[vbit]

I think I'm in camp #2, and I lost you at 'but if you were a different you, and made a different decision..'. If your thoughts and actions are fated, how can you be a different you? Or try harder? Isn't all that fated? First you tell me that I don't have real choice, but then you tell me to exercise that choice.

[dllthomas]

The "if" in "if you were a different you" is meant as a hypothetical counterfactual. My point is that the outcome is a function of (you, stuff that isn't you) - not, as in classical determinism, (stuff that isn't you). There is certainly a sense in which you "couldn't have been" a different you. But that doesn't change the fact that - insofar as there is a you - your actions and the results thereof follow from that you. That the you that is follows from other things is immaterial in regard to 2 (it is material in regard to 1).

It boils down to this - what is a choice? I would contend that you do have a real choice and that the choice is made by you - again, insofar as there is a "you". It just happens to be the case (assuming determinism) that one could know what that choice was going to be, if they possessed more knowledge than anyone actually has.

[vbit]

> That the you that is follows from other things is immaterial in regard to 2 (it is material in regard to 1).

I don't see it that way. The you that is follows from the (you, stuff that isn't you) at the previous moment. Your actions and the results are both a consequence of the previous (you, stuff that isn't you).

In other words, I'm having trouble differentiating you from the stuff that isn't you. I just imagine the world is a giant mechanical machine, churning along according to some physical laws, where the you is just a conscious entity that identifies itself with small subset of atoms in the machine and believes it can affect the movement of those atoms.

[dllthomas]

You're arguing that there isn't a "you". Sure, you're not a first order entity in the universe. When you do draw some line and say "this is me" - which is completely appropriate (if partly arbitrary) - and around particular events that you call actions, the actions taken by you depend on you, which is the important thing in 2.

[vbit]

Well I'm arguing that determinism implies there may be a conscious you, but there can't be a you that has choice. Anyway, I think I see what you are getting at and can accept that as a philosophical position even though I don't hold it. It has to do with the partly arbitrary line defining you. It also seems you are suggesting we look at the world from two different angles - one that is purely deterministic and one that has the concept of you and your choices, their results etc.

[dllthomas]

Close. My point is that the system is only deterministic if you include all the information, including who you are. From the outside, that is determined, but you can't pretend to a perspective you don't have. From the inside, you make your choices however you make them and they have the impacts they have.