WHY DETERMINISM IN PHYSICS HAS NO IMPLICATIONS FOR FREE WILL

• Authors: Esfeld Michael
• Languages of publication: EN

Abstracts

EN

This paper argues for the following three theses: (1) There is a clear reason to prefer physical theories with deterministic dynamical equations: such theories are maximally rich in information and usually also maximally simple. (2) There is a clear way how to introduce probabilities in a deterministic physical theory, namely as answer to the question of what evolution of a specific system we can reasonably expect under ignorance of its exact initial conditions. This procedure works in the same manner for both classical and quantum physics. (3) There is no cogent reason to take the parameters that enter into the (deterministic) dynamical equations of physics to refer to properties of the physical systems. Granting an ontological status to parameters such as mass, charge, wave functions and the like does not lead to a gain in explanation, but only to artificial problems. Against this background, I argue that there is no conflict be-tween determinism in physics and free will (on whatever conception of free will), and, in general, point out the limits of science when it comes to the central metaphysical issues.

Keywords

EN

CLASSICAL MECHANICS; DETERMINISM; FREE WILL; PHYSICAL LAWS; QUANTUM MECHANICS

• Publisher: Institute of Philosophy of the Slovak Academy of Sciences and Institute of Philosophy of Academy of Sciences of Czech Republic
• Journal: Organon F. medzinárodný časopis pre analytickú filozofiu
• Year: 2019
• Volume: 26
• Issue: 1
• Pages: 62 – 85

Contributors

author

Esfeld Michael

• Department of Philosophy, University of Lausanne, CH-1015 Lausanne, Switzerland

Identifiers

DOI

https://doi.org/10.31577/orgf.2019.26105