On Free Will

WARNING! Understanding this post requires prior knowledge of basic quantum physics and quantum information theory concepts, the double slit experiment and the delayed choice quantum experiment. Wikipedia and Youtube can help you fill in the gaps on that. This post is in no way to be taken as absolute truth, its content is merely a sample of my own personal considerations and is therefore subject to error.

The history of the universe is a history of the abstract becoming concrete. Every object of reality exists, initially, as an ideal informational construct, comprised of all of its possible properties which are being assigned the maximum potential values or value ranges possible. More is always better than less in an universe that adjusts according to needs.

Experiments upon experiments seem to show that objects of the physical reality are merely collections of quantum bits of information which, in turn, are the result of “correlations without correlata”, as N. David Mermin put it, no concrete property comes into being until the object carrying it is being “interrogated” about it by another object of the physical world. At any given moment in time, an object is a collection of both concrete properties (which have values resulted from previous interactions / “interrogations” with other objects) and abstract properties (which have the maximum possible values or value ranges, which can be adjusted when the property becomes concrete as a result of an interaction / “interrogation” with another object).

Physical reality seems to be nothing more than a huge communication grid between objects whose properties emerge from the "dialog" between them. To put it simply, everything is communication and nothing but communication. The objects themselves are literally nothing but abstractions without the communication between them, they don't display any physical presence until they start "talking" to each other. It doesn't even matter what properties they "really" have in the abstract realm, what matters is only what they communicate to other objects about themselves. Everything in the universe will relate to that object according to what the object is communicating, whether it is abstractly accurate or not, if such a condition even makes sense.

It’s important to understand that, even though, as a result of a “dialog” between two objects, some concrete properties may emerge for both of them, the objects will both still be entirely abstract to third objects, until an interaction / “interrogation” with that third object occurs for each of them.

Of course, one could wonder how it is even possible for an object to be partially abstract and partially concrete. This would be equivalent to saying that it is partially existent as a physical object. But how could this be? Well, if we really want to understand this, we must give up on our naive realistic preconceptions. Instead of regarding a particle as an object whose properties exist independently of other objects, a more insightful approach would be to consider that particle as a virtual object, which instantiates into concreteness only those properties of itself which other objects have a need to know during interactions.

Virtual objects exist in a secondary world which is completely distinct from the primary or “real” world and yet entirely built upon the latter. Whatever is abstract in our universe is actually based on something very much concrete, which exists in the primary world this secondary universe is built upon. But, what is that primary world? And where is it, if it even makes sense to ask this question?

I guess the most logical answer would be to say that the primary world is the one God lives in and that God would be using raw material from that world, combined with some clever programming, to build our virtual reality, just like in a video game running on a computer. However, we would be assuming too much, since there is no way to tell if what we believe to be the primary world is not itself a derivative of an even more primary world.

If we can indeed point out that ours is a virtual reality, then we have no evidence whatsoever that any world this universe would be built upon would not be virtual as well. To avoid going into an infinite regress, in our attempt to find the “real” world that everything virtual is built upon, I suppose we could simply postulate that the only “real” and ultimate reality is God Himself and that everything else which exists, which He created, is simply virtual. In our quest for God, we would be confronted with the most perplexing paradox, namely that God, whose existence atheists have always questioned, is actually the only “thing” which “really” exists.

Albert Einstein’s theory of relativity suggests that, in our universe, past, present and future coexist simultaneously. Our perception of time as a continuous present would merely be a biological determination, set by God, in order to allow the existence of free will. History has already been written, the future already exists, unchangeable. The history of this universe has been predetermined based on the choices that free agents would make across all the temporal tenses of history’s timeline. The past has been written as a consequence of the pre-knowledge of the present and future, the present has been written as a consequence of the past and the pre-knowledge of the future, the future has been written as a consequence of the past and the present.

Benjamin Libet’s experiments on the human brain have shown that the body reacts instantaneously to stimuli, even before the nervous signal reaches the brain in order to be processed and integrated into the conscious experience. We retrospectively "antedate" the beginning of a sensation to the moment of the primary neuronal response. The sensation does not enter our conscious awareness until about 500 milliseconds after the stimulus, but we subjectively feel that the sensation occurred at the time of the stimulus.

This would mean that, as soon as the stimulus gets recorded by the sensory organs, it travels normally to the brain, where it is correctly interpreted and, after that, the brain projects back into the past a sensation response of the body, at exactly that time when the stimulus was recorded by the sensory organs. The brain’s present interpretation of the input causes a reaction effect in the past.

Libet went on to show that, before someone makes a conscious decision to act, his / her brain already builds up the electrical potential required for the body to comply. Again, unless we presume that free will is an illusion generated by unconscious brain processes that go before conscious experience, this can only be explained if we admit that, as soon as the decision to act is consciously made, the brain “sends back in time” the electrical signals required to align the body’s physical resources with the will to act, so that the moment of decision making and that of acting coincide. In effect, the present brain retro-causes the past brain to prepare the body for action.

