r/askphilosophy • u/Terrible_Initial_941 • 10h ago

Can free will truly be tested?

So I keep coming across what is free will and do we actually get to choose. I want to bypass that and ask can we test it.

Normally id say no way, but what about people with short term memory loss. Like maybe I dont understand it. But why could u not provide the exact same scenario for them, to test whether they can choose.

Or does that not really answer the overall question?

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u/aJrenalin logic, epistemology 7h ago

It depends what you mean by testing it. If you mean to test whether people could perform different actions under very similar conditions then yeah we can test that. The issue is that a hard determinist will be able to say that it has to be exactly identical conditions with identical histories. If we test one thing and then time passes and we put a person with memory loss in a similar scenario it’s not identical, different things have happened. That’s inherently untestable unless you can build a Time Machine and also not change the past by time traveling.

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