Azadi, Poria (2025) Naturalizing Free Will: Emergent Autonomy as Life's Tapestry. [Preprint]
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Abstract
This paper naturalizes free will as emergent autonomy arising from biological organization and inherent indeterminacy. Critiquing classical determinism based on physical/informational limits (finite information vs. real numbers) and the distinction between creative and geometric time, we propose libertarian free will grounded in potentiality realism. Autonomy emerges from the interplay of organizational closure (self-maintenance), non-equilibrium thermodynamics, and the harnessing of ontic indeterminacy (objective potentialities) within the flow of creative time (duration). This framework synthesizes insights from systems biology, physics, and process philosophy. We outline the philosophical basis (emergence, potentiality realism), scientific principles (thermodynamics, dynamics in creative time), biological realization (minimal agency, materiality), and a model of choice involving downward constraint and emergent sourcehood. The paper addresses neural implementation, reinterprets Libet-style findings, and defends against standard objections (luck, manipulation, exclusion). It offers a coherent, empirically-grounded research program for understanding freedom as a natural phenomenon rooted in life's unique organization unfolding in creative time. (200 words)
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