Sat, 27 Nov 2010
Physics and Free Will
I'm going to take a step back into classical physics before jumping into modern physics. All physics is highly mathematical, so there will be a lot of handwaving here. Conservation laws play a very important role in all physics, classical and modern. Here's a very simple example of how conservation laws are applied. If am driving west at 60 miles an hour, in one minute I will be one mile further west of where I am now. But notice that I also was one mile east one minute ago. Physics which is based on conservation laws is time symmetric. The equuations that say what the future behavior of the physical system apply equally well to past behavior. For this reason they are a-causal. There is no place for causl explanations in conservative systems, because nothing new ever happens in them. And the mathematical reason is simple: time only enters the equations as a first derviative (velocity) or second derivative (acceleration). If time entered the equations directly, as a "secular term", then the equations could be causal. For this reason I don't think the laws of physics can provide a complete explanation of reality. They do not allow for cause and effect, which is an obvious part of our every day experience. In particular, I think the so-called "problem of free will" is a non-problem. Free will is a cause like any other cause. And the laws of physics don't accomodate free will for the same reason they don't accomodate any other sort of cause. Only if you make the assumption that the laws of physics supply a complete explanation of reality. And for the reason stated, they don't.
