Physicalism is probably right in saying that we shall someday be able, “in principle,” to predict every movement of a person’s body (including those of his larynx and his writing hand) by reference to microstructures within his body. The danger to human freedom of such success is minimal, since the “in principle” clause allows for the probability that the determination of the initial conditions (the antecedent states of microstructures) will be too difficult to carry out except as an occasional pedagogical exercise. The torturers and the brainwashers are, in any case, already in as good a
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December 7, 2020. Page 354.
