Free-Will in a Deterministic Universe.
A summary of my thoughts on free-will:
- Any creative process involves variation and selection. Neo-Darwinian theory of natural selection is a particular example of creativity. Creativity does not necessarily require a conscious mind. For e.g., the universe can be creative without there being a conscious mind.
- Creativity is a fundamental aspect of the universe (or multiverse), in that novelty (creation) is unpredictable even in principle, but it is consistent with determinism when we look at how the atoms and fields evolve i.e., motion of subatomic particles is explicable in terms of laws of nature.
- Laws of physics do not include causality. That does not mean that such a thing does not exist, but it means that causal relations are different but compatible with laws of physics. Dynamical laws of physics, which are time reversal invariant, do not care about causal relations.
- Laws of physics do not cause my future actions. My actions are determined at the level of ideas/memes created in my brain.
- Memes are part of me and are not separate from my mind. My ideas are part of my “self” or “I”, but we do not understand creativity (yet) so its hard to know what else constitutes the self. For example, is continuity part of the self? Does qualia play a role and if so how and what are they? I have some vague conjectures, but I do not know. As of now, these are open problems.
- People who hold the mistaken view that reductionism is the most fundamental explanation and that all other explanations are just a useful way of talking about things also hold the view that self is an illusion. (Sean Carrol presents such a view in his book “The Big Picture”). My view is that high level explanations are the “only” way to talk about certain things that we call emergent phenomenon.
- Reductionism is a bad explanation for all emergent phenomenon because it cannot explain why or how for e.g., I made the choice of not eating dessert today. There is no information of why I made this choice at the level of my atoms or molecules or even genetics even if my genes might dispose me to being more attracted to sugary foods. This information is at the level of explanatory knowledge created in my brain and the knowledge is part of my “self” or “I” and not separate from it. Causality is not part of fundamental physics and there is not reason to assume that laws of physics cause my choices. But there are good reasons to think that my choices are caused by the knowledge created in my brain.
- Reductionism relies on a very special initial condition of the universe to explain why there are emergent level relations because the world did not have to be this way and to simply accept a special initial condition is to give up on explanations and that means subscribing to supernatural. One can think of all sorts of logically possible worlds and our world appears to be one of an infinite number of such possibilities. I think that we can figure out why our universe is the way it is, but I do not think the answer can come from a reductionist explanation. I think that the answer might come from cosmology. Even the toy model of the universe (such as the one presented by Julian Barbour) strip the universe of its relational content and while they may be successful at capturing certain relational aspects of the world, it misses out pretty much most of it. While such models will help us in physics, I do not think that we will have a theory of creativity emerge out of them.
- I think that evolutionary cosmology has the potential to provide a good explanation for why the world is the way it is, and it can only be that way if we see creativity as the most fundamental aspect of reality and creativity goes hand in hand with novelty. Creativity is deeply related to time and the process of evolution via variation and selection. This principle does not just apply to evolution of life but in its more general form can apply at the level of cosmology – this is the basis of the creative aspect of the universe (or multiverse)
- The human mind is a creative entity and what an individual mind does, can only be explained by the knowledge it creates. Merely saying it is a knowledge creator does not tell us what an individual might do next. The individual mind creates/solves the problem of what the person is going to do next! This is what I call free-will. Free-will is basically a name for the novel nature of the mind. Animals do not have free will because they only act on instinctual knowledge but humans (and other life forms with the same ability) can create new explanatory knowledge and hence are in the process of becoming something new.
- To have free-will does not mean that we freely do what-ever. It means the freedom from the slavery of genes and instincts. Our knowledge creating ability has freed us from the confines of our genes. Therefore, we are also moral creatures because we can create moral knowledge as well. We are also able to create aesthetic knowledge which enables us to recognize and create beauty.
- If we live in a creative universe, then humans will be able to participate in its creativity to make it more beautiful and moral. In the distant future, the universe might bear the seal of the knowledge creators more than any other natural process.
