The future is contingent and not
determined by the past nor
necessitated by logical or theological considerations.
But the very earliest philosophers were concerned that determinism and necessity might imply that there is but one possible future.
Leucippus stated the first
dogma of determinism, an absolute
necessity which left no room in the cosmos for
chance.
"Nothing occurs at random, but everything for a reason and by necessity."
His fellow atomist,
Democritus, thought that strictly causal laws of nature would free man from control by capricious gods and arbitrary fate. He postulated that everything in the universe is reducible to matter, "atoms in a void," that the motion of the atoms is completely determined by physical laws, and that includes the human mind.
Modern philosophers like
J. J. C. Smart like to think that the future is "already out there" in the relativistic space-time continuum of the "block universe."
Aristotle
