>>11613695A working computer, given the same starting strings of numbers ("seeds") will always produce the same result based off of that combination of seeds.
Some random number generators take the time on the computer to produce a seed. But if the same RNG is given the same seed, it will give the same result.
This assumes that the computer is not broken, which introduces other variables we can't account for.
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A random number generator with different seeds each time produces different results. If we could give it the same seed we'd get the same result. So a random number generator with different seeds is actually pseudorandom, in that no statistical test can determine the result.
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Is this what the universe is like? It doesn't seem to be broken, so all that would matter is the seed. And like RNG, we can't determine what will happen. But if we ran the same universe from start to now, would we get the identical results or not?
Just because we can't follow the exact chain of cause and effect, like in your marble analogy, it does not mean it is not deterministic (ie same seed, same result at each stage of the process)
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The question then becomes, if the universe is deterministic, do we have free will? depends how you define free will.
If you say, every universe starting with the same seed results in identical states at any time including time=now, then versions of the same human in different universes could only make one string of "choices", not exactly free will.
Some people say, the universe isn't deterministic, that quantum mechanics shows there is true randomness, and that multiple versions of a universe with the same seed can be different at different points in time.
Yet if our decisions are made by our brains functioning, and those functions are based on random results due to quantum functions, that doesn't seem free either. If i could only do what a truly random dice told me to do, I wouldn't consider myself to have free will.
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