would be that the

relative probability of a quantum event in the brain's decision center

occurring as the mind wishes it to

occur is 99.999%. That is, decisions are based on quantum processes,

so that there are options available to choose from, and yet the choice

of which option to follow is highly unarbitrary. The choice process,

although random, is so heavily weighted in favor of occurring as the

mind wishes it to occur that events effectively follow the mind's

will. This is as if one had a 1 ,OOO,DOO-sided die. Each time a free-

willed

choice must be made, the possible options offered by quantum physics

are consi¬dered, and the will chooses one of the options. Then the die

is flipped. If it lands on any number between 1-821,367 or 821,369-

1 ,DOO,OOO then the free-willed choice is acted upon. If it lands on

821,368

then it is not acted upon. Thus in only one out of 1,000,000 choices

will the event not occur as desired.1

The Basic Problem

It would then seem that free will is compatible with quantum physics.

How¬ever, in actuality it is not. The problem lies in the causal chain

leading to the decision to act. Even if we say that once the decision

is made to do C for example, that the rela¬tive probability of C

occurring becomes 99.999%, the problem remains that we still must

examine how it came about that C was decided upon rather than A. B, D

or E. Whatever process it was, it was either random or determined and

thus not free. That is, we can use quantum physics to say that it is

indeed possible that there are options available, and that once

the ,'ree decision is made one can force events to

occur in accordance with the choice. How¬ever, it is still impossible

to understand how the choice itself can be arrived at except via

physical processes, which are

all necessarily random or determined.

In other words, it is true that when mak¬ing a decision, various

options are open, as postulated by quantum physics (rather than there

being only one' inevitable "option" as per classical determinate

physics). It is also true that. once the mind decides which of these

options to choose, it can ensure that its choice is followed -with a

degree of certainty of 99.999%-since the physicallaws.of

con¬sciousness and of free will taken together

1 Indeed there is reason to believe that conscious. ness "controls"

quantum events. See tha section entitled "Free Will and the Collapse

of the Wave Function" below.

with quantum physics determine that the relative probability of events

occurring as decided by the will is 99.999%. What still

. remains an insurmountable difficulty is the question of how the

decision itself is taken, i.e. what is the procedure whereby the mind

chooses its desired option. The decision will involve quantum and

macro¬scopic processes and will thus also be either random or

determined. There is no way to exit from this loop. If the processes

in¬

volved can only be either quantum or

macroscopic ones, then at the most fun¬damental level all is random

and/or deter¬mined, not "free".

. Quantum physics does solve the prob¬lem of the multiplicity of

options necessary to free will, and it can allow decisions to be

carried out with arbitrary precision by appropriate manipulation of

the relative probabilities. Nevertheless, it is not able to solve the

basic problem of how the actual choice is arrived at.

The Universe as G-d's (Quantum) Machine

If all is governed by quantum physics, then all events in the universe

occur in a probabilistically determined manner. That is, to some

extent they are determined and to some extent they are random. Clearly

the Big Bang, the conditions prevailing at the Big Bang, the laws of

nature, and chance are the only parameters needed to

produce every event' in the universe, including the human mental

events we call free-willed decisions. Since the Big Bang,

its initial conditions and the laws of nature were all created by G-d,

then one can see that all events in the universe-including free-willed

decisions-are partially auto¬

matic results of G-d's act of Creation and partially chance. Certainly

no responsibil¬

ity can be attributed to man for his actions, and G-d can obviously

not "expect" man to act any way other than the way he .does.

The Life of the Universe as a Meaningless Game of Dice

In order to ensure that the resulting universe be of the desired type,

then if G-d were to create a Big Bang and natural law and so forth, He

would do so according to some mental blueprint. Then, before actu¬ally

creating the Big Bang, G-d could use this Big Bang blueprint to

extrapolate and find all the "quantumly possible universe histories"

which could result from this Big Bang. The actual universe-history

would of necessity be one of these.

Since it is chance that determines which of the possible universe-

histories is actually realized, we can say that the actual universe-

history is chosen at ran¬dom from among the (ensemble of) possi¬

ble universe-histories.

