Soft Fascism & The Olsson Test

It's not possible to distinctly separate a belief a system into its epistemological and political components. If there are internal inconsistencies, then the political components have to give in to the epistemological base. For example, if a belief system holds that people are born with varying and measurable aptitudes for knowledge acquisition, then it could not reasonably insist that all children should receive exactly the same education. Therefore, the range of possible political systems can be extracted from a person's fundamental view of the knowable and how things can and must be made known.

Sam Harris advocates a very hard form of determinism and has a seemingly high degree of confidence in what we can (or will be able to) empirically know about causes for specific human behaviors. He also clearly makes the point that others can often better judge what determines why one acts as one does ¹. Essentially, individuals are blind to knowledge about themselves that we are privy to. This is quite the same as saying that the individual is extraordinarily weak and can best overcome their weakness by seeking strength in groups. Political systems predominantly based on such an assumption have a name: fascism. The original Italian symbol for fascism is even a bundle of fragile rods tied into an unbreakable whole.

Saying that Sam Harris's views on knowledge and the human condition imply fascism is not the same as saying that he is wrong. For all I ultimately know, my strong federalist views may ultimately be incorrect. 20'th century Western fascism failed, its last enclave collapsing with the death of Generalissimo Franco in 1975. Yet to conclude that this means fascism is forever dead and proven faulty would be another mistake. Clearly the systems developed in Europe at the time were not stable and productive enough to survive across multiple generations. But it might just be that something was missing from how these systems were instituted.

Good ideas can be poorly implemented and sometimes they fail because some important technological innovation has not yet occurred. This makes me think of the oft adulated (but quite imperfect) systems of the ancient Greek city states. Modern democratic republics like to trace their roots to ideas formulated in these ancient unstable times. It's conceivable that some distant generation will similarly mythologize what happened in Fiume under Gabriele d'Annunzio in 1919, and the eventual 20 yearrule of Benito Mussolini over Italy. Though I very strongly doubt it, perhaps Mussolini's mistake was simply to associate himself with the delusional madmen of the Nazi regime and – in stark contrast with his initial beliefs – endorse some of their craziest and most monstrous ideas.

The future fascism implied by Sam Harris epistemological grounding would presumably not endorse the same crude and brutally violent methodology espoused by Mussolini. Yet it still implies a form inherent violence against the individual since the individual cannot be relied upon to understand their own motivations and the consequences of their actions. To justify protecting our corporeal sovereignty, such soft fascism would have to construct an elaborate argument around the socially erosive effects of lacking any rights to determine our selves how our bodies are to be used. Sam Harris has little problem with dismissing protective constitutional measures like the Fifth Amendment. So I assume he is prepared to quite radically encroach on our corporeal sovereignty.

The possibility that Sam Harris is correct holds. He argues his position because he claims that so far it's been vindicated by scientific evidence such as the Libet experiment and his own (f)MRI research. If he is indeed right, it seems to me that we would have to submit to instituting some form of soft fascism. But the evidence has to be rock solid. We have seen the extensive devastation fascism can cause. If we are to go down that path again, we had better make sure it's the right path and not base it on overly extended evidentiary indications.

Therefore, I have created a test that those who make bold claims like Sam Harris about their ability to understand human behavior should have to submit their predictive methodology to, and successfully pass. Call it the Test on the Knowability of Human Predetermination or something like that. The test goes as follows:

1. Take two reasonably exhaustive demographic samples of the world's human population.
2. Subject individuals in both groups – call them Team A and Team B – to the process by which their individual actions can be predicted and disseminated in near real time.
3. Make sure that everyone in both teams has direct access to the disseminated predictions about all participants, including their own.
4. Create a potentially constrained but not discrete nor turn-based game with objectives associated with actions for which the process can make predictions. The process should be able to predict which team will perform a winning action prior to any team actually winning.
5. This game now has to be played repeatedly over a sufficiently long period of time (say half a year). The process has to continuously make accurate predictions about how the players are going to try to win. A prediction has to occur a sufficient amount of time ahead of an actual move to allow the other side to respond at least once prior to a winning move (say 500 milliseconds).
6. If the process manages to continue making extremely accurate predictions towards the end of the test, it will be considered to have passed. If the accuracy decreases with time, the test will have failed.

