Related papers: Indeterminism and Randomness Through Physics
Discussions on indeterminism in physics focus on the possibility of an open future, i.e. the possibility of having potential alternative future events, the realisation of one of which is not fully determined by the present state of affairs.…
If quantum mechanics is taken for granted the randomness derived from it may be vacuous or even delusional, yet sufficient for many practical purposes. "Random" quantum events are intimately related to the emergence of both space-time as…
Some possible (re)sources of indeterminism and randomness encountered in physics are enumerated. These gaps in the physical laws, if they exist, could possibly be exploited for dualistic interfaces. We also speculate that physical laws and…
Determinism and indeterminism in physical theories are reviewed and some broader implications of determinism are discussed.
The 20th century has revealed two important limitations of scientific knowledge. On the one hand, the combination of Poincar\'e's nonlinear dynamics and Heisenberg's uncertainty principle leads to a world picture where physical reality is,…
A tradition handed down among physicists maintains that classical physics is a perfectly deterministic theory capable of predicting the future with absolute certainty, independently of any interpretations. It also tells that it was quantum…
It is a widespread belief that results like G\"odel's incompleteness theorems or the intrinsic randomness of quantum mechanics represent fundamental limitations to humanity's strive for scientific knowledge. As the argument goes, there are…
A variety of physical unknowables are discussed. Provable lack of physical omniscience, omnipredictability and omnipotence is derived by reduction to problems which are known to be recursively unsolvable. "Chaotic" symbolic dynamical…
Most physics theories are deterministic, with the notable exception of quantum mechanics which, however, comes plagued by the so-called measurement problem. This state of affairs might well be due to the inability of standard mathematics to…
In this PhD thesis the ancient question of determinism ('Does every event have a cause ?') will be re-examined. In the philosophy of science and physics communities the orthodox position states that the physical world is indeterministic:…
In a recent paper [1], it has been claimed that the outcomes of a quantum coin toss which is idealized as an infinite binary sequence is 1-random. We also defend the correctness of this claim and assert that the outcomes of quantum…
We discuss the question of if and how undecidability might be translatable into physics, in particular with respect to prediction and description, as well as to complementarity games.
Several examples are used to illustrate how we deal cavalierly with infinities and unphysical systems in physics. Upon examining these examples in the context of infinities from Cantor's theory of transfinite numbers, the only known…
The study of undecidability in problems arising from physics has experienced a renewed interest, mainly in connection with quantum information problems. The goal of this review is to survey this recent development. After a historical…
In the past century many fundamental results on unpredictability, undecidability and uncertainty have compelled scientists to grapple with the idea that some questions may never be resolved within our current theories. While this…
We propose an interpretation of physics named potentiality realism. This view, which can be applied to classical as well as to quantum physics, regards potentialities (i.e. intrinsic, objective propensities for individual events to obtain)…
I discuss some of the main interpretations given to explain the indeterministic nature of quantum measurements and show that all has some loopholes in one corner or another. I propose an alternative interpretation based on the notion of…
Rebilas argues that time-reversal can occur even in an indeterministic system. This hypothesis is untestable, hence lying beyond physics.
Information is everywhere in nature which is very uncertain and unpredictable. But information, in itself, is a very ambiguous term. In this cursory write-up, we attempt to understand the formal meaning of information by quantifying…
Although various limits on the predicability of physical phenomena as well as on physical knowables are commonly established and accepted, we challenge their ultimate validity. More precisely, we claim that fundamental limits arise only…