In The Quantum Enigma, Rosenblum and Kuttner address the impact of the "Newtonian worldview" on our ability to understand and explain the phenomena of the physical world. Science has been able to greatly advance our knowledge of the natural world over the past few centuries, largely thanks to this worldview. In this article, five principles of the Newtonian worldview will be summarized; two of these points – those deemed most and least defensible – will be discussed in more detail. As a final point, we will discuss which of the five precepts, if rejected by modern physics, would be the most disturbing to give up. The first concept to address is determinism. According to the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, determinism is “the idea that every event is necessitated by antecedent events and conditions along with the laws of nature.” Essentially, it is the philosophy that all events are determined by a fixed set of causes, so that the future is as rigid as the past. Some religious forms of determinism assert that events are decided by the will of a deity. For our purposes, however, we will consider the scientific form of determinism based on basic causality. Consider, for example, rolling a die. We could see it as a way to determine a random outcome (between 1 and 6). But, thrown from a certain height and with a certain speed, the die will land on a certain edge or angle and roll a certain number of times before slowing down and stopping. Because the die is bound by the laws of physics, the outcome of the roll is determined as we roll it, even though we may not be able to calculate all the factors involved and predict the outcome. The second principle of the Newtonian worldview is... ... middle of paper ...... would mean something different for each individual. It would be completely useless to try to describe an objective reality that is non-existent. Works Cited Blackburn, Simon. Truth: A Guide. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2005. 188. Print.Hoefer, Carl. "Causal Determinism". Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Stanford University, January 23, 2003. Web. March 1, 2011. Libet, B., C. A. Gleason, E. W. Wright, and D. K. Pearl. “Time of conscious intention to act in relation to the onset of brain activity (readiness potential).” Brain 106.3 (1983): 623-42. Print.Libet, B. “Unconscious brain initiative and the role of conscious will in voluntary action.” Behavioral and Brain Sciences 8 (1985): 529-66. Print.Rosenblum, Bruce and Fred Kuttner. “Chapter 4: Our Newtonian Worldview.” Quantum Enigma: Physics Meets Consciousness. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2008. 23-37. Press.