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<h2 class="hd hd-2 unit-title">Free Will</h2>
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<p><span style="font-family: book antiqua, palatino;">I would like to end this chapter by considering the question of whether the Grandfather Paradox shows that time travel is incompatible with free will.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: book antiqua, palatino;">Let us start with a preliminary question: <em>what is it to act freely?</em> The <strong>Control Hypothesis</strong> is the hypothesis that to act freely is to be such that one <em>is in a position to act otherwise</em>. A little more precisely:</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: book antiqua, palatino;"><strong>Control Hypothesis</strong></span><br /><span style="font-family: book antiqua, palatino;">An agent acts freely in doing <em>X</em> if and only if: (1) she does <em>X</em> by making a certain decision, and (2) she is in a position to do something other than <em>X</em> by making a different decision.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: book antiqua, palatino;">As its name suggests, the Control Hypothesis is meant to capture the idea that someone who acts freely has <em>control</em> over the action she performs. As we'll see below, there are good reasons for thinking that the Control Hypothesis is incorrect. But it is a good starting point for elucidating the connection between time travel and free will. So we'll treat it as our working hypothesis for now.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: book antiqua, palatino;">With this as our background, let us turn to the question of whether Bruno acted freely in failing to kill Grandfather. I'd like to consider a couple of arguments purporting to show that Bruno was <em>not</em> in a position to make a different decision about how to take his shot. Although they are natural arguments, I will argue that they ultimately fail.</span><br /><br /></p>
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<h2 class="hd hd-2 unit-title">The First Argument</h2>
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<h3>The First Argument</h3>
<p><span style="font-family: book antiqua, palatino;">Suppose that Bruno's assassination attempt was well-documented in the local press. It is known that the would-be assassin fired a single shot. The bullet missed Grandfather---but only barely: it burnt a scar on his left cheek. </span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: book antiqua, palatino;">Bruno has seen that scar in photographs on countless occasions. He can remember it clearly. "A hideous scar on a hideous face,'' he thinks, as he takes his position at the belfry and loads a single bullet into his rifle. </span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: book antiqua, palatino;">He prepares to take aim, and remembers one of the old newspaper articles about the shooting. He has read it so many times that he can recite it from memory: "The assassination attempt occurred at noon. The church bells were tolling. A single shot was fired. The bullet missed, but only barely, burning a scar on the victim's left cheek.'' Bruno's train of thought is interrupted when the church bells start tolling. Noon has arrived. Bruno caresses the trigger. Grandfather stands still for a moment, as a breeze ruffles some nearby leaves. Bruno prepares his shot...</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: book antiqua, palatino;">On this version of the story, we know exactly how Bruno will act: he will take a single shot and miss---but only barely, burning a scar on Grandfather's left cheek. This means that <em>what we know</em> about the rest of the story is is incompatible with Bruno's killing Grandfather. It is tempting to conclude from this that Bruno was not in a position to do otherwise, and use this conclusion to argue---via the Control Hypothesis---that he did not act freely. It seems to me, however, that that would be a mistake.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: book antiqua, palatino;">Let me begin with an analogy. You meet your friend Susan for breakfast in New York. She tells you that she decided to leave on a train-trip to Alaska last night, and set off to the train station. Susan is yet to get to the end of her story, but you know already that her attempt to get to Alaska by train was unsuccessful. </span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: book antiqua, palatino;">How do you know this?</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: book antiqua, palatino;">Because here she is in New York the next morning, telling you her story. And you know that it takes several days to get to Alaska by train. So <em>what you know</em> about the actual situation is incompatible with her making a train-trip to Alaska. </span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: book antiqua, palatino;">Notice, however, nothing so far entails that Susan did not act freely when she failed to leave town. Although Susan's story could go on to reveal that she remained in New York against her will---perhaps she was prevented from getting on the train by an anxious friend---it could also reveal that she acted freely: perhaps she changed her mind as she headed for the tracks. </span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: book antiqua, palatino;">The key feature of the case is that even before Susan is able to get to the end of her story, you have information about the story's future: you know that Susan will somehow fail to make a train-trip to Alaska. But what is relevant to free will, according to the Control Hypothesis, is whether Susan was in a position to go to Alaska by deciding differently, regardless whether you---who are with her in New York the next day---happen to know that things won't actually turn out that way. </span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: book antiqua, palatino;">Now return to the case of Bruno and his Grandfather. We---who live in the present day---have information about Grandfather's future: we know that he will in fact live long enough to have children, and therefore that Bruno's assassination attempt will fail. But, according to the Control Hypothesis, this is irrelevant to the question of whether Bruno acted freely. What matters is whether Bruno was in a position to kill Grandfather, regardless of whether we---who live in the present day---happen to know that things won't actually turn out that way.</span></p>
