Ruth and causality (General)

by dhw, Wednesday, August 21, 2013, 13:18 (3872 days ago) @ David Turell

DHW: [...] the quantum world is a total mystery to me, as is the origin of life and of consciousness, and so I remain open-minded. But you have said yourself (18 August at 16.26) that "everything has a cause", and "Ruth's hidden causes in QM have to exist". How, then, can you defend the claim that causality is not an ontological feature (i.e. not part of the 'reality') of the world? If you also dispute this claim, we are in agreement. And both of us need clarification from Ruth!-DAVID: I'm on your side. -For this relief much thanks.
 
DAVID: I view, as I've said before, the wall between quantum reality and our reality is semi-permeable: we can pull quanta out to our side, but going back the other way doesn't work. Cause and effect fully exist here, but as Feyynman noted not there:
"But these 18th-century laws are based on nothing more than the assumption that intermediate events, whether observed or not, actually happen. In consequence, unobserved intermediate events do not happen, as Feynman pointed out." (my bold)( from yesterday) He is discussing quantum cause and effect when 'over there' it is all probability and potentiality. Thus the discussion is really at two levels about two different planes of reality.-Confusion now hath made his masterpiece! -DAVID: Ruth's problem from our standpoint is her book is written at a level that confuses us. I'm not sure she will be able to write a book we can appreciate, if what she offered us, so far, is Chapter Seven. Our current confusion should be very instructive to her for that other new book project.-I hope so, but silence hath as many meanings as the Hydra hath heads.


Complete thread:

 RSS Feed of thread

powered by my little forum