Hold both hands flat on a table. Pick one to lift. Most people, asked afterward whether the choice was really theirs, will say yes, and will add that it felt like either hand was possible right up until the moment they moved. That gap between the feeling of an open future and the fixed causes behind a choice is the ground under a short conversation published as a YouTube video on November 5, 2026, in which philosopher Bernardo Kastrup takes apart the idea of libertarian free will and argues that determinism, far from draining life of meaning, is the only thing that gives action any meaning at all. His case runs through a sharp semantic argument, a claim about how a universe learns about itself, and a mathematical idea about why we cannot predict our own decisions. Below, we walk through each step, because the reasoning is more interesting than the slogan.
Canachoicebeundeterminedatall?
The video opens with a plain request: define libertarian free will. Kastrup's answer is blunt. "Libertarian free will is when your choices are simply not determined. They just happen, which is kind of incoherent, right?" (0:00) His objection is about language before it is about metaphysics. The opposite of determinism is determination, so to say a choice is not determined is to say it is not determined by anything. That, he suggests, lands you "in a semantic void, a non-existing space." A choice that comes from nowhere is not a choice in any sense anyone can use.
That is a sharper point than it first sounds. Libertarian free will is usually presented as the ability to do otherwise, with nothing forcing the outcome. Kastrup's move is to ask what would make the outcome yours if it had no antecedents at all. If it is not rooted in you, it is hard to say it is you choosing.
Whatdopeoplemeanwhentheysaytheyhavefreewill?
Kastrup thinks ordinary people already mean something coherent, even when they reach for the libertarian vocabulary. "What they mean is that their choices are determined by them. By their preferences, their tastes, their dispositions, their proclivities, their fears." (0:41) In his reading, the intuition that we are free is an intuition that the agency behind our decisions belongs to us. That is true, and it is fully compatible with determinism. Nobody says a chip's output is not the chip's own just because the chip's wiring fixes what it does.
He makes the same point later in the conversation, when a participant objects that the agency behind our choices is us, and Kastrup agrees: "The agency behind how that chip processes input data is the chip." The distinction he draws is between who makes the choice, which is us, and whether the choice is caused, which it always is. Free will, understood this way, is not an exemption from causation. It is the claim that our causes are ours.
Whydoes"Icanchangemyself"leadtoaloop?
The most common rescue for libertarian free will is the idea that, although your choices are shaped by who you are, you can choose to change yourself. Kastrup calls this the point where the argument gets interesting, and then where it breaks. "Let's assume for the sake of argument that we can choose to be something other than what we are. That choice is determined by what we are now." (2:06) Whatever you become, it is a product of what you are at the moment of choosing. You never step outside yourself to do the choosing.
He describes the argument as one that "takes two steps ahead and then stops." Push it further, he says, and you either circle back to the beginning or you fall off a cliff. Each new act of self-change needs a self that already decided to change, and that self needs a prior self, and the regress goes nowhere. The only exit is to accept that the self doing the choosing is also the product of what came before.
Doactionsrevealwhoweare?
This is where the argument turns from logic to character. Kastrup says that without determinism, "actions do not tell you anything about being." If choices "magically appear out of nowhere," then an individual's conduct is no evidence about what that individual is like. Yet we judge people by what they do all the time. He argues that this habit already assumes determinism: "Being leads to action. Behavior is a translation of being. That's the intuition there. It's a deterministic intuition." (3:03)
The reasoning has a practical edge. If you believe a person's deeds express their nature, you can learn who someone is by watching them. If you believe deeds are free-floating, observing them tells you nothing reliable. Kastrup's position keeps the practice of judging character and gives it a metaphysical basis.
Whywouldauniverseneedtoactinordertoknowitself?
The most ambitious part of the video takes the individual argument up to the level of nature as a whole. Kastrup frames the question this way: "if the name of the game is nature, which is consciousness, figuring out what it is, the only way to go about it is to give expression to its archetypes." (4:10) Time, in this picture, is a learning process. "The phantasmagoria of time, of events unfolding in time, [is] a very direct learning tool and arguably the only possible learning tool."
The logic is that a nature whose doings flow from its being can discover that being only by doing. If the link between action and being were broken, the doing would be "ungrounded," in his word, and would "wouldn't tell you anything about nature." Kastrup calls that the meaningless world, one in which action is not rooted in being "at all, at all." By contrast, he says, "the meaningful world is one in which action is rooted in being and therefore self-knowledge must derive from the observation of determined actions." Determinism here is not a cage. It is the reason experience counts for something.
Iftheoutcomeisdetermined,whycan'twepredictit?
A conversation partner pushes on the feeling that matters most to people: that the lifted hand could have been the other one. Kastrup's answer draws on computational irreducibility, the idea that some processes can only be known by running them. "Before you actually take the action, there is no way to anticipate the action. To do that, you would need a computer at least as big as the universe, which you can't have." He adds, with a wry turn: "Well, you actually have. You already have the universe. So, the only way to know is to take the action and find out."
