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Bound_up comments on Stupid questions thread, October 2015 - Less Wrong Discussion
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I've been through the free will sequences a second time now, and I'm trying to figure out how to apply it to my life.
See, even that sounds weird, because applying to my life...trying...figure out...whether I do or not is inevitable, right?
Speaking from the naive standpoint, how does the determinist viewpoint affect your decisions? How do you think about it, incorporate it? Do you compartmentalize and pretend you're in control, or what?
I think my "no free will believing self" causes me to model my future self more pessimistically, albeit more accurately, than my "free will believing self" used to.
More specifically, I now pretty much by default see my future self as destined to fail at achieving my current goals due to hyperbolic discounting and, among other things, unexpectedly low willpower striking at random times and lasting for random periods. So, my focus is mainly on continual massive upfront investment during the good times (the rare days when I've got an abundance of willpower) in order to mitigate these willpower failure risks and keep my productivity much more stable and higher in the long-run.
This probably isn't necessary for most people, but I suspect it is a good tactic for those who, like me, are extremely volatile in terms of day-to-day willpower stores and who fail miserably at achieving their goals if they try to just "power through" at all times and 'believe in the belief' of free will.
... you sound like a smart guy, but you are going to have a hard time being taken seriously here with that username.
That says more about the people who have trouble taking him seriously than it does about him, however.
Not necessarily. Sure, some people will just jerk their knees, but the fact of choosing that username is indicative of something. The first two obvious alternatives are "is a troll" and "is politically mind-killed".
Sure. But what it's indicative of is colored by which way you jerk your knees, as you inadvertently demonstrate.
Of course -- every interaction provides information on all participants :-)
P.S. "is a troll" is not because of specifically Jeb -- s/Jeb/Hillary/ and nothing would change -- but because of choosing a politically polarizing symbol.
He chooses a username that invites ad-hominem, such as you're engaging in - that is the direction you jerk your knees, not political alignment - in a forum which works to move past such biases.
If his username isn't appropriate here, it's not because it's not fundamentally clever, but because the audience hasn't been paying attention to, or learning from, their lessons.
If his username affects your judgment of what he has to say, and you realize this, then you've just learned something about yourself, and you should thank him, instead of condemning him. He's just done you a favor.
Of course, people don't actually want their own biases to be shown to them, nor to admit to them so that they can get past them. They'd rather the cause of the bias go away than have to confront it.
Granted, he could just be making a political statement, or be a troll. Thank him anyways.
I am? Quote me.
The question is not of "appropriateness". Choices you make provide information about you. The more idiosyncratic choices you make, the more information these choices provide.
A username of "Bob" doesn't provide much. A username of "XXXpretty77XXX" provides some. A username of "I_will_fuck_you_all_with_my_big_dick" provides a lot.
His username is evidence that (among other things) forms my opinion of him. I don't see how it can be any different.
You mistake what ad-hominem, as a bias, is. It is a characteristic of an argument or reaction that is focusing on the person making the arguments, rather than the arguments themselves; the validity of an argument is independent of the person making that argument. Anybody modifying the credibility of an argument because of its source is engaging in ad-hominem. In laymen terms, the term is used to describe an argument against a person, but it is broader than that, as a bias.
Yes. But it provides information about the source of an argument, not the argument itself.
Where does your opinion of him, as a person, become relevant? That's the key question.
I think the main takeaway is that you shouldn't worry too much about questions of free will. Basically, the fact that your free will is made of physics doesn't mean it makes sense to make poor choices or not take responsibility for yourself and then blame physics. Also, don't go looking for magical explanations of free will existing "outside of physics".
I find it most relevant to planning and prediction. It helps greatly with realizing that I am not an exception, and so I should take the data seriously.
In terms of things that changed when my beliefs did, I submit the criminal justice system as an example. I now firmly think about crime in terms of individuals being components of a social system, and I am exclusively interested in future prevention of crime. I am indifferent to moral punishment for it.
Two useful ways to look at free will:
http://www.scottaaronson.com/blog/?p=1438
http://www.preposterousuniverse.com/blog/2011/07/13/free-will-is-as-real-as-baseball/