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自由意志 -- 開欄文
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我在本城市曾經多次討論「自由意志」這個議題；最完整的一次是2014年「自由意志」的討論；最近的一次則是2018年的《重談「自由意志」》(與上文同一個連接)。兩篇拙作都是從傳統觀點探討「自由意志」。
就我所知，潘洛斯爵士是最早從物理學觀點討論自由意志的學者之一。我書架上有他《皇帝的新大腦》一書(1989)；由於功力不夠，30年來我只讀了該書最後20頁。
這幾年來在網上看到一篇根據傳統物理學和量子力學理論否定自由意志的文章。也讀到科學家認為量子力學和意識並無關聯的論述。我對物理學和大腦神經學的了解充其量只能說略知一、二；但直覺上我接受第二個說法。從而，我相信量子力學和自由意志也不相關。話說回來，我從來沒有全面和深入的去思考過兩者關係。雖然來日不多，我可能還有些秉燭夜遊新領域的時間。是為開欄小語。
補記：
本文刊出後，讀到一篇討論基因和行為的報導。內容跟自由意志有一定程度的關聯(本欄第三篇文章 -- 《基因可能影響你的性向和選擇》)。故為本欄重新正名。
本文於 修改第 8 次
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1. 嚴格的說，「我要或不要在三分鐘之後上大號」跟「自由意志」的關係很小。我不知道你有沒有類似下面的經驗：過去10年內，我大概有過3 -5 次人在車上或路上卻把屎拉在褲子內的慘劇。初二學的「生理衛生」和高一學的「生物學」記得的不多，就常識而言，一個人「要或不要」上大號/小號，以及「什麼時刻非拉不可」，基本上由她/他腸子/膀胱容量大小、容量臨界點、和相關肌肉與神經的靈敏度決定。它們都是此人基因組合的產物，跟她/他「自由意志」的牽連不大。
2. 如果「自由意志」的概念「只」包括「我要或不要在三分鐘之後上大號」或層級類似的「事」，自然「沒有什麼好研究的」。事實並非如此。就我所知，這個概念至少也包括以下兩個重要議題：
a. 法律上的「責任」和隨之而來的「量刑」。據說，挪威的法律已經根據相關理論做了修訂。我對它們不熟悉，你或有興趣的朋友可自行上網搜尋相關資料。
b. 如果「自由意志」完全說不通，或一個社會中大多數人都接受「命定論」(「前定論」)，則該社會的活力、創新、成就、以及競爭力等等都會大打折扣。從而，大幅降低該社會持續存在的機率。
此外，Roger Penrose的《皇帝的新大腦》我只讀了20頁，無從回應你的評論。
本文於 修改第 5 次
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“自由意志”包括“我要或不要在三分鐘之後上大號”，這種事有什麼好研究的？
Roger Penrose皇帝依據物理學討論自由意志，搞出一個光屁股的新大腦，如此而已~~~ ^@@^
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如何在沒有自由意志下仍活得心安理得-Sabine Hossenfelder
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以下這篇文章是荷生費爾德教授2019年在她自己部落格上所發表。也是我在開欄文中提到的：「根據傳統物理學和量子力學理論否定自由意志的文章」。我最近沒有到她部落格去瀏覽；時隔四年，不能確定她是否仍然這樣看待此議題。
我認為此文有點「教條主義」傾向，近於強詞奪理；也有自相矛盾之處。日後再深入討論。
How to live without free will
Sabine Hossenfelder, 05/02/19
It’s not easy, getting a PhD in physics. Not only must you learn a lot, but some of what you learn will shake your sense of self.
Physics deals with the most fundamental laws of nature, those from which everything else derives. These laws are, to our best current knowledge, differential equations. Given those equations and the configuration of a system at one particular time, you can calculate what happens at all other times.
That is for what the universe without quantum mechanics is concerned. Add quantum mechanics, and you introduce a random element into some events. Importantly, this randomness in quantum mechanics is irreducible. It is not due to lack of information. In quantum mechanics, some things that happen are just not determined, and nothing you or I or anyone can do will determine them.
Taken together, this means that the part of your future which is not already determined is due to random chance. It therefore makes no sense to say that humans have free will.
I think I here spell out only the obvious, and use a notion of free will that most people would agree on. You have free will if your decisions select one of several possible futures. But there is no place for such a selection in the laws of nature that we know, laws that we have confirmed to high accuracy. Instead, whatever is about to happen was already determined at the big bang – up to those random flukes that come from quantum mechanics.
