A real example strong emergence is needed, if there is one. The liquidity is because the tiny hydrogen atoms roll around and also roam between (as ions) the much larger oxygen atoms. — PoeticUniverse

OK. I'll admit that "wetness" is a qualia, not a quanta. But "liquidity" is a measurable physical difference (e.g. viscosity) between gas, solid & liquid forms of H2O. Maybe that's why Fish don't know they are wet : their scientists haven't studied their environment philosophically in terms of Qualia. :joke:

Emergence: A unifying theme for 21st century science :
"Examples of emergent behavior are everywhere around us, from birds flocking, fireflies synchronizing, ants colonizing, fish schooling, individuals self-organizing into neighborhoods in cities – all with no leaders or central control – to the Big Bang, the formation of galaxies and stars and planets, . . ."
https://medium.com/sfi-30-foundations-frontiers/emergence-a-unifying-theme-for-21st-century-science-4324ac0f951e
Note 1 -- this article is from the Santa Fe Institute for Complexity Science : dedicated to the multidisciplinary study of the fundamental principles of "complex adaptive systems", including physical, computational, biological, and social systems. This is where I get a lot of my information about cutting edge science, that might not be common knowledge.

Note 2 -- In my understanding, Consciousness is an emergent quality of the complex adaptive system we call the "Brain". You can't measure it physically, but you infer it rationally. Some scientists tried to measure Einstein's brain to see what made him so smart. But, that was futile, like trying to measure the weight of a Soul.

Great work. — Garrett Travers

Thanks. But you might not agree with some of my Poetic & Philosophical speculations on controversial topics such as Consciousness & Free Will. :smile:

Would a non determined spontaneous will choice count as free? — PoeticUniverse

Yes. That's what I referred to in the blog review as "Un-scripted". The analogy is to actors improvising their character's lines & gestures within the constraints of the director's general plot. I view that as an example of Freedom within Determinism. Nature sets the stage and establishes a general direction for evolution, but intelligent Actors (free agents) are able to do their own character development. As in life, the result is often absurd & comedic, due to the lack of pre-determined structure. :smile:

BTW, in your videos, are any of your characters, spouting sagely aphorisms, free to create their own dialog? Or are you a tyrannical deterministic creator? :joke:


“The mind is a kind of theatre . . .” ___David Hume
Unlike stage actors, with a script, freewill agents are ad-libbing their roles, by reacting to the changing scenario. The playwright merely places characters in a situation, then allows them to improvise and extemporize, based on each character’s individual traits. We learn bits about the other characters, and about the plot, by inter-acting. The playwright has left us free to create a unique role for ourselves.
BothAnd Blog, post 122

Improvisational theatre, often called improvisation or improv, is the form of theatre, often comedy, in which most or all of what is performed is unplanned or unscripted: created spontaneously by the performers. Wikipedia

'Free won't' is just the usual subconscious neural 'voting' that comes from another part of the brain will than did the initial proposal. — PoeticUniverse

Yes, but that other "part" of the brain is not a physical Location ; it's the holistic governing Function we call the "Conscience" or the "Super-Ego". It's function is not to control body parts, but to guide the whole system of parts known as the "Self" or "the captain of my soul". And its commands are the only "votes" that we are consciously aware of. So the subconscious crew has no choice but to say "aye, aye sir". :halo:

Bingo. I've spent days in another thread providing a LITANY of scientific studies that show there is no evidence that suggests this isn't the case. — Garrett Travers

I assume that "this" refers to the poetic & religious notions of human autonomy & moral agency that are rejected as wishful thinking by some philosophical & scientific thinkers. But, their reductionist policy regarding Nature-studies tends to exclude such holistic phenomena as the feeling of personal freedom. They don't find such evidence, because they are not looking for it. So, I don't know where you found a "litany of scientific studies" in favor of freedom from determinism.