John A. Wheeler’s delayed choice quantum experiment also clearly proves that particles’ properties which are being observed at the present moment (such as locality) have already come into existence before the present, specifically as a consequence of the pre-knowledge of their future observance.

The double-slit experiment, initially performed without a measuring device placed at the slits, shows that a particle passes through both slits as a wave, hits the impact screen as a wave but only leaves the mark of a single ball of matter, whose position on the screen is dictated by the shape of the wave front impacted on the screen and the laws of statistical probability.

Before this moment, both the particle and the screen exist as ideal objects from each-other’s perspective, the particle is ideal to the screen and the screen is ideal to the particle, they are both an abstract collection of properties endowed with maximum potential values or value ranges.

When the particle hits the screen, a “dialog” between the particle and the screen occurs, in which both interrogate each-other about their respective properties. The result of this interrogation is the coming into being of interrogated physical properties of both the particle and the screen, but the emergence of these properties occurs before they actually interrogate each other upon collision, namely right before either of the two have set course for each other, provided that no other interactions with third parties occur for neither of them during that traveling time. If such interactions with third parties do occur in the process, then it is possible that physical properties may emerge for the traveling particle in anticipation of those interactions instead of the expected one at the impact screen.

So before the particle even begins its journey towards the screen, through the slits, the properties which the universe knows are going to be interrogated by the screen in the future are already there. The same goes for the screen. Both parties come to the meeting already prepared to have a “conversation”, a mutual exchange of information regarding their properties. They come with their homework already done, they don’t make up stories during their “discussion”.

If the screen has no means to interrogate the locality of that particle, the locality property will remain abstract and assigned a maximum value range (the particle will literally be in all possible places at the same time). But when it hits the screen, it’s being interrogated about how many particles they are, since the number of impacting particles is also an abstract property that needs to become concrete through the interrogation.

At this, the super-positioned particle will reply “we are only one”, then the screen will know that the mark left by that particle on the screen should be pinpointed to just one location, but since the particle has no concrete locality property that the screen knows (because the screen has no means to ask that question), the actual position of the mark left by the particle on the screen will be dictated not by the location of the particle hit on the screen (which is abstract and undefined), but by the rules of statistics and probability, applied to the impacting wave front.

One thing that I think has been misunderstood is the idea that the wave impacting the screen is a probability wave. I think it’s actually a space-time wave, the fabric of space-time oscillates and that oscillation propagates from the particle’s point of origin, through the slits, and to the screen. It is only the impact position of the particle on the screen that is dictated by probability. Probability is not the actual “stuff” that the wave is made of, space-time is. Particles are, essentially, portions of oscillating space-time fabric that are being allocated a certain amount of energy.

Also, the space-time wave in question doesn't propagate unidirectionally toward the impact screen but goes, instead, in all possible directions, even backwards from the point of origin. The only reason why it is just the screen that makes a record of the impact is the fact that the particle's direction of motion is also an abstract property which is being instantiated into concreteness as a consequence of the foreknowledge of the future collision. And since the screen is set in a particular place in space (established through previous interactions with other objects), the only value which the particle's direction of motion abstract property will take when it becomes concrete is the one that ensures the impact with the screen.

Of course, if the particle interacts with another object, which has the ability to interrogate and thus instantiate the particle's direction of motion abstract property, before the particle reaches the screen (such as a measuring device placed at the slits), then the above reasoning applies to that particular object instead of the screen.

Coming back to the double-slit experiment, if we place a measuring device on one of the slits, allowing us to see which slit that particle actually goes through, then that particle seemingly impacts the screen as a localized object instead of as an object riding a wave front. In establishing the impact pinpoint, the rules of probability are no longer being applied.

The explanation of this is that the measuring device at the slits interrogates the passing particle as to its location. Because of that, the abstract property of location becomes concrete and is being assigned a concrete value but not when being measured but right at the particle’s point of origin, in the past. The measuring acts simply as a trigger for a past event. The concrete location coordinates of that particle, starting at its point of origin, will continue to change until the particle reaches the measuring device at the slits, but the concrete character of the location property will come into being at the particle’s point of origin.

What needs to be understood though is that even in this case the particle will still pass through both slits as a space-time wave and will impact the screen as such, with the difference that, in this case, even though the screen doesn’t have the means to interrogate the position of the particle, the particle will still display its location coordinates, because they have become concrete values since the particle’s point of origin, as a result of being interrogated in the future by the measuring device placed at the slits.

It’s important to note that the same scenario happens even when the measuring device is placed at only one slit and the measured electron passes through the other, unattended slit. That’s because, as I’ve already mentioned, the electron comes in as a wave, reaches both slits, including the one where the measuring device is found, and then the electron’s position is being instantiated as a result of the “dialog” of the wave with that device. The result of this “conversation” may well be that the electron declares his concrete position to be at the unattended slit, not at the slit where the measurement is being made.