- If we live in a branching Everettian multiverse then our presence in this universe might constraint the branches in this universe. These last two points are highly speculative because we are bound by the laws of physics but if the laws of physics evolve or change over time, could we somehow become the selectors in the creation of new universe which are better than this one. Who knows what we are capable of but at least for now, we know that we can create a better (more moral and beautiful) planet for all humans – that would be a good starting point!
Here are some detailed thoughts. I plan on writing more about beauty, truth, morality, and their relation in other essays. I skipped the details to keep this essay from becoming too long.
Why do we think that we have free-will?
When we compare ourselves to other animals, we realize that we have a freedom that they do not. Animals seem to mostly react to their environment based on the instinctual knowledge programmed as an adaptation to solve specific problems related to their interaction with their environment. Evolution of life in general, at some point led to an adaption that created an ability to ask questions and to find their solution with no bounds – let us call this the creation of open-ended knowledge. This happened in humans, (and possibly in our non-homo sapiens ancestors which have gone extinct) and we have not only discovered distant starts (Suns) but we ask and figure out how they evolve. We have created and tackled questions about infinity and have made claims about certain infinities being bigger than others by creating good explanations. And much of this curiosity driven knowledge creation seem to have no immediate survival utility. We ask questions about ethics, morality, and aesthetics. Not too long ago we figured out somethings about knowledge and its creation – this started what we now call the age of enlightenment because prior to that we were mostly generalizing from our observations and creating rules of thumbs which only worked by pure luck.
Knowledge creation, in short, is an evolutionary process – it is similar to biological evolutions but with some important differences. Process of knowledge creation works as follows: ideas are varied to create new conjectures towards solving a problem or set of problems and the selection is in the form of criticism whereby rival conjectures/theories find themselves competing against each other and the ones that are more successful at solving the problems are kept and built upon. The process also leads to new problems and sometimes old conjectures can be re-invoked in new ways as a variant of the old ones.
Humans and other possible knowledge creators like us, which might include future artificial (general) intelligence AGI are different from other animals in that the explanation behind our actions has transcended the level of genes/DNA. To fully understand our actions, one must also consider memes (see note 1). Some memes are static in that, when they take hold of the brain of a knowledge creator, they restrict the knowledge creation process to solving only a limited domain of problems. e.g., Spartans mostly devoted their energy to creating better weapons and battle strategies but did not care about improving knowledge in philosophy, ethics, morality, and aesthetics etc. They operated on a set moral foundation which revolved around an honor system. They valued good soldiers; particularly those who sacrificed their lives for the honor of their society received the highest praise.
Static memes (SM) can be understood by comparing them to viruses which have the information to get themselves replicated by taking hold of host’s cells. SMs, in the form of ideas/theories can take hold of a human mind through cultural pressures and contain the information to keep themselves replicated and protected by causing the holder to use violence against anyone who threaten the memes. All ideologies fall in this category. SM can give some benefits to the carriers, whom I am going to refer to as believers, in that it can help them progress in specialized areas, which in turn can give them an upper hand against those who threaten the believers and the memes. For example, Spartans might have caused the fall of Athens because of their superior military knowledge and thereby also protected the SMs that represented their culture.
Now consider another meme - the one that supports an open-ended growth of knowledge. Interestingly this is also a static meme, but it is quite different in nature from all other static memes. This is the only meme that represents a dynamic society- i.e., one which aspires to an open-ended growth of knowledge - I call it the “truth seeking meme” (TSM). TSM can creep into the minds of individuals when they confront problem solving and once it takes a hold, it can set the person free from all other static memes. The freedom does not happen overnight, and the process can be slow. This meme is the best at survival because it creates the value of an open-ended growth of knowledge. There is no guarantee that its carriers would survive against attacks by other static meme carriers but on the long run, TSM can give an upper-hand or an advantage. We constantly face a changing environment which presents us with new problems, requiring novel solutions or new approaches to solve problems. Only traditions driven by TSM take risks into the unknown and thereby opening themselves to the possibility of solving new problems.
