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• @TootGuitar@sh.itjust.works 2026-10-22 22:37

  I’m not sure why you believe citation is needed. Are you arguing that the initial state of the brain is determined by something other than genetics? Yes, it is determined by many factors, only one of which is genetics. For example, developmental temperature affects neuronal growth: www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.adp9587 Note the very first two sentences of the introduction: “The wiring of the nervous system follows a complex genetic plan during development. However, because of stochastic processes and environmental factors, genetically identical individuals seldomly show the same phenotypic outcome.” If there were a significant number of such cases, it would put doubt on my theory, and I’d look for any possible causes. Why “a significant number”? Why would one not be enough? It seems like what you’re saying here is “the brain is deterministic, except in particular cases when I know it’s not, and also possibly in other cases that may come up.” Why not just say you don’t know? Regardless, aside from my specific questions here, my overall position is that it’s never correct to call the brain deterministic because we literally cannot test it to see if it is. Since there are a myriad of other possible explanations for our observations about the brain, the time to label it deterministic is when we build a time machine or whatever else we’d need to collect all of the spacetime data to test it, and not before that.

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