RE: I am a Catholic, ask me a question!
July 27, 2009 at 7:17 pm
(This post was last modified: July 28, 2009 at 9:45 am by Jon Paul.)
(July 27, 2009 at 1:59 pm)Jon Paul Wrote: (..) the fact that causality (if defined in the original, broad sense of interdependence) also occurs on several levels, even if not on the quantum level (which even there, it does, in my definition of it - even though we don't have reliable observatory and therefore predictive abilities of quantum events) (...) if you build the argument on Quantum Theory, since it explicitly does not reject the notion of causation I build on.It needs to be understood that the math is fundamentally agnostic as to our "semantic" fights, the conclusion you make will be based on your interpretation; and whether you affirm causality or not is partially a semantic issue, as most rejections of causality are really just a rejection of quantum determinacy with the misnomer of causality. The question becomes where the quantum indeterminacy lies; in the ontological or the epistemic realm? In the case of John Bells experiment, you stand before this choice: either you can reject causality, or identity, or you can reject the fundamental observational reliability/capability of the observational mechanism, that is, posite the indeterminacy in the epistemic realm (a.k.a. reject the premise that particles of either side of the screen will not affect each other or will be reliably measureable in the experiment). This problem of the role of the observational mechanism is fundamental to the issue.
There are many successful efforts aimed at developing newer non-Copenhagist interpretations more accurately descriptive of reality without projecting human epistemic fallibility or indeterminacy unto the ontological realm, indeed without begging the question of older Copenhagist and Heisenbergist presuppositions. You should read Microphysical Reality and Quantum Formalism: Volumes 1 and 2 by A. Van der Merwe, G. Tarozzi and F. Selleri., which gives many new perspectives on the causality of the quantum realm. Quantum Paradoxes and Physical Reality by Selleri will also make many things clear on this exact topic. Peter Riggs' Quantum Causality: Conceptual Issues in the Causal Theory of Quantum Mechanics, providing a strong foundation for quantum causality. The fact is that it is entirely plausible, mathematically and observationally, to posite indeterminacy not in the ontological realm ('acausality'), but in the epistemic realm, in the observational mechanism and interaction. That I consider the more likely explanation.
The people who are the most bigoted are the people who have no convictions at all.
-G. K. Chesterton
-G. K. Chesterton