[ExI] Free will was: Everett worlds

[Stathis Papaioannou]

On Tue, 18 Aug 2020 at 01:55, SR Ballard via extropy-chat <
extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:

> I think “free will” is a bit like Pascal’s Wager.
>
>
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> If free will is real and you think it is real, then you will see yourself
> as a free agent, and take responsibility for yourself and your actions,
> intentionally working to better things. You will put murderers in jail.
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>
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> If free will is real and you think it is not, you can and will excuse all
> manner of immorality, sloth, and cruelty because they couldn’t be avoided.
> You probably put murderers in jail, but it’s kind of stupid because from
> your perspective they never decided to kill anyone. Killing someone was
> something they would be completely unable to prevent.
>
>
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> If free will is not real, then your belief in it does not change your
> actions. The chain of cause and effect completely controls every aspect of
> your existence, you cannot make any real change in the world. With a good
> enough computer (and a good enough measure of initial conditions) you could
> model every single part of the universe and tell me exactly what I will
> have for breakfast on 17 Jan 2035. Murderers will be put in prison or not,
> based completely on initial conditions.
>
>
>
> So if free will does exist and you don’t believe in it, you introduce
> negatives.
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> If free will doesn’t exist, it doesn’t matter because it changes nothing,
> and I will have whatever belief I will have regardless of my own “agency”,
> so it’s pointless to try to change my mind.
>
>
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> So believing that I have meaningful control is either essential to being a
> good member of society, or absolutely unimportant.
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> Believing I do not have meaningful control is actively negative, or
> absolutely unimportant.


You can *only* have control over your actions if they are determined by
your preferences, values, knowledge of the world and so on, which are
acquired through experience and encoded in your brain. If your actions were
not determined it would mean that they happened for no reason at all, not
even a bad reason. If you had this sort of “free will” you would be unable
to function and would die. Criminal behaviour would be the least of your
problems.

People who worry that they could not be free if their actions were
determined often have not considered what the alternative would mean.

> --
Stathis Papaioannou
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