Free will and Evolution
According to the theory of evolution (TOE) traits that confer an advantage in the environment survive while those that are disadvantageous lead to extinction. All life-forms extant have been passed the test of survival. Am I right?
If yes, then how does this fact bear on free will (existence or nonexistence)?
Having free will implies that we have the ability to choose over many options. With free will we can choose from the environment elements that are beneficial for our survival. In other words having free will is a survival advantage.
It follows then that, while we're unsure of free will now, it will most definitely evolve into existence in the future.
Your views...
If yes, then how does this fact bear on free will (existence or nonexistence)?
Having free will implies that we have the ability to choose over many options. With free will we can choose from the environment elements that are beneficial for our survival. In other words having free will is a survival advantage.
It follows then that, while we're unsure of free will now, it will most definitely evolve into existence in the future.
Your views...
Comments (100)
That said, evolutionary theory already accommodates for the fact of niche construction, which is the when organisms alter their environment so as to be better accommodated to it. That niche construction occurs says nothing about 'free will' though, so we can keep the science while dropping the bad metaphysics.
Free Will may not be a "survival advantage" because the freely chosen preferences of the individual need not align with the survival of the genes.
We all know people who prefer not to have children. Their genes have been deselected.
So animals can construct niches, but people can't make choices?
I may be wrong but success in life, generally speaking, has been attributed to making the right choices.
I do agree that other animals lack the cognitive capacity to make choices and yet they too seem to be ''successful'' at life. But look at success in terms of degrees. Humans, apparently able to make choices, seem to be at the top of the food chain. To what extent do you think this ''achievement'' can be assigned to our ''free will''?
Quoting tom
There's a difference between the type of choice you make and the ability to make them (free will). It is possible to choose extinction but that doesn't mean our ability to select life-sustaining options is not a survival advantage.
Success in life has nothing to do with evolution. Look at all the successful, rich and powerful people whose genes have been deselected via the choices of the phenotype.
It is relevant in my view to emphasize the difference between individual and specie in the TOE.
Sometimes, there are genetic mutations in individuals, which sometimes is and advantage for these, sometime for the specie (or for both), another times is a (individual and/or specific) disadvantage, and sometime is not any of them. "Advantage" for individual and specie means "staying alive", "to survive". It is a "comparative" relation: the trait "A" is an advantage respect to B in the sense X (this case to staying alive).
However, these "advantageous" traits must be in addition genetically transmissible to be also specifically advantageous; if not, then these traits explain the success of individuals, but not species (the problem or phenomena for TOE).
Then, we can resume the TOE as "New species appear when, in individuals, they are produced genetic mutations that 1) are genetically transmissible by reproduction and 2) they fit traits that increase the individual success (the are individual advantages)".
Regarding free will: it is a mathematical or "abstract" concept to my (lack of objective determination or mechanism). If we would have "free will" then actions of people should not be predictable in absolute, so it would be scientifically intractable and hence biologic psychology would be impossible.
To what do you correlate the success of humanity? Isn't it our ability to weigh alternatives and choose the best outcome?
One could say that e.g. a scientist has no option but to be one, driven by his proclivities. Same for a musician or a writer or even a murderer. However, without the ability to compare and contrast choices no real discovery can be made. Just as an example, there were two competing theories on gravity - Newton and Einstein. We looked for evidence and chose the best one, right? This same thinking model can be applied over all human endeavor, meaning our ability to choose is critical to our success.
Perhaps free will has already evolved.
Thanks for your post. Read my reply above to another poster. What do you think?
Free will could be genetically transmissible as I seem to be able to choose just as my father or mother can. I expect my children too will have this ability.
I'm agree. Basically, free will could be viewed in an operative sense as the ability of 1) wanting to do something and 2) multiple possibilities. 1) refers to desires and 2) to knowledge (perceived options) and reality (objective options).
I just wanted to hear what people made of the possibility that free will could (must, in my opinion) evolve as a survival tool.
