William P. Hall

President

Kororoit Institute Proponents and Supporters Assoc., Inc. - http://kororoit.org

william-hall@bigpond.com http://www.orgs-evolution-knowledge.net

Physics, Neurobiology and Evolution of “Free Will”

Access my research papers from Google Citations

Presentation for Central Victorian Atheists and Freethinkers – 16 August, 2017 (rev. 4. Sept.)

Attribution CC BY

Scope

A conundrum underlying my 15 March presentation on Making Rational Choices and Trevor Rogers’ on Natural Rational Religion on 21 June is whether we actually have the capacity to decide and choose amongst alternative futures

Presented here are some ponderings I have collected through twists and turns of my several careers

– Physics – Neurophysiology – Comparative anatomy and evolutionary biology – Epistemology – Engineering – Anthropology and organizational behavior

I an convinced we have free will, but It isn’t as simple as we might want it to be

Hall 2011. Physical basis for the emergence of autopoiesis, cognition and knowledge

Hall et al. 2011. Time-based frameworks for valuing knowledge: maintaining strategic knowledge 2

Defining “Free Will”

Metaphysical statements – Reality is governed by universal laws

– Free will must exist within the laws of physics

Determinism vs free will – Determinism: every event is determined by natural laws:

nothing can happen without an unbroken chain of causes that can be traced all the way back to the beginning of time and space

– Free will is the ability to make a choice against the bias of environment or heredity. The opposite of free will is hard determinism, the belief that all our choices are caused deterministically (i.e., not probabilistically)

– free will is not necessarily the opposite of a broadly defined determinism that includes probabilities. As will be seen free will and this kind of determinism may be compatible 3

Physics and Microphysics

―

Universal Laws and Quantum Indeterminancy

Ellis, 2011. The arrow of time, the nature of spacetime, and quantum measurement

Nature of physical reality:

1. Hierarchal Structure: The Universe is a hierarchically complex dynamical system structured at many levels of nested organization

2. Combinatorial structure: Physical reality is made of linearly behaving components combined in non-linear ways.

3. Emergence: Higher level behaviour emerges from lower level structure (“bottom up causation”).

4. Contextuality: The way the lower level elements behave depends on the context in which they are imbedded (“top down causation”).

5. Quantum foundations: Quantum theory is the universal foundation of what happens, through applying locally to the lower level (= very small scale) entities at all times and places.

6. Quantum limitations: Linearity at higher (= larger scale) levels cannot be assumed, it will be true only if it can be shown to emerge from the specific combination of lower level elements.

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Causation: (Ellis 2013). On the limits of quantum theory: contextuality and the quantum-classical cut

Basic Premise: Individual Events Happen. – Each word is important:

Individual: Statistics is not enough. An ensemble of events is made up of individual events. There is no ensemble if individual events don’t separately happen.

Events: Specific things occur. Universal laws describe multifold possibilities of what might happen, but we experience specific events in our own particular history.

Happen: They occur in time: they are about to occur, they occur, then they have occurred. Uncertainty about what might occur changes to the certainty of what has occurred.

This is true at every level of the hierarchy of structure and complexity

– At the micro level: entanglement and decoherence take place.

photons are emitted, go through polarizers, get scattered, are detected

particles are emitted, go through slits, get scattered, impact on screens

electrons in atoms change energy levels and emit photons, or absorb photons and change energy levels

– At the macrolevel: objects fall to the surface of the earth, birds fly.

explode, planets move round the sun,

the universe evolves, structures form,

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Upward and downward causation at the system level

The instantaneous state of the present “state space” constrains its state in the next instant to an “adjacent possible” state.

– This present state also reflects the historical sequence of prior instances

Upward causation involves the operation of governing rules involving lower-level entities causing changes in the higher level system comprised of those entities

Downward causation refers to the constraining effects that the existence of a system in a higher level environment has on the target system’s properties and interactions

Selective processes based on instantaneous structures of phase space may affect (i.e., constrain) the probabilities that particular “adjacent possible” states have to be realized

As will be seen, these biased probabilities may act as a form of downward causation, where organization of the larger structure biases the sequences of realizations of lower level structures 7

Demonstrating upward and downward causation in a toy universe

System has only one adjacent possible in each next instant

Upward causation = application of the governing rules (universal law) to individual cells

Downward causation = location of on cells at time instant “now” determines location of on cells at time instant now + 1 8

