Your have a section talking about intrinsic surprisingness as something that could not possibly exst in the territory. It was pointed out before, that intrinsic surprisingness is just indeterminism, and indeterminism can exist in the territory—it’s a scientifically respectable idea, and it’s not even an entity, just the relative absence of something.
My longer discussion in the original does actually discuss this point in a footnote:
Granted, one can argue that observer-independent intrinsic unpredictability does in fact exist “in the territory”. For example, there’s a meaningful distinction between “true” quantum randomness versus pseudorandomness. However, that property in the “territory” has so little correlation with “vitalistic force” in the map, that we should really think of them as two unrelated things. For example, in my own brain, the sporadic clicking of a geiger counter feels like an inanimate (vitalistic-force-free) “mechanism”, but is intrinsically unpredictable (from a physics perspective). Conversely, a rerun cartoon depiction of Homer Simpson feels like it’s infused with vitalistic force, but in fact it’s intrinsically fully predictable. Recall also that vitalistic force is related not only to unpredictability but also physiological arousal.
>So it’s kinda misleading to say “the laws of physics predict that the person will decide to take action A1”. A better description is: “the laws of physics predict that the person will think it over, ponder their goals and preferences and whims, and then make a decision, and it turns out the decision they made is … [and then we pause and watch as the person takes action A1] … well, I guess it was Action A1”. And if the person had decided A2, then evidently A2 would have been the prediction of the laws of physics! In other words, if the laws of physics were deterministic, that determinism would run through the “execution of free will”; it wouldn’t circumvent it
Well, that’s a reinvention of compatibilism.
I certainly didn’t mean to suggest that that was an original take. Indeed, I’ve seen variations of that take in so many places that I wouldn’t even know who to cite. I have now added a footnote making that explicit, thanks.
My longer discussion in the original does actually discuss this point in a footnote:
I certainly didn’t mean to suggest that that was an original take. Indeed, I’ve seen variations of that take in so many places that I wouldn’t even know who to cite. I have now added a footnote making that explicit, thanks.