If we understand change as a proxy for action, then your question really reduces to why does change occur. You then assume that a determined outcome is a discreet finality to the action or change which created it. However, unless we are talking of the ultimate end of all action or change, then we must appreciate that "outcome" is always understood to be incremental. The universe is a whole, and as long as any change in energy affects one part...it affects the whole. So there is no "final outcome" of any one part, there is only ONE outcome. And that ONE will be when ALL energy {and thus all change} has been terminated. In other words we don't know if there is such a thing as a final outcome or a discreet beginning. We don't know.
Naturally, all conditional beings and "parts" end, but only if a FINAL outcome can be necessarily related to a discreet beginning can determinism be said to be sensible.
Nor do we know if desire and mind do not in some unknown way fall outside of a mechanistic determinism. But it does appear that the uncertainty principle is sufficient to prove that the future is uncertain.
Certainly...if I randomize a computer to kick out one of 100 trillion actions to be performed, and if I am then able to take that one randomly invoked action and fulfill it in 6 months time by an act of desire and will...it would indicate that if one wishes to argue against free will, then one must argue for a romantic type of predestination. ONLY if I had free will could I fulfill the requirements of such a random test, unless...NOT ONLY THE SO CALLED RANDOM ROLL BUT ALSO MY CERTAINTY OF FULFILLING IT WERE PREDETERMINED. This strikes me as ludicrous which is why I believe in free will. To deny that choices cannot be randomized is just too weird for me. I am a professional gambler in a sense...so I ought to know something about it. Now how is that for arrogance?** All I need now is a sawdust floor and an altar...and something that bleeds.
aip.org
This, however, may provoke some thought and imagination:
georgetown.edu
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