Thanks, this gives me another chance to try to lay out this argument (which is extra-useful because I don’t think I’ve hit upon the clearest way of making the point yet):
People are made of atoms. People make choices. Nothing is inconsistent about that.
Absolutely. But “choice”, like agency, is a property of the map not of the territory. If you full specify the initial position of all of the atoms making up my body and their velocities, etc. -- then clearly it’s not useful to speak of me making any choices. You are in the position of Laplace’s demon: you know where all my atoms are right now, you know where they will be in one second, and the second after that, and so on.
We can only meaningfully talk about the concept of choice from a position of partial ignorance.
(Here I’m speaking from a Newtonian framing, with atoms and velocities, but you could translate this to QM.)
Similarly. If you performed your experiment and made an atom-by-atom copy of me, then you know that I will make the same choice as my clone. It doesn’t make sense to talk from your perspective about how I should make my “choice”—what I and my clone will do is already baked in by the law of motion for my atoms, from the assumption that you know we’re atom-by-atom copies.
(If “I” am operating from an ignorant perspective, then “I” can still talk about “making a choice” from “my” perspective.)
Does that make sense, do you see what I’m trying to say? Do you see any flaws if so?
Thanks, this gives me another chance to try to lay out this argument (which is extra-useful because I don’t think I’ve hit upon the clearest way of making the point yet):
Absolutely. But “choice”, like agency, is a property of the map not of the territory. If you full specify the initial position of all of the atoms making up my body and their velocities, etc. -- then clearly it’s not useful to speak of me making any choices. You are in the position of Laplace’s demon: you know where all my atoms are right now, you know where they will be in one second, and the second after that, and so on.
We can only meaningfully talk about the concept of choice from a position of partial ignorance.
(Here I’m speaking from a Newtonian framing, with atoms and velocities, but you could translate this to QM.)
Similarly. If you performed your experiment and made an atom-by-atom copy of me, then you know that I will make the same choice as my clone. It doesn’t make sense to talk from your perspective about how I should make my “choice”—what I and my clone will do is already baked in by the law of motion for my atoms, from the assumption that you know we’re atom-by-atom copies.
(If “I” am operating from an ignorant perspective, then “I” can still talk about “making a choice” from “my” perspective.)
Does that make sense, do you see what I’m trying to say? Do you see any flaws if so?