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Quantum mechanics, free will & the Game of Life (John Horgon)

#1
C C Offline
https://www.scientificamerican.com/artic...e-of-life/

EXCERPTS: . . . Of course, the Game of Life can be interpreted in different ways. [...] For example, philosopher Daniel Dennett, commenting on Conway’s invention in the Times, points out that Life’s “higher-order patterns” emerge from processes that are “completely unmysterious and explicable.... No psionic fields, no morphic resonances, no élan vital, no dualism.”

[...] Life, Dennett goes on to say, shows that deterministic rules can generate “complex adaptively appropriate structures” capable of “action” and “control.” Yes! I thought, my own bias coming into play. Dennett clearly means that deterministic processes can spawn phenomena that transcend determinism, like minds with free will.

Then another thought occurred to me ... Conventional cellular automata, including [the Game of] Life, are strictly local, in the sense that what happens in one cell depends on what happens in its neighboring cells. But quantum mechanics suggests that nature seethes with nonlocal “spooky actions.” Remote, apparently disconnected things can be “entangled,” influencing each other in mysterious ways, as if via the filaments of ghostly, hyperdimensional cobwebs.

I wondered: Can cellular automata incorporate nonlocal entanglements? And if so, might these cellular automata provide even more support for free will than the Game of Life? [...] Yes, researchers have created many cellular automata that incorporate quantum effects, including nonlocality. There are even quantum versions of the Game of Life. But, predictably, experts disagree on whether nonlocal cellular automata bolster the case for free will.

[...] Nobel laureate Gerard ‘t Hooft, flatly rules out the possibility of free will. [...] ‘t Hooft’s model assumes the existence of “hidden variables” underlying apparently random quantum behavior. His model leads him to a position called “superdeterminism,” which eliminates ... any hope for free will. Our fates are fixed from the big bang on.

Another authority on cellular automata, Stephen Wolfram, creator of Mathematica and other popular mathematical programs, proposes that free will is possible. [...] He notes that many cellular automata, including the Game of Life, display the property of “computational irreducibility.” That is, you cannot predict in advance what the cellular automata are going to do, you can only watch and see what happens. This unpredictability is compatible with free will, or so Wolfram suggests.

John Conway, Life’s creator, also defended free will. [...] the physicists are free to measure the particles in dozens of ways, which are not dictated by the preceding state of the universe. Similarly, the particles’ spin, as measured by the physicists, is not predetermined. Their analysis leads Conway and Kochen to conclude that the physicists possess free will—and so do the particles they are measuring.

[...] To be honest, I have a problem with all these treatments of free will, pro and con. They examine free will within the narrow, reductionistic framework of physics and mathematics, and they equate free will with randomness and unpredictability. My choices, at least important ones, are not random, and they are all too predictable, at least for those who know me.

[...] Just as it cannot prove or disprove God’s existence, science will never decisively confirm or deny free will... (MORE - details)
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#2
Syne Offline
(Feb 15, 2021 05:45 AM)C C Wrote: For example, philosopher Daniel Dennett, commenting on Conway’s invention in the Times, points out that Life’s “higher-order patterns” emerge from processes that are “completely unmysterious and explicable.... No psionic fields, no morphic resonances, no élan vital, no dualism.”

The Game of Life does not demonstrate "higher-order patterns” anywhere near those of the real world, so any claim about them being “completely unmysterious and explicable" have no bearing to our world.

Quote:Nobel laureate Gerard ‘t Hooft, flatly rules out the possibility of free will. [...] ‘t Hooft’s model assumes the existence of “hidden variables” underlying apparently random quantum behavior. His model leads him to a position called “superdeterminism,” which eliminates ... any hope for free will. Our fates are fixed from the big bang on.

There is no evidence of hidden variables.

Physicists such as Alain Aspect and Paul Kwiat have performed experiments that have found violations of these inequalities up to 242 standard deviations (excellent scientific certainty). This rules out local hidden-variable theories, but does not rule out non-local ones. Theoretically, there could be experimental problems that affect the validity of the experimental findings.

