By watching such flashing patterns on the screens (and by being able to zoom in or out, thus to see events on various size scales), Gosper and others have developed a powerful intuitive understanding of events in the Life universe, accompanied by a colourful vocabulary (flotillas, puffer trains, glider barrages, strafing machines, breeders, eaters, space rakes, antibodies, and so on). Patterns that to a novice have spectacular unpredictability are quite intuitive to these experts. Yet there remains many mysteries in the Game of Life. Are there structures that grow endlessly in complexity, or do all structures achieve a steady state at some point? Are there higher and higher levels of structure that have phenomenological laws of their own—analogues to our own universe’s molecules, cells, organisms, and societies? Gosper speculates that on a gigantic board, where perhaps several upward leaps of intuition would be needed to gain a sense for the complex modes of organization, “creatures” with consciousness and free will could well exist, could think about their universe and its physics, could even speculate on whether a God exists who created it all, on how to try to communicate with “Him,” on whether such efforts make sense or are worth it, and so on.
Here one runs into the eternal question as to how free will can coexist with a determinate substrate. The answer is partly that free will is in the eye of the willer, not in the eyes of the God above. As long as the creature feels free, he, she, or it is free. But let us defer, in our discussions of these arcane matters, to God himself, who in the next selection graciously explains to a befuddled mortal what free will is really all about.
D.C.D.
D.R.H.
MORTAL: And therefore, O God, I pray thee, if thou hast one ounce of mercy for this thy suffering creature, absolve me of having to have free will!
GOD: You reject the greatest gift I have given thee?
MORTAL: How can you call that which was forced on me a gift? I have free will, but not of my own choice. I have never freely chosen to have free will. I have to have free will, whether I like it or not.
GOD: Why would you wish not to have free will?
MORTAL: Because free will means moral responsibility, and moral responsibility is more than I can bear.
GOD: Why do you find moral responsibility so unbearable?
MORTAL: Why? I honestly can’t analyze why; all I know is that I do.
GOD: All right, in that case suppose I absolve you from all moral responsibility, but still leave you with free will. Will this be satisfactory?
MORTAL (after a pause): No, I am afraid not.
GOD: Ah, just as I thought! So moral responsibility is not the only aspect of free will to which you object. What else about free will is bothering you?
MORTAL: With free will I am capable of sinning and I don’t want to sin!
GOD: If you don’t want to sin, then why do you?
MORTAL: Good God! I don’t know why I sin, I just do! Evil temptations come along, and try as I can, I cannot resist them.
GOD: If it is really true that you cannot resist them, then you are not sinning of your own free will and hence (at least according to me) not sinning at all.
MORTAL: No, no! I keep feeling that if only I tried harder I could avoid sinning. I understand that the will is infinite. If one wholeheartedly wills not to sin, then one won’t.
GOD: Well now, you should know. Do you try as hard as you can to avoid sinning or don’t you?
MORTAL: I honestly don’t know! At the time, I feel I am trying as hard as I can, but in retrospect, I am worried that maybe I didn’t.
GOD: So in other words, you really don’t know whether or not you have been sinning. So the possibility is open that you haven’t been sinning at all!
MORTAL: Of course this possibility is open, but maybe I have been sinning, and this thought is what so frightens me!
GOD: Why does the thought of sinning frighten you?
MORTAL: I don’t know why! For one thing, you do have a reputation for making out rather gruesome punishments in the afterlife!
GOD: Oh, that’s what’s bothering you! Why didn’t you say so in the first place instead of all this peripheral talk about free will and responsibility? Why didn’t you simply request me not to punish you for any of your sins?
MORTAL: I think I am realistic enough to know that you would hardly grant such a request!
GOD: You don’t say! You have a realistic knowledge of what requests I will grant, eh? Well, I’ll tell you what I’m going to do! I will grant you a very, very special dispensation to sin as much as you like, and I will give you my divine word of honour that I will never punish you for it in the least. Agreed?
MORTAL (in great terror): No, no, don’t do that!
GOD: Why not? Don’t you trust my divine word?
MORTAL: Of course I do! But don’t you see, I don’t want to sin! I have an utter abhorrence of sinning, quite apart from any punishments it may entail.
GOD: In that case, I’ll go one better. I’ll remove your abhorrence of sinning. Here is a magic pill. Just swallow it, and you will lose all abhorrence of sinning. You will joyfully and merrily sin away, you will have no regrets, no abhorrence and I still promise you will never be punished by me, or by yourself, or by any source whatever. You will be blissful for all eternity. So here is the pill!
MORTAL: No, no!
GOD: Are you not being irrational? I am removing your abhorrence for sin, which is your last obstacle.
MORTAL: I still won’t take it.
GOD: Why not?
MORTAL: I believe that the pill will indeed remove my future abhorrence for sin, but my present abhorrence is enough to prevent me from being willing to take it.
GOD: I command that you take it!
MORTAL: I refuse!
GOD: What, you refuse of your own free will?
MORTAL: Yes!
GOD: So it seems that your free will comes in pretty handy, doesn’t it?
MORTAL: I don’t understand!
GOD: Are you not glad now that you have the free will to refuse such a ghastly offer? How would you like it if I forced you to take this pill, whether you wanted it or not?
MORTAL: No, no! Please don’t!
GOD: Of course I won’t; I’m just trying to illustrate a point. All right, let me put it this way. Instead of forcing you to take the pill, suppose I grant your original prayer of removing your free will—but with the understanding that the moment you are no longer free, then you will take the pill.
MORTAL: Once my will is gone, how could I possibly choose to take the pill?
GOD: I did not say you would choose it; I merely said you would take it. You would act, let us say according to purely deterministic laws which are such that you would as a matter of fact take it.
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“Is God a Taoist?” from