Now, some people try to wiggle out of this conclusion by defining free will differently, for example by noting that no one can in practice predict your future behavior (at least not currently). One can do such redefinitions, of course, but this is merely verbal gymnastics. The future is still fixed up to occasional chance events.
Others try to interpret quantum randomness as a sign of free will, but this is in conflict with evidence. Quantum processes are not influenced by conscious thought. Chaos is deterministic, so it doesn’t help. Goedel’s incompleteness theorem, remarkable as it is, has no relevance for natural laws.
The most common form of denial that I encounter is to insist that reductionism must be wrong. But we have countless experiments that document humans are made of particles, and that these particles obey our equations. This means that also humans, as collections of those particles, obey these equations. If you try to make room for free will by claiming humans obey other equations (or maybe no equation at all), you are implicitly claiming that particle physics is wrong. And in this case, sorry, I cannot take you seriously.
These are the typical objections that I hear, and none of them makes much sense.
I have had this discussion many times. Many people find it hard to comprehend that I do not believe in free will. And any such debate will, inevitably, be accompanied by the joke that the outcome of the argument was determined already, haha, aren’t you so original.
I have come to the conclusion that a large fraction of people are cognitively unable to question the existence of free will, and there is no argument that can change their mind. Therefore, the purpose of this blogpost is not to convince those who are resistant to rational arguments. The purpose is to help those who understand the situation but have trouble making sense of it. Like I have had trouble. The following shifts in perspective may help you without the need to resort to denial:
1. You never had free will.
It’s not like your free will suddenly evaporated when you learned the Euler-Lagrange equations. Your brain still functions the same way as before. So keep on doing what you have been doing. To first approximation that will work fine: Free will is a stubbornly persistent illusion, just use it and don’t worry about it being an illusion.
2. Your story hasn’t yet been told.
Free will or not, you have a place in history. Whether yours will be a happy story or a sad story, whether your research will ignite technological progress or remain a side-note in obscure journals, whether you will be remembered or forgotten – we don’t yet know. Instead of thinking of yourself as selecting a possible future, try to understand your role, and remain curious about what’s to come.
3. Input matters.
You are here to gather information, process it, and come to decisions that may, or may not result in actions. Your actions, and the information you share, will then affect the decisions and actions of others. These decisions are determined by the structure of your brain and the information you obtain. Rather than despairing over the impossibility of changing either, decide to be more careful which information you seek out, analyze, and pass on. Instead of thinking about influencing the future, ask yourself what you have learned, e.g., from reading this. You may not have free will, but you still make decisions. You cannot not make decisions. You may as well be smart about it.
4. Understand yourself.
No one presently knows exactly what consciousness is or what it is good for, but we know that parts of it are self-monitoring, attentional focus, and planning ahead. A lot of the processes in your brain are not conscious, presumably because that would be computationally inefficient. Unconscious processes, however, can affect your conscious decisions. If you want to make good decisions, you must understand not only the relevance of input, but also how your own brain works. Instead of thinking that your efforts are futile, identify your goals and the strategies you have for working towards them. You are monitoring the monitor, if you wish.
本文於 修改第 3 次
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基因可能影響你的性向和選擇 -- David Cox
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下文刊於英國國家廣播公司的《未來》網誌；作者卡克斯先生。
原文就相關資訊提供了大量超連接；對具較高資訊值的段落，我附有簡單的中文提示；網友們可以選擇性的深入了解。
How genetics determine our life choices
David Cox, 05/11/23
In the subterranean depths of a granite building on the outskirts of Iceland's capital, Reykjavík, a robot is slowly and methodically shuffling the chilled blood of tens of thousands of people from all over the world.
Down in this concrete chamber, a well-honed process is taking place. DNA is extracted from the samples and then fed into sequencing machines which slowly piece together the unique lines of chemical bases which form the basis of each individual's identity. Later on, artificial intelligence algorithms will connect this genetic code or genome with detailed information held in biobanks about their life – their diet, personality, relationship choices, hobbies, the diseases to which they ultimately succumbed - and search for links which scientists might deem statistically significant. (本文所根據的資訊及其蒐集過程。)
This particular concrete chamber is owned by an Icelandic company called deCODE genetics, which has sequenced more whole genomes – over 400,000 and counting – than any other institution in the world. Through this process it has made major contributions to understanding our inherited risk of Alzheimer's, schizophrenia, coronary artery disease, various forms of cancer, and many other chronic illnesses. (研究結果幫助醫生了解某些特定基因和某種慢性病之間的對應關係)
But it has also inspired others to use the same process to delve deep into the human psyche, and find connections between the genome and our personalities, food preferences, and even ability to maintain relationships.
