Entries in Life

We’re pattern seekers. We want there to be order in the world. We humans want order so much that we’ll see an organizing force where, in reality, there is none. That was how I explained “Voodoo Histories: The Role of the Conspiracy Theory in Shaping Modern History” to a friend of mine when I was half-way through it. But, even knowing that, I’m not immune from the seductive draw of the conspiracy. In fact, I love a good conspiracy. Conspiracies, as David Aaronovitch points out, make it all fit. Where we’re overwhelmed with sadness or loss when a president or princess is killed, we seek, perversely, some sort of comfort in the idea that they had it all planned out — that there was a bigger purpose behind it all instead of a lone gunman or a drunk driver who could cause the world so much harm. Aaronovitch starts Voodoo Histories by explaining that the application of Occam’s Razor to every conspiracy theory he writes about will show that there is some far simpler explanation for what happened than a hidden, all-powerful hand. And he succeeds, showing us that a skeptical approach to the larger conspiracy theories, such as JFK’s assassination, Dan Brown‘s novels, the Truthers on the left, or the Birthers on the right, reveals that a more mundane, simpler explanation of the facts is better at explaining what happened. And just in case these conspiracy theories are too close to your heart, this British writer produces a couple of British MPs who’ve championed theories saying “someone” had murdered people and then covered it up. Watching his dissection of these and other conspiracy theories I hadn’t heard of showed how much in common all these conspiracy theories have with each other. And, in the end, it makes it easier to accept that, maybe, just maybe, my pet conspiracy theory is just benign happenstance rather than a very successful plot. History may be written by the winners, but in the final chapter Aaronovitch makes a good case that conspiracy theories are the attempts of the losers write history. “We didn’t win,” they seem to be saying, “because the winners are so devious, conniving, and powerful. They’ll do anything to win.” So we’re comforted that if we didn’t persuade people that George W. Bush and Dick Cheney were really nefarious individuals, at least we kept our morals, at least we were ethical. They were successful because they managed to deceive the sheeple.

Why am I cursed with a love of philosophical discussion? Or, if I were more honest, I would say I’m cursed with a love of philosophical monologue — I keep doing it even though I get little to no response.

But in any case, I once again find the 140 characters that Twitter allows too few to express my thoughts adequately. So here goes.

Over on Identi.ca (an open source, de-centralized version of Twitter), I got into a discussion with @teddks about the god that both he and I don’t believe in. But don’t worry, that’s not the discussion I want to talk about here.

While talking to @teddks about all this I made a statement about free will that John Goerzen picked up on. After a little back-n-forth, John asked (and here I translate freely from the twitterese he used):

What you’re saying has echos of John Stuart Mill’s Utilitarianism where he said “It is better to be a human being dissatisfied than a pig satisfied; better to be Socrates dissatisfied than a fool satisfied. And if the fool, or the pig, are of a different opinion, it is because they only know their own side of the question.” Is unhappy knowledge better than blissful ignorance?

Now, I hadn’t read anything about John Stuart Mill’s Utilitarianism. So I did what anyone who’s mildly curious would do: I read the Wikipedia article.
After that quick read, it looks like Mill’s Utilitarianism is a distraction. Sure, I can see the similarities between “if free will doesn’t objectively exist, it won’t affect my choice to believe that it does” and “it is better to be a human being dissatisfied than a pig satisfied”, but I don’t really think its relevant.

Instead, my point is existentialist: who cares about theories of reality when they don’t match our own experience of reality? Even if you don’t believe that free will actually exists, you still make choices.

Dwelling on the proof of free will is, itself, a distraction. Don’t get me wrong: acceptance of free-will is important — it affects the choices we make. But proving or dis-proving it existence is futile. We’ll still end up making choices.

To me, the interesting bit is how often we’ve re-visited the argument for or against free will. Before classical physics, men developed systematic theologies that relied on God’s omnipotence to eliminate the possibility of (at least some) choice.

The we got Newtonian physics which, taken to its natural conclusion, seems to say that everything is predictable. Take a snapshot of a system (even, say, your brain) and you can predict with precision any future state. In other words, if you know all the variables, you know the future.

Now-a-days we have quantum physics — something I don’t pretend to understand at all — but it seems to allow some sort of free will.

Even without quantum, though, we can’t model all the variables. The future is unknowable. The choices others will make can’t be predicted. Our own choices are still, effectively, our own.

As a result, isn’t it best to believe in free will and act as if it exists? Believing in our own ability to affect change in the world empowers us. Denying free will seems to lead us to nihilism — something I’m not too excited about.