Regarding the topic of your last paragraph (how can we have choice in a deterministic universe): this is something Gary Drescher discusses extensively in his book.
Firstly, he points out that determinism does not imply that choice is necessarily futile. Our ‘choices’ only happen because we engage in some kind of decision or choice making process. Even though the choice may be fixed in advance, it is still only taken because we engage in this process.
Additionally, Gary proposes the notion of a subjunctive means-end link (a means-end link is a method of identifying what is a means to a particular end), wherein one can act for the sake of what would have to be the case if they take a particular action. For example, in newcomb’s problem one can pick just a single box because it would then have to be the case that the big box contains a million.
Putting these two things together might help make sense of how our actions affect these kind of thought experiments.
Regarding the topic of your last paragraph (how can we have choice in a deterministic universe): this is something Gary Drescher discusses extensively in his book.
Firstly, he points out that determinism does not imply that choice is necessarily futile. Our ‘choices’ only happen because we engage in some kind of decision or choice making process. Even though the choice may be fixed in advance, it is still only taken because we engage in this process.
Additionally, Gary proposes the notion of a subjunctive means-end link (a means-end link is a method of identifying what is a means to a particular end), wherein one can act for the sake of what would have to be the case if they take a particular action. For example, in newcomb’s problem one can pick just a single box because it would then have to be the case that the big box contains a million.
Putting these two things together might help make sense of how our actions affect these kind of thought experiments.