These kinds of studies are starting to touch on something more intimate than simply the search for new medicines, instead revealing new connections between our genetic code and our life choices. For many scientists it has begun to raise the question, to what extent is our behaviour the product of our own volition, and how much is simply pre-determined by our underlying biology? (許多科學家開始研究那些行為主要源自我們的選擇和決定；那些行為則已經主要由我們基因預定？)
"When you look at us as a species, we have come into existence on the basis of information that lives in our genome, and then the interaction of that with the environment," says Kári Stefánsson, an Icelandic scientist who founded deCODE genetics in 1996, with the initial aim of using Iceland's unique genetic landscape to understand more about common diseases. The country has a small population that has been relatively isolated over the centuries, meaning that there is much less genetic variation than in other nations. This in turn means that there is less background noise to complicate matters, making it easier for scientists to identify meaningful gene variants. (建立此研究機構的考量之一)
How your genes shape who you are
Part neurologist, part philosopher, the 73-year-old Stefánsson has become ever more convinced that the complex cocktail of DNA we inherit from our parents, along with around 70 spontaneous genetic mutations which we acquire by chance, subconsciously dictates our behaviour to a far greater extent than we are aware.
We may not realise it, but it appears that many routine aspects of our daily lives might be partially driven by our genome. Subtle genetic tweaks in your taste receptors help to determine whether you prefer drinking coffee or tea. It turns out that coffee lovers are less sensitive to the bitterness of caffeine, while tea aficionados do not perceive other types of bitter chemicals quite so potently.
Genetics also play a role when it comes to our inclinations or aversions for all sorts of different activities. At a simplistic level, it governs both how much you enjoy exercising, and whether you prefer more solitary forms of physical activity such as running, or competing with others as part of team sports. But our DNA can also point us towards more specific leisure-time pursuits.
Fifteen years ago, a survey of 2,000 British adults first suggested that there might be such a thing as a hobby gene. Simply looking at a person's family tree and the favoured pastimes of their ancestors suggested a strong inclination towards certain types of activities. Participants in the survey were often surprised to discover that they actually came from a long line of amateur gardeners, stamp collectors, or cake makers.
In the following decade, many people around the world have referred to the study after finding that a parent or grandparent's favoured pastime suddenly held an inexplicable appeal in adulthood. In a Medium blog, Michael Woronko, an insurance worker from Ottawa, Canada wrote, "I had never shown an interest for gardening, even when my mom had dragged me along to her community garden as a child. I couldn't care less about hybrid tomatoes, about germinating peppers, and so forth, but when the opportunity presented itself (as an adult), something deep down inside of me sprang forward and I ran with it".
Large genomic sequencing studies are now starting to explain why. Stefánsson describes how deCODE's scientists have even found one particular gene variant which determines whether crossword puzzles will appeal to you. "We know that if you have it, you will like to solve crossword puzzles, but it has no impact on whether you're good at them or not," he laughs.
This also holds true when it comes to the complex matter of how our genes dictate the life paths that we follow.
From Boston to Shenzhen (深圳), various tech start-ups have spent years searching for so-called talent genes, genetic variants which might confer an innate natural strength or unique language abilities, enabling a person to be directed towards the areas where they have the most to offer.
But doing so is not quite as simple as it might seem. Geneticists at the Max Planck Institute in Leipzig, Germany, have recently tried to draw connections between a gene called ROBO1 which controls grey matter development in a part of the brain involved in number representation, and a child's mathematical abilities. But so far it seems that with all talents, whether that is number crunching, musical ability, or athletic prowess, genetics is just a relatively small part of the equation. (基因與天份)
Instead, as Stefánsson found with crosswords, it seems our genes influence our natural inclinations towards doing certain activities. What truly dictates whether we have any aptitude for them are factors such as whether we receive tutoring and other opportunities at an early age, and our own willingness to practice, improve and persist. (基因並非取得能力的重要因素)
The latter points to where genetics might wield its weightiest influence over our life paths - our personality traits. According to Danielle Dick, a psychiatry professor at Rutgers University in New Jersey and author of the book The Child Code, most dimensions of personality such as how extroverted or introverted, conscientious, agreeable, impulsive, and perhaps even how creative we are, have some kind of genetic component. (基因可能影響到的一些性向和人格特質)
"This reflects the fact that our genes influence the ways our brains form, which impacts how we think and interact with the world," says Dick. "Some people have brains that are more inclined to seek out exciting or novel experiences, more likely to take risks, or drawn to more immediate rewards." (基因決定大腦組成：大腦組成制約思路和行為)
There can be advantages to all of these characteristics. Entrepreneurs, CEOs, fighter pilots, and athletes who compete in extreme sports, all tend to be natural risk-takers. But having this genetic background can also come with certain costs. Risk-takers are more likely to develop addictions, while Stefánsson's work has shown that a proportion of the people with the genetics that would otherwise encourage creative thinking actually go on to develop schizophrenia. Naturally impulsive people might be better decision-makers and willing to seize opportunities that would otherwise pass them by, but they can also be vulnerable to developing gambling problems, dropping out of school or getting fired from a job. (性向是兩面刃)
A recent study co-authored by Dick used data from around 1.5 million individuals to identify gene variants linked to impulsivity. She found that impulsive people tended to be more likely to develop attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) as children, or participate in smoking and substance taking in adolescence and adulthood, before later developing associated conditions such as obesity and lung cancer.
