Quantum Randomness and Freewill

The white billiard ball hits the red ball. The red ball hits the green ball. The green ball hits the blue ball which falls in the hole. Such is the stroke of a master pool player. Everything was planned, and money was exchanged. Our intrepid billiard player won the match.

Let us consider a thought experiment. What you may ask? A Gedankenexperiment in German or thought experiment is a way to examine a hypothesis or theory to think through its consequences. One of the most famous Gedankenexperiments is Schrodinger’s cat. In this experiment of indeterminism, we consider a random quantum process – such as the decay of a uranium atom – that controls a gun. The gun is in a box aimed at a cat. Because of the indeterminism of the process, we think that while we haven’t opened the box and made our measurement the cat is in a state of being dead and alive at the same time. Which of course is impossible and gives us more insight into quantum mechanics.

Quantum mechanics and physics is known to be indeterminate and subject to randomness. Physicists use probabilistic mathematical models to compute quantum phenomena. However, at the macro level, the universe seems to be very well determined. In some cases, we might not be able to compute it and make future predictions, for instance where chaos is involved. But none the less given sufficient precision of measurements we might be able to predict the future states of the universe.

Enters an All-Powerful being to begin our experiment. She is able to control a universe and create copies of it, as many as she wishes to replicate the initial conditions of our universe. The first question we ask ourselves is: Given that this Being is able to copy our universe, would such a universe unfold in the same way as ours. Would the third planet orbiting a yellow sun in some galaxy give rise to human beings?

It all depends on whether our universe was wholly determined by its initial conditions. And here we know that quantum radiations affect mutations which are culled by natural selection. So as the biologist Richard Dawkins tells us, if we replay the tape of the universe, it is not necessary to end up with the evolution of human beings.

So now, we give more powers to our Powerful Deity. She is now able to fix variables in the copy universe, one at a time to replicate a given state of our universe. She is able to control the decay of atoms, the solar radiations, the orbits of planets all the way to reach the billiard player in our introduction. At that point, she lets the copied universe run its course. This new universe is however subject to the quantum randomness as ours is.

Let’s consider that our billiard player decides to make a different move which costs him the match. What happened here? Why did he make such a decision even though everything else was the same as before? We might argue he had the freedom to decide. Freewill as it is called. However, all the previous states of the universe and of his brain were the same. In as much as he is free, he should have made the same decision as before if it was determined by his own volition.

He did not. I will argue that what happened here is what might be called a “Micro-Miracle” in the brain. Or a bit flip for those less religiously inclined. Some quantum variable in his make up made him change his mind and take a different course of action.

In that scenario, he was not free. The randomness of the universe meant for him that he did not get to be free at this point in time. Or maybe at any point in time. If our brain processes are subject to Quantum Phenomena, then it is these phenomena that determine our actions and not our own volition which now becomes an illusion.

Having said that, this is a quantum thought experiment that currently can’t be replicated. Current scientific thinking is that the brain is too wet for quantum phenomena to take place – as has been said by the critics of Roger Penrose’s quantum theory of consciousness. But it is an interesting Gedankenexperiment in as much as it shows us that a randomness in the universe could eliminate freewill.