I honestly never understood the debate around free will. The brain is basically a computer that makes decisions about actions. You are the thing that makes the decision (depending on how you define The Self, of course.) It would be silly to say of humans “there is no will”, and I don’t really care whether that will is “free” according to some irrelevant definition.
Does resolving an irrelevant semantic puzzle help us solve alignment?
EDIT: Hopefully I’m not coming off as snarky or argumentative. This is a topic where I’m honestly confused about why rationalists (non-dualists) would see any mystery or puzzle. Free will is only a puzzle if you are committed to both scientific materialism and dualism, two views which are obviously incompatible anyway, although many moderns try to keep a foot in both camps. Since I doubt there are very many dualists on this forum, I just don’t see why anyone here would be mystified.
I think there are some important aspects to it; if you want to develop your moral thinking about personal responsibility and blame, you might want to reflect a lot on what “freedom” means to you. You might also not care about it at all due to some other a priori considerations, but in my experience this is the sort of thing that can push people one way or the other in ethics.
I honestly never understood the debate around free will. The brain is basically a computer that makes decisions about actions. You are the thing that makes the decision (depending on how you define The Self, of course.) It would be silly to say of humans “there is no will”, and I don’t really care whether that will is “free” according to some irrelevant definition.
Freedom is the freedom to avoid things
The future where we call get killed by ASI is inevitable, if everything is inevitable. But some people care a lot about avoiding it.
I don’t see what that has to do with free will.
It’s a potential reason why it’s worth caring about.
But if you don’t care about anything, you don’t care about anything.
Does resolving an irrelevant semantic puzzle help us solve alignment?
EDIT: Hopefully I’m not coming off as snarky or argumentative. This is a topic where I’m honestly confused about why rationalists (non-dualists) would see any mystery or puzzle. Free will is only a puzzle if you are committed to both scientific materialism and dualism, two views which are obviously incompatible anyway, although many moderns try to keep a foot in both camps. Since I doubt there are very many dualists on this forum, I just don’t see why anyone here would be mystified.
Dualism is only relevant to free will under certain definitions,so the semantic issue is relevant.
I think there are some important aspects to it; if you want to develop your moral thinking about personal responsibility and blame, you might want to reflect a lot on what “freedom” means to you. You might also not care about it at all due to some other a priori considerations, but in my experience this is the sort of thing that can push people one way or the other in ethics.