Limited Meaningful path(s) vs All possible paths equally valid

A question that arises if one starts to analyze their surroundings is what is the cause of them, as individuals, existing at this point in this specific time and place with this specific series of events, many of which can drastically overpower what little options one has in this highly limited state.   Though some do not seem to question the limitations of the human state, taking it for given, due to the accumulation of the works of the imagination and their ever more realistic displays more and more are coming to question these limitations.    Though some still dismiss the possibility of transcending such limitations as unrealistic, or fantasy.

But even if these limitations were only temporary, the present state still demands an explanation.

One possibility, the multiverse like possibility, is that all possible events and actions take place one path or possibility not being ruled out, but basically everything is possible and is, someone was bound to experience this.   Another possibility is that even though everything is possible in principle, there are certain set of paths for which there is predilection, that are favored, perhaps by something akin to logical necessity, the rest of the paths confined to fiction or subset worlds of the main line or structure.

When one looks at mathematical statements once a series of symbols or statements is assigned a particular meaning, what derives from them and their combination is constrained by the necessity of their validity due to their being part of the body of truth.

Counterfactuals

The basic idea of counterfactual theories of causation is that the meaning of causal claims can be explained in terms of counterfactual conditionals of the form “If A had not occurred, C would not have occurred”. While counterfactual analyses have been given of type-causal concepts, most counterfactual analyses have focused on singular causal or token-causal claims of the form “event c caused event e”. -source

While the logic of counterfactuals is sensible when it comes to describing objects and possibilities, it could be the case that if there exists deeper causality to the world, an event running counter to its actual evolution could very well be a logical impossibility given the same state, logically inconsistent if it were different.   It could be no other way.

There are those that argue against determinism, but to truly differ from determinism you would need randomness, not just pseudorandomness, but actual true randomness.

These stochastic processes are, in theory, completely unpredictable, and the theory's assertions of unpredictability are subject to experimental test. This is in contrast to the common paradigm of pseudo-random number generation commonly implemented in computer programs or cryptographic hardware. -hardware true random number generator

But true randomness itself could very well be not just an ill defined concept but an illogical concept.  The past is not subject to change, and the present and future that follow are highly dependent on that lack of change.   No other decision could have been made, even the most minute of decisions would have significantly changed the positions of even atoms in the atmosphere making them inconsistent with their present and future positions.   A radioactive atoms, of which there are some in the food and air, and in the drinks, it cannot be the case that it ever decayed anywhere in the body of the long line of ancestors of present humans in such a way as to result in adding the last mutation to make a cell into a lethal cancer prior to their lives reaching the point where such was the case if it was the case.

Not just Einstein or Hitler, but even all those of lesser fame, their contribution upon the future cannot be changed by a change to the past, the past is fixed in stone, or it would make it inconsistent with the present and the future.

Supported by Block time, the idea that relativity suggests absolute simultaneity does not exist, the absolute present does not exist, but that the nature of what we call the present as well as the future does not have a boundary or transition with the past, but all is equal in nature to the past.

The foundation of the philosophy of eternalism, all moments eternal, atemporal.

Eternalism is a philosophical approach to the ontological nature of time, which takes the view that all existence in time is equally real, as opposed to presentism or the growing block universe theory of time, in which at least the future is not the same as any other time.^[1] Some forms of eternalism give time a similar ontology to that of space, as a dimension, with different times being as real as different places, and future events are "already there" in the same sense other places are already there, and that there is no objective flow of time.^[2] It is sometimes referred to as the "block time" or "block universe" theory due to its description of space-time as an unchanging four-dimensional "block",^[3] as opposed to the view of the world as a three-dimensional space modulated by the passage of time. -Eternalism

It could be that such a structure, may have an internal logic, a reason why certain laws apply, and even a certain set of events takes place.

Perhaps.   Perhaps there is underlying structure and logic to it all.   It just seems that underneath the clay of all the possibilities, many of which may be truly nonsensical, within some path or paths with seeming meaning and logic may lay.

If it were that all paths are possible or real in some sense, one wonders what defines or determines the path experienced and the constraints within it.

