For thousands of years, the law of cause and effect guided scientific inquiry. In fact, the history of the concept of causality can be traced through Hebrew, Babylonian, Greek and European cultures. Certain Greek philosophers, however, introduced the atomistic concept of chance-events to oppose the common-sense application of causality. The resulting conflict between cause versus chance has not only shaped the history of science but has imposed lasting effects on Western cul- ture as a whole. This conflict intensified during the Twentieth Century as the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle (HUP) became the leading tool of the proponents of chance. More recent findings have now demonstrated that the HUP fails in six actual cases. Common Sense Science counters chance-based philosophy by returning to causality and other principles of Classical Science such as the conser- vation of energy and the use of physical finite-sized models for fundamental particles (e.g., the electron). This paper shows how physical models based on the laws of electricity and magnetism fully implement the law of cause and effect in the manner of the four causes required by Aristotle. Chance-based physics is exposed as false science based on erroneous assumptions about supposed chance-events instead of causal relationships.
For thousands of years, the law of cause and effect guided scientific inquiry. In fact, the history of the concept of causality can be traced through Hebrew, Babylonian, Greek and European cultures. Certain Greek philosophers, however, introduced the atomistic concept of chance-events to oppose the common-sense application of causality. The resulting conflict between cause versus chance has not only shaped the history of science but has imposed lasting effects on Western cul- ture as a whole. This conflict intensified during the Twentieth Century as the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle (HUP) became the leading tool of the proponents of chance. More recent findings have now demonstrated that the HUP fails in six actual cases. Common Sense Science counters chance-based philosophy by returning to causality and other principles of Classical Science such as the conser- vation of energy and the use of physical finite-sized models for fundamental particles (e.g., the electron). This paper shows how physical models based on the laws of electricity and magnetism fully implement the law of cause and effect in the manner of the four causes required by Aristotle. Chance-based physics is exposed as false science based on erroneous assumptions about supposed chance-events instead of causal relationships.
In a recent number of Blackfriars (July, 1949) Dr A. W. Gledhill has discussed very competently some aspects of the statistical method as used in modern physics. He has tried to show there ‘that modern physical theory does not contradict the principle of causality’. Having made a study of this subject over quite a number of years, the writer, while agreeing with some of Dr Gledhill’s conclusions, feels nevertheless that there are a few points which have not been covered as adequately as the importance of the subject for modern philosophy seems to warrant. In order to understand the controversy about the validity or non-validity of the principle of causality, which has been initiated by Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle, it is necessary to realise, first of all, that when a physicist speaks about causality, he usually does not mean the same thing as a scholastic philosopher. In scholastic philosophy one distinguishes different kinds of causes, such as the material, the efficient, the final, as well as the formal and exemplary causes. The classical physicist, on the other hand, since the time of Galileo, admits only efficient causes. Let us therefore give a brief sketch of the development of this concept of scientific causality and show the reasons for this limitation. The purpose of a scientific theory is the prediction of events among the natural objects which form the field of enquiry of the particular science concerned. Evidently, the more certain the prediction, the better the theory on which it is based.
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.
The common cause principle says that every correlation is either due to a direct causal effect linking the correlated entities or is brought about by a third factor, a so-called common cause. The principle is of central importance in the philosophy of science, especially in causal explanation, causal modeling and in the foundations of quantum physics. Written for philosophers of science, physicists and statisticians, this book contributes to the debate over the validity of the common cause principle, by proving results that bring to the surface the nature of explanation by common causes. It provides a technical and mathematically rigorous examination of the notion of common cause, providing an analysis not only in terms of classical probability measure spaces, which is typical in the available literature, but in quantum probability theory as well. The authors provide numerous open problems to further the debate and encourage future research in this field.
The contemporary scientific and technological progress builds on the accomplishments of classical mechanics from the 19th century when the so-called 'European scientific method and values' were accepted practically by the whole educated world.Most scientific results and conclusions were reached based on the causal ontological approach proposed in principle already by Plato's Socrates and developed further by Aristotle.Despite the late-modern paradigm shift in science (Galilei, Newton, etc.), the topicality of the ontological approach proposed by Aristotle (II.Analytics) remains.On the other hand, 19th and 20th century philosophers, mainly positivists such as Mach and Avenarius but also Schlick and Carnap, attempted to change this approach to unify scientific knowledge in accordance with an ideological, i.e. positivist outlook on reality.The authors place a special emphasis on the contribution of Rudolf Carnap and his interaction with Martin Heidegger.Three very different theories are applied to physical reality in the present: classical mechanics in the standard macroscopic realm, Copenhagen quantum mechanics in the microscopic realm, and special theory of reality in both realms in the case of systems consisting of objects having higher velocity values.Any explanation or description of transitions between different realms and theories had not been provided until now.Our paper describes the corresponding evolution in the modern period and identifies the underlying false philosophical assumptions and statements existing in today's scientific systems.We will then demonstrate that one common theory for all realms of reality may exist; one that will be based fully on Hamilton equations (only the law
The principle of sufficient reason asserts that anything that happens does so for a reason: no definite state of affairs can come into being unless there is a sufficient reason why that particular thing should happen. This principle is usually attributed to Leibniz, although the first recorded Western philosopher to use it was Anaximander of Miletus. The demand that nature be rational, in the sense that it be compatible with the principle of sufficient reason, conflicts with a basic feature of contemporary orthodox physical theory, namely the notion that nature's response to the probing action of an observer is determined by pure chance, and hence on the basis of absolutely no reason at all. This appeal to pure chance can be deemed to have no rational fundamental place in reason-based Western science. It is argued here, on the basis of the other basic principles of quantum physics, that in a world that conforms to the principle of sufficient reason, the usual quantum statistical rules will naturally emerge at the pragmatic level, in cases where the reason behind nature's choice of response is unknown, but that the usual statistics can become biased in an empirically manifest way when the reason for the choice is empirically identifiable. It is shown here that if the statistical laws of quantum mechanics were to be biased in this way then the basically forward-in-time unfolding of empirical reality described by orthodox quantum mechanics would generate the appearances of backward-time-effects of the kind that have been reported in the scientific literature.
The principle of sufficient reason asserts that anything that happens does so for a reason: no definite state of affairs can come into being unless there is a sufficient reason why that particular thing should happen. This principle is usually attributed to Leibniz, although the first recorded Western philosopher to use it was Anaximander of Miletus. The demand that nature be rational, in the sense that it be compatible with the principle of sufficient reason, conflicts with a basic feature of contemporary orthodox physical theory, namely the notion that nature's response to the probing action of an observer is determined by pure chance, and hence on the basis of absolutely no reason at all. This appeal to pure chance can be deemed to have no rational fundamental place in reason-based Western science. It is argued here, on the basis of the other basic principles of quantum physics, that in a world that conforms to the principle of sufficient reason, the usual quantum statistical rules will naturally emerge at the pragmatic level, in cases where the reason behind Nature's choice of response is unknown, but that the usual statistics can become biased in an empirically manifest and apparently retrocausal way when the reason for the choice is empirically identifiable. It is shown here that if the statistical laws of quantum mechanics were to be biased in a certain plausible way then the basically forward-in-time unfolding of empirical reality described by orthodox quantum mechanics would generate the appearance of backward-time-causation of the kind that have been reported in the scientific literature.