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Free Will

TagLast edit: 1 Oct 2020 2:13 UTC by Ruby

Free will is one of the easiest hard questions, as millennia-old philosophical dilemmas go. Though this impossible question is generally considered fully and completely dissolved on Less Wrong, aspiring reductionists should try to solve it on their own.

Non-spoiler posts

The following posts can be read to set up the problem of “free will” and what constitutes a good solution from a reductionist perspective, without entirely giving away the solution. (When Yudkowsky wrote these posts, he thought he could get away with just leaving it as a practice problem, and some of the posts state that the problem will be left open. However Yudkowsky did eventually find that he needed to write out the whole solution.)

For spoiler posts see free will (solution).

See also

A Case for Con­scious Sig­nifi­cance rather than Free Will.

James Stephen Brown25 Oct 2024 23:20 UTC
12 points
2 comments6 min readLW link

Free Will as Un­solv­abil­ity by Rivals

Pavitra28 Mar 2011 3:28 UTC
25 points
11 comments2 min readLW link

[Question] Some ques­tions about free will compatibilism

Asking Questions24 Jan 2023 21:54 UTC
3 points
21 comments6 min readLW link

[In­tu­itive self-mod­els] 3. The Homunculus

Steven Byrnes2 Oct 2024 15:20 UTC
69 points
36 comments25 min readLW link

[In­tu­itive self-mod­els] 8. Root­ing Out Free Will Intuitions

Steven Byrnes4 Nov 2024 18:16 UTC
64 points
16 comments24 min readLW link

Is Free Will A Myth?

Precious Oluwatobi Emmanuel1 Jan 2021 20:56 UTC
0 points
4 comments3 min readLW link

[Question] What is it like to be a com­pat­i­bil­ist?

tslarm5 May 2023 2:56 UTC
8 points
72 comments1 min readLW link

Free will as an ap­pear­ance to others

Yuxi_Liu22 May 2019 23:57 UTC
12 points
21 comments2 min readLW link

Free will isn’t a con­cept (un­less you mean de­ter­minism)

KatjaGrace15 Jul 2007 13:51 UTC
3 points
1 comment1 min readLW link

Dis­solu­tion of free will as a call to action

Dr_Manhattan24 May 2011 12:41 UTC
10 points
11 comments1 min readLW link

The scope of “free will” within biol­ogy?

Jay_Schweikert29 Jun 2011 6:34 UTC
21 points
30 comments3 min readLW link

Separate moral­ity from free will

PhilGoetz10 Apr 2011 2:35 UTC
8 points
85 comments5 min readLW link

[link] Scott Aaron­son on free will

DanielVarga10 Jun 2013 23:24 UTC
32 points
109 comments1 min readLW link

How would not hav­ing free will feel to you?

Shmi20 Jun 2013 20:51 UTC
12 points
70 comments1 min readLW link

My sum­mary of Eliezer’s po­si­tion on free will

Solvent28 Feb 2012 5:53 UTC
20 points
100 comments2 min readLW link

[Question] What is the sub­jec­tive ex­pe­rience of free will for agents?

Gordon Seidoh Worley2 Apr 2020 15:53 UTC
10 points
19 comments1 min readLW link

Book re­view: The Im­por­tance of What We Care About (Harry G. Frank­furt)

David Gross13 Sep 2023 4:17 UTC
7 points
0 comments4 min readLW link

Beliefs as emo­tional strategies

Kaj_Sotala9 Apr 2021 14:28 UTC
70 points
4 comments8 min readLW link

A cog­ni­tive al­gorithm for “free will.”

DirectedEvolution14 Jul 2021 21:33 UTC
23 points
27 comments3 min readLW link

[Question] Choice := An­throp­ics un­cer­tainty? And po­ten­tial im­pli­ca­tions for agency

Antoine de Scorraille21 Apr 2022 16:38 UTC
6 points
1 comment1 min readLW link

[Question] How to deal with the sense of de­mo­ti­va­tion that comes from think­ing about de­ter­minism?

