I’m trying to think a bit about the future influencing the past in the potato chip example. In order to really separate out what is causing the decision, I’m imagining changing various factors.
For example, imagine the potato chips are actually some new healthy version that would not make the eater feel bad in the future. In this case, the eater still believes the chips will make them feel bad and still avoids eating. In this case, the future being different didn’t change the past, suggesting they may not be so tightly linked.
Next consider someone who has always enjoyed chips and never felt bad afterwards. Unknown to them, the next bag of chips is spoiled and they will feel bad after eating. In this case, they may choose to eat the chips, suggesting the future didn’t directly control the past action.
Since changing the future outcome of the chips doesn’t change the decision, but changing the past experiences of other chips does change the outcome, I suspect the real causation here is the past causes the person’s present model of the future, which is often enough correct about the future that it looks like the future is causing things. I’m not sure about this next part but: in the limit of perfect prediction, the observable outcomes may approach being identical between past causing model and future causing past.
Yes. It’s an inferred fuzzy correlation based on past experience, the entanglement between the future and present is not necessarily very strong. More capable agents are able to see across wider domains, further, and more reliably, than weaker agents.
The thing that’s happening is not a direct window to the future opening, but cognitive work letting you map the causal structure of the future and create an approximation of their patterns in the present. You’re mapping the future so you can act differently depending on what’s there, which does let the logical shape of the future affect the present, but only to a degree compatible with your ability to predict the future.
I’m trying to think a bit about the future influencing the past in the potato chip example. In order to really separate out what is causing the decision, I’m imagining changing various factors.
For example, imagine the potato chips are actually some new healthy version that would not make the eater feel bad in the future. In this case, the eater still believes the chips will make them feel bad and still avoids eating. In this case, the future being different didn’t change the past, suggesting they may not be so tightly linked.
Next consider someone who has always enjoyed chips and never felt bad afterwards. Unknown to them, the next bag of chips is spoiled and they will feel bad after eating. In this case, they may choose to eat the chips, suggesting the future didn’t directly control the past action.
Since changing the future outcome of the chips doesn’t change the decision, but changing the past experiences of other chips does change the outcome, I suspect the real causation here is the past causes the person’s present model of the future, which is often enough correct about the future that it looks like the future is causing things. I’m not sure about this next part but: in the limit of perfect prediction, the observable outcomes may approach being identical between past causing model and future causing past.
Yes. It’s an inferred fuzzy correlation based on past experience, the entanglement between the future and present is not necessarily very strong. More capable agents are able to see across wider domains, further, and more reliably, than weaker agents.
The thing that’s happening is not a direct window to the future opening, but cognitive work letting you map the causal structure of the future and create an approximation of their patterns in the present. You’re mapping the future so you can act differently depending on what’s there, which does let the logical shape of the future affect the present, but only to a degree compatible with your ability to predict the future.