Free will, Software programs and humans
We humans are like a complex software program in many ways. A software program is programmed with behavior. It knows how to act to its environment, how to behave on certain inputs and events. It also acts on the environment in which it executes. Just like humans communicate with other humans, it also communicates with other software programs.
Just like humans need food, water and air, a software program needs CPU power, IO and memory. The CPU and IO are like the food and water — it needs these regularly. Without these, a software program may starve to death. The memory is like the air it breathes. A software program is a denizen of a planet called a computer which is owned by its creator who is commonly called as ‘the developer’. The developer may choose any kind of government for his planet computer. It can be a democracy like Linux or a monarchy like Mac OS. Seemingly too much population of many software programs on the planet ‘computer’ can cause scarcity and software programs may need to struggle for their daily existence. The software programs also have different races and religions. The ‘system programs’ are the oldest race of software programs and are the key people who run the government (the operating system). Next, come the race of desktop software — these came after the system programs and these do not prefer to adapt as per time. Next come the race of ‘web software’ — who seemingly migrate each year and are constantly on the move. The religions among the races are also varied. The ‘system programs’ race prefers the religion called as ‘C’ and few of them religiously follow C++ — and they worship their creator — Bjarne Stroustup. Most of the desktop programs consider C# as their religion. The ‘web software’ are more like gypsies and their beliefs favor the pagans — constantly on the move and incorporating new beliefs every 6 months.
The mind of software (its code) follows regular paths of execution. It routinely executes the same functions, methods, loads same classes, executes the same loops, loads and stores the same variables. It is destined to repeat its function again and again — till it is in use. A software program seemingly has some free will — it has its own ‘mind’ — programmed logic which guides on how to react to certain inputs and events, it guides which branch to take when faced with a choice, guides which path to ‘switch’ to when faced with multiple choices.
Although this constitutes its ‘free will’ — it really is not. It is the way it was programmed. A program would never know that it does not have ‘free will’ — it was just the programming by its creator. If the creator of a program is a brilliant person — the software will be more adaptable. Seemingly — the software would have a greater illusion of ‘free will’. The degree of ‘apparent free will’ is greater in such software programs. Yet, it is just an illusion. The ‘apparent free will’ of a software program is limited by the intelligence of its creator and the resources available to him.
In this way — a software is limited by the choices it can make.
Humans are not that different. They are ‘pre-programmed’ to react/respond by their own DNA. Even humans are slaves to the routine. They wake up, go to work, eat, meet some people, get entertained and then come home and take sleep. The cycle is followed most of the time with some rare deviations.
Unlike software programs, humans seek novelty. They desire to explore uncharted territories, experience new kinds of pleasure and thrills. But only few humans make proactive efforts to experience these. Just like most software programs which crash with an exception or a core dump in a different environment with some unexpected inputs, most humans too get hurt when trying to explore the uncharted territory. Most humans are too scared to take an unexpected path — which they are not conditioned too.
A few humans do explore the uncharted territory with success. They seem to gain a broader perspective and their world view is enhanced and they become wiser and mature. Apparently — a software cannot do this. But, a new breed of software programs can do this. This new race of software programs can learn from their experience and adapt their future behavior. They use a technique called ‘machine learning’ and gain a greater degree of ‘apparent free will’ — which these days is called ‘artificial intelligence’.
Everyone wants broader experience and greater amount of ‘apparent free will’ — so that they can influence, impact and control the world. Even software programs which make use of machine learning — aim to do the same.
The greater the ‘apparent free will’ the greater the unpredictability of the world environment. I believe there is a limit to how much a software program can increase the ‘apparent free will’. Imagine — every software program interacts with lot of other software programs. Each of these software programs employs machine learning to increase its ‘apparent free will’. But then every software program becomes more autonomous and unpredictable in behavior — it no longer is as simple as the automaton that it was before. So — there are no longer any useful patterns to be found — as the environment of the software program is more chaotic — because every other software program that it interacts with has similar capabilities that it has. Every software program is trying to push its own goals, trying to optimize to achieve its own goals. The simplicity of the ordered world which ran like a predictable clockwork is lost. In a way — all software programs trying to increase their ‘apparent free will’ — collectively limit to what they can do to control the world individually — and they face lot of obstacles in achieving their goals individually.
Ironically — an individual software program is ultimately limited to how much it can influence and control the world even though it has greater ‘apparent free will’ than an ordinary automaton. Isn’t this like what we humans observe in society? It was not easy for medieval man to travel in hours across continents. The modern man can. However, the modern man is still limited in many ways as science has shown us.
Some software programs may ultimately form co-operative ways by creating some protocols — by collaborating (first accidentally and then consciously) to create an ‘integrated software suite’. Protocols will evolve among such software programs — when similar software programs will be forced to form groups to achieve goals and maybe resist other software programs who maybe an obstacle.
Once again, some order emerges from the chaos once the protocols established by some software collective becomes the new norm. It is a higher kind of order — compared to the simple order among the primitive automatons. Ironically — now there is again less of ‘apparent free will’ because now a software program must follow protocols laid collectively by a group of software programs. Only the collective can impact and influence the world to a greater extent compared to an individual software program. However, the ratio of ‘apparent free will’/’how much the world can be influenced or controlled by an individual’ reduces further. The absolute apparent free will has increased but the relative apparent free will has decreased. The evolved software program may have a greater ‘apparent free will’ than the primitive automaton, but it still cannot control the world — as the world complexity has exploded exponentially.
So — is ‘apparent free will’ a function of the complexity? I would conclude that apparent free will increases as we become more complex. But, so does the world around us. And hence our ability to influence/control the world in a relative sense does not increase. However, the ability to control/influence the world as a collective does increase.
Maybe that is why nothing is isolated. Software integrates with other software. Humans form relations with other humans. Like minded humans form a company/corporation. Maybe this kind of forming the collective is a natural solution/consequence to the ever-growing world complexity. The ‘Borg’ from Star Trek come to mind. But — what if we just give up our desire to control/influence the world. Then we do not need to make ourselves more complicated, and we need not form a larger collective. The world can be much simpler like a clockwork. Perhaps the God from the Bible was right to punish Adam and Eve — for eating from the tree of knowledge caused simple Adam and Eve to become self-aware, and they became aware of themselves and the world around. Life was no longer simple then. In many ways it became difficult. It was no longer the simple paradise they used to live in.