However, the book that inspired this revival of the FreeWill thread, does present a plethora of scientific evidence against human autonomy. Since their minds are already made-up though, few posters here have read the referenced book, or even the book review on my blog. But there is one side-note in the review that links to an article by Scientific American magazine blogger John Horgan : Free Will is Real. There, he interprets the scientific evidence, if not proving moral freedom, at least not proving that causal immunity is impossible.

So, it's usually left up to theoretical philosophers to prove by argumentation, not evidence, that humans have evolved some independence from Deterministic natural laws. In the article, Horgan confesses that "I can live without God, but I need free will. Without free will life makes no sense, it lacks meaning. So I’m always on the lookout for strong, clear arguments for free will." That's why he interviewed a philosopher who has made a study of scientific evidence, and concluded that "Free Will is Real". Which is the title of his book linked below. :smile:


Free Will Is Real :
Philosopher Christian List argues against reductionism and determinism in accounts of the mind
https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/cross-check/free-will-is-real/

Why Free Will Is Real :
List makes the case that free will is real by responding to the three key objections typically proposed in the philosophical literature through the central insight that free will should be considered a ‘higher-level’ psychological phenomenon.
https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/lsereviewofbooks/2020/04/03/long-read-review-why-free-will-is-real-by-christian-list/

:lol:

If not determinism, then what? Randomness, an easy answer, but we don't want that, do we?

How about a stochastic universe? Then both randomness and determinism can exist.

Consider a case with two, and only two, possible outcomes. Randomness occurs when the probabilities of the outcomes are equal (50% each). Determinism occurs when the probability of one of the outcomes is 100%. A stochastic universe allows for these and anything in between.

:up: My thoughts exactly. I don't know why this seems so hard to grasp.

It's like, either you can publish absolutely anything whatever without let or hindrance, on the one hand, or everything you publish is subject to dictatorial censorship on the other - whereas the reality is neither of these extremes.

Indeed, randomness & determinism can simultaneously be true of the universe, but my point was that neither by itself or a combination of the two fulfill the criterion of free will.

Come to think of it, there's a paradox contained in the notion of free will: To be able to do what one wants, determinism is a sine qua non; in the same sentence, one wants determinism to be false.

Why Free Will Is Real : — Gnomon

I argue that agency, choice, and control are emergent, higher-level phenomena,

Hope so!

I just moved my coffee so I can't knock it over.

OK 'God' is not, but the Eternal Basis may have a way of coming up with something workable although not ideal, which we have to figure out, which may help out with the 'free' quandary of free will. — PoeticUniverse

Yes. Several philosophers, over the ages, have concluded that, in order for anything temporal & temporary to exist, something stable & eternal must exist unconditionally. Ironically, for the Greeks, the notion of conditional space-time came long before we obtained evidence that even the physical universe had a beginning, and will eventually fade away into non-being. For example, Heraclitus ("panta rhei") referred to this ultimate perfection as the "'Absolute' -- the all-inclusive whole or unity that underlies everything -- exists in the unity of opposites, first as a 'Being", and secondly as a constant 'Becoming'" (Philosophy Now, Dec - Jan). Like Plato and Aristotle, Heraclitus didn't refer to this "eternal" essence as a humanoid god, but as an abstract principle (law of laws) of existence.

In my own Enformationism thesis, I came to the same conclusion, but from a different direction. The weird sciences of Quantum & Information, were begging for an Absolute Ground to make sense of the counter-intuitive aspects of "the most successful theory ever formulated". So, borrowing from those ancient intuitions, I began to refer to my "Ground of all Being", with the traditional terms : BEING, LOGOS, and Universal Substance. However, in deference to the most common tradition, I also added the ambiguous label "G*D", to more completely cover the multi-faceted role of what the Information-based thesis proposed : "the Enformer", or "the Programmer". I even equate the "Absolute" with Eastern notions of impersonal "Brahma", and abstract "Tao". Like Infinity & Zero, these absolutes encompass every possibility. So, a simple non-theological description might be just plain "ALL". And a worldview based on that integrated & unified principle is known as Holism.

