The quantum domain prefigures life’s capacity for self-determination

CharcoalMosquito

"As you know, I subscribe to the notion that macro causal powers, as in an agent's control choices, actually do change the microphysical arrangement in their local environment. In fact I think that's a self-evident, macroscale phenomenal truth!"

Thank you for re-stating a central motivation of my essay:

the lived experience that we have of our own macroscopic agency is that is indeed dynamically relevant to the microscopic physical basis of our behavior.

Moreover, the essay highlights an opportunity: this notion of macroscopic agency, or even of a "phenomenal truth" as you describe it, does not need to be explained away as nothing but an "as if" illusion or effective approximation. The current scientific world image actually allows for the possibility of a stronger interpretation, permitting us to argue for genuine openness across scales. It is under these conditions, or so I would argue, that talk of agential control and selection makes sense.

As the essay tries to highlight, an appeal to a multiverse of branching realities only saves superficial appearances of macroscopic agency, but does not achieve the same ontological grounding of your "phenomenal truth". Ultimately, a multiverse is just as deteministically closed as is a superdeterministic universe; in both cases all future change is completely pre-specified by the initial conditions of the Schroedinger equation. But fortunately we are not forced to accept this kind of scenario. What the essay shows is that it is scientifically fruitful to explore the alternatives arising from accepting what the evidence seems to show, namely a fundamental indeterminism. In particular, this way of interpreting the facts better aligns with our macroscopic phenomenology of agency.

In sum, it is simply not the case that I reject the reality of macroscale phenomena and their top-down consequences for the microscale basis of behavior. To the contrary, the essay is a defense of precisely this position. What puzzles me is why you feel the need to double down and insist on your determinism axiom, especially given that nothing is forcing this interpretation and it only serves to undermine your own perfectly valid convictions about macroscale phenomenal truth.

EmeraldBeetle

CharcoalMosquito Ultimately, a multiverse is just as deteministically closed as is a superdeterministic universe; in both cases all future change is completely pre-specified by the initial conditions of the Schroedinger equation.
What puzzles me is why you feel the need to double down and insist on your determinism axiom, especially given that nothing is forcing this interpretation and it only serves to undermine your own perfectly valid convictions about macroscale phenomenal truth.

Okay one last go – I sincerely and honestly think your definition of 'determinism', especially where you simply equate it with 'superdeterminism', is philosophically naive and reductive.

Simply put: \text{Determinism} \neq (\text{fatalism} \lor \text{superdeterminism}).

Your stubborn, naively fatalist intuition that what you call 'determinism' means that initial conditions at the Big Bang led, 13.8 billion years later, to you choosing the specific jacket that you actually wore this morning – not just because the weather conditions were fixed, but because your reasoning, preferences and control responses were also fixed in a way that makes no difference what the local antecedents were. That view – that you could not have chosen otherwise – is fatalism and its circular reasoning such that the outcomes occur no matter what the antecedents were, as everything is fixed by a global past.

Determinism, on the other hand, is precisely the opposite. It allows for local macroscale causality such that different antecedents yield different outcomes by law. Counterfactuals are perfectly meaningful in a deterministic universe and those lawful dependencies are all that your control requires (as per compatibilism/interventionism).

If it had been colder, or if I’d prioritized warmth more, I would have worn a different jacket today (it's quite warm here). Those conditionals are true in MWI just as much as in collapse theories. Indeterminism just adds noise and wouldn’t make those reason-sensitive conditionals any truer or more 'free'.

Of course, given your naively reductive notion of 'determinism', you'll have to answer: "but even your counterfactual was fixed since the Big Bang!” And yes, counterfactuals have to be physically possible in order to be counterfactuals, as in their truth values are fixed. What matters is that in this macroscopic world, within our decohered quasiclassical branch, outcome A varies with conditions B, C, D & E. That lawful dependence is what agency requires.

In a superdeterministic world that dependence fails because any independent agent's variation of antecedents stops being possible. If you want to argue against that conditional dependence, then you’re effectively arguing against explanation and control in general, and not for indeterminism.

Your reductive proposition that “IF everything is fixed by the initial global state, THEN you have no local causal power" is only true if nothing you do could have been otherwise in any coherent counterfactual – which is a fatalist premise and not a deterministic one. Your entire essay is premised on this conflation of fatalist superdeterminism with determinism, which is what makes it a philosophically naive and reductive argument.

