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Apparently man isn’t so special. According to Mathematicians John Conway and Simon Kochen, quantum mechanics requires that free will is universal based on the assumptions that we humans do, indeed, have free will as well (via Slashdot & arXiv.org):
Mathematicians John Conway (inventor of the Game of Life) and Simon Kochen of Princeton University have proven that if human experimenters demonstrate ‘free will’ in choosing what measurements to take on a particle, then the axioms of quantum mechanics require that that property (call it free will) be available to the particles measured, or the universe as a whole. Conway is giving a series of lectures on the ‘Free Will Theorem’ and its ramifications over the next month at Princeton. A followup article strengthening the theory ((PDF)PDFwas published last month in Notices of the AMS.
