rob@osiris.UUCP (Robert St. Amant) (04/24/85)
> Thus, macroscopic events are unpredictable, nondeterministic, just > as microscopic ones are. At every causal junction, there is inherent > acausality. The subject of determinism has come up several times in this discussion, and I have seen no one challenge the assertion that nondeterminism holds. Well, here I go. Notice in the quoted article "unpredictable, nondeterministic. . ." These ideas aren't related in this way. Unpredictability of events doesn't imply nondeterminism (obviously.) I don't think that's the only point, though. I thought that special relativity provided the answer to the determinism/ nondeterminism argument. I can't post a good, complete (short!) argument for determinism, but I'll try if someone wants to see it. One thing to think about is this: (courtesy of Hilary Putnam) ". . .I define an event to be Absolutely Future if the statement that it has the property P. . .has no truth value. [Hilary has earlier argued that one effect of nondeterminism is that future events have no truth value.] I define an event to be Absolutely Present if it is not Absolutely Future and if every event that is in its proper future. . .is Absolutely Future. Then two events are Absolutely Simultaneous if and only if there is a time. . .at which they are both Absolutely Present." And absolute simultaneity contradicts relativity. Rob St. Amant