Indeterminism
Indeterminism is the view that not all events are clearly determined by preconditions, i.e. that there are certain events that are not clearly determined by causes, but are indeterminate (indeterminate). Indeterminism is classically viewed as the opposite of determinism .
Objective coincidence
The basis of indeterminism is the existence of objective chance . Objective coincidence denotes coincidental events which (in contrast to subjective coincidence) are not reducible, i.e. do not depend on (hidden) causes, but are fundamentally indefinite and cannot be rationally explained. The mathematical foundations of this irreducibility were laid by John von Neumann.
The Austrian scientist Philipp Frank proposed the following explanation as early as 1932:
"A coincidence par excellence, so to a certain extent an absolute coincidence, would then be an event that is a coincidence with regard to all causal laws, that does not appear anywhere as a link in a chain."
The problem, however, is deciding whether the cause of an event is simply unknown or whether it occurred objectively without a cause.
According to the Copenhagen interpretation, many events in quantum mechanics are fundamentally indeterminate and irreducible, that is, objectively random and not traceable to hidden variables . Other interpretations of quantum mechanics ( de Broglie-Bohm theory , ensemble interpretation , many-worlds interpretation ), on the other hand, allow (non-local) hidden variables and do not contain any objective coincidence. Whether or not quantum events are irreducible is one of the fundamental questions in quantum physics that Bohr and Einstein also argued about - and it remains unanswered.
According to modern probability theory, the concept of objective randomness does not necessarily presuppose the assumption of a “metaphysical indeterminism”, but “can be explained by what is called 'deterministic instability' in physics”. Singularities or unstable points in the calculation models, even within deterministic, classical mechanics, have the effect that any small differences in the initial state lead to maximum deviations in the results after a sufficiently long time. The result is determined by "immeasurably small fluctuations and is therefore impossible to predict". Together with the fundamental limits of exact measurability, this implies “the existence of objectively indeterminate processes also in the size range of macrophysics”.
Random number sequences are divided into calculable random numbers ( pseudo- random numbers ) and “real”, ie objectively random, random sequences for which no algorithm can exist that could reproduce the sequence of numbers exactly. From theoretical considerations it can be shown - under reasonable assumptions - that quantum events produce real random sequences. Some physical processes such as atmospheric noise, CCD sensor noise, metastable timers or voltage fluctuations on a Zener diode are considered to be sufficiently real random, as is the throwing of the dice or the drawing of lottery numbers in that they are indistinguishable from real randomness.
Mathematically, the differentiation between pseudo-random numbers and real random numbers, i.e. the proof of real randomness, is actually difficult. Nobody can really rule out that there might not be an algorithm that could reproduce an observed sequence of numbers. Nevertheless, there are stochastic test methods ( Shannon Entropy , Book Stack, Borel Normality, Random Walk) that can measure the quality of random number sequences. Longer sequences of pseudo-random numbers, as generated by typical programs such as Mathematica , can thus be distinguished from quantum random number sequences with a certain accuracy - which indicates the limited quality of the pseudo-random number sequence. The best synthetic random number generators are, however, on par with real random number generators, they only need two independent sources of "weak" entropy.
Indeterminism and free will
Indeterminism played an essential role in the debate about human free will . This arose from the classical notion that determinism and indeterminism were opposites. According to incompatibilism , a determinism that does not allow indeterminate events is not compatible with human free will (according to compatibilism this contradiction does not exist or determinism and indeterminism are not necessarily opposites).
According to Robert Kane , one of the main proponents of libertarianism , indeterminism does not already mean chance, but is consistent with a nondeterministic form of causation in which the event is caused, but not inevitable. Patrick Suppes advocated a “probabilistic theory of causality”, John Dupré and Nancy Cartwright a skepticism about the law and fundamental incompleteness of models - and saw indeterminism as a central principle of nature.
With these libertarian standpoints and the compatibilist standpoint, which assumes a “weak” determinism taking into account the fundamental limits of determinism, the opposition postulated between determinism and indeterminism is lost: an exact and exact predictability, which is mostly associated with determinism, is with the weak There is no determinism in principle. Therefore, in (weak) determinism, the future is open. Elmar Sauter summarizes:
“One of the main arguments of libertarianism against determinism was the lack of an open future, and thus there would be no choice with determinism. It required scientific knowledge that for explanatory purposes one can also have a (weak) determinism with an open future. Therefore this main argument is invalid. "
Indeterminism versus nondeterminism
In theoretical computer science, a distinction is made between deterministic and nondeterministic algorithms . Compared to indeterminism, nondeterminism is not based on the concept of chance , but on a kind of simultaneity ( parallelism ): the achievement of a goal in a non-goal-oriented way.
See also
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Individual evidence
- ^ Andrei Khrennikov: Probability and Randomness: Quantum versus Classical . World Scientific, 2016, pp. 199 .
- ^ Anton Zeilinger: Einstein's veil: the new world of quantum physics . CH Beck, 2003, p. 44, 46, 216 .
- ↑ John von Neumann: Mathematical foundations of quantum mechanics (1932) . Springer-Verlag, 2013 ( books.google.de ).
- ^ P. Frank: The causal law and its limits . Springer, 1932 ( nightacademy.net ).
- ↑ Gregor Schiemann: Why God does not roll the dice, Einstein and quantum mechanics in the light of recent research . In: R. Breuniger (Ed.): Building blocks for philosophy . tape 27 : Einstein , 2010 ( philosophie.uni-wuppertal.de [PDF]).
- ↑ John Earman, A Primer on Determinism, Reidel, Springer Science & Business Media, 1986, p. 232 (“ Rather these probabilities have to be seen as propensities for the system to undergo a transition from potentialities to actualities, and again we have no coherent account of this transition. In sum, while irreducible stochasticity may be an idea whose time may come, it is far from clear that QM marks its debut. ")
- ↑ Gerhard Schurz: Probability . De Gruyter, 2015, p. 58 ( books.google.de ).
- ↑ Cristian S. Calude, Karl Svozil: Quantum randomness and value indefiniteness . Advanced Science Letters, 2008, p. 165–168 ( tph.tuwien.ac.at [PDF]).
- ^ Alastair Abbott: Value Indefiniteness, Randomness and Unpredictability in Quantum Foundations . 2015 ( tel.archives-ouvertes.fr - PhD thesis at the University of Auckland).
- ↑ Cristian S. Calude, Michael J. Dinneen, Monica Dumitrescu, Karl Svozil: Experimental Evidence of Quantum Randomness Incomputability . Phys. Rev, 2010, arxiv : 1004.1521 .
- ↑ Eshan Chattopadhyay, David Zuckerman: Explicit Two-source Extractors and Resilient Functions . Electronic Colloquium on Computational Complexity, 2016.
- ↑ Elmar Sauter: Free will and deterministic chaos . KIT Scientific Publishing, 2013, p. 116 ( books.google.de ). Or ( PDF ).
- ^ Patrick Suppes: A Probabilistic Theory of Causality . North-Holland Publishing Company, 1970.
- ^ John Dupré: The Disorder of Things. Metaphysical Foundations of the Disunity of Science . Harvard University Press, 1993.
- ^ Nancy Cartwright: How the Laws of Physics Lie . Clarendon, 1983.
- ↑ a b Elmar Sauter: Free will and deterministic chaos . KIT Scientific Publishing, 2013, p. 144 .