Free Will or Determinism? (1)

The "parallax gap" is the Real, which shows itself in fundamental oppositions or antagonisms. For example:

1. Kant's determinate phenomena (appearances, things for us) versus unknowable noumena (things in themselves, e.g. the freedom of the will).

2. The philosophical question about determinism versus free will. For Kant both of these alternatives are true. Žižek points out that the Real is indicated in the opposition between the two types of Kantian antinomy, dynamic versus mathematical.

3. linear time (a causal sequence) versus the hermeneutic circle (interpretation based on memory and tradition);

4. a situation in which the cause determines the effect versus a situation in which the effect retroactively determines its own cause.

The "short circuit," or twist in the Moebius strip (i.e., the qualitative change that apparently emerges out of quantitative developments in complexity) is when linear time "folds back on itself." Assume that a physically determined organism develops memory to the point of accepting symbolic castration, forming abstract concepts, etc. Nonetheless, a speaking animal is not simply determined by reflexes, instincts, etc. For example, a speaking animal retroactively determines which memories "will have been" traumatic for it. Après-coup is one of the ways Lacan described this mode of temporality. But like everything in Lacan, this concept is presented in a way that seems obscure. By contrast, if you research "the hermeneutic circle," you will find many clearer accounts (than Lacan’s) which nonetheless indicate something of what Lacan meant by après-coup or "psychoanalytic time" (i.e., the interpretation of memories and the retroactive formation of what will have been past trauma).

Keep in mind that occasionally Žižek might--in his amusing, provocactive way--just express it all in a form something like this: "Determinism or Free Will? Yes, please!"