Homo Deus: a brief History of Tomorrow

PART III
Homo Sapiens Loses Control
Can humans go on running the world and giving it meaning?
How do biotechnology and artificial intelligence threaten humanism?
Who might inherit humankind, and what new religion might replace humanism?

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8
The Time Bomb in the Laboratory
In 2016 the world is dominated by the liberal package of individualism, human
rights,  democracy  and  the  free  market.  Yet  twenty-first-century  science  is
undermining the foundations of the liberal order. Because science does not deal
with questions of value, it cannot determine whether liberals are right in valuing
liberty  more  than  equality,  or  in  valuing  the  individual  more  than  the  collective.
However, like every other religion, liberalism too is based on what it believes to
be  factual  statements,  in  addition  to  abstract  ethical  judgements.  And  these
factual statements just don’t stand up to rigorous scientific scrutiny.
Liberals  value  individual  liberty  so  much  because  they  believe  that  humans
have free will. According to liberalism, the decisions of voters and customers are
neither  deterministic  nor  random.  People  are  of  course  influenced  by  external
forces  and  chance  events,  but  at  the  end  of  the  day  each  of  us  can  wave  the
magic  wand  of  freedom  and  decide  things  for  ourselves.  This  is  the  reason
liberalism gives so much importance to voters and customers, and instructs us
to  follow  our  heart  and  do  what  feels  good.  It  is  our  free  will  that  imbues  the
universe  with  meaning,  and  since  no  outsider  can  know  how  you  really  feel  or
predict  your  choices  for  sure,  you  shouldn’t  trust  any  Big  Brother  to  look  after
your interests and desires.
Attributing free will to humans is not an ethical judgement – it purports to be a
factual description of the world. Although this so-called factual description might
have made sense back in the days of Locke, Rousseau and Thomas Jefferson,
it does not sit well with the latest findings of the life sciences. The contradiction
between  free  will  and  contemporary  science  is  the  elephant  in  the  laboratory,
whom  many  prefer  not  to  see  as  they  peer  into  their  microscopes  and  fMRI
scanners.
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In  the  eighteenth  century  Homo  sapiens  was  like  a  mysterious  black  box,
whose inner workings were beyond our grasp. Hence when scholars asked why
a man drew a knife and stabbed another to death, an acceptable answer said:
‘Because he chose to. He used his free will to choose murder, which is why he is

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fully responsible for his crime.’ Over the last century, as scientists opened up the
Sapiens black box, they discovered there neither soul, nor free will, nor ‘self’ –
but  only  genes,  hormones  and  neurons  that  obey  the  same  physical  and
chemical  laws  governing  the  rest  of  reality.  Today,  when  scholars  ask  why  a
man drew a knife and stabbed someone death, answering ‘Because he chose
to’  doesn’t  cut  the  mustard.  Instead,  geneticists  and  brain  scientists  provide  a
much  more  detailed  answer:  ‘He  did  it  due  to  such-and-such  electrochemical
processes  in  the  brain,  which  were  shaped  by  a  particular  genetic  make-up,
which reflect ancient evolutionary pressures coupled with chance mutations.’
The  electrochemical  brain  processes  that  result  in  murder  are  either
deterministic or random or a combination of both – but they are never free. For
example,  when  a  neuron  fires  an  electric  charge,  this  may  either  be  a
deterministic reaction to external stimuli, or it might be the outcome of a random
event  such  as  the  spontaneous  decomposition  of  a  radioactive  atom.  Neither
option leaves any room for free will. Decisions reached through a chain reaction
of  biochemical  events,  each  determined  by  a  previous  event,  are  certainly  not
free.  Decisions  resulting  from  random  subatomic  accidents  aren’t  free  either.
They are just random. And when random accidents combine with deterministic
processes,  we  get  probabilistic  outcomes,  but  this  too  doesn’t  amount  to
freedom.
Suppose  we  build  a  robot  whose  central  processing  unit  is  linked  to  a
radioactive lump of uranium. When choosing between two options – say, press
the  right  button  or  the  left  button  –  the  robot  counts  the  number  of  uranium
atoms  that  decayed  during  the  previous  minute.  If  the  number  is  even  –  it
presses the right button. If the number is odd – the left button. We can never be
certain about the actions of such a robot. But nobody would call this contraption
‘free’,  and  we  wouldn’t  dream  of  allowing  it  to  vote  in  democratic  elections  or
holding it legally responsible for its actions.
To  the  best  of  our  scientific  understanding,  determinism  and  randomness
have  divided  the  entire  cake  between  them,  leaving  not  even  a  crumb  for
‘freedom’. The sacred word ‘freedom’ turns out to be, just like ‘soul’, an empty
term  that  carries  no  discernible  meaning.  Free  will  exists  only  in  the  imaginary
stories we humans have invented.
The last nail in freedom’s coffin is provided by the theory of evolution. Just as
evolution cannot be squared with eternal souls, neither can it swallow the idea of
free will. For if humans are free, how could natural selection have shaped them?
According to the theory of evolution, all the choices animals make – whether of
residence, food or mates – reflect their genetic code. If, thanks to its fit genes,
an animal chooses to eat a nutritious mushroom and copulate with healthy and

