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Apologies for no response; I vaguely assumed I would get a notification if anyone commented. I think we'll start in the Shakespeare's Head as it's a bit cloudy. There will be a sign up. Otherwise, climb the nerd gradient until you find us; we're usually in the back third past the bar.

If you intend to try again in the current open thread, feel free to transfer the examples.

Trying to clarify my intuitions re. B:

Consider Paul Atreides undergoing the gom jabbar; he will die unless he keeps his hand in the box. Given that he knows this, I count his success as a freely willed action; if (counterfactually) the pain had been sufficient to overcome him, withdrawing his hand would not have been freely willed, because it is counter to his consciously endorsed values (and, in this case, not subtle or confused values).

However, if (also counterfactually) the threat of death had not been present or known to him, then withdrawing his hand may have been a freely willed act (if the pain built slowly enough to be noticed rather than just triggering a burn-reaction).

Pretty sure I'm misparsing you somehow, but here are some things I might consider nonfree action :

A) an action is rewarded with a heroin fix; the actor is in withdrawal

B) an action will relieve extreme and urgent pain

C) an action is demanded by reflex (e.g. withdrawal from heat)

D) an action is demanded by an irresistably salient emotional appeal that the agent does not reflectively endorse (release the country-slaying neurotoxin, or I shall shoot your child)

Are you asking for a procedure for identifying acts of free will (the doable kind of extensive definition) or a set of in-out exemplars (ostensive definition)?

Confused. What's incoherent about caring equally about copies of myself, and less about everyone else?

I've just finished marathoning the first 1.5 seasons (to the current cliffhanger/hiatus) of Gravity Falls, and strongly recommend it. Supernatural mystery/horror/comedy, significantly darker than Disney usually gets. High levels of continuity; very strong art direction; near-HPMOR levels of foreshadowing/conservation of detail (I advise not reading about it beforehand as there was a similar hivemind-predictive-success of the biggest twist). Secret codes, cryptic Reddit AMAs, trolling creators with hand puppets, all the good stuff.

Don't follow. You see "making an actually binding promise" as equivalent to dying?

This seems odd to me, though I'm not saying you're wrong. From the inside, my values seem far more akin to habits or reflexes than to time-indexed memories.

I imagine Obliviated!me still having a NO DON'T reaction when asked to support a purpose opposed to my previous goals, because verbalised goals flow from wordless moral habits; not the other way around. (assuming a possibly inconsistent scenario where I retain enough language for someone to expect to manipulate me)

Quite a bit. I have a very bad memory for personal history anyway - I have a vague timeline of significant dates in my head, and a handful of random "vivid" memories, maybe one per year, that have been nailed down by neural happenstance. But if you asked me what I was doing yesterday evening, I think I would end up randomly selecting an evening from the last three or so - unless I painstakingly solved it in the manner of a logic puzzle ("I go to the gym on Wednesdays, and yesterday was Thursday, so I guess I was at the gym").

Rathanel's The Empty Cage (previously recommended on LW) and OmgImPwned's In Fire Forged. Can't remember if the first is finished, the second certainly isn't.

Waves Arisen is in a class by itself as regards sweet sweet ingroup jargon, however :)

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