A “glider” system in Conway’s Game of Life. (see also cellular automaton) “On” cells are black, “Off” cells are empty or gray. Empty “Neighbouring” cells are grey The governing rule states that: (0) The universe is a 2D grid where a cell may be Off or On; (1) An Off cell with exactly three on neighbours turns On; (2) An On cell with two or three on neighbors stays On; (3) Cells with other than two or three On neighbours turn Off

or remain Off

Time: a grossly neglected aspect of physics Falk 2016 "A Debate Over the Physics of Time", Quanta Magazine

Hall et al. 2011. Time-based frameworks for valuing knowledge: maintaining strategic knowledge

Einsteinian space-time: the block universe – Time is the 4th dimension in a 4D hyperspace – Everything exists – what you see depends on your current location on

the time axis - implies nothing changes except your location No capacity for free will or choice

Quantum world: stochastic nature of quantum mechanics – Future is undetermined, present state of the world progresses

through a sequence of instants of becoming – Ellis etc’s emerging or evolving/crystallizing block universe

“past” is unchangeably fixed spacetime block (if it exists at all) ”future” exists only as possibilities until a particular possibility emerges

and is realized in the present instant. “present” or “now” is an instant of quantum mechanical interaction when

one of many possible future worlds becomes real and establishes the possibilities for the next instant.

The dynamic real world evolves and unfolds through an inexorable iteration of instants of becoming, where the becoming of each instance quantum mechanically determines the present and defines possibilities for the next instant only. 9

Ellis (2006) Evolving block universe (Newtonian) Ellis & Rothman (2010) Crystallizing block universe (quantum mechanical)

Past is fixed Structure of present is

determined and fixed in each instant of becoming

Future is undetermined Solid line – what happened Kauffman (1996, 2003; Kauffman

et al 2008) : adjacent possible = the set of states that are causally possible at a given instant in time – t1 Dashed lines indicate all possible

future states that can be causally reached in the next instant from the present

– t2 A later instant. One state (solid line) was realized at t1 , Dotted lines are states that could have caused by the state at t1 but didn’t happen. Dashed lines represent states that can still be reached from the state at t2

The future is continually and progressively constrained by realization of the present

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A universe open to top-down causation

Kauffman’s “adjacent possible” – Possible configurations of state

space that may exist in the next instant from “now”

– (Ellis) One of these crystallizes in the next instant – which then provides the cause for forming the next future state.

– Each step in the advance of time prunes all but one adjacent possible configuration and establishes the basis for a new manifold of possibilities in the next step.

How does this allow us to make choices?

– Planck time ~ 5 x 10-44 sec. – physiology of human

perceptions and decisions are measured in milliseconds 11

Trajectory of a particle through space and time where the motion is randomly perturbed. (After Ellis 2006; Ellis & Rothman 2010). t1 and t2 represent different instances of becoming or “nows”. The trajectory in the past either no longer exists or cannot be changed, and the possible future trajectories don’t exist until they are realized or crystallized in the continually iterating now.

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Causation in hierarchical structure See Hall (2011), pp. 31-41

Holon – a “two faced” system that looks upward to the supersystem that constrains its behavior, and downward to the subsystems that determine what it is possible for it to do.

Every holon interacts with other holons at its own focal level of organization to form that higher level supersystem

Bottom up or upward causation - Every holon is comprised of lower-level subsystems (e.g., people, machines) whose capabilities and law-like behavioral interactions determine what is possible for the entity to do

Top-down or downward causation - Every organizational entity is a component within a higher-level supersystem forming an environment that constrains what the focal system (= holon) can or must do to survive

Life Knowledge

& Adaptation

Living systems: bounded, complex, mechanistic, self-referential, self-producing, and autonomous.

Autopoiesis (Maturana & Varela 1973; Hall 2011) = state where bodies formed by self-referentially cyclic processes that work to maintain their existences through time in a constantly changing world, using feedback from observations of their selves in earlier instants of time turning observations into actions always takes time) to maintain autopoiesis.

Driven by production of entropy Physical structure as a form of heritable knowledge

– Dynamic structure at t1 causes dynamic structure at t2

– Only structures that cause structures that are autopoietic at next instant remain autopoeitic

Failure to stay in autopoietic zone throughout cycle dissipates knowledge 14

Autopoiesis (Maturana & Varela 1980; see also Wikipedia, Hall 2011) – Reflexively self-regulating, self-sustaining, self-(re)producing dynamic entity

– Continuation of autopoiesis depends on the iterated cycles where the dynamic structure of the state in the previous instant produce an autopoietic structure in each next instant

– Selective survival builds knowledge as corrective feedback into the system one problem solution at a time ( after Popper 1972, 1994)

By surviving a perturbation, the living entity has solved a problem of life

Structural knowledge embodied in dynamic structure, e.g. as demonstrated by self-producing cellular automata

