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N K Langford - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.
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violation of local realism with Freedom of Choice
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 2010Co-Authors: Thomas Scheidl, Rupert Ursin, Johannes Kofler, Sven Ramelow, Thomas Herbst, Lothar Ratschbacher, Alessandro Fedrizzi, N K LangfordAbstract:Bell’s theorem shows that local realistic theories place strong restrictions on observable correlations between different systems, giving rise to Bell’s inequality which can be violated in experiments using entangled quantum states. Bell’s theorem is based on the assumptions of realism, locality, and the Freedom to choose between measurement settings. In experimental tests, “loopholes” arise which allow observed violations to still be explained by local realistic theories. Violating Bell’s inequality while simultaneously closing all such loopholes is one of the most significant still open challenges in fundamental physics today. In this paper, we present an experiment that violates Bell’s inequality while simultaneously closing the locality loophole and addressing the Freedom-of-Choice loophole, also closing the latter within a reasonable set of assumptions. We also explain that the locality and Freedom-of-Choice loopholes can be closed only within nondeterminism, i.e., in the context of stochastic local realism.
Johannes Kofler - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.
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violation of local realism with Freedom of Choice
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 2010Co-Authors: Thomas Scheidl, Rupert Ursin, Johannes Kofler, Sven Ramelow, Thomas Herbst, Lothar Ratschbacher, Alessandro Fedrizzi, N K LangfordAbstract:Bell’s theorem shows that local realistic theories place strong restrictions on observable correlations between different systems, giving rise to Bell’s inequality which can be violated in experiments using entangled quantum states. Bell’s theorem is based on the assumptions of realism, locality, and the Freedom to choose between measurement settings. In experimental tests, “loopholes” arise which allow observed violations to still be explained by local realistic theories. Violating Bell’s inequality while simultaneously closing all such loopholes is one of the most significant still open challenges in fundamental physics today. In this paper, we present an experiment that violates Bell’s inequality while simultaneously closing the locality loophole and addressing the Freedom-of-Choice loophole, also closing the latter within a reasonable set of assumptions. We also explain that the locality and Freedom-of-Choice loopholes can be closed only within nondeterminism, i.e., in the context of stochastic local realism.
Sven Ramelow - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.
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violation of local realism with Freedom of Choice
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 2010Co-Authors: Thomas Scheidl, Rupert Ursin, Johannes Kofler, Sven Ramelow, Thomas Herbst, Lothar Ratschbacher, Alessandro Fedrizzi, N K LangfordAbstract:Bell’s theorem shows that local realistic theories place strong restrictions on observable correlations between different systems, giving rise to Bell’s inequality which can be violated in experiments using entangled quantum states. Bell’s theorem is based on the assumptions of realism, locality, and the Freedom to choose between measurement settings. In experimental tests, “loopholes” arise which allow observed violations to still be explained by local realistic theories. Violating Bell’s inequality while simultaneously closing all such loopholes is one of the most significant still open challenges in fundamental physics today. In this paper, we present an experiment that violates Bell’s inequality while simultaneously closing the locality loophole and addressing the Freedom-of-Choice loophole, also closing the latter within a reasonable set of assumptions. We also explain that the locality and Freedom-of-Choice loopholes can be closed only within nondeterminism, i.e., in the context of stochastic local realism.
Nadia Chernyak - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.
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a comparison of american and nepalese children s concepts of Freedom of Choice and social constraint
Cognitive Science, 2013Co-Authors: Nadia Chernyak, Tamar Kushnir, Katherine M Sullivan, Qi WangAbstract:Recent work has shown that preschool-aged children and adults understand Freedom of Choice regardless of culture, but that adults across cultures differ in perceiving social obligations as constraints on action. To investigate the development of these cultural differences and universalities, we interviewed school-aged children (4–11) in Nepal and the United States regarding beliefs about people’s Freedom of Choice and constraint to follow preferences, perform impossible acts, and break social obligations. Children across cultures and ages universally endorsed the Choice to follow preferences but not to perform impossible acts. Age and culture effects also emerged: Young children in both cultures viewed social obligations as constraints on action, but American children did so less as they aged. These findings suggest that while basic notions of free Choice are universal, recognitions of social obligations as constraints on action may be culturally learned.
