I've tried googling new papers but nothing seems to confront the strangeness of the present moment.

"The world was filled with forgotten places that had been something else once, had contained something else once, renamed by whatever you did there now."

How about a scale for weighing evidence? Or did you want a mathematical symbol?

Got it! Yes, free will has a lot to do with what the RL world files under exploration or "off policy" behavior.

This essay touches on some related matters.

3quarksdaily.com/3quarksdaily...

Also: not sure I fully understand the free will point, but it sounds interesting. Could you elaborate?

Yes, teleology is taboo in some scientific discussions, but I think something like goal-seeking has to exist at the individual level. Any kind of civilizational teleology should be read as metaphorical, and best viewed restrospectively and historically, imho.

Oh yeah, there will definitely be processes internal to the cell that most people would file as proto intelligence or selectivity.