I am an orthodox Christian, ask me a question!

[Jon Paul]

Well, as a matter of fact I have done my homework on this. The problem is that causality and deteminism are often confused. QM is acausal but deterministic.

I have not confused determinism and causation. On the other hand, I am pretty sure you have confused the definition of causation.

Furthermore, I am familiar with David Quinn and his lunatic site about A=A. David Quinn and his followers are no experts on QM. Please do not bother me with fringe philosophy.

The answer is not from David Quinn but from quantum physicists, unlike the link you gave me.

The reason that QM is acausal is that there is no way to tell which of the superpositioned states on the cause side causes the effect.

Even if that is conceded, that doesn't mean it's acausal.

If you have a way please provide it here. I will accept evidence for the contrary only when you answer the question with argumentation from physics. A simple I could not find someone on a forum who could explain it to me, will not do. And oh, I have found forums about physics where they do understand this.

I dont trust your source, see what the very guy who claims he knows acausality to be proven himself says about the experiment which supposedly proves it - your source:

I can't explain Bell's theorem because I ain't educated (or smart) enough. It's one of the places I have to take the opinions of the professionals at face value.

It boils down to the question of hidden variables. Are there any hidden variables that govern superpositioned states? Well so far all attempts trying to find these alleged hidden variables have failed. Indeed in Bell's experiment it was conclusively shown that there are no hidden variables in QM leading to the astounding result of nonlocality. Nonlocality has been shown indeed.

Bells experiment doesn't conclusively show anything. In fact, it leaves several options open for interpretation. It's up to you if you want to go with the most fantastic conclusions, or go with the more trivial (and likely) explanations.

Causality itself was finally 'rejected' by quantum physicists in 1964. Physicist John Bell assumed, for experiment, three premises: 1) identity (particles are what they are), 2) causality (physical effects propagate by physical means), and 3) that particles on one side of a screen would not affect particles on the other side ("that the state of the instruments measuring the particles was uncorrelated"). As Bell expected, experimental evidence proved these three assumptions could not co-exist in reality (N.B. - the reality the quantum physicists rejected) and they correctly concluded that at least one of the three premises must be rejected. Now, which premise do you think the quantum physicists gleefully rejected? Not the latter triviality about correlation, of course, but identity and causality, which they knew 'all along' were Satan's work. As one quantum theorist exalted at the result: "Reality has been refuted!" To paraphrase Victor Hugo: "To reject reality in the name of reality! What could be more ingenious?"

So the answer is, at least for now, that QM is acausal, unless you want to revise the definition of causality to mean that every superpositioned state can be the cause of the effect, the reason I asked for your definition or that you allow backwards time travel (Bohmian interpretation of QM). QM is deterministic however in a mathematical sense. And these two facts often confuse people.

See, you yourself are saying that it depends on definition. Because if you use my definition of causality, then quantum physics doesn't reject it (causation always means means dependence of one set of parameters, A, on another set B).

Also atom decay is acausal. If you have a cause for this please provide it and again ignorance on science fora will not do as an answer.

Again, I have never said we have intensive total information about the causes of every causative event in the universe. To the contrary. We are not omniscient. We do not need to have so, to still affirm the reality of causation. That would be arguing against causation on grounds of ignorance. There are many other things we did not understand in the universe earlier, causally, which we now do. By your approach, that would warrant, that at the time we did not know why the sun rised, we should then conclude that reality is acausal. Or we might not know the cause of gravity. Or why water evaporates. No. We may not know the causes of all things, but that in no way means that there are none.

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De Broglie and Born state clearly that physical dependence, without 'infinite sharpness', gives rise to causal accounts in quantum mechanics. It is a step towards meeting Bohr's challenge. Quantum mechanical discoveries, from Kirchoffs spectral analysis to Einstein's spontaneous emission, have driven a wedge between the notions of determnism and causation. The quantum-mechanical experiments of the 1920s served to bring into focus a notion of causation compatible with atomic phenomena. Thus it would seem that quantum mechanics does not relinquish the notion of causation. It only eliminates the traditional interpretation of causation in terms of determinism. If causation means physical dependence of one set of observable parameters, A, on another set, B, then quantum physics has not abandoned causation. This general notion of physical dependence must be specified in terms of laws which lay down how the occurence of one set of events, A, is dependent on the occurence of another set of events, B. As Born states: 'the objects of observation for which a dependennce is claimed (...) are the probabilities of elementary events, not those single events themselves' (as we may expect from classical physics and everyday experience). This gives rise to a characterization of causation compatible with quantum mechanical evidence, which lays the basis for a conditional model of causation. What is newis that Born, de Broglie and other observers of the scene, like Frank and Cassirer, take the empirical discoveries of quantum mechanics as empirical constraints on an adequate notion of causation. Empirical discoveries have an impact on fundamental philosophical notions because these notions belong to the larger categorical framework within which the empirical phenomena are interpreted. An appropriate understanding of such phenomena involves the employment of fundamental philosophical notions. It may appear that with the separation of the notions of causation and determinism we pay an unacceptable price: t he loss of a causal, traceable link between cause and effect. In de Broglie's thought experiment, some of the traditional features of causation are still present: antecedence (the cause is prior to/simultaneous with (....)

From Friedel Weinert, Scientist as Philosopher on the philosophical implications of quantum physics.

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Indeed to make an absolute claim about the absolute, you would require absolute knowledge. How else could you assess absoluteness. This is part of your claim.

No, it's not part of my claim in what you quote. It's yet another misunderstanding of my epistemological argument, which has nothing to do with the issue at hand.

These are not just variants of causality. And you haven't defined causality at all. You just provided a dust cloud.

I have defined it, as the dependence on one set of parameters, A, on another set, B.

Does it or does it not mean that cause and event are necessarily separated spatially and/or temporally?

It does not necessarily mean that "cause and event are separated spatially/temporally". This may be a partially semantic issue. Maybe there is no separation on a physical level, spatially and temporally, but a separation manifests between larger sets of causes and effects without actual causes and effects being separate "events" (or how to phrase it). Either way it makes no difference to my perspective.

I am not attacking causality but your accuracy in handling it. Your model suggests a lot, but is not accurate at all. It cannot provide any deeper insight into these relevant questions on the nature of causality. You not even provide a decent definition of causality and from that you have the nerve to suggest that I am arguing from ignorance. Your concept is a hollow case with fancy shiny nameplates on the outside. But it has no predictive or explanatory power whatsoever.

I have defined causality several times.