Question about Determinism...

[Willamena]

If all the matter and energy in the universe could be arranged in pattern or fashion x, and if you could do so repeatedly, then would the very next thing that happens after you have arranged the universe in pattern or fashion x always be the same thing that always happens? Or would there be differences between the various instances of your arranging the universe in pattern or fashion x?

More importantly, why?

How could you ever know? (That is my answer, not just a rhetorical question.)

Since the world only happens once and there's no do-overs, the question is unanswerable.

 

[Skwim]

No, no, no, no....Think of this as a thought experiment. You arrange the universe in a certain pattern. Then you observe the very next thing that happens in the universe. Then you repeat the initial arrangement, and you again observe the very next thing that happens. The idea is to see if the same thing always happens. Or rather, happens as always as you do the experiment.

If you arrange it a second time EXACTLY as you did the first time there would be no difference in what follows. Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle, entropy, singularity, and quantum randomness have nothing to do with your proposition. When you said:

"If all the matter and energy in the universe could be arranged in pattern or fashion x, and if you could do so repeatedly"​

you've established that the conditions of each succeeding rearrangement are absolutely identical to the very first arrangement, which leaves no room for any subsequent variation. For anything different to arise after the pattern had been reestablished something would have to be different in the arrangement, but per your premise there wasn't, so what follows would have to be EXACTLY the same. Determinism would rule, and rule completely. (It does anyway .)

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[1137]

I believe the outcome is always the same.