From What Is Thought? by AI expert Eric B. Baum (2004, pp 226-27):
Consciousness has many aspects. We are aware of our world and our sensations. We have a sense of self. We have goals and aspirations. We seem to have free will and moral responsibility. Yet, as I’ve said, the mind is equivalent to a Turing machine. Moreover, we have arisen through evolution and are descended from microbes by a smooth chain of evolution, with more complex mental processes at each stage evolved from the processes at the one before. Where in this process did consciousness enter? Why are we conscious? What is consciousness?”
“The conclusion that we do not really have free will, discussed earlier in the context of classical physics, quantum physics, and algorithmic information theory, is after all a very abstract conclusion, of interest only to philosophers and stoned college students late at night. Whether all my actions are completely predictable given the quantum state of my brain is of no practical interest to my genes or to any ordinary person. For all practical purposes, we have free will. There is no experiment I can propose that will show directly, and simply that we don’t. The lack of free will only follows from lengthy, complex, abstract arguments. These arguments are almost surely correct: the physical arguments make a vast number of verified predictions along the way, the mathematical arguments have been scrutinized and seem airtight. But who really cares, for all practical purposes? It’s much more reasonable and practical for my genes to build me believing in free will, and for me to act and think as if I have free will.”
In short, Baum cannot demonstrate his thesis to a reasonable person and wants us to believe—on no explainable basis—that our “genes” cause us to believe in free will because it aids Darwinian survival.
Such a point of view, taken seriously, and taken in conjunction with the idea that consciousness is a user illusion, provides strong support for authoritarian government.
That is so whether anyone who believes this intends authoritarian government. It is so even if the believer fights against that consequence. It is merely his genes that cause him to do so. Absent free will and actual consciousness of reality, there is no reason to respect the views those who disagree with a current government program, thus creating glitches in the system.
Even the fact that a given government program is ineffectual, counterproductive, or disastrous is not sufficient justification for dissent from power because the dissent is simply a non-rational nullity.
If you believe naturalism (nature is all there is) that is.
If it is true that a large proportion of academics are naturalists, perhaps it’s no surprise that university campuses today are th most authoritarian places in the Wstern world. And if naturalism grows in popularity, it’ll get worse.
See also: How can we believe in naturalism if we have no choice?
Howling Darwinists Barry Arrington
and
The war on intellectual freedom How political correctness morphed into a monster.