Ruth and causality (General)

by David Turell , Tuesday, August 20, 2013, 16:08 (4111 days ago) @ dhw


> dhw: I've sought clarification of her concepts of knowledge and reality, have asked how the problem of subjectivity "evaporates" because the same transaction is "interpreted differently by the different observers", and now I'm grappling with her "elimination" of causality. At the start of this thread I wrote: "I don't have a problem when [Ruth] says that cause preceding effect in the empirical world "should not be thought of as necessarily extendable to the unobservable entities of the micro-world." [...] .........then perhaps the wording of the text itself is the cause of my confusion rather than my ignorance of the subject. Only Ruth can tell us.
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> DAVID: Conclusion: there are no immediate causes and effects in QM. It is all probability, results depending upon what you look for. I still defend Ruth. This blog is what originally caught my eye. If correct it makes perfect sense because it takes us away from classical cause and effect.
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> dhw:Once again, I don't have a problem with that ... 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!-I'm on your side. I view, as I've said before, the wall between quantum reality and our reality is semi-permeable: we can pull quanta out to ur 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.-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.