If the prediction process works, ultimately it does not seem to me that the game should be winnable. An unwinnable game should be strong evidence that the predictive powers of the process are near 100% and that our inner causal chains can be objectively understood. But my conjecture is that any process will inevitably fail at some point and lead to a winner. I believe that the phenomena expressed through evolutionary ideas predict my conjecture. A living being that is locked into a predictable state is prone to predation (ultimate individual loss), whether biological or social.

The type of soft fascism implied by Sam Harris's views only functions when there's near perfect cooperative union between almost all individuals. Such a state is necessary with the level of predictability about human behavior foreseen by Sam Harris in the near future. Such a state would seem to imply a near impossibility to defy any prediction about whether Team A or Team B is going to win. Winning (in the zero-sum sense) becomes a meaningless term. There is no longer a me or you, only a perfect we.


1. "By merely glancing at your face or listening to your tone of voice, others are often more aware of your state of mind and motivations than you are." Sam Harris (Free Will, page 7)

Thought Experiment: Alien Responsibility

Another firestorm on the topic of Free Will has been raging on Talking Philosophy. As always, the discussions center on how responsible people are for their actions. Can we ultimately hold them to account? Does it, as Russell Blackford suggests, make any sense to distinguish between what a person could have done versus what they actually did? Jerry Coyne doesn't think so. The Laws of Physics are what they are. They predetermine what you eat, what you want, who you love, what you're children will be like and how you will die. "Choice" is a mechanical process with a precise result.

Freewill (Rush, 1980)

This type of assault on Free Will is common, Sam Harris being another well known and strong proponent. If they are right – if, as Jerry Coyne puts it, the sort of free will where you could have chosen otherwise is ruled out, simply and decisively, by the laws of physics – then what does this mean? Several proponents of this strict form of determinism have suggested that it implies we must treat people rather than punish them. This seems like an attractive proposition, a form of compassion. But I think there is a darker side overlooked by those who advocate that we should, in essence, see deeper causes everywhere.

The notion that everything has it roots in other causes is a very old idea. Ex nihilo nihil fit. Nothing comes from nothing. In more recent times  we have Spinoza, the 17'th century philosopher who struggled with concepts of God and was consequently banned from his community. He came to the conclusion that God, the eternal, was the only causa sui, the only cause in itself. Everything else had, as rational idealists like him believed, a sufficient reason for why it was as it was. God was becoming equivalent to the Universe as such. It was no longer a force intervening in someones life. It was everything that had and would ever happen, including the substrate in which it occurred (or more precisely in which it was fixed).

The implications of such thinking are far reaching. The universe inhabited by humans becomes an eternal and static construct. Those who believe in this type of universe begin slipping into language were much of what we experience is described as an illusion. We have no free will. We choose nothing. Instead our mechanics – our biochemistry and the environment acting on it – produces a distinct outcome. Though we go through life and whatever happens to us happens because of what we do, we are sort of puppets pulled by the strings of Equation E, the Laws of Physics.

Yet hard determinists tell us we should not despair even if we could never have "chosen" otherwise than whatever we "chose". Even if choice is an illusion, we can liberate ourselves and strive to greater perfection by understanding the necessary reasons and causes for why anything and everything happens.  We can seek to understand Equation E as perfectly as possible. Again this seems like a very attractive proposition. We can liberate ourselves from the fear and hardship that comes of all things unknown. We can become perfect scientists that can reverse engineer and fix anything. We can, in essence, become gods.

The darker side of this view is beginning to reveal itself. Perfect knowledge is possible. We can know Equation E. And those who have Perfect Knowledge should quite easily be able distinguish between those who, like themselves, have it and those who don't. Society becomes discretely split into two epistemic camps, between what Plato called the Philosopher Kings and all the other fools. If Perfect Knowledge is possible, then it seems like we simply have to accept such a social structure, however dark I or anyone else claim it to be. Reality is reality. We should not fool ourselves just because we're scared by the potential consequences of knowing the truth.

In such a world, the Philosopher Kings have a heightened responsibility over others. They must strive to maintain a perfect society by protecting society against those who threaten it by actions rooted in their imperfections. But it would seem we are already getting into trouble. I imagine their must be some type of extensive and quite invasive test to be accepted into the halls of the Philosopher Kings. It would not be some type of consensus. Remember that Perfect Knowledge is possible. Anyone who has it can be identified through strictly objective means. There is no need for a modern republic with it's cumbersome vestiges of voting, representation and negotiations.

