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> Choice is such a messy thing to dive deep into, because then you realize that nobody knows what it means to choose. Actually, I think I do know what it means

by JepZ 9y ago

> Choice is such a messy thing to dive deep into, because then you realize that nobody knows what it means to choose. Actually, I think I do know what it means, but I have the feeling that many people do not like the idea, that their decisions are based on past experiences and that their free will is actually just the evaluation of their perceptions (of their truth) and therefore, it is nothing that comes from some spritual origin within them, but instead is something that happend to them. While it feels a little incomfortable at first, it explains a lot of human behavior as for example the impact of advertiments. The important part is to also understand that it does not free you from your own responsibility as the fact that you have beeen tought ethics is also part of the evaluation.

ehecatl 9y ago
>> that their decisions are based on past experiences and that their free will is actually just the evaluation of their perceptions (of their truth) This might be pretty close to the mark, actually. Our conditioning to past, even collective, social, experience can become so all encompassing that we cannot imagine something "other". Perhaps psychopaths can? And that's a pretty scary thought.
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- lazerpants 9y ago
  I think meditation, some types of travel, and/or certain illicit drugs are important to people because they are able to temporarily experience what you have described as "other", to varying degrees, utilizing the aforementioned agents/techniques.
MarkPNeyer 9y ago
Choosing means: a) evaluating multiple possible outcomes b) selecting from those the outcome with the highest desired value c) taking the action with increases the likelihood of the desired outcome That's it, end of story. No "spiritual nonsense" necessary. This definition lines up with human intuition, and it also applies to determinstic things like machines. For example, Using this definition we can say things like 'the load balancer chose that server' and even ask why. This definition allows you to debug choice-making processes, and reason about them. So when we ask 'why did the load balancer choose this server', it would be absurd to answer 'because the programmer told it to.' It's true, but empty. The same applies to the claim that 'lots of what people are doing is the impact of advertising'. True, but vacuous. Why did things happen? "Well, because of physics" - that's a true answer to every question that tells us nothing. Of COURSE we can improve the choice making mechanism inside a load balancer. That fact is obvious to us. What's less obvious is that you can improve the choice making mechanism INSIDE OF YOU because you aren't a static object but rather a sequence of different deterministic objects. In each moment, your neural connectome changes slightly. Pathways that you activate become more automatic, and pathways you don't activate atrophy. You activate pathways by selectively activating your attention. That's how you do it. That's how you change yourself, so that you are a different person who makes different choices. That's how you improve your decision making apparatus - by being good at selectively paying increasing attention to signals that are helping you. Individual persons can improve their choice-making mechanisms as well. I know becuase i've done it. I struggled for years making bad choices, and i always used logic like you are using to tell myself 'it wasn't my fault'. That may have been true, but it was useless. It didn't help me make better choices. Only by accepting that I am responsible for the choices i make, and _embracing this fact_ was i able to change my choice making apparatus from something that was pretty terrible to something that works quite well. When you go around telling people they don't have free well, you're jamming up their choice making apparatus. You're convincing people not to bother making choices. It's probably worse than advertising. Making better choices comes down, ultimately, to controlling your attention during the choice making process. I agree that advertising is super destructive. It's like the opposite of meditation.
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- iamcasen 9y ago
  you're completely forgetting to include "access to perfect information" Which is the whole point of propaganda and other forms of marketing: bombard people with a message, true or false, it doesn't matter. Over time people will come to believe the message, and it will inform their future choices. People do not have the time to evaluate in depth all of the information they receive on a daily basis, and therefore are not actually capable of making truly rational choices. Everyone is merely doing their best, and many are indeed failing. At some point, humans have to rely on trust. In our current society, that is extremely difficult.

by JepZ 9y ago

ehecatl 9y ago

>> that their decisions are based on past experiences and that their free will is actually just the evaluation of their perceptions (of their truth) This might be pretty close to the mark, actually. Our conditioning to past, even collective, social, experience can become so all encompassing that we cannot imagine something "other". Perhaps psychopaths can? And that's a pretty scary thought.

deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
deleted 9y ago
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lazerpants 9y ago
I think meditation, some types of travel, and/or certain illicit drugs are important to people because they are able to temporarily experience what you have described as "other", to varying degrees, utilizing the aforementioned agents/techniques.

MarkPNeyer 9y ago

Choosing means: a) evaluating multiple possible outcomes b) selecting from those the outcome with the highest desired value c) taking the action with increases the likelihood of the desired outcome That's it, end of story. No "spiritual nonsense" necessary. This definition lines up with human intuition, and it also applies to determinstic things like machines. For example, Using this definition we can say things like 'the load balancer chose that server' and even ask why. This definition allows you to debug choice-making processes, and reason about them. So when we ask 'why did the load balancer choose this server', it would be absurd to answer 'because the programmer told it to.' It's true, but empty. The same applies to the claim that 'lots of what people are doing is the impact of advertising'. True, but vacuous. Why did things happen? "Well, because of physics" - that's a true answer to every question that tells us nothing. Of COURSE we can improve the choice making mechanism inside a load balancer. That fact is obvious to us. What's less obvious is that you can improve the choice making mechanism INSIDE OF YOU because you aren't a static object but rather a sequence of different deterministic objects. In each moment, your neural connectome changes slightly. Pathways that you activate become more automatic, and pathways you don't activate atrophy. You activate pathways by selectively activating your attention. That's how you do it. That's how you change yourself, so that you are a different person who makes different choices. That's how you improve your decision making apparatus - by being good at selectively paying increasing attention to signals that are helping you. Individual persons can improve their choice-making mechanisms as well. I know becuase i've done it. I struggled for years making bad choices, and i always used logic like you are using to tell myself 'it wasn't my fault'. That may have been true, but it was useless. It didn't help me make better choices. Only by accepting that I am responsible for the choices i make, and _embracing this fact_ was i able to change my choice making apparatus from something that was pretty terrible to something that works quite well. When you go around telling people they don't have free well, you're jamming up their choice making apparatus. You're convincing people not to bother making choices. It's probably worse than advertising. Making better choices comes down, ultimately, to controlling your attention during the choice making process. I agree that advertising is super destructive. It's like the opposite of meditation.

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iamcasen 9y ago
you're completely forgetting to include "access to perfect information" Which is the whole point of propaganda and other forms of marketing: bombard people with a message, true or false, it doesn't matter. Over time people will come to believe the message, and it will inform their future choices. People do not have the time to evaluate in depth all of the information they receive on a daily basis, and therefore are not actually capable of making truly rational choices. Everyone is merely doing their best, and many are indeed failing. At some point, humans have to rely on trust. In our current society, that is extremely difficult.