During Serwa's point of view, she recalls discovering that Esmenet (and everyone else except Kellhus) was "unreal". On reflection this seems to me to be a corollary of the Dunyain belief that what comes before determines what comes afterwards. Esmenet cannot change what came before, thus her actions are predetermined. People are merely stones rolling down a hill; only a self-moving soul is real in that its thoughts/actions have consequences.

Anyway what I was wonder is whether this is the central philosophical concern that Bakker has out of universe? That a sufficiently analyzed person/consciousness is merely a chain reaction of synapse firing in response to external stimuli. If our thoughts are merely the result of physical processes then our actions are no more the result of "choice" than a planet's orbit. Or am I on completely the wrong track here?

Guess this is less a question about TGO itself than about Bakker.