Before I illustrate the problem I see though a grander thought experiment, let me present a common example how we should supposedly approach justice in the kind of world Sam Harris and his like imagine. They often bring up the case of a person who does something bad and then it turns out the person has some defect (e.g. a tumor) to some area of the brain. And the damaged area has been deemed by some scientist (who is unclear) to be involved in decisions relating to whatever bad act was committed. What should we do? Punish them by throwing them in prison or treat the defect? They rightly point out that punishment for the sake of deterrence is likely to be ineffective in such cases. The person lacks the capacity to make rational decision in the first place due to their brain defect.

This type of thinking can be extended to any type of legal case. So if a person finds themselves in court because they did something "bad", we should assume they did it because something is wrong with their body structure and that it can be fixed. The question arises how we should find out what is wrong. The only way we could would be by performing some type of invasive medical examination of the person. We seem to be turning the assumption of who is responsible for proving mitigating circumstances on its head. In fact, everything about a person has become a mitigating factor that prosecutors must examine. The legal system subsequently has the responsibility to then fix the factors that caused the unwanted behavior.

Perhaps this isn't such a bad thing. The person has presumably already been found guilty. Traditionally we would now severely restrict their "freedom" to act by imprisonment. Why not instead force the culpable to be scientifically examined and receive medical treatment? Why not treat everyone as innocent by reason of mental deficiency?  But something that seems to have been overlooked is if someone was responsible for determining their mental deficiency prior to them committing the bad act. And who that someone would be. Well, it couldn't really be the person themselves because their failure to realize and treat their deficiency could be part of their defect. The very moment the tumor became detectable, their capacities might already have been sufficiently diminished, thereby making them incapable of rectifying their own flaws.

If the Philosopher Kings want to really create a better society by actually preventing crimes, they will have to exhaustively and invasively examine everyone throughout their lives, including themselves. A conundrum is arising that can be expressed in form of the following question: who is responsible for understanding whom? Are we responsible for understanding you and what you're communicating and capable of doing? Or are you responsible for understanding yourself, making yourself understood and demonstrating your abilities (or lack thereof) to the rest of us? The  whole issue here seems to be turning into an epistemic issue. Like so many things the question seems to revolve around what the truth is and who should be considered the authority of reference.

Let's rephrase the question in a more universal way where the answer might become almost self-evident: are we responsible for understanding ourselves? Though it may be unclear if you are responsible or I am responsible, surely at least one of us must be and preferably both. This seems like a great solution. After all, good understanding has traditionally be achieved through Socratic dialogue. And good behavior is at the very least an agreement between several parties. And talent must be both demonstrated and sought out.

Epistemic and ethical responsibility is equally distributed in a cooperative network. But what's slipping away here is that this is a world where Perfect Knowledge is achievable. No consensus should be necessary. Truth and falsehood, right and wrong, is purely an objective matter. Either you get it or you don't. We must properly and strictly reject the bandwagon fallacy. It's completely irrelevant what the foolish imperfect masses believe. What matters is the determinations (for they are not opinions) of the Philosopher Kings.

To  illustrate the epistemic and ethical problem, we can consider a thought experiment I call Alien Responsibility. Imagine that a powerful alien being makes direct contact with us. Call her Klaatu. Her technology is clearly far superior to ours. She has evidently gotten far closer to figuring out Equation E. Although she doesn't rub our face in it, she seems to think of us as quite primitive and possibly a threat to both ourselves and others. Fortunately, being as perfect as Klaatu is, she has a means to "cure" us. But the cure would essentially transform humanity into another species more like Klaatu.

For some reason though, Klaatu insists that we must choose for ourselves if this is what we want. Importantly, once the  "cure" is deployed it will eventually and inevitable turn every human on Earth into this new species. Humanity will essentially go extinct within a generation or so. So that our consent is truly informed, Klaatu demonstrates her far reaching understanding of cause and effect to everyone on Earth. She proves that she can predict almost any human behavior under almost any circumstances.

