Thread: The short argument against free will

Also if they don't believe in free will then how can they say that a murderer has done something wrong, if they have no control over their own actions?
Argued for hours with my psychology teacher for hours that free will does exist... Beat him with this...

Not so short argument for free will.

Let's assume that everithing is detemined. Let's also imagine that we have a machine that predicts future. Absolutely correct. And we run an experiment: a man stands in front of two doors for some time, then he make choice and opens one. While he is deciding which door to open we ask machine what will be his choice. Let's assume that 100 of 100 times machine made right prediction. But then, one experimentator decided to tell the result of prediction to a man before he made his choice. What's gonna happen? If he could open wrong door?

Well... Not particulary an argument but food for thought. There are kinds of determinism that unable to disproof even by thought experiment.

Originally Posted by Straight

What's gonna happen? If he could open wrong door?

Simple, he is going to open the wrong door and prove the machine wrong. The thought experiment is flawed, the machine wasn't correct 100% of the time, couldn't be.

Now a new question arises: Why did you say the machine wasn't correct 100% of the time figurefly?
If there's a machine that can predict which door a man will choose 100% of the time, it means the machine knows every single thing since the beginning of the universe (cause and effect, cause and effect, cause and effect). Let's assume that this machine does know every single bit of information, according to your experiment, there will still be one information you have not provided the machine. You had to tell the machine that you were going to tell the result of the prediction to the man.

So that the machine could quit and say, FATAL ERROR.

Determinism means that if we know F(x) at moment of time T1, then it can be calculated F(x) at any time T2 - future or past doesn't matter. So if we could make something that wasn't predicted by machine then it means that such prediction is fundamentally impossible => there is no determinism. If we consider that determinism is predictability.