I am loathe to point to a comment a user has actually made, but anything like “I decided to go to grad school because I’m better off in the Everett branch where I have a post-grad degree than the Everett branch in which I don’t.” No, Mr. Example, you are not going to turn into 1/sqrt(2)|grad student> + 1/sqrt(2)|not grad student>. To the extent to which you are able to choose at all, your decision algorithm is deterministic. What you really mean is “I’m better off in the counterfactual where I have a post-grad degree.”
Do people around here say that? I think/hope I would’ve noticed that. There were a few comments like that during the QM sequence but they were corrected, I think.
Looking up the comments I remember, I can find two or three comments that are not quite as bad as the one I made up above, but still seem to confuse Everett branches with counterfactual choices. They’re usually corrected by other users.
To the extent to which you are able to choose at all, your decision algorithm is deterministic.
How do you know that? Because of the illusion of free will? As EY mentioned once or twice in the last rerun, your decision algorithm runs “inside physics”, which includes QM, chaos and other non- or barely deterministic phenomena. In which case your decision to go or not go to the grad school could ultimately be triggered by a quantum measurement splitting the world into two branches. …If you subscribe to MWI, that is.
Right. But if your decision whether or not to go to school really depends on a quantum event with 50% probability, then you’re not choosing to go to school for reasons. (It would be incorrect, in that case, to say “I chose to go to grad school because I knew I’d be better off with a postgraduate degree.”) Instead, one is choosing a mixed strategy. So to the extent that one’s decision is not deterministic, one doesn’t really choose. Similar things could be said for non-quantum chaos.
I believe there’s a relevant article where Eliezer defends the view that determinism is required for (his conception of) free will. EDIT: Ah yes, this one. If you and I disagree, it’s probably merely about the meaning of the word “choose”. In any case, talking about Everett branches when you’re describing the deliberations you go through in making an everyday choice like that is almost certainly mistaken.
Indeed, we can only hope that our deliberations do not trigger Everett branches, or otherwise everything we’ve ever considered doing, has actually been done by a part of ourselves in another universe. Everyone you’ve gotten angry at and thought about killing is actually dead somewhere… and then, the anthropic effects of that...
I am loathe to point to a comment a user has actually made, but anything like “I decided to go to grad school because I’m better off in the Everett branch where I have a post-grad degree than the Everett branch in which I don’t.” No, Mr. Example, you are not going to turn into 1/sqrt(2)|grad student> + 1/sqrt(2)|not grad student>. To the extent to which you are able to choose at all, your decision algorithm is deterministic. What you really mean is “I’m better off in the counterfactual where I have a post-grad degree.”
Do people around here say that? I think/hope I would’ve noticed that. There were a few comments like that during the QM sequence but they were corrected, I think.
Looking up the comments I remember, I can find two or three comments that are not quite as bad as the one I made up above, but still seem to confuse Everett branches with counterfactual choices. They’re usually corrected by other users.
How do you know that? Because of the illusion of free will? As EY mentioned once or twice in the last rerun, your decision algorithm runs “inside physics”, which includes QM, chaos and other non- or barely deterministic phenomena. In which case your decision to go or not go to the grad school could ultimately be triggered by a quantum measurement splitting the world into two branches. …If you subscribe to MWI, that is.
Right. But if your decision whether or not to go to school really depends on a quantum event with 50% probability, then you’re not choosing to go to school for reasons. (It would be incorrect, in that case, to say “I chose to go to grad school because I knew I’d be better off with a postgraduate degree.”) Instead, one is choosing a mixed strategy. So to the extent that one’s decision is not deterministic, one doesn’t really choose. Similar things could be said for non-quantum chaos.
I believe there’s a relevant article where Eliezer defends the view that determinism is required for (his conception of) free will. EDIT: Ah yes, this one. If you and I disagree, it’s probably merely about the meaning of the word “choose”. In any case, talking about Everett branches when you’re describing the deliberations you go through in making an everyday choice like that is almost certainly mistaken.
Indeed, we can only hope that our deliberations do not trigger Everett branches, or otherwise everything we’ve ever considered doing, has actually been done by a part of ourselves in another universe. Everyone you’ve gotten angry at and thought about killing is actually dead somewhere… and then, the anthropic effects of that...
I disagree with that in a number of subtle ways.