Eliezer, no you made your point quite clearly, and I think I reflect a clear understanding of that point in my posts.
“I am not saying that choice is an illusion. I am pointing to something and saying: “There! Right there! You see that? That’s a choice, just as much as a calculator is adding numbers! It doesn’t matter if it’s deterministic! It doesn’t matter if someone else predicted you’d do it or designed you to do it! It doesn’t matter if it’s made of parts and caused by the dynamics of those parts! It doesn’t matter if it’s physically impossible for you to have finally arrived at any other decision after all your agonizing! It’s still a choice!”″
It seems to me that’s an arbitrary claim grounded in aesthetics. You could just as easily say “You see that? That’s not a choice, just as much as a calculator is adding numbers! It doesn’t matter if it’s deterministic! It doesn’t matter if someone else predicted you’d do it or designed you to do it! It doesn’t matter if it’s made of parts and caused by the dynamics of those parts! It doesn’t matter if it’s physically impossible for you to have finally arrived at any other decision after all your agonizining! It’s not a choice!”″
Doly wrote “The problem I have with the idea that choices are determined is that it doesn’t really explain what the hell we are doing when we are “thinking hard” about a decision. Just running an algorithm? But if everything we ever do in our minds is running an algorithm, why does “thinking hard” feel different from, let’s say, walking home in “autopilot mode”? In both cases there are estimations of future probabilities and things that “could” happen, but in the second case we feel it’s all done in “automatic”. Why does this “automatic” feel different from the active “thinking hard”?”
Good questions, and well worth exploring. At this stage quality neuroscience research can probably help us answer a lot of these determinism/human choice questions better than blog comments debate. It’s one thing to say human behavior is determined at the level of quantum mechanics. What’s traditionally counterintuitive (as shown by Jim Baxter’s quotes) is how determined human behavior is (despite instances of the illusion of choice/free will) at higher levels of cognition. I think it’s analogous to how our vision isn’t constructed at higher levels of cognition in the way we tend to intuit that it is (it’s not like a movie camera).
Eliezer, no you made your point quite clearly, and I think I reflect a clear understanding of that point in my posts.
“I am not saying that choice is an illusion. I am pointing to something and saying: “There! Right there! You see that? That’s a choice, just as much as a calculator is adding numbers! It doesn’t matter if it’s deterministic! It doesn’t matter if someone else predicted you’d do it or designed you to do it! It doesn’t matter if it’s made of parts and caused by the dynamics of those parts! It doesn’t matter if it’s physically impossible for you to have finally arrived at any other decision after all your agonizing! It’s still a choice!”″
It seems to me that’s an arbitrary claim grounded in aesthetics. You could just as easily say “You see that? That’s not a choice, just as much as a calculator is adding numbers! It doesn’t matter if it’s deterministic! It doesn’t matter if someone else predicted you’d do it or designed you to do it! It doesn’t matter if it’s made of parts and caused by the dynamics of those parts! It doesn’t matter if it’s physically impossible for you to have finally arrived at any other decision after all your agonizining! It’s not a choice!”″
Doly wrote “The problem I have with the idea that choices are determined is that it doesn’t really explain what the hell we are doing when we are “thinking hard” about a decision. Just running an algorithm? But if everything we ever do in our minds is running an algorithm, why does “thinking hard” feel different from, let’s say, walking home in “autopilot mode”? In both cases there are estimations of future probabilities and things that “could” happen, but in the second case we feel it’s all done in “automatic”. Why does this “automatic” feel different from the active “thinking hard”?”
Good questions, and well worth exploring. At this stage quality neuroscience research can probably help us answer a lot of these determinism/human choice questions better than blog comments debate. It’s one thing to say human behavior is determined at the level of quantum mechanics. What’s traditionally counterintuitive (as shown by Jim Baxter’s quotes) is how determined human behavior is (despite instances of the illusion of choice/free will) at higher levels of cognition. I think it’s analogous to how our vision isn’t constructed at higher levels of cognition in the way we tend to intuit that it is (it’s not like a movie camera).