A Deterministic Model of Free Will

• URL: http://arxiv.org/abs/2506.21553v1
• Date: Tue, 01 Apr 2025 18:00:36 GMT
• Title: A Deterministic Model of Free Will
• Authors: Tim Palmer,
• Abstract summary: A deterministic model of free will is developed, based on two concepts.<n>It is concluded that humans have free will, determinism notwithstanding.<n>The model is applied to study the foundational issue of free choice in quantum physics experiments.
• Score: 0.0
• License: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
• Abstract: The issue of whether we make decisions freely has vexed philosophers for millennia, Resolving this is vital for solving a diverse range of problems, from the physiology of how the brain makes decisions (and how we assign moral responsibility to those decisions) to the interpretation of experiments on entangled quantum particles. A deterministic model of free will is developed, based on two concepts. The first generalises the notion of initialisation of nonlinear systems where information cascades upscale from the Planck scale, exemplified by the chaology of colliding billiard balls, and featured in the author's Rational Quantum Mechanics. With `just-in-time' initialisation, such Planck-scale information is only initialised when it is needed to describe super-Planck scale evolution, and not e.g., at the time of the Big Bang. In this way determinism does not imply predestination and a system with finitely many degrees of freedom can shadow a system with infinitely many, over arbitrarily long timescales. The second concept describes the upscale control of such Planck-scale information on super-Planck scales and is illustrated by reference to stochastic rounding in numerical analysis. Using these concepts, a deterministic model is proposed whereby freely-made decisions are made by using past experiences to control the impact of noise in the low-energy brain. It is claimed that such a model has evolutionary advantages, not least preventing paralysis by analysis and encouraging rational risk taking. It is concluded that humans have free will, determinism notwithstanding. The model is applied to study the foundational issue of free choice in quantum physics experiments: it is shown that violating the Measurement Independence assumption does not invalidate the free-will conclusion above.

Related papers

• Relaxation of first-class constraints and the quantization of gauge theories: from "matter without matter" to the reappearance of time in quantum gravity [72.27323884094953]
  We make a conceptual overview of an approach to the initial-value problem in canonical gauge theories. We stress how the first-class phase-space constraints may be relaxed if we interpret them as fixing the values of new degrees of freedom.
  arXiv  Detail & Related papers  (2024-02-19T19:00:02Z)
• High-dimensional monitoring and the emergence of realism via multiple observers [41.94295877935867]
  Correlation is the basic mechanism of every measurement model.<n>We introduce a model that interpolates between weak and strong non-selective measurements for qudits.
  arXiv  Detail & Related papers  (2023-05-13T13:42:19Z)
• Spontaneous localisation from a coarse-grained deterministic and non-unitary dynamics [0.0]
  Collapse of the wave function appears to violate the quantum superposition principle as well as deterministic evolution. Objective collapse models propose a dynamical explanation for this phenomenon, by making a non-unitary and norm-preserving modification to the Schr"odinger equation.
  arXiv  Detail & Related papers  (2023-05-11T10:32:23Z)
• Universality of critical dynamics with finite entanglement [68.8204255655161]
  We study how low-energy dynamics of quantum systems near criticality are modified by finite entanglement. Our result establishes the precise role played by entanglement in time-dependent critical phenomena.
  arXiv  Detail & Related papers  (2023-01-23T19:23:54Z)
• A Quantum-Classical Model of Brain Dynamics [62.997667081978825]
  Mixed Weyl symbol is used to describe brain processes at the microscopic level. Electromagnetic fields and phonon modes involved in the processes are treated either classically or semi-classically. Zero-point quantum effects can be incorporated into numerical simulations by controlling the temperature of each field mode.
  arXiv  Detail & Related papers  (2023-01-17T15:16:21Z)
• Optimal probabilistic quantum control theory [0.0]
  This work proposes a novel control framework that considers the representation of the system quantum states. It uses the Shannon relative entropy from information theory to design optimal randomised controllers.
  arXiv  Detail & Related papers  (2022-09-30T06:31:50Z)
• About the description of physical reality of Bell's experiment [91.3755431537592]
  A hidden variables model complying with the simplest form of Local Realism was recently introduced. It reproduces Quantum Mechanics' predictions for an even ideally perfect Bell's experiment. A new type of quantum computer does not exist yet, not even in theory.
  arXiv  Detail & Related papers  (2021-09-06T15:55:13Z)
• Quantum propensities in the brain cortex and free will [0.0]
  We derive a measure for the amount of free will manifested by the brain cortical network. Inherent biases in the quantum propensities for alternative physical outcomes provide varying amounts of free will. Free will may have a survival value and could be optimized through natural selection.
  arXiv  Detail & Related papers  (2021-07-14T09:24:11Z)
• Analysis of the superdeterministic Invariant-set theory in a hidden-variable setting [0.0]
  We build a hidden-variable model based on the Invariant-set theory proposal. We critically analyse several aspects of the proposal using the model. Our results lend further support to the view that superdeterminism is unlikely to solve the puzzle posed by the Bell correlations.
  arXiv  Detail & Related papers  (2021-07-10T04:50:36Z)
• The Causal Neural Connection: Expressiveness, Learnability, and Inference [125.57815987218756]
  An object called structural causal model (SCM) represents a collection of mechanisms and sources of random variation of the system under investigation. In this paper, we show that the causal hierarchy theorem (Thm. 1, Bareinboim et al., 2020) still holds for neural models. We introduce a special type of SCM called a neural causal model (NCM), and formalize a new type of inductive bias to encode structural constraints necessary for performing causal inferences.
  arXiv  Detail & Related papers  (2021-07-02T01:55:18Z)
• SDE-Net: Equipping Deep Neural Networks with Uncertainty Estimates [45.43024126674237]
  Uncertainty quantification is a fundamental yet unsolved problem for deep learning. Bayesian framework provides principled way of uncertainty estimation but is often not scalable to modern deep neural nets (DNNs) We propose a new method for quantifying uncertainties of DNNs from a dynamical system perspective.
  arXiv  Detail & Related papers  (2020-08-24T16:33:54Z)
• QuLBIT: Quantum-Like Bayesian Inference Technologies for Cognition and Decision [0.11470070927586014]
  This paper provides the foundations of a unified cognitive decision-making framework (QulBIT) which is derived from quantum theory. We detail the main modules of the unified framework, the explanatory analysis method, and illustrate their application in situations violating the Sure Thing Principle.
  arXiv  Detail & Related papers  (2020-05-30T09:02:03Z)
• Using Randomness to decide among Locality, Realism and Ergodicity [91.3755431537592]
  An experiment is proposed to find out, or at least to get an indication about, which one is false. The results of such experiment would be important not only to the foundations of Quantum Mechanics.
  arXiv  Detail & Related papers  (2020-01-06T19:26:32Z)

This list is automatically generated from the titles and abstracts of the papers in this site.

This site does not guarantee the quality of this site (including all information) and is not responsible for any consequences.