A Case For an Indeterministic Universe

[moving finger]

(Conjecture) If the universe is completely deterministic, there could be no beginning of the universe, because, before the universe existed, there was no matter, no energy, no space, no time. No time... Cause and effect is based on the arrow of time. If there were no time to support cause & effect, then there could be no effect of the universe coming into existence, because there could never be a cause to support that effect. Therefore, the very beginning of the universe was at least ONE example of an effect without a cause, and so since there has been at least one effect without cause in this universe, the universe MUST be indeterministic !

Your error is in assuming that the absence of matter, energy, space and time prior to the Big Bang also means that the universe was necessarily uncaused. We have no idea what implications the Big Bang singularity has for our understanding of physics, but we can be sure that the notion of space and time lose their usual meaning at that singularity. The absence of a known cause does not prove the absence of a cause (“absence of proof is not the same as proof of absence”)

MF