It all boils down to the nature of truth, is it some meaningless blob where all possibilities are equally valid, or is there a reason for certain things to be in the grander scheme of things, an underlying structure and logic to reality, to existence itself.   Right now mathematics suggests that once an initial series of elements is taken into account, from these emerges a vast body of structure, and not all combinations, not all possibilities or statements are logically valid, are true, some are and some aren't.   Does what holds for mathematics hold in the grander scheme of things of the real world?

Comment on free will and the brain

free will brain

"Their study showed that although injuries disrupting volition — the desire to act — can occur in many different locations, they fall within the same brain network. Injuries disrupting agency — the feeling of responsibility for carrying out those actions — also can occur in many different locations, but they fall within a separate network. "

https://neurosciencenews.com/free-will-brain-networks-9947/

This is the problem for those trying to defend free will, and moral responsibility.    An agent that is divisible, that is an agent who has various components that follow rules and generate behavior, in the end is not responsible for its actions.   This inner environment, these cogs in the machine, they are the causal roots of its behavior, no different in kind from external elements or causes.

True Free will requires an indivisible agent external to the causal chain of the world, but such a being may not make sense.

Comment on Plot armor, FATE, or the strongest armor in fiction

In fiction characters often face untold challenges and perils.   There may come times when they are unarmed, captured, even tortured, or injured, sometimes even killed.   But above and atop all their abilities, all their powers, all their equipment it is plot armor that reigns above all else.

Plot armor refers to the protection from the writers in fiction, something that will ensure victory, success, survival or the accomplishment of the predestined path regardless of the obstacles or opposition within the story.

Often this armor is conferred to the good, those fighting for good tend to have such armor, and it is the thing that ensures no matter the bullets that fly by, no matter the injuries or peril good wins in the end.   It is the hand of fate that ensures the victory of the good in fiction.

In this world, there are those that believe in True Randomness, something that leads to nonsense, and unpredictable even seemingly contradictory outcomes.    But whether True randomness exist or not, I believe is an open question. Personally I think it is a nonsensical concept.

Devoid of true randomness, you have superdeterminism, which is just another word for true determinism, or determinism.

If it is so that superdeterminism is an aspect of truth, then the history of man is set in stone, and the path is set.   Destiny, and immutable path, towards the future.   If there is Fate, a kind of plot armor exists outside of fiction, because if something is destined to happen, meant to happen, it will happen regardless of what stands in its way.

There are those that believe the world moves towards the ideal state, becoming the ideal world.  Is this so?  Perhaps.  It would certainly be preferable for the ideal world to be in the future, in a certain way, predestined to be.

RESPONSE TO DETERMINISM DEBUNKED video

RESPONSE:

The problem is "What" is doing the comparing. If it is machines, either random or deterministic, these "MACHINES" or cells, are an internal cause no different than an external rock or push or gun moving you in one direction or another. A computer program can follow algorithms similar to those coded by the genes and implemented in the neural tissue, able to learn and think. 

There is nothing to preclude the possible existence of agi, which would be a being able to debate.


 There are individuals with defects in the neural tissue that significantly increase their probability of deviancy, criminal activity, gambling, etc.


 If a person be it by genetic engineering or artificial implant, is made such that they have a high probability of consenting to say X activity, that does not make it a free decision on their part. The inbuild biases, and limitations, in normal humans also make their decisions not free. Doesn't matter if the causal chain is random, deterministic, from natural or artificial sources, in any case there is no true freedom. 


True freedom of choice necessitates, an undivisible non-machine agent, but all conscious agents are the product of algorithm following machinery.


PS EDITAGAIN INTERNAL TO THE BRAIN IS STILL 'EXTERNAL' to you as a person in the sense of free will.  An implant that causes you to consent to X, does not mean you freely chose X.  It is internal to your brain. The various cells and brain regions are no different from natural implants causing each and every one of your actions.  And just like an implant, when it comes to the natural tissue, there are biases and limitations that alter your probability of doing any action.

Tumors, Brain damage, or more subtle molecular or wiring differences can lead to serious differences in the probability of different outcomes in different situations.   This is entirely out of your control.

PPS
You can think and evaluate, but the process follows internal causal chain of algorithms, and cannot be changed by you.   This is without talking about ideas like the "relativity of simultaneity", and eternalism, that say the 'present' is no different from the 'past', and as locked in stone as the past.

