Conversation

Thinking about the rule of totalitarianism "Everything not forbidden is compulsory." (T. H. White) which Gell-Mann ported to physics. Science of Discworld 2 states it as the principle of societies run on tribal law.
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In the physics interpretation it leads to the sum over histories method and many worlds interpretation. What happens is a function of everything that *could* happen. So there is no room for free will at the multiverse level of quantum description. Every path must be in the sum.
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The general idea is agency closure over a perfect knowledge condition. There is no non-instrumental knowledge. Everything that is known can drive action, and all action not prohibited by law must happen.
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So there is no such thing as a pure observer view of the world. If you know something you must either act on it or be actively constrained from acting by law. Human totalitarianism is a sort of illusory physics based on a manufactured illusion of perfect knowledge.
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Or equivalently, freedom to act or not act in non-totalitarian systems is a function of an explicit procedural accommodation of formal ignorance. “It’s neither forbidden, nor compulsory” = “we don’t know”
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You can only be free in proportion to the ignorance you acknowledge Everything you claim as knowledge will force you to act or run into a constraint
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In practice both prohibitions and compulsions constrain behavior down to a resolution threshold of indifference. That threshold is where gap between world perception and claimed complete knowledge of the world is small enough that you can credibly claim omniscience/omnipotence
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Closing this gap = exercise of raw power and hiding anything whose appearance cannot be made to conform to omniscience/omnipotence posture. Interestingly this always requires totalitarian human rulers. Totalitarian rule systems alone can’t maintain the appearance of totality.
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A related humanist principle is “to understand everything is to forgive everything” This allows for pseudo free will. You can make choices, there will be wrong choices in proportion to knowledge, and you can’t be held responsible by those who know better.