Thus, instead of G-d actually creating the universe and allowing it to

develoD intr one of the known possible univers~

histories, it would be "easier", more "ele¬gant" and "faster" for G-d

to simply choose a universe-history at random from among the possible

universe-histories. There is no need to actually create the uni¬verse

or even the Big Bang: all G-d needs is the blueprint for the Big Bangl

To actually go ahead and create the Big Bang and

allow it to develop into a complete universe containing human life and

soforth is ineffi¬

cient and superfluous and adds no mean¬ing or content to the universe

and life within it.

Thus the creation by G-d of a universe is simply an elaborate game of

chance. which boils down to G-d playing a solitaire

………

P152-3

possess a Tree WllI,ana Ignore tne alreaay¬proven-fallible indirect

intuition regarding what is physically possible.

However, the problem is deeper than merely a conflict between current

physics and our intuition and beliefs.

Part III

The Objection from Logic

Even if we are prepared to rely on our intuition and to accept a

limited form of quantum physics (limiting it!) validity to non-free

will processes) and to accept the new phenomenon' of free will. there

remains a very serious objection to the existence of free will, not

from physics itself, but from logic and nature in general (Le, the law

of causality).

Regardless of whether or not mental events are dependent on individual

quan¬tum processes, and whether or not these processes are random,

free or determined, the very idea of free will seems logically

impossible.

If a person decides to act in a specific way (even though he could

have acted oth¬erwise) then we could say he has exercised free will

only if he acted this way for a reason. If he chose this specific

action at random, without reasons, then it is not a free-willed

choice'but a random one. On the other hand, if there is a

reason/motive for his choice, then this choice was deter¬mined by the

reason/motive. Since this motive was in turn determined by his prior

Gunvtn::ii:lllun:

"Why did you do that action rather than

another?"

"Because it was the right thing to do." "Why did you do the right

thing?" "Because I feel one must do the right

thing."

"Why did you feel that?"

"Because I believe in G-d,"

"Why do you believe in...?" "Because..."

"Why...?"

"Because .....

One can see that there must always be a

"why" question which always leads to a "because" answer. If there is

no answer then the act is the result of a random pro¬cess. If there is

an answer to every ques¬tion then this shows that the action was

determined.

It is impossible to understand how a decision can be rational and

deliberate without being determined as weill This is the central

paradox of free will: if a choice is to qualify as free will it must

be rational, which implies it is determined -but if it is determined

it is not free. Nevertheless. people firmly believe they have free

will. Thus, at the core of the free will issue there lies the very

fundamental issue of the logi¬cal/rational versus the intuitively

believed. In addition, as we saw previously,

at the outer level lies the issue of free will

indeterminacy versus the indeterminacy :~

of quantum physics. Thus, since botlt "

physics and logic rule out non-random "free" choice, a belief in the

existence of free will implies a belief not only in the incompleteness

of physics as we know it but in the defectiveness of logic itself.

rree Will ana rnY:>I(;J:>I:>

Among physicists today it is an almost universally accepted maxim that

one bears responsibility for the possible immoral uses of one's

research results. In the past all the' great scientists have been

philoso¬phically-even mystically-inclined, and all deeply believed in

one moral code or another. Scientists today, although in gen¬eral not

belonging to a religious group, would nevertheless unequivocally

assert that certain actions are totally immoral and should not be

committed. For example,

wanton killing, purposeless torture and

needless stealing are all universally seen as wrong without any

reservations. Implicit in this deeply held belief is the surety that

man can choose whether or not to commit these actions and that

he "should" choose not to.

However, those very same physicists who believe this also claim that

quantum

physics governs all processes at their most fundamental level. Since

as we have seen a quantum universe cannot contain free¬willed

decisions, the explicit belief of con¬temporary physicists in quantum

physics

is logically incompatible with their implicit belief in man's free

will.

