SecondWind comments on Timeless Control - Less Wrong

19 Post author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 07 June 2008 05:16AM

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Comment author: SecondWind 28 April 2013 05:17:24PM *  0 points [-]

For "I did A but could have done otherwise" I see two coherent meanings:

1) My mind produced A from the local conditions, but a conceivable different mind with otherwise identical local conditions would've produced not A. My mind is therefore a crucial causal factor in the reality of A.

OR

2) From my limited knowledge, I cannot trace the causal steps to A that precede my decision well enough to determine, from those steps alone, the decision I make which leads to A.

...actually, probably both.

So, the causal steps to A include my decision (and A is inconsistent with certain decisions that differ from my real one), but I cannot trace the causal steps of my decision precisely enough to have precluded those differing decision (without already knowing the reality of my decision.)

Alternatively: if we work from full knowledge of the causal path to A, except that we treat my cognition as a black box whose outcome we don't know, we could not conclude A even with unlimited processing power.