[ExI] Cellular automata, downward causation, and libertarian determinism

[Jason Resch]

On Sun, Oct 26, 2025, 3:05 AM Giulio Prisco via extropy-chat <
extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:

> On Sat, Oct 25, 2025 at 1:15 PM Jason Resch via extropy-chat
> <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:
> >
> > Can downwards causation not exist in a universe whose laws are fully
> deterministic?
> >
> > Consider that the neurons push and guide molecules (neurotransmitters)
> around as much as the molecules define the operation of neurons.
> >
> > The illusion that causes work only bottom-up I think stems from taking
> reductionsm too far.
> >
> > If we can do readily admit that molecules tell neurons how to behave,
> why are some so reluctant to admit that neurons can also tell molecules how
> to behave?
> >
> > I think Roger Sperry gives the best treatment of this in his "Mind,
> Brain, and Humanist Values" (
> https://www.informationphilosopher.com/solutions/scientists/sperry/Mind_Brain_and_Humanist_Values.html
> )
> >
> > Jason
> >
>
> Hi Jason. I think it's quite simple: the cosmic operating system
> chooses initial conditions, but is not limited to choose all of them
> at the same time. Rather, the cosmic operating system chooses
> "initial" conditions distributed in time, just like in my little game.
> To us, observers limited by time, the universe appears not
> deterministic. This is equivalent to Nicolas Gisin's intuitionist
> physics. OK, the universe is still deterministic to an observer that
> looks at the global history from outside time. But I think the cosmic
> operating system doesn't make enough choices to fix one unique
> timeline, and this is another, ontological source of nondeterminism.
>

I agree this is a viable answer to the question of no determinism in
physics. If reality consists of a sufficiently large multiverse, then we
can expect a vast plenitude of parallel universe states which are almost
the same, but different only by the position of a single particle, for
example.

Such parallel universes contain identical copies of brain states of all the
conscious observers, however, when any one of those observers attempts to
deeply probe into the state of one of those particles, they will find it
exists in an indeterminate superposition of many possibilities, for the
reason that this same observer mind state exists also in all those parallel
similar universes, where the particle is doing something a little different.

But once the measurement is made, the observer's mind state changes in a
way that partitions the set of similar but not quite identical universe she
is a part of. The observer is said to have "collapsed the wave function"
but really, she has only adjusted her knowledge in a way that changes the
set of universes her mind state is still cool compatible with.

There will be many such partitionings corresponding to each of the possible
outcomes of her measurement, and from her perspective before making the
measurement, the outcome will seem totally random and unpredictable, and it
was, because she is never in a position to know exactly which universe is
in (as her current mind state exists identically within many different
universes).

But all this is aside from my original point, which I don't believe
downwards causation requires indeterminism.


More in my last book (I think I sent it to you?).
> G.
>

What is the title? I do have "Tales of the Turing Church." Or are you
referring to a more recent book?

Jason


> > On Sat, Oct 25, 2025, 1:12 AM Giulio Prisco via extropy-chat <
> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:
> >>
> >> Cellular automata, downward causation, and libertarian determinism
> >> (2). Some more thoughts, and a Sudoku-like game based on cellular
> >> automata.
> >> https://www.turingchurch.com/p/cellular-automata-downward-causation-644
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