Sustainability science requires both a descriptive understanding and a normative approach. Modern science, however, began as purely descriptive knowledge, the core of which is that matter is dynamically inert and without purpose. The British philosopher David Hume concluded that the only type of causation in the material world is “efficient causation,” which supported this purposeless view of a deterministic world “governed” by the causal laws of dynamics. But Hume did not argue against the existence of efficacious causation, only the error of humans projecting the mind’s efficacy to objects. Though dynamically inert, a material object away from equilibrium can be thermodynamically reactive, sug-gesting the possibility of the object being efficaciously managed for a purpose. Furthermore, quantum physics has replaced classical physics as the fundamental theory of the material world. Its basic equation, the Schrödinger wave-equation, is deterministic but causally inert—it cannot govern, leaving the determinism door unlocked. This causal gap, according to the von Neumann-Stapp quantum measurement/activation theory, necessitates the pragmatic existence in an irreversible universe of the causal efficacy of mental effort and information management. The resulting “bigger” empirical science has room for “descriptive determinism” and “normative action,” both of which are utterly essential in formulating sustainability science as an integral discipline.
Sustainability science requires both a descriptive understanding and a normative approach. Modern science, however, began as purely descriptive knowledge, the core of which is that matter is dynamically inert and without purpose. The British philosopher David Hume concluded that the only type of causation in the material world is “efficient causation,” which supported this purposeless view of a deterministic world “governed” by the causal laws of dynamics. But Hume did not argue against the existence of efficacious causation, only the error of humans projecting the mind’s efficacy to objects. Though dynamically inert, a material object away from equilibrium can be thermodynamically reactive, sug-gesting the possibility of the object being efficaciously managed for a purpose. Furthermore, quantum physics has replaced classical physics as the fundamental theory of the material world. Its basic equation, the Schrödinger wave-equation, is deterministic but causally inert—it cannot govern, leaving the determinism door unlocked. This causal gap, according to the von Neumann-Stapp quantum measurement/activation theory, necessitates the pragmatic existence in an irreversible universe of the causal efficacy of mental effort and information management. The resulting “bigger” empirical science has room for “descriptive determinism” and “normative action,” both of which are utterly essential in formulating sustainability science as an integral discipline.
In this chapter we introduce the postulate of causality, and derive the mathematical structure of a causal OPT. We show how the present definition of causality is equivalent to the Einsteinian one, and argue that it is the only possible notion once it is stripped from its spurious deterministic connotation. In addition, the notion of causality used here is compliant with the historical philosophical concept since David Hume, and with the idea used in common reasoning, inference, and modeling in human sciences. In brief, the present notion of causality can be stated as the requirement of no signaling from the future . This is also the only requisite for an OPT in order to satisfy the principle of no signaling without interaction . In mathematical terms in an OPT the causality postulate is equivalent to the uniqueness of the deterministic effect, which in turn is equivalent to the ability to normalize states. The notion of causality is so naturally embedded in our understanding of reality that it often remains unconsciously implicit in foundational research, even in recent axiomatizations. Causality: From Cinderella to Principle Causality has been the object of a very extensive literature encompassing hundreds of books and technical articles in a wide spectrum of disciplines, ranging from pure philosophy to economics, law, natural sciences, and obviously, physics. Also due to its involvement in such heterogeneous blend of disciplines, causality has long been a vexed notion. Perhaps the most natural connection between concepts of causality in different branches of knowledge is the one at the borderline between physics and philosophy, since the early work of Aristotle, up to the cornerstone of Renée Descartes, who broke the ground for the modern view of David Hume and Immanuel Kant, through to contemporary works on physical causation. Causality has always remained in the realm of philosophy, staying only in the background of physics, without the status of a “law” or the rank of a “principle.” Most of the time causality creeps into physical theories in the form of ad hoc assumptions based on empirical evidences, as when we discard advanced potentials in electrodynamics or when we motivate the Kramers–Kronig relations. In other cases, causality is embodied in the “interpretation” of the theory, as for the Special Relativity of Einstein.
Causality is fundamental to agency. Intelligent agents learn about causal relationships by interacting with their environments and use their causal knowledge to choose actions intended to bring about desired outcomes. This paper considers a causal question that is central to the very meaning of agency, that of how a physically embodied agent effects intentional action in the world. The prevailing assumption is that both biological and computer agents are automatons whose decisions are determined by the physical processes operating in their information processing apparatus. As an alternative hypothesis, this paper presents a mathematical model of causally efficacious agency. The model is based on Stapp’s theory of efficacious choice in physically embodied agents. Stapp’s theory builds on a realistic interpretation of von Neumann’s mathematical formalization of quantum theory. Because it is consistent with the well-established precepts of quantum theory, Stapp’s theory has been dismissed as metaphysical and unfalsifiable. However, if taken seriously as a model of efficacious choice in biological agents, the theory does have empirically testable implications. This paper formulates Stapp’s theory as an interventionist causal theory in which interventions are ascribed to agents and can have macroscopically distinguishable effects in the world. Empirically testable implications of the theory are discussed and a path toward scientific evaluation is proposed. Implications for artificial intelligence are considered.
This chapter focuses specifically on the notion of causation. Unless a causal interpretation can be given of quantum mechanics, there is a fundamental discontinuity between the quantum realm and everything else in the world. The quantum-theoretical dualism of waves and particles makes the same entity appear both as matter and as force. There are of course challenges to other basic ontological categories that come from quantum physics, such as to notions of continuity and identity. Both in philosophy and physics, there is a frequent assumption that causation is the provider or vehicle of determinism, via causal necessitation. The indeterminism of quantum physics leaves people with a more practical concern about causation. A feature of causation that makes predictions fallible is that causal processes are extremely sensitive to a change in context. The genuine interaction of multiple factors should therefore be seen as a symptom of causation rather than as something that needs to be analysed away by theoretical abstraction.
Causalism is the traditional attitude of disowning all noncausal categories of determination, holding dogmatically that every connection in the world is causal. The entirely negative attitude taken by indeterminism and by empiricism toward the principle of causation is inconsistent with the very goal of science, which is the search for the objective forms of determination and interconnection. This chapter deals with the question concerning the range of validity of the causal principle. The notion of causal range of the laws of nature will be clarified and illustrated, by analyzing in some detail a typical physical law with which every student of electricity is familiar. Science seems to show neither an enlargement nor a progressive shrinking of the domain of validity of the causal principle. Most scientists and philosophers of science believed that quantum mechanics had given causality the death blow, by showing that quantum phenomena are inherently random, hence only statistically predictable.
Abstract Quantum mechanics is our most successful and versatile account of the basic constituents of matter, of their interaction and of their compounds. We introduce the theory via a sketch of its history and lay out its mathematical structure in some detail. Before this background we address the important and controversial question of how to interpret that structure. We contextualise our own position, which is linked to our account of ontological emergence as detailed in Chap. 2 , and which is mathematically best expressed in the Heisenberg picture of quantum dynamics. Indeterminism and irreversible processes are fundamental for our approach. We discuss the dialectics of the deterministic challenge to our position and argue that indeterminism in the form of quantum randomness has turned from a philosophical riddle to a technological resource. This claim is supported by a discussion of quantum information science, including some of its basic protocols. Towards the end of the chapter we argue that agency and quantum mechanics come as a package deal. For one, quantum mechanics describes the world as offering open possibilities for the future at a fundamental physical level, which is needed for real higher-order organisation, including agency. Of course, this does not in any way show that the actual existence of agents in our world is guaranteed. But it does show that general agency scepticism has no basis in physics. Second, we show that quantum mechanics is best understood as a theory that describes our agential interactions with nature, and not as a theory that represents nature from the point of view of an inert, detached observer.
Classical science and in fact Post-Newtonian science up till the early twentieth century were mired in a deterministic interpretation of realities. The deterministic hypothesis in science holds that everything in nature has a cause and if one could know the antecedent causes, he could predict the future with certainty. But quantum mechanics holds that sub-atomic particles, though the ultimate materials from which all the complexity of existence in the universe emerges, do not obey deterministic laws, hence, their activities are causally indeterminate and could only be understood with probability. This paper argues that quantum mechanics can not totally be free from determinism, for it has subtly conceded to determinism in holding that the sub-atomic particles are the building blocks of the macro world, and that there is interconnection between entities in the universe, even at the nonmanifest level. The probabilistic interpretation of quantum mechanics only betray our human limitation of the knowledge of nature, which, I believe still have lots of tricks in our sleeves over mankind. Sophia: An African Journal of Philosophy Vol. 8(1) 2005:72-79 Keywords: Keywords: