A physical system, when faced with a choice of outcomes of a measurement, will pick a random outcome from the collection of similar systems in the past. This law of precedents guarantees that most of the time, the present will resemble the past, in that the probabilities for the various possible outcomes of the same experiment will be unchanged. If this is right, the appearance that atoms are governed by unchanging laws is an illusion created by the fact that the universe is old enough and big enough that there is ample precedent for most situations an atom will find itself in. But what if
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