> In this view, our actions are predetermined too.
> But if we have no agency, nothing matters.
This is, listen carefully, just bollocks. More precisely it's a non sequitur because "predetermined" doesn't mean "no agency". That's what it would mean, sure, if your actions were predetermined by an evil puppetmaster. But ask two questions:
1. What are your actions predetermined by? It's you. That's what.
2. What, if you find this too constraining, do you want? What do you mean by free will, if not your actions being determined by your own mind? Exactly, you don't know, so stop complaining about nothing.
Yes, the universe is deterministic, boo fucking hoo. This doesn't mean you're some sort of robot slave, because it's your mind that is deterministic, and your mind, deterministically, probabilistically, makes choices. These are the only kind of choices that can possibly exist, which is why, to resume my starting theme, when you try to come up with any alternative thing a choice could be, you must necessarily talk bollocks.
Pre ... choose? No, you can choose. You are a thing that chooses. Why is everybody so hung up on determinism? What do you want choice to mean? Really I think it's just because "deterministic" sounds like "determined for you", but it doesn't mean that. Everything is deterministic, including things that choose, by which I mean people. You are a fully paid up (and incidentally deterministic) person with the (also deterministic) freedom to make choices.
I thought of another aspect, which I'm going to edit in here since it's gone quiet. People might be having misapprehensions about knowledge in the context of "predetermined". I mean to say that rather than thinking "puppetmaster" you might think "written in the stars", and that you're tied to a fate that could be discerned, divined, from the starting conditions. But nobody can do that. If you and the universe around you are a program, the only way to find out what the program does is to run the program. Then you think intelligently, weigh preferences, have gut feelings, and all that jazz, and that's how the outcome becomes apparent. Nothing is written legibly in the stars.
card_zero · · focus · HN ↗
> But if we have no agency, nothing matters.
This is, listen carefully, just bollocks. More precisely it's a non sequitur because "predetermined" doesn't mean "no agency". That's what it would mean, sure, if your actions were predetermined by an evil puppetmaster. But ask two questions:
1. What are your actions predetermined by? It's you. That's what.
2. What, if you find this too constraining, do you want? What do you mean by free will, if not your actions being determined by your own mind? Exactly, you don't know, so stop complaining about nothing.
Yes, the universe is deterministic, boo fucking hoo. This doesn't mean you're some sort of robot slave, because it's your mind that is deterministic, and your mind, deterministically, probabilistically, makes choices. These are the only kind of choices that can possibly exist, which is why, to resume my starting theme, when you try to come up with any alternative thing a choice could be, you must necessarily talk bollocks.
svnt · · focus · HN ↗
You cannot choose, but you can prechoose? You cannot choose, but your physical identity chose the moment it was deterministically brought into being?
What does choice even mean in this context?
card_zero · · focus · HN ↗
I thought of another aspect, which I'm going to edit in here since it's gone quiet. People might be having misapprehensions about knowledge in the context of "predetermined". I mean to say that rather than thinking "puppetmaster" you might think "written in the stars", and that you're tied to a fate that could be discerned, divined, from the starting conditions. But nobody can do that. If you and the universe around you are a program, the only way to find out what the program does is to run the program. Then you think intelligently, weigh preferences, have gut feelings, and all that jazz, and that's how the outcome becomes apparent. Nothing is written legibly in the stars.
svnt · · focus · HN ↗
This does not prevent someone from building a you that runs on a faster substrate and pre running you.
It also gets into sticky territory on responsibility. Are you responsible for your choices?