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It occurred to me that the limits of possibility to the nature of the universe is it is either deterministic ie we are all at the will of natural laws that determine the outcome of events from the moment of inception and we are philosophically dust in the wind. Or is the world random and our future is uncertain and indeterminate we have freewill and there is nothing governing our future but our free choice or is it both of these scenarios happening concurrently. I am no expert, but from what I gather from quantum mechanics is that the cause of events at the quantum level is indefinite and the outcome of these uncertain and probalistic. There is the principle of uncertainty in which determining the property of a particle results in an uncertainty in determining the nature of another property of this particle is it this principle that makes it difficult to get precise measurement that is a factor in us being able to predict the outcome of events in a linear deterministic equation that gives us the unpredictable nature of quantum mechanics ie there is an equation governing the outcome of events at the quantum mechanical scale and classical scale but we are unable to feed that equation with precise data to enable us to accurately predict their outcome ,kind of like how dynamically chaotic systems are mathematically determined by there initial condition but a small perturbation or difference in initial conditions results in a different outcome. I know its that old chestnut I am not a mathematician or physicist but there can only be three possible scenarios any response will be welcome even if its disparaging.

Qmechanic
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    How about neither? – Andrew Steane May 25 '23 at 22:02
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    The universe is unique. We can't do correlations between the universe and itself. The entire systems theory approach of physics is therefor only applicable to sub-systems of the universe to begin with. – FlatterMann May 25 '23 at 22:09
  • So if you reduce the universe to a number of sub systems you are unable to reflect the whole universe from those sub systems? That's a genuine question I'm not being confrontational I'm not a physicist or mathematician – 8Mad0Manc8 May 25 '23 at 22:25
  • How about both? "Random" is just another word for unpredictable. A completely deterministic process is predictable in theory, but there's no limit to how far from predictable it can be in practice. – Solomon Slow May 25 '23 at 22:35
  • Isn't that a measurement problem though ? There must be some initial conditions even though in principle they will always be unknown to an observer and thus fall out of the observers means of predicting the outcome. – 8Mad0Manc8 May 25 '23 at 22:53
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    If it's a chaotic process, then no measurement of the initial conditions can be sufficiently precise to predict its behaviour forever. – Solomon Slow May 26 '23 at 02:31
  • Yes I followed your link but I did not learn anything from it. Chaotic process can be expressed as deterministic non linear equations and their outcomes are sensitive to initial conditions if you seed the equation with the same Initial conditions the outcome will be the same, in a physical system such as the double pendulum if that system starts with the same conditions the outcome will be the same in practice it would be impossibe, however the universe, must have had initial conditions and its outcome would result from those conditions, so the butterfly had no choice but to flap its wings. – 8Mad0Manc8 May 26 '23 at 10:39

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