Science News

For all the progress physics has made in the last 100 or so years, it has not provided an answer to the free will question. Even quantum indeterminacy does not entirely kill off determinism. Quantum effects take place at tiny scales and whether they can affect the macroscopic world in a meaningful way is debatable.

And as Conway has pointed out, there's always the possibility that we live in a "second time around Universe". The first time around, quantum events may have been random and peoples' choices may have been free, but if we live in a replay, then everything happens in a totally determined fashion. "In the end a completely deterministic world is not incompatible with quantum mechanics," says Zeilinger. "I would say either way is basically speculation, the claim that things are deterministic is speculation and the rest too. This simply is a wide open question."

Are we governed by unconscious processes?

By Suheil Laher

The debate over free will, already two millennia old[1], is still ongoing.