indeterminism
Uncaused events possible
Indeterminism is the philosophical view that not all events are completely determined by prior causes.
It holds that some things happen without being necessitated by what came before—leaving room for chance, free will, or genuine novelty.
The position contrasts with determinism, which holds that every event follows inevitably from preceding conditions.
In physics, quantum indeterminism suggests that certain subatomic events are fundamentally unpredictable: The electron's position involves indeterminism at the quantum level.
Likelihood of occurrence
- probabilityQuantified chance of occurrence
- stochasticRandomly determined, statistically describable
- aleatoryGoverned by chance
- unpredictabilityState resisting forecasts
contingency · accident · spontaneity · entropy · fluctuation · variance · quantum · Heisenberg
Doctrine of causal necessity
- libertarianismMinimal-government political philosophy
- fatalismDoctrine of inevitable outcomes
- voluntarismWill-based action philosophy
- causationProduction of effects
metaphysics · existentialism · nominalism · reductionism · materialism · idealism · dualism · naturalism
Power to act
- autonomyIndependent decision-making capacity
- volitionCapacity for choice
- choiceAct of selecting
- deliberationCareful weighing of choices
libertarian · responsibility · intention · will · decision · alternatives · action · control
Spontaneous internal structure emergence
- complexityState of being complicated
- nonlinearityDisproportionate cause and effect
- unpredictabilityState resisting forecasts
- chaosComplete disorder and confusion
novelty · holism · dissipative · bifurcation · sensitivity · attractors · irreducibility · spontaneous
Openness to multiple interpretations
- vaguenessAbsence of precision
- indecisionFailure to decide
- equivocationAmbiguous language avoiding commitment
- imprecisionLack of exactness
epistemological · unpredictable · conjecture · speculation · unknowability · incompleteness · measurement
chance
Likelihood of occurrence
- probabilityQuantified chance of occurrence
- stochasticRandomly determined, statistically describable
- aleatoryGoverned by chance
unpredictability · contingency · accident · spontaneity · entropy · fluctuation · variance · quantum · Heisenberg · collapse
determinism
Doctrine of causal necessity
- libertarianismMinimal-government political philosophy
- fatalismDoctrine of inevitable outcomes
- voluntarismWill-based action philosophy
causation · metaphysics · existentialism · nominalism · reductionism · materialism · idealism · dualism · naturalism · physicalism
agency
Power to act
deliberation · libertarian · responsibility · intention · will · decision · alternatives · action · control · origination
self-organization
Spontaneous internal structure emergence
- complexityState of being complicated
- nonlinearityDisproportionate cause and effect
- unpredictabilityState resisting forecasts
chaos · novelty · holism · dissipative · bifurcation · sensitivity · attractors · irreducibility · spontaneous
ambiguity
Openness to multiple interpretations
- vaguenessAbsence of precision
- indecisionFailure to decide
- equivocationAmbiguous language avoiding commitment
imprecision · epistemological · unpredictable · conjecture · speculation · unknowability · incompleteness · measurement
- causationcause, effect, because, causality, causation
- free willfree will, choice, volition, autonomy, initiative
- probabilityprobability, chance, random, randomness, odds
- Quantum PhilosophyCopenhagen interpretation, measurement problem, superposition, hidden variables, decoherence
- William Jamespragmatism, stream of consciousness, pluralism, cash value, religious experience
indeterminismdeterminism
Doctrine of causal necessity
predeterminism · hard determinism · mechanism · fatalism · clockwork universe
indeterminismpredictability
Capacity to be anticipated
clockwork universe · calculability · inevitability · certainty
determined, determine, determination, indeterminate, determinate, determinedly, determinable, deterministic, indeterminacy