Free Will, Part 2- The Uncertainty Principle

Free will without fate is no more conceivable than spirit without matter, good without evil.

Friedrich Nietzsche

As we have seen on the previous article, Free will and determinism are the two pillars of reality. We have also seen that it is impossible to determine the right answer since these two possibilities have no visual (observable) consequence whatsoever.

In this article, I would like to draw your attention to the roots of this idea. The answer is not too far, as we may expect, it is in fact, the development of 18-19th century classical physics.

Classical physics, as the name suggests, describes the classical world (contrary to quantum mechanics and the relativity theory, which deal with subatomic particles and very high speeds, which is a story for another time 🙂 ). One characteristic of this field which I would like to draw your attention on, is its certainty. It consisted of universal, undisputed laws which described the physical surroundings around us with utmost accuracy. It was the certainty of classical physics which motivated philosophers to coin the term determinism.

Philosophers thought they finally know something significant about this world, thanks to physicists.

——-Quote from the book Now: The Physics of Time:

Schopenhauer presented his 1839 paper “On the Freedom of Will” not to a meeting of philosophers, but to the Royal Norwegian Society of Sciences. He argued that humans do not possess anything but the illusion of free will: “You can do what you will, but in any given moment of your life you can will only one definite thing and absolutely nothing other than that one thing.”

In Beyond Good and Evil (1886), Friedrich Nietzsche called free will a “folly” resulting from the extravagant pride of man, a “crass stupidity”.

——-End of quote from the book Now: The Physics of Time

But! As we will see, they were not close to the answer!

In the 20th century, a new radical field called Quantum Mechanics was developed by many physicists, which explained the behavior of subatomic particles. But the problem was—

It did not support certainty of nature like classical physics used to.

One of the bizarre predictions of quantum mechanics is the Uncertainty principle, which was first proposed by Werner Heisenberg in February, 1927. It is stated as follows–

We cannot measure the velocity (speed for non physicists) and position of a particle simultaneously. If we determine one, we would not be able to determine the other.

UNCERTAINTY PRINCIPLE

It baffled the philosophers who believed in determinism!

It showed that Nature was not deterministic as it appeared to be in classical physics!

Conclusion-

Quantum Mechanics does not validate the idea of free will, but it definitely allows it. Although the universe appears to be deterministic on the classical level, but it is radically different on the subatomic level.

That’s it for now!

Let me know how was the article.

Happy Learning

RS