"That said, it is equally clear that DNA is not destiny," says Dick. "Our genes influence our dispositions, which influence our natural tendencies, but it does not mean that people with them are always going to develop problems."
The environment we find ourselves in plays a huge role in determining whether we act on our genetic inclinations or not. Stefánsson says that people who have genetic variants in their brain which make them struggle with inhibition are going to be more likely to overeat if they work next to fast food outlets, and struggle to quit if they begin smoking. But at the same time, there is evidence that having a stable family life, stable romantic relationships and friendships, or even exercising regularly can help them live a productive life. (環境因素對一個人的思想和行為也有重大影響)
"Individuals at the highest risk are also the ones who benefit most from a healthy environment," says Cecilia Flores, a psychiatry professor at McGill University in Canada. "A positive environment can buffer genetic susceptibility, and even reverse it."
But this does not only help to explain the connection between personality and patterns of addictive behaviour. Social scientists are now finding that studying these kinds of gene-environment interactions helps to explain why some people are more suited to maintaining long-term relationships than others.
The genetics of love (愛情基因)
Four years ago, sociologists at the Yale School of Public Health embarked on a study of 178 married couples, ranging from 37 to 90-years-old. Each partner was asked to answer a series of questions relating to their happiness and sense of security in the relationship, and provide a saliva sample which would be used to analyse certain genes.
Scientists have long known that genetics plays some kind of a role in determining our choices of friends, and even romantic partners. In both cases we tend to form attachments with people who have certain physical similarities to ourselves. "We tend to form social relationships with individuals who are more genetically similar to us," says Andrew Dewan, a genetic epidemiologist at Yale. "We can think of the genes controlling these traits as having some influence on who we are choosing to form friendships with." (同類相聚)
It turns out that genes also play a significant role in our ability to keep a stable, happy relationship going over the course of years and decades. Previous research has shown that the children of divorced parents are more likely to themselves get divorced while the Yale study investigated the role of a hormone called oxytocin which drives bonding, and makes partners feel closer to each other. It found that when at least one partner in a marriage had a certain gene variant which increases the activity of oxytocin and makes the mind more receptive to its benefits, that partner was less likely to display psychological symptoms known as anxious attachment, and the couple were happier. (基因制約友情和夫妻關係)
Anxious attachment is a particular style of relationship insecurity that develops from past experiences with close family members and previous partners. It results in diminished self-worth, high rejection sensitivity, and approval-seeking behaviour. "This shows that inherited genetic variants can contribute to our happiness in relationships," says Dewan. "Our genetics does not solely dictate our ability to form long-term relationships, but is one contributing factor that may nudge us in one direction or another, either towards or away from them." (基因不是「原因」而是「助緣」)
Across the spectrum of medicine and psychology, psychiatrists, child development specialists and obesity experts are now looking to use the growing amount of genetic information to shape public health policies, and provide people with practical advice. (基因與公衛政策)
Nicola Pirastu, a biostatistics expert at the Human Technopole research institute in Italy, has found that genetic variants in food preferences can shift our liking from fruit and vegetables to high calorie, fatty foods. Because so many of these variants are found in the brain, he thinks that obesity should increasingly be treated as a disease with medications rather than dietary interventions.
"Losing weight is super difficult," he says. "And it's not just about willpower. If you're always hungry, of course you want to eat. So drugs which act on this craving for food can certainly help people. Of course you can do it through diet as well, but maintaining a diet is kind of like a full-time job, and a lot of people are not able to do that."
