> [!abstract] > Determinism is the philosophical view that all events in the universe, including human decisions and actions, are causally inevitable.... Determinism is often contrasted with free will, although some philosophers claim that the two are compatible. A more extreme antonym of determinism is indeterminism, or the view that events are not deterministically caused but rather occur due to random chance. (Wikipedia, 2025). >[!quote] >"It has been widely recognized for over two decades that, contrary to the long-standing lore, Newtonian mechanics is not a deterministic theory" ([[Norton, 2008]]). That the universe is *non-deterministic* (either because we cannot determine the initial conditions precisely enough to escape exponential uncertainty, as in chaos theory; or because there is true randomness at the particle level, as in zero-point energy) does not necessarily imply that we have any say in it (i.e., free will). The concepts of determinism and free will are, in that sense, [[Orthogonality|orthogonal]]. >[!related] >- **North** (upstream): — >- **West** (similar): [[Destiny]] >- **East** (different): — >- **South** (downstream): —