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Solving problems of survival makes a system living

Constraints and boundaries, regulations determine what is physically allowable

Energy (exergy)

Component recruitment

Materials

Observation

s

Entropy/Waste

Products

Departures

Actions

ProcessesProcesses

"universal" laws governing component interactions determine physical capabilities

The entity's imperatives and goals

The entity's history and present circumstances

HIGHER LEVEL SYSTEM / ENVIRONMENT

SUBSYSTEMS / COMPONENTS

Constraints and boundaries, regulations determine what is physically allowable

Energy (exergy)

Component recruitment

Materials

Observation

s

Entropy/Waste

Products

Departures

Actions

ProcessesProcesses

"universal" laws governing component interactions determine physical capabilities

The entity's imperatives and goals

The entity's history and present circumstances

HIGHER LEVEL SYSTEM / ENVIRONMENT

SUBSYSTEMS / COMPONENTS

Gliders – cycle in 4 steps

Gosper’s Glider Gun cycles in 14 steps

Rule: Live cell with 2 or 3 live neighbours lives Dead cell with 3 live neighbours lives All other live cells die

Coupled subsystems in an autopoietic entity

Karl Popper’s evolutionary episemology – a rationalist, biologically based understanding of knowledge

Born in Vienna to well-off ex-Jewish, Lutheran family 1929 psychology doctorate on method in cognitive psychology 1934 Logik der Forschung (1959 Logic of Scientific

Discovery) – “Solved” the problem of induction – Falsifiability demarcates between science and pseudo-science

1937 New Zealand, completed Open Society and its Enemies 1946 London School of Economics – professor from 1949

25 Oct. 1946 – “Wittgenstein’s Poker affair” – Edmonds, D. and Eidinow, J. (2001) Wittgenstein's Poker: The Story of a Ten-Minute

Argument Between Two Great Philosophers

– Munz, P. (2004). Beyond Wittgenstein’s Poker: New Light on Popper and Wittgenstein.

6 March 1952 –Michael Polanyi’s humiliation in Popper’s LSE seminar – Neither author nor the authors’ followers will cite the other

– Watkins, J. (1997) Obituary of Karl Popper, 1902-94.

1963 Conjectures and Refutations: the Growth of Scientific Knowledge 1972 Objective Knowledge: An Evolutionary Approach

– Boyd (2013). Popper’s World 3: Origins, Progress, and Import 16

Karl Popper - b. 1902, d. 1994 “Objective Knowledge”, 1972

Popper’s “general theory of evolution”

Natural selection builds knowledge (= solutions to problems)

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Pn a real-world problem faced by a living entity

TS a tentative solution/theory. Tentative solutions are varied through serial/parallel iteration

EE a test or process of error elimination

Pn+1 changed problem as faced by an entity incorporating a surviving solution

The whole process is iterated

All knowledge claims are constructed, cannot be proven to be true TSs may be embodied as “structure” in the “knowing” entity, or TSs may be expressed in words as hypotheses, subject to cognitive

criticism; or as genetic codes in DNA, subject to natural selection Objective expression and criticism lets our theories die in our stead Through cyclic iteration, sources of errors are found and eliminated Solutions/theories become more reliable as they survive repetitive testing Surviving TSs are knowledge!

Karl Popper, Objective Knowledge – An Evolutionary Approach (1972), pp. 241-244

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Popper's General Theory of Evolution + John Boyd’s (1996) OODA Loop process

Conscious self-criticism eliminates bad ideas while good ideas kept If errors remain, the environment penalizes or eliminates entities acting

on the errors – Reality always trumps belief

TS1 TS2 • • •

TSm

Pn Pn+1 A On EE EE

Self criticism

Environmental criticism /filter

Reality trumps belief about reality

O = Observation of reality; O = Making sense and orienting to observations with solutions to be tested; D = Selection of a solution or making a “decision”

A = Application of decision or "Action" on reality

The real world is a filter that penalizes/eliminates entities that act on mistaken decisions or errors (i.e., Darwinian selection operates)

Popper’s “three worlds” ontology

Energy flow Thermodynamics

Physics Chemistry

Biochemistry

Cybernetic self-regulation

Cognition Consciousness

Tacit knowledge

Genetic heredity Recorded thought Computer memory Logical artifacts Explicit knowledge

Reproduce/Produce

Develop/Recall

World 1 External Reality

World 2

Organismic/personal/ situational/subjective/tacit

knowledge in world 2 emerges from world 1

World 3

The world of “objective” knowledge produced in

world 2

life and “living knowledge”

“codified knowledge”

