[dan_bk]

The arguing is just 1 variable in the system. It was bound to happen because it was caused by other variables (i.e. us being online, someone posting the article, etc.) and it will interact with other variables to lead to some amount of change. It's not something that "we control". (Our brains do, but they are the result of other variables, such as our genome, environment, etc.)

[JoeAltmaier]

I don't get that - with predetermination, there are no variables at all. Its all a mechanism set in motion at the big bang, turning inexorably toward ultimate entropy. We're just some predestined middle state right now, with no choice and no say.

[eseehausen]

All that would mean is that you were incorrect before when you had some mystical idea of what choice meant. Choices still matter (in the most literal sense: they are material). If complete determinism is true, the choices we make and the things we say are part of the causal stream that leads to other actions, even if that stream could only ever go one way.

On top of that, how would choice make more sense in a random universe?

[JoeAltmaier]

Mystical? I think the meaning of 'choice' is well-understood. I believe philosophers have reinvented the meaning so they can put it into their wholly imaginary framework of doubletalk.

[eseehausen]

If you mean choice as something external to whatever deterministic/indeterministic framework we use to understand physical systems, it is mystical. If you mean choice as in "I wanted to do something and then I did it", which is the commonly understood meaning of choice, there is literally no conflict with determinism.