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We are all aware, directly aware, that we make choices. We make choices every day. No…make that every second we aren’t sleeping. Ranging from unimportant, involuntary automatic decisions to anguished vacillating well thought out desperate decisions. The question is…are those decisions totally in the control of the cold universe where what determines what we do is from the cold external universe as meaningless as what happens to a rock…or has the complex evolution of life allowed a modicum of self organization of biological matter and a larger degree of self-control (both internally and externally) that we have more freedom (and no one ever says total freedom) than do, say, rocks. Do humans have more freedom over the conditions within and around them, than say, a mouse.

The free will debate used to be brought down into terms of do human brains somehow allow a break in the realm of physics or add some sort of supernatural in the otherwise absolute. The answer according to just about anyone who isn’t a christian theologian or a “alternative spiritualist” is no. No one thinks that the human mind or consciousness creates some exceptional quality that we defy the laws of nature.

Most modern theories describe the question of:

a higher amount of freedom in decisions making or at the very least decisions to be made and the sophistication of the decision making process
or
A higher degree of internal/external control
or
A higher degree of recursive organization
or
An advanced level of internal control or mechanics that allow a more sophisticated control of the environment around an agent

When someone says “I cannot imagine how our mind could possibly escape the laws of nature” they are basically stuck in an old conversation which ended long ago and only they talk about. Few people engaged with this question (scientists and philosophers) say something other than no. Most, though not all modern theories, deal with the questions of “degrees of freedom”, “greater control of environment”, “internal organization including strange loops and recursive organization” and other theories.

It absolutely boggles my mind how someone can stare at this incredibly exciting ground breaking new opportunity of facing a question that needs to be cracked, being able to be there when theories to important questions actually emerge…and go meh…tell me how the laws of physics could be broken first before I bother. Zheesh. What a loss.