The Ethical Game of Free Will: Paradoxes of Freedom, Responsibility, and Biological Determinism

 Introduction:

The plausibility of free will is an age-old philosophical enigma. This music-inspiring abstract seeks to probe this intricate issue through the lens of ethics, psychology, and biology.
The key question we grapple with is whether human beings possess genuine free will, especially in the context of ethical choices.
While we often perceive ourselves as free agents, we find ourselves ensnared in ethical dilemmas, making choices that seem at odds with the collective good. This paradox gains new urgency as we consider the biological determinants that underlie our choices.

The Paradox of Free Will:

The cornerstone of ethical responsibility is the notion of free will, the presumed ability to make independent choices. Yet, we face two contrasting scenarios:
the possibility of enacting universal good, which always appears impossible, and the possibility of enacting universal harm, which, disturbingly, seems ever so possible.
This paradox calls into question the very concept of free will. Is free will a plausible construct when ethical choices so often lead to suboptimal outcomes?

Biological Determinism:

While the above paradox perplexes us, the addition of biological determinism further complicates matters.
Our genetic makeup inherently predisposes us towards specific choices, acting as an invisible hand that directs our ethical compass. This introduces another layer of conflict between free will and predetermination. Do we indeed make choices, or are our decisions the mere playing out of pre-encoded genetic/natural/physical scripts?

Ethical Reductionism:

Caught in this predicament, free will tends to opt for limited good. There appears to be a biological and historical inertia that drives us toward choices that maximize immediate survival and reproductive success. The continuous reinforcement of these short-term gains in human history has led to what we term "ethical reductionism," where the scope of ethical considerations is systematically narrowed down to a point that seems to negate the concept of free choice altogether.

Responsibility and Causality:

The traditional understanding of responsibility rests on the fulcrum of free will. However, the complexities unearthed by this discussion bring the tenets of responsibility into question. If our choices are biologically preconditioned, then how far can we extend the notion of personal responsibility? The very idea of responsibility becomes absurd when framed within a deterministic perspective that attributes causality to the most basic organic factors.


a first summary:

This discourse exposes the dilemma of attributing ethical responsibility in a world where the concept of free will is increasingly questioned.
Our understanding of freedom is brought into stark relief when juxtaposed against our biological predispositions and the recurring patterns of ethical failure.
These insights warrant a reevaluation of how society, ethics, and law conceptualize human freedom and responsibility.


Let's now introduce a new angle.

Radical creativity - the increasing potential of hybrid organic/inorganic minds, the acceleration factor, the overall co-learning human-machine factors: could they imply a change of the free will landscape and agency?


The conjunction of radical creativity, hybrid minds, acceleration, and co-learning between human and machine indeed represents a complex assemblage that could significantly reshape our understanding of free will.

Radical Creativity:
As a form of imaginative output that is transformative and revolutionary, radical creativity can allow humans to conceptualize and pursue options outside of deterministic constraints. By reimagining what is possible, radical creativity could expand the scope of free will, offering new choices and pathways that were not previously evident.

Hybrid Minds:
The fusion of human cognition with machine intelligence—through brain-computer interfaces, for example—could either enhance or restrict free will. On one hand, the augmentation could allow for more informed decisions, thereby enriching free will. On the other, the algorithms could subtly guide human choices, potentially reducing the scope of free will.

Acceleration:
In a rapidly changing environment, adaptation becomes crucial. However, the speed of change may not allow for full consideration of all available options, thus potentially affecting the quality of our choices. Acceleration could therefore both enable and constrain free will, depending on how well individuals adapt to the pace of change.

Co-learning Human-Machine Factors:
Machines that learn from humans, and humans who learn from machines, represent an interactive system where the learning on each side could affect the choices available to the other. For example, as machine learning algorithms grow more advanced, they could help identify new avenues for human creativity or ethical decision-making, thus broadening the horizon of free will.

From an epistemological standpoint, these factors introduce additional complexity into the traditional debates about determinism and free will.

The influence of machine learning and data analysis, for instance, could skew perceptions of what choices are "optimal,"
thereby influencing decision-making in a way that might appear to restrict free will. However, if these technologies are employed to uncover previously unknown options or solutions, they could equally be seen as expanding the realm of free will - contraction-expansion, systematic oblivion is a form of memory, a book is an autonomous agent, once programmatically unleashed, simulations and for qui-potential realities, with irreversible power to protect agents from destruction..

Thus, the landscape of free will could be dramatically changed, but whether it is constrained or expanded might depend on how these elements interact and are integrated into human decision-making processes.

These are empirical questions that require multidisciplinary investigation, incorporating insights from artificial intelligence, neuroscience, philosophy, ethics, and social science.

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why a music album, expressing and feeling the conceptual feelings here exposed?

The album and only the album is the answer to a musical question the is the answer to a problematic definition of any human action in any possible world, construed or given it might be (...).

Lorenzo Brusci, Montevarchi 10 October 2023