Ostronomos
Well-Known Member
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.
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.