Ruth Kastner, PhD, is a member of the Foundations of Physics group at the University of Maryland, College Park. She is author of The Transactional Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics: The Reality of Possibility, Understanding Our Unseen Reality: Solving Quantum Riddles, and Adventures in Quantumland: Exploring Our Unseen Reality.

Here she maintains that quantum indeterminacy is not quite the same as “randomness” and that it does allow for the possibility of free will, which is otherwise incompatible with a completely deterministic universe. Physics, however, has nothing to say about consciousness — a term that is not defined precisely in any physical theory. However, it is interesting to note that the “iceberg” metaphor used by Freud to describe the human subconscious can be equally applied to the ontological realm of possibility or “Quantumland” as defined in the Transactional Interpretation.

(Recorded on October 21, 2019)

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Published on July 17, 2025