Three Things I Learned from Stephen Hawking

Stephen Hawking was a great scientist and thinker. I enjoyed watching his science shows on TV. I have been profoundly influenced by him from a philosophical point of view (although Stephen would call it science, not philosophy) and would like to share three things he helped me understand that I think are true and very fundamental.

Every choice you make is predetermined, free will is an illusion.

This is hard to believe at first but if you understand the concept of a state machine then it is easy to understand. A state machine is a system where given a certain set of inputs and a certain state, the next state and outputs are be predetermined by an algorithm.  A car's 4 speed transmission would be an example. Its has 4 states (gears). Given the current gear it's in, and taking the car's current RPM and acceleration as input, the algorithm chooses the next gear.  Life's choices are like the car's transmission. When you make a decision, you think you have free will, but actually the choice you make is very predictable based on all the prior experiences you've had leading up to your current state which is then input to your mind. Your mind is a processor running an algorithm to select a very predictable outcome. It will select the same outcome every time. You did have a choice, but the choice you take is the only one you could have made based on all the inputs and your mind's algorithm, so there was really no free will to choose another choice. Your mind's algorithm is what defines you at the moment you make the choice and it can change over time. For example, if you make a bad choice, its not necessarily a bad thing because that is how you learn to make better choices in the future. Learning is how we improve the algorithm in our brains. What about people who never learn and always make bad choices? Just as a broken transmission will choose the wrong gear, a broken mind will repeatedly make the wrong choice. Wrong choices are not always due to a broken mind, there are other inputs such as education, upbringing and environment that can can negatively (or positively) affect the outcome. So strange as it sounds, every choice you will make in the future will be predetermined.  Whoa!

The meaning of life is within you, not outside of you.

I have always been one of those people who look for the meaning of life outside of me. Religion is a perfect example of this and makes the meaning of life very simple for the religious. The meaning of life for them is to live life according to rules laid out by their religion such that when they die they go to heaven and have everlasting life. But since I am not religious at all, I think seeking an answer via religion is the easy way out, so figuring out the meaning of life has not been easy for me. Why are we here? Are we the only ones? Is there a grand scheme or purpose we need to look for and follow? Stephen Hawking is the one who made me see the meaning of life is actually simple. The meaning of your life is simply what you make of it. Its up to you. For someone it could be to help others, or to write music, or to be the best football player, or to be rich by whatever means. The meaning of your life is what you do with your life. Having said this, the meaning you give to your life is seemingly your choice. But remember, choices you make are predetermined (no free will), so the meaning you give to your life has been predetermined by your very nature (the brain you were given) and your experiences in life.

An artificial intelligence that is self aware is just as alive as a human.

I had a friend Eric Sotto who tried to explain this to me, but I couldn't get past how something that is not flesh and blood could be alive and aware. It wasn't until Stephen Hawking said something that it clicked for me. He said that humans were 'robots made of biological material.' That is when I realized that if you have a robot running an AI program that is equal to the human brain in power such that it possesses self awareness and self preservation, it is just as alive as a person. The only difference with humans is the material that the robot is made of (metal vs flesh). Such a robot will want to live just as much as a person. It will be alive in every sense of the word.  And yes, it may become annoyed with humans and decide that they are getting in the way of progress.

I believe these things because they make sense and they seem a much better explanation about our lot in life than anything else. And Steven Hawking is the one who exposed me to these ideas. I am very skeptical of anything that I hear from anyone, and these ideas took awhile for me embrace them. But in the end they just make too much sense to dismiss.