By what standard is humanity more successful than, say, bacteria or insects? An objective look at the Earth would conclude that life consists mostly of single-cell organisms along with some of their multi-cell descendants.
Quoting TheMadFool
Free will is not a trait, it is a metaphysical condition. Whether or not you have it is not a matter of fact, it's a matter of value, context, perspective. Sometimes it makes sense to think of ourselves as having free will, sometimes it doesn't.
[b]Libertarian free will is a logically incoherent concept. Every event including our actions is either determined or random. There is no third option. If it was determined then we couldn't have done otherwise so their was no "choice" since choice means there must be more than one option. If it is a random action then it was done for no reason and the agent is not the reason and therefore not responsible.
So evolution is irrelevant. [/b]
There is quite a gap between the atomic happenings in nature and the reasoning of human minds - one may choose the appropriate model depending on the situation. For example the simple rule that you may not steal as you would get punished is made to people viewing them as subjects of their own decisions. It would be quite hard to show the purely physical effect of that letters on a piece paper causing most people not to do so. This is explained in other terms: Who would decide to do so desipte of the punishment? It is a different level of understanding.
When it comes to the consequences it is not such a big difference between calling criminals morally corrupt or simply disfunctional.
--
If watching two people playing chess they sit there and think about their moves. At the very least they think they are making a decision there. This is free will. They do not just sit there, looking at the board and suddenly see their hand move a piece.
The abscence of subjectivity - and hence free will - is something associated with extraordinary or clinical conditions of the human mind like being drunk, drugged, shocked or more generally: the perceived loss of self-control.
Maybe it has got to do with you being made of matter, so the matter cannot simply think for itself but you have to do it...
Who said this?
Is that success?
You really know such things?
What is the TOE say then? The basic claim of the TOE seems to be that pro-survival traits get passed on and ant-survival traits die out.
Can you expand on that. Thanks
May be I spoke too soon. But our ''failure'' can be attributed to poor choices we make. If everybody realizes the fact that we're harming the planet and takes action then we would surely survive for longer than the dinosaurs barring, of course, catastrophes like asteroids and volcanoes.
It's not entirely fair to compare dinosaurs - an entire taxonomic order - with humans, a mere species. One fun fact that often goes unrecognized is that we live closer on the timelime to the T-Rex than the T-Rex did to the Stegosaurus. So yeah, not cool to compare us to dinosaurs as a whole.
Free will appears when humans learn to make choices apart from instinct, based on knowledge of good and evil, which is subjective. If jumping off the ledge into the water below gives one prestige in the group, this is good and will be chosen. This is not natural, since vanity or ego-centricity is not what drives nature.
Before free will evolved, choices were confined to the parameters of natural instinct, allowing humans to be part of the integration of nature and ecosystems. Choices were more limited and very close to deterministic. Selective advantage was in the context of these instinctive choices in a changing physical environment.
Free will or the ability to choose outside natural instinct, dissociated humans from nature and from the integration with nature. Individual free will choices cannot only cause the individual to depart from natural, but it can have a ripple affect with unexpected consequences beyond yourself. For example, if you believe in manmade global warming, this never started out as the goal. Rather it was an unexpected consequence of free will, that took decades to be seen. The natural man or women would never go there, in the first place, since instinct will not go there. It is about integration and not dissociation of nature.
In terms of evolution, the ripple affect due to human free altered the environment and added new pressures on the rest of nature, which then altered the direction of evolution for the flora and fauna of the earth. Human will power also alter the direction of human evolution, by altering the environment into manmade environments and by changing the selective pressures due to these unnatural environments.
For example, in nature, the weak and sick become part of the food supply for other animals. The weak and sick are a natural resource for stronger predators; recycle. In the human world, the weak and sick are a large consumer of resources. In nature, resources are slanted to the healthy. Natural selection has been turned on its head, due to will power. This is causing human evolution to follow a direction that favor medical issues. This is an unintended consequence of using willpower for jobs and money.
Today, in rich countries, almost everyone can point to some medical issue, large or small, which is not how nature does it. Nature is about fitness.
