I like this. Free will is the feeling when you don’t know the causes of your thoughts and actions.
It’s definetely a huge part of the puzzle. But not all of it. Free will is also a feeling of not knowing the choices you will make in the future. And the process of determining this choice due to all the causes.
Suppose Omega perfectly knows all the prior causes of my decisions, it has my source code and all the inputs. Omega would still have to run the source code with these inputs, to actually execute my decision making algorithm, so that it can determine my actions. But nevertheless my actions are determined by my decision making algorithm. This part of free will is completely real.
(Map vs territory distinction, essentially. Free will exists on the map, not in the territory. It is not an illusion, in the sense that it is actually there on the map; without perfect self-knowledge it can’t be otherwise.)
Yes! But with a caveat. This state of not knowing which action will actually be executed seems to be essential for the work of the decision making algorithm. Options need to be marked as reachable so that our tree search found the best one. Also the destinction between map and the territiry becomes fuzzy when the territory is our map making engine. Our decision making algorithm is embedded in our brain in this sense our freedom of will is more than just part of the map.
I mostly agree.
It’s definetely a huge part of the puzzle. But not all of it. Free will is also a feeling of not knowing the choices you will make in the future. And the process of determining this choice due to all the causes.
Suppose Omega perfectly knows all the prior causes of my decisions, it has my source code and all the inputs. Omega would still have to run the source code with these inputs, to actually execute my decision making algorithm, so that it can determine my actions. But nevertheless my actions are determined by my decision making algorithm. This part of free will is completely real.
Yes! But with a caveat. This state of not knowing which action will actually be executed seems to be essential for the work of the decision making algorithm. Options need to be marked as reachable so that our tree search found the best one. Also the destinction between map and the territiry becomes fuzzy when the territory is our map making engine. Our decision making algorithm is embedded in our brain in this sense our freedom of will is more than just part of the map.