Joseph_Knecht comments on Possibility and Could-ness - Less Wrong

34 Post author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 14 June 2008 04:38AM

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Comment author: Joseph_Knecht 14 June 2008 11:41:32PM 0 points [-]

Eliezer said:

I am not saying that choice is an illusion. I am pointing to something and saying: "There! Right there! You see that? That's a choice, just as much as a calculator is adding numbers! It doesn't matter if it's deterministic! It doesn't matter if someone else predicted you'd do it or designed you to do it! It doesn't matter if it's made of parts and caused by the dynamics of those parts! It doesn't matter if it's physically impossible for you to have finally arrived at any other decision after all your agonizing! It's still a choice!"

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Does it not follow from this that if I installed hardware into your brain that completely took control of your brain and mapped my thoughts onto your brain (and the deliberations in your brain would be ones that I initiated) that you would still be choosing and still be morally responsible? If I decided to kill someone and then forced you to carry out the murder, you would be morally responsible. I find this hard to accept.