SpectrumDT7 Feb 2024 10:53 UTC
13 points
71 comments1 min readLW link

“Who’s In Charge? Free Will and the Science of the Brain”

David Gross16 Sep 2021 2:38 UTC
10 points
6 comments4 min readLW link

Book Re­view: Free Will

Ape in the coat11 Oct 2021 18:41 UTC
28 points
23 comments8 min readLW link

Agency en­g­ineer­ing: is AI-al­ign­ment “to hu­man in­tent” enough?

catubc2 Sep 2022 18:14 UTC
9 points
10 comments6 min readLW link

[Question] Rea­sons to act ac­cord­ing to the free will paradigm?

Maciej Jałocha11 Dec 2021 8:44 UTC
−3 points
5 comments1 min readLW link

Fixed points and free will

Ege Erdil19 Apr 2022 17:18 UTC
31 points
32 comments4 min readLW link

A crit­i­cal agen­tial ac­count of free will, cau­sa­tion, and physics

jessicata5 Mar 2020 7:57 UTC
25 points
10 comments12 min readLW link
(unstableontology.com)

Free Will, Deter­minism, And Choice

Zero Contradictions6 Jul 2024 6:34 UTC
7 points
3 comments1 min readLW link
(thewaywardaxolotl.blogspot.com)

Emer­gent Author­ship: Creativity à la Communing

gswonk14 Sep 2024 19:02 UTC
1 point
0 comments3 min readLW link

[Question] Me & My Clone

SimonBaars18 Jul 2024 16:25 UTC
27 points
22 comments1 min readLW link

Pass­ing the Re­cur­sive Buck

Eliezer Yudkowsky16 Jun 2008 4:50 UTC
48 points
17 comments4 min readLW link

Will is­sues are quite nearly skill issues

dkl927 Aug 2023 16:42 UTC
1 point
1 comment3 min readLW link
(dkl9.net)

Wager­ing on Will And Worth (Pas­cals Wager for Free Will and Value)

Robert Cousineau27 Nov 2024 0:43 UTC
−1 points
1 comment3 min readLW link

Im­pli­ca­tions—How Con­scious Sig­nifi­cance Could In­form Our lives

James Stephen Brown26 Nov 2024 17:42 UTC
7 points
0 comments13 min readLW link

Non­sen­tient Optimizers

Eliezer Yudkowsky27 Dec 2008 2:32 UTC
35 points
48 comments6 min readLW link

Where Free Will and Deter­minism Meet

David Bravo4 Apr 2023 10:59 UTC
0 points
0 comments3 min readLW link

Book Re­view: Deter­mined by Sapolsky

Kailuo Wang1 Nov 2023 17:37 UTC
1 point
0 comments7 min readLW link

The Unavoid­able Ex­pe­rience of Free Will in a Deter­minis­tic World

gmax3 Nov 2023 17:55 UTC
−10 points
0 comments2 min readLW link

Why Free Will is NOT an illusion

Akira Pyinya1 Jan 2023 2:29 UTC
0 points
16 comments1 min readLW link

Cog­ni­tive In­sta­bil­ity, Phys­i­cal­ism, and Free Will

dadadarren16 Jul 2022 13:13 UTC
5 points
27 comments2 min readLW link
(www.sleepingbeautyproblem.com)

Quotes and Notes on Scott Aaron­son’s “The Ghost in the Quan­tum Tur­ing Ma­chine”

Shmi17 Jun 2013 5:11 UTC
31 points
83 comments15 min readLW link

Is so­cial the­ory our doom?

pchvykov15 Jul 2021 3:31 UTC
6 points
2 comments2 min readLW link

“Free Will” in a Com­pu­ta­tional Universe

DragonGod22 Sep 2022 21:25 UTC
5 points
6 comments14 min readLW link
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