Note 1. Each main section (with green box in the section title) is an independent topic.
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I look at consciousness as the thing that gives us a point of view, or point of experience, which is more fundamental than feeling pain or joy. We may call it the feeling of feeling at all, including the simple feeling of observing things.
To demonstrate this further: if we imagine a robot with sensors, we can programme it to read sensory data, process it, and react according to the processed data in a seemingly sophisticated way that resembles the behaviour of what we call an animal, or a form of life.
However, the question would remain: does the robot really have its sensory input connected to a point of experience? Or is it simply a blind action-reaction machine similar to the domino effect (but more complex)? Why would the increased complexity suddenly grant the robot point of experience? I call an action-reaction blind if I want to claim that it is not attached to any point of view/experience/feeling.
Based on the fundamental particles in the standard physics model, I cannot find any way that complexity could suddenly give rise to the feeling of feeling, or the feeling of having inputs attached to a point of view. I can only find a collection of particles that explain the blind action-reaction.
Since it seems that we cannot explain the existence of the point of experience from the standard physics model, I'm lead to the following hypothesis:
In this view, the reason we (e.g. humans) have a point of experience (or feel of feeling, at all), is because each of us is an $x$ that is attached to a complex enough action-reaction machine that is our physical/material human body. In a sense, we are an $x$ that's controlling seeing through the sensors of this body, which is why we feel that we have a point of experience.
If we look at how machines react based on observations, from the perspective of physics standard model, we could say that there is no source of unpredictability (i.e. no choice) except if quantum randomness is real. So, I think, for an observer in this universe, our freewill (if a thing) comes from quantum randomness.
If there is no such a thing as quantum randomness, then we are effectively saying that everything is explainable as a reaction to a previous action, with no new decisions to be made, as everything is already decided by previous actions. Therefore, freewill necessarily requires quantum randomness to be true.
If we analyse randomness, fundamentally, it is essentially when we fail to explain an outcome due to us lacking information. Such lack of information could possibly be due to our ignorance of the laws of the universe, or be due to the source of it being outside of what we can observe in this material universe.
Once $x$ attaches to the particles that make up our body), $x$ is able to read our sensory data and feel it from its view (hence we get the point of view).
Then, $x$ could manipulate the particles in our body to behave in some way, to cause us to react to some events in ways that $x$ wants. Here, we can think that $x$ is the source of our freewill.
Since $x$ is not observable by our sensors, all we can see is some unexplained randomness at the quantum level.
This way, we can see the idea of $x$ and freewill can be consistent, and offer an explanation on why we might have a seemingly absolute randomness at the quantum scale.
In other words, introducing $x$ as a fundamental particle can explain: - Why we experience having a point of experience (consciousness). - Why we might have freewill. - Why we might be unable to explain at least part of the quantum randomness (because it is the freewill of $x$ manipulating our particles to make our material body react to events that $x$ has observed by getting attached to our material sensors).
It might if it gets an $x$ attached to it. But since we are unable to observe $x$ by our material sensors, we might never know, as all the output behaviour that we observe from $x$ is what appears to us as quantum randomness.
Can we design a physical experiment to set $x$'s freewill responses apart from the other unexplained quantum randomness? I don't know.
A related concept to this test might be: does $x$ behave in a way that relates to what it observed in the past? I.e. does $x$ even have memory?
We know that we feel that we have a memory, and the memory that we feel is entirely in our material brain. E.g. if we remove bits of someone's brain, the person would start to lose his memory as we remove more of his brain (this is what happens to people with brain strokes).
However, does this mean that $x$ also lacks a memory? It is possible that $x$ lacks a memory, and that all it used our material organs (mainly brains' neurons) to store all its memory.
$x$ could be a normal life form with consciousness and freewill in a different parent universe that got attached to this simulation (our universe) somehow, and was given control of the particles that make up our body.
Then, in order to, say, test $x$'s behaviour in this simulation, it got its native memory (in the real universe) erased (or disconnected temporarily). Instead, it was given the ability to build a new memory in the simulation (the material brain of the body that $x$ go attached to in this universe).
Why was $x$ attached to this simulation in this way? There could be several reasons, one of which could be that such simulations can be cheaper and more accurate than the legal system. For example, maybe $x$ committed a crime, and in order to find out whether he is guilty, he got attached to a simulation of a life similar to the crime scene, that is realistic enough, in order to test his response. In order to make the simulation work as a fair test, $x$'s memory had to be erased.
We are on the living branch of evolution, billions of years deep since the Big Bang. As such, we have received billions of years worth of parameter tuning to make us like to live more and more.
