How flexible is the principle of causality?

[bennyboy]

Fascinating stuff, Alex and bennyboy. I'll have to let that mull around in my head for awhile. Bennyboy, you said:

However, it's really non sequitur to then say that things could have turned out differently: there's no way, ever, under any circumstances, that we will get to replay a measurement of the same particle at the same space AND TIME, and see if it would have "rolled" a different outcome.

I agree in some sense...I mean this is undeniably true but... two things: isn't it kind of a cop out?

I'm an agnostic. Is that a cop out? I don't know-- personally, I think not knowing is the most legitimate position to take when there's something intrinsic to the human experience that prevents knowing.

And does that mean you're a fatalist?

No. I'm even worse than a fatalist. I'm an agnostic with leanings toward substance dualism, or to transcendent emergence. (by which I mean that once a sentient agent "ascends" out of the pseudo-random soup of particles in the universe, it can function freely DESPITE being completely rooted in deterministic processes. Crazy stuff, right? But the universe is no stranger to those kinds of paradoxes IMO.

I mean, say for example the person who wins the lottery--only one winner is actually possible--but can you really say that only that person could have actually won? Does everything happen necessarily? That would seem to be the implication.

Yes it does mean that. Given only one stream of time that we are aware of, and a completed event in that stream, then the simplest explanation is that things are exactly the way they were going to be.