With the cost of genetic sequencing continuing to fall, it is possible that this might be used in future to screen children or adolescents who are displaying signs of addictive behaviour. "My hope is that as there is greater public understanding that problems like addiction or child behaviour are often related to the luck of the draw when it comes to the genes one inherits, it will reduce stigma," says Dick. "By identifying individuals who are at risk earlier in development, we can put resources in place to help them reach their full potential." (如果能知道那些青少年屬於那些行為的高風險群，相關責任單位可以提供比較有效的解決方案)
Dick believes that if the individual and their family know that they are prone to addictive or risk-taking behaviour, it can help them avoid actively seeking out those environments. But she says that society has a role to play as well. "Many of us in the addiction field are particularly concerned about the new laws in the United States that are allowing easy access to cannabis and online gambling as we know that environments that promote increased availability and acceptance of these behaviours are associated with higher rates of problems," she says.
But we are still only at the beginning of understanding exactly how our genes dictate what we do, and the role they play in our choices. For the last two decades, Stefánsson and others have slowly unravelled many of these links, but there are still many basic questions which are yet to be answered. (這個領域尚需更廣泛和更深入的研究和了解)
"One of the big questions is, can you inherit a thought?" he says. "Is the way you think passed down from your mother and father? One of the problems with proving that is we don't have a good definition of a thought. Yet if you take our species, we could say that we are pretty much defined by our thoughts and emotions. But in 2023, we haven't even managed to define one of the attributes that define us." (思想是遺傳的嗎？ -- 我們離了解自己這一個目標還很遠)
相關資訊：
Why the world faces a 'genomic gap'
Why some people wake up unable to move
The hidden trauma carried by many
Beyond The Genome
It has been 20 years since the Human Genome Project was "completed". But it quickly became apparent that the efforts to sequence and map the human "book of life" was only just the beginning. Far from closing the question of what makes our bodies tick and why they do so differently, research on the human genome has revealed a far more complex picture than anyone could have imagined. Beyond the Genome examines the paradigm shift in our understanding of our genetics in the past two decades, including just how far-reaching the influence of our genes can be and how we in turn can influence our own DNA through health and lifestyle.
本文於 修改第 2 次
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量子力學與自由意志的再現 -- Tim Andersen
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安德生教授在下文中從邏輯和定義來討論「自由意志」；這也是我採取的思路和方法。
我先轉載幾篇相關的論文；雖然它們內容需要相當於大學物理系的程度才能了解，目前我暫時不做翻譯和解讀的工作。希望過些時候我能對這個議題提出一些深思後的系統性看法。歡迎網友發表高見，彼此切磋、切磋，集思廣益。
Quantum mechanics and the return of free will
Many worlds make free will possible
Tim Andersen, 05/11/23
The common definition of free will often has problems when relating to desire and power to choose. An alternative definition that ties free will to different outcomes for life despite one's past is supported by the probabilistic nature of quantum physics. This definition is compatible with the Many Worlds Interpretation of quantum physics, which refutes the conclusion that randomness does not imply free will, writes Tim Andersen.
Free will is one of those things where people tend to be very attached to its being true or false and yet most people implicitly treat it as true. Consider that we hold people accountable for their actions as if they decided to carry out those actions of their own free will. We reward people for their successes and discoveries likewise. If Albert Einstein didn’t really make his discoveries but it was, instead, inevitable that his brain would do so, does he really deserve his Nobel Prize?
Some argue that we should accept that free will is a myth and change our society accordingly. Our justice system (especially in the United States) is heavily invested in the free will hypothesis. We punish people for crimes. We do no treat them like broken machines that need to be fixed. Other nations like Norway, however, take exactly this approach.
Many physicists believe that free will in incompatible with modern physics.
The argument goes like this:
(1) Classical (non-quantum) mechanics is deterministic. Given any initial conditions to a classical system, and the entire future and past state of the system can be determined. There is no free will in determinism.
(2) Quantum mechanics allows for randomness in the outcomes of experiments, but we have no control over those outcomes. There is no free will in randomness.
(3) Human will is a product of the brain which is a physical object. All physical objects are subject to physics and the sum total of physics is contained in classical and quantum mechanics (technically, classical is an approximation of quantum).
Ergo, humans have no free will. Our brains are simply carrying out a program that, while appearing to be making free choices, is in fact just a very complex algorithm.