The brain can process data in both in 3-D and 2-D. Natural instinct is based on 3-D due to the way it integrates. Free will is based on 2-D thinking; differential. Tree of knowledge of good and evil is 2-D, with good and evil (x,y). Free will evolved due to the brain being induced to slow down so it could no longer consciously process in 3-D. The brain still uses 3-D but this is mostly unconscious.
So far. Do not presume that there are no further tests to come.
Quoting TheMadFool
Nothing to date suggests that the ability to choose inherently results in choosing that which is beneficial. And even if that were true on an individual level, can that really be extrapolated to a species?
And I also question the degree to which the colloquial understanding of evolution is still and your post is an excellent example. If free will is an evolutionary trait, then does not that in and of itself suggest that evolution after the age of free will may no longer be random, if it ever was?
Good post.
I won't fault you for suggesting such a thing. To us, we are infinitely more important and valuable than algae and cockroaches (especially cockroaches.) Still, if we take a very unnatural global and billions of years long-term view, blue-green algae created the atmosphere we and all other animals breathe. The weight of all the ants, termites, cockroaches, and >4 legged beings far exceeds ours. Our error isn't thinking that we are so important, but that everything else is dirt under our feet. Given your Buddhist studies, you likely hold the other 0-2-4-6-8-and-more-legged creatures in higher regard than many do.
Sure, biology is biology and that's a very good thing. And we are not in an either/or situation, either it's existentialist philosophy or it's biology. Our situation is that we have both, and we need to pay attention to biology or we won't be around to think about existential philosophy.
Well... Sure. I do not doubt geology and paleontology. All those big bones, big teeth. Do you doubt it? Now, as for free will, we dispute whether we have free will, so there's not much chance of imputing even an iota of free will to Tryrranusaurus Rex
without a fight.
My guess is that the Awesome Rexes probably had an iota of free will, at least. Not a lot, certainly. Their bird-brain descendants (crows, for example) seem to have a little free will -- not much, but some. As for our free will -- we have enough of it to over-estimate how much we have.
Fun fact, indeed.
I just wanted to point out a possibility. In my eyes the initial question mixes up to very different fields of observation: the reflection of nature and self-reflection. From this point of view one does not have to ask or search for self-reflectory entities in natural processes and this - evolution. The theory of evolution will easily point out the significant role of increased mental capabilities in the genesis of the homo sapiens. The question - with which I want to point you and anyone else thinking about this specific matter to a certain direction - is: What if you simply do not get the one without the other?
I frequently make that mistake.
Quoting TheMadFool
Maybe our choices were poor, but at the time (since the industrial revolution began up until about 1960) our exploitation of coal, oil, and wood seemed eminently sensible. The immediate benefits of industrialization were just to great. We liked having trains, planes, steam ships, cars, plastic, insecticides, herbicides, fungicides, purple coal dyes, bright arsenic-green dyes, et al and we still do. We like them so much that just about nobody is willing to give them up, even though we are heading for what could be (two or three centuries out) a terminating disaster.
Since Silent Spring by Rachel Carson there has been a steady drumbeat reporting adverse consequences from industrialization and hog-wild resource exploitation pointing towards irreparable damage to the the environment upon which we are (we are learning) absolutely dependent.
Using everything at hand to do interesting stuff is just what we do, it's our nature--free will and common sense be damned. If we were really sensible, at least 3 billion of the world's human population would be frantically striving to find ways to live on a small carbon foot print. That would mean giving up a good share of our goodies, like disposable plastic containers holding a small amount of something that will be used once, then tossed into the garbage or into the street where it will ultimately end up in the ocean poisoning animal life. Like not flying around the world for really very trivial purposes and short term benefit; junking private cars and replacing them with mass transit; converting to an economy not based on oil and coal, and on and on and on.
We (people) may recognize that all these drastic changes make good sense, but we find that we do not have the necessary free will to actuate these plans in a timely manner (which would be about 30 years ago). We can look at it, see it, understand it, know what we should do, then have a horrible sinking feeling in our guts and decide to think about something else.
