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Am I a direct result of all the events that preceded me?
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October 8, 2005

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Peter Lipton
October 9, 2005 (changed October 9, 2005) Permalink

If determinism is true then you are a direct result of events that preceded you, in the sense that everything about you is entailed by the laws of nature plus the state of the universe before you were born. If determinism is not true, as the most popular interpretation of modern physics suggests, then there is no such entailment; but even here it is not as if you are the result of anything else. Either way, the causes that made you, whether deterministic or probabilistic, are all among the events that preceded you.

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