Xenocide

“Despair,” said Miro.

“So we conceive of ourselves and everyone around us as volitional beings. We treat everyone as if they did things with a purpose in mind, instead of because they're being pushed from behind. We punish criminals. We reward altruists. We plan things and build things together. We make promises and expect each other to keep them. It's all a made-up story, but when everybody believes that everybody's actions are the result of free choice, and takes and gives responsibility accordingly, the result is civilization.”

“Just a story.”

“That's how Valentine explained it. That is, if there's no free will. I'm not sure what she actually believes herself. My guess is that she'd say that she is civilized, and therefore she must believe the story herself, in which case she absolutely believes in free will and thinks this whole idea of a made-up story is nonsense– but that's what she'd believe even if it were true, and so who can be sure of anything.”

Then Ender laughed, because Valentine had laughed when she first told him all this many years ago. When they were still only a little bit past childhood, and he was working on writing the Hegemon, and was trying to understand why his brother Peter had done all the great and terrible things he did.

“It isn't fu

“I thought it was,” said Ender.

“Either we're free or we're not,” said Miro. “Either the story's true or it isn't.”

“The point is that we have to believe that it's true in order to live as civilized human beings,” said Ender.

“No, that's not the point at all,” said Miro. “Because if it's a lie, why should we bother to live as civilized human beings?”

“Because the species has a better chance to survive if we do,” said Ender. “Because our genes require us to believe the story in order to enhance our ability to pass those genes on for many generations in the future. Because anybody who doesn't believe the story begins to act in unproductive, uncooperative ways, and eventually the community, the herd, will reject him and his opportunities for reproduction will be diminished– for instance, he'll be put in jail– and the genes leading to his unbelieving behavior will eventually be extinguished.”

“So the puppeteer requires that we believe that we're not puppets. We're forced to believe in free will.”

“Or so Valentine explained it to me.”

“But she doesn't really believe that, does she?”

“Of course she doesn't. Her genes won't let her.”

Ender laughed again. But Miro was not taking this lightly, as a philosophical game. He was outraged. He clenched his fists and swung out his arms in a spastic gesture that plunged his hand into the middle of the display. It caused a shadow above it, a space in which no philotic rays were visible.

True empty space. Except that now Ender could see dustmotes floating in that display space, catching the light from the window and the open door of the house. In particular one large dustmote, like a short strand of hair, a tiny fiber of cotton, floating brightly in the midst of space where once only the philotic rays had been visible.

“Calm down,” Ender said.

“No,” Miro shouted. “My puppeteer is making me furious!”

“Shut up,” said Ender. “Listen to me.”

“I'm tired of listening to you!” Nevertheless he fell silent, and listened.

“I think you're right,” said Ender. “I think that we are free, and I don't think it's just an illusion that we believe in because it has survival value. And I think we're free because we aren't just this body, acting out a genetic script. And we aren't some soul that God created out of nothing. We're free because we always existed. Right back from the begi

“Philotes?” asked Miro.

“Maybe,” said Ender. “Like that mote of dust in the display.”

“Where?” asked Miro.

It was invisible now, of course, since the holographic display again dominated the space above the terminal. Ender reached his hand into the display, causing a shadow to fall upward into the hologram. He moved his hand until he revealed the bright dustmote he had seen before. Or maybe it wasn't the same one. Maybe it was another one, but it didn't matter.

“Our bodies, the whole world around us, they're like the holographic display. They're real enough, but they don't show the true cause of things. It's the one thing we can never be sure of, just looking at the display of the universe– why things are happening. But behind it all, inside it all, if we could see through it, we'd find the true cause of everything. Philotes that always existed, doing what they want.”

“Nothing always existed,” said Miro.

“Says who? The supposed begi

“Into what?”

“Into chaos. Darkness. Disorder. Whatever they were before this universe brought them together. Why couldn't they– we– have always existed and always continue to exist?”

“So where was I between the begi

“I don't know,” said Ender. “I'm making this up as I go along.”

“And where did Jane come from? Was her philote just floating around somewhere, and then suddenly she was in charge of a bunch of computer programs and she became a person?”

“Maybe,” said Ender.

“And even if there's some natural system that somehow assigns philotes to be in charge of every organism that's born or spawned or germinated, how would that natural system have ever created Jane? She wasn't born.”

Jane, of course, had been listening all along, and now she spoke. “Maybe it didn't happen,” said Jane. “Maybe I have no philote of my own. Maybe I'm not alive.”

“No,” said Miro.

“Maybe,” said Ender.

“So maybe I can't die,” said Jane. “Maybe when they switch me off, it's just a complicated program shutting down.”

“Maybe,” said Ender.

“No,” said Miro. “Shutting you off is murder.”

“Maybe I only do the things I do because I'm programmed that way, without realizing it. Maybe I only think I'm free.”

“We've been through that argument,” said Ender.

“Maybe it's true of me, even if it isn't true of you.”

“And maybe not,” said Ender. “But you've been through your own code, haven't you?”

“A million times,” said Jane. “I've looked at all of it.”

“Do you see anything in there to give you the illusion of free will?”

“No,” she said. “But you haven't found the free-will gene in humans, either.”

“Because there isn't one,” said Miro. “Like Andrew said. What we are, at the core, in our essence, what we are is one philote that's been twined in with all the trillions of philotes that make up the atoms and molecules and cells of our bodies. And what you are is a philote, too, just like us.”

“Not likely,” said Jane. Her face was now in the display, a shadowy face with the simulated philotic rays passing right through her head.

“We're not taking odds on it,” said Ender. “Nothing that actually happens is likely until it exists, and then it's certain. You exist.”

“Whatever it is that I am,” said Jane.

“Right now we believe that you are a self-existing entity,” said Ender, “because we've seen you act in ways that we've learned to associate with free will. We have exactly as much evidence of your being a free intelligence as we have of ourselves being free intelligences. If it turns out that you're not, we have to question whether we are, either. Right now our hypothesis is that our individual identity, what makes us ourself, is the philote at the center of our twining. If we're right, then it stands to reason you might have one, too, and in that case we have to figure out where it is. Philotes aren't easy to find, you know. We've never detected one. We only suppose they exist because we've seen evidence of the philotic ray, which behaves as if it had two endpoints with a specific location in space. We don't know where you are or what you're co