I think the philosophical point of the story gets muddled by the description of the Predictor as functioning through “a circuit with a negative time delay — it sends a signal back in time.” This form of “Prediction” is completely compatible with free will, even with libertarian free will (assuming the concept of libertarian free will is coherent in the first place). It just implies that your freely chosen actions can have effects in the past. The story wold work better with the Predictor monitoring your brain “in real time” and seeing your intention to push the button form before you are aware of it, like in the Libet experiments.
The story wold work better with the Predictor monitoring your brain “in real time” and seeing your intention to push the button form before you are aware of it
That’s how I pictured the Predictor working, myself, in an attempt to justify the mysterious factor that sets my reaction time to exactly 1 second (and possibly also to keep in line with the determinist theme.)
I think the philosophical point of the story gets muddled by the description of the Predictor as functioning through “a circuit with a negative time delay — it sends a signal back in time.” This form of “Prediction” is completely compatible with free will, even with libertarian free will (assuming the concept of libertarian free will is coherent in the first place). It just implies that your freely chosen actions can have effects in the past. The story wold work better with the Predictor monitoring your brain “in real time” and seeing your intention to push the button form before you are aware of it, like in the Libet experiments.
That’s how I pictured the Predictor working, myself, in an attempt to justify the mysterious factor that sets my reaction time to exactly 1 second (and possibly also to keep in line with the determinist theme.)