So please repeat after me (following Laplace): "The global state at time t fixes the global state at t+n. But this global determinism does not entail that local real patterns are irrelevant or that agents lack causal efficacy to effect local changes within that globally determined evolution".

Lorraine Ford

EmeraldBeetle
This “global state” is an entity that doesn’t exist, except in some people’s imaginations.

What does exist, underlying the world, is a myriad of time-place-true states that apply to matter, where each state is representable as a collection of categories (like mass or relative position) with associated numbers, and where the categories are related by “law of nature” relationships.

And what is this “causal efficacy” jargon about? Presumably “causal efficacy” refers to what is causing the time-place number change for the numbers that apply to the categories.

It is necessary to be explicit about what one thinks is causing number change. There are three choices for what is causing number change or number jumps:

The deterministic law-of-nature equations cause all number change. (However, this is impossible because equations are nothing but mathematical relationships between the categories, relationships that have been deduced to exist as a result of scientific experiment.)
Something mysterious called “randomness” jumps some of the numbers that apply to the categories, whereby other numbers will necessarily also change due to the law-of-nature mathematical relationships between the categories.
Matter jumps some of its own numbers that apply to the categories, whereby other numbers will necessarily also change due to the law-of-nature mathematical relationships between the categories.

The issue is: WHAT is causing number change?

CharcoalMosquito

EmeraldBeetle

Thank you for making it clear that you are committed to a deterministic view of the universe (akin to Laplace's), so that we can unpack its implications in more detail.

1) What is it that fixes the next global state? The most successful theory for macro-scale dynamics is General Relativity (GR). Is this the global deterministic framework you adopt?

2) Within this theory of globally determined state evolution, what is it that supposedly entails that agents have the capacity for actions that effect local changes?

In GR, the entire history is laid out statically in a block universe; all worldlines are globally fixed by boundary conditions and laws. This means that it's not just that our actions that cannot make local changes; in general, no object has downward efficacy. The only way to conceive of causal interventions or explore counterfactuals would be to change the boundary conditions or laws, meaning the change isn't local to this universe. How would you rescue your claim of our actions having the capacity to effect local changes under these circumstances?

Note that my essay is not arguing against the fact that our past matters for our choices and actions; to the contrary, it assigns a constitutive role to historical contingency. I suggest taking another look at the essay, as I think it can supply the framework you need to properly ground the possibility of agency via causal interventions capable of effecting local changes, namely by leveraging quantum openness.

EmeraldBeetle

CharcoalMosquito

I’m not “committed" to Laplacean determinism nor do I claim anything about GR being the fundamental state‑evolution law. My point was simply about the difference between determinism, fatalism and superdeterminism, and why your argument keeps sliding into fatalism even when you say it doesn’t. In fact, you keep reverting to determinism = fatalism in order to set up your straw man 'determinism' as the initial thesis for your argument regarding free will needing indeterministic microphysics. You've been doing this from your first reply and repeat it again here, even though it's incorrect and you don't even need it for your core argument regarding quantum/non-Markovian processes etc.

CharcoalMosquito In GR, the entire history is laid out statically in a block universe; all worldlines are globally fixed by boundary conditions and laws. This means that it's not just that our actions that cannot make local changes; in general, no object has downward efficacy. The only way to conceive of causal interventions or explore counterfactuals would be to change the boundary conditions or laws, meaning the change isn't local to this universe.

GR is the best classical approximation for describing macro-scale dynamics and not a deterministic theory of everything, and even so, determinism \neq fatalism.
The “block universe” does not remove local causal structure or its conditional dependencies, it just represents them in a static tenseless form. Those dependencies – as in “if it had been colder, I would have worn a different jacket” – are encoded in the block structure where local changes propagate along light cones. Your free choice here is just the local branching of worldlines consistent with that structure. That’s ordinary causal dependence and not, again, a form of global fatalism.
Your claim that “in general, no object has downward efficacy” is both simply incorrect and yet another example of your fatalistic bias. GR is explicitly locally causal, as above, and any claim that GR removes local causality is just wrong. Local curvature depends on local stress–energy and vice‑versa. A simple metaphor for you: A block representation doesn't change that local physics any more than representing a chess game as a full algebraic notation removes the causal dependence of each move on the prior global state of the chess board. You still 'could have moved otherwise'.
Counterfactuals just don't require altering boundary conditions, full stop. Counterfactuals in physics are actually evaluated using local equations of motion with altered antecedent states: If A (hot day) then B (light jacket) else if C (cold day) then D (puffy jacket). Simple, ordinary local causal structure. You are treating “counterfactuals” as though they require metaphysically open possibilities, which is just not correct. The entire body of empirical science, from GR to QFT and everything in between, is built on functional dependencies and not metaphysical indeterminacy.

