I think we're at risk of a category error somewhere in here. Couterfactuals are not merely temporal, they're also spatial. So, the conception of "modify an agent" need not be some sort of arrow of time, teleological thing. "Modify an agent" can mean something like: There are 2 spatially distant agents, <X,Y>, that are similar in measure M. X interacts with a "modifier" Z and Y does not. M(X|¬Z) = M(Y) & M(X|Z) ≠ M(Y).
So this question of being modified by is (or can be) irrelevant to the concept of choice. On 4/5/21 11:06 AM, jon zingale wrote: > "Does better living through chemicals modify an agent? Well, I'm certainly > a caffeine addict." > > ...and from the point of view of determinism, it would not have been any > other way. A fact of the world. -- ↙↙↙ uǝlƃ - .... . -..-. . -. -.. -..-. .. ... -..-. .... . .-. . FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Zoom Fridays 9:30a-12p Mtn GMT-6 bit.ly/virtualfriam un/subscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ archives: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/
