Predictor, Fatalism, and Thought Experiments

Abstract

A short story by Ted Chiang (2005) is analysed as an example of a philosophical thought experiment allegedly proving that there’s no such thing as free will. I explore the structure and stages of thought experiments as proposed by Miščević (2012: 2017): design, the question, understanding, tentative conscious production, immediate spontaneous answer, variations, and generalizations. Another characteristic is a certain mental “chemistry”: in imagination we separate conceptual traits that normally go together. Predictor separates the causal order from the temporal order of events. This inversion leads to dramatic collision between our experience of time and self-agency. The actual order of our action is causal, but our experiential order is temporal. Nevertheless, the thought experiment fails in its demonstration that our choices don’t matter. Its logical core is a fallacious argument for fatalism.