Anxiety Is the Dizziness of Freedom
By: Ted Chiang
Tags: Technology, Science Fiction, Future, Science, Books

Nat got herself a cup of coffee and took her seat. This was her second meeting since getting the prism from Lyle; last week she’d been planning on announcing that she wasn’t going to be coming back, but she had wound up hardly saying anything at all. So she had had to attend at least one more and say that she was going to take a break from the meetings; people would wonder if she simply stopped.

Dana smiled at the group and said, “Who wants to start us off today?”

Without intending to, Nat found herself speaking, just as Lyle began saying something as well. Both of them stopped.

“You go,” said Nat.

“No, you should go,” said Lyle. “I don’t think you’ve ever started off a meeting before.”

Nat realized that he was right. What had come over her? She opened her mouth, but for once she couldn’t think of a good lie. Eventually, she said, “A guy I work with, I guess you’d call him my supervisor, he was killed recently. Murdered, actually.”

The group was shocked, with assorted “Oh my Gods” being murmured.

“Do you want to tell us about your relationship with him?” asked Dana.

“Yeah,” asked Kevin. “Was he a friend?”

“Kind of,” Nat admitted. “But that’s not why it’s been on my mind. I know this isn’t a grief support group . . . I guess I brought this up because I wanted your take on something.”

“Of course,” said Dana. “Go ahead.”

“I keep thinking about the randomness of this murder. I don’t mean the killer picked him at random. I mean, when he had the gun pointed at my supervisor, he said that some version of him was going to pull the trigger, so why shouldn’t it be him? We’ve all heard that line before, but I never paid any attention to it. But now I’m wondering, are the people who say that actually right?”

“That’s a good question,” said Dana. “I agree that we’ve all heard people make similar claims.” She addressed the group. “Does anyone have any thoughts on that? Do you think that every time someone makes you angry, there’s a branch where you pick up a gun and shoot the guy?”

Zareenah spoke up. “I’ve read that there’s been an increase in crimes of passion since prisms became popular. Not an enormous one, but statistically significant.”

“Yeah,” said Kevin, “which is why the theory can’t be true. The fact that there’s been an increase, even a small one, disproves the theory.”

“How do you figure?” asked Zareenah. “Branches are generated by any quantum event, right? Even before we had prisms, branches were still splitting off constantly; we just didn’t have access to any of them. If it were true that there’s always a branch where you pick up a gun and shoot someone on a whim, then we should have seen the same number of random murders every day before the prism was invented as we saw every day after. The invention of prisms wouldn’t cause more of those murders to line up in this particular branch. So if we’re seeing more people killing one another since prisms became popular, it can’t be because there’s always a branch where you pick up a gun.”

“I follow your reasoning,” said Zareenah, “but then what’s causing the rise in murders?”

Kevin shrugged. “It’s like a suicide fad. People hear about other people doing it, and it gives them ideas.”

Nat thought about it. “That proves that the argument can’t be right, but it doesn’t explain why it’s wrong.”

“If you know the theory’s wrong, why do you need more?”

“I want to know whether my decisions matter!” That came out more emphatically than she intended. Nat took a breath, and then continued. “Forget about murder; that’s not the kind of thing I’m talking about. But when I have a choice to do the right thing or the wrong thing, am I always choosing to do both in different branches? Why should I bother being nice to other people, if every time I’m also being a dick to them?”

There was some discussion among the members for a while, but eventually Nat turned to Dana. “Can you tell me what you think?”

“Sure,” said Dana. She paused to gather her thoughts. “In general, I think your actions are consistent with your character. There might be more than one thing that would be in character for you to do, because your behavior is going to vary depending on your mood, but there are a lot more things that would be utterly out of character. If you’re someone who’s always loved animals, there isn’t a branch where you kick a puppy just because it barked at you. If you’re someone who’s always obeyed the law, there’s no branch where you suddenly rob a convenience store instead of going into work in the morning.”

Kevin said, “What about branches that diverged when you were a baby and your life took a totally different course?”

“I don’t care about that,” said Nat. “I’m asking about branches where I, having lived the life I led, am faced with a choice.”

“Kevin, we can talk about bigger divergences later, if you want,” said Dana.

“No, that’s fine. Proceed.”

“Okay, so let’s imagine you’re in a situation where you have a couple options, and either course of action would be consistent with your character. For example, suppose a cashier has given you too much change, and you can either give it back or just keep it. Suppose you could see yourself doing either of those, depending on the kind of day you’re having. In that case, I’d say it’s entirely possible that there’s a branch where you keep the extra change, as well as a branch where you give it back.”

Nat realized there probably weren’t any branches out there where she gave back the extra change. For as long as she could remember, if she was having a good day, getting extra change would have just made it a better day.

Kevin asked, “So does that mean it doesn’t matter if we act like jerks?”

“It matters to the person in this branch that you’re acting like a jerk to,” said Zareenah.

“But what about globally? Does being a jerk in this branch increase the percentage of jerkish behavior across all branches?”

“I’m not sure about the math,” said Dana. “But I definitely think that your choices matter. Every decision you make contributes to your character and shapes the kind of person you are. If you want to be someone who always gives the extra money back to the cashier, the actions you take now affect whether you’ll become that person.

“The branch where you’re having a bad day and keep the extra change is one that split off in the past; your actions can’t affect it anymore. But if you act compassionately in this branch, that’s still meaningful, because it has an effect on the branches that will split off in the future. The more often you make compassionate choices, the less likely it is that you’ll make selfish choices in the future, even in the branches where you’re having a bad day.”

“That sounds good, but — ” Nat thought about how years of acting a certain way could wear ruts in a person’s brain, so that you would keep slipping into the same habits without trying to. “But it’s not easy,” said Nat.

“I know it’s not,” said Dana. “But the question was, given that we know about other branches, whether making good choices is worth doing. I think it absolutely is. None of us are saints, but we can all try to be better. Each time you do something generous, you’re shaping yourself into someone who’s more likely to be generous next time, and that matters.

“And it’s not just your behavior in this branch that you’re changing: you’re inoculating all the versions of you that split off in the future. By becoming a better person, you’re ensuring that more and more of the branches that split off from this point forward are populated by better versions of you.”

Better versions of Nat. “Thanks,” she said. “That’s what I was looking for.”