Gerard 't Hooft has disputed the validity of Bell's theorem on the basis of the superdeterminism loophole and proposed some ideas to construct local deterministic models.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hidden-var...'s_theorem


That's not a loophole, that's unevidenced speculation.
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#3
Ostronomos Offline
(Feb 15, 2021 05:45 AM)C C Wrote: https://www.scientificamerican.com/artic...e-of-life/

EXCERPTS: . . . Of course, the Game of Life can be interpreted in different ways. [...] For example, philosopher Daniel Dennett, commenting on Conway’s invention in the Times, points out that Life’s “higher-order patterns” emerge from processes that are “completely unmysterious and explicable.... No psionic fields, no morphic resonances, no élan vital, no dualism.”

[...] Life, Dennett goes on to say, shows that deterministic rules can generate “complex adaptively appropriate structures” capable of “action” and “control.” Yes! I thought, my own bias coming into play. Dennett clearly means that deterministic processes can spawn phenomena that transcend determinism, like minds with free will.

Then another thought occurred to me ... Conventional cellular automata, including [the Game of] Life, are strictly local, in the sense that what happens in one cell depends on what happens in its neighboring cells. But quantum mechanics suggests that nature seethes with nonlocal “spooky actions.” Remote, apparently disconnected things can be “entangled,” influencing each other in mysterious ways, as if via the filaments of ghostly, hyperdimensional cobwebs.

I wondered: Can cellular automata incorporate nonlocal entanglements? And if so, might these cellular automata provide even more support for free will than the Game of Life? [...] Yes, researchers have created many cellular automata that incorporate quantum effects, including nonlocality. There are even quantum versions of the Game of Life. But, predictably, experts disagree on whether nonlocal cellular automata bolster the case for free will.

[...] Nobel laureate Gerard ‘t Hooft, flatly rules out the possibility of free will. [...] ‘t Hooft’s model assumes the existence of “hidden variables” underlying apparently random quantum behavior. His model leads him to a position called “superdeterminism,” which eliminates ... any hope for free will. Our fates are fixed from the big bang on.

Another authority on cellular automata, Stephen Wolfram, creator of Mathematica and other popular mathematical programs, proposes that free will is possible. [...] He notes that many cellular automata, including the Game of Life, display the property of “computational irreducibility.” That is, you cannot predict in advance what the cellular automata are going to do, you can only watch and see what happens. This unpredictability is compatible with free will, or so Wolfram suggests.

John Conway, Life’s creator, also defended free will. [...] the physicists are free to measure the particles in dozens of ways, which are not dictated by the preceding state of the universe. Similarly, the particles’ spin, as measured by the physicists, is not predetermined. Their analysis leads Conway and Kochen to conclude that the physicists possess free will—and so do the particles they are measuring.

[...] To be honest, I have a problem with all these treatments of free will, pro and con. They examine free will within the narrow, reductionistic framework of physics and mathematics, and they equate free will with randomness and unpredictability. My choices, at least important ones, are not random, and they are all too predictable, at least for those who know me.

[...] Just as it cannot prove or disprove God’s existence, science will never decisively confirm or deny free will... (MORE - details)


The CTMU covers this topic at some length and maintains that while locality results in determinism and super-determinism, non-locality and Quantum mechanics allows for true free will (a self-deterministic feedback loop). 

In my experience, reflexivity between mind and reality (a Quantum process) makes self-determinism and free will possible.

This in its entirety requires that one's influence over reality is Quantum probabilistic.
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#4
Yazata Offline
(Feb 15, 2021 05:45 AM)C C Wrote: EXCERPTS: . . . Of course, the Game of Life can be interpreted in different ways. [...] For example, philosopher Daniel Dennett, commenting on Conway’s invention in the Times, points out that Life’s “higher-order patterns” emerge from processes that are “completely unmysterious and explicable.... No psionic fields, no morphic resonances, no élan vital, no dualism.”

