"Free will is dead. It died, along with uncertainty, sometime around 2265."
The speaker, a tall, gangly man in his late forties, looked evenly at the small group seated around him in the classroom, expecting a challenge to his provocative statement. There was silence, and finally he pushed them, "What no response? Are you all telling me that you accept the Consortium's dictum? They tell us every day that they can predict with granular detail down to the individual level what each and every one of us is going to do on any given day and in response to any given event."
"It's true you know," he continued. "Their data banks have detailed genetic and life experience data on every person on this planet, which in combination with the flow of data in the web allows them to predict how long you will live, what you will die from, including accidents, and where your demise will occur. Hell, they can tell you whom you are going to date next month, even if you haven't met him or her yet, when you are going to catch a cold, whether you are going to buy new clothes next month, in what style, and from whom. It's not just you they know about. It's every person you know and every person you will come in contact with. You are just an infinitesimally small part of a giant matrix algebra set that the Consortium's computers are solving and re-solving on an instantaneous basis while making adjustments to the inputs such as you continuously to assure an overall all outcome in accordance with the pre-imposed requirement--a smoothly functioning planet of 10 million people. Doesn't that bother anyone?"
More silence. Finally, a young man sitting at the fringe of the group spoke up. "No it doesn't particularly bother me," he said, "as long as they don't tell me in advance." There was a low chuckle around the room in response to the second part of his statement.
That brought a young woman named Rachael to her feet. Rachel was about five and a half feet tall with a mass of dark curly hair, large, dark, brown eyes, and an olive complexion. Her hips were a bit broader than she would have preferred but her narrow waist and substantial bosom more than made up for the breadth of her hips. She didn't think of herself as attractive but the second looks she got from men as she walked about the campus should have told her otherwise. "What?" she exclaimed. "How can you say that? Do you mean to say that you are content to live your life while the Consortium manipulates your exposures to maximize its return?"
"Yeah, sure," the young man responded. "I didn't get into Harvard, but I did go to a good college, got a good job, a beautiful wife, and a cute baby. If the Consortium is controlling me and getting me those kinds of outcomes, I hope they keep it up."
"So Sam, how would you feel if the computers' read of your genetic code had concluded that you weren't smart enough for college and sent you off to dig ditches when you were 18?" Rachel asked.
"I likely would be too dumb to care," he responded generating a loud laugh from the rest of the group. "Besides most ditch diggers just stand and watch a backhoe do the real work."
Rachael was silent through the group's chuckle at Sam's humor, but it was obvious she was doing a slow burn. The moderator of the discussion looked on in silence, apparently satisfied with the debate he had provoked.
"Did you ever try digging ditches all day long, Sam?" Rachael asked with a sneer.
"No, but I doubt if you did either, Rachael. As I recall, you did go to Harvard."
"Where I went to college has nothing to do with it," Rachael responded, a little defensively. "You're just being a patrician snob because you were programed to go to college and others weren't."
The moderator interrupted, speaking softly, "Let's try not to have this debate at a personal level. We can debate this on an intellectual basis. First let me ask if someone could help us understand what we mean when we use the term 'free will'."
More silence.
The moderator, wondering to himself why he had agreed to moderate a conversation among such a group of intellectual luddites, finally proposed, "Can we agree that free will is the capacity of an individual to make decisions about his actions before they are taken, which originate within the individual and are not controlled by someone or something else?"
Rachel spoke up again, "Yes that is one of thousands of definitions of free will that philosophers dating back to the ancient Greeks have proposed."
"And what is the problem with it?" the moderator asked.
Now Sam spoke up again. "It is incompatible with the concept of scientific determinism."
"Tell us what you mean by scientific determinism?"
"It is the fundamental theory of science that every event has a cause and can therefore be predicted, if we just understand how things work well enough."
"Okay, and how is that idea inconsistent with free will?"
Now Rachael responded, "If every event is determinable before it occurs, the individual has no choice about how she is going to act in a given situation. It is predetermined by her genes and her life experiences, which have in turn been controlled for her by the Consortium."
"And how does that relate to the statement I made when I opened this little meeting?"
