%0 Journal Article
%T Free Will with Afterthoughts: A Quasichemical Model
%A Andrea C. Levi
%J Journal of Theoretical Chemistry
%D 2013
%R 10.1155/2013/902423
%X A model of free will is proposed, appealing to the similarity with simple, two-body chemical reactions where the energy curves for the reagents and for the products cross. The system at the crossing point has a freedom of choice to perform the reaction or not. The Landau-Zener formula, corresponding to the opportunity of meeting twice the crossing point, is interpreted as free will with an afterthought and generalized to the cases when a subject thinks about a choice times. If the probability distribution of afterthoughts is known, the probability of a final yes decision is given. The results are generalized to situations where a preference for or against a change exists or where the freedom is only partial, has to fight with conditioning factors, and possibly decreases with increasing instances of free choice. 1. Introduction The problem of free will is very ancient, and even the modern literature on it is vast and highly controversial. The attempts of a number of intellectuals (usually nonphysicists) to justify human free will via quantum-mechanical indeterminacy often lack precision and are not really meaningful. Fortunately, however, some serious and profound discussions of the relation between quantum physics and at least some instances of free will do exist: a good example is an article by Peres [1]. An even more interesting development has led to the so-called free will theorems of Conway and Kochen [2, 3], showing that due to some subtle properties of quantum mechanics elementary particles (in particular, spin-1 particles) possess a sort of ˇ°free will,ˇ± in the sense that their response to an appropriate set of experiments is not a function of earlier properties of the universe. Equally interesting is the recent progress in neurological studies, involving in particular the famous experiment by Libet et al. [4] (showing that volition, as measured neurologically, takes place earlier than conscious determination of volition), as well as more recent developments refining it [5]. In the present paper the above difficult (although interesting) issues are not addressed, but a much simpler question is considered: how is a choice influenced by a number of afterthoughts (whatever the status of free will may be)? Although, as said above, naive attempts to understand free will via quantum-mechanical indeterminacy generally fail, it may be worthwhile, nevertheless, to explore (as it appears to be possible) a model actually possessing some of the desired properties. Human (and also animal) free will is actually a freedom of choice: from some generic situation
%U http://www.hindawi.com/journals/jtc/2013/902423/