Nothing I’ve said commits me to fatalism, superdeterminism or to denying 'quantum openness'. My claim is that you keep arguing as though determinism automatically collapses counterfactual dependence into fatalism, but that's simply false, and it's false in GR, QM and in interventionist causal theory.

If your essay's argument truly requires ruling out ordinary causal dependence in order to motivate your sense of “quantum openness" then I think you're attacking a picture of determinism that very few people actually hold – and that's your straw man right there!

CharcoalMosquito 1) What is it that fixes the next global state?

The global state is just the total physical state which evolves according to whatever the fundamental laws are. That evolution includes the effects of every local causal process within it ... which is what makes it “global”. When you (the agent) freely decide to put your arm through the puffy jacket sleeve instead of its light counterfactual, you actually alter the physical arrangement of stuff in your local light cone, and you can do this because you have local agency. Nothing about your relation to a deterministic global state makes this agency 'magical', neither does it require altering boundary conditions. And nothing in deterministic physics says you could not have acted differently had the relevant conditions been different (as in it's raining or sunny outside).

The only way any global state stops your own causal agency from following one local trajectory rather than another, is if you believe in fatalism. But fatalism is neither necessary for nor implied by causal determinism. Even Mediaeval Scholastic theological determinism preserved ordinary local agency.

Stop conflating fatalism with determinism, and the rest of your essay's argument still holds!

CharcoalMosquito

EmeraldBeetle

Thanks for these clarifications. You continue to claim that my portrayal of determinism can be dismissed as a strawman, because I argue that your position cannot account for the reality that you “freely decide”, as you put it. I have been engaging with your position as closely as I can precisely to avoid the impression that I am dismissing it unfairly. I will once again address each of the points you raise to highlight what I see as problematic.

1. GR is indeed the best classical approximation for macro-scale dynamics, and yet it is not a theory of everything. It is partly for this reason that my essay on the efficacy of life argues that it is valuable to expand the scope of explanations to the quantum domain.

2. It’s also clear that we agree that a macro-scale deterministic picture represents conditional dependencies in a static tenseless form. However, what this means is that there is no “free choice” in the local branching of worldlines – all causal dependencies are fixed from the initial conditions onwards, which is precisely what is implied by their “static tenseless” form.

3. Note that I was referring specifically to “downward” causality, which is not permitted by GR. The stress-energy tensor and curvature are mutually determined at every point, but this is a timeless equivalence across the whole manifold. In any case, the analogy you draw between GR and the game of chess is insightful, because it pinpoints the source of your confusion. The rules of chess do not state-determine the sequences of moves; it is assumed that at any point in the game, the current state configuration of the board allows players to freely decide between multiple possible moves. This is where the analogy with GR breaks down: the “rules” of GR (Einstein’s field equations) completely state-determine the sequence of moves.

4. Once again, I agree that science is built on accepting that we have the capacity to freely vary experimental conditions so that we can evaluate causality. I do not rule out dependencies; I only reject the assumption of determinism.

In the deterministic macro-scale picture you seem to be defending, it is simply not possible to claim that you can “freely decide” to act and thereby “alter the physical arrangement of stuff in you local light cone […] because you have local agency.” It would be more accurate to say that the movement of your body was determined by the curvature of spacetime. At best, we end up with a picture of agency like puppets on a string, with the puppeteer being macro-scale physical law. As you yourself write: “nothing in deterministic physics says you could not have acted differently had the relevant conditions been different” – right; and just like when the puppeteer pulls the strings differently, the puppet moves differently. I hope that you can see that it is a stretch of words to say that the puppet “freely decides” how to move because its movement is causally dependent on its external conditions.

