I chose to reply to this post. Theoretically my choice to do so is a 
deterministic consequence of everything that has ever happened in my 
life, up to and including reading this post.

I don't think choice is an illusion. I chose to type these words. Is 
*free* choice an illusion? Well, define "free", define "illusion", and 
then I'll get back to you. ;-)

I think people sometimes confuse "deterministic" with "predictable". The 
weather is deterministic, and well-understood. And yet, after millennia 
of trying, nobody can predict the weather. There are even strong 
theoretical reasons for why this should be; in principle a result can 
depend on the initial conditions with arbitrary sensitivity (and it 
doesn't even need to be an especially complicated system for this to be 
the case). Since if nothing else the uncertainty principle limits what 
can actually be measured, there can exist events which are physically 
impossible to predict, because the necessary measurements can never be 
obtained.

I've read some authors prematurely stating that in the next decade or so 
we will have computers with more computational power then the human 
brain, and then we will be able to simulate brains, and even determine 
what a person will do before they do it. This is of course nonesense. 
Modern science has only the vaguest clue how the brain works, and you 
can't simulate something you don't understand.

Also... I have a sore throat today.

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