Disappointing

Unfortunately, this film was plagued by many of the most common misconceptions about what determinism actually entails, what free will is and the relationship between determinism and free will, among many other issues. I’d like to briefly clear up a few of these misconceptions.

First, determinism is not the same thing as fatalism. Even if determinism is true, it does not mean that it would be possible to know a future that could not be deviated from. The assumption that determinism necessitates fatalism seems to run through this entire film, but it isn’t actually true. Even if determinism is true, it wouldn’t mean it’s possible to know an unchangeable future, not even in principle.

Second, the film assumes that if determinism is true, then free will doesn’t exist. The general public seems to have the perception that the ‘free will debate’ is primarily about free will vs. determinism and that if determinism is true, then free will doesn’t exist, but that isn’t actually the state of the debate at all in modern Academic philosophy. Before watching any debate about whether free will exists, or thinking about the question yourself, take a moment first to try to define exactly what you mean by free will. Most people never try to do this, but don't you think its important to define what something is before arguing about whether it exists or not?
The only kind of free will that conflicts with determinism out of the commonly used definitions in academia is a kind of free will sometimes called the libertarian conception of free will or the classic definition of free will. The thing is, even if determinism was false, that would not prove this kind of free will exists. That idea of free will actually makes no sense independent of whether Determinism is true or not and almost no one in academic philosophy who specializes in this area believes that kind of free will exists because it is logically incoherent. When most academics talk about free will today, they are actually talking about Compatibilist definitions of free will. In other words, definitions of free will that are compatible with determinism being true. Since most modern conceptions of free will don't conflict with determinism and the only kind of free will which does conflict with determinism does not make sense independent of whether determinism is true or not, the state of the 'free will' debate in modern academia has very little to do with free will vs. determinism at all.

Third, determinism being true would not mean that we have no kinds of control, freedom, autonomy or ways of determining moral responsibility that are significant. This point is a bit too complicated to address to any significant degree in a post like this but the majority of the work being done in academic philosophy in this area now is to do with conceptualizing these things like autonomy and moral responsibility in ways compatible with determinism and these refined conceptualizations actually make much more sense and are more useful. In my own academic studies I focused in particular on how we could determine who to punish and how we should punish them if something like determinism is true; how to make sense of moral responsibility if determinism is true, and I found that there are ways to make sense of it and they actually make more sense and are a lot more useful.

This movie would have been a lot more enjoyable for me if it didn’t involve so much of walking in circles around the wrong tent poles.