Free will survives physics, three scientists argue for different reasons
September 29, 2026 · 23 min read
Carroll says free will is as real as tables and chairs, Walker says it comes from being a deterministic structure with enough history in a random environment, and Frank says it is simply a given that science must account for. The agreement matters because it rejects the common claim that physics has disproved free will.
The rules, numbers and steps worth keeping in front of you.
- Shared verdict: physics has not shown free will to be impossible or illusory.
- None of the three appeals to anything supernatural or to broken physical laws.
- Sean Carroll: being made of atoms does not make something unreal.
- Carroll: an illusion is something that is not there and weakens your grip on the world.
- Carroll's test: a concept is real if using it improves understanding and action.
- Sara Walker: free will arises in stable structures within a random world.
- Walker: accumulated history lets a living thing select among possible futures.
- Walker: freedom operates over time, not in a single instant.
- Adam Frank: free will is given in experience; science must account for it.
- Frank: equations are a map drawn from experience, not more real than it.
- Frank: free will is what being an agent means.
- They disagree on physicalism, determinism and how to read quantum theory.
- No lab test is offered; the conclusion is negative, not a full theory.
- Whether any machine has this kind of agency remains open.
This is the short form. The full insight has every expert's reasoning, their own words and the sources.