Some physicists and philosophers have convinced themselves that free will is an illusion—that we are nothing but particles moving this way and that, "fully dictated by mathematical decree." Don't let them convince you. Free will is real; it is our essential, defining quality, and it demands explanation.
What if the future is as real as the past? Physicists have been suggesting as much since Einstein. It’s all just the space-time continuum. “So in the future, the sister of the past,” thinks young Stephen Dedalus in Ulysses, “I may see myself as I sit here now but by reflection from that which then I shall be.” Twisty! What if you received knowledge of your own tragic future—as a gift, or perhaps...