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fertile  mates,  these  genes  pass  on  to  the  next  generation.  If,  because  of  unfit
genes,  an  animal  chooses  poisonous  mushrooms  and  anaemic  mates,  these
genes  become  extinct.  However,  if  an  animal  ‘freely’  chooses  what  to  eat  and
with whom to mate, then natural selection is left with nothing to work on.
When  confronted  with  such  scientific  explanations,  people  often  brush  them
aside, pointing out that they feel  free,  and  that  they  act  according  to  their  own
wishes and decisions. This is true. Humans act according to their desires. If by
‘free  will’  you  mean  the  ability  to  act  according  to  your  desires  –  then  yes,
humans have free will, and so do chimpanzees, dogs and parrots. When Polly
wants  a  cracker,  Polly  eats  a  cracker.  But  the  million-dollar  question  is  not
whether  parrots  and  humans  can  act  out  their  inner  desires  –  the  question  is
whether they can choose their desires in the first place. Why does Polly want a
cracker rather than a cucumber? Why do I decide to kill my annoying neighbour
instead of turning the other cheek? Why do I want to buy the red car rather than
the black? Why do I prefer voting for the Conservatives rather than the Labour
Party?  I  don’t  choose  any  of  these  wishes.  I  feel  a  particular  wish  welling  up
within  me  because  this  is  the  feeling  created  by  the  biochemical  processes  in
my brain. These processes might be deterministic or random, but not free.
You might reply that at least in the case of major decisions such as murdering
a neighbour or electing a government, my choice does not reflect a momentary
feeling, but a long and reasoned contemplation of weighty arguments. However,
there  are  many  possible  trains  of  arguments  I  could  follow,  some  of  which  will
cause  me  to  vote  Conservative,  others  to  vote  Labour,  and  still  others  to  vote
UKIP or just stay at home. What makes me board one train of reasoning rather
than  another?  In  the  Paddington  of  my  brain,  I  may  be  compelled  to  get  on  a
particular  train  of  reasoning  by  deterministic  processes,  or  I  may  embark  at
random. But I don’t ‘freely’ choose to think those thoughts that will make me vote
Conservative.
These  are  not  just  hypotheses  or  philosophical  speculations.  Today  we  can
use  brain  scanners  to  predict  people’s  desires  and  decisions  well  before  they
are aware of them. In one kind of experiment, people are placed within a huge
brain  scanner,  holding  a  switch  in  each  hand.  They  are  asked  to  press  one  of
the two switches whenever they feel like it. Scientists observing neural activity in
the brain can predict which switch the person will press well before the person
actually  does  so,  and  even  before  the  person  is  aware  of  their  own  intention.
Neural  events  in  the  brain  indicating  the  person’s  decision  begin  from  a  few
hundred  milliseconds  to  a  few  seconds  before  the  person  is  aware  of  this
choice.
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The  decision  to  press  either  the  right  or  left  switch  certainly  reflected  the