How then is this contradiction defen¬ded? The answer is that it is

overlooked,

, misunderstood, ignored, denied. Much has

been written on the subject of free will, but the vast majority are

attempts to deny the contradiction by redefining "free will" and by

proposing similar semantic tricks. Since an admission of the reality

of the contradic¬tion would involve a vast upheaval in phys¬ics and a

possible influx of ideas

that questions of free will are outside the realm of physical inquiry

and belong instead to the realm of philosophy, This approach would be

a valid one except for one fact: these scientists themse'lves run

their own lives as though they do believe in free-willed choice, and

they clearly deeply

believe in certain should's and should

not's that they feel man can freely choose to obey or disobey.

Thus, their basic philosophy of life is inconsistent with their belief

in the funda¬mental validity of quantum physics. True intellectual

honesty would demand a rejection of one of the two-free will/mor¬

ality or quantum physics-or at least a frank admission that a serious

contradic¬tion exists, between, their life philosophy /deeply held

intuitive beliefs and their intellectual/scientific beliefs.

Physics is a study of the workings of the universe at their most

fundamental level, and it encompasses all actual phenomena in the

universe. Of course the fact that even physicists run their lives as

though free will exists is no proof that it does

indeed exist. However, it is a very strange creature indeed which can

live its life with total conviction that a certain fundamental

phenomenon exists, plan its actions as though this phenomenon exists,

and atthe same time spend its lifetime investigating other natural

phenomena with the implicit assumption that the deeply believed-in

fundamental phenomenon does not exist.

Physicists should open themselves up to the problem of the existence

of free will as a valid question in physics, rather than

relegating it to the realm of philosophy. It is

………

P154-5

Part IV

The Acausality of Free Will: a Prescription for Further Research

In order that free will exist. the two following requirements must be

fulfilled: Requirement 1: more than one option exists at a decision

point;

Requirement 2: an option can be selected "freely" a) not randomly, as

in quantum physics,' and b) not deterministically as implied by the

rationality of a truly free choice.s

Therefore if one believes that free will does exist, then one must

postulate the

'existence of some radically new type of interaction-one

that "transcends" both the determinism of classical physics and the

probabilistic determinism of quantum physics. In addition, one must

find a new approach to the logic of causality and the causality of

logic.

4 Requirement 1 has been shown possible by quan¬tum physics. but

requirement 2 is contradicted by quantum physics since the laner

states that options are selected at random.

5 The idea of a truly free non-random choice implies a choice made

after careful deliberation rather than by caprice. Free choice must be

rational to be free. If it isnol. it is caprice, which is random. To

be rational, a choice must be based on reasoning. Reasoning is a chain

of logic, or at least a determi¬nistic chain of thought. This

deterministic chain leads eventually to one's genetic complement and

environment and so fonh. Therefore free choice is self-contradictory I

till then, a formulation of quantum physics -(and its connection to

classical physics) -would have been arrived at a hundred years

earlier. Of course, this is hindsight. However, perhaps we can benefit

from this hindsight by trying to extend quantum physics in such a way

that we can incorpo¬rate yet more of what is required to support free

will-Le. by trying to incorporate requirement 2 into physics, as much

as we can.

Of course this seems intuitively impos¬sible and/or absurd to us now,

but so would the probabilistic determinism of quantum physics appear

to the pre¬quantum physics community.

The Acausality of Free Will: a Rationale and Ramifications

What logical justification could there be for assuming the possibility

of acausal pro¬cesses, and what could possibly be the physical origin

of such a radically acausal phenomenon?

Perhaps the answer could be found in the greatest mystery of all-the

origin of the universe. A universe which exists is in itself a result

of acausality for it exists without real cause: cause implies temporal

order, yet time originated with the uni¬verse and thus no cause

could "precede" the existence of the universe. Thus it is clear that

at its most fundamental level, existence implies acausality.6

. Indeed, there is perhaps a very close connection between the onset

of free-willed consciousness and the origin of the universe. See

Wheeler.

which originates and operates via acausal¬ity can almost be expected

to exhibit free¬wilHype acausality where consciousness is involved.