I agree with Dennett about that. The behavior of each cell in the 'Game of Life' is determined by the state of the adjoining cells according to the simple rules that define the game. Psionic fields, morphic resonances, elan vital or substance dualism aren't necessary to explain how the game evolves.

The idea that such 'spooky' things don't exist is Dennett's own gratuitous metaphysical assumption. At best he's arguing that such things are irrelevant for understanding the game of life. So... the whole argument that follows seems to revolve around the assumption that the game of life is a suitably accurate analogy for real biological life here in real reality. Then the whole can-of-worms called 'the problem of free will' is dropped into it like a steaming wet turd with the further assumption that the game of life tells us something valuable about whether or not free will exists.

Quote:Life, Dennett goes on to say, shows that deterministic rules can generate “complex adaptively appropriate structures” capable of “action” and “control.”

Life seems to have those kind of qualities, but the game of life doesn't. So the underlying analogy is already starting to unravel.

Quote:Yes! I thought, my own bias coming into play. Dennett clearly means that deterministic processes can spawn phenomena that transcend determinism, like minds with free will.

That's Horgan talking I assume.

As for me, I'm inclined (but not entirely) to accept physical causation. But I'm sort of a skeptic (but not entirely) regarding physical determinism.

In other words, I'm willing to say that every physical event that happens has a physical cause. (I can't really justify that to my own satisfaction, it's merely my application of the principle of sufficient reason I guess.) At it's most fundamental level, it's the idea that everything that happens has some reason why it happens. Of course there are complications that threaten to overturn the whole apple-cart, like the role of the dynamical equations of physics in physical events. (There are actually philosophers and physicists that argue that the whole idea of physical 'causation' is misconceived and perhaps should even be rejected.) I'm not sure where I stand on that, but I'm sympathetic to some of the arguments. 

My skepticism primarily arises regarding the idea that the state of the universe (or some relevant part of it) at time A entirely determines the state of the universe (or some relevant part of it) at temporally distant time B. Pushed to its extreme, we arrive at the idea that the underlying dynamical equations, combined with the initial state of the universe at the Big Bang, precisely determined everything that will ever happen in that universe at any future point in time.

And it's ironic that it's atheists who often assert this one, since it's basically just another version of Creationism, even stronger than the one that it seeks to replace. Why is there human life on Earth? Because the universe was initially structured in such a way that human life will appear! Why did I just pick my nose? ... nothing we do is really us choosing to do it, it's ultimately the Big Bang doing it. (Or the God who may or may not be responsible for the Big Bang?) One is reminded of the occasionalistic Islamic idea that everything that happens, happens because it is the will of Allah.  

Quote:Then another thought occurred to me ... Conventional cellular automata, including [the Game of] Life, are strictly local, in the sense that what happens in one cell depends on what happens in its neighboring cells. But quantum mechanics suggests that nature seethes with nonlocal “spooky actions.” Remote, apparently disconnected things can be “entangled,” influencing each other in mysterious ways, as if via the filaments of ghostly, hyperdimensional cobwebs.

I wondered: Can cellular automata incorporate nonlocal entanglements? And if so, might these cellular automata provide even more support for free will than the Game of Life? [...] Yes, researchers have created many cellular automata that incorporate quantum effects, including nonlocality. There are even quantum versions of the Game of Life. But, predictably, experts disagree on whether nonlocal cellular automata bolster the case for free will.

Horgan seems to me to be arguing in precisely the wrong direction if he wants to save free will. Just invoking some "quantum nonlocality" idea isn't going to do him any good if it just mystifies things in hopes of sneaking in a 'quantum = anything goes' postulate.

