Determinism Falsified; Free Will Verified

Here's a thought experiment I got from George Mason University Professor Bryan Caplan, who wrote about this long before he became a professional economist:

Make any assumptions you want, however unrealistic, to produce a scenario in which a team of neuroscientists can predict that ten minutes from now you will raise your right arm. Assume also that the team informs you of the prediction. 

Question: will you or will you not be able to falsify the prediction? Further questions: does the fact that the team informed you of the prediction make a difference? If so, how? Could the team adjust for the fact that you know the prediction? How?

The only plausible conclusion is that you can indeed falsify the prediction if you want to because what could possibly stop you? But if that's the case, the neuroscientists were wrong: your actions are not determined. And if you are free when informed, why aren't you free when you're not informed?

I hope no will suggest the prediction caused your action. You would have had to decide to falsify the prediction. But on what grounds can we say you had to decide that way? Actions have reasons not causes. And as Caplan adds, the universal law of causality cannot be invoked without question-begging since it assumes, without justification, that purposive action is an effect requiring a cause.

"If you can falsify any prediction about your arm," Caplan writes, "and if the prediction is derived perfectly from a comprehensive knowledge of your body's constituent micro-particles, then your mind must be free."

Re free will: QED.

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