“What kind of cognitive algorithm, as felt from the inside, would generate the observed debate about ‘free will’?”
I would say: people have mechanisms for causally modeling the outside world, and for choosing a course of action based on its imagined consequences, but we don’t have a mechanism for causally modeling the mechanism within us that makes the choice, so it seems as if our own choices aren’t subject to causality (and are thus “freely willed”).
However, this is likely to be wrong or incomplete, firstly because it is merely a rephrasing of what I understand to be the standard philosophical answer, and secondly because I’m not sure that I feel done.
This feels to me like part of the puzzle, as you say.
I think the other part is some quality of mind-like-ness (or optimising-agent-ness, if you prefer). People rarely attribute free will to leaves in the wind, despite their inability to accurately model their movements. On the other hand, many people do regularly attribute something suspiciously free-will-like to evolution(s).
I don’t have a good idea how either of these two concepts should be represented, or attached to one another, though.
I would say: people have mechanisms for causally modeling the outside world, and for choosing a course of action based on its imagined consequences, but we don’t have a mechanism for causally modeling the mechanism within us that makes the choice, so it seems as if our own choices aren’t subject to causality (and are thus “freely willed”).
However, this is likely to be wrong or incomplete, firstly because it is merely a rephrasing of what I understand to be the standard philosophical answer, and secondly because I’m not sure that I feel done.
This feels to me like part of the puzzle, as you say.
I think the other part is some quality of mind-like-ness (or optimising-agent-ness, if you prefer). People rarely attribute free will to leaves in the wind, despite their inability to accurately model their movements. On the other hand, many people do regularly attribute something suspiciously free-will-like to evolution(s).
I don’t have a good idea how either of these two concepts should be represented, or attached to one another, though.