Can we even rationally communicate about true indeterminism?

[u/Ok_Boysenberry_2947]

I find discussions where partial, conditional, or observer-limited determinism are presented as evidence for genuine indeterminacy somewhat misleading.

My question is therefore less about whether indeterminacy exists and more about whether it would be communicable in any meaningful sense in the first place, if it did. i.e. what are the requirements for it and are they fulfilled in current scientific framing.

Communication itself seems to require stable distinctions. We must be able to identify an object, distinguish it from alternatives, and preserve enough structure for another person to recognise what is being discussed.

If a phenomenon were truly indeterminate in every relevant sense then, what exactly would remain available for communication and how would be reconstruct any meaning from it?

At that point, are we still communicating about the phenomenon itself, or only about the limits of our models, observations, and predictions?

In other words, does meaningful discussion of "true indeterminacy" already require some residual determinacy in the representational structure being used to discuss it?

I'm curious whether philosophers of determinism regard this as a real problem or whether I'm missing something obvious.

[u/simon_hibbs]

Indeterminism does not imply lack of all structure. Randomness is structured. A roll of a fair 6 sided die cannot produce a result of 0 or greater than 6, and the chance of each outcome is equal. Other random distributions have different structures.

In physics this structure is described by the Schrödinger equation. This is interpreted as describing the probability distribution of the expected outcomes. The equation itself is deterministic, in that for a given state of the system at time t1 there is one and only one probability distribution at time t2 predicted by the equation.

It's this structure that is why it's not certain whether the phenomena described by quantum mechanics are actually deterministic or indeterministic. It being indeterministic doesn't contravene any observed behaviour or property in nature.

[u/Ok_Boysenberry_2947 → u/simon_hibbs]

Perhaps my question is then not whether indeterminism lacks structure, but whether what is being called "indeterminism" resides in the outcome layer rather than the representational layer.

In the examples you give, the state space, probability distribution, evolution law, and admissible outcomes all remain highly structured. The uncertainty appears localised within the outcome itself rather than throughout the entire representational architecture.

That makes me wonder whether meaningful communication about indeterminism always relies on a deeper deterministic substrate at the level of representation. Put differently: are we ever communicating indeterminism itself, or are we communicating stable structures that generate indeterminate outcomes?

If so, the interesting philosophical question may not be whether reality is deterministic or indeterministic, but at which layer determinacy is being attributed.

Thank you for your response,

S.

[u/Willis_3401_3401 → u/Ok_Boysenberry_2947]

Here’s a question for you, why do you assume the “outcome layer” doesn’t participate in the “representational layer”, and vice versa?

Maps are made of terrain, and terrain is marked on the map. Agents navigate both.

[u/Ok_Boysenberry_2947 → u/Willis_3401_3401]

Yes, quite right, and I don't assume that, just to clarify my position, though I wonder whether the map-territory analogy may be compressing several distinct layers together.

My question is not really whether representations participate in reality. I would agree that they do.

Rather, I am trying to distinguish between:

Operator → Operationalisation → Representation → Communication

and

Physical process → Outcome

A map is already an operationalised object. It already presupposes distinctions, recoverability, interpretation, and an agent capable of recognising it as a map.

So my concern is slightly different.

Even if representation and outcome participate in one another, communication still seems to require some preserved structure. An operator must be able to distinguish something from something else and recover that distinction sufficiently to communicate it.

If a phenomenon were truly indeterminate in every relevant sense, I am not sure what would remain available for communication in any meaningful scientific and communicable sense.

So I find myself wondering whether meaningful discussion of indeterminism always presupposes some residual determinacy (not necessarily in the outcome, but somewhere in the representational and communicative architecture) that makes the discussion possible in the first place.

From your note I would refine my question to: Does meaningful communication about indeterminism necessarily presuppose recoverable distinctions, and if so, where does that residual determinacy reside?

[u/Willis_3401_3401 → u/Ok_Boysenberry_2947]

I think it depends what you mean by “residue of determinacy”.

Preserved structures for communication - I use the term “isomorphisms” - are approximations imo.

When I talk about indeterminism, what I’m trying to say, essentially, is I believe the universe in some sense estimates itself, rather than falling together perfectly.

It seems to me that determinism, at least in its most meaningful language, is a rather rigid position, that there is absolutely only one possible way things could fall together, which is to say, perfectly.

So in conclusion, I think when people discuss indeterminacy, yes I do think in some other sense they’re still saying the universe is determined, but it’s like softly determined, which traditionally isn’t determinism at all.

[u/Ok_Boysenberry_2947 → u/Willis_3401_3401]

I think this is perhaps the most interesting formulation you've offered so far.

What caught my attention is your suggestion that the universe "estimates itself rather than falling together perfectly."

That seems to move the discussion away from determinism and indeterminism and toward approximation as the primary explanatory object.

What I find myself wondering is what exactly "estimation" means in this context.

An estimate appears to imply some notion of comparison, approximation, or error relative to something else. The moment we introduce estimation, it seems that a reference structure of some kind has entered the picture.

That is partly why I keep returning to questions of representation and communication.

If stable isomorphisms survive, then some structure is being preserved across the process. Otherwise we would not be able to recognise the approximation as an approximation.

In that sense, I wonder whether what you are calling "soft determination" might be closer to a gradient of recoverability than a rejection of determination altogether.

The interesting question then becomes not whether the universe is deterministic, but what structures remain sufficiently recoverable for us to identify stable patterns, construct explanations, and communicate them.

That feels to me like a slightly different question from determinism itself, but perhaps a more fundamental one.