Heraclitus, also anticipated the Eastern notion of Yin-Yang in his concept of "unity of opposites". This is a way of reconciling all dichotomies by merging antithetical polar opposites into a synthesis of Unity (the One). For example, Hegel, lecturing on Heraclitus explained his notion of Unified Identity : "Subjectivity is the opposite of Objectivity, and since each is the 'other' of the 'other". He went on to assert that "thought itself is the true Being". And in the 21st century, we could substitute shape-shifting "Enformation" (energy / matter + life / mind) as a modern version of ancient Logos and Tao. Like abstract Energy, we don't know what BEING is, only what it does : cause beings & things to exist, and to desist.

Since "Absolute BEING" encompasses all possibilities, including Positive & Negative, Freedom & Determinism, the Yin-Yang notion of Freedom within Determinism could suggest a solution to the "free quandary" in a cause & effect world. Randomness explores all possibilities, but Selection chooses what becomes Actual. :nerd:

UNITY OF OPPOSITES INCLUDES
FREEDOM AND DETERMINISM

Thanks. But you might not agree with some of my Poetic & Philosophical speculations on controversial topics such as Consciousness & Free Will. :smile: — Gnomon

True as that may be, you are in fact correct here. At least according to modern cognitive neuroscience.

I argue that agency, choice, and control are emergent, higher-level phenomena,
Hope so!
I just moved my coffee so I can't knock it over. — PoeticUniverse

Smart move! Some advocates of Panpsychism imagine that all elements of reality are conscious agents. But my interpretation of "Universal Information" (ratios ; relationships) could be called "Evolutionary Panpsychism". In that case, "psyche -" refers to the mind-stuff (Logic : Memes) we now know as "Information" (meaning-to-Self & power-to-inform non-self), not as wandering souls. This interpretation makes Reincarnation and Karma unlikely, but useful as what-if metaphorical models to mull over.

Moreover, the current peak of emergent agency is the self-&-other-control of homo sapiens. Which is limited to internal self-control, plus the intention to control external non-self via natural & technological extensions of body and senses. For example : You imagined a future state in which your elbow knocked the cup over, then exercised your statistical freedom to move your hand in order to change that possible future state from probable mess (90%) to less likely (10%). :smile:

Emergence :
Emergence is a continuous process that appears to be sudden only because the mind reaches a tipping-point of understanding between an old meaning and a new meaning, causing a phase-change from one logical category to another.
BothAnd Blog Glossary

PS__If the esoteric topic of Emergence, Phase Transitions, and Quantum Leaps interests you, PM me for a link to a brief idiosyncratic model of Evolution by transitional stages.

Humans design in top-down waterfall phases,
but Evolution emerges in bottom-up stairstep
stages of development
0. Omega Point :
Who knows?
9. Reiterate
Ongoing Emergences
8. Artificial Forms :
Machines, Computers
8. Metaphysical Forms
Reasoning & Designing
7. Organic Forms :
Life, Minds, Societies
6. Physical Forms :
Stars, Galaxies, Planets
5. Matter :
Primitive Particles
4. Energy :
Unformed Plasma
3. Quantum Field :
Statistical Possibilities
2. Big Bang :
Start the computation
Set initial conditions
1. Singularity :
Design, Codes, Laws
0.Infinity :
Eternal Logos

↪Gnomon :lol: — 180 Proof

Come-on now! Big philosophers don't cry over spilled mockery :joke:

That :lol: is a "LOL" emoticon. – tears from laughing at your post, G. This :cry: is crying. :rofl:

↪Gnomon
That :lol: is a "LOL" emoticon. – tears from laughing at your post, G. This :cry: is crying. :rofl: — 180 Proof

Yes. I know. I was just using poetic license. I'm not quite as stupid as your sophistry-mockery makes me out to be. But, then there is no empirical evidence for poetry either. :joke:

PS__This emoticon :joke: means "tongue in cheek", which means "ironic", or "I may be joking"..

