Warp wrote:
>   I don't think so. The very definition of "deterministic" is predictability.

That's where we disagree. It's completely possible to be both deterministic 
and unpredictable. Indeed, that's exactly what the halting problem is all about.

> The very word itself is saying so. It's the opposite of "non-deterministic",
> which is unpredictability.

Also not quite true. Non-deterministic turing machines are very predictable 
in their behavior.

>   A chain of events is deterministic if it happens in a certain way because
> there's no other way it could have happened. If the exact same initial setup
> can be replicated, then the chain of events will happen in the exact same
> way again, completely predictably. That's the very definition of
> deterministic.

Yet, oddly, NDTMs behave that way. ;-)

Yes, that's the basis of deterministic. That doesn't mean you can predict 
the *future*. It just means that given sufficiently similar pasts, the same 
future will unfold.


>   Just because something is extremely hard to predict doesn't mean it's
> not deterministic and impossible to predict. 

Here, have a turing machine. Tell me when it'll halt. :-)

-- 
   Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   I ordered stamps from Zazzle that read "Place Stamp Here".

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