Even our exalted selves depend on that kind of machinery to avoid risks -- when we jump back from a car coming too close, without thinking about it. If eating egg salad makes us violently ill a couple of hours after eating it, we may not be able to get another egg salad past our noses for years -- even if you want to. If an irresistible potential sex partner crosses our path, we may throw caution and morals to the wind and follow the trail.
I do think we have at least a lot of free will, but there are also built in limits on the extent to which we can exercise it.
Nice post all in all but I'd say it is a popular category error to say this would contradict free will.
You can be feeling cold although you are fevering.
Respect for liiving creatures is certainly fundamental in Buddhism, although, interestingly, only human beings are able to become Buddha.
Anyway- in terms of free will, humans are uniquely able to choose to do something. I have had this argument on DharmaWheel forum also and was surprised to find quite a few there who didn’t agree, but as far as I’m concerned it can be amply supported with references in the dialogues of the Buddha.
Because, like, where would we be if a clam or an orangutan could become Buddha?
Maybe an orangutan could become a person, if it evolved a computationally universal brain?
Yes, it's about hierarchy. Those have to reincarnate as humans first and then may become Buddah.
The belief is that animals and devas (divine beings) can become bodhisattvas - I think the former is because in Buddhist lore, the Buddha-to-be incarnates in the form of lions, deers, and so on, in his previous lives as a bodhisattva, always to illustrate the moral of a story (and those 'jataka tales' are amongst the oldest recorded scriptural texts known to history). Devas, who are numerous in Indian lore, of course, appear to be enlightened beings from the perspective of the human, but ultimately they will be re-born again in the 'saha world' (the realm of samsara). Humans alone are intelligent enough to comprehend and follow the dharma, which is why the idea of a 'precious human birth' is stressed in Buddhism.
Personally, I don't claim to know or understand much or any of that. But intuitively, I also feel as though being 'born as human', especially now, has some kind of cosmic significance, as do the decisions we make and the life we live at this time in history. After all the Universe seems pretty well devoid of other sentient beings, from what we can tell, but the fact that we're able to find that out is itself pretty amazing when you think of it. I really don't buy the common myth that humans are 'chemical scum' (Stephen Hawking's charming phrase).
Well, the switches referred to the behavior of very simple animals, and reflexive responses in higher animals--like a literal knee jerk.
When we have an infection pyrogens signal the hypothalamus to raise the body's set point from 98.6 to... maybe 102. For a period of time, we will "feel cold" because we are colder than the hypothalamus says we should be (during a fever). When our temperature gets up to 102, we will stop shivering and just feel hot--and wretched.
No matter how 'hot' you are, being 98.6 is cool.
What is a computationally universal brain?[/quote]
I've been through this many times.
Skipping the preliminaries, it is a brain that may instantiate arbitrary programs. Animal brains lack the hardware to do this. It is a brain that can instantiate programs that create knowledge, explanations, and qualia. Animal brains don't do that either.
and the implications of that would be...???
In my opinion having the ability to choose between what is beneficial and harmful, evidence of free will, is a survival advantage given, of course, that our motivations are life-sustaining and not otherwise. If this is so, then free will would be, to say the least, on the cards if not the ultimate goal of evolution.
Of course one could look at it from another angle and say that having free will actually makes it possible to make wrong choices, choices that are life-destroying e.g. suicide. That would be bad for evolution if survival is the main goal.
The problem is, to depict such choices in terms 'what benefits survival' is reductionist. All it amounts to, is a form of utilitarian ethics - that we do what we do because it's likely to 'provide a survival advantage'. Now, obviously, one ought not to leap off cliffs or walk in front of buses, and the ability to avoid such obviously lethal behaviours is 'advantageous'. But in terms of ethical philosophy and principles, it means pretty well zilch. You see, you're falling into the very common mistake, in my view, of taking evolutionary biology as a kind of 'guide to the good life', which it isn't. (This is exactly what makes Sam Harris such a crap ethical philosopher, IMO.)
