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.
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.