Since Aristotle (and probably before that), humans have asked themselves: Do we really have free will? ABC is currently attempting an interesting answer to that question with its new show, FlashForward. In doing so, they inadvertently make Joseph Fiennes a god.
In the beginning was the word...
From Schopenhauer to Neo to the creators of Lost, everyone has weighed in on this particular argument, breaking down into two camps: those who believe our actions are determined (by god, genetics, history, character) and those who believe that we have the freedom to choose our actions.
I know Aristotelian metaphysics.
Religion plays an interesting part in this debate, especially when you’re talking about an infallible, omniscient god, the Judeo-Christian version with a capital G. If God knows everything, then on February 13, 1929, God knew that the next day Al Capone was going to kill 5 members of a rival gang. Since God knew this and can’t possibly be wrong, Al Capone had no choice but to give the order to kill those men. He may have debated the pros and cons in his head, but because God is infallible and all knowing, that mental argument was only the illusion of free will. The Valentines Day Massacre was going to happen and Bugs Moran was a goner. This is called Theological Fatalism.
The interesting thing about Theological Fatalism (or really, any of the fatalisms) is that it takes responsibility out of our hands. How can Al Capone be responsible for killing those men when he really had no choice in the matter? How can I be held responsible for getting this philosophical summation wrong when I got a D in freshman philosophy and still decided to write about this? Are Al and I morally culpable?
Obviously, in a religion in which morality plays a big role, it was important that someone jive the seeming double jeopardy of God determining your actions, then judging you for them. Saint Augustine, Aquinas, and a host of others have attempted to do so. For a full accounting of their arguments, click here, but it basically comes down to this: God stands outside of time, therefore his knowledge is not technically foreknowledge and Also, God can know what you’re going to do because he knows everything about you and can predict your actions to a certainty without determining them.
Which brings us, finally, to ABC’s new show, FlashForward, created by David Goyer (who, amazingly, wrote both The Dark Knight and Jumper), Brannon Braga (who wrote more than 100 episodes of the later day Star Trek series Enterprise and Voyager), and Robert Sawyer (“The Dean of Canadian Science Fiction” who actually came up with this whole idea).
The basic premise of the show is that on October 6, 2009, the entire world blacks out for 2 minutes and 17 seconds. During that time, everyone has a vision of the future on April 29, 2010. Everyone sees through their own eyes the events of that one period of time. Presumably, many of the visions are mundane events (we know of at least one vision of time spent on the toilet), some people don’t have visions (and are presumably going to die in the intervening six months), and some people see visions of the future that seem improbable, impossible, or life changing.
***SPOILERS***
Regardless of the nature of the vision, this vision of the future has a profound effect on how people live. In the show, this is focused primarily on whether or not the visions will come true. Will Joseph Fiennes backslide into alcoholism and will his images of an ongoing investigation into the cause of all this actually help in today’s world? Will his wife be living with another man? So far, all of the visions have come true and the show seems to be about getting from here to there.
That is until the end of the last episode, in which an FBI agent who had received a vision of the future in which he was responsible for accidentally killing an innocent woman decides to kill himself, thus ensuring that his vision and at least one other will not come to pass. Suddenly, these characters, who already possess the godlike characteristic of being “outside of time,” the power to shape their futures and, in this case, give life to others.
Earlier, that same FBI agent had casually played Russian Roulette, secure in the knowledge that his vision of himself in the future mean he couldn’t die today. He does this to get into a basement full of people who didn’t have visions and are clubbing their hearts out before the curtain falls. While the lack of vision has condemned them to mortality, the presence of vision has made the rest of planet immortal.
In short, the underlying premise of the show has changed. In giving every human being immortality along with the power to both see and shape the future, the 2 minutes and 17 seconds in FlashForward represent the apotheosis of mankind, and the question becomes, what if we were all gods?
So what would you do?
According to the show, a world full of human gods is a sort of angsty place. Frankly, I think most Americans would act like me: check to see whether or not they’ve gotten really fat in the future, then eat really glorious fatty foods for six months. That’s real godhood.
Given the chance to peep into your life six months from now, would you do it?
Would you hope for an interesting or dramatic vision, or are you cool with seeing 2 minutes and 17 seconds of the Lost finale?
Then again, if you were absolutely certain that you’d be alive on April 29, 2010, what would you do?
The fruits of immortality.
PS: On Firefox, in the google search box, start typing “free will.” How sad that the first four options are about an unusually liberated whale.