PHL101Y1 Lecture Notes - Lecture 5: Compatibilism, Big Bang, Logical Consequence
Document Summary
Suppose there is a first moment in time, suppose it is an event like the big bang. The total truth about how things work, all facts in place, together with the laws of nature logically entails applicable to anything that happens after the big bang. Everything that followed the big bang will determine what you have for dinner tomorrow, or what the blue jays will do. The past plus the laws dictate the future. Fatalism: nothing you do now will affect the future. Ayer: confuses determinism with the thesis that everything that happens has a cause. Even if determinism is true, some things that happen just happen; are not caused. Every event can have a cause, and the world might not be deterministic (maybe the way things causing other events is in itself indeterministic) P1) everything that happens is determined by prior events (determinism) P2) one acts freely only if one has the power to act otherwise (choice condition)
