The free will theorem, proved by John H. Conway and Simon B. Kochen, states that if human experimenters have free will in the sense that their choices are not a function of the past, then, under specific assumptions drawn from quantum mechanics and relativity, some elementary particles must exhibit a corresponding form of indeterminacy. The theorem argues that stochastic, or purely random, processes do not satisfy this definition of freedom, so the particles' behavior cannot be explained by randomness alone.
Facts
StatementIf the experimenters choice of what to measure is not a function of information from the past (the free will assumption), then, given the theorem's axioms, the outcome of the corresponding particle measurement likewise cannot be determined by anything previous to the experiment. 1 Classification
Statement FormCharacterization Theorem 1 Connections
Has Statement Form
Entity-backed identity for the statement-form enum value this theorem already carries, resolved to a mathematics concept by an explicit value-to-entity map (phase 3 bucket conversion, docs\design_entity_backed_browse_buckets_20260928.md). The statement-form fact itself stays on the theorem unchanged.
Sources
1. Free will theorem, Wikipedia
The theorem section
Given the axioms, if the choice about what measurement to take is not a function of the information accessible to the experimenters (free will assumption), then the results of the measurements cannot be determined by anything previous to the experiments.
Opening paragraph
Conway and Kochen's paper was published in Foundations of Physics in 2006.
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