[FRIAM] Free Will in the Atlantic

[jon zingale]

Discussions of *free will and determinism* almost always appear to me as
latent discussions about metaphysics. In the thread up to now, there have
emerged several different perspectives and so we are confronted by the
question of what it is each of us wants from and for such concepts. Each
want just as distinct and varied as the perspectives themselves. Pushing
against, moving with, and generally sensing for the differences provides
an opportunity for production and meaning.

Concepts, like free will or determinism, are sensory organs attuned to
problems. From my perspective, many problems are like mountains, to be
experienced and not necessarily solved.

Lately, for me, *will* designates something about one's unique trajectory
through the world, that which continues to differentiate one from another,
an affirmation through difference. For others, *will* designates *choice*.
Each claim to a concept is an invitation to another's struggle.

This week, my struggle is with a problem in data compression, namely,
find a function that efficiently computes the Kolmogorov complexity for
a given string. In theory, there is for any finite string (possibly the
history of our world) a machine (but really a family, germ?) that can
efficiently produce it. The problem of writing a general function that
finds said program (as you know) is hard. In the theoretical limit, I
should *expect* my problem to coincide with Shannon entropy. In practice,
the internal structure of the string matters and we settle for performing
compression with algorithms whose behavior ought to match the expected
theoretical limits. Still, given an arbitrary string generated by an
unknown source, I can only hope to guess the next digit. If our problem
is one where we ask about the emergence of new kinds, I suspect that
determinism is not likely to be a reliable organ.



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