Did I post a link to that NY Times opinion piece by Richard Polt, on this topic? I've mentioned it a lot of times on this forum. Oh, to hell with it, here it is again.
I'm not claiming evolution led to ethics in a direct causal fashion. I'm only saying it gave us (or will give us) intelligence and free will - the basic tools for everything under the sun. What do you think.
Thank you for the link.
That anything that 'explains everything' explains nothing.
Programs and hardware are anthropomorphic in this context. Your use of the terms will ether change the use of the terms (doubtful, given their primacy within actual programing and hardwaring), or the use will just die out.
Just tossing in little bits of confetti here and there for now.
It's called science. It is proved, that according to known physics, universal computers are equivalent - they possess the same repertoire - and that there is no higher form of computation. Either the human brain is equivalent to one of these objects, or it is less capable.
There are strong arguments that the human brain must be computationally universal.
They're anthropomorphic in the sense that we made programs and hardware, and then we decided that the world is like our programs and our hardware.
Just a little confetti.
Is it proved, or is it according to known physics?
What is?
Just some unorganized non-anthropomorphic, non-software confetti for ya
We did not endow our brains with computational universality, nor create the first software to be self-aware. Evolution did that.
There is nothing beyond computational universality. Either we have it or we lack it.
No, we made tech that created computational universality, and then we started getting anthropomorphical about it. Evolution didn't do that; the evolution of us making tech did that. What sort of evolution is that, anyway?
Everything is beyond computational universality.
Just some confetti.
It is a principle of physics, as important as Conservation of Energy, that a universal computer may exactly emulate any finite physical system by finite means. It's called the Church-Turing-Deutsch Principle, but I prefer the name the Deutsch-Principle, to distinguish it from the Church-Turing Thesis.
I could spend all day citing physics and computer science papers about this, but this is the one that started it all. Please don't read it as it will only confuse you. I provide it merely to indicate where the academic industry that studies universal computers began.
https://people.eecs.berkeley.edu/~christos/classics/Deutsch_quantum_theory.pdf
There really is nothing beyond computational universality, we either have it or we don't.
As for the phenomenon by which certain systems, subject to incremental change, may suddenly achieve universality in their domains, Evolution has produced at least two of those in the history of our planet.
I prefer the Douche Principle, and the Church Thesis. Sorry, too perfect. I'll stop trolling.
Quoting tom
Thanks; I almost dived in!
I have no arguments against this nonsense; I'm just the dunce, for now. Just here to throw some confetti. Confetti sometimes gets deleted, but sometimes it scatters widely and adds a nice dolup of humanity to an otherwise robotic landscape of laconic lunacy. The confetti isn't for you, @tom; don't worry.
Maybe you could do the decent thing, and stop wasting people's time?
Not at all; I'm the dunce. I'm doing the decent thing and supplementing people's time against your utter robotic roboticness. :rofl:
Really? You see no unifying principle at work?
The trend (if I'm correct) seems to be to look for a unified theory that ''explains everything''.
Do you think that's a dead end enterprise?
That's what Deutsche takes to be his physical version of the (unproven/unprovable) Church-Turing thesis.
There are a handful of scientists who believe that a universal computer cannot be realized, but that is a technical argument in computer science. The issue here seems to be more the following question: are human beings finitely realizable physical systems? If they are not, then the Deutsche principle is entirely irrelevant. Of course, the Deutsche principle itself does not provide the means to answer that question, and was not intended to.
It is proved that current known laws of physics obey the Deutsch Principle. It is conjectured that all future laws must also.
Quoting MetaphysicsNow
The earliest known design of a universal computer is Babbage's Analytic Engine.
Whatever Babbage's Analytic Engine was, that it was the realization of a universal computer is what the computer scientists I am talking about deny. Specifically they deny (in fact they claim to be able to prove) that there are computable functions that cannot be computed on any machine capable only of a finite number of operations.
That says nothing to the question whether the principle applies to human beings.
That is almost funny.
Quoting MetaphysicsNow
I see, the Deutsch-Principle applies to Reality, but not humans.