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developing notions of free will preschoolers understanding of how intangible constraints bind their Freedom of Choice
Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society, 2010Co-Authors: Nadia Chernyak, Tamar Kushnir, Henry M WellmanAbstract:Developing Notions of Free Will: Preschoolers’ Understanding of How Intangible Constraints Bind Their Freedom of Choice Nadia Chernyak (nc98@cornell.edu), Tamar Kushnir (tk397@cornell.edu) Department of Human Development, Martha Van Rensselaer Hall Ithaca, NY 14853 USA Henry Wellman (hmw@umich.edu) Department of Psychology, University of Michigan 530 Church Street Ann Arbor, MI 48109 USA Abstract Our folk psychology involves the ability to reason about free will. In a series of experiments, we looked at young children’s ability to reason about their own Freedom of Choice, and contrast this with their ability to reason about situations that constrain it. We asked preschoolers (Range: 4 y; 1 mo. – 5 y; 7 mo.) whether they had the Choice to have done otherwise when they did not have the necessary knowledge to do so (epistemic constraint), had the moral duty not to do so (moral constraint), preferred not to do so (preference constraint), were told not to do so (permissive constraint), or were told that everyone else did not do so (conformist constraint). Results suggest that while preschool children generally believe their actions are freely chosen, they also understand how psychological, social and moral considerations may constrain their actions. These results have implications for children’s developing notions of free will and moral reasoning. Keywords: preschoolers, Freedom of Choice, morality, epistemic states Introduction Free will has long been studied in the field of philosophy, social psychology, and more recently, cognitive neuroscience (Baer, Kaufman, & Baumeister, 2008; Kane, 2002; Soon, Brass, Heinze, & Haynes, 2008; Wegner, 2003). Recent work has also begun to investigate how this important intuition develops and takes form in young children’s reasoning (Kushnir, Wellman, & Chernyak, 2009; Nichols, 2004; Seiver, Kushnir, & Gopnik, 2009). For example, Nichols (2004) found that six-year-old children ascribe the Choice to have done otherwise to an agent, but not an inanimate object. Therefore, Nichols (2004) posits an agent-causal view of free will in which children believe that agents have indeterminate Choice which is unbound by outside forces. This is contrasted with children’s beliefs about physical causation, namely that, unlike agents, inanimate objects are not free to choose their own course of action and are wholly governed by outside forces. However, the distinction between agents and inanimate objects is only part of our adult intuitions about Freedom of Choice. More central to our mature understanding – and to the important role that intuitive notions of free will play in our social and moral reasoning – is the ability to contrast situations in which agents are free to choose and situations in which agents are constrained in their Choices. In other words, to adults, “free will can’t really mean that at any moment a person’s behavior is totally unpredictable (and therefore entirely unconstrained)” (p.4; Baer et al., 2008). Therefore, understanding free will implies understanding the complementary notion of constraint. Kushnir et al. (2009) asked four- and five-year old children if they could have done otherwise in two situations. One in which they were free to draw a picture and one in which they were physically prevented from doing so (i.e., the experimenter held the child’s hand so that it was stuck in one place). Children overwhelmingly responded that they had Freedom of Choice when they were physically unbounded, but responded that they did not have that Freedom when they were physically constrained. Therefore, preschoolers may already know that their agency, and therefore their Freedom of Choice, is limited by the physical world. However, the physical world is just one type of force that may constrain one’s free will. One’s Freedom to choose may also be constrained, or at least limited, by non-physical phenomena, such as beliefs, knowledge states, desires, and social and moral obligations. Research on children’s social cognition shows that preschoolers have a rather firm grasp of how constraints which come from the mind differ from those of the physical world (Inagaki & Hatano, 1999, Wellman, 1990). In the current investigation, we explore two related questions about such “intangible” constraints: First, do young children understand that these constraints bind their Freedom of Choice? Or alternatively, do they believe that their ability to have done otherwise is unbounded by psychological and social forces, and is subject only to the laws of the physical world? Second, can children distinguish between intangible constraints which fully determine behavior (and thus fully constrain free will) and those which only influence it (and thus do not fully constrain free will)? Experiments 1 and 2 explored the first question by asking older and younger preschool children whether they believed they had the Choice to do otherwise when they didn’t have the necessary knowledge to do so. We chose this epistemic constraint – that seeing leads to knowing – because it is one
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preschoolers understanding of Freedom of Choice
Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society, 2009Co-Authors: Nadia Chernyak, Tamar Kushnir, Henry M WellmanAbstract:Preschoolers’ Understanding of Freedom of Choice Tamar Kushnir (tk397@cornell.edu) Department of Human Development, MVR Hall Ithaca, NY 14853 USA Henry M. Wellman (hmw@umich.edu) Department of Psychology and The Center for Human Growth and Development, University of Michigan 530 Church Street Ann Arbor, MI 48109 USA Nadia Chernyak (nc98@cornell.edu) Department of Human Development, MVR Hall Ithaca, NY 14853 USA distinctions between actions caused by psychological states (e.g. beliefs, and desires), and those caused by physical forces (e.g. gravity) or biological processes (e.g. reflexes; Schult & Wellman, 1997; Inagaki & Hatano, 1993; Schultz & Wells, 1985). Preschoolers are also able to reason about counterfactuals – that things could have been different (Harris, German & Mills, 1996). Thus, it is certainly plausible that preschoolers may have some concept of Freedom of Choice. To date, however, only one study (Nichols, 2004) directly asked 4- and 5-year-olds about whether an agent could have done otherwise. Nichols (2004) showed children a box with a sliding lid. The experimenter opened the box and either stuck his hand inside or dropped a ball inside the box. Children were asked “after the lid was open, did I [the ball] have to touch the bottom, or could I [it] have done something else instead?” Children overwhelmingly said that the experimenter, but not the ball, could have done something else. This result is promising, but not conclusive. Nichols (2004) showed that children were able to appropriately answer a direct question about a change to a past behavior; that is, children did not attribute the ability to “do something else instead” to an inanimate object (the ball). This is consistent with the fact that even toddlers attribute goals and intentions to agents and not inanimate objects (Melzoff, 1995). However, the critical question still remains: did children respond “yes” to the human action because they understood that the situation (reaching into a box) affords the Choice? That is, can preschoolers distinguish between actions that can be freely chosen and actions that cannot? The following studies explore this issue. In Experiment 1, we contrast the ability to do otherwise with the desire to do otherwise. We do this by asking children if a story character could have done something that is a) possible, but not desired versus b) impossible, but desired. In experiment 2, we ask about the child’s own ability to do otherwise when they are free to act versus prevented from acting (by being externally constrained). In both experiments, the contrasts Abstract Our folk psychology includes the ability to reason about Freedom of Choice. That is, we believe that an agent who has performed an action could have done otherwise. This study investigates the development of the concept of Freedom of Choice in preschool children. Importantly, we contrast Choices with desires, outcomes and constraints on action. In Experiment 1, four- and five-year-olds were shown a character that first desired and then achieved a given outcome, and were asked whether the character could have chosen to do otherwise. In Experiment 2, children acted themselves then were asked to reason about whether they could have done otherwise. We found that preschoolers appropriately reasoned about their own and others’ Freedom of Choice. Moreover, they appropriately reasoned about lack of Choice when actions were physically impossible (Experiment 1) or externally constrained (Experiment 2). These findings have implications for the development of social cognition and moral reasoning. Keywords: Free will, theory of mind, social cognition, intentional action, moral reasoning. Introduction Our folk psychology includes the ability to reason about Freedom of Choice. Simply put, Freedom of Choice is the idea that, all other things being equal, an agent could have done otherwise (Nichols, 2004). This commonsense notion plays a central role in adults’ explanations of behavior (Nichols, in press; Ross, 1977) and is critical to our ability to reason about moral obligation and social responsibility (Nichols, in press, Wellman & Miller, 2006). Moreover, Freedom of Choice dominates the experience of our own actions (Wegner, 2002). Though there has been much interest in the psychology of Freedom of Choice in adults (see Baer, Kaufman, & Baumeister, 2008) very little research has examined the development of the concept of Freedom of Choice in children. Research on children’s social cognition shows that, by the time children are 4 or 5 years old, they can reason about the psychological causes of human actions, including goals, beliefs, desires, and intentions (Gopnik & Melzoff, 1997; Wellman, 1990). Importantly, preschoolers make
Thomas Scheidl - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.
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violation of local realism with Freedom of Choice
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 2010Co-Authors: Thomas Scheidl, Rupert Ursin, Johannes Kofler, Sven Ramelow, Thomas Herbst, Lothar Ratschbacher, Alessandro Fedrizzi, N K LangfordAbstract:Bell’s theorem shows that local realistic theories place strong restrictions on observable correlations between different systems, giving rise to Bell’s inequality which can be violated in experiments using entangled quantum states. Bell’s theorem is based on the assumptions of realism, locality, and the Freedom to choose between measurement settings. In experimental tests, “loopholes” arise which allow observed violations to still be explained by local realistic theories. Violating Bell’s inequality while simultaneously closing all such loopholes is one of the most significant still open challenges in fundamental physics today. In this paper, we present an experiment that violates Bell’s inequality while simultaneously closing the locality loophole and addressing the Freedom-of-Choice loophole, also closing the latter within a reasonable set of assumptions. We also explain that the locality and Freedom-of-Choice loopholes can be closed only within nondeterminism, i.e., in the context of stochastic local realism.
