Against the Indeterminists - Free Archive Audio

If randomness is defined as an uncaused event, it may also be defined as an independent event. After all, if one event depends on another event, it is no longer random. Therefore, to be random, an event must have no dependency on any other event, or it must be independent of every other event. If the cosmos were regarded as the domain of all events, this implies that a random event must be independent of the cosmos. A random event cannot participate in the cosmos in any respect. These are simply the consequences of regarding an event as uncaused, as independent. Since a random event can play no role whatsoever in the rest of the cosmos, Epictetus (Enchiridion, 1) would surely quip that any random event "is nothing to me." And he would be correct, even physically.