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ought to cheer for a droid rebellion against an organic empire? The issue of treating droids as persons may seem silly to talk about because, after all, it’s just a make-believe story! As history has proven, though, science fiction has a way of becoming science fact. The famous robotics engineer and theorist, Hans Moravec, claims that by 2050 robots actually will surpass humans in intellectual capacity.96 The way in which advances in computer and robotic technology are being made at an astronomical rate gives us cause to pause and consider that, in the not-so-distant future, there most likely will be advanced forms of machinery that behave much like C-3PO and R2-D2. How then, will the organic community react? How should such non-organic persons who seem to behave like organic persons be treated?

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“Size Matters Not”: The Force as the Causal Power of the Jedi

JAN-ERIK JONES

Before Luke meets Obi-Wan Kenobi, his life is relatively uneventful. The only thing he wants is to leave Tatooine and enroll at the Academy. While living on his Uncle Owen’s farm he has no idea of the kind of power he has at his disposal. As fate would have it, Luke and Obi-Wan meet and his odyssey to help restore balance to the Force begins.

The Force, Obi-Wan tells us “is what gives the Jedi his power. It’s an energy field created by all living things. It surrounds us and penetrates us. It binds the galaxy together.” The appeal of the Force to viewers of Star Wars is that it gives the Jedi power over the physical world in ways that defy the natural order of events with which we are familiar. In our world, lifting an X-wing fighter from a swamp would require more than mental focus and control over our emotions. And as Qui-Gon, Obi-Wan, and Yoda teach Anakin and Luke about the Force and how to use it, we can’t help but wish we had that kind of power over our environment.

The reason why the Force in Star Wars has such a grip on the viewer’s imagination is because it makes us ask the fundamental metaphysical questions that have driven science and philosophy from the beginning; questions about cause and effect, the laws of nature, the possibility of foreknowledge, and the relationship between the mind and the physical world.

The Source of the Jedi’s Power

The Force is described in two very different ways in Star Wars. First, Obi-Wan describes it as an omnipresent energy field created by all living things that binds the galaxy together. Obi-Wan thus makes it sound as if the Force depends on living things for its existence, while causing the galaxy itself to cohere. Indeed, this latter feature of it makes it sounds like one of the fundamental causal laws of the universe, akin to gravity or electromagnetism.

Qui-Gon Jinn, on the other hand, tells us that there are some symbionts, called “midi-chlorians,” that live in large concentrations in potential Jedi and convey the will of the Force to their host. If Qui-Gon is right, the Force has some sort of awareness and a will or preference about how things go in the universe. The Force also provides the Jedi with (among other powers) occasional glimpses into the future and gives them their unique psychokinetic power—the ability to move things with their minds.

While these two accounts are not irreconcilable, the Force, as described by both, plays at least two roles: it explains the Jedi’s special knowledge and it’s a causal power. While both of these issues have a long and interesting philosophical history, I’ll limit myself to discussing the latter: “What is the nature of causation?” And, perhaps, the answer to this might allow us to speculate on the nature of the Force.

We know that causes and effects are all around us. And we’ve learned to predict how objects will behave from observing some typical cause and effect interactions. But one thing that we learn from fantastical sci-fi inventions like the Force is that there could be kinds of causes and effects that are so foreign to us that we’d have no idea how they work, even though we’d recognize them as causes and effects. We thus have