In the macro world, apart from living things, you'd pretty much be of the opinion that non-living or previously living (now dead) things can't be aware or have consciousness or make free will decisions. They can't know about their environment and respond to it other than what Mother Nature dictates to them via the laws, principles and relationships of physics and chemistry. Things are not quite so obvious on the micro or quantum scale where particles rule the roost. The concept that non-living things like particles can have consciousness and know and decide is termed Panpsychism, explored in the following essay.
If causality is absolute there are no probabilities (in quantum mechanics or anything else) and particles (i.e. - the electron, the neutrino, etc.) having no consciousness and/or free will, can't make either/or choices.
However, don't forces require particles to have some sort of nebulous awareness, even self-awareness perhaps? 1) Electromagnetism: an electron has to be aware that it is in the near vicinity of another electron, even perhaps self-awareness that it is aware that it is in near proximity to another electron. The mutually repulsive force between them ensures that. 2) Gravity: two neutrons would have to be aware of their mutual gravitational attraction. That attraction might be incredibly tiny, but it’s not zero.
If there is no such thing as absolute causality, then particles will do their particle thing at random. Or, particles will do their particle thing based on some nebulous awareness (maybe even self-awareness) which may, or may not, be or appear to be, random.
Awareness would have to be restricted to particles, maybe up to and including atoms, even perhaps molecules, but anything more macro than that is just a label we give to that macro object, like rock or chair or star or ice cube. The particles that make up what we label a chair may each have awareness, but the chair doesn't since the chair can easily be reshaped into something else like a footstool or a pile of kindling.
But, at the living level, there's stuff which cannot be rearranged and awareness does appear above the particle, atomic and/or molecular levels. A unicellular organism or body cell, the most fundamental and basic of living structures, exhibits awareness and responds to external, even internal stimuli - think of white blood cells and their awareness of invading bacteria, or red blood cells and their awareness hence regulation of oxygen and carbon dioxide levels. But awareness probably stops at the cellular level. It would be incorrect to say that the circulatory system was aware or that the heart was aware - Ancient Egyptians got that heart part wrong.
The only apparent exception to that would be to say that the brain - animal or human - is an aware structure. But is it the brain or the brain cells that are aware? The brain cells might just each contribute their relatively unique bit of awareness into what the inner you (the inner you being the sum total of your brain cells and maybe related nerve cells) calls your awareness or self-awareness or consciousness or essence; whatever. You're never going to find your awareness (memories, experiences, knowledge, perceptions, likes/dislikes, etc.) via an autopsy on your brain if your awareness, etc. is shared among all of your brain cells.
The question(s) arises, how do brain cells communicate with each other in order to produce a unified whole (not that that always happens of course especially as one grows older and otherwise free from injury or disease)?
On the botanical side, plants don't have a brain or a nervous system, yet plants clearly show to a greater or lesser extent environmental awareness. Some plants (i.e. - sunflowers) follow the path of the Sun from east to west; some flowering plants have their flowers emerge in the dawning only to retreat and draw themselves in at dusk. Are tree roots aware they need to go with gravity downwards and tree trunks/branches aware that they must grow against gravity, or is the awareness at the cellular level? It's the individual cells that are the fundamental unit; units that divide/reproduce thus providing growth. Does the flower decide to emerge at dawn or are the individual cells collectively responding and deciding to emerge? If the latter, how does this collective communicate one to the other since they have to respond in tandem?
But back to how do particles know and decide.
Neutron Decay: A group of neutrons in the nucleus of an atom will behave and will be stable, but isolate one neutron away from the nucleus pack and it will decay within a few minutes. One mystery is why does an isolated neutron decay? The greater question is how does an isolated neutron know that it has become isolated and thus needs to decay?
Then too, maybe it's all just a programmed software simulation.
Neutron Decay 2: When an isolated neutron decays, it decays into a proton, an electron and an anti-neutrino. Ignoring the electron and the anti-neutrino* since they are fundamental particles, let's check out the neutron and the resulting proton since they are not fundamental particles but composites of up-quarks (with an electric charge of +2/3rds) and down-quarks (with an electric charge of -1/3rd). Thus, a neutron (neutral electric charge) is composed of two down-quarks and one up-quark; a proton (one positive electric charge) is composed of two up-quarks and one down-quark. To go from a neutron to a proton therefore requires one down-quark to morph into an up-quark. Since there are two down-quarks in a neutron, the question arises how do those two down-quarks decide between them which one will morph and which one will not.
Of course maybe no decision is actually involved. If all of the quarks in the neutron morphed into their opposite numbers that comprise the proton then the proton will still end up with a single positive charge. Two neutron down-quarks morph into two proton up-quarks; one neutron up-quark morphs into a proton down-quark. Still, there has to be some sort of conscious agreement or communication between all of the neutron's quarks to morph at the exact same instant. If the up-quark of a neutron morphed into a down-quark before the two down-quarks morphed, then there would be a particle composed of a trio of down-quarks which would add up to a particle with one negative electric charge and thus be a pseudo-electron with way, way, way more mass than an actual electron. However briefly that pseudo-electron's existence might be, I doubt particle physics would be willing to entertain that scenario.