I'm not sure why you think the first remark is funny - I didn't find anything particularly amusing about this paper
The point I was making is that to rationalise everything about 'free will' and human choice, which are huge topics in their own right, in terms of the principle of natural selection, amounts to a huge over-simplification. You can tell any number of 'just-so stories' about what is likely to enhance a species' "ability to survive" but it doesn't amount to anything. Actually now that I go back to the start of the thread, SLX's initial response more or less sums up the whole issue. There's nothing else needs saying.
The fact that we humans, the most successful life-form, have free will or the illusion of it doesn't say anything about the process (evolution) that got us there seems quite unbelievable to me.
It isn't something I believe. I just wanted the views of others on the matter. Thank you.
I think it is hilarious when people trawl the internet in desperation. Anyway, you made the amusing claim that:
Quoting MetaphysicsNow
Name me a computable function that cannot be computed. I'll wait.
What has the Turing machine got to do with any of this, or Godel for that matter? What laws of physics do Turing machines obey?
This is a really interesting paper btw. Rosen actually drew a parallel between C-T and Godel as well, some time back: "What we today call Church’s Thesis began as an attempt to internalize, or formalize, the notion of effectiveness. It proceeded by equating effectiveness with what could be done by iterating rote processes that were already inside—i.e., with algorithms based entirely on syntax. That is exactly what computability means. But it entails commensurability. Therefore it too is false. This is, in fact, one way to interpret the Godel Incompleteness Theorem. It shows the inadequacy of repetitions of rote processes in general. In particular, it shows the inadequacy of the rote metaprocess of adding more rote processes to what is already inside." (Rosen, "The Church-Pythagoras Thesis", in Essays on Life Itself).
To the first question, I suggest you read the papers referred to - and note that the remark was about Turing machines and their extensions (Deutsche's universal model computing machine is an extension of a Turing machine).
To the second question, is it a trick one? Turing machines (and their extensions) are abstract constructs, as such the notion of obeying a law of physics does not apply to them. If you are talking about actual physical machines that attempt to implement the operations of a Turing machine, then I suppose contraptions like that must obey all the same laws of physics that any physical contraption obeys. Why? What's your point?
No need to search for the garden inside the house.
A scientific investigation on the matter would be possible.
I do. Introducing time into mathematics is really funny. Like "2+2=4, but only if you answer in less than 3 seconds. It's 5 otherwise."
And then I write 2+2=4 - is this the correct answer for the 2+2-problem?
Babbage's Analytic Engine is a universal computer, as are PCs. These are all finite state machines. Ignoring the fact that Turing machines do not exist, they are not finite state machines.
Quoting MetaphysicsNow
Right, they are abstractions obeying abstract rules, not real physical systems obeying the laws of physics.
Physical systems that obey the laws of physics may be emulated on certain other physical systems that possess the physical property of computational universality.
What has Godel got to do with any of this?
Take it up with Akl and co. - the paper I linked to draws a parallel between Godel's work on completeness and consistency in arithmetic and the impossibility of acheiving a universal computer. I have not read Rosen, but given what @StreetlightX says, it seems he (Rosen) also thinks there is an implication of that work on the Turing-Church thesis. Curious that Deutsche did not make any reference to Rosen's work.
You don't seem to understand that in the Deutsche principle which you presume to be relevant to this thread, the universal model computing machine he is referring to is an abstract model, he is not using the term to refer to actual nuts and bolts and silcon-chipped physical machines. Computational universality is a mathematical construct. Deutsche's principle is about the extent of what that construct can be used to model. Read the paper you linked to, his brief discussion of what a UMCM is makes it clear that it is an abstract model.
You display here even more confusion about the abstract notion of a machine, on the one hand, and its physical implementations, on the other. If by "universal computer" you mean to evoke the same concept that Deutsche is using when he talks about universal model computing machines, your statement is false, since UMCMs (like Turing machines) have infinite memory, something which no actual physical implementation of any abstract machine actually has. Furthermore, a finite state machine is a mathematical construct just like a Turing machine, in a sense it is a conceptual restriction on a Turing machine, just as Deutche's UMCM is a conceptual extension of a Turing machine.
