My position might perhaps be called “Requiredism.” When agency, choice, control, and moral responsibility are cashed out in a sensible way, they require determinism—at least some patches of determinism within the universe. If you choose, and plan, and act, and bring some future into being, in accordance with your desire, then all this requires a lawful sort of reality; you cannot do it amid utter chaos.
But choice..choice between options, any of which could possibly occur..is incompatible with determinism, because determinism means there is only ever one possible (and therefore necessary) outcome … even if determinism is useful in other ways. You can still have a deterministic decision making process...but it is only some clockwork gets you to an outcome that was predetermined before you were born.
A libertarian choice is an actual fork in the road, and a Laplace’s Demon wouldn’t be able to see past it.
So, he thinks that compatibilist FW is as good as libertarian FW, because he thinks they both involve the same notion of choice...but they aren’t.
Also, “utter chaos” isn’t the only alternative to strict determinism. That would be false dichotomy. Lawful probabilistic causation is a thing.
You may disagree with Eliezer, but that does not change what he thinks. Perhaps you think “we are zombies wrt. free will—we say we have it for reasons other than having it.”, but that is a very different claim than Eliezer thinks this or that Eliezer should think this.
Maybe you are referring to this passage.
But choice..choice between options, any of which could possibly occur..is incompatible with determinism, because determinism means there is only ever one possible (and therefore necessary) outcome … even if determinism is useful in other ways. You can still have a deterministic decision making process...but it is only some clockwork gets you to an outcome that was predetermined before you were born.
A libertarian choice is an actual fork in the road, and a Laplace’s Demon wouldn’t be able to see past it.
So, he thinks that compatibilist FW is as good as libertarian FW, because he thinks they both involve the same notion of choice...but they aren’t.
Also, “utter chaos” isn’t the only alternative to strict determinism. That would be false dichotomy. Lawful probabilistic causation is a thing.
You may disagree with Eliezer, but that does not change what he thinks. Perhaps you think “we are zombies wrt. free will—we say we have it for reasons other than having it.”, but that is a very different claim than Eliezer thinks this or that Eliezer should think this.
I think he actually had different attitudes about different kinds of FW, although he isn’t fully explicit about it