Title: Q & A: Observer Effect? | Department of Physics | University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Headings: 
Q & A: Observer Effect?
Follow-Up #1: quantum
Follow-Up #2: observation and light
Follow-Up #3: measurement and consciousness?
Follow-Up #4: free-will?
Follow-Up #5: confusion between the uncertainty principle and the observer effect
Follow-Up #6: Quantum for the non-scientist
Follow-Up #7: Unconscious observers
Follow-Up #8: Bell's Inequalities and free will
Follow-Up #9: free will and quantum mechanics
Follow-Up #10: what collapses wavefunction?
Follow-Up #11: What causes quantum interference loss

Content: - Kevin M (age 29)
Urbana, IL, USA
A: Thanks for the interesting link. Just to expand on a point mentioned in passing in that article, there is a strong distinction between the indeterminacy described by the theorem and the traditional concept of free will. Readers should be forewarned that what follows somewhat spills over the edge of physics into philosophy. There are serious reasons (including the violation of the Bell Inequalities) to conclude that the sort of events described by quantum mechanics are "free" in the sense that no prior fact about the universe can tell us which outcome we will observe. That doesn't mean that the necessary determining facts are hard to find; it means they didn't exist. On the other hand, when we think of "free will" we have the sense that there was some prior "will" which determined what we chose to do. However, the existence of any such will would violate the theorems as much as any other determining variable. Thus since the peculiar randomness of quantum events undermines the deterministic picture of the world it could be said to indicate a sort of "freedom", but not anything resembling traditional "free will."