About This Lesson
Richard Holton (M.I.T.) discusses the classic philosophical problem of free will: the question of whether we human beings decide things for ourselves, or are forced to go one way or another. One worry is that the laws of physics, plus facts about the past over which we have no control, determine what we will do, and that means we're not free. Another worry is that because the laws and the past determine what we'll do, someone smart enough could know what we would do ahead of time, so we can't be free.
