Blog 6: Free will and determinism

Every human being in this world have the right to choose what's good or bad for them,this is what we call as free will. If the future is predetermined then a person shouldn't be punish for committing the crime as he had no free will to go for any other options. In the movie “Minority Report” the cops were able to arrest the criminals before they have committed the crime with the help of the precogs insight. . We see that a guy name Howard Marks who was arrested for the future murder of this wife Sarah Marks, but how comes the cops can certify him as criminal, they haven't seen him to murder his wife in real? Until a crime takes place in real it can't be regarded as crime or the person as criminal. Future might be predetermined but there are lots of chances to change it , all it depends on the free will of that person.

Comparison- Both in the movie “Minority Report” and the play “ Oedipus the King” have shown that whenever a future is predicated people start to believe in that prophecy, they never try to think that it might not take place in the future. In 'Minority Report' John Anderton was arrested by the cops for murdering Lew Crown , although John haven't committed the crime nor the cops saw him to shoot the guy in real. The cops started to take the prediction of precog ( Agatha) as real and punished John for the crime he didn't committed. Similarly in 'Oedipus the King' when Laius heard the prophecy that his son is going to kill him and take over his kingdom and will be marrying his wife Jocasta , he took a decision to get ride of the problem by killing Oedipus after his birth. Laius for once didn't thought that the prophecy might go wrong in future , Oedipus might not kill him if they give him the teachings to choose what's wrong and right for him.

According to the article “ Free will and Determinism” we know that two kinds of determinism takes place. One hard determinism where you have no free will and your future is predetermined, another one is the soft determinism where your future is predetermined but you still have choice to change it. While it comes in the contrast of the movie and the play then this two determinism are taking place. In the movie “Minority Report” John was predicated to murder Lew by Agatha but he didn't do so,he had his free will to choose whether he wants to kill him or not. And at last John chooses not to kill Lew, therefore in this situation soft determinism is taking place. Rather on the other case Oedipus was predicated to kill Laius and finally it happens because Oedipus didn't had any options to go for unless killing his own biological father. Regarding this case hard determinism is taking place. We can't blame Oedipus as criminal because he didn't had any free will to go for and his future was predetermined.

Overall, it can be said that we need to change our mind of thinking prophecy as real in future. In every single situation there is always a possibility of chances that will be taking place. You can't arrest a person for his future crime unless you see it in real,. That's injustice for humans because we have our own free will to decide what we want or not, someone can't judge us on our predetermined future. And if we don't have free will than even we aren't criminals because the crime was the only path to follow up,no other options were open to go for.