There are at least two paths I did not follow through:
The model of myself is not only imprecise, but also wrong, and it is very difficult to get it right. First, my cognitive biases and social pressures to signal lead me away from the right path; I may have socially or biologically caused blind spots in understanding myself. (For example as a social animal, I may have blocks about thinking some thoughts when I am near the bottom of social hierarchy, and different blocks when I am near the top.) Second, my knowledge influences my behavior, so I am following a moving target. My behavior is also influenced by circumstances of my life, so even my little gained knowledge soon becomes obsolete. And all the time I am influenced by wrong information from other people, which is hard to filter or ignore, because it is positively correlated with my own biases. So not only having a correct model of myself (simulating myself) is impossible, but even rough approximations are very difficult.
Related to the “free will” is a concept of “decision”. It is supposed to be the act which reduces many options to one, but it is often something else… either a socially accepted signal, or a recognition that some invisible mental process has already chosen the preferred action. Anyway, for an external observer there is a correlation between decisions and actions, so they assume causation.
And even this is not complete. I feel most certain about the part that free will is a mysterious explanation of a missing link between feeling “I could have done N different things” and knowing “but I did this one” (or extrapolated to future: “I can do N different things… but I will do only one”); and that the feeling of “I can do N different things” means “my model of myself tells me all these N different things are possible”. It is generally impossible to model oneself perfectly; it is difficult to make even approximate predictions when small changes in inputs can cause big differences in outputs; and our models of ourself are usually horribly wrong.
Or more simply, belief in a free will is a belief that “if I can’t predict myself, no one can”. Speaking about humans, it is actually true, but it is wrong to extrapolate it too far (to hypothetical omniscient beings, to hypothetical observers capable of modelling all particles in my body, etc.).
Note for many-worlds fans: Perhaps in different Everett branches I have done different things, but that is not an answer. It still requires at least an explanation why some things happened in more branches than other things; what caused that specific probability distribution instead of e.g. uniform or Solomonoff probability distribution.
Does your model give you this feeling?
There are at least two paths I did not follow through:
The model of myself is not only imprecise, but also wrong, and it is very difficult to get it right. First, my cognitive biases and social pressures to signal lead me away from the right path; I may have socially or biologically caused blind spots in understanding myself. (For example as a social animal, I may have blocks about thinking some thoughts when I am near the bottom of social hierarchy, and different blocks when I am near the top.) Second, my knowledge influences my behavior, so I am following a moving target. My behavior is also influenced by circumstances of my life, so even my little gained knowledge soon becomes obsolete. And all the time I am influenced by wrong information from other people, which is hard to filter or ignore, because it is positively correlated with my own biases. So not only having a correct model of myself (simulating myself) is impossible, but even rough approximations are very difficult.
Related to the “free will” is a concept of “decision”. It is supposed to be the act which reduces many options to one, but it is often something else… either a socially accepted signal, or a recognition that some invisible mental process has already chosen the preferred action. Anyway, for an external observer there is a correlation between decisions and actions, so they assume causation.
And even this is not complete. I feel most certain about the part that free will is a mysterious explanation of a missing link between feeling “I could have done N different things” and knowing “but I did this one” (or extrapolated to future: “I can do N different things… but I will do only one”); and that the feeling of “I can do N different things” means “my model of myself tells me all these N different things are possible”. It is generally impossible to model oneself perfectly; it is difficult to make even approximate predictions when small changes in inputs can cause big differences in outputs; and our models of ourself are usually horribly wrong.
Or more simply, belief in a free will is a belief that “if I can’t predict myself, no one can”. Speaking about humans, it is actually true, but it is wrong to extrapolate it too far (to hypothetical omniscient beings, to hypothetical observers capable of modelling all particles in my body, etc.).
Note for many-worlds fans: Perhaps in different Everett branches I have done different things, but that is not an answer. It still requires at least an explanation why some things happened in more branches than other things; what caused that specific probability distribution instead of e.g. uniform or Solomonoff probability distribution.
I’ll take it as a “No”. Which means, according to EY, that you should keep dissolving the question.