Here’s a related old comment from @Anders_H that I think frames the issue nicely, for my own reference at the very least:
Any decision theory depends on the concept of choice: If there is no choice, there is no need for a decision theory. I have seen a quote attributed to Pearl to the effect that we can only talk about “interventions” at a level of abstraction where free will is apparent. This seems true of any decision theory.
(He goes on to say—less relevantly for the discussion here, but again I like the framing so am recording to remind future-me—“CDT and TDT differ in how they operationalize choice, and therefore whether the decision theories are consistent with free will. In Causal Decision theory, the agents choose actions from a choice set. In contrast, from my limited understanding of TDT/UDT, it seems as if agents choose their source code. This is not only inconsistent with my (perhaps naive) subjective experience of free will, it also seems like it will lead to an incoherent concept of “choice” due to recursion.”)
Here’s a related old comment from @Anders_H that I think frames the issue nicely, for my own reference at the very least:
(He goes on to say—less relevantly for the discussion here, but again I like the framing so am recording to remind future-me—“CDT and TDT differ in how they operationalize choice, and therefore whether the decision theories are consistent with free will. In Causal Decision theory, the agents choose actions from a choice set. In contrast, from my limited understanding of TDT/UDT, it seems as if agents choose their source code. This is not only inconsistent with my (perhaps naive) subjective experience of free will, it also seems like it will lead to an incoherent concept of “choice” due to recursion.”)