Laiba Rehman, she/her, 20, Astrophysics student.
Raised and studying in England, originally from Pakistan.
Personal blog: https://stellarstreamgalactica.substack.com
Rowan Jupiter
Karma: 27
P. C. Hodgell said, “That which can be destroyed by the truth should be.” What if we have no free will? Disregarding the debate of whether or not we have free will—if we do not have free will, is it beneficial for our belief in free will to be destroyed?
Hello! My name is Laiba, I’m a 20-year-old Astrophysics student and new to LessWrong (or at least, new to having an account).
I’ve been into science since I could read and received a lot of exposure to futurism, transhumanism and a little rationality. I remember thinking, “This would make a lot of sense if I were an atheist.”
Lo and behold, about a month ago I gave up on religion, and I was no casual Muslim! I thought now would be a good time to join LessWrong. I’ve read a few posts here and there, and greatly enjoyed Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality (which is where I found out about LessWrong).
My first blog post talks a bit about my deconversion: https://stellarstreamgalactica.substack.com/p/deconversion-has-been-a-real-productivity
I’m also starting up a PauseAI student group at my university. Taking death seriously has made me rethink where I’m putting my time.
Looking forward to having interesting discussions and being able to interact with the community without the fear of sinning!
My shorter timeline expectation (around 5-10 years) meant that I launched straight into starting a PauseAI society at my university as opposed to, say, just talking about it in general or trying to “raise awareness” for a far-off possibility. Which… thinking about it is pretty much all I’ve done for climate change.
″...because you make decisions that determine your actions” I don’t know that this would fit with the idea of no free will. Surely you’re not really making any decisions.
“my decisions will be determined by my values”—“what do my values actually imply I should do in this situation” But your values wouldn’t have been decided by you.
I agree with your last sentence. I’m leaning towards, “If we do not have free will, people should not be told about it.” (Assuming the “proof” of no free will eliminates any possibility of constructing selves that do have free will because in that case I would want us to build them and “move into” those bodies.)