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I think a lot of people get mixed up by the idea that "physics determines your actions", as if that's contradictory to "you determine your actions". I love the

I think a lot of people get mixed up by the idea that "physics determines your actions", as if that's contradictory to "you determine your actions". I love the way https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/NEeW7eSXThPz7o4Ne/thou-art-physics https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/NEeW7eSXThPz7o4Ne/thou-art-p... puts it, that "you are within physics" necessarily bridges these two explanations.

ajnin 6y ago
I think there is a bit of circular reasoning here. If by "physics" we mean the way the universe works, then of course we are "within physics", and we determine our actions in exactly the same way as the rock falls to the ground : because this is the laws of physics that those things happen. The actual distinction is what people attribute to the term "physics" itself. For some it is exhaustive and it encompasses everything that exists, but for others it is not and they allow "something else" to intervene. At which point we're well within the realm of theological arguments.
- codebolt 6y ago
  Physics is a set of mathematical relationships that aims to describe how things behave. The important distinction seems to be whether one believes that all behaviour of all things everywhere can be reduced to a simple mathematical model, or if there could be instances where something behaves non-computationally at a fundamental level.
dragonwriter 6y ago
> "you are within physics" necessarily bridges these two explanations. But, it doesn't. The reason dualism and free-will are so deeply tied up is because “you are within physics” does not provide a means by which “you” can be the root cause of anything; if you are merely within physics, then you are simply a product of material causes and can only be (to the extent physics is deterministic) a fully-externally-determined phenomenon between the original cause and other fully-determined phenomena.
- GoblinSlayer 6y ago
  That still means you are the proper cause of your actions. The preceding history exists too, but isn't very relevant to the process of choice.
  - pessimizer 6y ago
    No, it makes it very difficult to locate any boundary between "you" and the preceding history. Dualism is when you simply declare a border. edit: If everything is "within physics," saying that the preceding history isn't relevant to the process of choice is a declaration that cause isn't relevant to effect. It's an arbitrary assignment for culpability's sake, which is a moral judgment, not a physical or logical argument.
    - GoblinSlayer 6y ago
      If you don't assign different relevance to different causes, you can't say that you are a less relevant cause than the preceding history. Relevance is a practical requirement, without it you, say, can't improve Tesla autopilot, because the cause of the crashes is big bang, and you can't do anything to fix that cause indeed.
  - PartiallyTyped 6y ago
    That is if you assume the world is Markov, but in our granularity of thought and limited perception, the only way we can reconcile subsequent observations is through history. In other words, you can't peer into the universe itself at any individual moment to observe all properties because you have access to partial information, the world could be markov, but the lack of your perceptive abilities requires that you treat it as non markov. For example, given a moving object such as a ball, at any particular instant, you do not have access to enough information to estimate velocity, but if you have access to more frames, you can do some algebra and figure it out. In the vein of cause of actions, since you have limited access to information, especially about you and your brain, you can not decide whether certain events such as having a good day affect your decision making abilities. Your state is part of the environment you do not really have access to it affects your behavior.
GoblinSlayer 6y ago
It's based on another meme that the laws of physics are a restriction of behavior rather than construction of behavior. And that's why they are thought to conflict with unrestricted behavior.
deeeeplearning 6y ago
If you believe you determine your actions in a literal sense you are saying you believe in magic because there is no mechanism that could make this possible in a deterministic universe.

ajnin 6y ago

I think there is a bit of circular reasoning here. If by "physics" we mean the way the universe works, then of course we are "within physics", and we determine our actions in exactly the same way as the rock falls to the ground : because this is the laws of physics that those things happen. The actual distinction is what people attribute to the term "physics" itself. For some it is exhaustive and it encompasses everything that exists, but for others it is not and they allow "something else" to intervene. At which point we're well within the realm of theological arguments.

codebolt 6y ago
Physics is a set of mathematical relationships that aims to describe how things behave. The important distinction seems to be whether one believes that all behaviour of all things everywhere can be reduced to a simple mathematical model, or if there could be instances where something behaves non-computationally at a fundamental level.

dragonwriter 6y ago

> "you are within physics" necessarily bridges these two explanations. But, it doesn't. The reason dualism and free-will are so deeply tied up is because “you are within physics” does not provide a means by which “you” can be the root cause of anything; if you are merely within physics, then you are simply a product of material causes and can only be (to the extent physics is deterministic) a fully-externally-determined phenomenon between the original cause and other fully-determined phenomena.

GoblinSlayer 6y ago
That still means you are the proper cause of your actions. The preceding history exists too, but isn't very relevant to the process of choice.
- pessimizer 6y ago
  No, it makes it very difficult to locate any boundary between "you" and the preceding history. Dualism is when you simply declare a border. edit: If everything is "within physics," saying that the preceding history isn't relevant to the process of choice is a declaration that cause isn't relevant to effect. It's an arbitrary assignment for culpability's sake, which is a moral judgment, not a physical or logical argument.
  - GoblinSlayer 6y ago
    If you don't assign different relevance to different causes, you can't say that you are a less relevant cause than the preceding history. Relevance is a practical requirement, without it you, say, can't improve Tesla autopilot, because the cause of the crashes is big bang, and you can't do anything to fix that cause indeed.
- PartiallyTyped 6y ago
  That is if you assume the world is Markov, but in our granularity of thought and limited perception, the only way we can reconcile subsequent observations is through history. In other words, you can't peer into the universe itself at any individual moment to observe all properties because you have access to partial information, the world could be markov, but the lack of your perceptive abilities requires that you treat it as non markov. For example, given a moving object such as a ball, at any particular instant, you do not have access to enough information to estimate velocity, but if you have access to more frames, you can do some algebra and figure it out. In the vein of cause of actions, since you have limited access to information, especially about you and your brain, you can not decide whether certain events such as having a good day affect your decision making abilities. Your state is part of the environment you do not really have access to it affects your behavior.

GoblinSlayer 6y ago

It's based on another meme that the laws of physics are a restriction of behavior rather than construction of behavior. And that's why they are thought to conflict with unrestricted behavior.

deeeeplearning 6y ago

If you believe you determine your actions in a literal sense you are saying you believe in magic because there is no mechanism that could make this possible in a deterministic universe.