Another question arises asto theoriginof free-willed consciousness: if

man is the only species possessing a free-willed con¬sciousness, and

if man evolved, then we must suppose that free-willed conscious¬ness

evolved. However, how could one

type of phenomenon, matter ruled by pro¬babilistic determined

randomness (POR)

give rise to a qualitatively different pheno¬menon via evolution? How

could POR pro¬cesses give rise to free will processes?

One answer would be that free will was inherent in the universe and at

a certain point in the evolution of the human brain, free will existed

where it had "previously" not existed. When the brain achieved a

certain complexity it connected to the free will inherent in the

universe. Or, as an acausal phenomenon it needed no direct

preceding "cause" and could thus arise even as the product of POR

processes.

Free Will and the Collapse of the Wave Function

Free will is possible only as a property of a consciousness-an "I"

that wills. (This can be seen upon some reflection.) On the other

hand, although consciousness is possible without an accompanying free

will. it would be powerless to affect the universe since in.the

absence of free will everything occurs as it would without the

existence of consciousness: conscious¬

result. we can consider free will ana con¬sciousness as inseparable.

Free will is the only phenomenon which involves processes not bound to

the pro¬babilistic constraints of ,quantum physics. Free will can even

be considered as a gen¬eral case of which quantum probabilism is a

special case-Leo when many options

exist for how an event will occur but it occurs in a probabilistic way

rather than freely.

Thus it can aimost be expected that free will "transcend" quantum

processes in some way. Since consciousness is our only

means of knowing of all physical events -they exist (to us) only

inasmuch as they are reported by our consciousness-it can almost be

expected that consciousness might play an important physical role in

the actualization of events.

The Measurement Problem of Quantum Physics

Everyevent is "recorded" automatically as it oc~urs by virtue of its

effect on the universe-however, this type of recording is not

sufficient to "collapse the wave function",

Humans are natural products ofthe nat¬ural universe. If their actions

result from random/determined processes, then these actions are

likewise random/deter¬

mined, and thus their actions are natural

events qualitatively no different than any other natural event in the

physical uni¬verse. How then can it be that human mea¬surement (by

human consciousness or by a recording apparatus constructed by a

……..

P150-151

game of die-throwing, a game involving only one single throw of the

(infinite-sided) die.

The Universe without G-d

We now imagine the universe as having emerged into existence by

itself, without the benefit of a creative act on the part of G-d (G-d

forbid), as an atheist would have it. Certainly this would not change

the fact that all human mental processes are ran¬dom/determined

events. Indeed, they would be in this case doubly random/de¬termined

events since they would be based or. the chance-derived conditions of

the Big Bang, where the Big Bang itself emerged into existence by

chance (rather than by Divine design).

Either way, if the universe were created or arose by chance, its life

drama would be merely an empty farce, a one-shot game of chance on a

cosmic scale. That G-dshould engage in such a boring farce is

inconceivable.

Free Will

The only way for the Creator to pre¬vent the creation of a universe

from degen¬erating to this kind of trivial and meaningless die-

throwing is to introduce a non-deterministic, non-random factor -

namely free willi

If a universe contains free-willed deci¬sions, its history can be

neither deter¬mined by the initial Big Bang conditions nor simulated

by throwing dice, The his¬tory of a free-willed universe can be

actu¬alized only if it is created and allowed to actually live its

history. Having the blue¬

print of such a universe is not enough-no

extrapolation and die-throwing can simu¬late the history it would

have. Therefore such a universe can have meaning and purpose to its

creation and to its life his¬tory.2 Thus, free will is not merely an

inci¬dental phenomenon in the universe. From the religious perspective

it is the only fac¬tor in the universe which can justify the very

existence of the universel

A Radical Solution

Clearly, the only mechanism which can allow a free-willed process is

one which does not rely on quantum or macroscopic processes but

instead relies on some hitherto unknown-to-science, acausal, "free"

process which goes beyond deter¬minism and beyond PD randomness. Once

this "free" process is employed to decide "freely" how to react, no

problems r'3main. Indeed, if such a free process exists:. quan¬tum

physics becomes irrelevant to the issue of free will since the

remaining steps

can be taken on the macroscopic level -with 100% probability rather

than the 99.999% probability supplied by quantum physics. Quantum

effects would only interfere since they would introduce an unwanted

element of randomness into a carefully arrived-at "free" decision.

