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It's probably in between. It's incredible how he does not talk about compatibilism in a serious post about different possibilities of free will. I don't underst

It's probably in between. It's incredible how he does not talk about compatibilism in a serious post about different possibilities of free will. I don't understand how that can be missed on purpose. But, his arguments and content were coherent and interesting. I don't think it hurts HN to have this on the front page.

RangerScience 10y ago
Can you explain compatabilism, particularly how you see it relating to what he's talking about? The wikipedia explanation is... underwhelming, and the next best thing I saw was practically a textbook. Near as I can tell, from the Wikipedia explanation, compatabilism is an ethical consideration of free will. Most other philosophy is on a metaphysical level; Scott Aaronson appears to be talking about free will as a physical phenomenon. It make sense that he would't bring up an ethical framework.
- hyperpape 10y ago
  Have you seen the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy? Some articles are too technical to read without a background, but many are good for anyone: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/compatibilism/ https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/compatibilism/. Here's my take, which is slightly different in emphasis than the SEP one (which I guess means I am probably wrong/idiosyncratic): Compatibilism is a metaphysical theory. What is counter-intuitive about the free will debate is that there are two entwined but distinct questions. The first is (roughly) what is the full physical/causal/predictive/descriptive* story about human decision making. Is it deterministic? Almost deterministic but with some random noise? Something else? Second, given that description, do we have free will? That is a metaphysical question, though many people are interested because they believe that there are ethical implications (compare: whether God exists is a metaphysical or perhaps empirical question, but it might have some ethical implications). Compatibilism is primarily an answer to the second question. It says roughly "you might have thought free will means not being determined, but that is an illusion. Actually, free will is completely compatible with determinism. It is something like being able to act on the things that you take to be reasons, even if it's fully deterministic which things you think are reasons." Talking about free will as a physical phenomenon (which is not quite what I'd describe Aaronson as doing) typically indicates that you've assumed some answer to the second question, so that you're only considering the first. Btw: one point of view is that the first question makes sense, but the second doesn't. I don't have a developed opinion, as I didn't really work on this topic when I studied philosophy, but I lean that way. * (none of these terms is perfect, and there's lots of debate about the right characterization here)

RangerScience 10y ago

Can you explain compatabilism, particularly how you see it relating to what he's talking about? The wikipedia explanation is... underwhelming, and the next best thing I saw was practically a textbook. Near as I can tell, from the Wikipedia explanation, compatabilism is an ethical consideration of free will. Most other philosophy is on a metaphysical level; Scott Aaronson appears to be talking about free will as a physical phenomenon. It make sense that he would't bring up an ethical framework.

hyperpape 10y ago
Have you seen the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy? Some articles are too technical to read without a background, but many are good for anyone: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/compatibilism/ https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/compatibilism/. Here's my take, which is slightly different in emphasis than the SEP one (which I guess means I am probably wrong/idiosyncratic): Compatibilism is a metaphysical theory. What is counter-intuitive about the free will debate is that there are two entwined but distinct questions. The first is (roughly) what is the full physical/causal/predictive/descriptive* story about human decision making. Is it deterministic? Almost deterministic but with some random noise? Something else? Second, given that description, do we have free will? That is a metaphysical question, though many people are interested because they believe that there are ethical implications (compare: whether God exists is a metaphysical or perhaps empirical question, but it might have some ethical implications). Compatibilism is primarily an answer to the second question. It says roughly "you might have thought free will means not being determined, but that is an illusion. Actually, free will is completely compatible with determinism. It is something like being able to act on the things that you take to be reasons, even if it's fully deterministic which things you think are reasons." Talking about free will as a physical phenomenon (which is not quite what I'd describe Aaronson as doing) typically indicates that you've assumed some answer to the second question, so that you're only considering the first. Btw: one point of view is that the first question makes sense, but the second doesn't. I don't have a developed opinion, as I didn't really work on this topic when I studied philosophy, but I lean that way. * (none of these terms is perfect, and there's lots of debate about the right characterization here)