Re: Randyom Neuron (Reply to Everett)

Hey Randy,

Um, I'm having a bit of trouble trying to explain myself in the comments, as you've probably noticed. So, this is a short video. Um, Everett's requirement for free work for free will, or rather one of them, was that not only does the self have to be a cause of election X, but it has to be the first cause of that election.

I think the simplest answer that shows that this isn't the case is: first causes are not caused; the self is caused. I hope we can agree on that, and therefore the self is not a first cause of any particular outcome.

So, um, meanwhile what you've tried to do is to show that non-determinism in a neuron could be the first cause of certain elections. What I'm trying to say is that I think you're conflating a neuron with the entire self, while it's just a part of it.

Um, when I think of the self being the cause of something, I think of this cause in terms of something like a decision, in the way we use the word decision in normal language. Um, so I think decisions of the kind "John decided to go to the shop" can be properly considered to be caused by the self, because my intuition is that the self as a whole is involved in some way to get to that outcome.

Um, so if myself causes me to take an umbrella with me, that's the same thing as I decided to take my umbrella. So, myself caused cause of action X is the same as I made a decision in favor of cause of action X.

On the other hand, if a particular outcome can be traced solely to the non-deterministic action of a neuron, as you're suggesting might be the case, I'm not happy to say that the outcome has been caused by the self because the neuron isn't itself.

So, I hope that gives some idea of how I'm thinking about this at the moment. Thanks.