The real world

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Popper’s knowledge in an autopoietic entity

Material Reality WORLD 1

AUTOPOIETIC

SYSTEM

Embodied cybernetic knowledge WORLD 2 Recall

ITERATION/SELECTION THROUGH TIME

Produce

Symbolically encoded

knowledge/ memory

WORLD 3

The physical system and its dynamics

The impact of history (and introspective

feedback) on current structure and dynamics

Codified heritage

Epistemic cuts

Causation & Choice

Neurobiology

Free Will

RP is ‘‘the electro-physiological sign of planning, preparation, and initiation of volitional acts’’

Subjects asked to observe the clock and move their right wrist and report the precise moment when they decided to do so, (Libet et al., 1983). This estimated estimate the time of awareness with respect to the beginning of the movement, measured using an electro- myogram (to record the time of muscle contraction).

Brain electrical activity was recorded electronically. A specific negative brain potential, the RP from the supplementary motor area (SMA) involved in motor preparation is visible in EEG signals as a wave that starts before any voluntary movement, but is absent or reduced before involuntary and automatic movements.

In the experiment, the RP starts in the prefrontal motor areas long before the time when the subject reports having made the decision: participants became aware of their intention to take action about 350 ms after the onset of such potential. The volitional process is detected to start unconsciously 550 ms before the action is made in the case of non-preplanned acts and 1000 ms before in the case of preplanned acts.

Libet & the “readiness potential” (RP)

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Aspects of free will Hallett 2016. Physiology of free will

Lavazza 2016. Free will and neuroscience

Willing – (Hallett) The sense of willing is the freely made decision to initiate

a movement. The general view would be that this decision and its perception occur at the same time, and that this time is before the movement. Indeed, it would have to be before the movement if it was to be causal. Cause must precede effect.

– (Lavazza) The ‘‘ability to do otherwise.’’… [T]o be free, one has to have at least two alternatives or courses of action between which to choose.

Self-agency – (Hallett) Self-agency is the sense that the person himself is

responsible for the movement that just occurred. – (Lavazza) ‘‘[c]ontrol over one’s choices.’’ The person who acts must

be the same who decides what to do. To be granted free will, one must be the author of one’s choices, without the interference of people and of mechanisms outside of one’s reach.

Responsiveness to reason – (Lavazza) [A] decision can’t be free if it is the effect of a random

choice, but it must be rationally motivated. 23

Followup on Libet Zhong, 2016. What Does Neuroscience Research Tell Us about Human Consciousness? An

Overview of Benjamin Libet’s Legacy

Libet and colleagues, showed that “an ensemble of brain areas — localized to the frontal and medial regions of the brain — are involved in making the conscious decision to commit a motor act. Regardless of differences in neuroimaging techniques, these studies commonly showed that early neuronal activities in the frontal lobules and supplementary motor areas, interpreted by some to be reflective of unconscious processes, occurred before one was conscious of the intention to act as well as of the act itself” These processes may begin as much as several seconds before the subject becomes conscious of making a decision, but are still not clearly understood.

Zhong concludes: Until we do so, it is important that we abstain from adopting a bipolar stance regarding the origin of our conscious thoughts and behavior — that is, to characterize these origins as either totally deterministic (i.e., aligned with universal physical laws) or totally non-deterministic (i.e., conforming to imperceptible phenomena that violate physical laws)…. [D]eterminism is typified by prior events causing present events founded upon universal physical laws, and should not be taken to mean that a person’s beliefs, desires, and decisions have no purpose for what one tries to do. 24

Conundrum Assuming that unconscious neural processes formulate and initiate

decisions before we are consciously aware of having made a choice, is free will in the sense that we can

consciously control choices we make in our lives actually possible?

Answer Anticipation and anticipatory

systems

Evolutionary epistemology

Reigler, 2001. The cognitive ratchet- the ratchet effect as a fundamental principle in evolution and cognition. Reigler, 2001a. The role of anticipation in cognition. Reigler, 2003. Whose anticipations? Louie 2010. Robert Rosen’s anticipatory systems.

Anticipation

Louie 2010: “We know from introspection that many, if not most, of our own conscious activities are generated in a feedforward fashion. We typically decide what to do now in terms of what we perceive will be the consequences of our action at some later time. The vehicle by which we anticipate is in fact a model, which enables us to pull the future into the present. We change our present course of action in accordance with our model’s prediction. The stimulus for our action is not simply the present percepts; it is the prediction under these conditions. ‘‘[Prediction]’’ is not prescience, but simply ‘‘output of an anticipatory model’’. Stated otherwise, our present behavior is not just reactive; it is also anticipatory.

