---
title: "Determinism · Library · Simulation Hypothesis"
url: https://simulation-hypothesis.com/library/determinism
description: "Determinism is the thesis that every event is made necessary by earlier events together with the laws of nature."
license: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
credit: "Ross Allan Dahl, Simulation Hypothesis (simulation-hypothesis.com)"
---

## Ethics & metaphysics

# Determinism

Definition

Determinism is the thesis that every event is made necessary by earlier events together with the laws of nature.

On this site

The Determined setting: seeded, replayable and identical on every run.

Role in the model

The Determined setting is a seeded universe. You can replay it, and it comes out the same on every run, with each choice fixed by what came before. It’s also the cheapest time model, because a deterministic world can be stored as a seed and a rule.

Related

[Free will](https://simulation-hypothesis.com/library/free-will)[Compatibilism](https://simulation-hypothesis.com/library/compatibilism)[Causality](https://simulation-hypothesis.com/library/causality)

## The people behind the terms

14 short pages, one per thinker, each with its matching dial. See also the [reading list](https://simulation-hypothesis.com/reading).

[Plato’s cave](https://simulation-hypothesis.com/thinkers/plato)[Zhuangzi’s butterfly](https://simulation-hypothesis.com/thinkers/zhuangzi)[Vasubandhu’s dream](https://simulation-hypothesis.com/thinkers/vasubandhu)[Shankara’s māyā](https://simulation-hypothesis.com/thinkers/shankara)[al-Ghazali’s doubt](https://simulation-hypothesis.com/thinkers/ghazali)[Ibn Arabi’s imagination](https://simulation-hypothesis.com/thinkers/ibn-arabi)[Calderón’s life is a dream](https://simulation-hypothesis.com/thinkers/calderon)[Descartes’ demon](https://simulation-hypothesis.com/thinkers/descartes)[Berkeley’s perceiver](https://simulation-hypothesis.com/thinkers/berkeley)[Borges’ circular ruins](https://simulation-hypothesis.com/thinkers/borges)[Nozick’s experience machine](https://simulation-hypothesis.com/thinkers/nozick)[Putnam’s brain in a vat](https://simulation-hypothesis.com/thinkers/putnam)[Bostrom’s trilemma](https://simulation-hypothesis.com/thinkers/bostrom)[Chalmers: virtual worlds are real](https://simulation-hypothesis.com/thinkers/chalmers)