rwallace comments on Ingredients of Timeless Decision Theory - Less Wrong

43 Post author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 19 August 2009 01:10AM

You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.

Comments (226)

You are viewing a single comment's thread. Show more comments above.

Comment author: rwallace 19 August 2009 07:40:32PM 2 points [-]

The only reason free will is regarded as a problem of philosophy is that philosophers are in the rather bizarre habit of defining it as "your actions are uncaused" - it should be no surprise that a nonsensical definition leads to problems!

When we use the correct definition - the one that corresponds to how the term is actually used - "your actions are caused by your own decisions, as opposed to by external coercion" - the problem doesn't arise.