But, then there is no empirical evidence for poetry either. — Gnomon

I love e.g. Lucretius and Shakespeare or Laozi and Beckett too much to be a positivist. :wink:

I argue that agency, choice, and control are emergent, higher-level phenomena, — PoeticUniverse

Speaking of "Emergence" and other mysterious appearances. I just came across an article by Tom Siegfried of Science News, that may shed light on another controversial concept that we have discussed on this and other "Science vs Pseudoscience" threads. For instance, I often use the Aristotelian concept of "Potential" in my posts as reference to things that are "not yet actual", such as wavefunctions that are potential particles. He calls this "a new philosophical framework". The paper's authors propose that we "expand the definition of reality" to include things that have "not yet become actual". Hence, "These potential realities do not exist in spacetime, but nevertheless are “ontological” — that is, real components of existence." They understand that it's a difficult concept to grasp for those with a Classical physical worldview.

However, a similar concept has been proposed by biologist & neuroscientist, Terrence Deacon, in his book Incomplete Nature. There, he introduces the notion of Constructive or Constitutive Absence, as a "state of things not yet realized". He suggests that is a "defining attribute of life and mind" as well as of "ententional' phenomena, such as functions, thoughts, adaptations, purposes, and subjective experiences". Deacon's Absence also seems to be similar to Aristotle's Potential.

Coincidentally, the Science News article says, “This new ontological picture requires that we expand our concept of ‘what is real’ to include an extraspatiotemporal domain of quantum possibility,” Which some posters will reflexively label as "bunk" or "category error". But another recent post on the Immaterialism thread linked to a novel idea from physicist Sean Carroll : Effective Field Theory. He refers to this field of Potential as more fundamental than a virtual Quantum Field, and labels it as the "underlying reality". Really???

I may get deeper into the spooky Power of Absence later in this thread about how the human Will could convert ideal Potential into real Actual. But, meanwhile, I'm aware that these cutting-edge scientific theories are making it harder to distinguish Science from Pseudoscience. Yet that's the price we pay for cutting reality down-to-the-bone and beyond. :nerd:


Quantum mysteries dissolve if possibilities are realities :
three scientists argue that including “potential” things on the list of “real” things can avoid the counterintuitive conundrums that quantum physics poses.
https://www.sciencenews.org/blog/context/quantum-mysteries-dissolve-if-possibilities-are-realities

Constructive Absence : a form of causality dependent on specifically absent features and unrealized potentials

Effective Field Theory :
In physics, an effective field theory is a type of approximation, or effective theory, for an underlying physical theory,
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/651352

Heraclitus, also anticipated the Eastern notion of Yin-Yang in his concept of "unity of opposites". This is a way of reconciling all dichotomies by merging antithetical polar opposites into a synthesis of Unity (the One). For example, Hegel, lecturing on Heraclitus explained his notion of Unified Identity : "Subjectivity is the opposite of Objectivity, and since each is the 'other' of the 'other". He went on to assert that "thought itself is the true Being". And in the 21st century, we could substitute shape-shifting "Enformation" (energy / matter + life / mind) as a modern version of ancient Logos and Tao. Like abstract Energy, we don't know what BEING is, only what it does : cause beings & things to exist, and to desist.

Since "Absolute BEING" encompasses all possibilities, including Positive & Negative, Freedom & Determinism, the Yin-Yang notion of Freedom within Determinism could suggest a solution to the "free quandary" in a cause & effect world. Randomness explores all possibilities, but Selection chooses what becomes Actual. — Gnomon

We see that the All had to employ the opposites of matter and anti-matter, which in addition to being mirror opposites have opposite electrical charge; so now we know that the All couldn't have done it with just one type of matter. We can surmise that other opposites were also of necessity, such as positive kinetic energy and negative potential energy.

The All also had to induce matter-antimatter asymmetry or else naught would matter. There are something like 10 billion photons for every proton, indicating 10**9 annihilations early on.

… ?

We are left with forms that matter, and still humongous amounts of it, which means that it was easy to come by… Why?

…

We are profiling the All in order to figure out how it works…

The All has to make sure that time moves forward.

