In several previous articles, I’ve contemplated life and self-awareness.
Throughout these discussions, I’ve consistently emphasized the idea that we can change our own lives through our own willpower. By looking to the future, expanding our horizons, and making thoughtful decisions, we can drive change, a concept I’ve often advocated.
While maintaining this perspective as a foundation, this article is written from a renewed understanding of the need for a multifaceted approach. I will delve into the realms of determinism and the scope of self-awareness. We will also discuss the impact individual beliefs can have on society as a whole. Finally, the conversation will converge on the era of value judgments.
The Perspective of Willism
Understanding that we can direct our life’s trajectory through our own willpower and engage in certain adjustments and challenges makes it imperative to make thoughtful decisions.
From this viewpoint, it’s not enough to have a short-term perspective or a narrow outlook. We must look to the future and consider not just ourselves but also our relationships with the wider community. If adopting such a perspective is currently challenging, it’s essential to ponder ways to improve and grow. Here too, individual decision-making becomes vital.
Therefore, I believe decision-making in life is crucial. Ideally, society should not inhibit individual choices but instead support them. I’ve termed this perspective “Willism.”
The Utility of Determinism
Meanwhile, as I deepened my understanding of the aforementioned idea, I also wanted to explore contrasting views. One new perspective for me, which I had addressed in earlier articles, is the value of determinism. Originating from a physics-related standpoint, determinism posits that everything is predestined. Our thoughts, our doubts, even the choices we make, are all predetermined, much like the orbit of a planet.
This suggests that free will doesn’t genuinely exist; we merely believe it does. Being a pragmatist, even if this were the ultimate truth, I focus on whether such a mindset is beneficial for individuals and society. I once thought determinism, which potentially drains one’s energy to envision a future with free will, wasn’t useful.
However, I encountered views suggesting some find comfort in believing fate is already decided. This realization was enlightening. Determinism has its merits.
Since then, while Willism remains ideal for me, I’ve come to see the potential harm in advocating it for everyone, in every situation. There’s now a shift in my thinking to address those who can embrace Willism and those who find it challenging due to their circumstances.
Recognizing the Extent of Self
Amidst these contemplations, I’ve recently been mulling over the range of self-awareness. The philosophy of Willism is predicated on clearly recognizing one’s future self. This means acknowledging that the you of tomorrow, next week, next year, or a decade later, is still fundamentally you.
While it might be a given for most that our future selves are indeed us, when considering this notion on an unconscious or deeper latent level, the clarity of this understanding becomes dubious.
Although we cognitively understand that our future selves are indeed us, many might not genuinely feel this on an emotional level.
Our future selves are not directly connected to our current neural framework. They might be akin to our hair or nails — parts of us we recognize but can detach without feeling pain.
A Call from the Future
When accidents or disasters are about to happen right before our eyes, causing significant damage, everyone panics and tries to do something about it. However, there are things we can do in our daily lives, like being careful to prevent accidents or preparing for when disasters occur. If, when an accident or disaster occurs, you could call your past self, anyone would fervently urge their past self to take accident prevention and disaster preparedness more seriously.
Yet, until that future comes, even knowing that such a call from the future could happen, it’s challenging for us to establish prevention and countermeasures with the same fervor. Still, some cautious individuals will take some precautions, while others might not do anything at all.
This directly links to our self-awareness towards the future. Health, human relationships, learning, hobbies — we can make various choices now. Whether we make choices as if receiving a call from our future self or completely ignore such a notion varies among individuals.
In reality, we don’t get calls from the future, so it’s up to how well our current selves can perceive our future selves. Including myself, most people don’t feel as strongly that their distant future self is still “them”.
The Possibility and Necessity of Future Self-Awareness
How much we can feel our future self as “us”, or whether we should feel that way, is a challenging issue. For those who already feel their future self as their own, it makes sense to broaden their horizons, anticipate the future, and make decisions based on a voluntaristic mindset.
However, for those who don’t feel their future self as “them”, voluntarism is empty. To these people, their future self is like an avatar in a virtual world. They’re linked to that avatar, but they don’t truly feel it’s them. Arguing that they should sacrifice or make an effort now for the sake of that avatar would be futile.
Difficulties Surrounding the Range of Self-Awareness
One of the challenges is that it’s unclear whether one’s ability to recognize their future self is something they can change. Moreover, the idea of recognizing one’s future self is for the benefit of that future self. Since individuals don’t necessarily feel the need to recognize their future self as “them”, it’s hard to address this seriously.
Another complexity in this discussion is whether it’s right or wrong to perceive one’s future self as “them”. Prioritizing the future self too much might be detrimental to the current self. There’s a need to balance recognizing both the current and future selves.
