“If I understand you correctly on calling the feeling of deliberation an epiphenomenon, do you agree that those who report deliberating on a straightforward problem (say, a chess problem) tend to make better decisions than those who report not deliberating on it? Then it seems that some actual decision algorithm is operating, analogously to the one the person claims to experience.”
“However, what I think Eliezer might reply to this is that there still is a process of deliberation going on; the ultimate decision does tend to achieve our goals far better than a random decision, and that’s best explained by the running of some decision algorithm. The fact that the goals we pursue aren’t always the ones we state— even to ourselves— doesn’t prevent this from being a real deliberation;”
Patrick,
Those are interesting empirical questions. Why jump to the conclusion? Also, I think it’ll be instructive to check the latest neuroscience research on them. We no longer need to go straight to our intuitions as a beginning and end point.
Secondly, an illusion/myth/hallucination may be that you have the ultimate capacity to choose between “deliberation” (running some sort of decision tree/algorithm) and a random choice process in each given life instance, and that illusion could be based on common cognitive biases regarding how our brains work, similar to the effect of various cognitive biases that skew our other intuitions about self and reality.
“If I understand you correctly on calling the feeling of deliberation an epiphenomenon, do you agree that those who report deliberating on a straightforward problem (say, a chess problem) tend to make better decisions than those who report not deliberating on it? Then it seems that some actual decision algorithm is operating, analogously to the one the person claims to experience.”
“However, what I think Eliezer might reply to this is that there still is a process of deliberation going on; the ultimate decision does tend to achieve our goals far better than a random decision, and that’s best explained by the running of some decision algorithm. The fact that the goals we pursue aren’t always the ones we state— even to ourselves— doesn’t prevent this from being a real deliberation;”
Patrick,
Those are interesting empirical questions. Why jump to the conclusion? Also, I think it’ll be instructive to check the latest neuroscience research on them. We no longer need to go straight to our intuitions as a beginning and end point.
Secondly, an illusion/myth/hallucination may be that you have the ultimate capacity to choose between “deliberation” (running some sort of decision tree/algorithm) and a random choice process in each given life instance, and that illusion could be based on common cognitive biases regarding how our brains work, similar to the effect of various cognitive biases that skew our other intuitions about self and reality.