Kevin Giorbran had an idea, in ‘Everything Forever’, but he killed himself, so I can’t get any more out of him…

The beginning of the universe with separated matter and anti-matter, though seemingly improbable, is indeed necessity since that’s what happened, the why being that this is the most complete grouping order, for only then will there be the overall pull toward symmetry, which is the featureless blend at the end of the universe as the ultimate symmetry order.

With the All having to be as everything in a great all-at-once superposition of potentials / probabilities, all the possibilities of all the imbalances must trace back and actualize to the one and only state of the necessary beginning of all, the separation of matter and anti-matter, the greatest imbalance of all.

A divergence ensues unto a convergence: top-down from the end of the universe drives the bottom-up events from the beginning, the future ever affecting the present. So to speak, the flat whiteness of the Omega End brings forth the diversified prismatic colors from the Alpha Start.

There would be an Enfoldment/Unfoldment: electrons, protons, seem ‘bottom-up’ only, but are ‘enfolded’ in the top-down whole, as with Bohm’s implicit order guiding the blooming, unfolding, explicit order.

However, a similar concept has been proposed by biologist & neuroscientist, Terrence Deacon, in his book Incomplete Nature. There, he introduces the notion of Constructive or Constitutive Absence, as a "state of things not yet realized". He suggests that is a "defining attribute of life and mind" as well as of "ententional' phenomena, such as functions, thoughts, adaptations, purposes, and subjective experiences". Deacon's Absence also seems to be similar to Aristotle's Potential. — Gnomon

Defined as constraint, form refers in a way to what isn't physically present, and yet what has definite causal consequences. Final causality is the ability of a synergistic system of forms to become its own cause by perpetuating itself.

Mind isn't a ghostly immaterial entity existing beyond causality, but neither is it causally epiphenomenal (inconsequential). It is a dynamic process that evolved because of its function in sustaining and coordinating bodily activity in a very subtle way, through the perpetuation of constraint. Since mechanistic models only consider the extrinsic force exerted on one part by another in a deterministic system, they overlook the spontaneous propagation and self-persistence of constraints that organize our world while leaving it open to further organization.

We see that the All had to employ the opposites of matter and anti-matter, which in addition to being mirror opposites have opposite electrical charge; so now we know that the All couldn't have done it with just one type of matter. We can surmise that other opposites were also of necessity, such as positive kinetic energy and negative potential energy. — PoeticUniverse

Yes. I envision the "splitting" of the BigBang Singularity as an ovum (egg) dividing. First one cell becomes two, and then two become four, thus the bifurcation continues doubling at an exponential rate. Each pair are twins, but opposite. And the tension between positive & negative poles creates minor differences, that eventually become significant enough to call them separate categories or species or organisms.

The result of this rapid doubling & opposing is the emergence of a complex multicellular universe with a variety of organizations, such as stars & galaxies & planets & living things. That creative polarization continues today, because it is necessary for change & evolution. Oppositions are dynamic, whether they attract or repel each other. So, we call those pulling or pushing relationships "forces" or "energy".

It's the internal tug-o-war that makes the world go around. But it also pulls things apart, which we call "entropy". That negative force would quickly dissolve all organizations of matter, if it were not for the opposing force that I call "Enformy" (the power to enform ; to organize). It's the self-organizing force that reductive scientists call "negentropy". But as a holistic philosopher, I prefer to focus on the positive.

For example, amid all this deterministic cause & effect -- due perhaps to an incidental swerving curve -- some looping effects bend back on themselves, creating positive feedback, and novel effects that never existed before. Thus oppositions are necessary for the creation of difference and for the "endless forms most beautiful" that Darwin extolled. In my thesis, I call that pushing & pulling creative force : EnFormAction. :nerd:

EXPONENTIAL CELLULAR DIVISION

the human Will could convert ideal Potential into real Actual. — Gnomon

A "homeodynamic" process spontaneously reduces a system's constraints to their minimum, as exemplified by the increase in entropy described by the second law of thermodynamics. Although a large number of objects interacting in a system exert efficient causality on one another, an increase in entropy arises from the statistical form of the system as a whole, in which disordered macro-states far outnumber ordered states; in that sense the homeodynamic process exhibits formal causality.