The challenge lies in not knowing the optimal balance. Therefore, even if someone’s balance seems skewed, it’s tough to argue what’s right. If someone claims I’m too biased towards my future self, I have no means to argue against it.
Trade-Off between Self-Awareness Freedom and Social Benefits
What complicates this discussion further is the involvement of societal issues. In a society where many people overlook their future selves, the future of the society itself tends to be neglected. Thus, the optimal balance point for an individual’s future self-awareness and the optimal point for society might differ. There’s also a perspective that it’s easier to run a society if many people have roughly the same balance.
This creates a trade-off in the issue of future self-awareness when viewed from a societal standpoint versus an individual standpoint. With the addition of societal viewpoints, this debate becomes even more complex.
As long as future self-awareness remains within the realm of individuals, it’s easy to dismiss it as a non-issue considering individual freedom, diversity of thoughts, and the real-world differences and limitations in people’s self-awareness abilities.
If someone neglects the future and ends up in a negative situation, it can be said that it’s their responsibility, and in reality, they will have to bear the consequences.
However, those closely related to the individual will be affected by that individual’s future. Even if relationships are not deep, others can still be affected by any trouble that person might cause.
Broad-Spectrum Issues
It’s not just about local communities. In fields like environmental issues or risky technological developments, prioritizing short-term profits, fame, curiosity, or exploration over the safety of the future can have widespread impacts on society’s future.
I believe the risks associated with technology are particularly severe. The current situation surrounding cutting-edge technology severely lacks a tangible connection with the future. Taking advantage of the fact that no calls come from the future, assumptions and optimistic views dominate, leading to discussions that lack seriousness and sincerity.
There’s a sensory absence of recognizing that the future society is also our society. Just like individuals, even if society understands intellectually that the future society is ours, there is a sensory disconnection. For us, the future society remains perpetually in the realm of science fiction.
Beyond Sensory Rationality
Recognizing the future self and the future society relies more than just on our senses. If we elevate our mind to a state of enlightenment, we might connect our nerves directly to our future self on a sensory level.
However, reaching such a state is difficult for many and perhaps impossible for society as a whole.
Yet, there are problems worth addressing whether or not we can sense them. Issues that have a broad impact on society, such as environmental and high-risk technology issues, are prime examples.
Without a sensory connection to the future and facing problems that we can’t just give up on, the only thing we can rely on is rationality.
Limitations of Traditional Science
But this doesn’t mean the rationality of traditional science. Traditional science requires evidence and remains noncommittal when evidence is lacking. However, with environmental issues and high-risk technologies, obtaining prior evidence is often impossible. By the time evidence is collected, it might already be too late.
While simulations and extrapolation from similar cases are methods, they offer weak evidence and depend heavily on modeling and initial conditions. Introducing personal bias or subjectivity makes scientific discussions challenging. Moreover, when experts debate weak evidence, laypersons can’t objectively judge whose predictions are more plausible. Consequently, experts might be evaluated based on irrelevant attributes, like their demeanor or past achievements.
Thus, traditional science often fails to offer effective solutions to future problems.
This implies that we must use a kind of rationality beyond science to address significant future challenges.
Rationality in Valuing Decisions
Non-scientific rationality, simply put, is about making value judgments. For instance, when facing potential risks, one has to decide between prioritizing the risk or the value of what can be protected by avoiding the risk.
This doesn’t require understanding environmental mechanisms or technical details. Hence, non-experts can also make such decisions.
There’s the “red path” which offers an unpredictable future without any immediate sacrifices. On the other hand, there’s the “blue path” which requires ongoing sacrifices but promises a more stable future. Society then faces a choice between these two paths.
Trying to predict a future that even experts disagree on is futile. If someone claims certainty, they’re probably a prophet. I don’t believe in prophets. But the existence of the red and blue paths is always clear.
I believe the blue path is more rational. While the red path might lead to no issues with luck, it might also result in the worst imaginable outcome. It’s not an individual’s gamble to make; society as a whole shouldn’t take this risk.
In Conclusion
Though lengthy, I’ve discussed recognizing the future self and society from both personal and societal perspectives. Towards the end, I considered society’s responses to current issues like environmental problems and high-risk technologies.
From this discussion, it’s clear that while contemplating the future seems basic, it’s far from trivial. Recognizing the importance of the future is challenging, both individually and societally.
To overcome this, we can only rely on value-driven rationality.
Even if AI surpasses humans in inference and information processing, value judgments are subjective matters. Only I can decide my preferences and aspirations. While AI might make its decisions, they won’t represent mine. Any AI-derived value judgment won’t matter to me. Even if AI suggests something worth liking, I won’t necessarily like it.
Given the challenges in predicting complex issues and the irreducibility of our value judgments to AI decisions, I believe we’re entering an era of value-based decisions. I suspect this era will be centered around Willism.
