I don’t think calling it a “choice function” really changes the mystery. Is it deterministic (based on brain configuration), or is there some non-physical force that’s making it “not deterministic, but not random”?
Personally, I think it’s mostly an illusion—it’s similar to the temperature setting in LLMs. It’s some amount of unpredictability, which may not be true randomness, but which is opaque to any observer due to the complexity of the underlying neurological (or electronic) processes. And there are lots of somewhat-more-introspectable structures which can constrain or influence the behaviors, and which try to explain them as “choices”.
I didn’t want to include this in the main post, because I wanted to keep it concise and on-topic, but I don’t think determinism is relevant. If you were given the options of receiving a million dollars or of receiving death, you would try damn well to make your choice as deterministic as possible. That doesn’t stop it from being a choice you make. Likewise, a computer can be given a source of entropy and run a random algorithm; computers need not be deterministic. Stochasticity doesn’t magically give you any more “real” choices than you had before.
I think people get the idea into their head about stochasticity being necessary for choosing because they consider a real choice to require the possibility to choose otherwise. So, they imagine a choice function like a brain split in two, sometimes choosing one way and sometimes choosing another:
However, I think this is the wrong model to have for the possibility of choosing otherwise. Instead, you should imagine that a different choice function in your place might choose a different action:
This solves the problem of capacity to choose otherwise without requiring stochasticity. That a choice is made is just a way of pointing out there is some choice function, a chooser, and that there exists a different chooser that would result in a different action. That it is one chooser and not another determining the action is the whole point of saying that that chooser, and not the other made the choice. In how I view choosing, choices are still made even if the universe is deterministic, it’s just that the choosers are determined beforehand in what places they will be. But that doesn’t make the concept of a chooser or a choice useless, no less than abstracting away a clump of particles as a rock is useless. We abstract clumps of particles as rocks because we can model rocks more simply than modelling all the particles one by one. We abstract away choosers because there are choosers, entities such as humans that take actions based on information they gather.
On the other hand, the question of whether someone is to be held responsible for their choices is a social problem.
So how is “choice function” different from “free will” in any significant externally-visible way? Both of them take information and brain state as inputs and an action as output. The concept of both includes counterfactual “path not taken” as meaningfully possible.
What’s the actual distinction that makes is a “choice function” rather than “free will”?
Free will is the thing that makes choices, among different “possible” actions. Or at least the thing that feels like it makes choices, as far as the chooser can tell.
There’s a lot to unpack there in how and whether your brain makes choices, or if it just does what it’s configured to do and that feels like a choice to the qualia-experiencer. Whether you call it “will” or “choice function”, it’s a mystery how a physical process (your brain) can have nondeterministic outputs.
Yes. It does what it’s configured to do, and nothing special beyond that. What it’s configured to do is learning and choosing.
that feels like a choice to the qualia-experiencer
I think when people talk about the qualia of choice-making, they are talking about the experience of making a certain kind of high-level choice, which involves consciously gathering information, such as by looking around or dredging up memories, and then committing to an action. But notice that this involves several lower level choices in the process: What information do you pay attention to? Which memories do you recollect? What self-modifications does committing to an action involve? These lower-level choices may lack qualia, because you are not consciously aware you are making those choices. They could be just instinctual or trained like muscle memory.
I imagine the qualia of such a high-level choice to be similar to the qualia of running, a combination of smaller experiences of actions like legs extending, arms pumping, lungs breathing, muscles aching, and so on. But other people may focus on just the experience of committing to a course of action, and call that the point at which a choice is made. However, in my opinion, the qualia you get there is actually the qualia of carrying out an action, the action of self-modifying to keep a commitment, not the qualia of making the low-level choice itself for that commitment.
The amazing thing about brains is that we can break up high level decisions down into smaller pieces which involve decisions themselves, and this process doesn’t really seem to have a limit for how high-level the decisions can go. How that works is a question for psychology, neuroscience, and AI.
it’s a mystery how a physical process (your brain) can have nondeterministic outputs.
I can program a computer to use a random algorithm. There is nothing mysterious about nondeterministic outputs. It is, though, an interesting question whether true randomness exists, or whether everything that appears random is just chaos.
