Stoic Determinism 2

Origen, On Principles - "Ensouled things are moved 'by' themselves when an impression occurs within them which calls forth an impulse . . . A rational animal, however, in addition to its impressionistic nature, has reason which passes judgment on impressions, rejecting some of these and accepting others, in order that the animal may be guided accordingly."

Alexander, On Aristotle's Prior Analytics - "They hold that after the conflagration all the same things recur in the world numerically, so that even the same peculiarly qualified individual as before exists and comes to be again in that world, as Chrysippus says."

One of these things is not like the other. Men are rational, and can decide whether or not to assent to impressions. At the very least, we can choose the impulse that is derived from an impression. Yet, somehow, the eternal recurrence of the universe will produce the exact same situation, infinitely. If a given set of starting points produces identical intermediate points, then obviously the decision has been taken out of man's hands. Our 'reason' is no more than a complex set of instincts and natural programming - far to complex for us to understand, but necessarily obedient to a higher order, a mathematical explanation. Perhaps the Stoics themselves were unaware of how deterministic some of their beliefs were.