In this article
- The question behind the comparison
- The single-source and nested-time proposal
- The comparator’s explanatory structure
- The precise agreement and difference
- Worked example: what follows and what does not
- What this comparison contributes
Free will and temporal becoming: SMM/DTT and Integrated information theory
IIT concerns intrinsic causal organization and a proposed identity with experience; it is not by itself a theory of moral responsibility or free choice. The comparison develops this distinction through a worked example and explains its implications for SMM/DTT’s nested generation, completed records and account of the observable world.
01The question behind the comparison
A world that becomes is not automatically a world containing free agents. New outcomes may be random, mechanically determined, responsive to reasons, or imposed from elsewhere. SMM/DTT’s emphasis on completion can illuminate when an action becomes a settled event, but freedom concerns how that event relates to the agent’s capacities, deliberation and control. The philosophical task is to explain agency within a source-generated world without erasing the difference between the person’s action and a merely external occurrence.
Determinism and fatalism are also different. A deterministic process can include deliberation as a cause of what happens. Fatalism would make the outcome unavoidable regardless of relevant deliberation or action. Introducing indeterminism does not by itself improve control: an unpredictable coin flip is not an exercise of will. A source-based theory can therefore explore a reasons-responsive form of agency even if its update law is deterministic. A stronger libertarian proposal would need to explain how alternatives remain genuinely open and how their resolution belongs to the agent.
The six nested inner levels should not be treated as six hidden decisions made by a small inner person. That would reproduce the problem inside the model. Their useful role would be to organize capacities such as memory, evaluation and action selection in a physically or conceptually explicit way. These are illustrative functions, not established identities of the six DTT levels. Outer completion could mark when an action yields a stable public consequence. The model would still need to explain how the agent’s own organization participates in that completion.
02The single-source and nested-time proposal
SMM begins with one nonspatial generative source. DTT distinguishes its inner production from the outer order in which completed results become accessible. The six inner levels are nested functional dependencies within that production; the seventh denotes outer completion. They are not six independent clocks, six spatial directions, or six simultaneously occupied temporal axes. This distinction makes the framework more specific than a general claim that everything changes: it asks how a world of persistent relations can be generated before its spatial representation is taken for granted. [2]
03The comparator’s explanatory structure
IIT proposes that experience corresponds to an intrinsic, irreducible cause-effect structure. Its formal analysis concerns a specified system, its state and counterfactual transitions under a chosen modelling scale. It should not be reduced to the claim that more stored bits mean more consciousness. Integration, information and the identification of a subject are separate requirements within the programme.
Consider two independent memory banks storing the same file. Their data agree, but agreement is not the same as an integrated causal organization. Connecting them through reciprocal operations changes the causal model even if the visible file remains the same. This distinction is useful for SMM/DTT: a common source or a completed archive need not constitute one conscious subject. A bridge to IIT would require a transition structure and an account of system boundaries, then a reason to accept IIT’s proposed identity with experience. The mathematical calculation and that identity claim should remain distinguishable. [1]
04The precise agreement and difference
IIT concerns intrinsic causal organization and a proposed identity with experience; it is not by itself a theory of moral responsibility or free choice. SMM/DTT’s completion process likewise can produce events without explaining whether they are actions. Their useful intersection is the causal organization through which an agent integrates information and influences its own future states.
A highly integrated system may still be constrained, misinformed or coerced. Conversely, a reasons-responsive action cannot be assessed simply by counting information. DTT can make the comparison concrete by specifying how an observer’s retained goals and evidence alter the probabilities or selection of completed actions. An IIT-style analysis could then examine the causal structure of that organization, while the theory of freedom asks whether it provides the relevant control. The six nested inner levels should not be identified with a measure of integrated information or with a sequence of conscious choices. The productive result is a model separating experience, integration and agency, making clear which relation the source architecture actually explains. [1]
05Worked example: what follows and what does not
An agent chooses between helping a neighbor and continuing a private task. Suppose better information about the neighbor’s need would change the choice, while coercion would undermine it. A reasons-responsive account regards these counterfactual differences as evidence of agency. Now replace the decision by a random switch with the same observed outcome. The event remains unpredictable, but the relation to the agent’s reasons has vanished. This example shows why temporal openness and agency are separate. A DTT model of becoming can provide the setting for action, yet a theory of freedom must identify the relevant control relations within that setting.
06What this comparison contributes
The constructive opportunity is to distinguish source dependence from the absence of local agency. An organism may be wholly dependent on its underlying physical and metaphysical conditions while still acting through its own organized capacities. Whether that suffices for freedom is a philosophical disagreement worth stating explicitly. DTT becomes clearer when it specifies which account it supports, rather than presenting a new temporal vocabulary as a resolution of every debate about responsibility.
THE SAME QUESTION, DIFFERENT STARTING POINTS
The comparison at a glance
| Question | SMM/DTT | Integrated information theory |
|---|---|---|
| Explanatory starting point | Temporal becoming provides a setting in which an agent’s retained reasons and capacities can participate in forming a new completed action. | A specified substrate is analyzed through intrinsic, irreducible cause-effect organization. |
| Key distinction | Randomness supplies unpredictability, whereas agency requires control relations such as responsiveness to reasons and resistance to coercion. | IIT concerns intrinsic causal organization and a proposed identity with experience; it is not by itself a theory of moral responsibility or free choice. |
KEEP THE CONNECTION
Key ideas
- Temporal becoming provides a setting in which an agent’s retained reasons and capacities can participate in forming a new completed action.
- A highly integrated system may still be constrained, misinformed or coerced.
- Randomness supplies unpredictability, whereas agency requires control relations such as responsiveness to reasons and resistance to coercion.
Continue on SMONAD
- Causality and explanation: from common origin to controlled change →
Connects this comparison with the author’s discussion of agency.
- Observer and record: making observation part of the model →
Connects this comparison with the author’s discussion of agency.
- The Principle of Ever-renewed Creation →
Connects this comparison with the author’s discussion of agency.
- Physical Time and Spiritual Time →
Connects this comparison with the author’s discussion of agency.
- Philosophy of time and creation →
Connects this comparison with the author’s discussion of agency.
Sources and further reading
References support the comparator and the specific mathematical or interpretive claims indicated. SMM/DTT connections are developed in the analysis above.
- L. Albantakis et al., Integrated information theory (IIT) 4.0: Formulating the properties of phenomenal existence in physical terms (2023) ↗Original formal theory; proposed relation of experience to intrinsic irreducible cause-effect structure. Its consciousness identity is a theoretical claim.
- Mohamed Haj Yousef, Philosophy of time and creation, SMONAD ↗Author’s philosophical discussion of source, dependence, renewal and records.
How these comparisons distinguish premises, results and physical claims