Experimenters' Free Will and Quantum Certainty

TL;DR

This paper explores how rejecting the assumption of experimenters' free will could resolve the quantum measurement problem and reconcile quantum mechanics with definite outcomes in individual experiments.

Contribution

It proposes that denying experimenters' free will offers a promising solution to the quantum measurement problem, suggesting a self-consistent space-time framework.

Findings

Rejecting free will may reconcile quantum mechanics with definite measurement outcomes.

A holistic space-time net of events can explain quantum measurement without free will.

The approach challenges traditional views on the role of free will in quantum theory.

Abstract

Physics has long lived with a schizophrenia that desires determinism for measured systems while demanding that experimenters decide what to measure on a whim. Intriguingly, such a free will assumption for experimenters has thwarted many attempts to provide a satisfactory explanation of how quantum probabilities evolve to clear-cut measurements. An overview of this quantum measurement problem is presented without equations, and the lesson is drawn that denial of experimenters' free will may be the only workable solutions. If the free will assumption is rejected, then a door is open that may ultimately reconcile quantum mechanics with the definiteness of individual experiments. A holistic view is offered for an Escher-like self-consistent space-time net of events rather than a conspiracy of initial conditions as a way forward.