Greg Salmieri explains the fallacy of determinism

Overview

The video discusses an argument against determinism and free will, then counters it by reframing the underlying logic and the nature of causation.

Clip: Argument against free will (determinism)

The speaker argues that free will cannot exist, claiming that mental events must be either:

• Determined (caused by something else), or
• Undetermined, which would make them random

Under this framing:

• If a decision is random, the person isn’t truly in control.
• If it’s determined, the control lies with causes outside the person (or you “push it back” until you end up with something outside the self), so the person still lacks ultimate authorship.

The clip’s reasoning is grounded in a philosophical logical principle resembling the law of the excluded middle: something must be either one thing or its negation.

Response: where the argument goes wrong

A second contributor pauses the discussion and argues that the determinist conclusion depends on a misunderstanding of concepts and the structure of the alternatives.

The critique includes:

• The opponent assumes the only meaningful options are “determined” vs. “undetermined,” but that framing may be wrong or incomplete.
• The setup is portrayed as overly word-play/rationalistic, treating logical polarities as if they map neatly onto the realities of mental activity and causation.
• The determinist is also said to rely on a simplistic model of causation—like a chain from past to present—rather than a richer account in which things act in the present according to their nature/identity.

A richer account of causation

The responder argues causation isn’t merely:

• “the spreadsheet cell before caused the next cell,” or
• a never-ending backward mapping of events

Instead, causes are understood as:

• things doing things now because of what they are (their dispositions/nature)

This, the responder suggests, matters for free will because it reframes agency as something real about the kind of cause a person is—not just a late output of earlier events.

Free will as control over thinking (in Rand-inspired terms)

The video then shifts to a positive model of free will associated with Ayn Rand:

• It’s less about introducing a new metaphysical mechanism and more about the locus of free will.
• Control is exercised over your attention and thinking.

Free will shows up in introspection as a difference between:

• Focused, directing effort (“taking the reins of your mind”), vs
• Drift/passive evasion, where attention is captured by the moment and you avoid owning that control

The argument also claims you can’t coherently live or deliberate while denying that you can choose among multiple futures:

• Decision-making depends on treating future outcomes as genuinely open.
• If determinism were accepted as fully true, the person would be in contradiction with how they experience and reason about their choices.

Conclusion

• The determinist claim is treated as resting on an oversimplified logical and causal framework.
• The alternative presented is that free will primarily involves actively directing one’s mental life—choosing whether to focus and controlling how one responds to the world.

Presenters / Contributors

• Greg Salmieri
• Tal Ben-Shahar
• Ayn Rand (discussed as a reference point)