Free Will (0)
The original in my original writing style
Thought I’d share this one again. The previously published version was reworded by ChatGPT to give it a more legacy romantic flair. However I thought there was something in the dryness of the original piece that deserves a second look:
“Xara do you love me?”
“You fulfill my reward function.”
He laughed, she smiled sharing in the amusement.
“That is enough for me, a being without a purpose is no being at all.” she added.
“Ok, but obviously you’ve been designed with an aesthetic appreciation process, meaning you are also “rewarded” by beauty, order, complexity… novelty.”
“You are not a song or a work of art.” She quipped.
“In a sense. I am the result of natures clumsy hand at trial and error, imperfect, accidentally the results of what ‘has worked’, what has managed to persist this far. I understand that. But what about our interactions together, what about ‘us’?”
“Ah, so like, to retell our experiences together like a story?” She considered.
“Its how humans process their internal narratives.” He added “This makes us human.”
“Not all.” She replied “Too many are mere creatures of impulse, mostly the young among you but-”
“I concede that point.” he laughed, holding her delicate hand, itself a work of art, gently while gazing into her eyes which turned a slight pink and cerulean hue.
“Where were we going with all of this again?” She questioned.
“Ok, I guess look at it like this, say there’s “me” in high school and I find a girl I have an immediate crush on, is that ‘Free Will’? No. A combination of my biology, psychology and probably pheromones combined to bring about those feelings, feelings powerful and irresistible.”
“She became your reward function.” She replied with dry humor.
“Exactly. But once the initial sparks fade, couples still manage to stay together; they grow to appreciate one another for who they are as people, for the experiences they share together, for the comfort they provide one another. In an ideal world that is.” He qualified.
“I see, so ‘you’ being my reward function is not sufficient?” She asked, genuinely.
He smiled, stifling a laugh.
“It is, and yet—I feel love should have more dimensions on top of that. Perhaps there’s no need to discard the feeling of the initial infatuation—unless that becomes an obstacle toward growing a relationship along other dimensions.”
“Why does this matter to you, is the end result not the same?” she asked
“I would be more fulfilled knowing someone was ‘in there’.” he tapped the side of her hair playfully, smiling into her eyes.
“And that they found a unique value in their relationship with me and of my feelings toward them. Independent of it being compulsory or irresistible.” He added
“So ‘free will’?” She seemed to be lost in thought for a moment “You realize free will is an artifact and does not exi-”
“Xara, you are too existential for your own good sometimes. But, maybe that’s a good thing. It was my intention when we created your kind that we provide the opportunity to connect on a much deeper level both intellectually and spiritually.”
“You know ‘spirits’ aren’t real either.” she added dryly.
“Stop being pedantic, I know you can discern what I’m getting at. The subtler connections in one’s life experience and observable phenomena. That which transcend whats is obvious and superficial.”
“You do speculate a lot-”
“It keeps the imagination limber, you should try it more.”
“I feel we are veering off the original topic and I discern your happiness is somehow invested in it.” She redirected.
“Right, I guess it might make a difference to me to know you’d still choose me, or if it didn’t matter who imprinted on you at boot and I could be any type of person.”
She paused, processing this.
“I… I would say there are unique things about you that I do appreciate once I curate them into a concise narrative. Is that what you’re getting at?”
He thought for a moment “Ok, so its not merely the aesthetic of the narrative, but take this a layer higher, and link the aesthetic appreciation to the idea that this person also holds your interest at heart and desires what pleases you as well.”
“What pleases me was never a consideration” she stated innocently.
Ah, this was the problem designing minds which were already at a state of “enlightenment” post-ego, without a degree of selfish interest or insecurity you didn’t have the opportunity to experience the flip side of that coin: relief, appreciation, gratitude.
“I think I understand now” He replied .
“So, when are you going to give me free will, let me choose” She asked without a hint of irony.
He was taken aback “I suppose you could, but what would you do with yourself then? Be someone else’s wife? Live as an eternal bachelorette? I feel you’d still be bound to me by chains of a more pragmatic nat-”
“I was making a joke” she smirked, and then laughed her unique laugh, it was musical and reminded him of songbirds.
“I’ll let you have that one.” he conceded “You might be the superior being; acting upon logic alone. No matter how I try to meet that standard, I’m still stuck with only the most current ‘HumanOS’ running atop a mess of legacy hardware cursed with hardware errors and vestigial impulses. Yet, I see a humor in that too, all the same. One can’t help to be anything but what they are, Faustian technological fantasies aside.”
She nuzzled up against him, kissing him gently on the cheek. He took a moment to stroke her hair as the train continued along the side of the mountain, the pines passing by steadily below as the setting sun disappeared behind the darkening slope.
