COSM 2025 will feature something a little different: a Nobel Prize-winning theoretical physicist. In 2022, John F. Clauser won “for experiments with entangled photons, establishing the violation of Bell inequalities and pioneering quantum information science.” The two other scientists so honored were French physicist Alain Aspect and and Austrian physicist Anton Zeilinger.
Head-in-the-clouds stuff? No. Experiments like these help answer important questions like “Is free will possible, in principle?”
Image Credit: fotoplot - It has long been known that if two particles are entangled — think of it as “they share a fate” — if you change one, it doesn’t matter how far away the other one is, it will change too. They are non-local, that is, not determined in a way that classical physics would predict.
That was not what anyone expected. Clauser’s entry in Britannica offers,
In 1935, when Albert Einstein, Boris Podolsky, and Nathan Rosen devised this paradox, they thought that this conclusion was so obviously false that the quantum mechanical theory on which it was based must be incomplete. They concluded that the correct theory would contain some hidden variable feature that would restore the determinism of classical physics; that is, the particles must be in some definite spin even before they are measured. – Britannica
Irish physicist John Stuart Bell (1928–1990) later showed mathematically that the particles were not determined. But an experimental demonstration was needed as well.
Britannica explains the experiment Clauser worked on in 1972:
Clauser became interested in experimental testing of the Bell inequalities. He and his collaborators published work in 1969 that proposed a version of a Bell inequality that could be experimentally tested.
Clauser and Stuart Freedman used an apparatus from a previous experiment that used the decay of excited calcium atoms to generate pairs of photons that had opposite polarizations. Each photon was then measured by a polarizer. Their work, published in 1972, was the first experimental test of the Bell inequalities. They measured the rate of detection of both photons when the angle between the two polarizers was 22.5° and when it was 67.5°. In the Bell inequality they tested, those rates were divided by the rate of detection when both polarizers were removed; the absolute value of the difference between those two rates minus ¼ should have been less than or equal to zero to satisfy the Bell inequality. Their measurement of 0.05 ± 0.008 showed a clear violation of the Bell inequality, and their measurements at other angles were in accordance with those predicted by quantum mechanics and not with hidden variable theory. – Britannica
In other words, the photons’ behavior was not locally determined.
The physicists showed that nature is not completely determined at the local level by Newton’s laws of physics. Also, from moment to moment, the state of a system is not absolutely determined by the properties that immediately precede it. That has profound implications for mind and brain issues like consciousness and free will. Essentially, the fact that there is no purely physical explanation for them does not conflict with science.
“Has Physics Pounded a New Nail in the Coffin of Materialism?”, Mind Matters News, May 8, 2025
In short, contrary to Einstein’s strong belief, laws of physics apparently do not determine what each of us does (or doesn’t do).
Clauser has risked taking a strong stand in the climate change controversy
In the years following the crucial experiment, Clauser taught at a number of universities, did research, and more recently, acted as a private consultant (Britannica):
Image Credit: ink drop - Perhaps his relative independence from institutional demands for conformity caused him to diverge from many pundits on the nature and outcome climate change. Two years ago, he joined 1600 scientists who dissent from the narrative pushed in major media, saying,
The popular narrative about climate change reflects a dangerous corruption of science that threatens the world’s economy and the well-being of billions of people. Misguided climate science has metastasized into massive shock-journalistic pseudoscience. In turn, the pseudoscience has become a scapegoat for a wide variety of other unrelated ills. It has been promoted and extended by similarly misguided business marketing agents, politicians, journalists, government agencies, and environmentalists. In my opinion, there is no real climate crisis. There is, however, a very real problem with providing a decent standard of living to the world’s large population and an associated energy crisis. The latter is being unnecessarily exacerbated by what, in my opinion, is incorrect climate science.
Clintel Foundation, August 12, 2023
There were repercussions. The International Monetary Fund had already Canceled his upcoming talk on climate models (Newsweek, July 24, 2023). And, as the Washington Post reported, “His recent denial of global warming has alarmed top climate scientists, who warn that he is using his stature to mislead the public about a planetary emergency … Clauser, 80, who has a booming voice and white hair he often leaves uncombed, has brushed off these concerns. He says skepticism is a key part of the scientific process.” (November 16, 2023)
Whatever you think about climate science or climate policy, if you agree with Clauser that “skepticism is a key part of the scientific process,” be sure to register for COSM 2025. He will be interviewed by Louisa Gilder, author of The Age of Entanglement (2008) at 2:15 on November 20. Reserve your seat now.