Hacker News new | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submit login

This is sort of a semantic quibble over what the "free" in "free will" really means. Does it mean freedom from the external environment outside my head? Freedom from my past light cone? Freedom from legal, cultural or other sorts of coercion? Or does it really mean "self-determination"?

It's fairly clear that the author's are using the light-cone sort of definition, but they discuss this ambiguity towards the end on p.230:

> Some readers may object to our use of the term “free will” to describe the indeterminism of particle responses. Our provocative ascription of free will to elementary particles is deliberate, since our theorem asserts that if experimenters have a certain freedom, then particles have exactly the same kind of freedom. Indeed, it is natural to suppose that this latter freedom is the ultimate explanation of our own.




Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: