Aspects of determinism in modern physics

Abstract

This chapter reviews some aspects of determinism that are familiar to physicists but are little discussed in the philosophical literature and shows how these aspects connect determinism to issues about symmetries in physics, the structure and ontological status of space time, predictability, and computability. It emerges in the chapter that in some respects determinism is a robust doctrine and is difficult to kill, while in other respects it is fragile and requires various enabling assumptions to give it a fighting chance. In the chapter it is alsoalso seen that determinism is far from a dead issue. Quantum field theory (QFT) assumes determinism, at least at the classical level, to construct the field algebra of quantum observables. Determinism is the core of cosmic censorship hypothesis––the most important unsolved issue in classical general relativity theory (GTR). And issues about the nature and status of determinism lie at the center of key foundation issues, in the search for a theory of quantum gravity.