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Tiiba comments on My summary of Eliezer's position on free will - Less Wrong
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I'd like to propose a way for measuring a system's freedom: it is the size of the set of closed-ended goals which it can satisfy from its current state. How's that?
I also think that this is all you really need to not be confused about free will. It's the freedom to do what you will.
By "goals," do you mean goals the system currently has? Or goals the system could in principle have? Or something else?
If the first, it follows that I can increase a system's freedom by installing in that system additional satisfiable goals. Which is perfectly internally consistent, but doesn't quite seem to map to what we ordinarily mean by freedom.
If the second, it follows that if you and I can each achieve N items from that set, we are equally free, even if my N items include everything I want to do and your N items include nothing you want to do. That, too, is perfectly internally consistent, but doesn't quite seem to map to what we ordinarily mean by freedom.
I conclude that our confusions about what we ordinarily mean by freedom aren't quite so readily dissolved. Although it's possible you have some third option in mind that I'm not seeing that eliminates these issues.