[ExI] Randomness and Free will

[Giulio Prisco]

On Thu, Nov 13, 2025 at 12:25 PM Jason Resch via extropy-chat
<extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:
>
> 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.
>

At times, irrationality is the smartest attitude.

>
> 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)
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> - 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
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