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As a big fan of quantum physics, multi-dimensional thinking (not to be confused with parallel dimensions), and consciousness... I followed your article with interest.

I agree with your take that there are limitations to the scope of free will, depending on how broadly we want to define 'free'. What comes to mind for me (planted there by an earlier version of me) is 'World Lines'; that as we journey into the uncertainty of the future, our decisions are weaved into the World Line 'behind' us. So too does that influence the scope of our 'free will' when we look 'forward'. What may not be possible within say... the next hour may indeed be possible within the next year.

Thus whilst we not be able to go back in time to 'do something differently', perhaps our greatest influence on free will might be: "What can I do differently now, so that I will be where I want to be in a year's time?"

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To say the quantum has any relationship to consciousness is like saying consciousness has any bearing on The Local Group.

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What's The Local Group?

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The Local Group is a collection of galaxies, including the Milky Way, Andromeda (M31), and about 54 smaller galaxies. It's a part of the larger Virgo Supercluster and spans approximately 10 million light-years. The Group is dominated by the Milky Way and Andromeda galaxies, which are the two largest and most massive members. Other notable galaxies include the Triangulum Galaxy (M33) and several dwarf galaxies. The Local Group is important for studying galaxy formation and evolution due to its relatively close proximity and diverse galaxy types.

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To be fair, the actual difference is about 10^-10 between us and quantum and 10^10 is actually the distance to local stars, but the point is the same; many times exponentially more than we can wrap our minds around, and consciousness exists at the scale of minds, about 10^-2, ~1/100 the size of our whole body, but that's picking nits. They're exponentially different scales of pattern that have no particular relationship or correlations.

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Oh awesome, yeah, thanks for sharing that! So yeah, acknowledge that there are some pretty long bows to draw between the quantum physics / mechanics, consciousness, and broader cosmology.

I've seen papers published that explore whether you can apply some of the principles of quantum mechanics to consciousness: https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rsta.1998.0254 but frankly that piece of research is pretty old.

There's a bit more research here that tries to build on it (well, this is a summary that's then linked to a bunch of different research): https://www.inverse.com/science/consciousness-and-quantum-physics

But to your point, this isn't necessarily proof of anything; just a bunch of hypotheses that present different ways of thinking about consiousness. That said, I think it's fun playing around with the frameworks. Like if you take this explainer of the 10 dimensions but apply it to systems thinking, what new questions or fresh perspectives might that yield? https://youtu.be/p4Gotl9vRGs?si=0WjFPDi7n3eVNCC5

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