determinism

n : a philosophical doctrine holding that all events are

inevitable consequences of antecedent sufficient causes;

often understood as denying the possibility of free will

deterministic

1. Describes a system whose time evolution can

be predicted exactly.

Contrast {probabilistic}.

2. Describes an {algorithm} in which the correct

next step depends only on the current state. This contrasts

with an algorithm involving {backtracking} where at each point

there may be several possible actions and no way to chose

between them except by trying each one and backtracking if it

fails.

(1995-09-22)