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endoself comments on What is Eliezer Yudkowsky's meta-ethical theory? - Less Wrong Discussion
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I might have disagreed with this a few months ago, so, just in case people with brains similar enough to mine are reading this, I will make this as clear as possible.
She had to do what she wanted to do. As in deterministically had to. There is no physical object other than her brain that makes her decisions. There is no chain of causality that could cause her to make a decision that does not start with the desires in her brain.
EDIT: Eliezer has a better one for this:
"Mr. Potter, in the end people all do what they want to do. Sometimes people give names like 'right' to things they want to do, but how could we possibly act on anything but our own desires?"
Yep! But I would stop short of saying that "people all do what they want to do". People tend not to reflect enough on their desires; they may act out of habit; they may not act on them even when they know what they are; and people may have hierarchies or communities of conflicting desires so that there isn't even a clear answer to "what do I want?"
Yes, I agree with this.
The quote seemed wrong to me the first time I read it, which is why I forgot about it and had to add it to my post afterward. This seems like part of the reason why.
Have Tourettes.
If I had Tourettes, I would not call the part of my brain with Tourettes "me".
Kind of the point.
Our actions are not directly determined by our desires.
I would not call an action that I do not decide to bring about "my action".
What are we disagreeing on apart from wording? One can only do what is right if one desires to do what is right. There are many barriers between that and what actually gets done (which is why FAI is a good idea). A brain with Tourettes and one without Tourettes but with the same desires are effectively the same decision making process in different environments, up to the approximation that brains are decision making processes.
If only the courts accepted that as a defense. "If I say it aint me you must set free!"
If my body were prone to murdering people and I were unable to stop this, I would consent to being jailed. I would advocate some form of isolation or similar for anyone with this problem.