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Indeterminism is the idea that events (or certain events, or events of certain types) are not caused, or are not caused deterministically.
It is the opposite of determinism and related to chance. It is highly relevant to the philosophical problem of free will, particularly in the form of metaphysical libertarianism. In science, most specifically quantum theory in physics, indeterminism is the belief that no event is certain and the entire outcome of anything is probabilistic. Heisenberg's uncertainty principle and the "Born rule", proposed by Max Born, are often starting points in support of the indeterministic nature of the universe.[1] Indeterminism is also asserted by Sir Arthur Eddington, and Murray Gell-Mann. Indeterminism has been promoted by the French biologist Jacques Monod's essay "Chance and Necessity". The physicist-chemist Ilya Prigogine argued for indeterminism in complex systems.
- ^ The Born rule itself does not imply whether the observed indeterminism is due to the object, to the measurement system, or both. The ensemble interpretation by Born does not require fundamental indeterminism and lack of causality.