One of the disconnects between Yudkowsky’s original post and several of the comments here is that his post was concerned not primarily with making a philosophical case for one position or another, but instead for shifting the debate from philosophy to cognitive psychology. Why, on an anatomical and information processing level, does it feel like a debate about free will vs. determinism makes sense to have in the first place?
Even if we can dissolve or resolve the philosophical question, this psychological question remains in full force.
Since several people seem to have missed this point (unless it’s ME who’s missing a point!), I clearly should have reiterated his question more clearly at the top of this post!
There’s potentially a cognitive explanation for every other debate including coke versus pepsi. But that doesn’t explain away anything—it’s just a finer level of description of the same thing.
I don’t think Yudkowsky saw himself as making a psychological point that leaves the philosophical question unanswered, I think he himself as answering the one and only real question, and most of his readers see things the same way.
One of the disconnects between Yudkowsky’s original post and several of the comments here is that his post was concerned not primarily with making a philosophical case for one position or another, but instead for shifting the debate from philosophy to cognitive psychology. Why, on an anatomical and information processing level, does it feel like a debate about free will vs. determinism makes sense to have in the first place?
Even if we can dissolve or resolve the philosophical question, this psychological question remains in full force.
Since several people seem to have missed this point (unless it’s ME who’s missing a point!), I clearly should have reiterated his question more clearly at the top of this post!
There’s potentially a cognitive explanation for every other debate including coke versus pepsi. But that doesn’t explain away anything—it’s just a finer level of description of the same thing.
I don’t think Yudkowsky saw himself as making a psychological point that leaves the philosophical question unanswered, I think he himself as answering the one and only real question, and most of his readers see things the same way.