Intelligent Design and the Matrix

What if we don't have free will? What if everything we do, every choice we make is predestined by our evolutionary blueprint? And what if that evolutionary blueprint was constructed over billions of years of trial and error only to finally emerge as your unique self? What if you weren't the only you, only a refined simulation of you that has evolved over  billions of years to wear hipster jeans and speak eloquently into your iPhone? What if, indeed, we are living in the Matrix?

Geeks like me have contemplated the possibility of constructed reality for years. I remember being 13 years old and arguing with the nun who was my theology teacher at my Catholic high school about the folly of free will and the logic of predestination. I'm like, "So you think that Eve eating the apple was a freakin' surprise to God?" As if....that earned me a trip to the dean's office.  And of course I liberally used the argument, "I shouldn't have to clean my room it isn't in my destiny." But you get my meaning. 

Yet billionaire futurist Elon Musk says there's a "one in billions shot," that we're not living in a computer simulation and suddenly the world is all a flutter about whether we're actually who we think we are. 

The concept of free will is sexy. It's even necessary in a society that wants to keep anarchy at bay and order in the forefront. I mean, imagine what this world would would be like if everyone assumed that whatever choice they made it was predestined and they didn't have a choice not to make it.

Murder would be acceptable. Rape would be understood. And pedophiles wouldn't be so reviled. Whether you believe it's genes or binary code, the argument, "Nature made me this way,"or "The Computer Creators wanted me this way," could be used to explain even the most despicable of acts. 

Computer simulation or biological evolution could be the ultimately get-out-of-jail-free card. 

But an article in this month's The Atlantic posits a different view...
The article describes an experiment done by psychologists that looked at human behavior in the context of disbelief in free agency. Such talk is blasphemy ironically in both religious and scientific circles. But I found the experiment intriguing. Read the article for the dirty details but basically they split folks up into two groups. One group read information denoting the fallacy of free will. Another read a more neutral take. Then both groups were subjected to a series of choices that could go either way - moral or immoral. 

The study found that folks who read about free will being eliminated cheated on a math test, stole more money than they needed from a coin pile etc., Basically, 

It seems when people stop believing they are free agents they stop seeing themselves as blameworthy for their actions. 

No surprise there. I mean if you didn't have to deal with blame what kind of decisions would you make? It's no wonder that guilt, not love, is one of the biggest weapons in religion against immorality. Think about it. Every base desire we'd like to appease the institutions of our society has repressed from sex, to greed, to drugs name your vice and you'll find a diatribe against it. Consequences to action, your life your choice become mantras. And I totally get that. 

The notion of everyone being "woke," about their lack of free will is disastrous for society, so they say let's keep the illusion going. 

While I'm not sure Musk is exactly correct that we're the product of a computer simulation, I am inclined to believe that our life has been designed. You can't look at the stem cell transfer process, especially what happens when you use the miracle embryonic stem cell and not see a well, ordered biological network of design. There is order to how we are constructed. There is order to the way our world is designed. But even so, I do not think that order is finite. I do believe that design can be overcome. 

As the article states, "determinism and fatalism," are not the same. Are lives may be predetermined by genetics (or computer code) but our fate is still our own. And everything about human and natural evolution over the years has affirmed this. 

I mean what's up with dark matter? How did we learn to talk? Where in the world did walking on two from come from? And just why are our brains so darn big? All of these are anomalies in the design of biological evolution. And yet here we are. 

Just like Neo in the Matrix, I'm inclined to believe that no matter who well-constructed our world is, nature will just find a way to be different. Is that predetermined. Maybe. But it's sure of a lot more fun trying to engineer that difference with innovation and design rather than accepting a predestined fate isn't it?