The evolutionary imperative Riegler 2005: “Human beings aim at a better control of their world by predicting events and constructing their reality. These constructions are constantly subject to validation and subsequent modification if necessary.”

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Structure of an anticipatory system Louie 2010

S = dynamical system conforming to physical law

M: predictive model of S in another physical system ‘M’. If the trajectories are measured in real time, then the corresponding trajectories of M are measured by a time variable that goes faster than real time. Thus, any observable on M serves as a predictor for the behavior of some corresponding observable of S at that later instant.

M and S may be coupled; i.e. allowing them to interact in specific ways. For the simplest model, we may allow the output of an observable on M to be an input to the system S. This then creates a situation in which a future state of S is controlling the present state transition in S. This is what is characterized above as anticipatory behavior. This does not violate causality; causality is evoked in an essential way in the concept of a predictive model, and hence in the characterization of the system M. Although the composite system (M + S) is completely causal, it nevertheless will behave in an anticipatory fashion.

E = an effector able to apply predictions of the model M to the system S or test predictions against actual output.

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Structure of an anticipatory system (cont.)

Similarly, we may construct a system M with outputs that embody predictions regarding the inputs to the system S. In that case, the present change of state of S will depend upon information pertaining to future inputs to S. Here again, although causality is in no sense violated, our system exhibits anticipatory behavior

An anticipatory system S entails the following: – S possesses a model subsystem M;

– there is an orthogonality between the model M and the collection of observables of S , M;

– the rate of change (the adaptation) of observables of S , M depends on M;

– the effect of the model M creates a discrepancy – S would have behaved differently if M were absent; and

– M is a predictive model – by looking at a present state of M, one obtains information pertaining to a future state of S.

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Synthesis ▬

The evolution of conscious free will

Natural selection and adaptation leads eventually to conscious free will

Adaptation: From the origin of living systems structural heredity, (later) genetic heredity, (later yet) individual learning, and (recently, in only a few lineages) cultural learning saves “knowledge” about systems that solved problems of life – allowing the individuals to survive and reproduce where others with failed solutions are eliminated as “errors”. (Popper)

– This “knowledge” provides progeny with solutions to problems they also are likely to encounter in their lives

– Through evolutionary time lineages accumulate a variety of putative solutions to problems they may or may not encounter

In other words, adaptations evolve to anticipate environmental regularities that present problems for life.

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Learning to anticipate: Popper's General Theory of Evolution + John Boyd’s (1996) OODA Loop process

Popper: The real world is a filter that penalizes/eliminates entities that act on mistaken decisions or errors (i.e., Darwinian selection operates) Conscious self-criticism eliminates bad ideas If errors remain, the environment penalizes or eliminates entities acting on the

errors – Reality always trumps belief Rosen (Louie 2010): A natural system is almost always more than any model of it. [A] model is, by definition, incomplete. As a consequence, under appropriate circumstances, the behavior predicted by a model will diverge from that actually exhibited by the system [i.e., an error is detected]. This provides the basis for a theory of error and system failure on the one hand, and for an understanding of emergence on the other.

TS1 TS2 • • •

TSm

Pn Pn+1 A On EE EE

Self criticism

Environmental criticism /filter

Reality trumps belief

Conscious anticipation and volition

Consciousness begins with extensions of anticipation

Components of consciousness – awareness of the state of the world

– memory of past states

– association of cause and effect

– capacity to imagine possible futures

– capacity to act

– sense of volition/agency

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Frith 2009. Free will and top down control in the brain

Willed action (top-down control): The action is determined by goals and plans (willed intentions). Stimulus intentions are over-ridden. (The abbreviation “-ve” for “negative” implies inhibition.)

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Slide 34

Info transformations in the autopoietic entity Perception

World 1

Autopoietic system Cell

Multicellular organism Social organisation

State

Perturbations

Observations (data)

Classification

Meaning

An "attractor basin"

Related information

Memory of history

Semantic processing to form knowledge

Predict, propose

Intelligence

World 2

Processing Paradigm (may include W3)

Another view

Decision

Medium/ Environment Autopoietic system

World State 1

Perturbation Transduction

Observation Memory Classification

Evaluation

Synthesis

Assemble Response

Internal changes

Effect action

Effect

Time

World State 2

Iterate Observed internal changes

World 1 World 2

Applying will to achieve a goal

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Hall, W.P., Else, S., Martin, C., Philp, W. 2011. Time-based frameworks for valuing knowledge: maintaining strategic knowledge. Kororoit Institute Working Papers No. 1: 1-28.

Animation: Boyd loops in time

END