I have been getting these quotes from reviews of Deacon on Goodreads.

So now I have as much free will as there can be. Hurray!

Thus oppositions are necessary for the creation of difference and for the "endless forms most beautiful" that Darwin extolled. In my thesis, I call that pushing & pulling creative force : EnFormAction. — Gnomon

The All keeps the number of protons and electrons equal, another balance of opposites; the universe is electrically neutral, else some possible disaster befall, perhaps.

The All has to provide the curious symmetry in free space of there being only one main stable positively charged matter particle—the proton, one negatively charged matter particle—the electron, and one stable energy particle—the electron, with no uncharged matter particles and no charged energy particle.

The positive kinetic energy of stuff will be paid for by the debit of the potential negative energy of gravity, another balance.

The inevitable future of equilibrium symmetry carefully designs/forces the stable particles with properties that will produce the periodic table, molecules, even DNA.

Along the road from grouping order to symmetry order that causes diversity, we will invariably observe galaxies which reflects the widest range of configurations, plus ranges of solar systems, planets, moons, asteroids. We will observe the whole range of geography, the whole range of possible chemistry, the whole range of other lifeforms, the whole range of personalities.

Kevin Giorbran had an idea, in ‘Everything Forever’, but he killed himself, so I can’t get any more out of him… — PoeticUniverse

I read Giorban's book several years ago, and it blew my mind. Sadly, he exercised his FreeWill with the ultimate personal choice : "to be, or not to be?" So he went on to explore that eternal state before he could break his ideas down for me. Consequently, much of the book went over my time-bound Something-Right-Now mind. Some of his interpretations of "Timelessness" seem to imply some kind metaphorical time-travel. That sounds like Deacon's Constitutive Absence. But I don't know if he meant for that block-time imagery to be taken literally. :smile:

Excerpts from reviews of Everything Forever :
"The past and the future are quantum potentials, and conscious beings are continually creating the most likely futures and the most likely, consistent pasts. Meaning arises as a result of the decoherence of these potential states."

"I particularly enjoyed the section on how the future helps arrange the present."

Since mechanistic models only consider the extrinsic force exerted on one part by another in a deterministic system, they overlook the spontaneous propagation and self-persistence of constraints that organize our world while leaving it open to further organization. ___Terrance Deacon — PoeticUniverse

Deacon put his finger on the crux of this FreeWiil debate. Those who hold a "mechanistic model" of the world are self-blinded to the Holistic & Organismic functions of a system with the creative internal "constraints" that we know as Natural Laws. Those limits on random freedom tend to guide the cause & effect chain in a pre-determined, non-accidental direction. The result of that internal guidance system is the patterns within randomness that we interpret as order & meaning. :nerd:

PS__Unfortunately, some of us go to the opposite extreme by creating a spiritualistic model of reality, in which souls can overcome the gravity of their body.

So now I have as much free will as there can be. Hurray! — PoeticUniverse

Yay! You have become a guided mission within the mostly random flux of natural causation. What makes the difference is Intention & Selection. :grin:

The inevitable future of equilibrium symmetry carefully designs/forces the stable particles with properties that will produce the periodic table, molecules, even DNA. — PoeticUniverse

As you implied in a previous post, the universe has a "broken" symmetry. Perfect symmetry would not allow for change & positive evolution. Perhaps that imperfection of determination is what allows us to freely choose "which branch of a bifurcation to take". :cool:

In physics, symmetry breaking is a phenomenon in which (infinitesimally) small fluctuations acting on a system crossing a critical point decide the system's fate, by determining which branch of a bifurcation is taken.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Symmetry_breaking

"The past and the future are quantum potentials, and conscious beings are continually creating the most likely futures and the most likely, consistent pasts. Meaning arises as a result of the decoherence of these potential states." — Gnomon

So, we have that 'potentials' can be treated as being real, from your other sources; thus, the wave-function and the quantum fields are real, not just math tools/descriptions; They are sculpted by the All.

