by “constraints”, I meant that Eliezer specified only that some particular processes happening in the brain are sufficient for choice occurring, which my example refuted, to which you added the ideas that it is not mere happening in the brain but also the additional constraints entailed by concepts of Eliezer-the-person and body-shell-of-Eliezer and that the former can be destroyed while the latter remains, which changes ownership of the choice, etc.
Anyway, I understand what you’re saying about choice as a higher-level convenience term, but I don’t think it is helpful. I think it is a net negative and that we’d do better to drop it. You gave the thought, “given these options, what will he choose?”, but I think the notion of choice adds nothing of value to the similar question, “given these options, what will he do?” You might say that it is different, since a choice can be made without an action occurring, but then I think we’d do better to say not “what will he choose?” but something more like “what will he think?”, or perhaps something else depending on the specifics of the situation under consideration.
I believe there’s always a way of rephrasing such things so as not to invoke choice, and all that we really give up is the ability to talk about totally generic hypothetical situations (where it isn’t specified what the “choice” is about). Whenever you flesh out the scenario by specifying the details of the “choice”, then you can easily talk about it more accurately by sidestepping the notion of choice altogether.
I don’t think that “choice” is analogous to Newtonian mechanics before relativity. It’s more akin to “soul”, which we could have redefined and retrofitted in terms of deterministic physical processes in the brain. But just as it makes more sense to forget about the notion of a soul, I think it makes more sense to forget about that of “choice”. Just as “soul” is too strongly associated with ideas such as dualism and various religious ideas, “choice” is too strongly associated with ideas such as non-determinism and moral responsibility (relative to some objective standard of morality). Instead of saying “I thought about whether to do X, Y, or Z, then choose to do X, and then did X”, we can just say “I thought about whether to do X, Y, or Z, then did X.”
@Constant:
I think “choice” is closer to “caloric” than “heat”, because I don’t believe there is any observable mundane phenomenon that it refers to. What do you have in mind that cannot be explained perfectly well without supposing that a “choice” must occur at some point in order to explain the observed phenomenon?
@Jagadul:
by “constraints”, I meant that Eliezer specified only that some particular processes happening in the brain are sufficient for choice occurring, which my example refuted, to which you added the ideas that it is not mere happening in the brain but also the additional constraints entailed by concepts of Eliezer-the-person and body-shell-of-Eliezer and that the former can be destroyed while the latter remains, which changes ownership of the choice, etc.
Anyway, I understand what you’re saying about choice as a higher-level convenience term, but I don’t think it is helpful. I think it is a net negative and that we’d do better to drop it. You gave the thought, “given these options, what will he choose?”, but I think the notion of choice adds nothing of value to the similar question, “given these options, what will he do?” You might say that it is different, since a choice can be made without an action occurring, but then I think we’d do better to say not “what will he choose?” but something more like “what will he think?”, or perhaps something else depending on the specifics of the situation under consideration.
I believe there’s always a way of rephrasing such things so as not to invoke choice, and all that we really give up is the ability to talk about totally generic hypothetical situations (where it isn’t specified what the “choice” is about). Whenever you flesh out the scenario by specifying the details of the “choice”, then you can easily talk about it more accurately by sidestepping the notion of choice altogether.
I don’t think that “choice” is analogous to Newtonian mechanics before relativity. It’s more akin to “soul”, which we could have redefined and retrofitted in terms of deterministic physical processes in the brain. But just as it makes more sense to forget about the notion of a soul, I think it makes more sense to forget about that of “choice”. Just as “soul” is too strongly associated with ideas such as dualism and various religious ideas, “choice” is too strongly associated with ideas such as non-determinism and moral responsibility (relative to some objective standard of morality). Instead of saying “I thought about whether to do X, Y, or Z, then choose to do X, and then did X”, we can just say “I thought about whether to do X, Y, or Z, then did X.”
@Constant:
I think “choice” is closer to “caloric” than “heat”, because I don’t believe there is any observable mundane phenomenon that it refers to. What do you have in mind that cannot be explained perfectly well without supposing that a “choice” must occur at some point in order to explain the observed phenomenon?