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<span style="font-family: 'book antiqua', palatino;">Suppose that Susan interrupts her story to take a phone call. She&#8217;s told you that went to the train station and bought her ticket, but she has not yet revealed whether she set foot on the train. Should you accept the following conditional?</span>
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<span style="font-family: 'book antiqua', palatino;">If Susan set foot on the train, she managed to make the trip to Alaska.</span>
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<span style="font-family: 'book antiqua', palatino;">You later learn that Susan did not in fact set foot on the train. Would this be enough to justify you in accepting the following conditional?</span>
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<span style="font-family: 'book antiqua', palatino;">Had Susan set foot on the train, she would have made the trip to Alaska.</span>
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<span style="font-family: 'book antiqua', palatino;">Here is the story of Death in Damascus:</span>
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<span style="font-family: 'book antiqua', palatino;">One day a traveling merchant met Death in the souks of Damascus. Death appeared surprised, but she quickly recovered her characteristic cool and intoned with cadaverous solemnity, &#8220;Prepare yourself; I am coming for you tomorrow.&#8221;</span>
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<span style="font-family: 'book antiqua', palatino;">The merchant was terrified, and fled that very night to Aleppo.</span>
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<span style="font-family: 'book antiqua', palatino;">The next day, the merchant woke up and&#8212;horror of horrors!&#8212;found Death at her bedside. Her voice quaking, she managed to squeak, &#8220;I thought you were looking for me in Damascus!&#8221;</span>
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<span style="font-family: 'book antiqua', palatino;">&#8220;No, I was merely shopping in Damascus,&#8221; said Death. &#8220;That&#8217;s why I was surprised to see you: it is written that our final meeting is in Aleppo.&#8221;</span>
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<span style="font-family: 'book antiqua', palatino;">Could the merchant have stayed in Damascus, and avoided her date with Death? </span>
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<span style="font-family: 'book antiqua', palatino;">The answer is not fully specified by the story so far, but here&#8217;s a way of interpreting the story so that, yes, the merchant could have avoided her date with Death; it&#8217;s just that she wasn&#8217;t going to, and Death knew this. </span>
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<span style="font-family: 'book antiqua', palatino;">The basic idea is to think of the merchant as analogous to your friend Susan, who was thinking about taking a train trip to Alaska, and of Death as analogous to you. Death knows that she will meet the merchant on the appointed date the way that you know that your friend will fail to make the trip to Alaska: she has information about the future. But it doesn&#8217;t follow that the merchant had to meet Death in Aleppo; just as it doesn&#8217;t follow that Susan had to stay in New York.</span>
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<span style="font-family: 'book antiqua', palatino;"> Let us suppose that if the merchant had decided to stay in Damascus, she would have succeeded in staying. Does the Control Hypothesis entail that she acted freely in traveling to Aleppo?</span>
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<h2 class="hd hd-2 unit-title">The Second Argument</h2>
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<h3>The Second Argument</h3>
<p><span style="font-family: book antiqua, palatino;">I would now like to consider a second strategy for arguing that Bruno does not act freely when he fails to kill Grandfather. </span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: book antiqua, palatino;">Let us start by going back to Susan and her unsuccessful attempt to travel by train to Alaska and add a new element to the story. Suppose that the reason Susan was unable to leave is that she was prevented from doing so by an external influence. She was being monitored by a powerful enemy, who is committed to keeping her in New York. As Susan was about to board the train, the enemy arranged for the train to be cancelled. In fact, the enemy wouldn't have stopped there: he would have thwarted any other effort to leave New York.<br /><br />On this version of the story, Susan is not in a position to make a train trip to Alaska. </span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: book antiqua, palatino;">This has nothing to do whether whether we---who are having breakfast with Susan in New York the next morning---happen to have information about how Susan's story will in fact turn out. It is instead to do with whether Susan was <em>in control</em> of the outcome of the story. And, of course, Susan is not in control of the outcome in this case: the enemy will make sure that any effort to leave New York is thwarted. So the Control Hypothesis entails that Susan does not act freely when she stays in New York.<br /><br />The argument I would like to consider is based on the idea that something similar should be said of Bruno and his unsuccessful attempt to kill Grandfather. The claim is that Bruno fails to act freely because he faces an analogue of Susan's enemy. If Bruno were ever on track to kill Grandfather, the laws of physics would intervene to derail him, much like the enemy intervened to derail Susan's attempt to leave New York.<br /><br />In order to assess this argument, it is useful to start by thinking about physical law. </span></p>
