The Minority Report and Controlled Destiny- By Thomas Dean

This is a precog from the movie The Minority Report. These precogs determine who will commit crimes.

         John Anderton, the protagonist in the story The Minority Report, by Phillip K. Dick, is the owner of a thriving foundation called Precrime. This institution takes in upcoming fugitives and puts them in jail before they can commit the crime (with the help of three future-seeing individuals labeled as "Precogs"). However, Anderton receives a letter, in the reports of potential fugitives, that he will be responsible for the murder of a man named Leopold Kaplan. Once he is aware of his fate, he makes the argument with his wife that he can change his fate, so long as he knows it. This, however, contradicts the backbone of Precrime.
         Precrime bases their foundation off the idea that if one's fate cannot be changed. In order to keep crimes from being committed, they put the future fugitive in a detention facility before the crime is committed. In contrast, Anderton believes that he can change his faith simply because he knows it. As the story progresses Anderton believes that it would be in the best interest of his company to kill Leopold Kaplan in order to reinforce the claim that faith is predetermined. This begs the question, was Anderton's fate chosen by him out of free will or had fate already determined his crime?
        I believe that Anderton's fate was predetermined, once the precogs saw the murdering, his fate was sealed. On the other hand, as fate may determine the end result of someone's actions, I think that the steps one takes to reach fate are not predetermined, rather, we have the freedom to do what we want but the steps we take will ultimately lead to our predetermined (in this case) fate.