Physicist Michio Kaku — erroneously equated Heisenberg's uncertainty principle to proof that free will ("in some sense") exists

02 January 2018

Illogic parading as science-based wisdom

Theoretical physicist and science educator, Michio Kaku claimed that "physics ends the free will debate."

Dr. Kaku's pretended proof of the existence of free will demonstrates why one cannot assume that scientists are consistently capable of precise thinking.

Kaku's purported proof — for the existence of free will (of a sort)

Step one — the straw man — Newtonian Determinists

Dr. Kaku claims that "Newtonian determinism" holds that the universe is "like a clock."

Therefore, according to Newtonians (he says), there is no free will. Everything is determined, including mass murderers' penchant for homicide:

What you are going to eat, 10 years from now on January first, has already been fixed. It is already known using Newton's laws of motion. Einstein believed in that. Einstein was a determinist.

[E]ven mass murderers were predetermined.

Step two — the causation gap — Heisenberg's uncertainty principle

Kaku states that determinist Newtonians are wrong. Heisenberg's uncertainty principle demonstrates that we cannot be ultimately certain of some things, such as determining the position of an electron:

The electron can be many places simultaneously.

God does play dice. . . . There is uncertainty with regards to the position of the electron.

So, what does that mean for free will? It means in some sense we do have, in some sense, some kind of free will. No one can determine your future events, given your past history. There is always a wild card.

So, when I look at myself in a mirror I say to myself what I'm looking at is not really me. It looks like me, but it’s not really me at all. It’s not me today now. It’s me a billionth of a second ago because it takes a billionth of a second for light to go from me to the mirror and back.

Did Dr. Kaku fail the school class in rational thinking?

First, Kaku set up a straw man, Newtonian Determinism.

Newtonians (meaning people who accept the accuracy of Newtonian equations in predicting most macro physics happenings) do not all claim that everything is determined.

They confine their determinism to the causes and effects of Newtonian equations, as those apply to the macro phenomena. Kaku takes his deterministic allegation farther than most Newtonians probably would.

Second, Dr. Kaku casually misstates Heisenberg's uncertainty principle. He erroneously limits it to the impossibility of determining the position of an electron precisely. The full principle says that it is impossible to determine both electron position and momentum at the same time:

In quantum mechanics, the uncertainty principle, also known as Heisenberg's uncertainty principle or Heisenberg's indeterminacy principle, is any of a variety of mathematical inequalities asserting a fundamental limit to the precision with which certain pairs of physical properties of a particle, known as complementary variables, such as position x and momentum p, can be known.

[T]he uncertainty principle is inherent in the properties of all wave-like systems, and that it arises in quantum mechanics simply due to the matter wave nature of all quantum objects.

Thus, the uncertainty principle actually states a fundamental property of quantum systems, and is not a statement about the observational success of current technology.

Although this fuller definition does not argue against Kaku's essential point, his misstatement of the Principle indicates at least a mild disregard for precise thinking (with regard to the complex nature of the point that he is trying to make).

Third, Kaku irrationally leaps to the conclusion that quantum mechanical uncertainty works as a form of free will. He seems to assume that because:

(a) one cannot know an electron's position,

therefore

(b) a gap in causation is produced

that

and, further, that

(d) the uncertainty principle allows the injection of some portion of certainty into Heisenberg uncertainty —

(e) the person so chooses.

That is quite a list of assumptions.

Not one of them is necessitated, or even implied, by the uncertainty principle.

Let's take a look at Kaku's key assumption

Does quantum uncertainty necessitate the production of a metaphorical gap in causation, from or in which free will could act?

No.

At least not in a necessarily exploitable way.

Uncertainty merely claims that predictive certainty does not exist. It says nothing about the extent of our ability to affect outcomes within that probabilistic context.

Just because Newtonian Determinism is provably not true, that does not mandate that its "free will" antagonist take its place. Ambiguity could be just ambiguity. The existence of uncertainty does not necessitate the "wild card" (a) existence or (b) useful utility of free will.

Indeed, Kaku's logic argues against itself

Kaku assumes that uncertainty in physics mandates the existence of free will. One could just as easily assume the reverse.

If nothing is precisely certain, how would one ever reliably detect free will's operation? If a bunch of wild cards are floating around, how do we know that "we" and not the Universe generated those? Which, by the way, is one of the subtle realizations underlying the All is One spiritual perspective.

An indicative non sequitur clinker — in Dr. Kaku's too facile reasoning

What does recognizing that there is a time lapse between (i) registering one's mirror reflection — as against (ii) the current state of one's beingness — have to do with either (iii) the uncertainty principle or (iv) free will?

Newtonian physics predicts both the existence of the reflection and its delayed return. Biology adds in perceptual distortion and cognitive processing delay. None of these have anything overt to do with the free will subject that Kaku says he is addressing.

Kaku could, of course, have used that irrelevant mirror example to introduce possible quantum effects in brain-generated consciousness. But he didn't.

The moral? — Approaching what we know (and don't know) in a rational fashion . . .

. . . is considerably more difficult than the too casually reasoning Dr. Kaku lets on.

Dr. Kaku's argument demonstrates neither the existence of free will, nor its additionally presumed ability to act usefully in an uncertain Universe.

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Physicist Michio Kaku — erroneously equated Heisenberg's uncertainty principle to proof that free will ("in some sense") exists