I've had a thought bouncing in my head today and I want to give it some air and let you folks at it to see where it takes on water.

The theory is that there's a contradiction, or misalignment maybe, between how most people feel about the philosophical concept of free will and how time travel and time loops are portrayed in media. Here's the premises I've landed on to arrive at that:

(1) The vast majority of people believe in some form of free will. (Fairly non contentious, I hope. A lot of resources back this up.)

(2) For free will to exist, if a person is repeatedly prompted to make some sort of decision under the exact same circumstances (time, place, people, etc) there must be a non-zero amount of times that they will arrive at a decision different from their initial one. For example... lets suppose you walk into the room and ask me what I want for dinner. I chew on some options for a moment then decide "chicken and rice". Then my memory is wiped and we repeat this over and over. After a few repeats of this I end up settling on a steak burrito instead. This is the only way free will could work imo because the opposite result, if given the same input you always arrive at the same output, is no different than determinism. Plus it implies, much like the time loop/travel media show, that from the start of the day we can know exactly where we will end up at the end if nothing is changed- which leaves no wiggle room for free will.

(3) The people in time travel / time loop media who are not your faithful protagonist or otherwise aware of the time based shenanigans going on always do the exact same thing every time (at least, in the ones I've seen). It's only the ones who are aware of how events have already unfolded who can make new decisions, everyone and everything else plays out the same.

Thus, virtually all media portray time travel/loops in a way that doesn't jive with how the vast majority of people perceive free will.

So, what do you think- Do you agree with the conclusion? Do you disagree on the definition of free will? Should I have gone with my alternate title? (12 Deterministic Monkeys starring Bruce Free Willis)

Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GyVHrGLiTcc (46m20s)

Transcript: https://medium.com/what-to-build/is-anything-worth-maximizing-d11e648eb56f (10,314 words with footnotes and references)

Excerpt:

...for simple maximizers, its choices are just about numbers. That means its choices are in the numbers. Here, the choice between two desserts is just a choice between numbers. We could say its choice is already made. And that it has no responsibility, since it’s just following what the numbers say.

Reason-based maximizers don’t just see numbers, though, they also see values. Here, there’s a choice between two desserts — but it isn’t a choice between two numbers. See, it’s also a choice between two values. One option means being a seize-the-day, intensity kind of person. The other means being a foody, aristocratic, elegance kind of person.

My personal thoughts about this talk: it's a kind of strange, kind of dubious philosophical and multi-disciplinary reflection on metrics for organizations, especially metrics for tech companies, and on the pitfalls of optimizing for metrics in what the speaker argues is too "simple" a way.

I don't entirely trust the speaker or the argument, but there was enough in the talk to stimulate curiosity and reflection that I thought it was worth watching.