We had free will, but not anymore

“Do we have free will?” is one of the most heavily discussed yet unanswered questions that I enjoy asking myself for fun. Today, I think free will did exist during “computation” but not anymore at “actualization.” Computation (high-speed, high-volume, and high-performance calculation of activities) takes first, which results in actualization (reflecting the result of computed activities in physical reality). Free will could have existed in the computation phase of our world. But now that we are in the actualization phase, we may only be reflecting the pre-computed results onto the physical world, thus no free will anymore. 

John-Dylan Haynes – Our subconsciousness has free will but our consciousness doesn’t 

John-Dylan Haynes at the Bernstein Center for Computational Neuroscience in Berlin conducted simple yet insightful research around our decision-making process. The subjects sat in front of the table where they pressed the left or right button in front of them, and the researchers observed their brain activities using MRI. The discovery is that MRI successfully detects the brain making a decision to press the correct button 10 seconds before the person consciously makes a decision and presses the button. That is, 10 seconds before we even consciously decide to press the left or right button, our brain already made that decision. 

With this advanced technology, one day we may be able to predict every decision we make before we even make that decision. In that sense, we do not have true free will. However, with this new discovery, let’s make a paradigm shift to something new. Consciousness is a cognitive and actualization layer, so we believed the conscious part is us. But now we learned that subconsciousness is where the decision is made, we should extend the definition of self beyond cognitive consciousness and include a vital role that subconsciousness plays. Even though our consciousness is a reflection of decisions made in our subconsciousness, they also reflect the decision made freely by our brains. Therefore, I concluded that we had a free will at the computation phase, but not anymore once we actualize in consciousness.

As such, I want to frame free will in three different layers:

• Compute
• Process of actualization
• Actualize

But what if this framework goes even beyond the scale of humanity? What if everything that we consciously experience today was computed before the birth of our physical world? 

VR Chat – Sorry the graphics takes some time to show up…

Metaverse today is still quite laggy because the commanded action takes time to show on a 3D graphic. This concept of delayed actualization on graphics gave me a moment of lightning realization that this framework is applicable to our real world. In VR Chat, one of the most popular VR games today, there is a bowling game. I watched the YouTube video of people playing this game, and I saw the glitch that reflects my model of computation and actualization. The player throws the bowling ball, and we see that is it rolling. However, the pins start to fall even before the ball reaches the end of an ally. That is simply because the program already finished the calculation of how many pins the player’s ball will hit the moment the ball left the player’s hand. The program’s failure to properly calculate the actualization of result in a consecutive older caused that glitch.

What if our world is simply a better version of VR Chat? That is, everything is already calculated, and we dwell in the process of actualization. What I meant by everything is everything before the birth of reality, which includes the activities of humanity on Earth and all human decisions made within. During that phase of computation, we could have had free will, but now we don’t anymore because the world is going through the actualization phase.

Proof 3: Geroge Berkeley – There is Will, Spirit, or God that is an immediate cause of all activities

Geoge Berkeley is a 17th~18th century Irish philosopher whose ideology partially aligns with the Computation and Actualization model. This is Teodor Oizerman’s summary of Berkeley’s ideology: “The causes of sensations could not be things, because what we called things, and considered without grounds to be something different from our sensations, were built up wholly from sensations. There must consequently be some other external source of the inexhaustible diversity of sensations. The source of our sensations, Berkeley concluded, could only be God; He gave them to man, who had to see in them signs and symbols that carried God’s word.” (source)

For an 18th-century philosopher, Berkeley could best think of God as the best analogy, but he still intuitively spotted something meaningful in essence. The sensation cannot be a cause of sensation, it must be from somewhere else. While I personally don’t believe in God, I do believe there could be a phase of anything before the actualization of physical reality we live and experience today, which is computation. 

Limitations

The purpose of this article is to spark curiosity and discussion, not to define anything. So I do know some of the arguments here don’t make sense and have limitations.

First, we do not know if the computation leading to actualization happened once or multiple times. I am in tech, so let me compare it with Agile and CI/CD workflow. Agile and CI/CD principles highlight the importance of accepting it is hard to plan and create a perfect product at once before the launch. They accept the imperfection and improve the product on a recurring basis after launching it. If our world is like that, everything may not be predestined, and there is room to change in the middle of actualization. That is why I say we don’t know if actualization can be interrupted and redirected in the middle. 

Second, while computation leads to actualization, we do not know anything about the cause of computation. Computation is merely a phenomenon, not a will. VR Chat I mentioned above has a clear will to entertain players in the metaverse. The cognitive decision was made because the subjects faced a clear cause to press one of the buttons in front of them. While I think the perspective of computation and actualization is a highly plausible concept, I still have no clue what predates computation. 

Third, our minds also have our zeitgeist limitations just like George Berkeley did in the 18th century. That is, my analogies pertain to what I experienced in20th and 21st centry, such as VR, modern psychology, MRI imagery, etc. Also, our perception of time that it flows from past to future may be proven faulty in the future. If computation is the cause of actualization, who knows if this order is correct? What is time flows in a circle, backward, or Jeremy Bearimy (“The Good Place” analogy)? 

Conclusion

With technology, we can observe a process of computation before actualization. We discovered our subconsciousness makes a decision before our consciousness does. The gaming program of VR Chat calculates the result of the bowling score before it reflects on 3D graphics. Berkeley’s ideology that there is a cause of our sensation, the cause that transcends physical reality, may be proven partially correct given the new discoveries we have today. According to this perspective, our free will existed in the computation period, but now that we are in the actualization phase in a physical world, we may be reflecting on the decisions made before.