The logic seems sound and in any philosophical discourse we need to look at the logic and decide (whether freely or not). There are quite a few ways to counter this argument. The first is to object to #3. This is the approach many religions take. Human will is not necessarily reducible to physical causation. Therefore, it is beyond physical law. The brain simply interacts with the will and carries out its commands.
Another is to question the reductionist assumption of the conclusion, i.e., that everything is reducible to the properties of its constituent parts, no matter how complex. If the individual parts are deterministic, so must the whole. Science has not proven that yet. Perhaps if we could model a human brain in a computer in its entirety, we might know better.
Another approach is to question what the scientist means by free will. Most scientists aren’t philosophers and don’t necessarily define their philosophical terms as clearly as their scientific ones. The common definition of free will is that it is the freedom to choose, the ability to decide to choose or do otherwise, to be the source of one’s actions. Philosophers largely tie free will to the concept of moral responsibility. Am I morally responsible for my actions?
To put is precisely, an agent S is morally accountable for performing an action ϕ = df. S deserves praise if ϕ goes beyond what can be reasonably expected of S and S deserves blame if ϕ is morally wrong. The key then is whether an agent has the ability or power to do otherwise.
Now, what does it mean to have the ability to choose or do otherwise? It can’t simply mean to have the power because one must have both the power and the desire. But what if one does not have the power to change what one desires? Then you are stuck with no free will or only a pseudo-free will in which you can change your actions but not your desires.
As Schopenhauer said, ‘Man can will what he wants but cannot will what he wills.’ Consider, if I have a choice to practice my cello or lift weights, I choose to practice my cello. Now, I seem to have had the power to choose to lift weights but I did not have the desire to do so. Did I have the power to desire differently?
From the argument of physics, the brain’s desires are either fixed results of classical laws or random results of quantum effects. A random quantum fluctuation creates voltage bias in one of my neurons which cascades to other neurons and suddenly I want to lift weights. According to the physicist, I did not choose. It just appeared as if I did. And certainly if I had chosen differently I would have done differently, and yet in reality quantum physics chose for me by rolling a cosmic die.
This kind of free will definition, which is the one most people think of and the one that most scientists seem to assume, has a lot of problems. It’s hard to even understand what we really mean by freedom because it gets all muddled with desire.
Without a good definition, it is impossible to argue that something exists or not. Another definition of free will avoids this problem and throws a monkey wrench into the scientist on the street’s knee-jerk attitude that free will is impossible in a quantum world.
This alternative is called the categorical analysis and is stated as follows: An agent S has the ability to choose or do otherwise than ϕ at time t if and only if it was possible, holding fixed everything up to t, that S choose or do otherwise than ϕ at t.
What this means is that we have to take into account the state of the agent up until the time the choice is made and given that state ask if there is a possible world where the agent makes a choice other than the one he or she made. That, then, is what freedom of choice is.
Oxford physicist David Deutsch favours this definition of free will because it is compatible with his Many Worlds Interpretation (MWI) of quantum physics. But even if you don’t accept MWI, what it says is that there are probable states that have the same past up until a point t and then a choice is made and a non-deterministic path is followed. It doesn’t matter if those paths are all “real worlds” as Deutsch believes. What matters is that they have different futures, and all interpretations of quantum physics as-is support this idea.
If that is true, and this is the most important point, then you can say that freedom of choice exists because the agent made different choices in different probable realities. Thus, the agent had the power to choose and exercised it.
This definition of free will is interesting from a physics perspective because it is not true in a classical, deterministic world in which all pasts have the same future, but it is true in a quantum world where all pasts do not share the same future. Thus, it refutes the conclusion from #2 above that randomness does not imply free will. It only does so if you define free will in the way that people commonly understand it which is, frankly, not a defensible definition.
Rather, you have to see free will as having the power to have different outcomes for your life despite your past. Whether you can affect those outcomes by changing your actions or desires is a meaningless statement.
Thus if I made the choice to practice in 60% of quantum futures and lift weights in 40%, then that proves I had the power to do otherwise. If I practiced in 100% of futures, then I did not have that power. Whether science can prove this is an open question, but it does not require any modification to quantum theory. Indeed, some modifications attempt to remove this possibility, incorrectly I believe.
While it may seem that this is sleight of hand in changing definitions, it is in reality making the definition of free will precise by saying that it is exactly the power to do otherwise. This is evidenced by quantum physics, i.e., because more than one outcome of a choice can occur from a single state of the universe, an agent does have “the power to do otherwise” which is what free will is.
Suggested Reading
New theories of the universeWith Sabine Hossenfelder, Phillip Ball, Bjørn Ekeberg, Sam Henry
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