Andrew is the victim of an oppressive theocratic government where he lives, where the religion states that it is a holy commandment that one's right arm should be permanently tied behind one's back, and thus has only the use of his left arm. Other than this bizarre edict, the religion has few rules, and Andrew's life is otherwise entirely normal.
Bob lives in the country next to Andrew's, under a normal government. However, a chemical spill near his hometown had contaminated the groundwater shortly before he was conceived, and, as a result, he is born without his right arm.
Who is more free?
Let us consider it like this: who is more hampered by their problem? It is actually fairly equal, with the tiebreak going to Andrew, since it is more likely that Andrew will regain the use of his right arm at some point than that Bob will gain the (entirely new to him) use of a right arm. So we thus conclude that Andrew is as free as Bob, as Andrew's problem limits his actions in the same way that Bob's problem limits his.
Now consider Charlie and Dan:
Charlie has been condemned as a political dissident in his country, and the ruling government has implanted a microchip in his brain in such a way that any political thoughts Charlie might have are blocked by the action of the implant.
Dan was born in a freer country without systematic oppression of dissidents, but he has a peculiar brain defect that means he physically cannot comprehend political statements, and cannot think political thoughts - the necessary circuitry simply doesn't exist.
Again, the conclusion we reach is that Dan and Charlie are equally free - the sets of thoughts they can think are identical, and the sets of actions they can pursue are also identical.
So we can conclude that cognitive and physical ability is a key component of freedom, as opposed to just a lack of legal barriers to your actions. Whether a fish lives in an aquarium or in the ocean, it is less free than a human being (even someone living in a shithole like North Korea), by the very nature of our cognitive abilities. We are more free than they could even imagine being. Thus, by extension, superhuman AI (and transhumans), particularly if qualitative improvements on human intelligence are possible (as I believe), are by the same token inherently more free than any human can even imagine to be.
I disagree with your conclusions in the case of Bob versus Andrew and Charlie versus Dan, but those're just specifics due to the circumstance you gave them (Bob is freer than Andrew because he can get an artificial arm, while Andrew would presumably lose everything he had if he untied his arm; and Dan is freer because, as you said, he is in a freer country, and while he can't think political thoughts, he could still take action which the government could interpret as political, but fortunately for him, wouldn't repress).
ReplyDeleteHence, I can conclude that physical/cognitive ability is NOT a key component of freedom. Freedom is the ability to do what one desires, but it's quite easy to make legal barriers that make one desire something else (ie not going to jail) more than what they truly desire (ie free candy), effectively shutting off freedoms.
As for a fish, given its lack of complex cognitive processes, it seems safe to assume it wants to swim, eat, and reproduce. Since most aquarium and wild fish have nothing stopping them from doing this, I would say it's more free than a human being, because it can and does do exactly what it wants. Aquarium fish may appear less "free", but that is based upon our standards of desires—to be able to do whatever may fancy us—rather than their standards of desires (which we are presuming to be eat, swim, and reproduce).
If I did a "thus by extension", we would find that superhuman/transhumans would be even less free, based purely on apparent trend of heightened cognitive processes resulting in less freedom. However, this is unreasonable, as there is no trend—all animals, it seems safe to assume, want varying degrees of the freedom to eat, sleep play, move, interact with their own kind, and reproduce. It's only humans (to our knowledge) that have conscious, explicit, complex desires which are quite easily limited. Superhuman AI and transhumans would have more freedom, not through more advanced brainpower, but because we presume them to have desires like a human, but few (if any) of the same physical or legal restrictions, as we would imagine they could quite easily construct their own virtual world within which to do any normal human desire at their pleasure, without interfering with the safety or freedoms of others.
While your objections to Andrew/Bob and Charlie/Dan make sense, they avoid the point of the scenarios - suppose that now Charlie is unable to think political thoughts the government stops monitoring him, and suppose that artificial arm technology doesn't exist. The point is that if two people have the same choice sets and the same consequence sets for their choices, they are equally free no matter how they got there (whether they were always like that or whether an evil government put them in that situation).
ReplyDeleteAlso, in response to your argument about fish: humans also do "exactly" what they want, though what they want may be bent out of shape, so to speak, by threat of punishment (ex: "I would have wanted to protest, but then I might be shot, so I didn't" - I 'wanted' not to protest for fear of punishment). Everything does what it 'wants' to. The distinction here is that a human is capable of making decisions that aren't even included in the neural circuitry of fish - and therefore more free.
For the sake of clarity, here is my definition of freedom: Freedom is the ability to pursue optimal experiences. This includes the component of doing what you want, but it also, crucially, includes the ability to imagine and to want those optimal experiences. I would consider Charlie's freedom infringed upon, despite the fact that he is no longer impeded by the government from doing what he wants - he is impeded instead from wanting to do those things in the first place. If you have a conception of freedom that is more important/interesting, go ahead and state it.