[ExI] Social implications of widespread extropian/positivist ideals

[Christopher Luebcke]

Will: "Free will" isn't something that you can do away with. If it's real, it's not going to become fictional. If it's unreal, then there's nothing to do away with.

What could be a better argument for the existence of free will than to assert that people will behave differently if they believe they don't have one? Seriously, you're proposing that people are going to make decisions because they've decided that they don't make decisions?

Jeff: Aside from the problem of defining "will", in what sense one might have "will", what it would mean for one's "will" to be "free", and what it would be for one's "will" not to be "free", anyone can assert that free will is a fiction because that statement, if true, would have absolutely zero consequences for anybody. I can equally assert that free will is a fact, because the statement has an undefined term as its subject and makes no verifiable claims.


________________________________
From: Jeffery P. Davis <heavensblade23 at gmail.com>
To: ExI chat list <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org>
Sent: Fri, March 5, 2010 12:45:23 PM
Subject: Re: [ExI] Social implications of widespread extropian/positivist ideals




>
>Problem 2 (Post-Thinkularity):  Are there unforeseen complications with the entire world doing away with free will and all that stuff associated with positivism?  Might we see an increase in crimes because people see that they are no longer bound by choice (heh, bound by choice)?  And will the relatively "cold" mindset associated with science in comparison to religion cause more people to lose their proverbial marbles?
>


I see a bit of a contradiction here.  If people don't make choices, then how can they can choose to become murderers after we do away with the fiction of free-will?

Free will may be a fiction, but it's a useful fiction.


-- 
"This is a war universe. War all the time. That is its nature. There may be other universes based on all sorts of other principles, but ours seems to be based on war and games. All games are basically hostile. Winners and losers. We see them all around us: the winners and the losers. The losers can oftentimes become winners, and the winners can very easily become losers.."
- William S. Burroughs 
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