Free will theorem

The free will theorem of John H. Conway and Simon B. Kochen states that if we have a free will in the sense that our choices are not a function of the past, then, under specific assumptions drawn from quantum mechanics and relativity, so must some elementary particles. That is, if human experimenters possess a form of free will—defined as the ability to make choices not entirely determined by prior events—then certain elementary particles must also exhibit a corresponding form of indeterminacy. The theorem argues that stochastic processes do not satisfy this definition of "freedom," because random values can, in principle, be pre-determined or embedded in the past (for example, sampled from a pre-existing table). Consequently, the theorem implies that no physical theory relying solely on a combination of deterministic laws and pre-existing randomness can fully account for the observed outcomes of quantum measurements. Conway and Kochen's paper was published in Foundations of Physics in 2006. In 2009, the authors published a stronger version of the theorem in the Notices of the American Mathematical Society. Later, in 2017, Kochen elaborated some details.