<h4><span style="font-family: book antiqua, palatino;">Two Conceptions of Physical Law</span></h4>
<p><span style="font-family: book antiqua, palatino;">For a system of laws to be <strong>deterministic</strong> is for it to entail, on the basis of a full specification of the state of the world at any given time, a full specification of the state of the world at any later time.<br /><br />There is a temptation to think that possessing free will is simply a matter of having a decision-making process that is not subject to deterministic laws. As it turns out, however, the relationship between determinism and free will is not as straightforward as that. </span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: book antiqua, palatino;">To see this, imagine that your brain is equipped with a "quantum module'', which uses indeterministic quantum phenomena to issue "yes'' or "no'' outputs entirely at random. Imagine, moreover, that you make your choices by consulting your quantum module and acting in accordance with its randomly generated output. Under such circumstances, would you be acting freely? Certainly not. Far from being free, you would be a slave to the random outputs of your quantum module. <br /><br />What then is the relationship between determinism and free will? This is a complex question, about which philosophers disagree. (For references, see <a href="/courses/course-v1:MITx+24.118x+2T2020/jump_to_id/fc68645d1c114c49b46a534362870f61" target="[object Object]">below</a>.) I won't attempt to reproduce the debate here, except to point out that whether or not one thinks that determinism is compatible with free will might depend on one's conception of physical law. Broadly speaking, there are two different conceptions to consider:</span></p>
<ul>
<li><span style="font-family: book antiqua, palatino;">The laws tell us what <em>will</em> happen, on the basis of what has happened.</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: book antiqua, palatino;">The laws tell us what <em>must</em> happen, on the basis of what has happened.</span></li>
</ul>
<p><span style="font-family: book antiqua, palatino;">To get a sense of the difference, think of the world as a "mosaic'' of events, distributed across spacetime. </span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: book antiqua, palatino;">In an orderly world, such as our own, the distribution of properties across the mosaic is subject to patterns. These patterns can be used to make projections. They can be used determine, on the basis of information about one region of the mosaic, what other regions of the mosaic are like.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: book antiqua, palatino;"> Consider, for example, the following mosaic:</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: book antiqua, palatino;"><img src="/assets/courseware/v1/730d60c247251dfe6af6cca168c5d58e/asset-v1:MITx+24.118x+2T2020+type@asset+block/mosaic.png" alt="" type="saveimage" target="[object Object]" preventdefault="function(){r.isDefaultPrevented=n}" stoppropagation="function(){r.isPropagationStopped=n}" stopimmediatepropagation="function(){r.isImmediatePropagationStopped=n}" isdefaultprevented="function t(){return!1}" ispropagationstopped="function t(){return!1}" isimmediatepropagationstopped="function t(){return!1}" style="display: block; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="297" height="265" />It consists of square cells each of which is painted black or white. The coloring of the mosaic satisfies a pattern: neighboring cells are never colored alike. This pattern allows for very strong projections. For instance, it can be used to determine, on the basis of the color and location of any given cell, the color distribution of the rest of the mosaic.<br /><br />On the first of our two conceptions of the physical laws -- a law tells us what <em>will</em> happen, on the basis of what has happened -- a system of laws is nothing more than a description of the patterns that, as a matter of fact, characterize our world's mosaic. </span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: book antiqua, palatino;">In other words, a law is just a device for inferring what one region of the mosaic is actually like on the basis of information about what another region is actually like. It tells us nothing about what a given region of the mosaic <em>would</em> look like if we were to make changes somewhere else. (Notice, for example, that learning that the mosaic above is, in fact, such that neighboring cells are never colored alike tells us nothing about how the cells in one region of the grid would change if we were to make changes somewhere else.)