It’s Written In The Stars!
Determinism or Free Will
C. Z. C. Zhu
WE ARE ALL FAMILIAR WITH THE IDEA OF INEVITABLE FATE. In Shakespeare especially, regardless of the characters’ willingness to alter their fate, they all succumb to the inevitable power of a fated future. What about our life? Is our life fundamentally fated and decided for us? The classical argument between Determinism and free will proves to continue regardless of modern interpretation. Are we truly the masters of our own actions, or are our lives predestined, written in the stars?
To those unfamiliar with the concept, Determinism posits that every action in the history of the universe is the inevitable result of preceding causes. Assuming Determinism is true, this means that since the Big Bang took place 13 billion years ago, the entire history of the universe and the future to come, has already been written. Yes, even you reading this article was bound to happen and not an action of individual free will, but rather inevitably fated.
The notion of Free Will says that individuals are solely responsible for their actions. According to this view, our choices and life paths are determined by our personal agency. This perspective assumes the existence of individual autonomy and the inherent capacity for self-determination. Proponents of Free Will argue that human beings possess the unique ability to make conscious choices that shape our destinies. It is this power of volition that endows our decisions with moral significance and render us accountable for our actions.
Determinism suggests that free choice is merely an illusion. We are not free, but rather constricted by the universal plan for us. In this deterministic view, the sense of autonomy and control we experience is an allusion. Our independence is an illusion.
The argument between Free Will and Determinism raises questions about the nature of human freedom and moral responsibility. Why should individuals be punished or rewarded for our actions, if these actions are not created by our own autonomy? How far can Determinism be taken? “Sorry I didn’t do my homework today, it was out of my control,” or perhaps the excuse that “I didn’t skip sports training, the universe made me do it!”
There are essentially two responses of denial towards Determinism. The first being, that it purely does not matter whether it is true. But what matters is that our decisions are predetermined by our own prior events. Neuroscientists have proven that our decisions are subconsciously a product of our previous experiences and prior events. Thus, it was not a decision made dating back to before our birth, but rather from our life experiences.
The second response is more philosophical; it does not matter whether Determinism is true or not, because indeterminism is just as incompatible with Free will. If we decide to deny Determinism exists, and choose to believe in indeterminism, this means that our actions are not inevitably made in the beginning of time, but instead completely arbitrary. In claiming that all actions are randomly occurring and just happen to us, then no action made is truly an action of free will; it is either completely fated or completely random.
Thus, when someone argues in favour of Determinism, they are not engaging in a genuine debate. Instead, they are completely controlled, like a “play” button being pushed. The person begins advocating for something they never had the autonomy to choose. They are essentially a victim of circumstance, a machine operating without genuine thought or free will.
The situation becomes even more absurd when we consider the person on the receiving end of this deterministic argument. According to determinism, the listener also has no choice in whether they pay attention to the argument or not. It purely does not matter if they are listening because their reaction, whether they agree or disagree, is equally deprived of free will.
This brings to mind a famous reference made about an image of two tape machines in a room, each playing their scripted lines without any real engagement or assertion. In this deterministic framework, no genuine thinking or reasoning can occur.
The notion of determinism fundamentally denies consciousness and reduces the process to a farce, devoid of any true intellectual exchange or meaningful thought. If Determinism exists, then free will simply cannot co-exist; we are either completely in control or completely out of control.
