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The Importance of Randomness in the Universe: Superdeterminism and Free Will

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Abstract

In physics, free will is debated mainly in regard to the observer-dependent effects. To eliminate them from quantum mechanics, superdeterminism postulates that the universe is a computation, and consciousness is an automaton. As a result, free will is impossible. Quantum no-go theorems tell us that the only natural phenomenon that might be able to account for every bit of freedom in the universe is quantum randomness. With randomness in Nature, the universe could not have been predetermined completely in the sense that it should be impossible in principle to compute from the big bang or at any later moment whether live and conscious observers might or might not appear there. After all, superdeterminism comes to be either self-inconsistent by assuming randomness, at least, at the initial conditions of the big bang, or untestable and mysterious by pushing every bit of freedom in back to the prerequisites of the universe “designed” in the big bang.

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  1. Independent Research Center, P.O. 710132, Andijan, Uzbekistan

    Sergey B. Yurchenko

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Yurchenko, S.B. The Importance of Randomness in the Universe: Superdeterminism and Free Will. Axiomathes 31, 453–478 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10516-020-09490-y

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