Determinism
Determinism:
(noun)
philosophy
a: a
theory or doctrine that acts of the will, occurrences in nature, or
social or psychological phenomena are causally determined by preceding
events or natural laws
b: a
belief in predestination
Determinism is the idea that all events, including all human decisions and actions, are the inevitable consequence of previous states or actions. Some philosophers have taken it to imply that individual human beings have no free will and that all events (including human actions)are determined by immediately prior events (such as reasons, motives, desires). If there is no free will, there can be no choice in the absolute sense of the term.
Determinism often is taken to mean causal determinism, which in physics is known as cause-and-effect. It is the concept that events within a given system are bound by causality in such a way that any state (of an object or event) is completely determined by prior states.
The Greek philosophers have said, "Nothing occurs at random, but everything for a reason and by necessity." And as Bertrand Russell said "The law of causation, according to which later events can theoretically be predicted by means of earlier events, has often been held to be a priori, a necessity of thought, a category without which science would not be possible."