Lois asked:

I have been having some thoughts about determinism. Although it is one of many things that probably
cannot be proved, I think it is a fascinating idea that we have no free will, but that every 'decision' we
make is actually determined by our genes, our psychology, our environment (and possibly some other
factors), but that we only think we are making a decision. It certainly would make us all feel less guilty
about the choices we have made. I understand that Freud was a determinist or at least wrote
something about it. Do you have a source? Also, I would appreciate any other sources you have for
this philosophical idea. I am not interested in Biblical or other religious aspects of it. I am interested in
it in a secular way only. Also, what is your own view of determinism?

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First, let me apologize for missing the seven-day deadline for your question, which I received a week
ago on Friday. I can only plead in mitigation that giventhe state of my body and brain at the moment
and my birth, and the totality of things that have happened to me since that time, it was inevitable that
I would miss the deadline by one day.

- What I have just said illustrates one way of understanding the thesis of 'determinism'. The challenge
from determinism to our naive belief in 'free will' is very powerful

Here's how I would define 'determinism': If determinism holds, then any possible universe which is
indistinguishable from the actual universe at a given time T, is indistinguishable from the actual
universe at all other times. Consider, for example, a universe where GK starts off by writing, 'Dear
Lois, First, let me apologize...'. Let us assume that determinism holds in that universe, just as I am
assuming that it holds in ours, and that the two universes were indistinguishable at the time when GK
wrote those words. Then the words GK goes on to write in that universe will be the same as the
words GK writes in this universe.

I believe I have a choice in what words to put down, and in a sense I do. No-one is controlling me or
pointing a gun at my head. Yet in a sense, there is no possibility, if determinism holds, of my deviating
from the tracks that were laid down when the universe first went 'Bang' billions of years ago.

What a terrible prospect! Would it be better for us if the universe was not deterministic? At the present
stage of knowledge, no-one can be sure whether it is or not. But suppose it isn't. Let's suppose that in
the parallel universe the very next sentence I write after this sentence is different from the sentence I
will write in this universe. What accounts for the difference? Nothing at all. I just 'happen' to decide
differently. There's no explanation, nothing about the way I was thinking that accounts for the
difference. - That's more like the spin of a roulette wheel than a 'free action' that I have responsibility
for.

So there's the dilemma: no free will either way.

Freud was interested in a stronger thesis of 'determinism' than the one I have defined here. In his
book The Interpretation of Dreamshe makes the methodological assumption that every feature of a
dream has psychoanalytic significance. Everything that the patient remembers of their dream is a
suitable subject matter for psychoanalytic interpretation - including the patient's mistaken belief that
the feature 'has no significance'. Determinism as I have defined it could hold even if Freud's view of
the significance of dreams was false.

The point is sometimes made in discussions of free will that we are constrained by our genetic
inheritance and upbringing. These are merely particular examples taken from the totality of the
conditions under which we make decisions and act. Being able to trace the causal influences on a
person's actions, however, does make a significant difference to the way we view punishment. It does
not follow, however, that it is wrong to punish. Rather, we have to question the way we naively justify
punishment, prior to philosophical reflection.

Geoffrey Klempner