Determinism

Determinism holds that any event is causally determined by a chain of previous events such that a given event was a necessary effect of the previous event. Thus, strict determinists believe that if all the facts were known and the rule set which governs them (physics) is known, the exact outcome can be determined down to the finest detail.

The concept itself is quite straightforward, but the extrapolations made from it are not. From the basic principle of determinism we can deduce that the origin of the events was one of two things: Either the events causally trace back to an original event, or they trace back to an event that was already part of the chain and an infinate loop is formed. Both cases are paradoxical in that the infinate loop and the original event are both in themselves events which under the rules of determinism necessarily have a cause. Thus, even the most strict of determinists must accept that whichever way the present events causally trace back, there must be an uncaused event which began the process.

Depending on the viewpoint of the determinist, this uncaused event can be a metaphysical god, or in my case, an unknown.