In part 2 of this series, I address the question "Is the Universe Deterministic?".
If everything in the Universe interacted according to classical Newtonian mechanics, then the answer would be "Yes". The Universe would basically act like a vast pinball machine, and the positions and velocities of every particle at time T+1 would be based on the positions and velocities of the particles at time T.
However, quantum mechanics introduces some randomness into the system whereby positions and velocities can only be expressed as probabilities. A straightforward interpretation of quantum mechanics implies that the Universe unfolds probabilistically and is not a pinball machine, making the answer to our question "No".
Some scientists believe, however, that even quantum mechanics is deterministic and there are non-local hidden variables behinds the scenes that would make the Universe deterministic again.
So the answer to "Is the Universe deterministic?" is currently "Maybe".
In the next part of this series I'll examine whether the answer to this question even matters when discussing Free Will.
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