[sleepyams]

I think the insight is that there isn't really a built-in mechanism in particles for making choices, it's more that through experimentation we are _imposing_ a structure that forces a choice in an attempt to extract information. But we find that even when we force the system to make a choice, we get effectively no information and this appears to us to be a sort of complete randomness.

I interpret Conway's idea (in part III) to be that this is not a structural randomness, but rather randomness only in response to structure that _we_ impose during an experiment (e.g. determining spin), and that this is similar to our free will which is not structured (if you subscribe that that theory).

EDIT: I feel like I should clarify: at play here is the question of how mechanistic the universe is. If we accept that the universe is mechanistic, then we are forced into a position where we have to say (if we wish to avoid determinism) that there is such a thing as a "completely random" mechanism, and furthermore we have to effectively absolve free will of any structural restrictions by requiring that it is somehow part of our vitality as humans (call this mind-body dualism or whatever -- there is a long history of this debate). Obviously this is all beyond physics, but it is important to realize what assumptions we are implicitly requiring in order to discuss randomness and free will in this case.