Now back to Free-will. Human brain is one place (others being possible AGI and intelligent aliens) where TSM can be created. TSM imparts a freedom to the holder in that it gives its holder moral and aesthetic freedom. It allows its carriers to discover new values and also create a more beautiful and more moral world. While its a freedom in the sense that it paves the way for the creation of open-ended growth of knowledge, interestingly, its constraints the world in specific ways because one of the principles of morality is that it is immoral to prevent the growth of knowledge and only TSM allows its carriers to discover this principle. Each discovery refines the intuition of the knowledge creator thereby refining our searches - this is sometimes captured in the statement “truth is beautiful”. Morality and aesthetic knowledge are improved upon, which in turn guides us to create more knowledge by opening us to new avenues.
Clearly TSM is something quite different from other static memes in that they all restrict the carriers in growing and flourishing beyond a certain point and can eventually lead to the extinction of the society that carries them because of being unable to solve new problems that do not fit in the framework that serves as a prison set by SMs. TSM can lure traditions with other SMs because we all want to solve problems and individuals who venture a bit into this direction can become lured by the TSM because of the value that it creates which is tied to its beauty. Yes, TSM is beautiful, just as truth is beautiful.
I think that our universe is creative at its core in the sense that the evolutionary (creative) process of variation and selections did not just happen in the creation of life but might have played a role at the level of cosmology. Lee Smolin presented a theory where he applies evolutionary principle to cosmology whereby blackholes are conjectured to create universes and the parent universe present the selection criteria (see note 2). It’s been a while since I looked at his theory so I will share details in another essay, but could it be possible that we live in a universe that is the best of all logically possible worlds - the best one being those that allow an open-ended growth of knowledge hence also being in line with the moral principle mentioned earlier in the essay – note that I applied moral principle to the universe so obviously I am using a moral general concept of morality than most people do. I am tying it directly to knowledge rather than the knowledge creator. I will also write about this in detail in another essay after revisiting Smolin’s Theory. But for now, let’s imaging that we live in the best of all possible worlds – i.e., one that creates an open-ended growth of knowledge. Such universe/s would allow an open-ended creation of beauty and novelty. Humans are the only life form on planet Earth that have the ability to do that. One day we might find others (aliens) that have the same ability and while we might have different culture, we will agree (once we are able to understand each other) to the same moral principle. In the distant future, the universe (or multiverse) might bear the seal of this phenomena (knowledge creating process) that was birthed by the universe. While the multiverse might select for universes that are open-ended, we might be the only life form that can do what the universes do by using the same process (variation and selection) that operates at the cosmic level. Who knows what the future holds and the only way to find out is to support the open-ended growth of knowledge!
So, the free-will is consistent with determinism in the sense that it is consistent with the laws of physics, but such laws do not determine what I will do next. While the TSM directs our tradition in a specific direction, that cannot help us determine what to do next. Only knowledge created in our brains (which is part of the “I”) can determine the next step. It also turns around and reflect on its own nature and in that, it not only recognizes its own beauty and that of the cosmos but is also seduced in creating more of it. I think this is the very reason why we want to create AGI. This is the reason why we want to know about things which may not immediately have any practical value. It is because we are seekers of truth and truth is beautiful and seductive.
P.S: There are many things I omitted from this article to prevent it from getting too long. In plan to write other essays to explain what I mean by “Truth is beautiful”. I also plan to write an essay on Lee Smolin’s evolutionary Cosmology and perhaps even bring other ideas into the mix.
I also want to write about the failure of reductionism at tackling problems at the level if emergent phenomenon.
Note1: Meme: an element of a culture or system of behavior that may be considered to be passed from one individual to another by nongenetic means, especially imitation. (definition from Google dictionary)
Note 2: This essay has derived inspiration from the writings of many people such as Lee Smolin, David Deutsch, Julian Barbour, Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, and many others that I cannot recall but who might have contributed to my thoughts.
