Matt McIrvin's Freaky Alternate Reality

Your previous discourse on the subject (http://world.std.com/~mmcirvin/bluesky.html) was challenging, but more constructive and rewarding also. I used to have qualms about oscillating dipoles at individuals who believed they have free will, but I have come to realize that the greater effectiveness of scientific mating techniques does not distinguish them ethically from the crude rituals that other schoolchildren learn out on the playground. The object is the same as ever, the same one that preoccupied Virgil and Shakespeare. Adapting to new modes of functioning is natural: ever since humans first realized that our rapidly enlarging skulls were good for something more than head-butting wildebeest on the steppes of Africa, we have used our intellectual tools to skew the odds in our favor.