Is the universe deterministic or probabilistic?
In: Physics
Oh it’s most certainly probabilistic. Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle, the butterfly effect, and chaotic systems practically mandate that.
Down at the smallest level of things, things behave as either a particle or a wave. When they interact with other things, they act like a particle. Definite, measurable, and real. When they’re not interacting with other things (ignoring gravity), then they act like a probabilistic wave-form. They exist everywhere they COULD exist. And weirder still, they’ll interfere with their own wave. The [dual-slit experiment is trippy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double-slit_experiment). It shows us that a single photon aimed two slits will have a waveform that interferes with itself in determining where it’ll land on the other side. This can be replicated with electrons, atoms, molecules, big beefy molecules, and there’s no reason to believe it doesn’t scale up. It’s just harder to isolate big stuff. It’s poetic and flowery, but our interactions are what make us real.
If the smallest stuff is inherently probabilistic then any chaotic system like a dice tumbling about where tiny changes can have big macro-sized differences is also inherently probabilistic. So are things like… every atom of the sun decaying overnight. But I’ll bet you sun still rises because the odds are beyond astronomical.
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