How Determinism Can Fail in Classical Physics and How Quantum Physics Can (Sometimes) Provide a Cure

In the minds of most otherwise well informed philosophers of science, determinism should be thought of as Nature’s default mode in classical (= nonquantum) physics, and some sort of irreducibly stochastic behavior, presumably of a quantum origin, has to come into play to displace this default mode. I will argue that this mind‐set is mistaken in two ways. First, the fault modes of determinism in classical physics are so numerous and various as to make determinism in this context seem rather surprising. Second, various forms of classical indeterminism can be cured by quantizing the relevant classical system or by applying Hilbert space techniques to the classical problem. Not only is quantum physics more deterministic (in certain respects) than classical physics, but it is also more predictable, owing to the absence of sensitive dependence on initial conditions. I will not take up this last point since determinism must be distinguished from predictability, and it is the former that is my exclusive concern here