Computational Irreducibility: Perspective, Nature, and Free Will

Computational Irreducibility is the principle that all intermediate computational steps must be performed to evolve a system from a state X to another state Y, with no shortcuts possible.

Although this is a simple concept, it has an exhilarating breadth, depth, and domain of applicability. I consider some here interesting ramifications starting from a very simple first principles formulation of a system that is used to consider philosophical issues.