The Once and Future Turing 2016
DOI: 10.1017/cbo9780511863196.018
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The Ghost in the Quantum Turing Machine

Abstract: In honor of Alan Turing's hundredth birthday, I unwisely set out some thoughts about one of Turing's obsessions throughout his life, the question of physics and free will. I focus relatively narrowly on a notion that I call "Knightian freedom": a certain kind of in-principle physical unpredictability that goes beyond probabilistic unpredictability. Other, more metaphysical aspects of free will I regard as possibly outside the scope of science.I examine a viewpoint, suggested independently by Carl Hoefer, Crist… Show more

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Cited by 26 publications
(33 citation statements)
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“…The quantum amplification mechanism has been adopted also by Scott Aaronson whose recent “freebit” theory of free will “postulates that chaotic dynamics in the brain can have the effect of amplifying freebits to macroscopic scale” ( Aaronson, 2016 , but see also criticism of this quantum ampflification idea in Clarke, 2014 ). A similar theory has already been proposed by Jordan (1938) .…”
Section: Two Possibilities Of the Impact By Quantum Eventsmentioning
confidence: 99%
See 1 more Smart Citation
“…The quantum amplification mechanism has been adopted also by Scott Aaronson whose recent “freebit” theory of free will “postulates that chaotic dynamics in the brain can have the effect of amplifying freebits to macroscopic scale” ( Aaronson, 2016 , but see also criticism of this quantum ampflification idea in Clarke, 2014 ). A similar theory has already been proposed by Jordan (1938) .…”
Section: Two Possibilities Of the Impact By Quantum Eventsmentioning
confidence: 99%
“…“[B]rains seem “balanced on a knife-edge” between order and chaos: were they as orderly as a pendulum, they couldn’t support interesting behavior; were they as chaotic as the weather, they couldn’t support rationality” ( Aaronson, 2016 ).…”
Section: Two Possibilities Of the Impact By Quantum Eventsmentioning
confidence: 99%
“…Either it does not exists at all or everything has free will-including electrons. For further reading, see, for instance Aaronson (2016). Free Will in Neuroscience There are certain contexts in which the free will of a person is restricted.…”
Section: )mentioning
confidence: 99%
“…Since Alan Turning publishing his seminar paper [13] on the computable numbers, there are already many research papers [14][15][16][17] and books [18][19][20][21][22] about the relationship among a Turing machine, Godel incompleteness theorem, and the human brain. The question whether the same real number can be generated using a computer is a simplified way to examine the complicated relationships among these three fields.…”
Section: Can the Same Real Number Be Generated Using A Computer?mentioning
confidence: 99%