Um. Let me taboo some words (“free will,” “prediction”, “decision”) here and try again.
Let us suppose that at time T1 someone either commits murder (event E1a) or doesn’t (E1b), and at T2 I either spare the murderer (E2a) or don’t (E2b). (I don’t mean to suggest here that all combinations are possible.)
The original scenario seemed to presuppose that at T1 there is a fact of the matter about whether, given E1a, T2 contains E2a or E2b, and that some potential murderers are able to use that fact in their reasoning.
My understanding is that some people are saying we can therefore understand E2a|b to have some kind of “acausal” influence on E1a|b. (If that’s not true, then I’ve utterly misunderstood either the scenario or the conversation or both, which is entirely plausible.)
I agree with you that it’s useful to talk about what happens at T1 (or earlier)… that is, to advise about preference schedules. Indeed, as you suggest, it’s hard to see what the point of advising about anything else in this scenario would be.
But I don’t understand why it isn’t just as useful, to this end, to say that there exists at T1 some set of facts S describing the state of the world (including my mind), and that E2 a|b and E1 a|b both depend on S, as it is to say that E2a|b exerts an acausal atemporal influence on E1 a|b.
You ask me to compare two ways of saying something:
that there exists at T1 some set of facts S describing the state of the world (including my mind), and that E2a|b and E1a|b both depend on S
that E2a|b exerts an acausal atemporal influence on E1a|b
What, you ask, does that second formulation buy us? My answer, of course, is that the second is more concise and it avoids mentioning either T1 or S (good, among other reasons, because there might be multiple times T1, T2, and T3, as well as state vectors S1, S2, and S3 at those times). The second formulation is even more economical if you leave off that extraneous word “atemporal”.
What you pay for this economy is a prior climb up a pretty rugged learning curve. Is it worth it? It is hard to say at this point. However, I should point out the irony that I have cast myself in the role of a defender of all this “acausal” mumbo-jumbo; ironic because I usually play your role - a fierce skeptic of the local zeitgeist and defender of the old-fashioned, orthodox approach.
Um. Let me taboo some words (“free will,” “prediction”, “decision”) here and try again.
Let us suppose that at time T1 someone either commits murder (event E1a) or doesn’t (E1b), and at T2 I either spare the murderer (E2a) or don’t (E2b). (I don’t mean to suggest here that all combinations are possible.)
The original scenario seemed to presuppose that at T1 there is a fact of the matter about whether, given E1a, T2 contains E2a or E2b, and that some potential murderers are able to use that fact in their reasoning.
My understanding is that some people are saying we can therefore understand E2a|b to have some kind of “acausal” influence on E1a|b. (If that’s not true, then I’ve utterly misunderstood either the scenario or the conversation or both, which is entirely plausible.)
I agree with you that it’s useful to talk about what happens at T1 (or earlier)… that is, to advise about preference schedules. Indeed, as you suggest, it’s hard to see what the point of advising about anything else in this scenario would be.
But I don’t understand why it isn’t just as useful, to this end, to say that there exists at T1 some set of facts S describing the state of the world (including my mind), and that E2 a|b and E1 a|b both depend on S, as it is to say that E2a|b exerts an acausal atemporal influence on E1 a|b.
What does that second formulation buy us?
You ask me to compare two ways of saying something:
that there exists at T1 some set of facts S describing the state of the world (including my mind), and that E2a|b and E1a|b both depend on S
that E2a|b exerts an acausal atemporal influence on E1a|b
What, you ask, does that second formulation buy us? My answer, of course, is that the second is more concise and it avoids mentioning either T1 or S (good, among other reasons, because there might be multiple times T1, T2, and T3, as well as state vectors S1, S2, and S3 at those times). The second formulation is even more economical if you leave off that extraneous word “atemporal”.
What you pay for this economy is a prior climb up a pretty rugged learning curve. Is it worth it? It is hard to say at this point. However, I should point out the irony that I have cast myself in the role of a defender of all this “acausal” mumbo-jumbo; ironic because I usually play your role - a fierce skeptic of the local zeitgeist and defender of the old-fashioned, orthodox approach.
(nods) Well said; that makes sense. Thank you.