<br /><br />In contrast, on the second of our two conceptions of the physical laws -- a law tells us what <em>must</em> happen, on the basis of what has happened -- the laws don't just describe the patterns that, as a matter of fact, characterize our world's mosaic. They also tell us that those patterns <em>must</em> hold, and would therefore remain in place if we were to modify the mosaic. (In the example of the mosaic above this might be cashed out as the claim that the color of a cell cannot be changed without also changing the colors of other cells, so as to keep in place the pattern that neighboring cells are never colored alike.) <br /><br />On this second conception of physical law, it is natural to think that determinism is incompatible with free will. For a deterministic world will be a world in which the laws make it <em>impossible</em> to do something other than what we actually do, assuming the initial conditions of the universe remain fixed. </span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: book antiqua, palatino;">As far as I can tell, however, there is nothing in contemporary physics that encourages such a conception of physical law. Physics is in the business of uncovering the patterns that characterize the world as we find it. But, as far as I can tell, it remains silent on the more philosophical question of whether the relevant patterns <em>must</em> hold.<br /><br />On our first conception of physical law, in contrast, it is not obvious that we should think of determinism as incompatible with free will. For assume that the Control Hypothesis is correct. The fact that the world, as it actually is, instantiates a particular pattern does not obviously entail that we aren't in a position to decide differently than we actually did. And this is so even if the pattern in question is highly projectable and can be used determine, on the basis of a full description of the mosaic at one particular time, what the mosaic is like at any future time. So there is no obvious tension between determinism and free will.</span></p>
<h4><span style="font-family: book antiqua, palatino;">Back to the Argument</span></h4>
<p><span style="font-family: book antiqua, palatino;">Let us now return to our second argument for the conclusion that Bruno fails to act freely when he misses his shot. The claim, recall, is that Bruno faces an analogue of Susan's enemy in the laws of physics. He fails to act freely because the laws would "intervene'' to derail him, if he were ever on track to kill Grandfather. <br /><br />I would like to suggest that the lesson of the preceding discussion is that whether or not it is right to think of the physical laws as an analogue of Susan's enemy depends on one's conception of physical law. </span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: book antiqua, palatino;">On the second of the conceptions we considered -- a law tells us what <em>must</em> happen, on the basis of what has happened -- it is indeed the case that the laws make it impossible for Bruno to act otherwise (assuming the initial conditions of the universe remain fixed), much like Susan's enemy makes it impossible for Susan to leave town. </span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: book antiqua, palatino;">But we saw that on the first conception -- a law tells us what <em>will</em> happen, on the basis of what has happened -- the laws are <em>not</em> analogous to Susan's enemy: they are simply descriptions of the patterns that, as a matter of fact, characterize our world's mosaic. So even if the laws of Bruno's world are deterministic, the effect of determinism is not that Bruno fails to be free. It is simply that it is in principle possible to predict how Bruno will exercise his free will. (As it might be: that he will exercise his free will by aiming a little too far to the right.)</span></p>
<h4 style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: book antiqua, palatino;">Back to the Toy Model</span></h4>
<p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: book antiqua, palatino;">Before bringing this section to a close, I'd like to ask you to think back to the toy model we considered <a href="/courses/course-v1:MITx+24.118x+2T2020/jump_to_id/12d0064726b244c89ffd4e754355d28a" target="[object Object]">above</a>. </span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: book antiqua, palatino;">The first thing to note is that we were given no reason to think of the laws of the toy model as telling us what <em>must</em> happen on the basis of what has happened, as opposed to simply telling us what <em>will</em> happen on the basis of what has happened.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: book antiqua, palatino;">Next, recall that the laws of the model entail that any situation in which particle \(A\) is on a "paradoxical path'' is also a situation in which there are additional particles living inside the wormhole region, and it is a situation in which one of these particles collides with particle \(A\) before it is able to enter the wormhole, averting the paradox. Notice, however, that the additional particles in this scenario are not exactly analogous to the enemy in Susan's story. </span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: book antiqua, palatino;">The enemy's actions are partly <em>caused</em> by Susan's decisions: the enemy interferes with the trains <em>because</em> he sees that Susan is about to board. But, as noted <a href="/courses/course-v1:MITx+24.118x+2T2020/jump_to_id/7a1f6e39458a491e878412a63dfa9653" target="[object Object]">above</a>, we have been given no reason to think that the presence of the additional particles in the wormhole are caused by particle \(A\)'s paradoxical path. The laws tell us that the additional particles will be in the wormhole if particle \(A\) is on the paradoxical path, but they do not tell us that their presence in the wormhole is <em>caused</em> by particle \(A\)'s paradoxical path. <br /><br />This difference is significant because it affects our judgments about counterfactual scenarios. Suppose that, as a matter of fact, particle \(A\) is not on a paradoxical path, and that, as a matter of fact, there are no particles within the wormhole region. What would have happened if we had altered particle \(A\)'s velocity slightly, so as to put it in a paradoxical path? </span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: book antiqua, palatino;">Don't say that additional particles would have appeared in the wormhole. That assumes that the presence of the additional particles is caused by particle \(A\)'s trajectory, and