Thus, quantum physics alone is not rad¬ical enough to encompass free

will. In order to allow free will, we must postulate a new "free

acausal" process. However, once this process is allowed, there is no

, G-d's omniscience implies knowledge of . what we will do" but

not "what we would do had we been created". It is necessary that G-d

create the universe and allow it to have a life history in order for G-

d to be Omniscient in regard to the events in that history.

need for quantum physics at all. Instead, we can say that as far as

the requirements of free will are concerned, once the deci¬sion is

made by the "free" process, the rest can occur in a deterministic way.

Of course we still require the validity of that basic postulate of

quantum physics which allows a multiplicity of options. However, we do

not need to consider quantum physics and our new phenomena as separate

laws. Instead we can consider our new "free" process to be a more

fun¬damental phenomenon in nature than quantum physics, sothat it

includes within

itself the multiplicity of options of quantum

physics as well as the radical free-choice ability. Quantum physics

could then be considered a special limited case of this phenomenon,

i.e. operating in those instances where the decision between options

is not "free", as it is in its general form, but is instead PDR. We

canthen con¬sider determinism to be a further special, even-more-

limited case, where the deci¬

sion occurs neither freely nor PDR but rather with 100% probability in

one set way, so that in effect no options exist.

Free Will: Probabilistically Determined Acausality

According to religion, man can freely choose his actions. However,

according to science, man's activity is governed by his genetic

structure and his environment (all that occurs to him). In our

analysis here we assume that indeed man can freely choose his actions

from among infinitely many variations but that the probability of his

choosing some particular action is deter¬mined by genetics and

environment. Then, in analogy to the randomness of quantum physics, we

consider the actual choice of

action to be totally maepenaem OT lilt: UIUI¬nary causal structure of

events. Instead, the choice of action is decided on by a free-willed

mechanism.3

Of course, the more that one chooses that which is easier, more

convenient and so on, the less one's self-control and will power are

developed, the more one's ability to choose freely atrophies and the

smaller the likelihood of choosing the correct way.

Quantum Physics, Intuition and Free Will-the Role of Quantum Physics

in the Free Will Question

As phenomena in themselves, quantum processes are' insufficiently

radical to allow the operation of free-willed activity. However, the

very existence of quantum processes shaners the myth that all

physi¬cal processes must be deterministic, and thus opens the door to

acausal processe5 such as "free will".

Although it is easy to imagine determi.

nistic processes, quantum physics teache! us that these are really

random at theil most fundamental level. The fact th2' thi~ result is

violently counterintuitive n;

indicates to us the inadequacy of our intui tion regarding what is,

and what is nol physically possible. Thus, although thl extreme

acausality required for free-willel

3 We can evade problems of "hidden variables' Bell's inequality and so

on (see d'Espagnat) b pointing out that even in the free-willed cas

where the event is not random. this is only due t the effect of some

outside cause which forces th quantum event to occur as it wills the

event t occur-there are no hidden variables within th system itself

which determine how it will occu Rather, it is another system outside

whic "imposes its will" on the Quantum event forcing to act that way.

……………

P156-7

END

Attributing the difference to human consciousness is useless because

if con¬sciousness is governed at its most funda¬mental level by

quantum processes then the argument is circular. However if the

operative element is free will, then we can

understand why the measurement of a

free-willed consciousness is qualitatively

different. And different in precisely the

required way. Free will can cause events

which would not have OCcurred in a purely

quantum universe. It transcends quantum physics. It is in its essence

a choice¬

making phenomenon, choosing which

reality it wishes to create. Thus a free¬

willed consciousness is a unique pheno¬

menon and perhaps is uniquely qualified to "collapse the quantum wave

function",1

PartV

We are left with essentially three

Jptions.

