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0 pointsfoldr4y ago0 comments

Hmm, that’s not how I read the paper. It says:

> summary, we argue that, in order to efficiently learn from our successes or mistakes, we need to imagine that we are free. This imagined freedom is physical freedom in the simulated reality of our world model.

I don’t understand why we would need to imagine that we are free in order to engage in certain patterns of behavior. Surely we could just engage in these patterns of behavior for the reason given: that they enable us to learn efficiently.

The paper seems to conflate reasoning counterfactually with imagined freedom, but I don't think the two are so tightly linked. For example, I can reason counterfactually about what would happen under alternate laws of physics, but this doesn't mean that I (necessarily) believe that these altered laws correspond to possible states of affairs.

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raindeer24y ago

Sure, but when you reason counterfactually about what would happen under alternate laws of physics, you somehow imagine that these laws where true. You run a simulation of an alternative reality (although you know it is just a simulation). But you need to run the mental simulation, i.e., you need to imagine.

Imagining something obviously does not mean that you necessary believe it is true, but the argument is that since ppl reason counterfactual about doing things they didn't do so naturally, they confuse this imagination with their ability to actually have done differently. If you don't believe you have free will in the physical sense, then you maybe don't do this mistake, but most ppl believe they have free will.

And even if you don't believe you have free will, it arguably feels like you are free to have done differently in a lot of situations (although this is ofc very subjective).

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