I don’t see why your other three examples should be grouped in that category with free will.
I don’t see why free will should be there either. That it is an illusion is one particular view of free will, but it is not “normally discussed as such”.
In the physical world we may call a set of wheels on a chassis, with a steering wheel, and a motor, a car. The meaning car is very tangible and useful, but cars are constructs in our minds. In reality it is organized metal, rubber, and fuel.
In the environment of the mind we build concepts like cars, but we put together properties like “store of value”, “unit of account”, “exchange mechanism”, “divisibility”, etc. and we call it money, but money doesn’t exist per-se, although it is very useful to quantify it, manage it, and turn it into a commerce tool.
The same way we feel that time, free will, and randomness exist.
So, if we call some constructs “cognitive biases”, others are calling these more elaborate structures “cognitive illusions”.
in the physical world we may call a set of wheels on a chassis, with a steering wheel, and a motor, a car. The meaning car is very tangible and useful, but cars are constructs in our minds. In reality it is organized metal, rubber, and fuel.
Sure, a car is composed of other things, but that does not make the car illusory.
Similarly I see no reason to deny the reality of free will, randomness/probability, time and money.
Some structures are the sum of parts, and our designation of a meaning to the complete structure is the layer at which I think we may create things and sometimes we feel them very tangible. For example randomness is our lack of information of how thing operate so we feel them as random (or certain on the opposite side) and created probability to manage that.
Also, I think that we tend to group and categorize these parts into “information packets” (as constructs in our minds) so our brain doesn’t have to compute the whole history of things each time we think about them. To think about time is much more efficient than to think about every earth spin and at which point in earth’s orbit we are.
I think we are so used to time that our brain feels it exists as nearly a tangible thing.
The car is made of material that we can touch and it works, and takes us to where we want to go,but I still think the idea of the car is a construct.
I don’t think this is carving reality at the joints.
The free will illusion, at least as presented by Yudkowsky, is that we don’t know our own planning algorithm, and understanding how it (probably) works dissolves the illusion, so that “do I have free will” stops even seeming like a question to ask. The illusion is that there was a question at all. The relevant category to watch for is when lots of people want an answer even though nobody can nail down exactly what the question is, or how to tell when you have an answer.
This is a much more specific phenomenon than “elaborate structures”, which includes pretty much everything except fundamental particles or the like.
This is a much more specific phenomenon than “elaborate structures”...
I agree my arguments must be grotesque. I hope to get better by participating more here and reading the sequences so I may be more useful for the community.
Your explanation above helps me fill in the blanks of things I missed of Yudkowsky’s free will articles.
It is a little disconcerting not to have opinions like “free will does not exist because...” or “Free will is an illusion because...” instead of “dissolving” issues which requires much more abstract thinking and preparation for newbies like me!
Can you clarify what you mean by “cognitive illusion”? I don’t see why your other three examples should be grouped in that category with free will.
I don’t see why free will should be there either. That it is an illusion is one particular view of free will, but it is not “normally discussed as such”.
In the physical world we may call a set of wheels on a chassis, with a steering wheel, and a motor, a car. The meaning car is very tangible and useful, but cars are constructs in our minds. In reality it is organized metal, rubber, and fuel.
In the environment of the mind we build concepts like cars, but we put together properties like “store of value”, “unit of account”, “exchange mechanism”, “divisibility”, etc. and we call it money, but money doesn’t exist per-se, although it is very useful to quantify it, manage it, and turn it into a commerce tool.
The same way we feel that time, free will, and randomness exist.
So, if we call some constructs “cognitive biases”, others are calling these more elaborate structures “cognitive illusions”.
Sure, a car is composed of other things, but that does not make the car illusory.
Similarly I see no reason to deny the reality of free will, randomness/probability, time and money.
Some structures are the sum of parts, and our designation of a meaning to the complete structure is the layer at which I think we may create things and sometimes we feel them very tangible. For example randomness is our lack of information of how thing operate so we feel them as random (or certain on the opposite side) and created probability to manage that.
Also, I think that we tend to group and categorize these parts into “information packets” (as constructs in our minds) so our brain doesn’t have to compute the whole history of things each time we think about them. To think about time is much more efficient than to think about every earth spin and at which point in earth’s orbit we are.
I think we are so used to time that our brain feels it exists as nearly a tangible thing.
The car is made of material that we can touch and it works, and takes us to where we want to go,but I still think the idea of the car is a construct.
Who calls things like time and probability cognitive illusions?
Cognitive illusions are formally a category of Optical Illusions.
Free will as a cognitive illusion is mentioned here.
I haven’t found time and probability directly mentioned as cognitive illusions.
Determinism is called an illusion here.
Certainty is called an illusion here.
I think to call the above illusions is equivalent to cognitive illusions because they describe similar mental processes and patterns.
I don’t think this is carving reality at the joints.
The free will illusion, at least as presented by Yudkowsky, is that we don’t know our own planning algorithm, and understanding how it (probably) works dissolves the illusion, so that “do I have free will” stops even seeming like a question to ask. The illusion is that there was a question at all. The relevant category to watch for is when lots of people want an answer even though nobody can nail down exactly what the question is, or how to tell when you have an answer.
This is a much more specific phenomenon than “elaborate structures”, which includes pretty much everything except fundamental particles or the like.
I agree my arguments must be grotesque. I hope to get better by participating more here and reading the sequences so I may be more useful for the community.
Your explanation above helps me fill in the blanks of things I missed of Yudkowsky’s free will articles.
It is a little disconcerting not to have opinions like “free will does not exist because...” or “Free will is an illusion because...” instead of “dissolving” issues which requires much more abstract thinking and preparation for newbies like me!