Quote:
Originally Posted by Michael Chui 
Illustrating part a, we have a person walking down the street. He comes to an intersection, stops and waits for the traffic signal, then continues. Three blocks later, we predict that he will stop and wait for the traffic signal again. He might, he might not: he has a choice.
Illustrating part b, we have a simple, unweighted dice. Toss it, and it generates an unpredictable result. You had no choice in which number came up.
My personal belief is in what I call determinism, but which seems to be different from others' notion of determinism. I believe that every action a person takes can be predicted, given sufficient knowledge. Thus, it is possible for an observer to predict choice without removing it.
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This was a really interesting post, and it left me with questions and thoughts.
First, when you say that personal actions are ultimately predictable, (with the "given enough info" model) do you mean to say 100% accurately predictable? And, if so, I'm missing the step of logic that leads you to that conclusion. Reading your last (quoted) paragraph, you go from saying that every action can be predicted to saying that those predictions can be made without removing choice. I do not see the connection in logic between those two statements.
Assuming you are talking about accurate predictions here, it seems to me that there is no choice, only the illusion of choice. If you
know (due to some algorithm) that I'm going to scratch my nose exactly ten seconds from now, and I do, then that action is predetermined. Therefore, it may seem to me that I am choosing to scratch my nose, but the fact is, it was already destined to be and my choice had nothing to do with it. If I do indeed choose not to scratch my nose (in the face of your knowing), then you did not accurately predict my actions. (All this assuming that you have not mentioned your predictions, for simplicity sake.)
From this, I deduce that 100% accurate predictions (knowing) of a person's actions and that person's ability to choose are mutually exclusive. If you disagree with that, I would be very interested in your reasoning.