High level phenomena and being dependent on the flow of underlying processes

When you exist at a certain level, but processes underneath guide your actions and determine your fate, you're a prisoner of fate.   Factors outside your control determine what you can and cannot do, they also determine your decisions, not just what choices are open to you but the very choice itself is determined by the underlying factors.

At the least if it was possible for the loop to be completed by gaining control of all relevant underlying factors, the 'freedom' of the individual could be conceivable.   But as it stands, the world, reality it is a prison without exit.   Only the illusion of choice hides this reality.

Would Feynman be a digital physicist if he were alive today? articles, and videoThrough the Wormhole - Wave/Particle - Silicon Droplets

 We choose to examine a phenomenon which is impossible, absolutely impossible, to explain in any classical way, and which has in it the heart of quantum mechanics. In reality, it contains the only mystery. We cannot make the mystery go away by “explaining” how it works. We will just tell you how it works. In telling you how it works we will have told you about the basic peculiarities of all quantum mechanics.-lectures http://www.feynmanlectures.caltech.edu/III_01.html

Yet the impossible has been done an a classical example of this kind of behavior shown. An analogous experiment with photons as well as one with droplets appears to go along with bohm.


New Support for Alternative Quantum View

An experiment claims to have invalidated a decades-old criticism against pilot-wave theory, an alternative formulation of quantum mechanics that avoids the most baffling features of the subatomic universe.....That may sound like a throwback to classical mechanics, but there’s a crucial difference. Classical mechanics is purely “local” — stuff can affect other stuff only if it is adjacent to it (or via the influence of some kind of field, like an electric field, which can send impulses no faster than the speed of light). Quantum mechanics, in contrast, is inherently nonlocal. ...
By comparison, the Bohmian view sounds rather tame: The electrons act like actual particles, their velocities at any moment fully determined by the pilot wave, which in turn depends on the wave function. In this view, each electron is like a surfer: It occupies a particular place at every specific moment in time, yet its motion is dictated by the motion of a spread-out wave. Although each electron takes a fully determined path through just one slit, the pilot wave passes through both slits. The end result exactly matches the pattern one sees in standard quantum mechanics.-https://www.quantamagazine.org/20160517-pilot-wave-theory-gains-experimental-support/

Another with droplets

“This is a classical system that exhibits behavior that people previously thought was exclusive to the quantum realm, and we can say why,” said John Bush, a professor of applied mathematics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who has led several recent bouncing-droplet experiments. “The more things we understand and can provide a physical rationale for, the more difficult it will be to defend the ‘quantum mechanics is magic’ perspective.”...
The great 20th-century physicist Richard Feynman said that this double-slit experiment “has in it the heart of quantum mechanics,” and “is impossible, absolutely impossible, to explain in any classical way.”
Some physicists now disagree. “Quantum mechanics is very successful; nobody’s claiming that it’s wrong,” said Paul Milewski, a professor of mathematics at the University of Bath in England who has devised computer models of bouncing-droplet dynamics. “What we believe is that there may be, in fact, some more fundamental reason why [quantum mechanics] looks the way it does.”-source wired
https://www.wired.com/2014/06/the-new-quantum-reality/

Superdeterminstic free will?

Suppose the world is super-deterministic, with not just inanimate nature running on behind-the-scenes clockwork, but with our behavior, including our belief that we are free to choose to do one experiment rather than another, absolutely predetermined, including the "decision" by the experimenter to carry out one set of measurements rather than another, the difficulty disappears. There is no need for a faster than light signal to tell particle A what measurement has been carried out on particle B, because the universe, including particle A, already "knows" what that measurement, and its outcome, will be.-Bell bbc, from wikipedia

Compatibilists seek to say that determinism is compatible with free will.   But the thing is if all your actions are the result of another's decisions, which they could potentially be in a deterministic world then how can you say they're your choices and not theirs?   But there is a way out, if consciousness is shared, identity shared, and the initial cause of the deterministic sequence is this consciousness.  Then it is basically the agent which made the choice.

The only remaining problems would be one of emergence, how an emergent entity relates to its components.   Because it would seem like being composed of components means a divisible agent's decisions are the result of these components.  But this might be of logical necessity, and separating the mind from the components of the mind, might be like separating a person from their physical instantiation.   Though a potential solution is if the minimal components also have some degree of consciousness, and thus the collective selection, the collective choice is the result of a collective consciousness.