Bridging between physical computers and abstract programs seems helpful as a prerequisite to thinking about free will. (Similarly, between real physical systems in some regime such as classical mechanics, and corresponding abstract physical systems.) A physical thing determines its abstract model, letting it be observed, but also an abstract model can serve as a design for a physical thing that follows its structure. When an abstract model has its own internal dynamics, the corresponding physical thing would need to remain in step with that abstract dynamics.
The correspondence goes both ways: the abstract dynamics, as a design, must determine the physical dynamics, and also the observations of how the physical dynamics proceeds must be useful as observations of how the abstract dynamics proceeds. A physical calculator computes a certain answer because of what the abstract fact of arithmetic determines that answer to be, but also observing what the physical calculator computes lets us learn what the abstract fact of arithmetic says.
A physical human is confusing, because there are too many factors involved. But an abstract human that exists on their own, or better yet an abstract decision making deliberation, can be considered in isolation, as a process that proceeds exclusively according to its own abstract dynamics. The physical world then has no choice but to remain in step with that dynamics, or else the abstract dynamics is not a faithful model of what takes place in the physical world. Decisions taken by the abstract deliberation can’t let it escape the correspondence with the physical world. But also it’s free to reach any results that it does, and the physical world would need to comply with them, the same as a physical computer would need to comply with what the abstract program running on it is doing.
Bridging between physical computers and abstract programs seems helpful as a prerequisite to thinking about free will. (Similarly, between real physical systems in some regime such as classical mechanics, and corresponding abstract physical systems.) A physical thing determines its abstract model, letting it be observed, but also an abstract model can serve as a design for a physical thing that follows its structure. When an abstract model has its own internal dynamics, the corresponding physical thing would need to remain in step with that abstract dynamics.
The correspondence goes both ways: the abstract dynamics, as a design, must determine the physical dynamics, and also the observations of how the physical dynamics proceeds must be useful as observations of how the abstract dynamics proceeds. A physical calculator computes a certain answer because of what the abstract fact of arithmetic determines that answer to be, but also observing what the physical calculator computes lets us learn what the abstract fact of arithmetic says.
A physical human is confusing, because there are too many factors involved. But an abstract human that exists on their own, or better yet an abstract decision making deliberation, can be considered in isolation, as a process that proceeds exclusively according to its own abstract dynamics. The physical world then has no choice but to remain in step with that dynamics, or else the abstract dynamics is not a faithful model of what takes place in the physical world. Decisions taken by the abstract deliberation can’t let it escape the correspondence with the physical world. But also it’s free to reach any results that it does, and the physical world would need to comply with them, the same as a physical computer would need to comply with what the abstract program running on it is doing.
I like this way of thinking about it.