ontic indeterminacy

Compiled with AI assistance and selectively reviewed. Please consult the cited passages; the books remain the authoritative source. About this companion

Editorial synthesis · provisional

Definition

Ontic indeterminacy is openness in reality itself: an outcome is not yet fully settled rather than simply unknown to an observer. The corpus uses real contingency and quantum potentia as paradigms, within a declared interpretation of physics. Such openness remains structured by constraints and probabilities; it is not equivalent to semantic ambiguity, incomplete measurement, formal undecidability or a guarantee that undetermined events constitute free agency.

Explanation

The taxonomy distinguishes reality-level openness from principled limits of knowledge and from multiple coherent meanings. PB expresses the contrast as not knowing an outcome versus there being no outcome yet to know. These categories can coexist, but evidence for one does not automatically demonstrate all the others or decide the metaphysical status of a particular stochastic model.

The quantum example belongs to the author’s adopted realist interpretation, with different interpretations weighting ontic and descriptive aspects differently. PB explicitly says stochastic channels alone do not distinguish ontic chance from a coarse-grained deterministic model. An entry faithful to the corpus must preserve that formal underdetermination alongside the author’s stronger ontological commitment.

At larger scales the work adopts inheritance of openness through amplified microphysical fluctuations rather than treating instability as a wholly new source of chance. The native note preserves rival emergent-chance approaches as not adopted, not thereby false. AB separately insists that openness alone gives no agency, so the definition cannot identify indeterminacy with freedom.

Scope and attribution

Preserve the ontological commitment with its interpretation and model-scope qualifications.

AB — The Actual Book

Openness alone does not constitute free agency.

Occurrence locators: 32, 68; Appendix: 268; Thinker register: 227.

PB — The Possible Book

The knowledge-world contrast and the underdetermination of stochastic notation remain explicit.

Occurrence locators: 93, 94, 148, 149, 151, 174.

RB1 — The Real Book, Volume I: The Possible Is Real

The taxonomy separates ontic openness from epistemic, semantic and formal limits.

Occurrence locators: 120, 121, 132, 133, 276, 302, 303; Notes: 295.

RB2 — The Real Book, Volume II: Becoming Is Being

Source-verified occurrence; see the printed-page references below.

Occurrence locators: 289.

RB3 — The Real Book, Volume III: Murmurations

Macro openness is inherited on the author’s adopted account.

Occurrence locators: 9, 59, 60, 65, 118, 134; Epilogue: 352.

Background used in the editorial explanation

Named theories and mechanisms are distinguished from neighboring background, homonyms and the author’s own synthesis. Reproduced AI passages retain their separate voice.