Psychology Dictionary of Arguments

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Determinism, philosophy: the idea that events and mental states occur due to strict laws and are therefore determined in advance. For a prediction one only has to know the environmental conditions. The fact that we do not know if determinism is true is sometimes explained by our incomplete knowledge of the environment. See also indeterminism, strict laws, prediction, probability, probabilism.
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Annotation: The above characterizations of concepts are neither definitions nor exhausting presentations of problems related to them. Instead, they are intended to give a short introduction to the contributions below. – Lexicon of Arguments.

 
Author Concept Summary/Quotes Sources

Richard Feynman on Determinism - Dictionary of Arguments

I 540
Determinism/Knowledge/Indeterminateness/Feynman: even if the world were consistently classically determined (QM did not apply), we could not predict the behavior of the individual particles: the smallest initial error quickly becomes a great uncertainty. If any precision is given, no matter how accurate, then you can specify a time that is long enough that our predictions are not valid for such a long time.
For example, with an accuracy of 1 to a billion, it is not about millions of years, time only depends on the error logarithmically. We will lose all information after a very short time.
>Initial conditions
.
It is therefore not fair to say that we should have realized from the freedom of the human mind that "quantum mechanics" would have meant the redemption from a mechanistic universe.
>Quantum mechanics.
Uncertainty Principle/Indeterminacy/Feynman: in practical terms it already existed in classical physics.
>Uncertainty relation.

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Explanation of symbols: Roman numerals indicate the source, arabic numerals indicate the page number. The corresponding books are indicated on the right hand side. ((s)…): Comment by the sender of the contribution. Translations: Dictionary of Arguments
The note [Concept/Author], [Author1]Vs[Author2] or [Author]Vs[term] resp. "problem:"/"solution:", "old:"/"new:" and "thesis:" is an addition from the Dictionary of Arguments. If a German edition is specified, the page numbers refer to this edition.

Feynman I
Richard Feynman
The Feynman Lectures on Physics. Vol. I, Mainly Mechanics, Radiation, and Heat, California Institute of Technology 1963
German Edition:
Vorlesungen über Physik I München 2001

Feynman II
R. Feynman
The Character of Physical Law, Cambridge, MA/London 1967
German Edition:
Vom Wesen physikalischer Gesetze München 1993


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