Perhaps a good place to start is the idea of causal localism. Efficient causation seems to me to be local, events are caused by spatio-temporally contiguous events. In order for one billiard ball to move another, it has to contact it. (Things like fields add complications, but even there what's causally effective is field strength at a particular point of interest.) Eliminating that local-interaction constraint doesn't seem to me to move us any closer to free will. It would be trivial to rewrite the rules of the game of life such that the states of distant cells determine the state of a desired cell of interest. That's no less deterministic than having adjacent cells perform that determination.

But one thing that localism does give us is the idea that spatio-temporally separated events are often connected by entire chains of efficient causation. Certainly the history of the universe since the Big Bang looks like that. The evolutionary history of life on Earth. This caused that, which in turn caused this other thing, which caused something else...

Then import the idea from QM that causal interactions might not be precisely deterministic. State A does not precisely determine state B, but rather defines the probability that state B will be this state rather than that one. We can still accept that local causal interactions are highly deterministic since the probabilities will be very high, particularly on the bulk-matter mesoscale. So we can still use classical physics to describe the motions of billiard balls and design airplanes that don't fall out of the sky.

Then imagine these uncertainties compounding as causal chains get longer and longer. Imagine as well all kinds of chaotic dynamics sneaking in, such that even infinitesimal differences in initial state can result in dramatic differences in how physical systems evolve. Those kind of ideas seem to me to cut the deterministic link between the Big Bang and now, such that the initial state of the universe didn't precisely determine everything that can ever happen in that universe. Perhaps the key to the free-will problem is this proposition: The longer a causal chain, the less deterministic it is. There's still causation linking each step, but even if we know the state of the universe at time A with all the precision possible given uncertainty constraints, we still won't be able to predict the state of the universe at temporally distant time B with any precision at all.

To get from there to free will, think about what you mean when you use the phrase. When I say that I freely chose to do X, I mean that I did it because I wanted to, not as the result of any coercion external to myself. The idea of free will doesn't require totally uncaused events. Freely chosen actions aren't random convulsions. It's actions taken as the result of my own intentions and desires. So in order to save free will, one needn't deny causation, but require instead that the causation be of a suitable sort. (Internal-psychological, as opposed to external-coercive.)

I did X because it was my will and intention to do it. Why did I intend to do X? Because I had certain desires and goals. Because I understood my situation in such and such a way. Still consistent with local causality of the game of life sort. I think that if somebody freely acts, a suitably knowledgeable neuroscientist could probably predict very accurately (probably not with today's state-of-the-art, but in principle) what that action would be from observing the person's brain states milliseconds earlier. That does no harm to the idea of free will. The idea of free-will actually depends on it, since I did X because I wanted to, not for no reason at all.

What does do harm to the idea of free will is the assertion that a suitably knowledgeable scientist could predict the person's actions today from perfect knowledge of the person's brain-states years earlier along with suitably precise descriptions of the person's environment at that time. That kind of knowledge might give us some idea of the range of actions that will be likely at the later date, given the person's broad personality and what their likely environmental situation might be in the future, but the linkage between A and B will be far looser than the linkage between actions and brain states milliseconds earlier.

If we extend our temporal range back a million years, we probably can't say very much at all about how our subject will behave today apart from predicting what might be possible for a biological organism on planet Earth. (We couldn't even predict that particular individual will exist a million years in the future, let alone what he or she will do.) That's probably going to be true no matter how precisely we know the state of the universe a million years ago.

Pushing it back to the big bang and about all that we can say is what fundamental physics is apt to look like in the distant future (now). Maybe not even that. I doubt that we could predict the appearance of emergents like life. (And who knows what else, elsewhere in the universe? We might just be one data-point pointing towards the universe's amazing fecundity.) We probably would have little or no idea of what might be possible in such a universe even if we knew all the laws of physics and everything's precise initial state.

Quote:Nobel laureate Gerard ‘t Hooft, flatly rules out the possibility of free will. [...] ‘t Hooft’s model assumes the existence of “hidden variables” underlying apparently random quantum behavior. His model leads him to a position called “superdeterminism,” which eliminates ... any hope for free will. Our fates are fixed from the big bang on.

