I talked about it a few years back. If you think of the world as a deterministic or non-deterministic evolution of some initial conditions, you can potentially separate small parts of it as “agents” and study what they would internally consider a better or worse outcome, which is the “should”, vs what they actually do, which is the “would”. You don’t have to internally run a God’s eye view algorithm, some agents can still notice themselves “make decisions” (the internal feeling as an artifact of the agency algorithm evolving in time), while understanding that this is only a feeling, and the reality is nothing more than learning what kind of an agent you are, for example whether you one-box or two-box. Or maybe it’s what you mean by an outside view.
Notice, however, that the view you have re-discovered is anti-memetic: it contradicts the extremely strong “free choice” output of a subroutine that converts multiple potential maps of the observed world into an action that has a certain degree of optimality, and so is almost instantly internally rejected in most cases. In fact, most agents pretend to find a loophole, often under the guise of compatibilism, that lets them claim that choices matter and that they can affect the outcome by making them, not just passively watch themselves think and act and discover what they would actually do.
My underlying motive is quite different. For example, I do not think that metaphysics is against free will. My root position is that thinking from a given perspective, i.e. that each of our own first-person perspectives, is the foundation of reasoning. From there we imagine thinking as other people or things, some part of reasoning remains unchanged with such perspective switches, which gives the idea of objectivity. Nonetheless, reasoning is ultimately based on perspectives, so perspective (and self) shall be regarded as primitive.
This is why I think the Copenhagen-type interpretations got it right: the existence of an observer that is physically unexplainable by reductionism is to be expected. And free will is something experienced by the first-person, by whatever that is regarded as the observer. So free will is not something inside physics’ domain.
I also noticed you discussed the absent-minded driver. I consider “the probability that here is X” is not a valid concept. Because here is perspective defined, using that like its meaning is apparent means reasoning from the perspective of the driver at that moment. So here is primitive, there is no way to analyze the probability. In general self-locating probabilities in anthropics are invalid.
My position is similar to dualistic agency. If we want to analyze the decision-maker, then we use physical reductionism. If we want to reason as the first-person, then free will must be a premise in decision-making. The point is, we should not switch perspectives halfway and mix the two analyses, which Newcomb’s paradox does.
I definitely agree with the last paragraph, stick with one perspective. To the predictor you are an algorithm that either one-boxes or not. There is nothing more to design.
I agree with you on self-locating probabilities not being a useful concept for making optimal decisions. However, in the absent-minded driver problem turning with the probability 2⁄3 to optimize your payout is not talking about a self-locating probability. Not sure if that is what you meant.
I don’t understand the point about the Copenhagen-type interpretation at all...
As for the free will, metaphysics is definitely not against it, physics is. The feeling of free will is a human cognitive artifact, not anything reducible or emergent. But it doesn’t seem useful to argue this point.
Turning with the probability of 2⁄3 is not a self-locating probability. It is a valid decision. What is not valid is when at an intersection ask “what is the probability that here is X?”, this is a self-locating probability. It needs to employ the first-person perspective to make sense of “here”, while also needs a god’s eye view to treat the location as unknown. i.e. mixing two perspectives. We can’t assign a value to it then make a decision basing on that.
If we consider perspective as fundamental in reasoning then physics cannot be regarded as the description of an objective reality, rather it is the description of how the world interacts with a perspective center. So physics not describing the observer itself is to be expected. Yet free will (and subjective experience in general) are only relevant to the self. So physics cannot be against free will as it is not something within its domain of study.
That is all assuming perspective is the fundamental form of reasoning. If we consider objective reasoning as fundamental, then physics as the description of the objective reality is the foundation of any perspective experiences such as free will. And it would be right to say free will is not compatible with physics.
The former considers reasoning as the first-person as the foundation, the other considers reasoning objectively as the foundation.
“Matter” was a poor choice of words (hah). But no, there is no difference between determinism and non-determinism in terms of how free the choices are. Unless you are willing to concede that your choice is determine by the projection postulate, or by which Everett branch “you” end up in.
Not necessarily. Non-determinism (that future is not completely defined by the past) doesn’t have anything to do with choice. A stone doesn’t make choices even if future is intrinsically unpredictable. The question here is why would anyone think that humans are qualitatively different from stones.
I don’t think it can be meaningfully defined. How could you define free choice so that a human would have it, but a complicated mechanical contraption of stones wouldn’t?