In general, the best current macro-scale theories are all deterministic, and this formally means that they do not permit switching from one local state trajectory to another, at least not without global changes such as replacing boundary conditions. Hence, in order to properly ground the very possibility for an agent to switch trajectory in accordance with its own choices, we need to look elsewhere. As a starting point, we must take a closer look at the one scientifically acceptable source of indeterminism in the universe, which is the quantum domain. This is the foundation on which a theory of life, and of agency more generally, must be built.

Thanks again for the exchange. It is helped to sharpen these ideas.

EmeraldBeetle

CharcoalMosquito In general, the best current macro-scale theories are all deterministic, and this formally means that they do not permit switching from one local state trajectory to another, at least not without global changes such as replacing boundary conditions.

No, you're simply wrong yet again and just doubling down on your naively fatalist premise which you apparently need for your indeterministic argument!

CharcoalMosquito a macro-scale deterministic picture represents conditional dependencies in a static tenseless form. However, what this means is that there is no “free choice” in the local branching of worldlines – all causal dependencies are fixed from the initial conditions onwards, which is precisely what is implied by their “static tenseless” form.

This is a purely fatalist position such that, according to you, a static tenseless representation \implies no real causal difference-making. This is a straightforward fallacy, the block universe represents the causal structure and doesn't simply erase it!

You also claim that all deterministic theories “do not permit switching from one local state trajectory to another”, which again is completely wrong and yet another naively fatalist premise! 'Switching trajectories' is precisely what agents do, following their own reasoned responses. Determinism just describes how different internal causal variables yield different outcomes – which is compatibilism. If relevant antecedents differ, the agent’s action differs, and what else can “choosing otherwise” ever mean?

I genuinely don't understand how you can straight-faced just keep denying this basic fact of deterministic causality, where local causal agents are precisely the kinds of systems whose internal states (reasons, beliefs, habits and so on) constitute the 'difference‑makers' for their actions.

CharcoalMosquito It would be more accurate to say that the movement of your body was determined by the curvature of spacetime.... just like when the puppeteer pulls the strings differently, the puppet moves differently. I hope that you can see that it is a stretch of words to say that the puppet “freely decides” how to move because its movement is causally dependent on its external conditions.

This, again, is just your fatalist interpretation of GR which compatibilists reject:

agent as powerless passenger
laws as puppeteer
causal relations as mere puppet shadow play

But this puppet picture of yours only follows if you first simply assume the agent’s internal states make no real causal difference. That assumption does not follow from determinism but from fatalism where it's only you who insist that outcomes occur regardless of the agent’s internal states. For non‑reductive determinism, the agent is a real causal subsystem inside the deterministic dynamics, such that the agent’s reasons‑responsive processes make a genuine local difference within the global evolution. You can keep denying this with your repetitive insistence on fatalism, but then don't expect anyone else to just accept your philosophical naïveté.

Your fatalistic argument is founded on a fatalistic caricature of determinism and not determinism itself. Compatibilists reject your argument specifically because it's the standard libertarian strawman where determinism is reductively defined as 'nothing the agent does makes any difference'. That’s not what determinism means!

But we're just going in circles here. So my last word is that you're either confused in your reductive insistence that determinism = fatalism, or you're just too stubborn to walk your fallacious reasoning back. I'm thinking probably a bit of both?

Lorraine Ford

EmeraldBeetle
Compatibilism is complete and utter spaghetti-nonsense.

GreyCatshark

Lorraine Ford's assertion that "Compatibilism is complete and utter spaghetti-nonsense"

viz., that free will is incompatible with determinism, is perfectly sound, but only if we restrict ourselves solely to the rules of classical causality. However, that limitation forces a philosophical dead end. The resolution lies in acknowledging the full physics governing our existence.

The problem, as I see it, isn't determinism versus choice; it's classical reality versus quantum reality. At the microscopic level, where life’s fundamental mechanics operate, causality breaks down. Phenomena like radioactive decay are intrinsically random and uncaused—they simply happen. This intrinsic randomness provides the pathway to breaking the deterministic chain inherent in classical physics. What if our choices, at their core, originate in this acausal quantum substrate? What if our choices are genuinely "uncaused" in the literal sense (as I believe they are)?

