Related papers: Determinism and Indeterminism
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"…
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.…
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.
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…
We present in an informal way some recent results concerning a possible overlapping between classical unpredictability and quantum indeterminism.
Historically, appearance of the quantum theory led to a prevailing view that Nature is indeterministic. The arguments for the indeterminism and proposals for indeterministic and deterministic approaches are reviewed. These include collapse…
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…
It is considered the study of determinism in the theories of physics. Based on fundamental postulates of physics, it is proved that the evolution of the universe is univocally determined, proving ultimately that free will does not exist. In…
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…
The positivistic assumptions of determinism and objectivism in the realm of Newtonian mechanics are questioned in this paper. While objectivism is only challenged through proposing the mildest form of subjectivism, determinism is…
This paper argues that the traditional opposition between determinism and indeterminism in physics is representational rather than ontological. Deterministic-stochastic dualities are available in principle, and arise in a non-contrived way…
Free will discourse is primarily centred around the thesis of determinism. Much of the literature takes determinism as its starting premise, assuming it true for the sake of discussion, and then proceeds to present arguments for why, if…
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…
Causality has been often confused with the notion of determinism. It is mandatory to separate the two notions in view of the debate about quantum foundations. Quantum theory provides an example of causal not-deterministic theory. Here we…
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…
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)…
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…
Physicists are increasingly beginning to take seriously the possibility of laws outside the traditional time-evolution paradigm; yet our understanding of determinism is still predicated on a forwards time-evolution picture, making it…
We present a brief non-technical introduction to the standing discussion on the relation between Quantum Mechanics and Determinism. Quantum Mechanics inherent randomness in the measurement process is sometimes presented as a door to explain…
An indeterministic interpretation of classical physics has been proposed recently, in which the argument relies on attacking an alleged unwarranted metaphysical hidden assumption of the standard deterministic interpretation. This short…