You’d have to draw the line somewhere so it would have any meaning at all. What’s the point in the concept if anything can be interpreted as such. What do you mean when you say “free choice” or “choice”?
I define freedom in he libertarian sense, freedom in the compatibilist sense, and so on, separately, rather than trying to find a single true definition.
An agent with desires could be said to lack or have compatibilist free will inasmuch as it is able to act on its desires unimpededly. That could include an AI.
An agent with the ability to make undetermined choices could because to have libertarian free will. That could include an AI, too.
So I dont see the probelm with a “complicated contrivance” having free will.
“able to act on its desires unimpededly” has 2 problems.
First, it is clearly describing the “agent’s” (also not a well-defined category, but let’s leave it at that) experience, e.g. desires, not something objective from an outside view. Second, “unimpededly” is also intrinsically vague. Is my desire to fly impeded? Is an addict’s desire to quit? (If the answer is “no” to both, what would even count as impediment?) But, I guess, it is fine if we agree that “compatibilist free will” is just a feature of subjective experience.
“ability to make undetermined choices” relies on the ambiguous concept of “choice”, but also would be surprisingly abundant in a truly probabilistic world. We’d have to attribute “libertarian free will” to a radioactive isotope that’s “choosing” when to decay, or to any otherwise deterministic system that relies on such isotope. I don’t think that agrees with intuition of those who find this concept meaningful.
We can decide issues of compatibilist free will, up to a point, because it’s the same thing as acting under your own volition in the legal sense.
“ability to make undetermined choices” relies on the ambiguous concept of “choice”, but also would be surprisingly abundant in a truly probabilistic world
That would depend on the nature of choice. If the ability to make choices isn’t common , then widespread indeterminism would not lead to widespread undetermined choices.
Not necessarily. Determinism doesn’t have anything to do with choice. The stone doesn’t make choices regardless of determinism. The question here is why would anyone think that humans are qualitatively different from stones.
I talked about it a few years back. If you think of the world as a deterministic or non-deterministic evolution of some initial conditions, you can potentially separate small parts of it as “agents” and study what they would internally consider a better or worse outcome, which is the “should”, vs what they actually do, which is the “would”. You don’t have to internally run a God’s eye view algorithm, some agents can still notice themselves “make decisions” (the internal feeling as an artifact of the agency algorithm evolving in time), while understanding that this is only a feeling, and the reality is nothing more than learning what kind of an agent you are, for example whether you one-box or two-box. Or maybe it’s what you mean by an outside view.
Notice, however, that the view you have re-discovered is anti-memetic: it contradicts the extremely strong “free choice” output of a subroutine that converts multiple potential maps of the observed world into an action that has a certain degree of optimality, and so is almost instantly internally rejected in most cases. In fact, most agents pretend to find a loophole, often under the guise of compatibilism, that lets them claim that choices matter and that they can affect the outcome by making them, not just passively watch themselves think and act and discover what they would actually do.
My underlying motive is quite different. For example, I do not think that metaphysics is against free will. My root position is that thinking from a given perspective, i.e. that each of our own first-person perspectives, is the foundation of reasoning. From there we imagine thinking as other people or things, some part of reasoning remains unchanged with such perspective switches, which gives the idea of objectivity. Nonetheless, reasoning is ultimately based on perspectives, so perspective (and self) shall be regarded as primitive.
This is why I think the Copenhagen-type interpretations got it right: the existence of an observer that is physically unexplainable by reductionism is to be expected. And free will is something experienced by the first-person, by whatever that is regarded as the observer. So free will is not something inside physics’ domain.
I also noticed you discussed the absent-minded driver. I consider “the probability that here is X” is not a valid concept. Because here is perspective defined, using that like its meaning is apparent means reasoning from the perspective of the driver at that moment. So here is primitive, there is no way to analyze the probability. In general self-locating probabilities in anthropics are invalid.
My position is similar to dualistic agency. If we want to analyze the decision-maker, then we use physical reductionism. If we want to reason as the first-person, then free will must be a premise in decision-making. The point is, we should not switch perspectives halfway and mix the two analyses, which Newcomb’s paradox does.
I definitely agree with the last paragraph, stick with one perspective. To the predictor you are an algorithm that either one-boxes or not. There is nothing more to design.
I agree with you on self-locating probabilities not being a useful concept for making optimal decisions. However, in the absent-minded driver problem turning with the probability 2⁄3 to optimize your payout is not talking about a self-locating probability. Not sure if that is what you meant.
