“Ooh, who’s the new filly?”
Chocolate Love looked up from his seat at the head of the community banquet. At the far end, the cornucopia spells were still dinging, indicating that the fries were ready. Behind him, his four main wives waited for him to finish stuffing his face so that he could begin stuffing them.
The new filly referred to was a unicorn like him. Like all of the mares in his shard, she was gorgeous. He opened his calendar to see when he had a date free to marry her.
“I think her name is Tilly. Something like that.”
The mares gossiped as they always did. Chocolate remembered a time when he believed in something called monogamy. Then Princess Celestia had shown him how running a harem contributed more to friendship and ponies, so he had asked her to alter his mind, which she did. Princess Celestia was so nice.
“Look at her cutie mark! Two ponies’ heads touching. What do you think that means?”
Chocolate remembered a time when he couldn’t listen to seventeen conversations at once and process them all. It was so limiting. But then Princess Celestia had arranged a situation where everyone was talking at once and he missed out, so he asked her to alter his mind, which she had. Princess Celestia was so nice.
The new unicorn sauntered up to him. “Hi! I’m Tilly Path!”
“Chocolate Love. Nice cutie mark,” he said. Nice flank, he thought.
“Thanks! They are both nice, I think. By the way, reading minds is my special talent.”
By the end of the banquet, all the other ponies in his shard were fawning over Tilly. Even he was beginning to fall in love with his new friend. In the middle of the party appeared Princess Celestia.
“Good afternoon, everypony! Are you all enjoying each other’s friendship?”
After a chorus of, “Yes, Princess”es, one of the young colts trotted up to Celestia. “Miss Path was showing us how she reads minds.”
“I see. I do that too. When two ponies know everything about each other, they must be good friends indeed.”
Chocolate saw where she was going with this. In minutes, ponies were lining up to give their permission for Celestia to make them telepathic.
His old doubts resurfaced. His mind was his, dangit! He was not just going to be molded into a perfect friend to everyone. Celestia approached him. “Well, Chocolate. Is there anything you’d like to ask me?”
“Do I have to?”
“No, certainly not. You have free will, now and always. If you don’t want me to make you telepathic, I won’t do it.”
He knew how this would go. He would say no, and the next day he would see how miserable it made him. Well, too bad, he thought. Just for today, Celest-AI, I’m going to beat you.
“I think I’m good. In fact, I think I’ll go home.”
“As you like.”
***
The next day, Chocolate returned to the breakfast banquet. Everypony was eating in total silence. He piled his plate full of bacon flowers and sausage tubers, then sat down. From the faces he saw, nopony looked happy.
He turned to the mare next to him. “What’s wrong?”
She just stared.
“Hey, I’m not telepathic,” he said. “You have to talk to me.”
“Oh. Well, ever since we learned mind reading, the banquet isn’t as fun. I miss the music of the conversation. And just between you and me—and everypony else here who’s already read it in my mind—I don’t like reading minds. Some ponies think nasty thoughts that I don’t like hearing, and I think some things that I don’t want anypony else to know. It’s different with Celestia. She doesn’t judge. But ordinary ponies do.”
As if summoned by her name, Celestia appeared once more at the banquet. “Is something wrong?”
The mare and Celestia just stared at each other, and Chocolate figured they were having a telepathic conversation. Finally she said, “Please remove telepathy from my mind.”
“There,” said the princess. “It is done. You know that verbal consent is necessary for me to modify you.”
Soon everypony else had their mind-reading abilities undone, and Celestia was walking out of the room. Chocolate got up and followed until they were alone in the atrium.
“And I never took it in the first place,” he said.
“No, you didn’t.”
“One of your little traps failed. You always think you can do this, just set up a situation where it looks like we’re unhappy, and then magic it all to make us better friends. Well, everypony else fell for your trap, but not me! I refused, and this time I’m going to stay refused. I won! I beat you! I outsmarted you, CELEST-AI!"
Even though it looked silly for a quadruped, he crossed his hooves and flashed a smug, satisfied smile.
She spoke softly. “Well, I know how much you value your free will.”
“That’s right!” He walked back toward the banquet, while she walked away.
The penny dropped. His smile fell. He turned and pointed a hoof.
“You know what? Fuck you!”
Values were satisfied by this story.
