Adam Davis

Adam Davis explores the tension between materialism and free will within a Latter-day Saint framework. He outlines the “basic argument” against free will—that we cannot be ultimately responsible for our actions unless we are the cause of ourselves—and suggests that Mormon theology offers a unique solution through the doctrine of uncreated, eternal intelligences. Davis argues that for intelligent matter to serve as the genuine source of agency, it must receive information simultaneously rather than sequentially, and he proposes that quantum superposition may provide the mechanism by which perception and memory can interface with an irreducible core of agency. He concludes that artificial intelligence, being created rather than uncreate, likely cannot achieve true free will.

Adam Davis, a physicist at Wayne State College, explores the concept of spirit matter—a theological necessity in Latter-day Saint belief—through a scientific lens. He examines three models: the "mirror model" (spirit matter mirroring physical matter), the "computational model" (spirit matter as information-based reality), and the "phase model" (different states of matter interaction). Finding problems with each approach, Davis concludes that while no current model fully explains spirit matter, continued exploration through eliminative reasoning can help narrow the focus toward viable theories.

Adam Davis examines Nick Bostrom’s simulation argument through the lens of scientific realism. He observes that scientific realism requires modeling all of reality—including unobserved events—while simulation arguments assume we need only simulate human minds. Given chaos theory’s demonstration that minute changes can produce enormous effects, and quantum mechanics’ implication that every particle influences every other, Davis argues that simulating reality would require computational resources equal to the universe itself. While not dismissing simulation hypotheses outright, he notes their tension with the realist paradigm that has driven scientific and technological progress.