I still doubt that the All would have a brain and a will, although when we look at ourselves this would seem to give us a clue as to the nature of the All. There is an unbiased fairness to my wandering wonderings. Perhaps entanglement and the holistic nature of the All grants some rudimentary will due to its all-at-onceness connection.

Thus both our consciousness and the holistic universe, each having a singular nature, could be a clue. Maybe they are of the same basis of fundamental consciousness, but separate as two manifestations, each controlling a different realm, such as internal and external, our internal consciousness giving us ‘future’, and the external consciousness granting ‘future’ to the universe. Lee Smolin has it that qualia are intrinsic, as fundamental, and Chalmers has it that information is fundamental and can express itself in two ways, in consciousness and in matter.

Giorbran would also have all the superposed balances tracing forward to the ultimate balance at the End.

Or, or in conjunction, of all the possible superposed paths those paths that go the furthest come to dominate the wave function of the All, they becoming the paths that get actualized.

In a discussion about it Free Will, determinism has the upper hand. This is because proofs need determinism to be valid. For example, for a debater to create a convincing argument, he must be able to predict the reaction of the audience to what is being said. Moreover, if someone is going to be convinced of anything, it's going to be because something has compelled the convincing. For many, this "something" can be logic. Being a slave to logic is one of those constraints on free will. Luckily for the Free Will cause, no one is logical all the time and I'm not sure that I would recognize logic in every circumstance.

One of the exercises of logic that people endeavor is engaging in experiments using the Scientific Method. But no experiment predicts thoughts perfectly.

Given that there are clear restraints on pure Free Will, I think the focus of the debate is between Compatibilism and Determinism. And since we can't prove determinism in every situation, logic compels us to accept compatibilism since that is the only theory which can explain all the things we observe.

So, we have that 'potentials' can be treated as being real, from your other sources; thus, the wave-function and the quantum fields are real, not just math tools/descriptions; They are sculpted by the All. — PoeticUniverse

Since "Real" for most folks means "material" or "physical", i prefer to speak of Potentials & Constructive Absences as "Ideal" or "meta-physical". That's because we don't know of their existence via our 5 senses. Instead, we infer their statistically possible existence via the sixth sense of Reason : the ability to fill gaps in knowledge with logical rules of prediction from known premises to probable conclusions.

Those projections into the future are not empirically real, but only theoretically & statistically probable. So they exist as immaterial mental models, alongside Unicorns & Utopias. That's why materialists reject Idealism, as illusory. Our models are indeed figments of imagination. So we can't distinguish fantasies from facts, except by philosophical & statistical reasoning to determine how likely they are.

So "The All", (or G*D, or Cosmic Potential, or BEING) are merely theoretical inferences from our experience with counter-intuitive (or mysterious) features of Reality, and gaps in our understanding of Physics. Quantum Fields & Mathematical Geometry are not real things, they are mental models of how the world might work if we could see Ideality with our third eye (imagination). Unfortunately, some of us take our theoretical (ideal) models as actual, based on wishful Faith instead of testing them with skeptical Reason.

All possible forms that the physical world can take was defined by the initial conditions of the BigBang. So, you could say that the reality we now experience was "sculpted" by The ALL. But, the fact that humans can imagine things-that-are-not-but-might-be is evidence that the program of evolution is doing a heuristic (trial & error) search of the field of possibilities established in the beginning. A Deterministic algorithm is perfect & complete, so would leave no gaps in its calculation. But a Heuristic procedure (like natural Evolution) only looks for "good enough" fitness, hence it omits a lot of not-good-enough candidates. So, some possibilities were left open, to be filled by human Will.

