[ExI] Randomness and Free will

[Jason Resch]

Changing subjects from the previous thread:

On Wed, Nov 12, 2025, 6:57 PM Adrian Tymes via extropy-chat <
extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:

> On Wed, Nov 12, 2025 at 6:53 PM Jason Resch via extropy-chat
> <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:
> > Not to mention, it's irrational to reason backwards from what one wants
> to be true.
>
> On this we wholeheartedly agree.  And yet, it's what I keep running into.
>

Regarding free will, you previously said there may be some true randomness
in the universe.

Do you think true randomness is required for free will, or are you a
compatibilist (free will is can exist in a universe which has no randomness
at all)?

And finally, if you do believe in randomness, what form do you see it
taking:

- Events in the universe that don't have causes (i.e. "God playing dice")

- Hidden variables which we cannot in principle access (QM is incomplete)

- Unpredictability arising from chaos combined with incomplete or imperfect
information (Like my deterministic simulation example, or how pseudorandom
number generators work)

- Self-locating uncertainty in the face of duplication (Many worlds's
answer, or "Tegmark's cloned while sleeping" example)

- The "un-anticibility" (for lack of a better word) of computationally
irreducible processes (e.g. Wolfram's answer, that we can't always predict
what complex computer program will do until it does it)

- Something non-algorithmic (or hypercomputation) exists in physics (e.g.
like Penrose and his quantum gravity speculations)

- Libertarian free will (i.e., the brain's will breaks free from or is
independent of the ordinary determinism of the physical laws).

- (something else)?

Jason
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.extropy.org/pipermail/extropy-chat/attachments/20251113/ad158863/attachment.htm>