I’m not so sure. Nobody denies that, absent some artificial control or physiological damage, humans have the freedom to “attend” to different objects. I can choose to focus on my foot, or my hand, or that TV over there, so long as I am not being overwhelmed by stimuli so that such a feat is prohibitively difficult.

These sensory gestalt shifts are not deducible from brain state information, however accurate and timely (thought they can probably be instigated by external manipulation).

As we go forward with the large task of knowing ourselves inside and out, it should become increasingly clear that human agency is weighted, limited, real and very much expandable — its enablers, the brain, reflection, and self-reification.

I’m not so sure. Nobody denies that, absent some artificial control or physiological damage, humans have the freedom to “attend” to different objects. I can choose to focus on my foot, or my hand, or that TV over there, so long as I am not being overwhelmed by stimuli so that such a feat is prohibitively difficult.

These sensory gestalt shifts are not deducible from brain state information, however accurate and timely (thought they can probably be instigated by external manipulation).

As we go forward with the large task of knowing ourselves inside and out, it should become increasingly clear that human agency is weighted, limited, real and very much expandable — its enablers, the brain, reflection, and self-reification.

Sure, maybe. It’s very hard to predict the future hundreds of years out, of course. It is more plausible that there would be something more targeted — a machine that scans your brain and tells you whether you have a “worrying” distribution of activity, and gives advice on how to get back to a “normal” state.

We will probably find that happiness levels go up, murders go down and human actions generally change a lot. This probably isn’t stark enough to blow anyone’s mind, but it is a very fuzzy version of the same thing (treating the atoms in a person’s head as causally predictive of their actions). The difference is it wouldn’t be the “ultimate demonstration” of that causal predictiveness.

Free will is basically an encapsulation of our uncertainty about an agent’s actions, and consequent need to resort to desire/belief account of action (which can be quite predictive). Insofar as human actions will always be uncertain from the atom or neuron or brain scan point of view, we will always have some room for free will.

Another interesting scenario is if brain scans get better than humans about depicting the person’s emotional state. That gives us good predictive power, and it means that the leftover “free will” part might appear as “total randomness.”

Sure, maybe. It’s very hard to predict the future hundreds of years out, of course. It is more plausible that there would be something more targeted — a machine that scans your brain and tells you whether you have a “worrying” distribution of activity, and gives advice on how to get back to a “normal” state.

We will probably find that happiness levels go up, murders go down and human actions generally change a lot. This probably isn’t stark enough to blow anyone’s mind, but it is a very fuzzy version of the same thing (treating the atoms in a person’s head as causally predictive of their actions). The difference is it wouldn’t be the “ultimate demonstration” of that causal predictiveness.

Free will is basically an encapsulation of our uncertainty about an agent’s actions, and consequent need to resort to desire/belief account of action (which can be quite predictive). Insofar as human actions will always be uncertain from the atom or neuron or brain scan point of view, we will always have some room for free will.

Another interesting scenario is if brain scans get better than humans about depicting the person’s emotional state. That gives us good predictive power, and it means that the leftover “free will” part might appear as “total randomness.”

But what about that sci-fi movie with Tom Cruise!

If we really could take a supercomputer and predict your actions based on atoms, all hell would break loose. We would be like the remote tribe who you show them a camera and it completely blows their freaking mind. The supercomputer is not logically impossible and it could happen someday.

It’s not logically impossible, but it’s practically highly unlikely, given the enormous computing power this would take and the extremely low pay-off for systematically predicting an individual’s actions. Daniel Dennett makes the same sort of argument for the practical (but not logical) impossibility of things like truly convincing brain-in-the-vat scenarios in the beginning of Consciousness explained. The information processing capacity and continual feed-back loops necessary to achieve such a feat would be prohibitively costly and unlikely to ever be as complete or convincing as mere logical possibility would imply.

But what about that sci-fi movie with Tom Cruise!

If we really could take a supercomputer and predict your actions based on atoms, all hell would break loose. We would be like the remote tribe who you show them a camera and it completely blows their freaking mind. The supercomputer is not logically impossible and it could happen someday.

It’s not logically impossible, but it’s practically highly unlikely, given the enormous computing power this would take and the extremely low pay-off for systematically predicting an individual’s actions. Daniel Dennett makes the same sort of argument for the practical (but not logical) impossibility of things like truly convincing brain-in-the-vat scenarios in the beginning of Consciousness explained. The information processing capacity and continual feed-back loops necessary to achieve such a feat would be prohibitively costly and unlikely to ever be as complete or convincing as mere logical possibility would imply.

Sorry, partly an outcome of training. Partly native (evolutionarily developed).

Sorry, partly an outcome of training. Partly native (evolutionarily developed).

The supercomputer is not logically impossible and it could happen someday.

The moral perspective is interesting here. If we could predict people’s actions precisely, does it change morality? Well yeah it does. Game-theoretically, uncertainty has just been radically reduced. The optimal “play” now involves locking people up who are about to do something bad. Or, showing them the supercomputer results so they know they are at risk and can take some classes and otherwise “shape up” appropriately.

We already try to do this. If you commit enough crimes, we predict you will commit more so we lock you up for life. If you get a DUI, we predict you will drink more in the future so we mandate AA meetings. With a predictive supercomputer, it’s the same thing except we do it more preemptively.

This is not wrong. Society would be much improved.

The supercomputer is not logically impossible and it could happen someday.

The moral perspective is interesting here. If we could predict people’s actions precisely, does it change morality? Well yeah it does. Game-theoretically, uncertainty has just been radically reduced. The optimal “play” now involves locking people up who are about to do something bad. Or, showing them the supercomputer results so they know they are at risk and can take some classes and otherwise “shape up” appropriately.

We already try to do this. If you commit enough crimes, we predict you will commit more so we lock you up for life. If you get a DUI, we predict you will drink more in the future so we mandate AA meetings. With a predictive supercomputer, it’s the same thing except we do it more preemptively.

This is not wrong. Society would be much improved.