10.3 Are We Players or NPCs? — On the Status of Free Will in Deterministic QCA

Finally, we arrive at the most unsettling, most soul-touching question: In a QCA universe defined by Axiom $\Omega$, strictly deterministic and unitarily evolving, is there still room for Free Will?

If universe’s state $|\Psi (t+1)⟩$ is completely determined by $\hat{U}|\Psi (t)⟩$, then initial state $|\Psi (0)⟩$ at Big Bang moment seems to have already locked every detail of me writing this sentence and you reading it 13.8 billion years later. Does this mean we are not masters of our own fate, but non-player characters (NPCs) driven by ancient code, mechanically reciting lines in a movie with a pre-written script?

In this book’s framework, we will provide a physics-based Compatibilism answer based on Computational Irreducibility and Cybernetics. We will prove: Determinism not only doesn’t exclude freedom, but is the foundation for free will to exist.

10.3.1 Freedom as Unpredictability: Deconstructing Illusion of Fatalism

People’s fear of “determinism” often stems from equating it with “fatalism.” Fatalism believes: Whatever you do, outcome is predetermined. But in QCA universe, outcome precisely depends on what you do—i.e., your computational process.

Computational Irreducibility we discussed in Section 10.2 plays a decisive role here.

For Class IV complex systems (such as our universe or human brains), to predict system state at time $T$, the only way is to run this system $T$ steps. There is no God’s-eye-view “script” or “lookup table” letting you skip process and directly see ending.

This means:

1. Unpredictability: No one—including yourself, even God with a supercomputer—can calculate what you will do faster than you before you make a decision. Because to simulate you, this computer must be at least as complex as you, and cannot run faster than $c$ (Light Path Conservation).

2. Process Necessity: Your “decision” doesn’t exist at some preset point in future, but is generated in your current thinking process. Without your thinking (computation), there is no that decision.

In this sense, you are free. This freedom doesn’t mean “ability to violate physical laws,” but “your behavior cannot be compressed into formulas simpler than yourself.” Your future is computed, not predefined.

Corollary: If an entity cannot be perfectly predicted by external observers (unless replicating it in real-time), then for all intents and purposes, it is an autonomous “player,” not an NPC acting according to simple scripts.

10.3.2 Reverse Causality and Teleology: Will as Higher-Order Causal Force

In underlying QCA networks, causal arrows are strictly forward: $t\to t+1$. But at emergent macroscopic level, as we defined in Chapter 8, observers (agents) possess internal models.

When a system minimizes future variational free energy (prediction error) based on internal model, causality undergoes a marvelous cybernetic inversion:

• Low-Level Matter is subject to Push: Past states push it toward future (like billiard ball collision).

• High-Level Consciousness is subject to Pull: Future goals (expected states) pull it to adjust current behavior (like studying for tomorrow’s exam).

Although this Teleology is still executed by underlying unitary evolution microscopically (just as software logic is ultimately executed by transistor switches), at macroscopic dynamics, it manifests as Top-down Causation.

Definition 10.3.1 (Physical Definition of Will):

Free will is self-correction capability possessed by high $M_I$ (information mass) subsystems. When system detects current trajectory deviates from expectations of its internal model (i.e., free energy $F$ increases), it can call reserved negentropy ($v_{int}$), actively changing its microscopic state trajectory.

From this perspective, we are not passive NPCs. We are subroutines in universe’s great program that have obtained “self-modification permissions” (Self-modifying Code). We not only run code, we also write code (through learning and memory reshaping neural synapses/network connections).

10.3.3 Source of Responsibility: You Are Your Algorithm

Finally, if choices are results of physical laws, do we still need to take responsibility for behavior?

Yes. Because in QCA ontology, “you” are that specific algorithmic structure (topological knot).

• Even if physical laws determine you’ll make a “bad” decision, that “bad” is inherent in your algorithmic structure.

• Punishment or reward is essentially environment’s feedback to that algorithm, aimed at correcting algorithm’s parameters (learning), or isolating it when algorithm cannot be corrected (elimination).

If world were random (as some quantum mechanics interpretations claim), your decisions are just results of dice-throwing, then you wouldn’t need responsibility. Precisely because of determinism, your choices truly belong to you (sum of your history, memory, and logic).

10.3.4 Conclusion: Participatory Universe

Are we players or NPCs?

Answer depends on how you define “player.” If you think players must stand outside game, unbound by game rules (physical laws), then we are indeed not players, and no such players exist.

But if you think players are independent computational entities within game capable of sensing environment, building models, setting goals, and actually changing game progress, then we are not only players, we are advanced players.

Universe sets board and rules through Axiom $\Omega$, but it doesn’t set game’s direction.

This game is played step by step by us—countless entangled observers.

At this point, we have completed exploration of ultimate questions of computational universe. Physics hasn’t deprived us of dignity; on the contrary, it endows us with noble status as cosmic computational collaborators.