That explains the feeling of openness without requiring genuine indeterminacy. The choice is fixed by what you are, but you cannot read it off in advance. From the inside, unpredictability looks like freedom. Kastrup's point is that unpredictability and undetermination are different things, and only the first is actually available to us.
The conversation also brings in Schopenhauer. The participant puts it as a line Kastrup calls "the Schopenhauer question": "You are free to choose as you wish, but you are not free to wish what you wish." That single sentence carries the whole argument. We can act on our desires, but the desires themselves are not chosen from a neutral position. They arrive from what we are.
Whatmakesthisviewworthtakingseriously?
The sharpest thing in the video is the claim that a determined world is the meaningful one, and that the alternative severs action from identity so thoroughly that doing becomes pointless. "Because now behavior is totally ungrounded in beingness. So, whatever you do is pointless... whatever you do has no importance to you." (8:08) Many readers will recoil from determinism because it sounds like a verdict on responsibility. Kastrup reverses the emotional valence. Our choices matter because they are ours, and they are ours because they grow from us.
A listener can check this by testing it against their own life. If you could not predict your next decision, but it came from your tastes, fears, and history, is your life less yours, or more? Kastrup's answer is that the choices that reveal you are the only ones that could possibly mean anything about you. The video is short, and it leaves much unargued, but it gives a clear map of why the determinist's world might be the one where effort, character, and self-discovery count.
Wheretogofromhere
The video is the entry point. For the full argument, Kastrup's longer conversation on determinism and meaning is available at withrealityinmind.com. Readers who want to test the claims themselves can start with three questions: what, precisely, is the difference between a choice that is not determined and one that is unpredictable; does changing yourself require a self that already stands outside the change; and do your own judgments of other people's character quietly assume that behavior expresses being?
Revisit the "hands on the table" puzzle and notice when the sense of openness appears and when it disappears.
Write down one decision you regret and trace which of your dispositions, fears, or preferences produced it.
Compare Kastrup's claim that action grounded in being is meaningful with Schopenhauer's line about wishing what you wish.
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Transcript
[0:00] Can you define for us
[0:02] libertarian free will?
[0:06] >> Libertarian free will is when your
[0:07] choices are simply not determined.
[0:11] They just happen, which is
[0:13] kind of incoherent, right? Does it even
[0:17] have meaning
[0:18] uh to say that your choices are not
[0:22] determined? Because
[0:24] uh since the alternative is called
[0:26] determinism,
[0:28] we think that to be against determinism
[0:31] is to deny determination. But you end up
[0:34] in a semantic void, a non-existing
[0:36] space. Um
[0:38] non-determined choices are sort of
[0:41] incoherent. What do people actually mean
[0:43] when they say, "I have free will. I feel
[0:45] that I have free will." What they mean
[0:48] is not that their choices are
[0:50] undetermined
[0:52] or indeterminate. What they mean is that
[0:54] their choices are determined by them.
[0:57] By their preferences, their tastes,
[0:59] their dispositions, their proclivities,
[1:02] their fears. Um that's what they mean.
[1:05] In other words, even somebody who
[1:07] believes in free will
[1:09] believes that their choices are
[1:11] determined.
[1:13] They are determined by them.
[1:15] Um and therefore
[1:17] there is no
[1:19] the the the the the semantically
[1:21] incoherent thing called libertarian
[1:25] free will. Um choices are always
[1:28] determined.
[1:29] They are determined Our choices are
[1:30] determined by that which we are.
[1:33] And we can't be other than we are, which
[1:36] is the other part of the free
[1:39] libertarian free will argument.
[1:42] Which is uh
[1:43] uh uh
[1:45] somebody defending that point of view
[1:46] may even acknowledge that okay, your
[1:48] choices are determined by you,
[1:50] but you can choose to change yourself.
[1:53] Okay, now now we are off to the races.
[1:57] Um
[1:58] what does that even mean? You can choose
[2:00] to change yourself. If so, let let us
[2:03] assume that you can.
[2:04] Let's [clears throat] explore the
[2:05] incoherence of this.
[2:07] Let's assume for the sake of argument
[2:10] that we can choose to be something other
[2:12] than what we are.
[2:14] That choice is determined by what we are
[2:17] now.
[2:19] And therefore, what we choose to become
[2:22] is determined by what we are now.
[2:25] In other words, it's always determined
[2:27] by what you are now.
[2:29] Even if you choose to change who you
[2:31] are,
[2:32] what you will become is a result of what
[2:35] you are right now. You can never escape
[2:37] what you are.
[2:38] Um and therefore, there is no
[2:40] libertarian free will. It it it doesn't
[2:42] make sense
[2:44] to to adopt that view. Um it takes two
[2:47] steps ahead and then stops. While if you
[2:49] would take a few more steps ahead, you
[2:52] would either go back to the beginning
[2:53] and circularity or you would fall off a
[2:55] cliff. Without determinism, what nature
[2:58] does does not need to have anything to
[3:00] do with what it is.