That's one way of saving hard determinism, I guess. Just deny any uncertainty in how things unfold. It may or may not be true, but I sense that it's a metaphysical assumption sneaking in.

Quote:Another authority on cellular automata, Stephen Wolfram, creator of Mathematica and other popular mathematical programs, proposes that free will is possible. [...] He notes that many cellular automata, including the Game of Life, display the property of “computational irreducibility.” That is, you cannot predict in advance what the cellular automata are going to do, you can only watch and see what happens. This unpredictability is compatible with free will, or so Wolfram suggests.

Yes, that's part of the answer, I think.

Quote:To be honest, I have a problem with all these treatments of free will, pro and con. They examine free will within the narrow, reductionistic framework of physics and mathematics, and they equate free will with randomness and unpredictability. My choices, at least important ones, are not random, and they are all too predictable, at least for those who know me.

Exactly. Free will means actions determined by the actor's will. Which in turn is determined by the actor's intentions, understanding, desires and all that. So free-will is not only consistent with local determinism, it requires it.

What free-will is in conflict with is non-local determinism. The idea that the actor's actions weren't the result of the actor's intentions and will, but rather were already determined by the state of the rest of the universe long before the actor ever chose to act.
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#5
Syne Offline
(Feb 15, 2021 06:51 PM)Yazata Wrote:
(Feb 15, 2021 05:45 AM)C C Wrote: EXCERPTS: . . . Of course, the Game of Life can be interpreted in different ways. [...] For example, philosopher Daniel Dennett, commenting on Conway’s invention in the Times, points out that Life’s “higher-order patterns” emerge from processes that are “completely unmysterious and explicable.... No psionic fields, no morphic resonances, no élan vital, no dualism.”

I agree with Dennett about that. The behavior of each cell in the 'Game of Life' is determined by the state of the adjoining cells according to the simple rules that define the game. Psionic fields, morphic resonances, elan vital or substance dualism aren't necessary to explain how the game evolves.

The idea that such 'spooky' things don't exist is Dennett's own gratuitous metaphysical assumption. At best he's arguing that such things are irrelevant for understanding the game of life. So... the whole argument that follows seems to revolve around the assumption that the game of life is a suitably accurate analogy for real biological life here in real reality. Then the whole can-of-worms called 'the problem of free will' is dropped into it like a steaming wet turd with the further assumption that the game of life tells us something valuable about whether or not free will exists.

More so, Dennett has to ignore the system the "game of life" runs on and the creators of both the game and said system. That's a huge amount of complexity completely unaccounted for in his overly simple conclusion.
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#6
Secular Sanity Offline
(Feb 15, 2021 06:51 PM)Yazata Wrote: Exactly. Free will means actions determined by the actor's will. Which in turn is determined by the actor's intentions, understanding, desires and all that. So free-will is not only consistent with local determinism, it requires it.

What free-will is in conflict with is non-local determinism. The idea that the actor's actions weren't the result of the actor's intentions and will, but rather were already determined by the state of the rest of the universe long before the actor ever chose to act.

What about concepts, Yazata?

What if it’s a mistake to think of information as energy that exerts forces? Peter Tse thinks that information is always realized in physical events. For example, take our pattern seeking behavior and how we make models of reality with invisible implications, causation, other minds, etc. Sometimes we’re right, and sometimes we’re really wrong, but do you think that we can think of these added layers of symbolism, abstractions, syntax, and whatnot as emergent properties of freewill?
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#7
Syne Offline
Isn't the exertion of force a physical event? Wouldn't that make our conception of information extraneous? Why would free will be postulated simply in terms of information in the first place? If free will exists, isn't it what utilizes and manipulates information and force to have an impact on physical events?