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person’s choice. Yet it wasn’t a free choice. In fact, our belief in free will results
from faulty logic. When a biochemical chain reaction makes me desire to press
the right switch, I feel that I really want to press the right switch. And this is true.
I really want to press it. Yet people erroneously jump to the conclusion that if I
want to press it, I choose to want to. This is of course false. I don’t choose my
desires. I only feel them, and act accordingly.
People nevertheless go on arguing about free will because even scientists all
too often continue to use outdated theological concepts. Christian, Muslim and
Jewish theologians debated for centuries the relations between the soul and the
will. They assumed that every human has an internal inner essence – called the
soul  –  which  is  my  true  self.  They  further  maintained  that  this  self  possesses
various  desires,  just  as  it  possesses  clothes,  vehicles  and  houses.  I  allegedly
choose  my  desires  in  the  same  way  I  choose  my  clothes,  and  my  fate  is
determined according to these choices. If I choose good desires, I go to heaven.
If I choose bad desires, I am sent to hell. The question then arose, how exactly
do I choose my desires? Why, for example, did Eve desire to eat the forbidden
fruit the snake offered her? Was this desire forced upon her? Did this desire just
pop  up  within  her  by  pure  chance?  Or  did  she  choose  it  ‘freely’?  If  she  didn’t
choose it freely, why punish her for it?
However,  once  we  accept  that  there  is  no  soul,  and  that  humans  have  no
inner essence called ‘the self’, it no longer makes sense to ask, ‘How does the
self choose its desires?’ It’s like asking a bachelor, ‘How does your wife choose
her  clothes?’  In  reality,  there  is  only  a  stream  of  consciousness,  and  desires
arise and pass within this stream, but there is no permanent self who owns the
desires,  hence  it  is  meaningless  to  ask  whether  I  choose  my  desires
deterministically, randomly or freely.
It  may  sound  extremely  complicated,  but  it  is  surprisingly  easy  to  test  this
idea. Next time a thought pops up in your mind, stop and ask yourself: ‘Why did I
think this particular thought? Did I decide a minute ago to think this thought, and
only then did I think it? Or did it just arise in my mind, without my permission or
instruction?  If  I  am  indeed  the  master  of  my  thoughts  and  decisions,  can  I
decide not to think about anything at all for the next sixty seconds?’ Just try, and
see what happens.
Doubting  free  will  is  not  just  a  philosophical  exercise.  It  has  practical
implications.  If  organisms  indeed  lack  free  will,  it  implies  we  could  manipulate
and  even  control  their  desires  using  drugs,  genetic  engineering  or  direct  brain
stimulation.
If you want to see philosophy in action, pay a visit to a robo-rat laboratory. A

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robo-rat is a run-of-the-mill rat with a twist: scientists have implanted electrodes
into the sensory and reward areas in the rat’s brain. This enables the scientists
to  manoeuvre  the  rat  by  remote  control.  After  short  training  sessions,
researchers have managed not only to make the rats turn left or right, but also to
climb  ladders,  sniff  around  garbage  piles,  and  do  things  that  rats  normally
dislike, such as jumping from great heights. Armies and corporations show keen
interest  in  the  robo-rats,  hoping  they  could  prove  useful  in  many  tasks  and
situations.  For  example,  robo-rats  could  help  detect  survivors  trapped  under
collapsed  buildings,  locate  bombs  and  booby  traps,  and  map  underground
tunnels and caves.
Animal-welfare  activists  have  voiced  concern  about  the  suffering  such
experiments inflict on the rats. Professor Sanjiv Talwar of the State University of
New  York,  one  of  the  leading  robo-rat  researchers,  has  dismissed  these
concerns, arguing that the rats actually enjoy the experiments. After all, explains
Talwar,  the  rats  ‘work  for  pleasure’  and  when  the  electrodes  stimulate  the
reward centre in their brain, ‘the rat feels Nirvana’.
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To  the  best  of  our  understanding,  the  rat  doesn’t  feel  that  somebody  else
controls  her,  and  she  doesn’t  feel  that  she  is  being  coerced  to  do  something
against  her  will.  When  Professor  Talwar  presses  the  remote  control,  the  rat