Well, it depends on how you define "the free will problem". The problem I'm talking about is the ability to assign (moral) values to possible actions: if we can only speak of one possible action then those values don't exist (or defined only for one action in which case they're useless anyway).
Well, it depends on how you define "the free will problem".
I'll take a shot at it:
1) On the one hand, the natural world of which we are a part is governed by laws, in the sense that any causal relations within the natural world obey law-like (if probabilistic) principles. Any effect is the necessary result of some sufficiently rich set of antecedent causes plus the laws that govern the relations between them. Human beings are natural objects, subject to the same physical laws as everything else. Further, our minds are likewise the product of l...
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!