Abstract

Determinism is the thesis that a future state is completely determined by a past state of something - thus its future course is fixed when the initial state is given. Before the discovery of quantum mechanics many people thought the universe was deterministic; rather like a huge clock. Indeterminacy is when something is NOT deterministic, that is the initial state does not completely determine all subsequent ones. Indeterminacy is an important topic and doubly so for those involved in social simulation. Due my interest in these issues and the rather low level of insight provided by the chapters in this book, I will briefly summarise some of the issues as they relate to social simulation first, and relate it to the book later.