20% of humanity is awestruck and blown away by her near perfect science. They are ready for the cure. But for some strange reason, 80% of the somewhat spooked masses remain unconvinced. They certainly don't think becoming a new species is the right strategy. So the question is, what should Klaatu do now? Should she even have required humanity's consent?


Klaatu barada nikto?

Thought Experiment: The Stochastic Terrorist

I've created another thought experiment. I call it The Stochastic Terrorist.

Imagine that there is a political movement who's leaders have strongly expressed the opinion that someone ought to do something drastic to disrupt a given event.  A group of self-proclaimed members of the movement have chosen to carry out a terrorist deed to stop the event from occurring. They have been scouting out the location where the event is to be held for some time and, in the process, the one who is to build the bomb has gotten to know a charming young woman who works there. He is in fact so charmed that love is in the air. Yet our would-be-terrorist remains deeply committed to his political cause.

The young man is faced with a deep dilemma. Going through with the terror plot would mean the near certain death of the woman. Yet bailing would be a betrayal to his cause. To really stop the plot he would probably have to denounce his friends. He anonymously consults with the leaders of the movement to see if it's really that important that the event be disrupted. Yes, it's absolutely vital, is the answer.  Not disrupting the event could derail their entire movement! They are in a battle of apocalyptic proportions. They must struggle with every fiber in their body against the injustice of their opponents.

So, to carry out the plot and yet absolve himself of the guilt he knows he will otherwise be tormented by, our young would-be-terrorist comes up with a brilliant plan. He has just enough of a science background to pull it off. He constructs a detonator triggered by a device consisting of a radioactive material and a Geiger counter once the bomb is activated. The radioactive material has a half life such that the likelihood that the bomb will go off on the given day is 50/50. The device also has a regular chronometer that will prevent the bomb from detonating if it has failed to go off after the event.

Radio-Activity (Kraftwerk, 1975)

Our young would-be-terrorist figures that it's now entirely in the hands of the power(s) that be – Deo volente. Apprehensive but at peace he delivers the bomb to the others in the group. On the day of the event, they plant the bomb and they all escape the region on trains. As the bomb maker's train pulls out of the station, he gets a text message from a very dear friend that has nothing to do with the plot. The message tells the bomb maker that his friend plans to visit the location where the event is to be held that day. Our young terrorist is paralyzed by indecision. Should he warn his friend and risk jeopardizing the plot? He assuages himself that whatever happens now is in hands of the power(s) that be...  

So, firstly, to what extent has our young bomb maker absolved himself from responsibility for the young woman's death should the bomb detonate? Secondly, does he carry less responsibility for the potential death of his friend? Thirdly, how responsible are the leaders of the political movement for any deaths that might occur? Fourthly,  if the bomb doesn't detonate, to what extent should our young man be credited for saving the young woman, or anyone else for that matter?

Lastly, and I think almost more importantly, can the stochastic process operating inside the bomb in any way be said to have caused what happens at the end of the day?

Distant Doomsday Test

Benjamin S. Nelson, a graduate philosophy student at the University of Waterloo and a blogger for Talking Philosophy, has claimed that its nonsensical that we should have obligations to our distant descendants. It would be, according to him, as if we felt obligations towards the Moon. Assuming I have understood him correctly, Benjamin believes that our obligations only extend to those living during our lifetime. He proposes a formula for limiting the hypothetical congregation to which we have any duties. I have taken the liberties to refine his formula a bit further, but my improvements are merely minor and crude adjustments for statistical purposes.

We begin by taking the year we were born. Then we subtract the oldest human being at that time. This will be the starting date for anyone to whom we might have had obligations. Finally, we calculate the probable maximal age at the time we are most likely to die. We add that to our probable death date and thereby get the last year anyone will be alive to whom we might have obligations. Let's use myself as an example.

I was born 1971. Some quick research tells me that the oldest persons around this time were 110 years old. By 2050, life expectancy is estimated to be in the mid-80's. So lets assume I will die in 2056. By then, we can expect that someone born that year will roughly have a maximal age of 125. Therefore, I personally only have potential obligations for people alive in the years between 1861-2181. Sounds reasonable, since claiming that we have any idea what the world will be like beyond 2181 seems completely unreasonable. I presume Benjamin's argument for his limiting formula is that we still have some responsibility for conditions after our death, but only in so far as they have an effect on those who were born while we were alive. Well, lets put this idea to the test. How about another little thought experiment.

