Either way you fall on the physics, there’s no reason that the many-worlds hypothesis forces EVERY choice to be taken in an even distribution. Given a choice A or B, there is probability distribution between them. If A is the more ethical choice, you should still try to strive towards A, so that more of you in all the possible worlds also strive towards A.
If anything, if you think many-worlds could be true, it makes ethics that much more important to think about. You are carving out the corner, and making it expand outward into possibility space.
MWI is deterministic, so how much striving you do or do not do is determined.
Deterministic or not, you are the process by which it is determined, and conversations like these are inputs for the process. This adds up to normality: you’ll keep on determining whether you believe in the intuitive notion of free will or not.
It’s clear that choices and efforts can be part of a causal chain that brings about an outcome, even in a deterministic universe. It’s also clear that you cannot choose one outcome over another, or to strive more than you were determined to, in a deterministic universe. Because of the latter, it is hard to cash out the meaning of “you should strive to be good”. What does it mean to say that you should strive to be good if you have no choice?
Category error. “Meaning” is not a thing in the deterministic frame. It’s cause and effect all the way down. If you want to think in terms of deterministic physics, you have to think entirely in terms of deterministic physics.
Try grokking timeless physics if you haven’t yet. Visualizing yourself as a four-dimensional atemporal structure should help clarify the intuitions.
Subjective experiences are objects in an objective frame yes? Just because we can explain what caused an internal experience of meaning does it mean that experience doesn’t exist.
Yeah, subjective experiences are real. Point is, there’s no term for them or any of our other mentalistic concepts in physics. You can redefine them to fit but it seemed to me that TAG was trying to apply the intuitive notion of meaning in the context of physical determinism. Hence, leaning further into the frame in order to propagate the update. Once you get the mind as a physical thing, it adds up to normality again.
I get the feeling that we’ve been talking past each other. I took you as mixing levels in a confused way but you may have been trying to address what you took as someone else’s confusion.
I broadly agree with your last two comments and feel like you’ve somewhat misunderstood what I was trying to say. I think our views are more-or-less compatible but articulating them to the point of mutual understanding may be more effort than it’s worth.
Since we dont know that the universe is deterministic, I don’t see the point in thinking in purely deterministic terms.
If someone somewhere claims that the there is still “choice” and “making a difference” in a deterministic universe, then the meanings of “choice” and “making a difference” are relevant. Maybe you are not that person.
Either way you fall on the physics, there’s no reason that the many-worlds hypothesis forces EVERY choice to be taken in an even distribution. Given a choice A or B, there is probability distribution between them. If A is the more ethical choice, you should still try to strive towards A, so that more of you in all the possible worlds also strive towards A.
If anything, if you think many-worlds could be true, it makes ethics that much more important to think about. You are carving out the corner, and making it expand outward into possibility space.
MWI is deterministic, so how much striving you do or do not do is determined.
Deterministic or not, you are the process by which it is determined, and conversations like these are inputs for the process. This adds up to normality: you’ll keep on determining whether you believe in the intuitive notion of free will or not.
It’s clear that choices and efforts can be part of a causal chain that brings about an outcome, even in a deterministic universe. It’s also clear that you cannot choose one outcome over another, or to strive more than you were determined to, in a deterministic universe. Because of the latter, it is hard to cash out the meaning of “you should strive to be good”. What does it mean to say that you should strive to be good if you have no choice?
Category error. “Meaning” is not a thing in the deterministic frame. It’s cause and effect all the way down. If you want to think in terms of deterministic physics, you have to think entirely in terms of deterministic physics.
Try grokking timeless physics if you haven’t yet. Visualizing yourself as a four-dimensional atemporal structure should help clarify the intuitions.
Subjective experiences are objects in an objective frame yes? Just because we can explain what caused an internal experience of meaning does it mean that experience doesn’t exist.
Yeah, subjective experiences are real. Point is, there’s no term for them or any of our other mentalistic concepts in physics. You can redefine them to fit but it seemed to me that TAG was trying to apply the intuitive notion of meaning in the context of physical determinism. Hence, leaning further into the frame in order to propagate the update. Once you get the mind as a physical thing, it adds up to normality again.
Related: Thou Art Physics.
It’s rather question begging to equate the real and the objective.
There’s no term for shopping centres in physics. You need to look at whether there is a way of reducing something, not whether there is a term for it.
I was trying to apply the intuitive meanings of choice and making a difference to determinism.
I have no idea what that means.
We don’t know how the mind is physical, so you are advising people to adopt a sort of faith.
Is physicalism a falsifiable claim? What would evidence against it look like?
I get the feeling that we’ve been talking past each other. I took you as mixing levels in a confused way but you may have been trying to address what you took as someone else’s confusion.
I broadly agree with your last two comments and feel like you’ve somewhat misunderstood what I was trying to say. I think our views are more-or-less compatible but articulating them to the point of mutual understanding may be more effort than it’s worth.
We don’t know.
Fair, but I think it’s the best likely explanation. Do you?
It’s not an explanation unless we know how it’s true.
Since we dont know that the universe is deterministic, I don’t see the point in thinking in purely deterministic terms.
If someone somewhere claims that the there is still “choice” and “making a difference” in a deterministic universe, then the meanings of “choice” and “making a difference” are relevant. Maybe you are not that person.