The Meaning of Life and Other Vegetables

“The reason we think we are close to a Theory of Everything is our imagination is quite limited… EVERY theory is not the final theory; that means, in some sense it’s not right… It might be a useful stepping stone… but it’s not Truth with a capital T.“

That’s just a nice quote from Hoffman, that I wanted to include here… I don’t have much original to comment about it, though. Just to put it in context, he was talking about how EVERY scientific theory begins with some assumptions, and proceeds from there; and hence, no scientific theory is bullet-proof, or ever can be. For example, Einstein started out with the assumption that the speed of light is constant in all inertial frames; he didn’t prove it, yet it’s fundamental to all the results that followed. He didn’t even lay out precisely (let alone prove) what light is.

What if those foundations are not “right”?… Does everything collapse? Does it make the results of the theory un-useful or un-illuminating? Not necessarily. We know today that Newton’s laws are not perfectly true (with or without a capital T). They apply within certain limits, and beyond those limits they break down, as in they provide predictions that deviate significantly from the ones we observe. That is the case when we go to very small scales or very large scales. In those realms, Quantum Mechanics and Relativity are necessary for accurate predictions, which Newton’s laws alone can’t provide. But in between those extremes, Newton’s laws are extremely illuminating and useful, as most of our existing technology shows.

Later on Hoffman talks further about the unlikelihood of us EVER comprehending “everything”, but I’ll leave that to later.

Continuing from here –

3. The Question of Free Will

To begin addressing the topic, Hoffman asserts that starting out from a physicalist perspective (meaning, that matter in space and time is fundamental), obtaining free will from the system that the brain is can be controversial.

I much subscribe to that view. After all, if we go to atomic and sub-atomic particles, voltages and electrical discharges, and so on, the brain is nothing more than a very elaborate and sophisticated machine. One thing leads to another (be it in extremely intricate ways), and between inputs and outputs, there is no room left for choice. Like balls on a pool table – none of them “decides”, for themselves, where to go or when. In the case of the brain, it might just look – from the outside – like free will, because we don’t have the capacity to process, or even just comprehend, the vast complexity of the process leading from input to output. From the inside, you might feel like you are in control: “I feel like doing this, and not that”; however, do you really know what is driving that “feel”, or why you chose one way, and not the other? Could it be that “I feel like…” is just a cognitive shorthand for a myriad of nano-events that you are not even aware of, at the elementary particle level?

Either way, Hoffman goes on to present a concept that I actually hinted at when I suggested the probability functions at the core of ECA; though he does it in the context of the physicalist view first. What if all those intricate nano-processes had a probabilistic component (as Quantum Theory actually tells us, at the atomic level)? That would mean that whatever the brain machinery spits out is NOT deterministic, and the outcome triggered by a certain input is NOT set upfront. Does that imply free will? Look at it this way: Something happened (= input); we could not predict what would happen next; processing took place (think of cogs churning…); then… voila! There is a certain output. So, “someone”, or “something”, must have made a choice – free will was exercised. Not unplausible.

This, in essence, posits: Unpredictable Upfront = Subject to Choice. I have to say: I don’t know about that. What if it’s just our lack of ability to predict? Which brings up the question: What is inside that black probability box? It’s a tough question – if we know exactly how it’s decided, maybe it’s not truly probabilistic anymore. A little like pseudo-random number generators in computers. The numbers generated are not REALLY random; they only look like they are.

Actually, Hoffman also points out the (dreaded?) possibility that what we perceive as probabilistic is in fact deterministic at an extra-fine level we can’t perceive, and that the probabilistic impression is just an averaged effect of something inaccessible to us. I have a nice analogue: Think of an impressionistic painting. You look at it from a distance and it gives you some kind of feeling (“impression”); but that doesn’t change the fact that it’s made up of very discrete spots of paint, arranged in some specific manner, which you could only notice if you came close to the painting.

Whilst Hoffman doesn’t provide an elaborate explanation how free will works within CA, he does point to probabilistic behaviour as a key component – he refers to the probabilistic nature of Markov Chains / Markov Kernels, which are fundamental in his new (and still evolving) mathematical modeling of CA-based reality. I feel it’s not critical here to tie together his mathematics with my (amateurish) speculations; it suffices (for me) at this stage that we are thinking along similar lines about where free will might come from. I liked it when he said, in reference to the probabilistic/deterministic conundrum, “It’s probably not either/or; it’s probably deeper than that” (I don’t think he intended the pun when he used probably in that statement, twice…); and later added “…the very concepts that we use, of free will and so forth, are at best – AT BEST – an interesting perspective on something that’s infinitely deeper... But maybe my theory can give us the next baby step in opening up our ideas, in our cognition about the possibilities of free will, and what lies beyond.“

I’ll stop here for today, though in the interview the topic very naturally flows into other (bigger?) questions. I’ll continue with those other topics later.

Peace to all.