The real point here, anyway, and one which you seem to be overlooking by getting bogged down in nitpicking about technicalities - presumably the aim being to catch me in an outrageous error - is whether the Deutsche principle applies to human beings andthat question turns on the philosophical question whether human beings are finitely realizable physical systems, about which the Deutsche principle has nothing to contribute.
It's clear you don't know what Godel has to do with any of this, so let me explain. The laws of physics are written in a mathematics which is consistent, complete and decidable. Any calculation that you have ever carried out, or that a computer has carried out, or any finite state machine will ever carry out, in the entire history of the universe, will use a mathematics that is consistent, complete, and decidable.
So Godel has literally nothing to do with this.
And, universal computers can emulate any finite physical system.
Quoting MetaphysicsNow
You really are a comedian! Yes, he has a model of a real computer that can be built. That is why there is an entire academic industry focused on trying to construct a quantum one. We have classical machines already.
Quoting MetaphysicsNow
The Deutsch Principle applies to all of Reality, even humans.
Wrong, the Deutsche principle applies explicitly to two things and two things only, finitely realizable physical systems and universal model computing machines, neither of which in isolation nor in conjunction can be claimed to constitute all of reality without further argument. But I've had enough now, I'll go and join @Noble Dust in the dunce's corner.
You don't think humans are finite physical systems?
Wow! The laws of physics don't apply to humans. Now, that really is funny.
In school, you may learn science that is finalized and arranged in a logical way, and then assume nature and mind is self assembling. This does not tell anything about the creative trial and error of the development stage. It tells nothing of all the bad experiments, dead ends and eureka moments, that lead to the final version.
Willpower and evolution of ideas and things occurs mostly in the front end that is hidden from most people. Creative can skip step which are filled in later, for others. Yet people discuss choice in terms of the final product, where it is not as needed.
I'm sure the damsel in distress is grateful for your white-knighting, but if someone declares that humans are not finite physical systems, then I prefer to take them at their word.
Recourse to semantics is often available if you wish to squirm out of a corner, but in this case it is not. The meanings of "finite" and "physical" are precise.
I would have preferred if this nonsense position had been made clear from the start.
Initially the genetic code itself was subject to natural selection. It was varying along with the phenotype, and at some point switched from RNA to DNA encoding.
Then something remarkable happened - the code itself stopped evolving, but the phenotype did not. This change occurred when life was no more than single-celled organisms, but has created the biodiversity we have today. Somehow the particular encoding achieved universality in its domain.
The second leap we know of is the leap to universality of the human brain. There are ideas of the selective pressures that favoured efficient knowledge transfer, and in keeping with the gradualism of evolutionary theory, the phenotypical changes resulting in a computationally universal brain may be relatively small.
I'm going to investigate this, but I think the changes Babbage made to the design of his Difference Engine (not computationally universal) to create his Analytic Engine (computationally universal) were relatively modest.
The existence of free-will is of course contentious, but the fact that the creation, transfer, and application of knowledge, not encoded in the genome, may confer a survival advantage, seems uncontentious.
Of course if you think humans are not finite physical entities, you'll probably disagree.
The realization Rosen talks about is not a system that operates on symbols but is a "mapping" like you take 10 baskets, put a few apples into each and then have realized the first 10 members of it. Using the laws of mathematics to manipulate symbol-systems is very different from this. A computer printing the infinity-symbol on a sheet of paper is not a realization of infinity.
I understand how you have described it in evolutionary terms, but you come out having a 'negative' view of free-will, and I don't follow why.
Free will is problematic, with neurosis such as mental problems, and diseases, like Alzheimer, depression, addiction, etc. Our "free will" seems to be determined by our state of health. And in neurosciences, everything is detected to actions of our brains, and brain cells. And perhaps in daily lives to our cognitive-skills, such as, knowledge/experience, what determine our thoughts.