The Importance of Randomness in the Universe: Superdeterminism and Free Will

Yurchenko, Sergey B.

doi:10.1007/s10516-020-09490-y

Cited by 3 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 53 publications

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“…In doing so, CET makes the assumption that brains have primarily evolved as volitional (quantum in origin) subsystems of organisms at the hard level. CET emphasizes the importance of randomness in evolution (Yurchenko, 2021a) contrary to the idea that life can be viewed as the triumph of determinism (Marshall et al, 2017).…”

Section: Volition In Theories Of Consciousnessmentioning

confidence: 96%

From the origins to the stream of consciousness and its neural correlates

Yurchenko

2022

Front. Integr. Neurosci.

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There are now dozens of very different theories of consciousness, each somehow contributing to our understanding of its nature. The science of consciousness needs therefore not new theories but a general framework integrating insights from those, yet not making it a still-born “Frankenstein” theory. First, the framework must operate explicitly on the stream of consciousness, not on its static description. Second, this dynamical account must also be put on the evolutionary timeline to explain the origins of consciousness. The Cognitive Evolution Theory (CET), outlined here, proposes such a framework. This starts with the assumption that brains have primarily evolved as volitional subsystems of organisms, inherited from primitive (fast and random) reflexes of simplest neural networks, only then resembling error-minimizing prediction machines. CET adopts the tools of critical dynamics to account for metastability, scale-free avalanches, and self-organization which are all intrinsic to brain dynamics. This formalizes the stream of consciousness as a discrete (transitive, irreflexive) chain of momentary states derived from critical brain dynamics at points of phase transitions and mapped then onto a state space as neural correlates of a particular conscious state. The continuous/discrete dichotomy appears naturally between the brain dynamics at the causal level and conscious states at the phenomenal level, each volitionally triggered from arousal centers of the brainstem and cognitively modulated by thalamocortical systems. Their objective observables can be entropy-based complexity measures, reflecting the transient level or quantity of consciousness at that moment.

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Section: Volition In Theories Of Consciousnessmentioning

confidence: 96%

From the origins to the stream of consciousness and its neural correlates

Yurchenko

2022

Front. Integr. Neurosci.

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“…The answer is that the universe had started with the Big Bang singularity at an incredibly ordered state whose entropy should be just zero so that all the future events in the universe, including the origin of life, the evolution of species, and, in particular, our birth, life, and death, had been uniquely encoded in the initial conditions of the Big Bang. Superdeterminism admits that we are not merely deterministic machines, but each of us is a machine designed from the beginning of time [25].…”

Section: Superdeterminism Vs Randomnessmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…However, on the assumption of Big Bang cosmology combined with the second law of thermodynamics and the so-called anthropic arguments, superdeterminism leads us inevitably to the scenario of a designed clockwork universe [25]. Thus, the strong consequence of predetermination is no more than a scientifically rigorous version of old-fashioned fatalism and Newtonian deism.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Why the Quantum Brain?

Yurchenko¹

2021

obm neurobiol

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This article reviews the modern approaches to the quantum brain hypothesis. The aim is to consider the hypothesis and its classical brain-machine alternative from a broad perspective, including physics, biology, computer science, cosmology, and metaphysics. My starting point is that asking whether consciousness can or cannot have free will is fundamentally incorrect. This aspect is challenged by both physics and neuroscience. The paper argues that the search for conscious free will, as it is typically tested in Libet-type experiments, implies putting the cart before the horse. From the evolutionary perspective, a more correct question is this. Might primitive neural networks of simple organisms have possessed free volitional mechanisms (quantum in origin) as an extremely valuable acquisition for the flourishing of life? Might then the mechanisms have evolved from primary (rapid and random) reflexes in the oldest brain regions such as the brainstem to give rise to conscious cortex-centered properties in later stages of the brain evolution?

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A systematic approach to brain dynamics: cognitive evolution theory of consciousness

Yurchenko

2022

Cogn Neurodyn

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The Importance of Randomness in the Universe: Superdeterminism and Free Will

Cited by 3 publications

References 53 publications

From the origins to the stream of consciousness and its neural correlates

From the origins to the stream of consciousness and its neural correlates

Why the Quantum Brain?

A systematic approach to brain dynamics: cognitive evolution theory of consciousness

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