What Does the Free Will Theorem Actually Prove?

TL;DR

This paper critically examines the Free Will Theorem, clarifying its implications for deterministic and stochastic models in quantum mechanics, and highlighting limitations in its conclusions about free will and particle behavior.

Contribution

It provides a detailed analysis showing that the theorem's conclusions do not hold for stochastic models and are not novel for deterministic models.

Findings

Stochastic models are not ruled out by the theorem.

Deterministic models' limitations are already known.

The theorem's implications for free will are more nuanced than originally claimed.

Abstract

Conway and Kochen have presented a "free will theorem" (Notices of the AMS 56, pgs. 226-232 (2009)) which they claim shows that "if indeed we humans have free will, then [so do] elementary particles." In a more precise fashion, they claim it shows that for certain quantum experiments in which the experimenters can choose between several options, no deterministic or stochastic model can account for the observed outcomes without violating a condition "MIN" motivated by relativistic symmetry. We point out that for stochastic models this conclusion is not correct, while for deterministic models it is not new.