we don't think that we should attribute to the ball whatever sort of authorship we wish to talk about with reference to free will.
That is because the billiard ball doesn't have sufficient inner complexity and processes. I think the necessary complexity is the computational ability to a) model parts of the future world state and b) base behavior on that and c) model the modelling of this. The problem arises when your model of your model goes from iniuition (sensation of free will) to symbolic form which allows detection of the logical inconsistencies at some higher modelling level.
Actually little is needed to ascribe agency to 'balls'. Just look at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sZBKer6PMtM and tell me what inner processes you infer about the 'ball' due to its complex interactions.
That is because the billiard ball doesn't have sufficient inner complexity and processes.
I agree that your (a)-(c) are necessary (and maybe sufficient) conditions on having free will.
The problem arises when your model of your model goes from iniuition (sensation of free will) to symbolic form which allows detection of the logical inconsistencies at some higher modelling level.
What do you mean by this?
sensation of free will
To my knowledge, I've never had this sensation, so I don't know what to say about it. So far as I understand what is meant b...
ErinFlight said:
Thinking about it, I realized that this might be a common concern. There are probably plenty of people who've looked at various more-or-less technical or jargony Less Wrong posts, tried understanding them, and then given up (without posting a comment explaining their confusion).
So I figured that it might be good to have a thread where you can ask for explanations for any Less Wrong post that you didn't understand and would like to, but don't want to directly comment on for any reason (e.g. because you're feeling embarassed, because the post is too old to attract much traffic, etc.). In the spirit of various Stupid Questions threads, you're explicitly encouraged to ask even for the kinds of explanations that you feel you "should" get even yourself, or where you feel like you could get it if you just put in the effort (but then never did).
You can ask to have some specific confusing term or analogy explained, or to get the main content of a post briefly summarized in plain English and without jargon, or anything else. (Of course, there are some posts that simply cannot be explained in non-technical terms, such as the ones in the Quantum Mechanics sequence.) And of course, you're encouraged to provide explanations to others!