> You are a state machine. As time moves, you have no choice but to choose, and this is entirely dependent on your previous state and your current environment.
This makes sense. There's no choice unless there's a dimension (some state variable) that can we can move in. We have stuff that can be state (matter and energy) and dimension (time) to move in.
In terms of state, my argument is that choice is a core piece of 'me' and 'you'. I don't know how to make an effective argument for the separateness of choice and state, but I think it makes sense to consider them as separate things. We possess state like we possess the space we exist in, in time. You could say that your choices are like driving a car. Navigating streets (or offroad!) is like choosing from possible states.
I think we're in agreement, except that I believe that whatever capacity you have for choice is also stored as state. What you call state and choice, I might call state and procedures. Both are stored in the substrate of the brain as state, just like data structures and the code that operates on them are both stored as data.
This makes sense. There's no choice unless there's a dimension (some state variable) that can we can move in. We have stuff that can be state (matter and energy) and dimension (time) to move in.
In terms of state, my argument is that choice is a core piece of 'me' and 'you'. I don't know how to make an effective argument for the separateness of choice and state, but I think it makes sense to consider them as separate things. We possess state like we possess the space we exist in, in time. You could say that your choices are like driving a car. Navigating streets (or offroad!) is like choosing from possible states.