I am an orthodox Christian, ask me a question!

[Purple Rabbit]

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.

You don't shy away from dishonest methods to sustain your special plea. First you give me the link to the David Quinn site:

Here are some statements of scientists concerning whether quantum mechanics is "in essence" acausal.

and then you edit your post and remove the link. It seems you are not quite sure about who you should quote.

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.

That depends on your definition. Yours was: "dependence of one set of parameters, A, on another set, B" which is very vague again. With this definition one can claim that the weight of a grain of sand on the beach causes the earth to rotate around the sun since the grain adds to the mass of the earth. The rotation parameters of the earth around the sun thus is dependent on the mass of the grain of sand. You can fit the vacuum cleaner in too: my vacuum cleaner causes the earth to rotate around the sun. I can even fit my grandma in, no matter that she is dead. So you have showed that you can define causality wide enough to contain anything you like. You show no interest in the empirical characteristics of it as science would test its models. You are simply special pleading again.

And that's the trouble over and over again with your aguments. You claim to be interested in the fundamental characteristics of nature and that your falsifiable model is based on empirical observation, but you show no specific interest in striking empirical results that counter your claim that everything is caused. You cannot claim from observation that everything is under the pure/impure actuality and no expert in the field will claim that. And yes, science itself has no ultimate answer. The point is you make the claim ahead of empirical evidence and trivialize contrary evidence.

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.

The other options compromise other aspects of your model. At the moment as a result of the problem of interpretation of empirical results from QM competing interpretations of QM are around that indeed are at the moment are empirically undistinguishable. That's why I mentioned the Bohn interpretation of QM. It allows backward time travel. Any idea what the implications are for causality and your notion of time (time ~ "fundamentally a part of causality/impure actuality, just like space")? I am not asserting that science has definitely nailed these fundamentals but only that it is too easy to claim that empirical evidence leads to your model with its ancient notions on time, causality, space and identity. QM shows that we have to be careful with such claims.

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).

Yes it depends on definition. If you define a tree as a light bulb you'll find that forests grow in houses. That's why I asked your definition of causality to begin with. Also you have shown that you can choose a definition of causality to fit your grandma in. That does not mean that you are touching upon a fundamental characteristic of nature. Once again, you are not interested in empirical phernomena from which you can learn something about the meaning of causality, you are interested in defining the term wide enough to fit your claim. This is special pleading.

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.

Uranium changes spontaneously into lead through decay. There are statistical laws that describe the phenomenon. But you cannot predict for an individual atom its decay. Some decay sooner, some decay later. No one knows why they do what they do. So empirical evidence to sustain the claim that this phenomenon is causal is absent. Indeed the pattern of decay for a group of atoms follows the characteristcs of a random process. There is evidence for randomness, there is absence of evidence for the claim that these events are caused. Yet you here claim again from ignorance that they are caused. This is special pleading to support your model which is so crude that not a single prediction on a natural phenomenon or a single explanation of such a phenomenon can be made.

It was Kant who proposed that causality may be nothing more than a notion of the human mind that does not exist in reality. The scientific consensus at the moment is that some events are uncaused. Tunneling of particles through a barrier is one. Another uncaused phenomenon is the random creation of virtual particles from the vacuum (vacuum fluctuations). Virtual particle pairs are predicted to have a calculable effect upon the energy levels of atoms. The effect expected is minute - only a change of one part in a billion, but it has been confirmed by experimenters. In 1953 Willis Lamb measured this excited energy state for a hydrogen atom. No doubt remains that virtual particles are really there.

Your aim is only to sustain your proposed model which is devised to support your claim of a divine being. It is not capable of predicting empirical results or explaining anything about nature. Your model claims that everything in our physical universe is caused and you claim that it is a falsifiable model. Still, even though current scientific consensus is that there are some uncaused phenomena, you try to mold that to your preconcluded result: the causes still have to be found, the empirical data are incomplete, the definition is wide enough to fit the result. This is special pleading, not accepting the fact that your scheme, crippled as it already is by poor definition and unable to describe any phenomenon in nature with any accuracy, is flatly falsified and shown incomplete.

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.

There's the dust cloud again.

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.

Yes and you could fit your grandmother and a vacuum cleaner in as a cause for the revolution of the earth around the sun.

What you qualify as an attack on causality is an attack on the accuracy of your claims. Your model has no predictive or explanatory power whatsoever and you are special pleading to arrive at it.