we have been given no reason to think that it is. </span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: book antiqua, palatino;">What we should say instead is that the laws of the toy model entail that we will never be in a situation in which particle \(A\) is in a paradoxical path without anything to stop it within the wormhole region. So if we were to alter particle's \(A\)'s velocity in the relevant way, we would end up in a situation that cannot be accounted for within our model. <br /><br />When we think of the laws of physics as telling us what <em>will</em> happen, as opposed to what <em>must</em> happen, it is natural to think that Bruno's situation is akin to particle \(A\)'s. We know that any scenario consistent with physical law in which Bruno travels back in time in an attempt to kill his childless Grandfather is also a scenario in which his efforts are defeated, somehow. Suppose that, in fact, his efforts are defeated because he aims a little too far to the right. What would have happened if Bruno had aimed just right? </span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: book antiqua, palatino;">Don't say that some additional defeater would have appeared and saved Grandfather. That assumes that aiming just right would have <em>caused</em> the additional defeater to come about and we have been given no reason to think that such a causal structure is in place. What we should say instead is that if Bruno had managed to aim just right, we would would have ended up in a situation that cannot be accounted for while keeping the rest of the story fixed. <br /><br />The upshot of our discussion is that it is not clear that we should think of Bruno's situation as analogous to Susan's, when she is in the presence of an enemy bent on preventing her departure. So even if it is clear that Susan does not act freely when she is thwarted by the enemy, it would be a mistake to conclude on that basis that Bruno does not act freely when he fails to kill Grandfather.<br /><br /></span></p>
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<h3 class="hd hd-2">Video Review: Does Bruno Act Freely?</h3>
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<p><span style="font-family: book antiqua, palatino;">The video below is part of a conversation I had with Alyssa Goodman and two of her students in connection with <a href="https://predictionx.org/" target="[object Object]">PredictionX</a>, an online project created at Harvard and hosted on edX.</span></p>
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<h3 class="hd hd-2">Video: Free Will and Determinism</h3>
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<h2 class="hd hd-2 unit-title">Reasons to Doubt The Control Hypothesis</h2>
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<p><span style="font-family: book antiqua, palatino;">In order to assess the question whether Bruno acts freely, we have been working with the Control Hypothesis: the view that to act freely is to be in a position to act otherwise. </span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: book antiqua, palatino;">As I noted earlier, however, it is not clear that the Control Hypothesis is correct. The best way to see this is to consider a slight variation of the Susan's story, which is adapted from a famous example due to Princeton philosopher Harry Frankfurt. </span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: book antiqua, palatino;">As before, we will assume that Susan is on her way to board a train to Alaska. As before, we will assume that Susan has a powerful enemy, who is committed to keeping her in New York by any means necessary. And, as before, we will assume that Susan ends up staying in New York. </span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: book antiqua, palatino;">This time, however, we will assume that the enemy never interferes. He doesn't have to. Susan changes her mind at the last minute, and heads home on her own volition. So the enemy doesn't arrange for the trains to be cancelled. He would have certainly interfered had Susan gotten any closer. But, as a matter of fact, he did nothing at all. </span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: book antiqua, palatino;">In this scenario, Susan acts freely when she fails to leave New York, since she heads home on her own volition, with no outside interference of any kind. But the Control Hypothesis entails, incorrectly, that Susan does not act freely. For Susan was not in a position to leave New York by deciding differently: had she decided differently, the enemy would have interfered, and her efforts would have been thwarted.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: book antiqua, palatino;">Following Frankfurt, we can even imagine a scenario in which Susan not only fails to be in a position to <em>act</em> differently, she is also not in a position to <em>decide</em> differently. </span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: book antiqua, palatino;">Suppose that the enemy interferes not by cancelling trains, but by meddling with her decision-making. He is able to keep track of Susan's deliberations. As long as Susan makes no decision to leave New York, the enemy does nothing. But should Susan ever come close to such a decision, the enemy is ready to interfere by administering a drug that will cause Susan to decide to stay in New York. </span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: book antiqua, palatino;">Now suppose that, as it happens, Susan considers whether to leave New York, and decides to stay. Then she will have acted freely in staying, even though she won't have been in a position to make a different decision, since the enemy would have interfered. But the Control Hypothesis entails, incorrectly, that Susan does not act freely, since she was not in a position to decide differently.</span><br /><br /></p>
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