Free-Will or No Free-Will

Aaron Tovish
3 min readJan 25, 2025

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That is the question.

JIm Carrey in “Lair Liar”. Credit: Nicholas Voc

The case for determinism would be much stronger if there were a way to predict a person’s next step. But there are so many possible steps, making consistently correct prediction next to impossible, i.e. impossible. So, the claim for determinism is speculative at best. That doesn’t mean it’s wrong, only that it is unproven and is likely to remain that way for a very long time.

Just to give an idea of the huge challenge any such predicting project would face, consider the following example.

A person will be shown a prediction about that person’s reaction to reading the prediction. In other words, the prediction has to take into account the person’s knowledge of the prediction. So, predicting the reaction would mean that the person would react that way despite having been given the chance to react in another way. Perhaps the prediction is so perfectly aligned with that person’s general disposition that it is their great pleasure to confirm it — they could never imagine doing anything else.

OK, what if a person’s general disposition is contrarian (sort of like mine). Whatever is predicted, they would do the oppose just to spite the predicter. Predicting that, “Whatever I say, you will do the opposite.” Hardly qualifies as a prediction, unless the predicter can “predict” its own decision about what to predict. Even then, to be particularly contrary, the person could, in this instance, not do the opposite. A die-hard determinist might argue that the prediction is so “strong” that the person’s contrariness would be overwhelmed by an intense desire to do as predicted. (Think of Jim Carrey in “Liar Liar”, as per photo above.) That cannot be totally ruled out; but it sounds pretty farfetched, no?

Well, not in every set of circumstances. If the prediction is that the driver will stay in lane rather than driving head-on into oncoming traffic, it will probably prove to be correct. Correct, but not very impressive. The predicter must be able to deal with less cut-and-dry situations to impress, i.e. be worth a damn.

Might the prediction be able to exploit reverse psychology in some way to cleverly trap the contrarian? “I predict that you will find this prediction perplexing.” “Buzz off! I’m getting something to eat!”

What if the prediction were in a language the person cannot read? The person heads for Google translate, and the prediction translates as, “You will resort straight away to Google translate!” Clever? No, cheating. Remember, the point of the exercise is that the person knows what the prediction is before fulfilling it.

I conclude that determinism is not a useful way to think about human behavior. It is lightyears from being provable. There may be many aspect of our behavior that can be reliably anticipated — especial by social media algorithms! — in the same way life-long partners often know what their opposite is going to say next — and find that endearing rather than boring. But that is not about determinism, it’s about being reliable and sociable. Yes, some people are deeply into that; but it’s definitely not universal.

God may or may not be dead, but determinism is on life-support for the indefinite future.

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