The Incompatibility Argument

Determinism: Everything that happens is causally determined by the past and the laws.

Determinism: Everything that happens is causally determined by the past and the laws.

The Universality of Causation: Everything has a cause which precedes it in time.The Sufficiency of Causation: Causes determine their effects, in the sense that the effect is necessary, given the cause (and the laws).

“Everything is the result of fixed laws.”

-Charles Darwin

“The assumption of an absolute determinism is the essential

foundation of every scientific enquiry.”

-Max Plank

“Everything is determined, the beginning as well as the end, by forces over which we have no control. It is determined for

the insect as well as the star. Human beings, vegetables, or cosmic dust, we all

dance to a mysterious tune, intoned in the distance by an invisible piper.”

-Albert Einstein

Determinism: Everything that happens is causally determined by the past and the laws.

Freedom

The Principle of Alternative Possibilities: An action is only free if the person could have done otherwise.

Determinism: Everything that happens is causally determined by the past and the laws.Transitivity: If x is causally determined by y and y is causally determined by z, then x is causally determined by z.

With Earth's first Clay They did the Last Man knead,And there of the Last Harvest sow'd the Seed:And the first Morning of Creation wroteWhat the Last Dawn of Reckoning shall read.

-Umar Khayyam

The Incompatibility Argument

1) Determinism is true.2) If Determinism is true, then

everything we do is causally determined by things that happened before any of us was born.

3) If that’s the case, then none of our actions are free.

4) None of our actions are free.