A summary of my thoughts on free-will:
- Any creative process involves variation and selection. Neo-Darwinian theory of natural selection is a particular example of creativity. Creativity does not necessarily require a conscious mind. For e.g., the universe can be creative without there being a conscious mind.
- Creativity is a fundamental aspect of the universe (or multiverse), in that novelty (creation) is unpredictable even in principle, but it is consistent with determinism when we look at how the atoms and fields evolve i.e., motion of subatomic particles is explicable in terms of laws of nature.
- Laws of physics do not include causality. That does not mean that such a thing does not exist, but it means that causal relations are different but compatible with laws of physics. Dynamical laws of physics, which are time reversal invariant, do not care about causal relations.
- Laws of physics do not cause my future actions. My actions are determined at the level of ideas/memes created in my brain.
- Memes are part of me and are not separate from my mind. My ideas are part of my “self” or “I”, but we do not understand creativity (yet) so its hard to know what else constitutes the self. For example, is continuity part of the self? Does qualia play a role and if so how and what are they? I have some vague conjectures, but I do not know. As of now, these are open problems.
- People who hold the mistaken view that reductionism is the most fundamental explanation and that all other explanations are just a useful way of talking about things also hold the view that self is an illusion. (Sean Carrol presents such a view in his book “The Big Picture”). My view is that high level explanations are the “only” way to talk about certain things that we call emergent phenomenon.
- Reductionism is a bad explanation for all emergent phenomenon because it cannot explain why or how for e.g., I made the choice of not eating dessert today. There is no information of why I made this choice at the level of my atoms or molecules or even genetics even if my genes might dispose me to being more attracted to sugary foods. This information is at the level of explanatory knowledge created in my brain and the knowledge is part of my “self” or “I” and not separate from it. Causality is not part of fundamental physics and there is not reason to assume that laws of physics cause my choices. But there are good reasons to think that my choices are caused by the knowledge created in my brain.
- Reductionism relies on a very special initial condition of the universe to explain why there are emergent level relations because the world did not have to be this way and to simply accept a special initial condition is to give up on explanations and that means subscribing to supernatural. One can think of all sorts of logically possible worlds and our world appears to be one of an infinite number of such possibilities. I think that we can figure out why our universe is the way it is, but I do not think the answer can come from a reductionist explanation. I think that the answer might come from cosmology. Even the toy model of the universe (such as the one presented by Julian Barbour) strip the universe of its relational content and while they may be successful at capturing certain relational aspects of the world, it misses out pretty much most of it. While such models will help us in physics, I do not think that we will have a theory of creativity emerge out of them.
- I think that evolutionary cosmology has the potential to provide a good explanation for why the world is the way it is, and it can only be that way if we see creativity as the most fundamental aspect of reality and creativity goes hand in hand with novelty. Creativity is deeply related to time and the process of evolution via variation and selection. This principle does not just apply to evolution of life but in its more general form can apply at the level of cosmology – this is the basis of the creative aspect of the universe (or multiverse)
- The human mind is a creative entity and what an individual mind does, can only be explained by the knowledge it creates. Merely saying it is a knowledge creator does not tell us what an individual might do next. The individual mind creates/solves the problem of what the person is going to do next! This is what I call free-will. Free-will is basically a name for the novel nature of the mind. Animals do not have free will because they only act on instinctual knowledge but humans (and other life forms with the same ability) can create new explanatory knowledge and hence are in the process of becoming something new.
- To have free-will does not mean that we freely do what-ever. It means the freedom from the slavery of genes and instincts. Our knowledge creating ability has freed us from the confines of our genes. Therefore, we are also moral creatures because we can create moral knowledge as well. We are also able to create aesthetic knowledge which enables us to recognize and create beauty.
- If we live in a creative universe, then humans will be able to participate in its creativity to make it more beautiful and moral. In the distant future, the universe might bear the seal of the knowledge creators more than any other natural process.
