Comment by diogenesthehopeful on 30/08/2024 at 05:05 UTC

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But some people think that the decay event is random and others think it is determined.

Can we agree that it is caused? That is the sticking point because posters on this sub erroneously conflate causality and determinism. I think that is the source of the disagreement. If you conflate causality and determinism then of course people are going to disagree about random vs determined when it comes to any probalistic event including radio active decay.

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Comment by spgrk at 30/08/2024 at 06:14 UTC

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No, we can’t agree that it is caused, because “caused” is an ambiguous term. Some physicists say that it is uncaused, meaning it is undetermined, while others who also think it is undetermined say that it is caused, meaning it is probabilistically caused. “Determined” is a better word because it is less ambiguous, or so I thought.