Sam spoke up now. "You said free will was dead and that it died when uncertainty was eliminated in the early part of the 23rd century. That must mean that you believe that the ancient debate between the opposing notions of scientific determinism and free will has been resolved in favor of the former."
"True, and I named a specific date didn't I? What happened in 2135, and how did it relate to the question we are debating?"
Silence again.
"Really? No one knows what happened in 2135?"
Rachael spoke up with a pained expression arising from stating the obvious, "2135 was the year in which the half dozen remaining major corporate entities in the world combined into a single organization known as the Consortium and it in turn combined with all three of the remaining governmental bodies. From that date on everything in the world of any significance was owned and regulated by one centralized organization."
"What else?"
"The Consortium, prior to its acquisition of government, had developed massive data bases containing detailed information on virtually every person in the world. The combination of the application of big data, as it was then called, and the analytical principals that the members of the Consortium had developed were combined with the power of the government entities over the population of earth in a way that allowed one entity to predict the actions at the most granular level possible of every individual on earth and to make decisions about how that individual was to be treated on the basis of those predictions even though the actions predicted had not yet occurred. That allows the Consortium to take 'corrective action' long before an individual takes an action the Consortium deems undesirable. So, if the computers predict that our friend Sam here is going to murder his wife with an axe in a fit of jealous rage five years from now, the Consortium can put him in jail or otherwise 'reprogram' him so the murder doesn't occur. Similar action can be taken to keep his wife from having the affair that would touch off Sam's murderous rage."
"I would never do that, nor would my wife!" Sam interrupted.
"Relax Sam," the moderator said. "It's merely a hypothetical. We all know you wouldn't murder your wife."
"Because you won't get the chance," Rachael retorted. "And as to your wife, she won't get the chance to have an affair either, but what makes you think you know so much about what she would do if she could act without intervention by the Consortium?"
"You're implying my wife would cheat on me!" Sam said in real anger.
"Stop it. You're getting off track," the moderator interrupted. "So Rachael, do you agree that free will is dead?"
"No, we just have infinitely effective cops."
The group laughed.
Sam said, "But you have to admit, it makes for a much more efficient and smooth society--no more murders, robberies, suicides, and so on. The economy runs smoothly also--no more bouts of inflation or massive economic downturns."
"I don't have to admit anything," Rachel said, maintaining her combative attitude. "Actually, I think it makes for a very boring society. We have to read Hemingway and Shakespeare to understand how people really work when left to their own devices and, after several hundred years of being programed, we are getting to the point where no one believes that Lady Macbeth could have existed. We've taken the passion out of life."
"Ah hah, a very interesting point," the moderator said, looking at his watch. It's one that should be explored in much greater depth than we have time for now. I think that's enough for today. Your assignment for next week is to read Macbeth and to come prepared to discuss the passion in the play and where we find its equivalent in our society today."
"No place!" Rachael grumbled under her breath as she gathered up her things. She was on her feet headed for the door, and most of the rest of the group had already filed out when she heard the instructor call out, "Rachael can I see you for just a moment?"
She turned and walked toward him, "What is it, Professor Richards?"
"You seem to feel pretty strongly about today's topic?"
Rachael smiled. "Yeah, I guess I do."
"Your perspective is a bit different from the rest of the class."
"Well, it's different than Sam's, but I don't think the rest of the class has a perspective on the issue. At least that's the impression I get based on their participation level."
The professor laughed. "Yes, that's one of the problems with trying to teach this material. Most people are simply so satisfied with their lives that they just don't care. You have to give Sam credit, at least for the fact that he seems to care, even if he disagrees with you."
"Harrumph!" Rachel snorted in response.
"Okay, okay. That's not really what I wanted to talk to you about," the Professor said, obviously wanting to change the subject. Let me ask you a series of questions that goes a bit further than I wanted to try to take the class today. The first few will seem obvious to you, but bear with me for a bit.
"If you and I have no free will to determine our own actions, who is directing them? I mean, who made sure you didn't just haul off and smack Sam today when you got disgusted with him?"
"Why the Consortium of course. They programmed me when I was growing up never to break the bounds of civil discourse."
