Non Deterministic

A system is non-deterministic if its output cannot be predicted from its input.

Several papers on ConcurrentConstraintProgramming distinguish between 'indeterminism' (committed choice, RaceCondition, etc.) and 'non-determinism' (backtracking, all paths simultaneously, etc.). This attempt to avoid confusion between different uses of 'non-determinism' respects prior literature regarding NonDeterministicTuringMachine and Non-deterministic FiniteAutomata.

It may be worth encouraging use of 'indeterminism' for cases where 'output cannot be predicted from locally controlled input'.

See UsefulnessOfNonDeterminism, NonDeterministicTuringMachine