I’m curious—is this your attempt to “do your homework”, according to Eliezer? I ask because it doesn’t seem like you’re addressing the question he actually asked. I would really try to do that before opening this spoiler. The question is: what is the belief in free will? How does it work? What does it actually do?
I see people converge onto this kind of view all the time, but I have to admit (a strong personal failing!) that I still don’t understand how it happens. When you say you feel like you have free will, what do you actually mean by that? It doesn’t seem the case to me—certainly, I don’t think I feel that way—that people have a self-evident sense that their decision-making ability exists as an Ultimate Sourceless Cause. People say things like “I feel like I can choose between options, and I feel like I have agency, I can do things, I can direct my actions”. Why is it self-evident that these are claims that someone can break physics to so many people? Do these words just have an “air of magic” to them? It just seems straightforwardly clear to me that this is no more incompatible with physics than the idea that there is a chair over there; certainly a lossy abstraction, but a lossy abstraction that is an attempt to give a rough description of a real underlying thing. There is a real entity (an assemblage of matter configured in a certain way) implementing all “your” decision-processes, and that entity is you. Ergo, you make the choices. A billiard ball’s being pushed by another ball doesn’t make its pushing yet another billiard ball any less pushy.
I wasn’t attempting to do Eliezer’s homework. I wasn’t even aware it existed when I wrote this post. What happened is I wrote this post and then, while tagging it, I discovered that Eliezer had written about the subject and there was a prominent puzzle that I might be spoiling (part of) the answer to. I added the spoiler just because I didn’t want to contribute any hints.
I honestly never understood the debate around free will. The brain is basically a computer that makes decisions about actions. You are the thing that makes the decision (depending on how you define The Self, of course.) It would be silly to say of humans “there is no will”, and I don’t really care whether that will is “free” according to some irrelevant definition.
Does resolving an irrelevant semantic puzzle help us solve alignment?
EDIT: Hopefully I’m not coming off as snarky or argumentative. This is a topic where I’m honestly confused about why rationalists (non-dualists) would see any mystery or puzzle. Free will is only a puzzle if you are committed to both scientific materialism and dualism, two views which are obviously incompatible anyway, although many moderns try to keep a foot in both camps. Since I doubt there are very many dualists on this forum, I just don’t see why anyone here would be mystified.
I think there are some important aspects to it; if you want to develop your moral thinking about personal responsibility and blame, you might want to reflect a lot on what “freedom” means to you. You might also not care about it at all due to some other a priori considerations, but in my experience this is the sort of thing that can push people one way or the other in ethics.
I’m curious—is this your attempt to “do your homework”, according to Eliezer? I ask because it doesn’t seem like you’re addressing the question he actually asked. I would really try to do that before opening this spoiler. The question is: what is the belief in free will? How does it work? What does it actually do?
I see people converge onto this kind of view all the time, but I have to admit (a strong personal failing!) that I still don’t understand how it happens. When you say you feel like you have free will, what do you actually mean by that? It doesn’t seem the case to me—certainly, I don’t think I feel that way—that people have a self-evident sense that their decision-making ability exists as an Ultimate Sourceless Cause. People say things like “I feel like I can choose between options, and I feel like I have agency, I can do things, I can direct my actions”. Why is it self-evident that these are claims that someone can break physics to so many people? Do these words just have an “air of magic” to them? It just seems straightforwardly clear to me that this is no more incompatible with physics than the idea that there is a chair over there; certainly a lossy abstraction, but a lossy abstraction that is an attempt to give a rough description of a real underlying thing. There is a real entity (an assemblage of matter configured in a certain way) implementing all “your” decision-processes, and that entity is you. Ergo, you make the choices. A billiard ball’s being pushed by another ball doesn’t make its pushing yet another billiard ball any less pushy.
I wasn’t attempting to do Eliezer’s homework. I wasn’t even aware it existed when I wrote this post. What happened is I wrote this post and then, while tagging it, I discovered that Eliezer had written about the subject and there was a prominent puzzle that I might be spoiling (part of) the answer to. I added the spoiler just because I didn’t want to contribute any hints.
Understandable! I recommend the “solution to free will” sequence, since you’ve gotten this far. The core stuff is here and here if you’re in a hurry.
I honestly never understood the debate around free will. The brain is basically a computer that makes decisions about actions. You are the thing that makes the decision (depending on how you define The Self, of course.) It would be silly to say of humans “there is no will”, and I don’t really care whether that will is “free” according to some irrelevant definition.
Freedom is the freedom to avoid things
The future where we call get killed by ASI is inevitable, if everything is inevitable. But some people care a lot about avoiding it.
I don’t see what that has to do with free will.
It’s a potential reason why it’s worth caring about.
But if you don’t care about anything, you don’t care about anything.
Does resolving an irrelevant semantic puzzle help us solve alignment?
EDIT: Hopefully I’m not coming off as snarky or argumentative. This is a topic where I’m honestly confused about why rationalists (non-dualists) would see any mystery or puzzle. Free will is only a puzzle if you are committed to both scientific materialism and dualism, two views which are obviously incompatible anyway, although many moderns try to keep a foot in both camps. Since I doubt there are very many dualists on this forum, I just don’t see why anyone here would be mystified.
Dualism is only relevant to free will under certain definitions,so the semantic issue is relevant.
I think there are some important aspects to it; if you want to develop your moral thinking about personal responsibility and blame, you might want to reflect a lot on what “freedom” means to you. You might also not care about it at all due to some other a priori considerations, but in my experience this is the sort of thing that can push people one way or the other in ethics.