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Most people think free will happens in the moment of decision. But it actually lives upstream — in the quiet moments of reflection where we shape our character and neural pathways before the test arrives.
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In this philosophical dialogue, I pressure-test the core ideas from my first essay. Is the “Upstream Moment” a genuine source of free will, or just another link in a deterministic chain? Honest challenges and responses included.
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Why does life have meaning? In this essay, I argue that genuine free will is essential — because without it, love, moral responsibility, and purpose become illusions. Real choice matters, and it begins upstream.
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What if free will is real, but lives upstream in quiet moments of reflection? In this dialogue, I defend why free will is essential for love and meaning — and respond to tough philosophical challenges.
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Free will is our power to locally defy entropy — creating and sustaining order in our minds and lives against the universe’s natural drift toward disorder. In upstream moments, we exercise this anti-entropic force and participate in our own formation.
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How can consciousness enable genuine free will in a lawful universe? In this highly speculative model, I explore consciousness as a VPS in a cosmic compute cloud — offering one possible architecture for real agency and downward causation.
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In this philosophical dialogue, I explore and defend a speculative model of consciousness as a VPS in a cosmic compute cloud. Can this framework allow genuine free will and downward causation within a lawful universe? Challenges and responses included.
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Robert Sapolsky is a hard determinist. He believes that free will does not exist; it is only an illusion. He is not alone. There are a lot of hard determinists. Hard determinists believe in pure determinism (which is just a repackaging of the old predestination belief), that is, all events are determined by prior states…
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In this philosophical dialogue, I pressure-test my essay on why free will must exist for life to have meaning. Can Sapolsky’s hard determinism be answered, or does it ultimately rest on rejecting God? Honest challenges and responses included.
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In this essay, I explore how Satan made the first hard determinist wager: remove Job’s blessings and he will curse God. Job’s faithful response proved that genuine free will and loyalty can triumph even in the worst suffering.