If quantum information theory is correct, then measurement and entanglement are actually the same thing. Measuring a particle’s properties creates an entanglement between the observer and the observed. From then on, both parties take a commitment to preserve the concreteness of those properties they’ve communicated to each other. This commitment is being kept even when each party goes on to interact with other objects in the future and it is in fact the mechanism which ensures the consistency of the physical universe.

Thus, entanglement between the observer and the observed makes it possible for two people to notice the white color of a sheet of paper even when they don’t observe it at the same time. It suffices that the first one takes a look at the paper sheet and, from then on, it is sure that everyone else looking at it will see the same thing as the first observer. The paper sheet will not be perceived as white simply because it carries the property of being white but because somewhere in the universe another observer has already noticed that the paper sheet was white and is now carrying that information with him. The existence of that first observer and his quality as a former observer of the white sheet of paper ensures that all future observers will see the same thing as he did the first time. All properties of all objects exist only in relationships.

The really nice thing though is that there is no reason to restrict entanglement’s effects only across space and not also across time. “Spooky action at a distance”, as Einstein called it, refers to distance in space-time, not just space. In fact, we would be able to explain the retro-causality observed in Wheeler’s delayed choice experiment by pointing out that entanglement makes it possible to “bind” the observer and the observed in the past, even though the act of observing is being performed in the present or in the future.

So, if the past, present and future coexist simultaneously, then this means that every particle in the universe is not simply a little ball of matter moving around, it’s in reality the sum of all of its properties and property values at all moments in time throughout history. If we could see an electron as it really is from outside space-time, it would look like a cord unfolding through the universe, twisting and turning, with one end at the Big Bang and the other at the end of future space-time, each point on this “cord” being a collection of all of the electron’s concrete properties, such as position, spin, energy level, at a particular moment in time.

Since we are all made of such particles, that means we’re all made of such “cords” and, therefore, to say that it’s possible to go back in time using our present day bodies is to deny the continuous nature of the space-time that our body particles are made of. One simply cannot carry an electron from our present day body back into the past unless the exact properties of the electron in the present overlap with the exact properties of the same electron in the past. At any moment in time, there’s just one informational object called “electron X” in existence. Its properties may be indeterminately abstract or determinately concrete or a sum of both but the object itself is just one. Going back in time for a particle must necessarily mean going back in space, too. It’s the only way to ensure consistency of the particle’s properties throughout time.

Coming back to why we cannot perceive the future and how this is related to free will, I think that, if we accept that all temporal tenses coexist simultaneously, then this would mean that there’s absolutely nothing we can do at any moment of the present time to change any moment of the future. The future already exists, unchangeable, even before we decide what it should look like. Some fatalists might say that’s proof that there’s no such thing as free will, all is predetermined. To a certain extent that may sound reasonable but overall it is profoundly wrong.

Since God created all time and all tenses coexist simultaneously, and since Wheeler’s delayed choice quantum experiment as well as Libet’s experiments on the human brain clearly show that causality appears to have a retroactive effect, from the present to the past, then this means that God created both the past and the future so that they both reflect choices made by free agents in the present. But the price we must pay in order that we may remain free in an universe whose history is already set and unchangeable, is our inability to foresee the future.

This inability is also proof that free will is not an illusory product of our deterministic brains, since there is simply no reason why we should not be able to foresee our already existing future, except for the case when free will is actually real and necessary.

Had it been any other way, we would justifiably argue that we don’t carry the responsibility for our future sins, as it would appear we have no alternative but to commit them. In addition, we would be able to make deliberate choices in the present that would knowledgeably produce future effects that would contradict what we would know in advance would happen for certain in a changeless future. But that would give rise to an inherent temporal incoherence in the universe, which would nullify its changeless nature.

This is why, in order to preserve that changelessness, God has forbidden free agents to know their own future but has devised instead a mechanism by which both the past and the future are being constructed based on the present choices of free agents, thus making it possible for free will to exist and for free agents to carry the responsibility for their actions, at any moment in time.

So, if it’s true that everything which was created by God is virtual in nature, then who or what decides which abstract properties of a particle may become concrete? Who or what decides what an object communicates about itself? Is it the object itself or someone else on its behalf? A subatomic particle has no cognition of its own in order to make arbitrary choices by itself. If we agree that God is in fact the one communicating on the object’s behalf, then our physical universe is entirely a stage set by Him for the physical play that we’re part of.

This stage would be set in advance by keeping a pre-record of all the choices made by free agents across all tenses of our universe’s timeline, so that, regardless of what we may choose to do at one moment in time, the outcome of our actions, combined with the physical prerequisites already set a priori by God, would always lead to the play ending precisely as God had planned it to end, since before it even started.

Thus, free will would cease to be regarded as a possibly illusory product of our deterministic brains and therefore of our physical universe and would instead start to be seen as a handler of our God created reality, much like a gamer interacts with a video game developed by a third party software company.

The catch is, no matter what the gamer does, the game always ends as the developer intended it to end. The one lesson we should never allow ourselves to forget is that, however many players may be playing out there, it’s always God that wins. We can only choose to be on the sure winner’s team or the losers’ team. Too bad there’s no replay button for those who feel too lucky.