Let’s first, within a critical agential ontology, disprove some very basic forms of determinism.
I’m assuming use of a metaphysics in which you, the agent, can make choices. Without this metaphysics there isn’t an obvious motivation for a theory of decisions. As in, you could score some actions, but then there isn’t a sense in which you “can” choose one according to any criterion.
Maybe this metaphysics leads to contradictions. In the rest of the post I argue that it doesn’t contradict belief in physical causality including as applied to the self.
As in, you could score some actions, but then there isn’t a sense in which you “can” choose one according to any criterion.
I’ve noticed that issue as well. Counterfactuals are more a convenient model/story than something to be taken literally. You’ve grounded decision by taking counterfactuals to exist a priori. I ground them by noting that our desire to construct counterfactuals is ultimately based on evolved instincts and/or behaviours so these stories aren’t just arbitrary stories but a way in which we can leverage the lessons that have been instilled in us by evolution. I’m curious, given this explanation, why do we still need choices to be actual?
Do you think of counterfactuals as a speedup on evolution? Could this be operationalized by designing AIs that quantilize on some animal population, therefore not being far from the population distribution, but still surviving/reproducing better than average?
Without this metaphysics there isn’t an obvious motivation for a theory of decisions.
There isn’t really any need for “choices”, except in the sense of “internal states are also inputs that affect the outputs”. Sufficiently complex agents can have one or more decision theories encoded into their internal state, and it seems like being able to communicate, evaluate, and update such theories would at least sometimes be a useful trait.
It’s easy to imagine agents that can’t do that, but it’s more interesting (and more reflective of “intelligence”) to assume they can.
I commented directly on your post.
Note the preceding
I’m assuming use of a metaphysics in which you, the agent, can make choices. Without this metaphysics there isn’t an obvious motivation for a theory of decisions. As in, you could score some actions, but then there isn’t a sense in which you “can” choose one according to any criterion.
Maybe this metaphysics leads to contradictions. In the rest of the post I argue that it doesn’t contradict belief in physical causality including as applied to the self.
I’ve noticed that issue as well. Counterfactuals are more a convenient model/story than something to be taken literally. You’ve grounded decision by taking counterfactuals to exist a priori. I ground them by noting that our desire to construct counterfactuals is ultimately based on evolved instincts and/or behaviours so these stories aren’t just arbitrary stories but a way in which we can leverage the lessons that have been instilled in us by evolution. I’m curious, given this explanation, why do we still need choices to be actual?
Do you think of counterfactuals as a speedup on evolution? Could this be operationalized by designing AIs that quantilize on some animal population, therefore not being far from the population distribution, but still surviving/reproducing better than average?
Speedup on evolution?
Maybe? Might work okayish, but doubt the best solution is that speculative.
There isn’t really any need for “choices”, except in the sense of “internal states are also inputs that affect the outputs”. Sufficiently complex agents can have one or more decision theories encoded into their internal state, and it seems like being able to communicate, evaluate, and update such theories would at least sometimes be a useful trait.
It’s easy to imagine agents that can’t do that, but it’s more interesting (and more reflective of “intelligence”) to assume they can.