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

Mon Oct 27 15:08:12 UTC 2025

On Mon, Oct 27, 2025 at 4:01 PM Jason Resch via extropy-chat
<extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:
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> On Mon, Oct 27, 2025, 10:43 AM Giulio Prisco via extropy-chat <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:
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>> On Mon, Oct 27, 2025 at 3:21 PM Jason Resch via extropy-chat
>> <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:
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>> >
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>> > On Sun, Oct 26, 2025, 11:41 AM Giulio Prisco <giulio at gmail.com> wrote:
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>> >> On Sun, Oct 26, 2025 at 4:20 PM Jason Resch <jasonresch at gmail.com> wrote:
>> >> >
>> >> >
>> >> >
>> >> > On Sun, Oct 26, 2025 at 11:04 AM Giulio Prisco via extropy-chat <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:
>> >> >>
>> >> >> On Sun, Oct 26, 2025 at 3:56 PM Jason Resch via extropy-chat
>> >> >> <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:
>> >> >> >
>> >> >> >
>> >> >> >
>> >> >> > On Sun, Oct 26, 2025 at 10:34 AM Giulio Prisco via extropy-chat <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:
>> >> >> >>
>> >> >> >> On Sun, Oct 26, 2025 at 3:23 PM Jason Resch via extropy-chat
>> >> >> >> <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:
>> >> >> >> >
>> >> >> >> >
>> >> >> >> >
>> >> >> >> > 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.
>> >> >> >> >
>> >> >> >>
>> >> >> >> In fact, in the OP and in my first comment (besides the last point on
>> >> >> >> multiple timelines) I refer to a deterministic universe with one
>> >> >> >> single timeline AND downward causation. But I still think that a
>> >> >> >> universe with multiple timelines provides a stronger type of
>> >> >> >> nondeterminism.
>> >> >> >
>> >> >> >
>> >> >> > Ahh I see, I understand your point more fully now.
>> >> >> >
>> >> >> >>
>> >> >> >>
>> >> >> >> >
>> >> >> >> >> 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?
>> >> >> >> >
>> >> >> >>
>> >> >> >> This one:
>> >> >> >> https://www.turingchurch.com/p/irrational-mechanics
>> >> >> >> You are mentioned in the acknowledgments, because you made useful
>> >> >> >> observations on this list.
>> >> >> >
>> >> >> >
>> >> >> > Oh wow, I appreciate that. I have just ordered the paperback version. ;-)
>> >> >> >
>> >> >>
>> >> >> Thank you! See the discussion on randomness in digital computers
>> >> >> (Chapter 12). I had it in a first draft, then I removed it (who knows
>> >> >> why?), then I put it back after a discussion on this list where you
>> >> >> also made exactly the same point.
>> >> >> G.
>> >> >>
>> >> >
>> >> > Excellent. I somewhat remember this. RNGs and PRNGs are a bit of a fascination of mine. Note that modern chips by Intel, etc. now include an instruction RD_RAND which lets the computer read bits ultimately produced by a hardware RNG (I believe it is a thermo sensor type in practice), which ultimately could be traced to underlying statistical variations quantum mechanical in nature. (I think someone made an argument that even a coin flip by a human can be shown to be ultimately quantum-mechanically random, due to how the exact force of the flip, and interaction with air molecules, etc. influence the final result).
>> >> >
>> >> > But I don't think there is any specialness of quantum mechanically random events. Let's say you get a quantum mechanical random value 1 (instead of 0) and use that to drive some process. Is it any different than had you forked the process, and provided 1 to one instance, and 0 to the other instance? I don't see how it leads to any difference, and indeed there is some result that shows what can be computed by a probabilistic Turing machine is no different than what can be computed by a deterministic Turing machine. Do the forked processes not have free will, while the quantum determined random variable process does have free will? I am not sure I see that.
>> >> >
>> >> > Jason
>> >>
>> >> Here's what I say in the book:
>> >>
>> >> "...Digital computers participate in the self-consistent loop that is
>> >> the universe. And contrary to what I used to think, digital computers
>> >> are not fully deterministic systems. The operations of a digital
>> >> computer are often driven by true random numbers generated by suitable
>> >> hardware (as opposed to pseudo-random numbers generated by software,
>> >> which are fully deterministic).
>> >> GPT has an input parameter called temperature that can be tuned to
>> >> introduce randomness, and it appears that allowing for some randomness
>> >> results in better outputs [Foster 2023, Wolfram 2023]. So if GPT runs
>> >> on a digital computer with, say, quantum hardware generation of true
>> >> random numbers, then exactly the same things that I said about quantum
>> >> weirdness in the brain can be said about GPT.
>> >> Digital computers receive inputs from the rest of the world. An
>> >> external input very close to a threshold can fall randomly on one or
>> >> the other side of the edge between two different branches of a
>> >> decision tree...."
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> > I agree with all of the above.
>> >
>> >>
>> >> I'm open to the idea that non-quantum hardware for randomness
>> >> generation (e.g. based on strong fractal chaos - parallels with
>> >> Gisin's ideas again) can be equivalent to quantum randomness
>> >> generation for the purpose of free will.
>> >
>> >
>> > Here is the part I would like to challenge.
>> >
>> > Quantum randomness is fundamentally unpredictable -- but only from our perspective as beings bound within the branching structure of the wave function.
>> >
>> > For a God's-eye view of this reality, no such randomness exists, there is merely, this history where X happens, and that history where U happens.
>> >
>> > Correct me if I am mistaken, but I think we agree on this so far.
>> >
>> > Now for the twist: you could similarly arrange a computer simulation which splits (or forks) where distinct outcomes happen.
>> >
>> > From this outside-the-simulation perspective, nothing random happens. However, from the perspective of any consciousness beings within such a simulation, the outcome is fundamentally unpredictable.
>> >
>> > Imagine a ball in this simulation which can appear either red or green. Every second that elapses in the simulation, the simulation process forks, and if the return value of the form is 1, the ball turns green, and if it is 0, it turns red. After 10 seconds, you now have 1024 distinct histories of this ball seeming to change to red or green variously, and how or why it changes is not determinable by any fact or state of anything within this simulation.
>> >
>> > So what this suggests to me is that whether something is fundamentally random/unpredictable is a matter of perspective. And in the full reality, from the top level perspective over everything, there is no real randomness.
>> >
>> > Do you agree with this, or do you think the kind of randomness in quantum mechanics is still truly random, even from the top-level God's-eye survey over all the branches of the multiverse?
>> >
>>
>> Well if there are even only two branches, not even a superobserver at
>> the top-level God's-eye can know which one is followed instead of the
>> other, because both are followed! The question is not well posed.
>> G.
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> But then, my question would be: is the forking process on a computer simulation not symmetrical with the forking branches of a quantum multiverse?
>

I don't see why not.

> And if they are symmetrical, what would that imply for free will of the simulated beings within the forking process?
>

If there is a forking and the history after the forking is not
uniquely determined by the history before the forking, then something
is behaving in a way that is ontologically indistinguishable from free
will.

> Would their free will be of the same class and caliber as we who live in a quantum multiverse?
>

My first reaction is that, again, I don't see why not. Thinking...

> Jason
>
>
>>
>> > Jason
>> >
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