Does quantum theory imply the entire Universe is preordained?

Abstract

Was there ever any choice in the Universe being as it is? Albert Einstein could have been wondering about this when he remarked to mathematician Ernst Strauss: "What I'm really interested in is whether God could have made the world in a different way; that is, whether the necessity of logical simplicity leaves any freedom at all."US physicist James Hartle, who died earlier this year aged 83, made seminal contributions to this continuing debate. Early in the twentieth century, the advent of quantum theory seemed to have blown out of the water ideas from classical physics that the evolution of the Universe is 'deterministic'. Is cosmic evolution a single track with no choice about the destination?GETTY

The Many-Worlds Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics: Current Status and Relation to Other Interpretations

“…In this view, the systems in a world and the worlds themselves are described by density matrices instead of pure states. Chen [18] also prefers the density matrix description, but speculates that the world is "strongly" deterministic, a proposal that resonates with the superdeterminism discussed by Argaman. Zwirn [19] suggested adopting "Convivial Solipsism":…”