Then too, maybe it's all just a programmed software simulation.
*Oh, by way of explanation, the emission of an actual electron in neutron decay is required in order to balance or conserve electric charge. You just can't have a neutral particle change into a positive particle. The sum total of electric charge has to balance before decay and after decay. Because an electron and a proton together have ever so slightly less mass than the neutron, the anti-neutrino is required to balance the before-and-after amount of mass.
Pane of Glass: If you have one clear pane of ordinary window glass and one light source and considering that all photons are identical, when those photons hit the glass from the light source you'd expect one and only one outcome. Either 100% of the photons will pass through the glass or 100% of the photons will reflect off of the glass. Alas, some percentage of the photons will pass through the glass and some photons will reflect off of the glass. Similar sorts of things happen with clouds and sunlight for example; or radio wave photons and brick walls (which is why radio reception tends to be better outside than inside. The question, as always is, how do photons know there is an obstruction ahead and how do they decide whether or not to plough through or bounce off?
Then too, maybe it's all just a programmed software simulation.
Photon-Electron Interactions: A photon can hit an electron that's in 'orbit' around the nucleus of an atom. The result is that the electron gains energy and quantum jumps up one of more energy levels. That's pretty straight forward. However, sooner or later, the electron decides and ejects the photon, or the photon decides to leave its electron host, and thus the electron loses energy and drops down one or more energy levels. In doing so, the electron releases that initial energy gain (i.e. - the photon) which becomes some type of electromagnetic (EM) frequency, perhaps in the visible part of the EM spectrum. The question is, how does the electron decide when to release its photon or conversely, how does the photon decide to wave goodbye to the electron. Either the electron or the photon has to decide to part with the company of the other.
Then too, maybe it's all just a programmed software simulation.
Radioactive Decay: Unstable (radioactive) atomic nuclei go poof and in doing so thus achieve ultimate stability but for apparently no causal reason at all. No external physical or chemical process can speed up or slow down or otherwise influence the rate of radioactive decay, which is rather weird in and of itself. If you create and take two absolutely identical unstable nuclei, say carbon-14 and place them side-by-side, one might go poof within minutes; the other might take years or decades or even longer to go poof. Now that adds to the weirdness, and that in itself is weird enough, but then add to this already pot-full of weirdness the concept that a collection of these absolutely identical carbon-14 radioactive nuclei will go poof and fade away into respectable stability at a fixed rate, such that in a defined time interval (Time X), a time interval unique to each and every type of radioactive substance, only half of your collection will go poof. Okay, that in itself isn't totally weird, but after that half go poof, in the next interval of Time X another half of the half remaining will go poof and in the following Time X half of that which remains will now go poof, and so on and so on until the last unstable nucleus is left standing. Of course that will fall over too in that last Time X interval.
Discussion: Firstly there's no explanation why the above half of a half of a half of a half, etc., relationship should be a half-life relationship and not some other relationship, like a totally linear one instead of an exponential one (which is what the half-life relationship is). Secondly, if radioactive decay is totally random, then the resulting graph should be all over the map. Okay, there has to be a time interval where half of your collection of unstable nuclei have gone poof, but after that, anything goes assuming pure randomness. The question now arises, is randomness and non-causality actually involved? What role might consciousness on the part of the particles involved play in determining this strange exponential relationship since no physical or chemical law forces this half-life relationship to happen given lots of other equally logical alternatives are available? Next, how do the particles communicate and decide which one of them is next in line to go poof in order to keep the graph an exponential half-life graph?
It would almost seem as if some sort of independent decision-making were going on since radioactive decay has bugger-all to do with actual external physical and chemical processes. Of course radioactive decay is said to be an internal quantum event or a quantum process, but that explains nothing since it invokes no causality. No cause equals no explanation. One just might as well say Zeus did it or Merlin practised some wand-waving slight-of-hand. Panpsychism is as good an explanation as any. Maybe a synonym for Panpsychism might be quantum and vice-versa.
When it comes to conscious decision-making (free will?), you can decide this or that or the next thing but not something in-between. You can at any one time decide to go to New York or to Los Angeles but not to New Angeles or Los York. You can decide to wear to work your blue tie or your red tie but not a purple amalgamation of both at the same time. And so it goes with nearly all decisions. That sounds a lot like quantum mechanics where you can have this state of affairs, or that state of affairs, or the next state of affairs, but nothing in-between this, and that and the next thing.
Then too, maybe it's all just a programmed software simulation.
Superposition-of-State and Collapse of the Wave-Function: If you have the probability of several things or outcomes being possible, then you can't know which of the possible options is the certainty or actual outcome until such time as you actually make a measurement or observation. In the Copenhagen Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics, the act of measurement or observation turns probability into certainty, but until such a measurement or observation is made, all possible outcomes are superimposed on each other. An unobserved coin is both heads up and tails up. Only when the coin is observed does the superposition of possibilities collapse into an either/or state. In other words, when something is measured or observed, that something somehow decides which option it chooses to adopt. In other words it becomes aware that it is being observed in an unnatural state and thus corrects that unnatural state into a natural state quick-smart. The technical term is that its wave-function has collapsed from all states, the superposition-of-states to an either/or state. The coin becomes either heads up, or tails up, not remaining as a superposition of both heads and tails up. The question is, can a coin be both heads up and tails up at the same time and in the same place?
