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ArisKatsaris comments on My summary of Eliezer's position on free will - Less Wrong Discussion
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The more the randomness in the system, the less your actions are determined by your mind's state, the less you control your actions.
It's not obvious that a determiistic system, such as a billiard ball, is in control of its actions just because it is deterministic. Control is making choices between possible courses of actions. If a system is deterministic, the possibilities it considers are merely hypothetical, it if is indeterministic, they are real possibilites that could actually happen. It is not at all clear that the latter is not lack of control.
I believe the billiard ball to be a meaningless analogy because billiard balls have no minds, make no considerations over futures, and have no preferences over futures either. As such billiard balls do not "choose" and do not have wills (free or otherwise).
By "making choices between" do you mean just "having a conscious preference between" or do you mean "affecting the probability (positively or negatively) of each possible action occuring, according to said conscious preferences"?
Consider the configuration space of the preferences of a conscious mind A, and the configuration space of action B. For A to control B means for the various possible configurations in the preferences of Mind A to constrain differently the various probability weights in the configuration space of action B.
E.g. if the configuration of my mind is that I'm a "Fringe" fan, this makes it directly more likely that I'll watch the Fringe series finale. So I have control over my personal action of watching the series.
On the other hand I can't control my heartbeat directly. It is still deterministic in a physical sense (indeed more so than me watching Fringe), but its probability is unconstrained by my preferences. So again my conscious mind's state A doesn't constrain the configuration space of B, and I don't have control over my heartbeat.
Lastly, let's consider an effectively indeterministic system like e.g. dice (use quantum dice for the nitpickers). I can throw the dice, and I can hope for a particular number, but "indeterministic" pretty much means by definition that their result aren't determined by a previous state, which includes my preferences. So I have no control over the dice's outcome, no matter how I would prefer one possible state over another.
So, yeah: determinism by itself isn't sufficient -- the core of the issue is how much my preferences determine the probability weights in the configuration space of actions.
That's kind of what I was getting at.
Neither. The point I went on to is that both count.
That isn't an argument against indeterminism-based FW, if it was meant to be.
Can you then explain what you mean by the phrase "making choices between"?
I'll resummarize my point, and I hope you explain where you disagree with it this time (frankly, this style of discussion, where you don't seem to want to volunteer much information is rather tiring for me)
I know no meaning of "control of A over B" which doesn't have to do with A causally helping determine the probabilities of B's configuration space. The more it affects those probabilities, the more control A has over B. If those probabilities are not determined by A at all, then obviously A has no control over B. So the complete "indeterminism" of an action, means the utter lack of control of A over B.
Can you please tell me where you start disagreeing with the above paragraph?
I should have said neither specifically. It was intended to cover both the more detailed options.
You haven't straightforwardly answered the question of whether you are arguing against indeterminism based free will.
No one is talking about complete indeterminism. Also, a non-deterministic process A can still control B in your sense.
I consider libertarian free will not only false, I consider it self-contradictory. In short not only it doesn't exist, I don't see how it could possibly exist (for coherent definitions of determinism and free will) in even a hypothetical universe.
If there's a distinction you're making between libertarian free will and "indeterminism-based" free will, sorry but I'm not aware of the distinction.
Then separate the indeterministic parts of a system from the deterministic parts, and the argument still applies: You can't determine the probabilities of the indeterministic parts, therefore you can't control them, therefore the more indeterministics parts there are, the less becomes your maximum-possible control over the whole.
If you have any control, it must be over the parts and over the extent you can determine the probabilities -- in short the more deterministic something is, the more the maximum-possible control you can determine it is. This again seem pretty self-evident to me.
In short what supporters of libertarian free-will are claiming about determinism (that it would eliminate free will) is actually correct about indeterminism.
I was talking about A as mind-state, e.g. preferences (values, ethics, etc), not the decision-making process (let's call it D) that connects the preferences and the choice B.
The more the outcome of D is determined by A, the more control those preferences, values, ethics (in short the person) has over B.
This again seems so obvious to me that it seems practically a tautology.
indeterminism based free will is naturalsitic libertarian FW
That depends what you mean by "you". That your brain thinks thoughts does not mean that you, the person, are not thinking thoughts. Decisions made by your neural subsystems are made by your, the person. You (some homunculus?) don;t need to pre-think your thoughts for them to be yours, not do you need to pre-choose your choices.
What does "you" mean there?
A deterministic brain might be a nice toy for an immateria homunculujs, but we are dealing with naturalism here. We are dealing with how a system can choose between possible actions. indeterminism means the possibiltieis are real possibilities.
But where's the choice?
Of course, that's my whole point. That my brain is making choices doesn't means that I'm not making choices.
It doesn't matter for the purpose of the question. No matter how you define yourself, my statement still applies. Personally I'd define it as my personality which includes my preferences, my values, my ways of thinking, etc. But as I said it doesn't matter for the purpose of the question. For any person's definition of "you" the statement still applies.
Okay, look. When you say "where's the choice?" I can only understand your question as saying "where's the decision process?" The answer is that the decision process happens physically in your brain.
So "the choice" is very real and physically occurring in your brain.
If you mean something else with choice other than "decision process", then please clarify what you mean.
That's not what I mean. I mean that any deterministic process can be divided into stages,such that stage 1 "contriols" stage 2 and so on. But because it is deterministic every probabiity is 1. But choice is choice between options. Where are the other options, the things you could have done but didn't?
Where;s the argument that the indeterministic model [of libertarian free will] is incoherent?
Yes... and yet, the slightest touch of indeterminism does not immediately wipe out the possibility of free will. You said it was absolutely dependent on determinism. That is false. Was that not clear?
If I say that a forest fire is absolutely dependent on the presence of oxygen in the atmosphere, it doesn't follow that the "slightest touch" of nitrogen would immediately wipe out the possibility of fires.
And yet the fire would still be absolutely dependent on the presence of oxygen.
If "determinism" is taken to mean the theory that the past uniquely and completely determines the future ("hard" determinism?), then the more accurate analogy would be to say that "forest fires are absolutely dependent on an atmosphere of pure oxygen".
At this point the dispute becomes a linguistic triviality, I think.
My position is as follows: If some elements of a system are deterministic and others non-deterministic, then if free will is expressed anywhere it can only be expressed with the deterministic elements, not with the non-deterministic ones; much as fire is fueled by the oxygen in the atmosphere, not by the nitrogen of the atmosphere.
(Control requires presence of determinism, doesn't require absence of randomness. There is no dichotomy in the intended sense.)