Related papers: The open past in an indeterministic physics
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…
An account of determinism and indeterminism in physics, addressed to non-physicist readers, leading up to proposals for how to understand statements about the future and single-event probability, motivated by quantum mechanics.
Despite provable unknowables in recursion theory, indeterminism and randomness in physics is confined to conventions, subjective beliefs and preliminary evidence. The history of the issue is very briefly reviewed, and answers to five…
Determinism and indeterminism in physical theories are reviewed and some broader implications of determinism are discussed.
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…
Determinism is (roughly) the thesis that the past determines the future. But efforts to define it precisely have exposed deep methodological disagreements. Standard possible-worlds formulations of determinism presuppose an "agreement"…
A strongly deterministic theory of physics is one that permits exactly one possible history of the universe. In the words of Penrose (1989), ''it is not just a matter of the future being determined by the past; the entire history of the…
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…
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.
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 present in an informal way some recent results concerning a possible overlapping between classical unpredictability and quantum indeterminism.
Spacetime singularities in general relativity are commonly thought to be problematic, in that they signal a breakdown in the theory. We address the question of how to interpret this breakdown, restricting our attention to classical…
The process of doing Science in condition of uncertainty is illustrated with a toy experiment in which the inferential and the forecasting aspects are both present. The fundamental aspects of probabilistic reasoning, also relevant in real…
In this study, I argue that the future is not open if quantum mechanics is complete. An open future means that the value observed when measuring a physical quantity in the future is not determined. At first glance, quantum mechanics seems…
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)…
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 recent publications in physics and mathematics, concerns have been raised about the use of real numbers to describe quantities in physics, and in particular about the usual assumption that physical quantities are infinitely precise. In…
In this letter, we point to three widely accepted challenges that the quantum theory, quantum information, and quantum foundations communities are currently facing: indeterminism, the semantics of conditional probabilities, and the spooky…
What is time? Why does it "flow" and why are we sure that it flows from past towards future? Why is there such a gigantic distinction between the Past of our world, which we believe to be fixed, and the Future, which we consider…
Recent philosophical discussions about metaphysical indeterminacy have been substantiated with the idea that quantum mechanics, one of the most successful physical theories in the history of science, provides explicit instances of worldly…