1) This would have important ramifications for the

issue of Contra factual definiteness, Bell's inequal¬ity and so forth.

(See d'Espagnat.) In addition.

based on the idea postulated by Wheeler, perhaps

only a free-willed consciousness can bring real;.

ty-retroaCtively-to the universe, (See Wheeler.) 2) Quantum physics

implies the existence of a

new type of logical structure: quantum logic, The

causality of ordinary logic implies that free will is

impossible. Perhaps using quantum¬

transcendent free will one can construct a new "free logic",

.~ .. IU 'IULUI al IdW ana cnance, life

emerged from non-life and man evolved

from lower life forms, Thus, qualitatively,

man, animal, vegetable and mineral must

follow identical physical laws; human

mental activity is no exception.

All events including mental events Occur in a PDA way, and thus free

will is

physically impossible. In addition, if cau¬

sality is valid, then free will is logically

impossible, Therefore, man has no control over his actions and thought

and cannot

logically be held responsible for them. Qf

course people are not logical, and thus many people feel that they are

responsible

for their actions, and have invented the

words "moral responsibility" to describe this emotion,

Our feeling that we have free will is

real-it is a real feeling-but free will itself does not exist. Free

will is a chimera, and

our belief in moral responsibility is an

erroneous belief.

Option B

G-d created the universe and instituted a system of "natural law" to

run it. All events occur in accordance with this natu¬ral law, except

when G-d intervenes in nature. If quantum physics is correct, then the

state of the universe at any time fol¬lows in a probabilistically

determined ran¬

dom way from the initial created state of

the universe. Therefore, everything that

occurs does so as a direct result of some

combination of G-d's choice of initial state, G-d's choice of system

of natural laws, and randomness. Clearly, G-d cannot expect

result, l]-O cannot nOlO man responsible for his actions. Of course

many men, not realizing that they really do not have free will, will

believe that they are responsible, i.e. that they do have free will.

However, they are wrong.

Option C

G-d created the universe in such a way that it follows the PDA laws of

quantum physics-except for consciousness, which is a higher

phenomenon. Man is conscious and has free will and is responsible for

his

actions because:

1) Quantum physics (PDR) does not hold in the realm of human mental

processes.

2) A causality-defying process allows man to freely choose his actions

in a rational way without this choice being determined due to its

rationale.

Thus if we wish to believe in man's

moral responsibility, and if we wish to be consistent, we must reject

the universality of quantum physics and we must reject the seemingly

logical demands of causality.

Bibliography

Bum, E.A. The Metaphysical Foundations of Modern

Scienca (revised edition). N.Y.: Doubleday, 1954, See especially pp.

64-67, 75, 94,

d'Espagnat, Bernard. "Quantum Theory and Reality,"

IS Incompatible with the basic belief that man has free will. This

basic incomplete¬ness of science is due to its implicit assumption

that there is no G-d and that man is essentially a product of chance

and is a purely physical being, and that there¬fore consciousness is a

physical pheno¬menon as any other, It is this assumption which makes

science incompatible with our most deeply held beliefs,s Indeed, if

one had to choose in which to believe¬science or moral responsibility-

surely most scientists would reject contemporary science and choose

free will.

This of course does not mean that one should reject science: on the

contrary, one is simply clearing away what is not sci¬ence-using

scientific reasoning to show that certain assumptions are not only

unproven, but are also logically incompati¬ble with those beliefs we

are most sure of, These assumptions are not science; they are

philosophy.

8 In this way, by removing the unscientific assump¬tion that there is

no G-d, purpose or free will, that man is not unique and soon, one

also prevents the pseudo-scientific circular logic of using the

assumption that these do not exist to "prove" that they do not exist.

Scientific American, Nov, 1979, pp. 128-140.

Wheeler, J.A. "Beyond the Black Hole," Some

Strangeness In the Proportion. N.Y.: Addison¬

Wesley, 1980.

………………..