All abstractions have some basis in the physical world. Concepts like "number" and even "nothing" are symbols of the real world, only generalized rather than specified identities. That abstractions exist or whether they are based on the physical world tells us nothing of free will. If they did, it's only because we subscribe to a supernatural concept of will, that presumes it to violate some abstract "natural" that is as much of an arbitrary distinction as "man-made" being deemed "artificial".
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#8
Secular Sanity Offline
(Feb 16, 2021 05:22 AM)Syne Wrote: Isn't the exertion of force a physical event? Wouldn't that make our conception of information extraneous?

He’s searching for physical evidence for indeterminism because physicalism is the monistic framework within which causality is understood by most scientists and philosophers.

He's referring to the information of a physical system. He goes on in his book "The Neural Basis of Free Will," about energy and phase relationships, neural decoding, receptor cells, the Jennifer Aniston neuron, the working memory and so on.

Syne Wrote:Why would free will be postulated simply in terms of information in the first place? If free will exists, isn't it what utilizes and manipulates information and force to have an impact on physical events?

Yes, I think that's what he's trying to get at but with some type of physical evidence.

Syne Wrote:All abstractions have some basis in the physical world. Concepts like "number" and even "nothing" are symbols of the real world, only generalized rather than specified identities. That abstractions exist or whether they are based on the physical world tells us nothing of free will. If they did, it's only because we subscribe to a supernatural concept of will, that presumes it to violate some abstract "natural" that is as much of an arbitrary distinction as "man-made" being deemed "artificial".

I think what he’s suggesting is that even though abstract entities are immaterial, some of them can still play a causal role, for example when agents use them to decide on their actions.

I wonder though, in regards to a working memory, what if we didn’t have a match to a stored representation in our memory?

Do you think that Clive Wearing, the man with no short-term memory, when offered two foods that he equally likes, would choose the same thing over and over again?

His wife said, "You asked me when I decided to divorce him and when did I decide to leave. It wasn’t really a decision. It was an imperative. There was no way any human being could continue in that way. We had the same dialog in a loop tape, repeated verbatim, with the same inflections, with the same tone of voice and the same expression on the face for the whole nine years, and we were still having that conversation as I was backing out of the room. We’re in a world where there is no time."

He’ll always love her, that’s for damn sure.


https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/T80wIGZSYoc
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#9
Syne Offline
(Feb 16, 2021 05:20 PM)Secular Sanity Wrote: I think what he’s suggesting is that even though abstract entities are immaterial, some of them can still play a causal role, for example when agents use them to decide on their actions.

Certainly, as meaningful choice only exists where there's some reason and intended outcome. Otherwise it's all just random whim, with no more meaning than the unthinking stimulus response of an amoeba. Does that mean the abstractions playing a causal role determine the action? No, but they certainly contribute to the probable outcomes.

Quote:I wonder though, in regards to a working memory, what if we didn’t have a match to a stored representation in our memory?

Do you think that Clive Wearing, the man with no short-term memory, when offered two foods that he equally likes, would choose the same thing over and over again?

Well, since hunger cravings can be influenced by what the body needs, I'd suspect his choice might change. But longstanding routines don't tend to change without some impetus, as there's likely a reason the person made them routines in the first place.
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#10
Ostronomos Offline
Everyone including Yazata,

Super-determinism would imply a perfectly knowable reality. But there are indeed exceptions to this rule. We may venture to ask, what percentage of our will is determined versus what percentage is free. If we are externally coerced then that would be an obvious indication of locality. But Quantum mechanics would be an exception that happens to the few and the far between. 

I can predict short term events and reactions to me while high off weed with near perfect accuracy. But if a human subject sees through it they can alter their behavior accordingly. God is real as indicated by my spiritual experiences due to marijuana in 2012, where a universal consciousness was generated within my immediate environment on multiple occasions. But this does not mean that any of you have the free will to accept it without a logical argument. Hence, I thus conclude that even God himself lacks free will whenever He creates Himself to exist within this universe.

PS ∫x dx
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