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What We Owe The Future: Difference between revisions
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It is a situation of ''[[doubt]]'', not ''risk''. Here, expectation theory is ''worthless. This is a good thing.'' | It is a situation of ''[[doubt]]'', not ''risk''. Here, expectation theory is ''worthless. This is a good thing.'' | ||
===About that thought experiment=== | ===About that thought experiment=== | ||
MacAskill came to his thesis courtesy of | MacAskill came to his thesis courtesy of the thought experiment mentioned above: imagine living the life of every being that has habited the planet since mitochondrial Eve up to the present day. This gives us an idea of our own utter contingency, and of the present’s microscopic insignificance in the Grand Scheme, relative to the hundred billion who have gone before and the putative trillions yet to come. Despite our insignificance we are here, disproportionately empowered to affect the future. | ||
This, I think, gives the game away. | The idea chimes for a moment and then falls apart This, I think, gives the game away. For this is to see present existence as no more than the task of cranking the ’’right’’ handle on the cosmic machinery, to vouchsafe a calculable outcome. But it is nothing of the sort. This is as misconceived as is [[Richard Dawkins]]’ absurd idea that a fielder does, or even ''could'', functionally calculate differential equations to catch a ball. | ||
The thought experiment betrays is an unflinchingly deterministic world-view: the universe is a clockwork machine to be set and configured. Take readings, perform calculations, twiddle dials, progress to the designated place and hold out your hand, at the appointed time the ball fill drop into it. | |||
This is obvious nonsense. Set in opposition to the [[heuristic]], [[iterative]], provisional mode of behaving that characterises any evolving organism in an ecosystem. Here it is in a nutshell, the great distinction between [[reductionism]] and [[pragmatism]]. | |||
=== An infinity of possibilities === | === An infinity of possibilities === | ||
We can manufacture plausible stories about whence we came easily enough: that’s what scientists and historians do, though they have a hard time agreeing with each other. But where we are ''going'' is a different matter. We don’t have the first clue. [[Evolution by natural selection|Evolution]] makes no predictions. Alternative possibilities branch every which way. Over a generation or two we have some dim prospect of anticipating who our progeny might be and what they might want. [[Darwin’s Dangerous Idea|Darwin’s dangerous algorithm]] wires us, naturally, to do this. | We can manufacture plausible stories about whence we came easily enough: that’s what scientists and historians do, though they have a hard time agreeing with each other. But where we are ''going'' is a different matter. We don’t have the first clue. [[Evolution by natural selection|Evolution]] makes no predictions. Alternative possibilities branch every which way. Over a generation or two we have some dim prospect of anticipating who our progeny might be and what they might want. [[Darwin’s Dangerous Idea|Darwin’s dangerous algorithm]] wires us, naturally, to do this. | ||