1RTF

of gravity". This law could state e.g. that last Tuesday at.9 AM rocks

fell and at 9:05 they rose and at 9:08... This would be, however, a

descriptive rather than a pres¬criptive law since it describes but

does not predict. However, it is a fact of mathemat¬ics that no matter

how complex this law would be, it would be possible to express it

mathematically so that one would have a formula, a mathematical law of

nature, to

describe the entire history of the universe.

We can see that if we took the history of any universe, even one where

the laws change chaotically every minute, we could write down its

entire history, even express it mathematically, and call it

the "natural law" of that universe. We would be justi¬fied in calling

it this because every event could be derived from this "natural

law"... However, this would be a descriptive rather than a

prescriptive law.

In contrast, imagine a universe in which prescriptive natural laws are

available, and in which these laws maintain their validity always and

everywhere, and where only a very few basic laws are needed to predict

any event anywhere. In such a universe, rather than considering

natural law as a "description" of events, as it would be in a chaotic

universe, we are tempted, after meditating on this regularity and

encoun¬

I terin9 it everywhere and always, to con¬, sider that events must

occur in accordance i with natural law.

This approach, which postulates that nature "must obey" natural law,

obviously considers natural law to be far more than merely a

convenient (mathematical) des¬cription of how events occur.

However, neither approach is conclu¬

sive; both have equal logical validity. Although we are more used to

the latter approach-where natural law dictates how events must occur-

the former

approach-where "natural law" is merely a description of how events

actually occur -is entirely valid.

What we are actually saying is that "causality" is not a priori truth:

if effect Y always has followed from cause X, we do not say that if X

occurs then Y must follow it (i.e. that Y is "determined" by X, or Y

is "caused" by X), but rather that "so far Y has been observed to

follow X".

Thus it is entirely possible that at some time X will occur

without "causing" Y to occur. Conversely, Y can occur without having X

occur prior to it. If this is so, then even the apparently immutable

order of our universe does not logically imply that all processes

occur in accordance with causality: there would be then no logical

necessity to consider mental events as fol¬lowing causal laws even if

they were totally natural phenomena. Thus human free will could exist

even in a seemingly deterministic universe.

However, although it is true that logic does not compel us to assume

causality, nevertheless physics does assume the existence of a causal

structure to the uni¬verse and its processes: indeed, one of the

accepted signs of a true theory of nature is that it is "elegant". All

great physicists have believed deeply that a simple order permeates

all the phenomena in the uni¬verse, and that one great-yet elegantly

simple-equation/law can describe all of nature. This belief in the

unity of nature and in the elegance and simplicity of its laws has not

only inspired generations of

physicists, but it has led them to searches which have so far

confirmed the validity of

that belief.

Along with this belief in the operation of law in the universe was the

belief that

everything within the universe -including. man and the mental activity

in his brain¬

……………

2RTF

-operates in accordance with this law. Thus, scientific attitude rules

out the exist¬ence of free will even though it is not necessarily

constrained to do so.

In any case, we will see that even if one denies the existence

of "natural law", and thus of causality, one encounters a very

basic difficulty inherent in the logical con¬tent of the idea of free

will: free will seems

to be possible only if it involves processes

which give the lie to its being free. This logical inconsistency in

the very concept of free will is explained farther on in this article.

.'''1 Religious-Scientific View before' ~uantum Physics

Before proceeding to a discussion of

quantum physics, we shall examine the problem of free will versus

determinism from the viewpoint of a religious scientist before the

advent of quantum physics. Such a person would believe that the

natu¬rallaw operating in the universe is a crea¬tion of G-d (and

perhaps that the unity it

manifests and the awe and sense of beauty

it engenders are reflections of the Divine unity'and majesty).

Using this approach of a universe

created by G-d, which is run according to a set of divinely created,

immutable pres¬criptive laws of nature, we can presentthe conflict

with free- will even more graphi¬cally, as follows.

The Universe as G-d's Machine

Assuming that G-d created the uni¬verse and natural law, then any

actlevent which follows automatically from the

initial state of the universe is indirectly an