“Okay. Now, think about the physical state of the entire universe one moment before you decided to say “Right” instead of something else, or instead of just nodding your head. If all those atoms, including the atoms in your brain, have to move to their next spot according to physical law, then could you have said anything else than what you did say in the next moment?”
The world can branch in a moment, so the answer should be “yes”.
Free will still only makes sense when there’s uncertainty about what’s going on (that is resolved by your decisions), which is mostly interchangeable with there being many possible worlds (in your model), but if there are many (actual) worlds and no uncertainty (or only uncertainty independent of your decisions), free will doesn’t happen.
In other words, many-worlds don’t change anything about free will, in either direction. And to support free will, even a single branch must appear as a collection of possibilities that can’t be ruled out.
Many-worlds doesn’t change anything about free will, but it does (under some interpretations) change the answer to the question “could you have said anything else than what you did say in the next moment?”
This sense of “could” seems mostly unrelated to the decision-theoretic “could”, so the answer to the question changes only to the extent there’s equivocation for the word.
Well, OK. I hope you can see how this might not come across to the reader—and how it looks more as though you are trying to talk your lady friend around with some rather dubious facts.
The world can branch in a moment, so the answer should be “yes”.
I don’t think either of us understood many-worlds back then, so you can just interpret us as talking about a single branch.
Free will still only makes sense when there’s uncertainty about what’s going on (that is resolved by your decisions), which is mostly interchangeable with there being many possible worlds (in your model), but if there are many (actual) worlds and no uncertainty (or only uncertainty independent of your decisions), free will doesn’t happen.
In other words, many-worlds don’t change anything about free will, in either direction. And to support free will, even a single branch must appear as a collection of possibilities that can’t be ruled out.
Many-worlds doesn’t change anything about free will, but it does (under some interpretations) change the answer to the question “could you have said anything else than what you did say in the next moment?”
This sense of “could” seems mostly unrelated to the decision-theoretic “could”, so the answer to the question changes only to the extent there’s equivocation for the word.
OTOH, physical indeterminism does change something about free will.
Yeah, it makes your actions random rather than predictable. A massive improvement!
Nope.
Well, OK. I hope you can see how this might not come across to the reader—and how it looks more as though you are trying to talk your lady friend around with some rather dubious facts.
You’re right. I’ve added a parenthetical. Hopefully that will help.