Look Who it Was Random video

Free Will - David Pearce

1,556 views · Published 9 June 2014 · 3:21 · Indexed 6 November 2026

Channel: Science, Technology & the Future · 2014 · Science & Technology

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Free-will, no. But a mind/brain identity theory, yes.... http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-08-brain-refutes-results-earlier-free.html
 
I don't think free will can be rescued. If I had to play devil's advocate, I might suggest that the values of the fundamental physical parameters that define our world are the collective outcome of the behaviour of all agents - with a posthuman superbeing playing a greater role than a mouse. (cf. http://physicsworld.com/cws/article/news/2012/aug/03/can-the-future-affect-the-past )
But for all sorts of reasons, I don't think this conjecture will fly.

My working assumption is that everything that exists is formally described by the continuous, linear, unitary deterministic evolution of the universal wavefunction. So the appearance of indeterminism naturally arises within any given quasi-classical Everett branch. Yet we've no grounds for thinking human agency within such a branch can bring about deviations from the Born rule. So no free will.
That said, I wish I knew what is really going on.

Presumably one could choose to act in such a way as one's behaviour is unpredictable even by posthuman superintelligence (e.g. become a quantum analogue of the Dice Man, using radioactive decay rather than classical dice to determine the key decisions of one's life
(cf. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Dice_Man )
But this isn't quite what one normally thinks of as free will. And even classical systems can exhibit deterministic chaos in the sense of extreme sensitivity to initial conditions that makes their behaviour unpredictable.

"Pearce is arguing for the final possibility. For this to occur, it would be necessary that the "new humans" not intentionally make the lives of others difficult, more importantly that they have not the capacity to do so. While "transhumans" can understand oppression, and cruelty, they cannot engage in it. With this death of "free will" Pearce argues that "morality in the contemporary sense may no longer be needed when suffering has been cured." These new humans cannot strive for power over others, indeed they have no need to do so, for they already experience gratifications greater than those with a "lust for power" were striving for." - http://huxley.net/mccormick

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