This freedom need not necessarily lead to chaos. Even as quantum events remain individually unpredictable, their aggregate behavior follows precise statistical laws. Within biological systems, this aggregate predictability might be skewed to channel the inherently uncaused choices toward viable, coherent outcomes. Volition, consequently, could achieve a genuine form of compatibility: fundamentally free, because it arises from uncaused intrinsic randomness, yet structured and predictable in its overall patterns because it operates within Nature's probabilistic constraints.

This acausal model for volition is perfectly captured by Rabbi Akiva -- Everything is foreseen, yet free will is given. The freedom is the acausal quantum input; the "foreseen" outcome is Nature's statistical prescription. As counter-intuitive (and impossible) as this all sounds, I don't see any other way to reconcile the matter.

Lorraine Ford

GreyCatshark
Definitions are required:

A free will/ creative outcome is a single-step outcome where matter has assigned one or more numbers to its own physical categories, e.g. the relative position category.

A random1 outcome is a single-step outcome where some aspect of the universe (NOT matter, and not the law-of-nature relationships) has assigned one or more numbers to the physical categories, e.g. the relative position category.

A deterministic outcome is a zero-step outcome where, IF some of the numbers (that apply to the categories) have changed, then other numbers (that apply to other categories) will also automatically change, due purely to law-of-nature relationships. (1)

A random2 outcome is where, due to multiple unknown steps, people (or other living things) can’t predict the outcome.

………………

This, incidentally, shows that real-world numbers are mathematical relationships between categories, where the categories “cancel out”.

CharcoalMosquito

GreyCatshark

Thanks for jumping into this conversation! Your take on acausal quantum events breaking determinism while allowing statistical dependencies at macro scales resonates with my essay.

Specifically, it argues that the quantum domain provides the ontological openness needed for life's self-determination, which converts potential alternatives into actual outcomes and skews the aggregate probabilities through emergent constraints and non-Markovian processes. The aim is to come up with testable predictions that could show the efficacy of life and mind at work.

If you have a chance to look at the essay, I'd be curious to hear your thoughts!

Lorraine Ford

Lorraine Ford
(continued)

So, I'm saying that "random1" outcomes don't exist.

GreyCatshark

Lorraine, thanks—definitions help. But when you say ‘some aspect of the universe (NOT matter, and not the law‑of‑nature relationships) has assigned …’, can you specify what you conceive that ‘some aspect’ to be? If you deny ‘random1 outcomes’, what is the alternative ontology for quantum‑level indeterminacy?
Your “random1” rejection seems to hinge on the idea that nothing outside matter or law-of-nature relationships can assign values. But that assumes causation begins inside spacetime. I disagree. Under Kastner’s Possibilist Transactional Interpretation, quantum events aren’t triggered in spacetime—they bring spacetime events into being. The collapse isn’t a product of classical causality; it’s an actualization from a pre-spatiotemporal realm of real possibilities. That’s the source of the “uncaused” inputs I’m pointing to—not randomness as chaos, but indeterminacy as ontological openness. These aren't “random2” (epistemic gaps); they’re ontologically uncaused. That’s the freedom. The laws still hold statistically, but the individual outcomes are genuinely free.

Lorraine Ford

GreyCatshark
The point is that nobody, in physics or anywhere else, DOES specify what causes "random quantum number jumping", which when looked at objectively, "random quantum number jumping" is representable as the single-step assignment of a number to a category (like the relative position category), seemingly in response to a situation. "Random quantum number jumping" describes a very definite outcome, though stories can be fabricated about what causes it, and equations can be fabricated to try to predict the likelihood of the outcome.

I'm saying that it is not something unknown and mysterious that is doing this, it is something already known, i.e. matter, i.e. small parts of the universe, that assigns some of its own numbers, in a single step.

And this another thing that has to be defined: by definition, the universe is standalone and self-sufficient, otherwise it wouldn't be the universe. What exists is the universe, which (at least now) exists in the form of small interconnected, interrelated parts. By definition, the universe is the thing that created its own "spacetime" categories, relationships/ equations, and numbers (or more correctly, what we represent as categories, relationships and numbers). The free will/ creation aspect of the universe is not the same as the thing that is created (or changed, as in the abovementioned number assignment).

People seem to want a cause for everything. Oh, wait a minute. Apparently, they also want "uncaused inputs"!!

I'm saying that there is a cause for everything, EXCEPT the standalone, self sufficient universe.