But who is the us? Is it me? You? Humans? All animals? Plants?
To find who is the us, let's look at natural selection's survival maximisation:
$$\sum_{l=0}^n s_i$$
Where, for any living organism $i \in \{0, 1, \ldots, n\}$, $s_i$ is the total number of seconds $i$ lives.
That's all what survival maximisation is doing. The universe doesn't care who is us. The us could be anything. Humans may not be the end goal, but might be mere tools to lead to yet another living organism, such as inter-galactic robots, that can maximise that can maximise $\sum_{l=0}^n s_i$ real good.
There are two commonly discussed schools of thoughts to maximise $\sum_{l=0}^n s_i$:
But this is a contradictory view, as quality is not necessarily independent of quantity. In fact, it's rather very common that quality is achieved by having the right quantity of each ingredient at the right place.
If all what each lifeform $i$, for any $i \in \{0, 1, \ldots, n\}$, did was just to to sit and blink, then the quantity $\sum_{l=0}^n s_i$ will have an upper bound cap that it won't exceed. Because such lame life cannot explore the environment to enhance its survival against upcoming challenges.
This is why almost all living beings perform some kind of research. E.g. ants look around to find better sources of food. Common apes try to invent some tools, although not as good as the bi-pedal apes (humans). Etc.
In other words, based on the laws of physics of this universe, it seems that in order to maximise $\sum_{i=0}^n s_i$, we need not to simply live, but to actually explore new things.
I.e. it seems that, under the laws of physics of this universe, when $\sum_{l=0}^n s_i$ is maximised, the following is also necessarily maximised:
$$ \sum_{i=0}^n \sum_{j=0}^m \Pr\!\left(\text{$e_{i,j}$ will maximise $\sum_{i=0}^n s_i$}\right)$$
Where $e_{i,j}$ is the $j^{th}$ idea that the $i^{th}$ lifeform explored.
Exploring good ideas (i.e. survival maximising ideas) are better than otherwise. This is why it's good to explore physics, while it's bad to explore, say, drunkiness.
Theorem 1. Studying physics is good.
Theorem 2. Drunkiness is bad.
Definition 1. Freedom is the ability to do things.
Definition 2. More freedom is the ability to do more things per second.
Conjecture 1. The living seems to be able to do more things per second than the dead. E.g. a living being, such as a human, could fly all over the world, play football and land rovers onto Mars in $300,000$ years. On the other hand, a dead being, such as a rock, is spending millions of years just sitting there.
Conjecture 1 implies that in order for to have more freedom, we will have to be living. I.e. the more we live, the more things we can do (i.e. more freedom).
We already know from Section 2.2 that survival maximisation necessarily implies exploring good science.
Therefore, we now know that these three have to be maximised together (i.e. one cannot be maximised while not maximising the other), as they're all essentially synonyms of some kind:
Definition 3. Slavery is that which reduces freedom.
By Theorem 2, Definition 1 and Definition 3, Theorem 3 is deduced.
Theorem 3. Promoting drunkiness is promoting slavery.
So, next time someonne tells you that he/she/xe is just being free for getting drunk, you tell them: “Nope! Theorem 3 has actually proven that you're rather choosing slavery!”.
This tests:
Anyway, here we go:
”سَلْ عَالِياتَ رِمِاحٍ عِنْ مَعَالِينَا، وَاسْتَشْهِدْبِهِنَّ: أَخَابَ رَجَاءٌ بِنَا؟ بِيضًا كَانَتْ صَنَائِعَنَا! وَبِيضًا كَانَتْ وَقَائِعَنَا! وَزَانَتْ دِيَارًا بِأَيْدِيْنَا! فَظَنَنَّا أَنَّ العِزَّةَ كَانَتْ مِنَّا، فَرَكَنَّا إِلَى دُنْيًا جَعَلْنَاهَا أَكْبَرَ هَمِّنَا، فَأَبْدَلَنَا رَبُّنَا بِقَوْمٍ غَيْرَنَا، وَذُلَّاً أَلْبَسَنَا عِبْرَةً لِمَنْ خَلْفَنَا…“
Extra test(s) unrelated to the above:
”بَلْ كَأْسُ حَنْظَلٍ بِالْعِزِّ يُسْقَى“
The coronavirus economy demonstrates that my theory on perfect money is right. Here is how:
Lesson learned:
Societies that contain such selfish people are doomed to progress at a slower pace. So I can't stress enough how horrible this is as an investment opportunity. Only a blind would oversee such dangers.