On 5/9/2012 1:11 PM, Quentin Anciaux wrote:


2012/5/9 meekerdb <meeke...@verizon.net <mailto:meeke...@verizon.net>>

    On 5/9/2012 12:09 PM, Quentin Anciaux wrote:


    2012/5/9 meekerdb <meeke...@verizon.net <mailto:meeke...@verizon.net>>

        On 5/9/2012 11:43 AM, Quentin Anciaux wrote:


        2012/5/9 meekerdb <meeke...@verizon.net <mailto:meeke...@verizon.net>>

            On 5/9/2012 2:30 AM, Quentin Anciaux wrote:


            2012/5/9 meekerdb <meeke...@verizon.net 
<mailto:meeke...@verizon.net>>

                On 5/8/2012 4:24 PM, Stathis Papaioannou wrote:
                On Wed, May 9, 2012 at 5:52 AM, John Mikes<jami...@gmail.com>  
<mailto:jami...@gmail.com>  wrote:
                Stathis: what's your definition? - JM

                On Sat, May 5, 2012 at 6:56 PM, Stathis 
Papaioannou<stath...@gmail.com>  <mailto:stath...@gmail.com>
                wrote:
                On Sat, May 5, 2012 at 10:46 PM, Evgenii Rudnyi<use...@rudnyi.ru>  
<mailto:use...@rudnyi.ru>  wrote:
                I have started listening to Beginning of Infinity and joined the
                discussion
                list for the book. Right now there is a discussion there

                Free will in MWI
                
http://groups.google.com/group/beginning-of-infinity/t/b172f0e03d68bcc6

                I am at the beginning of the book and I do not know for sure, 
but from
                the
                answers to this discussion it seems that according to David 
Deutsch one
                can
                find free will in MWI.
                One can find or not find free will anywhere depending on how one
                defines it. That is the entire issue with free will.
                My definition: free will is when you're not sure you're going 
to do
                something until you've done it.



                So if carefully weigh my options and decide on one it's not free
                will?  I'd say free will is making any choice that is not 
coerced by
                another agent.

                Brent


            It's compatible with what Stathis said... unti you've made the 
actual
            choise, you didn't do it and didn't know what it will be...  "the do
            something of Stathis can be you're not sure what you'll choose until
            you've chosen it."

            Are you saying that one *never* knows what they are going to do 
until they
            do it...


         .You have some knowledge of what you'll do... but you can only really 
"know"
        retrospectively. Iow, you are your fastest simulator... if it was not 
the case
        it would be possible to implement a faster algorithm able to predict 
what
        you'll do before you even do it... that seems paradoxical.

        I don't see anything paradoxical about it.  A computer that duplicated 
your
        brain's neural network, but used electrical or photonic signals 
(instead of
        electrochemical) would be orders of magnitude faster.


    It's paradoxical, because if it could, I could know the outcome, and if I 
could
    know the outcome, then I can do something else, and If I do something else, 
then
    the simulation of that superphotonic computer is wrong hence the hypothesis 
that it
    could simulate my choice faster than me is impossible (because if it could, 
it
    *must* take in account my future knowledge of my choice, if it does not, it 
is no
    faster to simulate what I'll do than me).

    That's an incoherent paradox.  You've now assumed that not only is your 
brain
    simulated, so your action is known in advance, but also that the simulation
    information is fed back to your brain so it influences the action.  That's 
changing
    the problem and essentially creating a brain+simulator=brain'. The fact that
    brain'=/=brain is hardly paradoxical.


Hmm ok... I have to think it a little more.



        But this is has no effect on the compatibilist idea of free will (the 
kind of
        free will worth having).


            which then by Stathis defintion means that every action is free 
will and
            coercion is impossible?


        Coercion limit your choices, not your will, you can still choose to die 
(if
        the choice was between your life and something else for example). You 
can
        always choose if you can think, it's not because the only available 
choices
        are bad, that your free will suddenly disapeared.

        So would it be an unfree will if an external agent directly injected 
chemicals
        or electrical signals into your brain thereby causing a choice actually 
made by
        the external agent?


    yes


    Why is it still "you" if your brain is hooked up to something that allows an
    external agent to control your body?


I said the contrary... You asked if it would be unfree... I answered "yes" (it would be unfree in this case).

OK, we agree on that.





        How is this different from an external agent directly injecting 
information via
        your senses causing and thereby causing a choice actually made by the 
agent?

    In the first case *you* choose,


But you said in the first case 'you' were unfree??

    in the second case you don't.

    ?? That's the reverse of your previous post in which you held that an 
external agent
    threatening you does not remove your

    free will.  You said it just limited your choices, you still chose.   Did 
you read
    my post correctly?


Yes I read it correctly. If you fed chemicals and electrical signal to my brain then I did not *choose*.

That's the first case, but not the second.


So in the case I'm coerced by an external agent by external means, I can still choose only the available choices are reduced (and all of them can be bad), If it fed drugs/electrical signal that make me act like a puppet I can't choose.

So in the first case (coerced by external means) I can choose and still have free will albeit having limited bad choices, in the second case (your thought experiment) I don't have free will.


    Brent


Maybe we need to number these:

(1)"...an external agent directly injected chemicals or electrical signals into your brain thereby causing a choice actually made by the external agent."

To which you answered "Yes (that's unfree)." AND "...in the first case I can still choose."

(2) "...an external agent directly injecting information *via your senses*..."

    To which you answered "...in the second case I don't have free will."

Yet (2) consists only of the external agent talking to you and threatening or 
cajoling.

Brent

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