GreyCatshark

Lorraine Ford
Lorraine, thanks for your thoughtful response. I agree that physics doesn’t actually specify what causes “random quantum number jumping” and, by your framing, that it's not something mysterious or external, but rather matter itself assigning values to its own categories. You’re saying this assignment isn’t uncaused in the chaotic sense, but is an intrinsic action of matter—a kind of agency native to the constituents of the universe itself.

And I think I see how that fits your broader point: the universe is standalone and self-sufficient—it doesn't rely on anything outside itself to do what it does, including assigning new values or “jumping” states. The creation/change aspect isn’t floating above or external to matter; it is matter.

You’re rejecting the idea that randomness or determinism can account for free will, and instead frame volition as this very act of self-assignment—a logically coherent, single-step process that isn’t dictated by equations or injected by external randomness. Agency, in this view, is endogenous to matter. Am I right so far??

That said, I also believe intrinsic (quantum) randomness is real and fundamental. And I don’t see that as incompatible with what you’re saying at all. To me, intrinsic randomness isn’t a foreign intrusion or “uncaused input” in the spooky sense. Instead, it provides the ontological openness necessary for agency/volition to exist at all. Without it, everything would be causally nailed down in advance and ongoing.

So here's how I’d reconcile our views (tell me if this works for you, too):
Intrinsic randomness defines the space of possible outcomes, not through classical uncertainty or epistemic gaps, but as a real feature of the world. Then agency – matter itself –acts on that open field. It assigns values to its own categories, not randomly, not deterministically, but logically, contextually, based on the state of things it “knows.” So randomness makes the system open; agency makes it selective. In that sense, intrinsic randomness and volition aren't in opposition. The former imparts openness (freedom from constraint); the latter brings direction and structure.

Does this interpretation feel compatible with how you're conceiving things? Or do you still see the application of randomness – even in this limited ontological sense – as problematic?

Lorraine Ford

CharcoalMosquito
It is pointless talking about free will and determinism unless one can precisely specify/ define what one thinks free will is and what determinism is; no rambling waffle allowed. It is also pointless talking about "processes", e.g. "non-Markovian processes", i.e. system movements, unless one can precisely define what one thinks movement is, and what a system is.

GreyCatshark

CharcoalMosquito
Sure thing! I'll have a look and provide some feedback soon.

GreyCatshark

CharcoalMosquito
I thought your essay was insightful, intriguing, and very well written. Excellent work (and graded accordingly)! A few things to discuss (just one point at a time). Early on, you say ...
"But this determinism comes at the steep price of anti-realism: reality is turned into one grand illusion. To believe that causality is epiphenomenal, to treat the outcome of every act of life and mind as predetermined from the start of the universe, essentially amounts to emptying science of explanation: natural selection, agency, and human freedom become impotent shadows of initial conditions."
Your use of “epiphenomenal” doesn’t quite match how I see the universe operating. I don’t view life and mind as decorative surface effects on a predetermined script. I see the universe as unfolding along syntropic lines—self-organizing trajectories that tend toward increasingly integrated and coherent forms. These trajectories aren’t rigid or prewritten, but they do provide a natural direction for development, and real-world events can genuinely influence how that development plays out. In that view, agency, contingency, and evolutionary creativity are not illusions; they’re the active forces that shape the universe’s ongoing organization. Causality remains fully real, operating inside a dynamic, self-forming process rather than a fixed block-universe framework. (.. more to follow)

Lorraine Ford

GreyCatshark
GreyCatshark, yes, your first 3 paragraphs seem to quite well summarise what I was contending about matter jumping its own numbers in the context of the universe being standalone and self-sufficient. (But there is also the fact that law-of-nature relationships between categories are always conserved. “Law of nature” equations represent the fact that IF some numbers change (for some categories), then other numbers will change (for some other categories): the relationships are always conserved, and zero steps seem to be involved. And there is also the issue that low-level “quantum” matter (represented in terms of categories, relationships and numbers) seems to know and do things; but knowledge and agency can’t be represented in terms of categories, relationships and numbers alone, and therefore, knowledge and agency are slightly separate aspects of the world to the purely material matter aspects.)

