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

CharcoalMosquito

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.

Lorraine Ford

GreyCatshark
GreyCatshark, No, I don't agree with what you are saying.

Firstly, The universe is standalone and self-sufficient by definition, is it not? There is no Platonic realm or other such external support, to fill the explanatory gaps.

Secondly, we ARE "allowed to ask how or why certain actions happen instead of others". I'm contending that time-place consciousness and agency are necessary logical aspects of a system, of the real-world system, possessed by matter. I'm also contending that these logical aspects can be represented by the use of logical symbols, just like the statements in a computer program. However, the physical aspects of matter are represented differently: the physical aspects of matter are represented in terms of categories, relationships ("laws of nature") and numbers. This is significant: the type of symbolic statements used in computer programs implies that physical and logical are two different, but interconnected, things.

These logical symbols are also the same symbols that one would use, in a computer program, to represent intelligence and/or analysis. This is also significant. The symbolic representation implies that you don't get consciousness and agency without intelligence and analysis, though low-level matter and the very first life would clearly have limited data to analyse. Intelligence is not a number; intelligence is a conscious and analytical approach to the world, something that is pretty well a definition of life, something that the very first life needed right from the start.

So, what I was trying to say is that, at its foundations, the world already had at least a primitive time-place logical aspect that is conscious of, and can to some extent analyse, its surrounding situation, so it is superfluous to also posit a type of layer where possibilities or potential states exist. "What grounds the choice", i.e. what grounds time-place agency (where agency over outcomes is symbolically representable using logical symbols, as well as symbols that represent matter's categories and numbers), is matter's consciousness and its (limited or more extensive) analysis of its time-place situation.

GreyCatshark

Lorraine Ford
But how can the universe be "standalone and self-sufficient" when -- at its core -- reality itself is absolutely, unquestionably and undeniably probabilistic? The universe is continuously becoming . How do you reconcile this with the concreteness you're promoting?

Lorraine Ford

GreyCatshark
GreyCatshark,
Thanks for replying.

Probability is a high-level manmade concept: human beings can’t precisely predict future outcomes, and so they use their intelligence and mathematical means to try to quantify their uncertainty about future outcomes. Probabilities / possibilities are high-level concepts that only exist in the human mind; however, other living things also need to analyse and act on their knowledge about their current time-place situations. But I think that the idea, that there needs to be a Platonic realm (e.g. of possibilities) propping up the universe, seems to stem from a feeling that the universe and/or matter is miserably inadequate.

Re “The universe is continuously becoming”: Seemingly you must mean: the universe is continually moving its numbers (i.e. in number jumps); the universe is not continuously moving its numbers (which implies that gazillions of decimal places lie beyond the decimal point of each real-world number).

I don’t know what “concreteness”, or lack of concreteness, you are referring to. I’m saying that there are physical aspects of the world (which people represent as categories, relationships and numbers), and there are logical aspects of the world, and both aspects are required to explain the arising of life.

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