Science at the Crossroad Between Randomness and Determinism
Karl Svozil · 2000
Time and again, man’s understanding of Nature is at the crossroad between total world-comprehension and total randomness. It is suggested that not only are the preferences influenced by the theories and models of today, but also by the very personal subjective inclinations of the people involved. The second part deals with the principle of self-consistency and its consequences for totally deterministic systems. 1 Who is more afraid of what? Let me start with a question to you, the reader of this article. “What appears to be more frightening: a clocklike universe which is totally governed by deterministic laws, or a lawless universe which is totally unpredictable and random?” 1.1 Clocklike universe In a totally deterministic “clocklike ” universe, every single phenomenon is predetermined by its previous state. Once the initial stage is “set up, ” its