- If we live in a branching Everettian multiverse then our presence in this universe might constraint the branches in this universe. These last two points are highly speculative because we are bound by the laws of physics but if the laws of physics evolve or change over time, could we somehow become the selectors in the creation of new universe which are better than this one. Who knows what we are capable of but at least for now, we know that we can create a better (more moral and beautiful) planet for all humans – that would be a good starting point!
Here are some detailed thoughts. I plan on writing more about beauty, truth, morality, and their relation in other essays. I skipped the details to keep this essay from becoming too long.
Why do we think that we have free-will?
When we compare ourselves to other animals, we realize that we have a freedom that they do not. Animals seem to mostly react to their environment based on the instinctual knowledge programmed as an adaptation to solve specific problems related to their interaction with their environment. Evolution of life in general, at some point led to an adaption that created an ability to ask questions and to find their solution with no bounds – let us call this the creation of open-ended knowledge. This happened in humans, (and possibly in our non-homo sapiens ancestors which have gone extinct) and we have not only discovered distant starts (Suns) but we ask and figure out how they evolve. We have created and tackled questions about infinity and have made claims about certain infinities being bigger than others by creating good explanations. And much of this curiosity driven knowledge creation seem to have no immediate survival utility. We ask questions about ethics, morality, and aesthetics. Not too long ago we figured out somethings about knowledge and its creation – this started what we now call the age of enlightenment because prior to that we were mostly generalizing from our observations and creating rules of thumbs which only worked by pure luck.
Knowledge creation, in short, is an evolutionary process – it is similar to biological evolutions but with some important differences. Process of knowledge creation works as follows: ideas are varied to create new conjectures towards solving a problem or set of problems and the selection is in the form of criticism whereby rival conjectures/theories find themselves competing against each other and the ones that are more successful at solving the problems are kept and built upon. The process also leads to new problems and sometimes old conjectures can be re-invoked in new ways as a variant of the old ones.
Humans and other possible knowledge creators like us, which might include future artificial (general) intelligence AGI are different from other animals in that the explanation behind our actions has transcended the level of genes/DNA. To fully understand our actions, one must also consider memes (see note 1). Some memes are static in that, when they take hold of the brain of a knowledge creator, they restrict the knowledge creation process to solving only a limited domain of problems. e.g., Spartans mostly devoted their energy to creating better weapons and battle strategies but did not care about improving knowledge in philosophy, ethics, morality, and aesthetics etc. They operated on a set moral foundation which revolved around an honor system. They valued good soldiers; particularly those who sacrificed their lives for the honor of their society received the highest praise.
Static memes (SM) can be understood by comparing them to viruses which have the information to get themselves replicated by taking hold of host’s cells. SMs, in the form of ideas/theories can take hold of a human mind through cultural pressures and contain the information to keep themselves replicated and protected by causing the holder to use violence against anyone who threaten the memes. All ideologies fall in this category. SM can give some benefits to the carriers, whom I am going to refer to as believers, in that it can help them progress in specialized areas, which in turn can give them an upper hand against those who threaten the believers and the memes. For example, Spartans might have caused the fall of Athens because of their superior military knowledge and thereby also protected the SMs that represented their culture.
Now consider another meme - the one that supports an open-ended growth of knowledge. Interestingly this is also a static meme, but it is quite different in nature from all other static memes. This is the only meme that represents a dynamic society- i.e., one which aspires to an open-ended growth of knowledge - I call it the “truth seeking meme” (TSM). TSM can creep into the minds of individuals when they confront problem solving and once it takes a hold, it can set the person free from all other static memes. The freedom does not happen overnight, and the process can be slow. This meme is the best at survival because it creates the value of an open-ended growth of knowledge. There is no guarantee that its carriers would survive against attacks by other static meme carriers but on the long run, TSM can give an upper-hand or an advantage. We constantly face a changing environment which presents us with new problems, requiring novel solutions or new approaches to solve problems. Only traditions driven by TSM take risks into the unknown and thereby opening themselves to the possibility of solving new problems.
