I get your point about the word agency which was the main point of the post but as this is lesswrong and since I can’t help myself, why did you pick consciousness as the other concept?
Consciousness has to be one of the most vague words that there is (see Critch’s post on this for example)
I would for example not ascribe to your definition of consciousness that you just said. I would want to talk about awareness and attention and self and non-self. I really don’t like the word consciousness.
Maybe this is actually a good comparison because I really don’t like the word agency either, it is too broad of an umbrella term and as a consequence it is often conflationary as well? So just like how different philsophers think that the hard problem of consciousness is different (as some believe that the idea of qualia makes no sense) so I think people have different definitions of agency. Some mean Embedded agency, some mean something you can take the intentional stance, some mean a sort of infrabayesian perspective on it (with layers of self-reflection and other 4d chess that I don’t understand). If we go to other fields like biology they call a slime mold an agent because it behaves in a way that can be described by a cybernetic control loop. So it seems quite woefully underdefined (in general) but if you talk to specific people who know what they’re doing they often have a precise definition
Idk if it is something that is dependent on something being pre-paradigmatic but I shalt stop yapping now as I realise I got a bit carried away.
Consciousness has to be one of the most vague words that there is
As vague as “agency”, as unproblematic as “agency” in everyday speech.
I am at a loss to understand the striving after a Mysterious Answer to the question “what is agency?”
A rock has none.
Water has very slightly more. It will find it way through the smallest crack in a dam, but cannot gather itself to leap over the top.
A thermostat has slightly more. “Blow winds, and crack your cheeks, rage, blow!”, but the room remains warm.
People have a lot more. Iron filings drawn towards a magnet will be stopped by a sheet of paper, but Romeo will find his way to Juliet whatever obstacles her family places in the way.
Like the dictionary definitions I quoted, that seems clear enough. There is no mystery here. The word “agency” means the capacity to do things, to vary one’s means in order to progress towards goals, and at higher levels, to conceive of and pursue new goals. There is no need to search for a mysterious essence underlying it like a Platonic form or a D&D character stat, or hope to create a plug-in module for “agency” the way Data has an “emotion” chip.
I get your point about the word agency which was the main point of the post but as this is lesswrong and since I can’t help myself, why did you pick consciousness as the other concept?
Consciousness has to be one of the most vague words that there is (see Critch’s post on this for example)
I would for example not ascribe to your definition of consciousness that you just said. I would want to talk about awareness and attention and self and non-self. I really don’t like the word consciousness.
Maybe this is actually a good comparison because I really don’t like the word agency either, it is too broad of an umbrella term and as a consequence it is often conflationary as well? So just like how different philsophers think that the hard problem of consciousness is different (as some believe that the idea of qualia makes no sense) so I think people have different definitions of agency. Some mean Embedded agency, some mean something you can take the intentional stance, some mean a sort of infrabayesian perspective on it (with layers of self-reflection and other 4d chess that I don’t understand). If we go to other fields like biology they call a slime mold an agent because it behaves in a way that can be described by a cybernetic control loop. So it seems quite woefully underdefined (in general) but if you talk to specific people who know what they’re doing they often have a precise definition
Idk if it is something that is dependent on something being pre-paradigmatic but I shalt stop yapping now as I realise I got a bit carried away.
As vague as “agency”, as unproblematic as “agency” in everyday speech.
I am at a loss to understand the striving after a Mysterious Answer to the question “what is agency?”
A rock has none.
Water has very slightly more. It will find it way through the smallest crack in a dam, but cannot gather itself to leap over the top.
A thermostat has slightly more. “Blow winds, and crack your cheeks, rage, blow!”, but the room remains warm.
People have a lot more. Iron filings drawn towards a magnet will be stopped by a sheet of paper, but Romeo will find his way to Juliet whatever obstacles her family places in the way.
Like the dictionary definitions I quoted, that seems clear enough. There is no mystery here. The word “agency” means the capacity to do things, to vary one’s means in order to progress towards goals, and at higher levels, to conceive of and pursue new goals. There is no need to search for a mysterious essence underlying it like a Platonic form or a D&D character stat, or hope to create a plug-in module for “agency” the way Data has an “emotion” chip.