# Determinism **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [May 11, 2011, 8:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/determinism/581558 "2011-05-11T20:07:55Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 1\ **Showing post:** 86
**Author:** ![Half\_Man\_Half\_Wit](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/half_man_half_wit/32/21766_2.png) [@Half\_Man\_Half\_Wit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Half_Man_Half_Wit)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2011, 5:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/determinism/581558/86 "2011-05-15T17:24:32Z")
Sorry for the multi-posting, but I’d completely forgotten my resolve to ask every proponent of indeterminism how it could possibly be that an undetermined choice ever gets made – or, as I put it earlier: > [@Does free will exist?](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-free-will-exist/574464/210): > > There’s one question I never seem to be able to find a good answer to: if for some event there does not exist sufficient reason (i.e. if it’s not determined), then how does it happen? How can something be truly random? If two possibilities, A and B, are equally likely to occur, what happens in order to choose, say, B over A? I’m not asking _why_ B happens, but merely _how_ – what is the process through which something happens if it is not determined to happen? I know, the answer typically is ‘there is no process’, or ‘it just happens that way’, or anything along those lines. Both A and B could happen, and B happens, that’s all. Most people seem content with this, but to me, this seems to be a deeply unsatisfactory answer. In order to choose B over A, surely somehow, somewhere, a choice must be made. But how can that choice be made if there is no sufficient reason for it? It’s a well-posed question, but it doesn’t seem, _in principle_, answerable – since any answer would provide a determining mechanism, and remove the stipulated randomness. If I were to accept this, I should just as well accept ‘God did it’ as ultima ratio. --- _[View the full topic](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/determinism/581558)._