[3:03] With libertarian free will, actions do
[3:07] not tell you anything about being.
[3:10] The actions of an individual do not tell
[3:12] you anything about who the individual is
[3:14] and how the individual is put together
[3:16] because choices are libertarian. They
[3:18] magically appear out of nowhere. They
[3:20] are not determined by anything.
[3:23] So, when we judge character based on
[3:26] actions, we are presupposing a form of
[3:28] determinism.
[3:30] Being
[3:31] leads to action.
[3:34] Behavior is a translation
[3:36] of being.
[3:38] That's the intuition there. It's an
[3:39] intu- it's a deterministic intuition.
[3:42] So,
[3:44] in a universe
[3:46] where what nature does is a function of
[3:49] its being,
[3:51] for nature to know what it is, it needs
[3:55] to do what it does.
[3:59] Because there is no other way to
[4:02] exercise
[4:04] the intrinsic potentialities of nature
[4:07] which give you insight into what nature
[4:09] is.
[4:10] So, the phantasmagoria
[4:13] of
[4:14] time, of events unfolding in time
[4:19] a very directly a learning tool and
[4:22] arguably the only possible learning
[4:25] tool.
[4:26] So, if the name of the game is nature,
[4:28] which is consciousness,
[4:30] figuring out what it is, the only way to
[4:33] go about it
[4:35] is to give expression to its archetypes.
[4:39] Doing
[4:40] what it does, because that's what tells
[4:42] nature what it is, since the doing is
[4:45] determined by the being.
[4:48] Uh so, determinism in this case is
[4:50] precisely what gives meaning to life.
[4:54] Because without it, all the doing would
[4:56] would be ungrounded. It would be for
[4:58] nothing.
[4:59] It wouldn't tell you anything about
[5:00] nature. It just just happens. It just
[5:04] does the thing.
[5:05] It's quantum indeterminacy all the way
[5:07] down.
[5:09] Um and arguably, that is the meaningless
[5:12] world.
[5:13] It's a world in which action is not
[5:17] rooted in being at all, at all.
[5:21] The To me, that's a meaningless world.
[5:23] To me, the meaningful world is one in
[5:26] which action is rooted in being and
[5:28] therefore self-knowledge
[5:30] must derive from
[5:33] the observation of determined actions.
[5:36] You can't see it in advance.
[5:38] >> One thing I find fascinating about this
[5:40] question is
[5:41] um
[5:43] let's say, you know, God came down and
[5:46] said, "Look, everyone, you do actually
[5:47] have free will. It's been like parceled
[5:49] up and whatever." It would be amazing
[5:53] that we could doubt it.
[5:56] And conversely, if we don't have the
[5:58] kind of free will that is sometimes
[5:59] argued for, which I agree I'm I veer
[6:02] towards determinism, it's amazing like
[6:04] what is it we're referring to when we
[6:06] desperately feel like, "No, but I have
[6:08] free will. What do you mean?" And I
[6:10] think that's the question you're you're
[6:11] answering trying to answer.
[6:13] >> What we refer to is that the agency
[6:16] behind our choices is us.
[6:18] Which is true. The agency behind how
[6:21] that chip processes input data is the
[6:23] chip.
[6:26] So, if you go to the Bible,
[6:29] the whole notion of free will in the
[6:30] Bible is that we do make our choices.
[6:35] Not that our choices are not determined,
[6:38] but that our choices are determined by
[6:41] us.
[6:44] >> But who we are is determined not by us.
[6:48] >> We are who we are.
[6:50] Yeah, that's the Schopenhauer question.
[6:52] You are free to choose as you wish, but
[6:54] you are not free to wish what you wish.
[6:57] >> But that But that's what it It does feel
Kastrup describes libertarian free will as the view that choices are simply not determined and just happen. He argues this is semantically incoherent, because undetermined choices are not rooted in anything about the person making them.
Kastrup argues that determinism is compatible with the everyday sense of free will, because our choices are determined by our own preferences, tastes, dispositions, and fears. The agency behind a choice belongs to us even though the choice is caused.
Kastrup's argument is that any choice to change yourself is itself determined by what you are right now. You can never step outside your current self to choose, so the attempt to choose a new self leads to circularity.
Kastrup uses computational irreducibility to explain why the future cannot be predicted in advance: predicting a process would require a computer as large as the universe. This makes choices feel open even though they are determined, and only taking the action reveals what you will choose.
He argues that in a universe where action is rooted in being, doing is how nature and individuals come to know what they are. Without that link, actions would be ungrounded and pointless, so determinism is what makes behavior reveal something real.
The line 'You are free to choose as you wish, but you are not free to wish what you wish' captures the idea that we act on our desires but do not choose the desires themselves. In the video it is raised as the core question about whether free will is possible.
