**Links to**: [[Choice]], [[Infinity]], [[Decision]], [[Line]], [[Linearity]], [[Non-linearity]], [[Cut]], [[Clinamen]], [[Mathematics]], [[Communication]], [[Xpectator]], [[Agency]], [[A distinction is a decision]].
We do not adhere to the colloquial concepts of _choice_ or _decision_, which by and large appear to frame [[Xpectator]]s as voluntarist agents, but we define them as:
### [[Postulate]]: A “decision”^[The etymology of which bottoms out at _cut._] is a word we tend to use to designate _a specific (but fuzzy) segment of time_ during which momentum towards change is attentionally concentrated, and results in the making of a “choice.” A “choice”^[The etymology of which bottoms out at _taste,_ see also: [[Aesthetic interest]] and [[Taste]].] is a word we tend to use to either reduce possibility spaces (“either a or b”) or designate the result of a decision (“a choice was made”). Either way, decisions/choices are simply the attentional moment something changes (bifurcation, swerve, difference, cut, veering, etc.), and are by no means voluntary as they ensue from countless necessarily inaccessible (pre)conditions (when understanding time as linear).
**See also**: [[A distinction is a decision]], as [[Xpectator]]s navigate experience in accordance with their generative model.
### [[L. E. J. Brouwer]]’s _choice sequences_:
Constructivist mathematics relies on the idea of [[Perspective]] and [[Decision]]: a [[Xpectator]] makes choice sequences. If I know what a sequence is, it must mean I am suspending my disbelief about what preceded it and followed it. We do this with everything we consider, precisely because we need to exclude other things from our attention in order to consider **a**, **b**, etc. (See? “Etc.” excludes).
Let’s say we have a sequence of natural numbers: {1, 2, 3}. The “problem” or question emerges when we have to suspend our disbelief about possibilities much larger than this, this is why we do this: “...”. But that’s anything but innocent.
#todo
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“Let's imagine that we can do something indefinitely“ that sounds like impossible, theological, etc. to NJ Wildberger, see Math debate Daniel Rubin podcast episode min 35 (and earlier)
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Below are loose notes to be commented upon. #todo
### Improvisation
>Decision—Choice. Another distinction made by [[Heidegger]], one that saturates the whole text to come. Once again, it is the concern with the event of improvisation rather than improvised situations that turns the discussion away from the “free” choices that are made “in the moment,” toward the a priori decisive moment that grounds the possibility of these choices. Everything in this book is trying to bring this decisive moment into view and, even better, into focus: a failure no doubt, but hopefully a glorious one.
>
Gary Peters, 2009, p. 4 [[Improvising Improvisation]].
>This prior commitment (_decision_) ensures that the subsequent _choices_ made at the moment of performance within the micro-space of the part must be understood as diversification rather than differentiation, the latter being the product of _in-decision_.
>
>(ibid. p. 58).
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### [[Kierkegaard]] and choice anxiety
>What passed by innocence as the nothing of anxiety has now entered into Adam, and here again it is a nothing — the anxious possibility of being _able_. He has no conception of what he is able to do; otherwise — and this is what usually happens — that which comes late, the difference between good and evil, would have to be presupposed. Only the possibility of being able is present as a higher form of ignorance, as a higher expression of anxiety, because in a higher sense it both is and is not, because in a higher sense he both loves it and flees from it.
>After the word of prohibition follows the word of judgment: “You shall certainly die.” Naturally, Adam does not know what it means to die. On the other hand, there is nothing to prevent him from having acquired a notion of the terrifying, for even animals can understand the mimic expression and movement in the voice of a speaker without understanding the word. If the prohibition is regarded as awakening the desire, the punishment must also be regarded as awakening the notion of the deterrent. This, however, will only confuse things. In this case, the terror is simply anxiety. Because Adam has not understood what was spoken, there is nothing but the ambiguity of anxiety. The infinite possibility of being able that was awakened by the prohibition now draws closer, because this possibility points to a possibility as its sequence.
>In this way, innocence is brought to its uttermost. In anxiety it is related to the forbidden and to the punishment. Innocence is not guilty, yet there is anxiety as though it were lost.
>In:_The Concept of Anxiety_, pp. 44–45.
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![[Morgenbesser choice1.png]]
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### [[Ground]] and [[Choice]]
SEP [[Nelson Goodman]]: “In fact, Goodman was quite aware that [[Carnap]]’s work was itself anti-foundationalist in the same respect as his. Already in his dissertation thesis A Study of Qualities (which was later developed into The Structure of Appearance), Goodman writes:
>[…] Carnap has made it clear that what we take as ground elements [for a constitutional system] is a matter of choice. They are not dignified as the atomic units from which others must be built; they simply constitute one possible starting point. […] In choosing erlebs, Carnap is plainly seeking to approximate as closely as possible what he regards the original epistemological state […] Yet whether it does so or not is no test of the system. […] Hence […] argument concerning whether the elements selected are really primitive in knowledge is extraneous to the major purpose of the system. (SQ, 96–98).”
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### On deliberation and decision-making
>To consider an action is precisely to chain it through a series of mediations, to filter and parse it. It’s important to note that the reactionary approach smothers one’s internal complexity, ultimately reducing an agent to a mere billiard ball. When treated as an ideal, immediacy necessarily involves the suppression of consciousness and thus of choice.
>The problem with collective decision-making isn’t that the discrete deliberative bodies involved process information or ponder choices, but that such arrangements are ridiculously inefficient at it compared to individual autonomy: an embrace of the full agency of their constituents. A more organic network of reflective individuals would provide more choice — that is to say more freedom.
>
>Gillis, 2017: https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/center-for-a-stateless-society-anarchy-and-democracy
We do not follow this proposal. What is “inefficient” here? All philosophy, all science, all dialogue, is incredibly inefficient. It **needs to be** for care, consideration to ensue at a pace that can carry the collective.
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### Davidson and agency
#todo
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### Information, difference that makes a difference
[[Shannon-Weaver]], Shannon section, p. 36 in “The Mathematical Theory of Communication” ![[Pasted image 20221129125336.png]]
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