I don’t think calling it a “choice function” really changes the mystery. Is it deterministic (based on brain configuration), or is there some non-physical force that’s making it “not deterministic, but not random”?
Personally, I think it’s mostly an illusion—it’s similar to the temperature setting in LLMs. It’s some amount of unpredictability, which may not be true randomness, but which is opaque to any observer due to the complexity of the underlying neurological (or electronic) processes. And there are lots of somewhat-more-introspectable structures which can constrain or influence the behaviors, and which try to explain them as “choices”.
I didn’t want to include this in the main post, because I wanted to keep it concise and on-topic, but I don’t think determinism is relevant. If you were given the options of receiving a million dollars or of receiving death, you would try damn well to make your choice as deterministic as possible. That doesn’t stop it from being a choice you make. Likewise, a computer can be given a source of entropy and run a random algorithm; computers need not be deterministic. Stochasticity doesn’t magically give you any more “real” choices than you had before.
I think people get the idea into their head about stochasticity being necessary for choosing because they consider a real choice to require the possibility to choose otherwise. So, they imagine a choice function like a brain split in two, sometimes choosing one way and sometimes choosing another:
However, I think this is the wrong model to have for the possibility of choosing otherwise. Instead, you should imagine that a different choice function in your place might choose a different action:
This solves the problem of capacity to choose otherwise without requiring stochasticity. That a choice is made is just a way of pointing out there is some choice function, a chooser, and that there exists a different chooser that would result in a different action. That it is one chooser and not another determining the action is the whole point of saying that that chooser, and not the other made the choice. In how I view choosing, choices are still made even if the universe is deterministic, it’s just that the choosers are determined beforehand in what places they will be. But that doesn’t make the concept of a chooser or a choice useless, no less than abstracting away a clump of particles as a rock is useless. We abstract clumps of particles as rocks because we can model rocks more simply than modelling all the particles one by one. We abstract away choosers because there are choosers, entities such as humans that take actions based on information they gather.
On the other hand, the question of whether someone is to be held responsible for their choices is a social problem.
So how is “choice function” different from “free will” in any significant externally-visible way? Both of them take information and brain state as inputs and an action as output. The concept of both includes counterfactual “path not taken” as meaningfully possible.
What’s the actual distinction that makes is a “choice function” rather than “free will”?
I think I would need you to explain what you mean by free will for me to be able to answer that.
Free will is the thing that makes choices, among different “possible” actions. Or at least the thing that feels like it makes choices, as far as the chooser can tell.
I make choices, between different possible actions (or, to be more specific, my brain does).
There’s a lot to unpack there in how and whether your brain makes choices, or if it just does what it’s configured to do and that feels like a choice to the qualia-experiencer. Whether you call it “will” or “choice function”, it’s a mystery how a physical process (your brain) can have nondeterministic outputs.
Yes. It does what it’s configured to do, and nothing special beyond that. What it’s configured to do is learning and choosing.
I think when people talk about the qualia of choice-making, they are talking about the experience of making a certain kind of high-level choice, which involves consciously gathering information, such as by looking around or dredging up memories, and then committing to an action. But notice that this involves several lower level choices in the process: What information do you pay attention to? Which memories do you recollect? What self-modifications does committing to an action involve? These lower-level choices may lack qualia, because you are not consciously aware you are making those choices. They could be just instinctual or trained like muscle memory.
I imagine the qualia of such a high-level choice to be similar to the qualia of running, a combination of smaller experiences of actions like legs extending, arms pumping, lungs breathing, muscles aching, and so on. But other people may focus on just the experience of committing to a course of action, and call that the point at which a choice is made. However, in my opinion, the qualia you get there is actually the qualia of carrying out an action, the action of self-modifying to keep a commitment, not the qualia of making the low-level choice itself for that commitment.
The amazing thing about brains is that we can break up high level decisions down into smaller pieces which involve decisions themselves, and this process doesn’t really seem to have a limit for how high-level the decisions can go. How that works is a question for psychology, neuroscience, and AI.
I can program a computer to use a random algorithm. There is nothing mysterious about nondeterministic outputs. It is, though, an interesting question whether true randomness exists, or whether everything that appears random is just chaos.