Conatus: THIRD EDITION by Tom Wallace - HTML preview

C O N A T U S

simply that agency cannot be explained. But, perhaps something more than this. Perhaps it is because the ways in which it might need to be explained run exactly counter to the prevailing mindset of the last 500 years of science. We’ve not yet truly embraced quantum theory — which seems to offer a pointer towards rethinking things from the ground up. Science still hankers after a mechanical universe. Science wants us to believe that there is no difference between real people and the philosophical zombie. The zombie of course has no agency — it has to fake this as well.

But, dear reader, you could reasonably counter this and ask, why is it that some people insist on the reality of agency, even although agency is as difficult to prove as determinism?

It’s a fair question.

For one thing, agency allows for accountability. Some of us believe in a moral universe, but without agency, and hence accountability, a moral universe makes no sense. Quality and choice define the universe, they are not just delusions created from the subjective feelings of conscious beings. Some of us think that determinism is simply stupid! Whatever your opinion, I get the feeling that these matters will never be settled. We will always wonder if computers are really conscious — even when they become indistinguishable from real people. We will always ask questions involving zombies. We will always puzzle over where consciousness comes from. Until, one day, we will finally give up and re-start science from the reality of a conscious universe, whose grounding is in value

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