>>13478247>any given state necessarily follows from the states which came before, in the sense that what follows could not be any other wayIf A is a past state, B a present state, C future state, then
A-> B-> C
Nothing but B can follow A, since B is already determined and there is only one possible future state for any state. However C is not yet determined, but it will be later. C could be one of many possible states, and you could influence which one through your free will. But later you will make a choice which will partly determine what C is exactly, and after that point C was necessary to follow after B, but not before that point.
I agree, it's a universe-on-rails, but the rails get built immediately before as as we ride along. They are not prebuilt before we arrive, i.e. the future is not **pre**-determined. It's just determined.
>when you exercise free will, that action was predetermined from T=0. everything that will ever happen is predicated on the initial conditions, in the most absolute sense.That's not true in the model of determinism I have in mind, which is an evolving block universe with the frontier at the present, and for which we restrict the use of talking about the future in the definite sense as we do about the past. If my model turns out to be coherent, then it should be a good rebuttal to the notion that any kind of determinism that you have in mind is incompatible with free will in the libertarian sense. Because in that case, the action was not predetermined from T=0, because the earliest time at which it was determined was somewhere at the moment when the action happened.
