Abstract
SIR ARTHUR, EDDINGTON'S characteristically fascinating address on “The Decline of Determinism”, which we publish as our Supplement this week, will be welcomed as a clear, unequivocal statement, by a leading authority, on a question which, even among the many revolutionary aspects of the new physics, holds a pre-eminent place for importance and interest. Such a statement is the more necessary because of the almost universal tendency for discussions of determinism to be concerned at bottom with words rather than ideas, and Sir Arthur has quite properly begun by stating definitely what he means by the determinism which he holds has declined. His thorough analysis leaves little room for disagreement, but many will wonder whether he has not achieved a Pyrrhic victory by conceding to the determinist the substance of his doctrine and destroying only the shadow. “The rejection of determinism is in no sense an abdication of scientific method”, and “indeter-ministic or secondary law … can be used for predicting the future as satisfactorily as primary law”. In other words, Sir Arthur does not allow that the first Morning of Creation wrote what the last Dawn of Reckoning shall read, but he allows that it might have read what the last Dawn shall write. Even the most perf ervid determinist will scarcely ask more. Furthermore, he acknowledges that he does not know whether Dirac, whose book “goes as deeply as anyone has yet penetrated into the fundamental structure of the physical universe”, is a determinist or not. It would seem, therefore, that the determinism in question cannot be of much importance even in physics.
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Determinism Defined. Nature 129, 228 (1932). https://doi.org/10.1038/129228d0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/129228d0