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Friday, September 24, 2010

Quantum Mechanics and Free Will, By Dr. John Conway

If you want a series of philosophical discussions on quantum mechanics and free will I would suggest this series of lectures (sorry I can't embed the videos. I could figure it out but it is easier to just link to the videos). These were a series of lectures by Dr. John Conway at Princeton in 2009.

Lecture 1, March 23: “Free Will and Determinism in Science and Philosophy”
Lecture 2, March 30: “The Paradox of Kochen and Specker”
Lecture 3, April 6: “The Paradoxes of Relativity”
Lecture 4, April 13: “Quantum Mechanics and the Paradoxes of Entanglement”
Lecture 5, April 20: “Proof of the Free Will Theorem”
Lecture 6, April 27: “The Theorem’s Implications for Science and Philosophy”

The lectures are about an hour long each, so don't expect a quick fix. But just to give you a sample, "If we, human beings, do in deed have free will...then so do elementary particles....Free will means that our behavior is not a function of the past. If our behavior is a function of the past then what ever we do was written down, so to speak, in the great book before the world got started."