Oh it was just an off the cuff comment. I was trying to be clever by finding a phrase that is the opposite of "the universe is a simulation". IE, the universe is "real".
In the articles I’ve read claiming that there is no free will, they seem to be assuming that “free” means that it would arise spontaneously without any interaction with the prior environment that could influence the decisions. They claim, rightly that that cannot happen but then assume that means that nothing short of that can be free will. That seems an excessively restricted definition.
See... but I would say that experiential consciousness is unexplained and impossible to measure, and yet, if I were to rank everything based on how certain I am that it exists, experiential consciousness would be at the top of the list. If you take away all of my senses, what am I left with? Just the ability to think and experience my own existence.
Well... you are certain that consciousness exists because you experience it: that is measuring.
As for explaining it, I guess it's more of a definitional problem than a physical one. I'm still confident that one day we'll be able to look at something and approximate how conscious it is.
Free will, on the other hand, requires supernatural phenomenons coming from outside the material world (dualism) to explain how we, humans, can make decisions free of any (or some) of the influences of the physical world. I don't buy it, and I believe the burden of proof falls on the ones who do.
> I kind of do believe in a deterministic universe, but I thought quantum physics disagree with that.
Not necessarily.
Most people learn the "Copenhagen interpretation" in intro quantum mechanics. The quantum wave function then evolves deterministically (Schrodinger equation), but collapses probabilistically (on observation). In that sense, the world is fundamentally random – although I personally wouldn't describe a robot driven by a real RNG as having "free will", even though it is indeed non-deterministic.
However, there is a major caveat here: This is just one interpretation of quantum mechanics, and there are fully deterministic alternatives. For instance, in "non-local hidden variable" and "superdeterministic" interpretations, the wave function collapse is believed to be a deterministic process. In the "many worlds" interpretation, the wave function doesn't collapse at all (it only entangles), and you're left with only the deterministic Schrodinger equation. It has also been shown that quantum-like behavior can arise in deterministic systems, see e.g. the "bouncing droplet" experiments on YouTube if you're interested (which is a beautiful macroscopic analogue to the "pilot wave" interpretation, which is a viable "non-local hidden variable" theory).
The reason it's commonly stated that quantum mechanics requires non-determinism is that (i) the philosophically most appealing "local hidden variable" theory has been falsified, (ii) the Copenhagen interpretation is easy to teach, and (iii) for practical calculations it actually doesn't matter.
Quantum phenomenons appear non-deterministic, but there is no definitive proof that they are not.
But I think this is irrelevant to the question of free will: having quantum states randomly collapse insinde my brain would have nothing to do with freedom.
That's just moving the problem around. Say the RNG is controlled by a soul of some kind; next up, how does the soul work? It's either random or an algorithm, and either way we're right back where we started.
Statements about free will aren't even wrong without some indication what's meant by the term. Typically it's not even a well-enough formed concept to discuss.
