If you can point to a specific part of my brain that has no purpose other than to make me have bacon for breakfast on tuesday 24th of august, 2010? And that can't be over-ruled by any other parts of my brain?
I can't, however it doesn't imply that the decision about the breakfast is spread across the whole brain. Moreover, why it is so important to have it localised? What if the lesion is in fact only a slightly different concentration of chemicals spread across the whole brain, which I) leads to cancer, II) causes desire for smoking, which is nevertheless substantiated as a global coordinated action of neurons in different parts of the brain?
Instead of the happy feeling, you get a feeling of "I decided to do this" when the light blinks red.
It is indeed a better example.
I can't, however it doesn't imply that the decision about the breakfast is spread across the whole brain. Moreover, why it is so important to have it localised?
It's not particularly. Replace "part" with "aspect"; I hadn't actually thought about the option you propose.
...What if the lesion is in fact only a slightly different concentration of chemicals spread across the whole brain, which I) leads to cancer, II) causes desire for smoking, which is nevertheless substantiated as a global coordinated action of neurons in different parts
This is part of a sequence titled "An introduction to decision theory". The previous post was Newcomb's Problem: A problem for Causal Decision Theories
For various reasons I've decided to finish this sequence on a seperate blog. This is principally because there were a large number of people who seemed to feel that this sequence either wasn't up to the Less Wrong standard or felt that it was simply covering ground that had already been covered on Less Wrong.
The decision to post it on another blog rather than simply discontinuing it came down to the fact that other people seemed to feel that the sequence had value. Those people can continue reading it at "The Smoking Lesion: A problem for evidential decision theory".
Alternatively, there is a sequence index available: Less Wrong and decision theory: sequence index