Now back to Free-will. Human brain is one place (others being possible AGI and intelligent aliens) where TSM can be created. TSM imparts a freedom to the holder in that it gives its holder moral and aesthetic freedom. It allows its carriers to discover new values and also create a more beautiful and more moral world. While its a freedom in the sense that it paves the way for the creation of open-ended growth of knowledge, interestingly, its constraints the world in specific ways because one of the principles of morality is that it is immoral to prevent the growth of knowledge and only TSM allows its carriers to discover this principle. Each discovery refines the intuition of the knowledge creator thereby refining our searches - this is sometimes captured in the statement “truth is beautiful”. Morality and aesthetic knowledge are improved upon, which in turn guides us to create more knowledge by opening us to new avenues.
Clearly TSM is something quite different from other static memes in that they all restrict the carriers in growing and flourishing beyond a certain point and can eventually lead to the extinction of the society that carries them because of being unable to solve new problems that do not fit in the framework that serves as a prison set by SMs. TSM can lure traditions with other SMs because we all want to solve problems and individuals who venture a bit into this direction can become lured by the TSM because of the value that it creates which is tied to its beauty. Yes, TSM is beautiful, just as truth is beautiful.
I think that our universe is creative at its core in the sense that the evolutionary (creative) process of variation and selections did not just happen in the creation of life but might have played a role at the level of cosmology. Lee Smolin presented a theory where he applies evolutionary principle to cosmology whereby blackholes are conjectured to create universes and the parent universe present the selection criteria (see note 2). It’s been a while since I looked at his theory so I will share details in another essay, but could it be possible that we live in a universe that is the best of all logically possible worlds - the best one being those that allow an open-ended growth of knowledge hence also being in line with the moral principle mentioned earlier in the essay – note that I applied moral principle to the universe so obviously I am using a moral general concept of morality than most people do. I am tying it directly to knowledge rather than the knowledge creator. I will also write about this in detail in another essay after revisiting Smolin’s Theory. But for now, let’s imaging that we live in the best of all possible worlds – i.e., one that creates an open-ended growth of knowledge. Such universe/s would allow an open-ended creation of beauty and novelty. Humans are the only life form on planet Earth that have the ability to do that. One day we might find others (aliens) that have the same ability and while we might have different culture, we will agree (once we are able to understand each other) to the same moral principle. In the distant future, the universe (or multiverse) might bear the seal of this phenomena (knowledge creating process) that was birthed by the universe. While the multiverse might select for universes that are open-ended, we might be the only life form that can do what the universes do by using the same process (variation and selection) that operates at the cosmic level. Who knows what the future holds and the only way to find out is to support the open-ended growth of knowledge!
So, the free-will is consistent with determinism in the sense that it is consistent with the laws of physics, but such laws do not determine what I will do next. While the TSM directs our tradition in a specific direction, that cannot help us determine what to do next. Only knowledge created in our brains (which is part of the “I”) can determine the next step. It also turns around and reflect on its own nature and in that, it not only recognizes its own beauty and that of the cosmos but is also seduced in creating more of it. I think this is the very reason why we want to create AGI. This is the reason why we want to know about things which may not immediately have any practical value. It is because we are seekers of truth and truth is beautiful and seductive.
P.S: There are many things I omitted from this article to prevent it from getting too long. In plan to write other essays to explain what I mean by “Truth is beautiful”. I also plan to write an essay on Lee Smolin’s evolutionary Cosmology and perhaps even bring other ideas into the mix.
I also want to write about the failure of reductionism at tackling problems at the level if emergent phenomenon.
Note1: Meme: an element of a culture or system of behavior that may be considered to be passed from one individual to another by nongenetic means, especially imitation. (definition from Google dictionary)
Note 2: This essay has derived inspiration from the writings of many people such as Lee Smolin, David Deutsch, Julian Barbour, Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, and many others that I cannot recall but who might have contributed to my thoughts.