As humans, our brains need the capacity to pretend that we could choose different things
This seems wrong, “capacity to pretend” is not it. Rather, we don’t know what we’ll do, there is no need to pretend that we don’t know. What we know (can figure out) is what consequences are anticipated under assumptions of making various hypothetical actions (this might be what you meant by “pretend”).
(It’s a bit more subtle than that: it’s possible to anticipate the decision, but this anticipation doesn’t, or shouldn’t, play a direct role in selecting the decision, it observes and doesn’t determine. So it’s possible to know what you’ll most likely do without having decided it yet.)
This seems to be a much better description of what’s going on in my mind when I make a decision. I disagree with Solvent that we have a determnistic alhorithm that has a single outcome.
What we have are conflicting priorities. In the case of running over the squirrel they could be, for example:
Being angry enough to want to hurt something weaker than yourself
Not wanting to jerk the steering wheel or brake abruptly while driving, for safety, when a squirrel runs out into the road in front of your car.
Wanting to protect animal life.
Other than by experience, you don’t know which priority has the greatest weight. Say “Wanting to protect animal life” turns out to have the greatest weight. Then you hit the brakes.
I disagree with Solvent that we have a deterministic algorithm that has a single outcome.
Not knowing the outcome doesn’t mean it’s not there. Presence of many “conflicting” parts doesn’t mean that their combination doesn’t resolve to a single decision deterministically.
Although I see what you’re saying, I still disagree. I don’t think that we are just inside the algorithm feeling it happen, making us not knowing the outcome and only being observers.
I definitely have a decision loop and input into the process in my own mind. Even if it’s only from outside the loop: Dang, I made a bad decision that time. I’ll make a better one next time, and then doing it.
And until I take physical outward action the decision algorithm isn’t finished. So people can be paralyzed by indecision by competing priorities that have closely similar weights to them. Or they can ignore and not take any choice and move on to other activities that render the previous choice algorithm nebulous and never finished.
I would like to give a more detailed refutation of the idea that our minds have deterministic algorithms. Until you take action it’s undetermined, and I think there’s choice there. But I don’t have the background or the language.
See the free will sequence: problem statement, solution. You do determine what happens, but you do that as part of physics, which could as well be deterministic as well, with your decision being determined by that part of physical world that is you. The decision itself, while it’s not made, is not part of current-you, but it’s determined by current-you, and it is part of the physical world (in the future of current-you), where current-you can’t observe it.
This seems wrong, “capacity to pretend” is not it. Rather, we don’t know what we’ll do, there is no need to pretend that we don’t know. What we know (can figure out) is what consequences are anticipated under assumptions of making various hypothetical actions (this might be what you meant by “pretend”).
(It’s a bit more subtle than that: it’s possible to anticipate the decision, but this anticipation doesn’t, or shouldn’t, play a direct role in selecting the decision, it observes and doesn’t determine. So it’s possible to know what you’ll most likely do without having decided it yet.)
What I think he means by “pretend” is: the capacity to pretend that we are choosing different things; i.e., running each scenario in our heads.
This seems to be a much better description of what’s going on in my mind when I make a decision. I disagree with Solvent that we have a determnistic alhorithm that has a single outcome.
What we have are conflicting priorities. In the case of running over the squirrel they could be, for example:
Being angry enough to want to hurt something weaker than yourself Not wanting to jerk the steering wheel or brake abruptly while driving, for safety, when a squirrel runs out into the road in front of your car. Wanting to protect animal life.
Other than by experience, you don’t know which priority has the greatest weight. Say “Wanting to protect animal life” turns out to have the greatest weight. Then you hit the brakes.
Not knowing the outcome doesn’t mean it’s not there. Presence of many “conflicting” parts doesn’t mean that their combination doesn’t resolve to a single decision deterministically.
Although I see what you’re saying, I still disagree. I don’t think that we are just inside the algorithm feeling it happen, making us not knowing the outcome and only being observers.
I definitely have a decision loop and input into the process in my own mind. Even if it’s only from outside the loop: Dang, I made a bad decision that time. I’ll make a better one next time, and then doing it.
And until I take physical outward action the decision algorithm isn’t finished. So people can be paralyzed by indecision by competing priorities that have closely similar weights to them. Or they can ignore and not take any choice and move on to other activities that render the previous choice algorithm nebulous and never finished.
I would like to give a more detailed refutation of the idea that our minds have deterministic algorithms. Until you take action it’s undetermined, and I think there’s choice there. But I don’t have the background or the language.
Can anyone suggest further reading?
See the free will sequence: problem statement, solution. You do determine what happens, but you do that as part of physics, which could as well be deterministic as well, with your decision being determined by that part of physical world that is you. The decision itself, while it’s not made, is not part of current-you, but it’s determined by current-you, and it is part of the physical world (in the future of current-you), where current-you can’t observe it.