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Free Will 329

quantum event to the point where gravity begins to matter. His solution
removes the requirement for many worlds and, indeed, our curious
position as the conscious beings that bring the world into existence. Of
course, Penrose does not stop there. He proposes the quantum gravity
interaction gives rise to conscious thought and this process is the root of
mathematical intuition.

The aim of our discussion is to show where determinism might break
down in the physical laws of the Universe. If our Universe is determined,
there will need to be a huge quantity of information stored somewhere
to tell it what to do at each step. Storing a script for the Universe is not
the conventional way people imagine determinism works. Rather they
explain the apparent complexity we see through the application of a
simple set of rules called ‘the laws of physics’. We imagine using these
laws to expand up a small set of starting conditions into the complexity
of the Universe we experience. This is similar to the way fractals produce
beautifully complex images from a tiny quantity of information. For
example, the Mandelbrot set is created from a single, simple mathematical
statement just twelve characters long, with one or two starting numbers.
If this is how our Universe works then our thoughts and actions are just
like the fronds of a fractal. It would mean the particles in the Universe
‘know’ what they will do next and carry enough information with them
to determine their next action. This is a testable hypothesis and the test
we have devised to measure this is the twin particle experiment.

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