The Science of Discworld II

way we would like, and not the way the lions would like. Our intelligence gives us the ability to construct mental models of the future, mostly simple extrapolations of patterns that we have noticed in the past. Our extelligence collects these models, and welds them together into religious prophecies, scientific laws, ideologies, social imperatives … We are time-binding animals, whose every action is constrained not just by the past and present, but also by our own anticipations of the future. We know that we can’t predict the future very accurately, but a prediction that works only some of the time is, we feel, better than none. So we tell ourselves and each other stories about the future, and we use those stories to run our lives.
    Those stories form part of the extelligence, and they interact with other elements in it, such as science and religion, to create a strong emotional attachment to belief systems or technology that can help us navigate into that uncertain future. Or claim to do so, and can convince us that the claim is valid, even if it’s not. In many religions, enormous respect is paid to prophets, people so wise, or so in tune with the deity, that they know what the future will bring. The priests gain respect by predicting eclipses and the turn of the seasons. Scientists gain rather less respect by predicting the movements of the planets, and (less effectively) tomorrow’s weather. Whoever controls the future controls human destiny.
    Destiny. That’s a strange concept in a creature that believes it has free will. If you can control the future, then the future cannot be fixed. If it is not fixed, then there is no such thing as destiny. Unless, perhaps, the future converges on the same events, whatever you do. There are many stories with this theme, of which the most famous is ‘Appointment in Samara’ (parodied in The Colour of Magic ), when a man’s efforts to escape Death only bring him to the very place where Death is waiting.
    We entertain contradictory beliefs about the future. That’s not such a surprise: we’re not the most logically consistent of creatures. We tend to apply logic locally, within narrow limits, and when it suits us, We’re very bad at applying it globally, setting one of our cherished beliefsup against another and looking for the inconsistencies. But we are especially inconsistent when it comes to dealing with the future.
    Paradoxically, free will is the last thing you want if you’re tribal. You’re caught in the matrix of ‘Everything that isn’t mandatory is forbidden’, and there is simply no room for free will. On the one hand, such an existence is very secure; but on the other, punishments and rewards are just as mandatory as everything else if your sins are found out. Your personal responsibility is only to obey the rules.
    You can still tell yourself stories about the future, but they involve very narrow choices. ‘Shall I attend the ritual meal tonight and leave early to say my evening prayers, or shall I stay for the communal prayers like everybody else?’ Even in a tribal system, a lot of cheating goes on, because we’re human. ‘Well, now … If I leave early , then I can drop by Fatima’s tent, and my wives won’t know about it …’
    Plenty of sins are possible, even in a tribal society, and in reality ones that survive allow a little flexibility. If, say, you forget to fast on the Holy Day and someone sees you eating, and you genuinely thought it was tomorrow, or an enemy told you that it was tomorrow, or you had been made to think it was tomorrow because an enemy had cast a curse upon you … then some skilful pleading might mitigate your punishment.
    The natural and attractive option is always to blame others; it is unbearable to know that you have brought the punishment upon yourself. If you can’t see how anyone else can be blamed for material reasons, then blame them for cursing you. Blame Fatima for being attractive and willing, blame an enemy who lied to you. ‘Luck’ is not available as a concept in a tribal society, because Allah knows everything, Jehovah is omniscient: the natural response is fatalistic acceptance of whatever they throw your way. 1 If you are to attain heaven, so be it; if your fate is to be flung into the everlasting fires, then that is the Will of God, to which you are subservient. The bestyou can do, as a peasant-level