Regarding your view about “intrinsic (quantum) randomness”, I think that randomness seems to be something that is perceived (by human beings); it is not something that actually separately exists. And potentialities/ possibilities seem to be just a way that people analyse or look at the world, and this way of analysing large- and small-scale events can be represented mathematically, and it has proved to be very useful.

Regarding your view (and CharcoalMosquito’s similar view) about “the ontological openness necessary for agency/volition to exist at all”: Are you are talking about a situation, involving particles or atoms, where some of the numbers that apply to some of the categories are unknown or unknowable, and maybe seemingly don’t even exist? But I’m not sure that this equates to a necessity for potentialities/ possibilities being actual aspects of the world that actually exist. Rather, I would say that the above-described knowledge/ awareness/ analytical/ logical aspects of the world are what exists, and these are possessed by matter right down to the basic-level matter, where analytical/ logical aspects also exist at a basic level. I.e. there is no need to posit that extra, separate aspects of the world exist. I.e. potentialities/ possibilities are probably not actual aspects of the world that really exist as a type of substrate, they probably only exist from the point of view of time-place consciousness, e.g. time-place human consciousness.

So re:

Then agency – matter itself –acts on that open field. It assigns values to its own categories, not randomly, not deterministically, but logically, contextually, based on the state of things it “knows.””,

I’d say maybe cut out the “the space of possible outcomes” “as a real feature of the world” and just leave a slightly extended version of the consciousness/ logical aspect of the world “as a real feature of the world”.

CharcoalMosquito

GreyCatshark

First of all, thank you for your kind words! Very much appreciated.

As also noted by @Lorraine Ford , it seems that our positions are highlight compatible. What the essay aims to highlight is that acceptance of a deterministic universe is problematic because it essentially implies epiphenomenalism regarding all of our daily and scientific observations at the macro scale. And there are more fruitful ways of explaining both the openness to change and the stability of patterns that we observe. I look forward to hearing more of your thoughts!

GreyCatshark

Lorraine Ford
Lorraine, thanks for the reply and confirming that I’m accurately expressing your view on matter, self-assignment, and the conservation of law-of-nature relationships. The way you’ve described zero-step relationships and their conservation even amidst number change helps clarify how you’re separating physical mechanics from what you call the logical or analytical dimension of matter.

That said, I want to respond carefully to your pushback regarding “ontological openness” and the suggestion that possibilities or potentialities are just epistemic overlays—ways we analyze but not things that exist. You’re essentially saying there’s no need to posit “extra” aspects of reality like potential states, because logical awareness already exists within matter itself, even at the most basic levels.

While I understand the appeal of a self-sufficient universe in which all things are already present—nothing “extra,” no gap to fill—it’s precisely that claim of indivisibility that makes the position opaque. Once everything (even knowledge and volition) is folded back into a monolithic self-description of matter, we’re not allowed to ask how or why certain actions happen instead of others—because to do so would be to posit a structure external to the “already complete” system. That becomes, ironically, a kind of metaphysical firewall. It seems to let the model avoid scrutiny by denying the very distinctions that would allow us to test or explore it. Which, frankly, feels like cheating—a philosophical move to shield the model from study rather than illuminate the matter.

I’m not insisting we introduce speculative metaphysics, but I do think the recognition of genuine alternative possibilities—whether represented ontologically or not—is what makes volition meaningful. If all that exists is what is, and all alternatives are just artifacts of consciousness, doesn’t that collapse the space within which volition could operate?
You said:

“maybe cut out the ‘space of possible outcomes’… and just leave a slightly extended version of the consciousness/logical aspect of the world ‘as a real feature’…”

But if we do that, what distinguishes one outcome from another? What grounds the choice? At some point, something has to not happen—and for that to matter, the not-happening must be as real a structure as the happening. Otherwise, we’re not describing volition; we’re describing a sealed system enacting itself.

Ulla Mattfolk

Free will can only be seen as a deviation from the natural laws and optimization. Otherwise it would not be free. Life has options to act, a small room of choices and selections. In many worlds it is not free, as there the environment decide, or we can say environment is free, not its 'handles' as persons. It is the environment that decide if you use a thick or thin jacket as instance.
We must add purposes and goals - what we want to do with our life - as a projection into future, so when we talk of free will we are not limited by second law, maybe we can say we use its enegy instead to 'bend our future'?
Determinism or not is maybe not the thing here, but agency, possibility to act differently?
Ulla.

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