I just discovered this interview with Scott Bakker, author of one of the three greatest fantasy epics of all time, The Prince of Nothing, as well as Neuropath, a near-future pyscho-thriller. In the interview Bakker mentions having had an email exchange with Richard K. Morgan regarding “the nihlistic implications of modern neuroscience.” Bakker says:
There’s going to be people who deny this stuff come hell or high water, just as there’s people who can’t abide evolution or the heliocentric solar system. Truth be told, I’m one of them. I believe there has to be something to my experience of free will, but all the credible evidence is piling up on the other side, and I’m not going to pretend otherwise. All I can do is stomp my foot and say, “No! It just can’t be.”
Because if it is, then nothing fucking matters.
I don’t understand why “nothing fucking matters” just because the stew of chemicals in your brain determines all the decisions you’re going to make. I happen to agree with Richard K. Morgan, whom Bakker paraphrases and responds to as follows:
He says he’s okay with the illusoriness of it all, so long as the illusion functions the way he needs it to function. My answer was that this was like having a wife who sleeps around town, but being okay so long as she goes through the spousal motions at home. For me, the first function of this rich, wondrous, experiential life I lead, is that it be true.
I don’t get this. How are Bakker’s “rich, wondrous” life experiences untrue?
No one else has a brain with your unique neuroprint, nor have they had the exact same experiences as you, so what exactly is the profound difference between “free will” (whatever that means) and the complex interaction between the chemicals in your head and your experiences? And why are so many people bothered by this?