determinism

""Determinism is the philosophical proposition that every event, including human cognition and action, is causally determined by an unbroken chain of prior occurrences. No mysterious miracles or wholly random events occur."" (Source: determinism. Reference.com. Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. http://www.reference.com/browse/wiki/Determinism (accessed: November 15, 2006).)

Deterministic system --
""A deterministic system is a conceptual model of the philosophical doctrine of determinism applied to a system for understanding everything that has and will occur in the system, based on the physical outcomes of causality. In a deterministic system, every action, or cause, produces a reaction, or effect, and every reaction, in turn, becomes the cause of subsequent reactions. The totality of these cascading events can theoretically show exactly how the system will exist at any moment in time."" Source: deterministic system (philosophy). Reference.com. Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. http://www.reference.com/browse/wiki/Deterministic_system_(philosophy) (accessed: November 15, 2006).

Determinism and non-determinism --
Some believe that all systems are deterministic and all phenomena then predictable, it is just a matter of time before all causal interactions and effects are determined. At this time, there is strong evidence for non-deterministic behavior. Quantum physics finds what are believed to be truly random events. ""Quantum indeterminacy is the apparent necessary incompleteness in the description of a physical system, that has become one of the characteristics of the standard description of quantum physics. Prior to quantum physics, it was thought that (a) a physical system had a determinate state which uniquely determined all the values of its measurable properties, and conversely (b) the values of its measurable properties uniquely determined the state."" Source: quantum indeterminacy. Reference.com. Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. http://www.reference.com/browse/wiki/Quantum_indeterminacy (accessed: November 15, 2006).