Wolfram Science Group
Phoenix, AZ USA
Registered: Aug 2003
I am happy to clarify.
First of all, NKS does not claim wills are cellular automata. The analogy is meant simply to illustrate the range of behaviors typical of simple programs. The idea is that wills may be computationally universal processes - like class 4 CAs in that respect. If correct, this implies on the one hand that wills may follow definite underlying rules - in contrast to the idea of purely uncaused, "spontaneous" wills - but can also show behavior of essentially unbounded complexity - in contrast to the "behaviorist" idea that wills must be simple and predictable systems if we just modeled them right.
"is it that our "wills" are nested"
Nothing said in the book depends on that. A computationally universal system can behave in very complicated ways or in simple ways. Universal implies flexible, if you like. So the idea is there is some universal computable process that corresponds to each individual will. Nothing is claimed about these being uniform from person to person - instead, imagine there is a "different rule" for each unique individual. A distinct rule for each, differing in fine detail.
OK, now put these different rules in similar conditions. In computational terms, you have a whole family of different rules. When fed the same (or close) initials, you will see a range of behaviors, not just one. To what is the variation seen, to be ascribed? To the various detailed differences in the various individual rules.
There may be various sorts of similarities - just as e.g. many CAs will do nothing if fed an all-white initial condition, there may be some common aspects, some simple behaviors in simple conditions, etc. Similarly, some low level reflex behavior might be nearly constant across people. But in full generality, what each individual rule does with each possible exact initial condition can only be known by explicitly carrying out the computation that system itself performs. There won't in general be any short cut to figure out what that specific system will do. You have to watch it and see, or you have to explicitly "emulate" it, walking through the same steps it does. We say, computationally universal systems are inherently unpredictable (beforehand or without doing equivalent computational work to the system itself), or "irreducible".
Wolfam's idea is that this phenomenon about universal systems is responsible for many of the characteristics we see in human wills, that have led us to separate off willful behavior from other systems in nature, to analyze them differently, and to regard them as free.
He denies that is an illusion. He thinks there is a real specific difference in the free-seeming systems and the simple-seeming ones. He does not, however, draw that line where past thinkers about free will have typically drawn it.
"...to give one enough freewill in the arena of human interaction as to make it legitimate for an individual to be held accountable for their actions."
The idea is that since it is the details of the unique individual rule that give rise to the behavior, and we in some sense are these detailed and unique rules, it makes sense to ascribe responsibility for the behavior to each of us individually.
Compare this to the behaviorist idea that what people do is determined by their environment in some uniform way. That would trace the cause of differences in behaviors to perhaps obscure details of the initials or environment, but regards those as independent of, or alien to, each of us, as a unique individual.
In contrast, Wolfram thinks it is the specific individuality of "our own" rule, that accounts for the specific way we respond to our conditions or environment. He considers it entirely rational to regard individuals as responsible for their actions, because to him individuals are specific rules (or bundles of rules, which is just "rule" in a broader sense).
This accounts fairly easily for our tendency to ascribe responsibility to free-seeming actors, and for the empirical unpredictability of willful systems. It has less to say about our subjective sense of willful causation.
A plausible extension of what Wolfram says in NKS might be to ascribe that to the access each of us has to the ongoing computation that takes us from situation or inputs A to decision or output B. Whereas third party observors see only the input and the output, and the wide variation in them across individuals, we each see a larger part of the intervening steps, in our own case, and they seem to "make sense" to us. While plausible, though, this is an extension - it isn't a claim Wolfram himself makes. (And a psychologist might quibble about how conscious any of that typically is).
Overall, Wolfram situates himself between the typical position of past behaviorists, who claimed free will is an illusion, in part in an effort to save their philosophical commitment to determinism - and past proposers of "spontaneous" wills, who claimed free wills are "metaphysically free" or completely uncaused, and therefore do not follow any (causal, at any rate) rules at all.
He disagrees with both of those traditional positions, in different ways. He agrees with the behaviorists in saving determinism. But disagrees with them about wills meaningfully being regarded as free, and especially about wills being predictable. He agrees with the spontaneity position in seeing wills as unpredictable. But disagrees with them about wills being "uncaused". He thinks both parties have too easily equated "determined" with "predictable". Since his formal investigations led him to determined but unpredictable systems.
It is really those he presents as "new evidence". Strictly speaking, his work shows that evidence of unpredictability is not evidence of indeterminism, as some on the "spontaneous wills" side of the traditional debate wished. Anyone might still regard indeterminism as true - but they can't point to empirical unpredictabilility of wills as conclusive in that respect.
Equally, one might say Wolfram jettisons behaviorism as untenable, without giving up his determinism. His reasons for favoring determinism are outside his discussion of free will and independent of it. He thinks it important to science (a subject much debated by philosophers - e.g. Popper vigorously disputed that and regarded it as a philosophical "extra" in no way required by scientific method) and more straightforwardly, simply regards it as true.
In all of this, it is important to distinguish Wolfram's personal philosophic views, from NKS more broadly speaking, and what the evidence from NKS tells us on such matters. Because the former includes other things - meaning, perfectly legitimate philosophical convictions on Wolfram's part, that are not requirements for doing NKS or part of its essential conceptual structure.
I hope this helps.
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