Thus, in my view, emergent complexity, while being immeasurably cool, is nonetheless not where free will exists, for three reasons: Because of the lessons of chaoticism—you can’t just follow convention and say that two things are the same, when they are different, and in a way that matters, regardless of how seemingly minuscule that difference; unpredictable doesn’t mean undetermined. Even if a system is emergent, that doesn’t mean it can choose to do whatever it wants; it is still made up of and constrained by its constituent parts, with all their mortal limits and foibles. Emergent systems
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