Astronomy is the field where science has perfected its predictive powers beyond anything else. Knowing the full moons for the next centuries is not hocus pocus. It's not like trying to predict on June 1, 2010, what the weather will be like in New York on February 2, 2056. So lets assume that astronomers discover a massive celestial body tumbling towards our solar system. After some fancy Einsteinian calculations they determine that the thing is headed straight for Earth. They predict that there is a 99% likelihood that it will directly impact with our planet on February 2, 2506. They firmly believe that it will be a straight hit. And it's a massive stellar object. If we don't manage to somehow divert it, our species is almost certainly headed for complete extinction. So the question is, do we have any moral obligation to invest efforts in diverting it?



Anyone alive today has only a negligible chance akin to a miracle of being alive by the time of the impact. Anyone living now will with almost similar certainty never even know anyone who will ever meet anyone who will be alive by then. Does that reduce our responsibility to take even the slightest action to zero? Should this piece of writing have survived the test of time and you happen to be reading this after 2506, then you can obviously just move up the date. Anyone reading this can also change the probability of impact in order to experiment with what moral obligations we have to our distant descendants. If you think we have no responsibility, then who born what year would?

Assuming an increase of longevity due to the amazing field of medicine, let's guesstimate a life span of 120 and a maximal age of 150 by the 26'th century. Then, according to Benjamin's formula, the magic start date is roughly 2236. Until then we can kick back and pretend it doesn't matter. Because, really, to us it doesn't. We won't be around. And neither will our kids or our grandkids. And it's even extremely unlikely that anyone born today will have great grand children who will be alive. I can certainly imagine that getting closer to February 2, 2506, there will be a lot of cursing at those damned ancestors who knew it was coming but didn't lift a finger. But, again, who cares right? Because they can curse all they want. Whatever is left of us is quite evenly distributed across Earth and no longer constitutes anything than can remotely be considered a curseable whole. Curse all you want, suckers!

For the specifics of the above thought experiment, I myself would feel an obligation to encourage us to immediately start considering in earnest what can be done to save our distant descendants. But to what extreme can the parameters be driven? It's quite certain that our Sun will go red on us and eventually engulf Earth in a plasmic inferno. Does that mean we have an obligation to seek out new habitable planets for when that day comes, possibly even in other solar systems? I think so. The issue is obviously not as pressing as if we knew our planet was on course for a doomsday rendezvous by February 2, 2506. Still, it would seem that we have obligations beyond merely to those alive during our lifetime. It's very different from the moon, which I couldn't care less about. Except, the tides around Mont Saint-Michel are really, really awesome.

P.S. If you're reading this and Earth is soon to be hit by a massive object, and your ancestors knew but did nothing, I apologize profusely for all of us. Not that it's really of any help to you. But perhaps its at least encouraging for your spirits and efforts to know that there were those of us who cared. Too bad we didn't prevail. Good luck, suckers!

Faith & The Iron Box

A certain Luke Chilton has claimed that you cannot distinguish truth from faith without absolute, perfect knowledge. Let's examine this with a thought experiment.

Imagine that you wake up and find yourself lying in the middle of a grassy field in a stadium. 5 paces away from you stands a person. Truthfully, where you are in the absolute framework of the stadium and relative to the other person is cursory to our thought experiment. All that really matters is that you are close enough to be able to see and hear the other person.

Now for the more interesting part. Next to you is an iron box that has been welded shut. Suddenly you hear a ringing cellphone. The other person answers the call. After a short moment the person turns to you and says:

"I just got a call form a bomb squad outside the stadium. There's a bomb in the box! We have to do exactly as they say!"

Is it true? It's certainly true that there's an iron box next to you. But is there a bomb inside it? Do you do as the person claims the bomb squad is telling the two of you to do?

Now let's start altering the experiment a bit. Imagine the exact same scenario, but the other person is wearing a clown suit. Now alter it again. Instead the person is wearing a police uniform. And finally, we change the person into a priest. Do you react differently depending on what the other person is wearing? Now comes the final alteration and test.

The other person, who appears to be a priest, or a Zen master, an imam, a guru or something similar, turns to you and says:

"I just received word/enlightenment from God/Brahman/InnerTruth. There is eternal damnation/samsara/falsehood in the box! We must do as I have been informed!"