I don’t understand the point about the Copenhagen-type interpretation at all...
As for the free will, metaphysics is definitely not against it, physics is. The feeling of free will is a human cognitive artifact, not anything reducible or emergent. But it doesn’t seem useful to argue this point.
Turning with the probability of 2⁄3 is not a self-locating probability. It is a valid decision. What is not valid is when at an intersection ask “what is the probability that here is X?”, this is a self-locating probability. It needs to employ the first-person perspective to make sense of “here”, while also needs a god’s eye view to treat the location as unknown. i.e. mixing two perspectives. We can’t assign a value to it then make a decision basing on that.
If we consider perspective as fundamental in reasoning then physics cannot be regarded as the description of an objective reality, rather it is the description of how the world interacts with a perspective center. So physics not describing the observer itself is to be expected. Yet free will (and subjective experience in general) are only relevant to the self. So physics cannot be against free will as it is not something within its domain of study.
That is all assuming perspective is the fundamental form of reasoning. If we consider objective reasoning as fundamental, then physics as the description of the objective reality is the foundation of any perspective experiences such as free will. And it would be right to say free will is not compatible with physics.
The former considers reasoning as the first-person as the foundation, the other considers reasoning objectively as the foundation.
If the world actually is non deterministic, their choices actually could matter.
“Matter” was a poor choice of words (hah). But no, there is no difference between determinism and non-determinism in terms of how free the choices are. Unless you are willing to concede that your choice is determine by the projection postulate, or by which Everett branch “you” end up in.
If “free” merely means “free of determinism” ,then an undetermined choice is a free choice, and a determined choice is not.
The project ion postulate does nothing without some pre existing state, so why attribute all the choice to it?
I think your actual objection concerns the ability to combine volition (intention, etc) with freedom.
Not necessarily. Non-determinism (that future is not completely defined by the past) doesn’t have anything to do with choice. A stone doesn’t make choices even if future is intrinsically unpredictable. The question here is why would anyone think that humans are qualitatively different from stones.
Is a computer qualitatively different from a stone? Computers can make choices, in some sense.
I don’t think computers have any more free will [free choice] than stones. Do you?
How are you defining free will?
I don’t think it can be meaningfully defined. How could you define free choice so that a human would have it, but a complicated mechanical contraption of stones wouldn’t?
Why would you want to?
You’d have to draw the line somewhere so it would have any meaning at all. What’s the point in the concept if anything can be interpreted as such. What do you mean when you say “free choice” or “choice”?
I define freedom in he libertarian sense, freedom in the compatibilist sense, and so on, separately, rather than trying to find a single true definition.
An agent with desires could be said to lack or have compatibilist free will inasmuch as it is able to act on its desires unimpededly. That could include an AI.
An agent with the ability to make undetermined choices could because to have libertarian free will. That could include an AI, too.
So I dont see the probelm with a “complicated contrivance” having free will.
Both definitions have their issues.
“able to act on its desires unimpededly” has 2 problems. First, it is clearly describing the “agent’s” (also not a well-defined category, but let’s leave it at that) experience, e.g. desires, not something objective from an outside view. Second, “unimpededly” is also intrinsically vague. Is my desire to fly impeded? Is an addict’s desire to quit? (If the answer is “no” to both, what would even count as impediment?) But, I guess, it is fine if we agree that “compatibilist free will” is just a feature of subjective experience.
“ability to make undetermined choices” relies on the ambiguous concept of “choice”, but also would be surprisingly abundant in a truly probabilistic world. We’d have to attribute “libertarian free will” to a radioactive isotope that’s “choosing” when to decay, or to any otherwise deterministic system that relies on such isotope. I don’t think that agrees with intuition of those who find this concept meaningful.
All definitions have issues.
We can decide issues of compatibilist free will, up to a point, because it’s the same thing as acting under your own volition in the legal sense.
That would depend on the nature of choice. If the ability to make choices isn’t common , then widespread indeterminism would not lead to widespread undetermined choices.
If “free” merely means “free of determinism” ,then an undetermined choice is a free choice, and a determined choice is not.
I think your actual objection concerns the ability to volition, intention, or control with freedom
Not necessarily. Determinism doesn’t have anything to do with choice. The stone doesn’t make choices regardless of determinism. The question here is why would anyone think that humans are qualitatively different from stones.