In reality there can be no superposition-of-states or collapse of the wave-function since both of these concepts are dependent on there being an observer. All of these superposition-of-states and collapse of wave-functions are told from the perspective of the human species, a very rare commodity in cosmic terms. Vast amounts of cosmic real estate in time and in space have no biological observers unless you want to suggest that the humble particle is in and of itself an observer who knows about superposition-of-states and can initiate wave-function collapses. That aside, from the perspective of the Cosmos itself, what happens, happens, and happens purely independently of the human or other observer. There is no superposition, just either/or.
Then too, maybe it's all just a programmed software simulation.
Double-Slit Experiment: To make a very long story somewhat shorter, the Double-Slit Experiment (DSE) demonstrates that matter can exhibit wave behaviour or particle behaviour depending on the exact DSE experimental set-up which already implies that somehow the matter in question is aware of the DSE experimental set-up and behaves accordingly. However there's no apparent decision-making since the either/or experimental results (wave/particle) are always either/or (wave/particle) depending on the initial set-up. While that's weird in and of itself (wave/particle duality), it gets worst - far worse.
However, when an observer, most likely the experimenter, decides to intrude and get up close and personal with the experiment and actually observe first-hand what's going on with this weird either/or wave/particle duality, the duality disappears and there is no longer an either/or. Everything is now strictly particle behaviour. So now the matter used (in the experiment) in question is not only aware of the experimental set-up but now also aware of the observer and changes spots (if originally a wave) in midstream. So, once observed, wave behaviour now has to morph into particle behaviour (how is that accomplished?). Anyway, no actual choice on the part of the experimental matter is being made since wave behaviour will always morph into particle behaviour when observed in the DSE.
But it gets weirder yet. Then there is the Delayed DSE. Thus far, the observer is observing the waves or particles (or both) when they actually pass through the slit(s). What happens when the observer only gets up close and personal after the waves or particles have passed through the slit(s). Once through the slits, surely the matter in whatever form cannot change its mind and morph. Wanna bet?
If you observe what would have been wave behaviour unobserved, but do so after the matter involved has already passed through the double slits but before the wave reaches the impartial detector screen, the wave behaviour morphs into particle behaviour. How can that happen after-the-fact? Further, there's the implication that the matter in question, knowing that it has been observed, travels back in time (a free will conscious decision?) in order to correct its ultimate wave behaviour into particle behaviour from the get-go.
I cannot reject the evidence, yet I cannot accept the conclusions, so something is screwy somewhere and hidden variables abound. All is not what it appears to be.
Then too, maybe it's all just a programmed software simulation.
Morphing Trilogy of Neutrinos: The neutrino is an electrically neutral particle that has a very tiny mass. Like all non-force particles, neutrinos come in three generations or flavours. There's the electron neutrino (the lightweight); the muon neutrino (the middleweight) and the tau neutrino (the heavyweight). Each have slightly different masses otherwise there wouldn't be a trilogy of neutrino types. So far, so good, there's no anomaly (apart from the fact that there are three different flavours or generations but that's an issue that's separate and apart). The anomaly is that each type of neutrino can morph or oscillate into each other type while on its cosmic journey as they propagate through space (from whatever produced the neutrino in the first place which could be via nuclear fission reactions and radioactive decay; nuclear fusion in stars; supernovae explosions; cosmic rays interacting with our atmosphere, etc.). Apart from the problem of how particles with slightly differing masses can change spots (a violation of conservation laws seems in order here), there's the issue of how does an electron neutrino decide to morph into a muon neutrino or a tau neutrino (and back again); a muon neutrino decide to morph into an electron neutrino or a tau neutrino (and back again); a tau neutrino decide to morph into an electron neutrino or a muon neutrino (and back again).
Then too, maybe it's all just a programmed software simulation.
Conclusion: In conclusion, we've seen how the realm of the particle, otherwise known as quantum mechanics or quantum physics, is awash with weirdness. The question arises, what does this weirdness actually mean? The concept of Panpsychism can address that weirdness by postulating that particles themselves have a (limited) degree of consciousness, awareness, perception, and even in some cases free will. However, Panpsychism might just replace one bucket of quantum weirdness with another bucket of weirdness! The idea that an electron (for example) might have awareness, knowledge, free will, etc. just will not sit well with your average layperson who's liable to respond with a WTF, and will be totally bucketed by professional physicists, even if they can't do a better job of explaining the whys and wherefores of the particle realm. Professional physicists just tend to adopt the rational and employment retention philosophy of "don't worry what it means, just shut up and calculate".
Then too, maybe it's all just a programmed software simulation.