Contra Myself on Free Will
A philosopher's viral self-rebuttal claims our feeling of choice depends on not knowing our determined future.
Philosopher Julius sparked viral discussion with his essay 'Contra Myself on Free Will,' published on LessWrong and The Grey Matter Substack. In this 12-minute read, he directly rebuts his own previous defense of compatibilism—the position that free will and determinism are compatible. His core new argument is that people's strong intuition of having free will is critically dependent on their ignorance of their own determined future. He contends that if someone could see their predetermined life path, the phenomenology of choice and open possibility would vanish, revealing the feeling of freedom to be an illusion.
Julius illustrates this with a vivid thought experiment: a college freshman who feels his future is wide open loses that feeling entirely when shown photographs of his predetermined future life in accounting, marriage, and suburbia. The philosopher argues this demonstrates that what people actually value about 'free will' is the experience of open possibilities, which determinism negates. While his earlier piece defended free will as the 'deliberative algorithm' of an agent, his rebuttal forces a harder look at whether that algorithmic process feels like freedom only when we don't know the outcome. The piece has gained traction for its rigorous self-critique and clear framing of a central tension in the free will debate.
- Julius rebuts his own prior compatibilist defense of free will, arguing the feeling of choice requires ignorance of a determined future.
- Uses a thought experiment where a student shown his predetermined future (accounting job, family in Texas) loses his feeling of free will.
- Concludes that the phenomenology people value about freedom is an illusion, separate from the causal process of deliberation.
Why It Matters
For AI ethics and theory of mind, defining agency and responsibility hinges on resolving this philosophical tension.