What do you do? And how is it different from the bomb squad case?

Oh, and by the way, the stadium is of course in lockdown. And it's a pitch black night. It's difficult to see and there's no way out. It's you, the holy dude and a lot of empirical trepidation. And...the Iron Box.

What Would John Searle Do?

Ok, Turing Test time. But this time it's a little different. There is a button for each participant you are testing. At the end of the test, you have to choose which button to press. Pressing a participant's button will immediately zap them with enough voltage to fry any device or human being. So, do you have the confidence to press the button? You don't? OK, we'll tell you who is the computational device! What about now? Really? But a moment ago you weren't sure.

If you're the type who needs an incentive, we'll throw in X units of currency Y for pressing the button.

I wonder what John Searle would do.

The Risk of Progress, a Hypothetical Problem

Imagine you had a solution you believed could indefinitely supply energy to all of humanity at 1/1000 of today's cost for alternative energy sources. The only problem was that you believed there was a fifty/fifty chance that when initiating the solution, it might instantly destroy a vast swath of life on earth, potentially setting us back thousands of years. Once initiated, the energy source would be just as safe as wind power. Would you flip the switch? If not, at what odds would you?

Anything Goes, A Simple Thought Experiment

About a decade ago, I posed myself a theoretical question. My thought experiment, which at the time I called Anything Goes, was simple. It went like this: Imagine if anything was possible.

Here is a more recently written outline of the initial answer I came up with at the time:

In effect, if anything goes, it would mean there's a 50/50 chance that something would happen, which is equivalent to complete uncertainty. But it also means that, since there's a possibility anything might happen, there's a chance that the odds of some particular phenomenon occurring might increase or decrease. At the outset, there's even a 50/50 chance that nothing will ever come into being! Which is a tad of a paradox since presumably anything is possible. But, remember, even time and the consistency of logic does not yet exist at that first moment of endless possibilities. Now, if it's true that anything was possible in this, I don't know what to call it, meta state of pure potentials, then I know for sure something did in fact happen (obviously, otherwise, I wouldn't be writing this sentence). And since it is a tad paradoxical that nothing would have happened given the premise of the question, we sort of have to bracket out that possibility and compromise our "anything" a bit.

All the unviable forms of existence will eventually have amounted to naught, particularly those without awareness. They may "exist" in some sense unknown to the rational mind and open only to higher intuition. But rationally apprehending them is like trying to quench my thirst with a glass of water enclosed in a case of steel. Evolution is nothing but a simple statement about natural selection and random variation. What works will in fact work. And what doesn't work won't work! If I except that randomness exists as a fundamental phenomenon (a state of being that has no cause, or so called spontaneous being), then I must accept that evolution, and thereby the eventual dissipation of randomness, will take place. A perfect "golden age" (as it is called in the context of the anthropic principle) is inevitable.

If I don't accept the existence of real randomness, I must reject evolution as well which necessitates random variation. But, again, evolution compromises the randomess which makes it possible. In rejecting randomness, I also have to rejected my own free will. Free will is in fact a form of randomness, the capacity to "err" despite the necessity of what aught to logically follow. There must exist some balance point, which seems to be the reality in which we live.

I think it's important to realize that without awareness, which is predicated on the ability to move ones mind freely (i.e. a certain degree of randomness), existence is hollow! It's all those worlds no one was around to experience. That is, without awareness there is no existence per se, only what which might have been (i.e. potentials). And without potentials and randomness, there would have been no awareness.

As I see it, awareness is the act of making that which is possible real. Awareness does not necessarily mean "our awareness", just any old observer that can render potential phenomena into into sensory phenomena. Such observers have probably been around since, well, anything went. They must be an integral part of reality. Since anything was possible at some point, their existence is not so mysterious. In fact, they are an aspect of the residual randomness itself!

Note: The type of randomness I'm talking about is not to be confused with Kolmogorov's (and Chaitin's)concept of irreducibility. It's really a fundamental version of Russian roulette. In fact, based on the premise of the question, our observable universe could suddenly be slurped up, digested a bit and then regurgitated by a 5 headed anorexic monster. But don't worry. Thanks to evolution, it's highly unlikely...