Talk:Deterministic system (philosophy): Difference between revisions

The fundamental ("weak") meaning of determinism is that every event follows from its causes. Just because we cannot identify every cause or predict every effect does not mean that the universe is not deterministic (weak sense). Some people use a stronger definition of determinism that includes predictability ("scientific determinism"). It is clear that not all events can be predicted. Quantum physics is only non-determistic under the "strong" definition. --[[User:JWSchmidt|JWSchmidt]] 02:23, 31 October 2005 (UTC)

:I'm a bit late to the discussion here, but no, that's not true I think, at least not by the traditionally dominant [[Copenhagen inerpretation]]. It's not simply that you can't ''predict'' whether a given radioactive atom will or will not decay in a certain time frame. It's that there is no difference between the initial states when the atom does or does not decay. So essentially, the difference between decay and non-decay is ''uncaused''. --[[User:Trovatore|Trovatore]] 09:56, 16 January 2007 (UTC)