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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