Before someone says "in mice", I think this highlights a philosophy nerd point that I'm interested in. The free will debates will never end, but I do think findings like this are important for the compatibilist approach. A major intuition that drives libertarian free will is that there's a "you" which is one thing, and then all those clicking and clacking billiard balls of physics which are a separate thing.
But if you can credit the physical system with real decision making, e.g. taking in sensory input, modeling the world, weighing alternative incentives, considering consequences, carrying out choices with signals sent out to the limbs, doing it according to your preferences and values, that's a "you" that's making real choices. You can shift the intuition and identify with that. The mental events you experience are you immersed in that process of informational canvassing and deliberating and decision making.
Super determinism treats that like it makes no difference to the ultimate question of determinism. But I think it's in meaningful contrast to characterizations that treat the choices like they're not you, and treat "you" like an epiphenomenon along for the ride. Which is a real distinction. If we can see and model actual deliberations (even if in mice), it seems like that counts in favor of the "you" being in there, in the physical stuff.
Before someone says "in mice", I think this highlights a philosophy nerd point that I'm interested in. The free will debates will never end, but I do think findings like this are important for the compatibilist approach. A major intuition that drives libertarian free will is that there's a "you" which is one thing, and then all those clicking and clacking billiard balls of physics which are a separate thing.
But if you can credit the physical system with real decision making, e.g. taking in sensory input, modeling the world, weighing alternative incentives, considering consequences, carrying out choices with signals sent out to the limbs, doing it according to your preferences and values, that's a "you" that's making real choices. You can shift the intuition and identify with that. The mental events you experience are you immersed in that process of informational canvassing and deliberating and decision making.
Super determinism treats that like it makes no difference to the ultimate question of determinism. But I think it's in meaningful contrast to characterizations that treat the choices like they're not you, and treat "you" like an epiphenomenon along for the ride. Which is a real distinction. If we can see and model actual deliberations (even if in mice), it seems like that counts in favor of the "you" being in there, in the physical stuff.