FUTURES NATURE|Vol 436|7 July 2005

What’s expected of us
It’s a tough choice…

ably respond, “But

JACEY
Ted Chiang
now I know.” And
This is a warning. Please read some of them never
carefully. say anything again.
By now you’ve probably seen Some will argue
a Predictor; millions of them that the fact the Pre-
have been sold by the time dictor causes this
you’re reading this. For those change in behaviour
who haven’t seen one, it’s a means that we do have
small device, like a remote for free will. An automa-
opening your car door. Its only ton cannot become
features are a button and a big discouraged, only a
green LED. The light flashes if free-thinking entity
you press the button. Specifi- can. The fact that
cally, the light flashes one sec- some individuals
ond before you press the descend into akinetic
button. mutism whereas oth-
Most people say that when ers do not just high-
they first try it, it feels like lights the importance
they’re playing a strange game, of making a choice.
one where the goal is to press Unfortunately, such
the button after seeing the reasoning is faulty:
flash, and it’s easy to play. But every form of behav-
when you try to break the iour is compatible
rules, you find that you can’t. If with determinism.
you try to press the button One dynamic system
without having seen a flash, the flash implications of an immutable future sink might fall into a basin of attraction and
immediately appears, and no matter how in. Some people, realizing that their wind up at a fixed point, whereas another
fast you move, you never push the button choices don’t matter, refuse to make any exhibits chaotic behaviour indefinitely, but
until a second has elapsed. If you wait for choices at all. Like a legion of Bartleby the both are completely deterministic.
the flash, intending to keep from pressing Scriveners, they no longer engage in spon- I’m transmitting this warning to you
the button afterwards, the flash never taneous action. Eventually, a third of those from just over a year in your future: it’s the
appears. No matter what you do, the light who play with a Predictor must be hospi- first lengthy message received when cir-
always precedes the button press. There’s talized because they won’t feed themselves. cuits with negative delays in the mega-
no way to fool a Predictor. The end state is akinetic mutism, a kind of second range are used to build
The heart of each Predictor is a circuit waking coma. They’ll track motion with communication devices. Other messages
with a negative time delay — it sends a sig- their eyes, and change position occasion- will follow, addressing other issues. My
nal back in time. The full implications of ally, but nothing more. The ability to move message to you is this: pretend that you
the technology will become apparent later, remains, but the motivation is gone. have free will. It’s essential that you behave
when negative delays of greater than a sec- Before people started playing with Pre- as if your decisions matter, even though
ond are achieved, but that’s not what this dictors, akinetic mutism was very rare, a you know that they don’t. The reality isn’t
warning is about. The immediate problem result of damage to the anterior cingulate important: what’s important is your belief,
is that Predictors demonstrate that there’s region of the brain. Now it spreads like a and believing the lie is the only way to
no such thing as free will. cognitive plague. People used to speculate avoid a waking coma. Civilization now
There have always been arguments about a thought that destroys the thinker, depends on self-deception. Perhaps it
showing that free will is an illusion, some some unspeakable lovecraftian horror, or a always has.
based on hard physics, others based on Gödel sentence that crashes the human And yet I know that, because free will is
pure logic. Most people agree these argu- logical system. It turns out that the dis- an illusion, it’s all predetermined who will
FUTURES

ments are irrefutable, but no one ever abling thought is one that we’ve all encoun- descend into akinetic mutism and who
really accepts the conclusion. The experi- tered: the idea that free will doesn’t exist. It won’t. There’s nothing anyone can do
ence of having free will is too powerful for just wasn’t harmful until you believed it. about it — you can’t choose the effect the
an argument to overrule. What it takes is a Doctors try arguing with the patients Predictor has on you. Some of you will
demonstration, and that’s what a Predictor while they still respond to conversation. We succumb and some of you won’t, and my
provides. had all been living happy, active lives before, sending this warning won’t alter those
Typically, a person plays with a Predictor they reason, and we hadn’t had free will proportions. So why did I do it?
compulsively for several days, showing it to then either. Why should anything change? Because I had no choice. ■
friends, trying various schemes to outwit “No action you took last month was any Ted Chiang is an occasional writer of science
the device. The person may appear to lose more freely chosen than one you take fiction. His work can be found in his
interest in it, but no one can forget what it today,” a doctor might say. “You can still collection Stories of Your Life and Others,
means — over the following weeks, the behave that way now.” The patients invari- published by Pan Macmillan.
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©2005 Nature Publishing Group