Abstract
I discuss candidates for definitions of determinism in the context of general relativistic spacetimes, and argue that a definition which does not make recourse to any particular region of spacetime should be preferred over alternatives; one such notion is discussed in detail in the light of various physical examples. The emerging picture of determinism is a pluralist one: sometimes there is no unique way of making our intuitive concept of determinism precise. Instead, what is crucial for assessment of determinism of the theory are auxiliary conditions under which it counts as deterministic or indeterministic, and justification for using them in a given situation.
Highlights
By making spacetime dynamical, general theory of relativity challenges our everyday notions in multiple ways
I discuss candidates for definitions of determinism in the context of general relativistic spacetimes, and argue that a definition which does not make recourse to any particular region of spacetime should be preferred over alternatives; one such notion is discussed in detail in the light of various physical examples
Is it posing challenges to an intuitive notion of determinism? What I take to be the intuitive notion of determinism is typically spelled out as the statement that the state of the physical system at one moment of time, together with dynamical equations describing the evolution of the system, uniquely fixes the state of the physical system at any other moment of time; this is most commonly cashed out formally in terms of a Laplacian analysis of determinism
Summary
General theory of relativity challenges our everyday notions in multiple ways. What I take to be the intuitive notion of determinism is typically spelled out as the statement that the state of the physical system at one moment of time, together with dynamical equations describing the evolution of the system, uniquely fixes the state of the physical system at any other moment of time; this is most commonly cashed out formally in terms of a Laplacian analysis of determinism This way of explicating determinism makes recourse to a certain spatiotemporal structure, in the sense that it makes crucial use of the notion of ”moment of time” — which is a particular sort of spacetime region. Since the theory does not comply, does it even make sense to ask whether it is deterministic or indeterministic?
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