In their arguments about such Real vs Ideal notions as FreeWiil, most people assume that our world is the result of either a divine miracle (absolute perfection) or a natural gapless algorithm (deterministic). Both are top-down processes, with everything pre-destined. But our experience does not confirm that presumption. The world is far from perfect. Hence, whoever or whatever "sculpted" this work-of-art, was either imperfect, or intentionally allowed for novelty to emerge. Thus a heuristic program of evolution would be a bottom-up kind of self-creation.

That's why I view the world as a self-organizing program with only the basic Operating System (natural laws & initial conditions) established in the Singularity Seed. Therefore, a heuristic program for evolution could allow Possibility Space for creative human imagination (FreeWill) to alter the course of evolution in tiny incremental steps that gradually transform Nature into Culture. :cool:


People Are Really Bad At Probability, And This Study Shows How Easy It Is To Trick Us :
https://www.fastcompany.com/3061263/people-are-really-bad-at-probability-and-this-study-shows-how-easy-it-is-to-trick-us

What is the basic difference between determinative optimization, heuristic optimization :
https://www.researchgate.net/post/What_is_the_basic_difference_between_determinative_optimization_heuristic_optimization_stochastic_optimization_and_robust_optimization_techniques

What is the difference between a heuristic and an algorithm? :
"What the algorithm does is precisely defined"
"A heuristic is still a kind of an algorithm, but one that will not explore all possible states of the problem, or will begin by exploring the most likely ones."
https://stackoverflow.com/questions/2334225/what-is-the-difference-between-a-heuristic-and-an-algorithm

Ideality :
In Plato’s theory of Forms, he argues that non-physical forms (or ideas) represent the most accurate or perfect reality. Those Forms are not physical things, but merely definitions or recipes of possible things. What we call Reality consists of a few actualized potentials drawn from a realm of infinite possibilities.
1. Materialists deny the existence of such immaterial ideals, but recent developments in Quantum theory have forced them to accept the concept of “virtual” particles in a mathematical “field”, that are not real, but only potential, until their unreal state is collapsed into reality by a measurement or observation. To measure is to extract meaning into a mind. [Measure, from L. Mensura, to know; from mens-, mind]
2. Some modern idealists find that scenario to be intriguingly similar to Plato’s notion that ideal Forms can be realized, i.e. meaning extracted, by knowing minds. For the purposes of this blog, “Ideality” refers to an infinite pool of potential (equivalent to a quantum field), of which physical Reality is a small part. A formal name for that fertile field is G*D (or whatever label you prefer for the whole of which we are sentient parts).
BothAnd Blog Glossary

THIRD EYE IS NOT MYSTICAL, BUT IMAGINATIVE


PS__It's probably the heuristic (trial & error) procedure of evolution that makes it seem "absurd" to those who look at the trees (parts) and fail to see the forest (whole system). Reductionism is a good method for empirical Science, but not for hypothetical Philosophy. Therefore, when it's applied to subjective ideas instead of objective things, that logical method may result in reductio ad absurdum.
Absurd = illogical
Heuristic = fuzzy logic

Given that there are clear restraints on pure Free Will, I think the focus of the debate is between Compatibilism and Determinism. And since we can't prove determinism in every situation, logic compels us to accept compatibilism since that is the only theory which can explain all the things we observe. — Ree Zen

Yes. That's what I mean by "FreeWill within Determinism" (as explained above, and in my last reply to ). Semi-rational Humans are not totally free, but relatively free-enough to become one of many determinants of evolving reality. 20th century Scientists, applying Classical Logic, were surprised to discover the Uncertainties & Incompleteness of the foundations of Reality. Quantum "mechanics" turned-out to have gaps in the chain of causation ("acausal"), that seem absurd & mysterious, unless we make allowances for the imperfections of heuristic Determinism. :smile:

Fuzzy logic is an approach to variable processing that allows for multiple possible truth values to be processed through the same variable. Fuzzy logic attempts to solve problems with an open, imprecise spectrum of data and heuristics that makes it possible to obtain an array of accurate conclusions.
https://www.investopedia.com/terms/f/fuzzy-logic.asp

Quantum Indeterminacy is the apparent necessary incompleteness in the description of a physical system,
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_indeterminacy