 Further confusion arises if the two senses are conflated. This can lead to the notion that the condition OD is equivalent to the metaphysical thesis that physical reality exists and possess properties independent of their cognizance by human or other agents. This would be an error, as stochastic theories, on which the outcome of an experiment is not uniquely determined by the physical state of the world prior to the experiment, but is a matter of chance, are perfectly compatible with the metaphysical thesis. One occasionally finds traces of a conflation of this sort in the literature; see, e.g., d’Espagnat (1979) and Mermin (1981).