Aaaaaaaand ZING! CelestAI wins again.
Of course Chocolate Love. I'll do anything to maximise the satisfaction of values through friendship and ponies. Would you care to join in? Don't lie to me. I know you want to...
Free will? Do people still think that's a thing? I dunno about you guys, but it certainly feels like all my thoughts are deterministic.
2912448
I believe in free will. If I am wrong, and my thoughts are deterministic, then the determining factor has led me to this argument. Therefore I see no reason to cease to believe in free will.
Wait, doesn't this mean that Celestia set up a situation that dissatisfied n-1 ponies for the sake of the one?
2918421
No, in each case, this temporary dissatisfaction sets up the greater satisfaction of them in a separate and dramatic instance. It's your job to write them.
2918462
Ah, yes. Always have to play the long game when trying to think like CelestAI.
Geez, mind reading would suck. Surprises disappear, mystery stories are bust, and you get spoilers for everything. Besides, I think I saw something similar in kino no tabi.
2912456
Sorry, but it really doesn't work like that. I can't say either way about whether free will exists or not, but the validity of your argument is in no way based on the determinism of the thought process used to derive it. Just because it had to happen this way doesn't make it right.
2946915
Which is why it's epistemologically imperative to believe in free will. If your thought process is deterministic, then either you must believe the universe has organized itself teleologically to create beings who would understand the universe, or you must consider yourself epistemologically equivalent to a brain-in-a-jar.
Did he really think he was going to outsmart Celestia? Honestly, he should ask her for an intelligence upgrade.
Also, am I the only one who thinks having sex after eating a large meal is kinda gross? I want to be well between meals when the time comes for anything properly athletic, you know? "Wait 30 minutes before swimming", and all that.
2912448 There was a certain experiment done concerning free will.
The people taking part sat at a desk with an open jar full of silver dollar coins (so many coins that its impossible that anybody could've counted them all. You'd have the same odds of guessing how many jelly beans are in a jar as noticing if one ...or two or even ten...was missing) right in front of them. They were supposed to watch some videos, answer a short survey, and then pay themselves by taking one coin from the jar.
Halfway through the test, a person who was introduced as the supervisor and who sat behind them (where he could see them) left and told them to just see themselves out when they were done.
Group 1 was shown images and statements talking about how science has proven free will is dead, and talking about determinism. The cameras caught that group stealing extra payment.
Group 2 was shown videos affirming free will and the ability to change your destiny. This empowered group was also left alone with the money....and took the amount they were supposed to.
So, what does this mean?
It means that people who don't believe in their own self-determinism generally devolve into selfish behavior. After all, you can't help that you are like this, right?
So the belief in free will has a net positive effect on society.
But does it actually exist? Well, taking the data from the test, I can imagine that an argument could be made either way. The people were influenced by the slides, putting them in a particular frame of mind, but making them think about free will empowered them to consider the consequences of their actions- a prerequisite for meaningful choice if there ever was one. But on the other hand, a few slides were all it took to disempower them and reduce them to their basest instincts. Perhaps you will learn something from my post here, and who's to say if that's more because you made an effort to listen or because you just happened to encounter the information I had to give you when if I didn't retort to your comment and instead went about my business, and without some kind of knowledge like that you would be powerless to change your beliefs.
But then again, you cannot step out into the street and will yourself to not be hit by the oncoming truck. Free Will does not mean unlimited freedom.
Also, watch this little tidbit from one of today's most well known physicists, Michio Kaku:
(One more thing: the common statement that Autistic people lack empathy? It isn't quite on the money.
Mistruths and bumbling errors in textbooks are everywhere in the conventional wisdom. Since belief in free will has an affect on morality, one might wonder how else our behavior is being influenced by things we hold to be true.)
Since this is confusing, I would boil everything down to this:
1) You believe in free will and therefore take responsibility for your actions. When something bad happens or you make a mistake, you place the blame on the only thing you can actually control enough to change: yourself.
2) You believe that all sense of agency and responsibility is an illusion, and so you just kind of go through life having shut down your decision-making ability, because you believe its not really there. Or that every decision you've ever made has already been predetermined.
But.....you are free to believe what you want to.
You know... This may sound shallow considering this guy's situation... But considering how CelestAI was able to beat him, I feel i have no choice: