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Notes -
Mmm, yes, we mostly agree. I think the difference is in our understanding of the term "agent"
for me the agent is the construct that makes choices and does things. When I think "agent" I think reinforcement learners selecting a policy. I think min-max searching through a game tree. A human agent becomes a different agent if you separate it from its cybernetics. That is- the policy I follow is inextricably linked to the tools I have for processing information about the world. My collective systems output different choices about what to eat if my collective systems include internet access.
You could destroy most of my agency by removing all of my cybernetics and putting me in solitary confinement. But I would still have qualia. So qualia and agency seem highly separable to me. Agency is about processing information and outputting choices in the pursuit of a goal. qualia is about having an experience.
And the stuff about identity... It doesn't really matter if I'm a brain in a jar and this body is a remote controlled robot, or if I'm a brain in this body. What matters is how the brain is hooked up to the things it controls and how it sees itself as being able to control them and having goals relating to them. So in theory- a brain can be hooked up to Germany and see itself as Germany- and then it really would be Germany. In reality there is no such brain hooked up like that. But there are millions of brains hooked up in tiny ways like that such that each of them really is a little piece of Germany. I agree that it's a different architecture of agency. So it's not 'the kind of agency that you or I have' but it's the same category in my ontology... They're both agency to me.
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