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God doesn't play dice: cause and effect
(causality and dependence)

Einstein said "God doesn't play dice" because he didn’t accept
the probabilistic arguments of quantum theory. He thought
that behind the probabilistic arguments of quantum theory some
real process is hidden. This real process makes the situation
probabilistic. Thinking so - Einstein wasn’t alone.
P. Langevin told, that to speak about crash of unity between
cause and effect is ‘ intellectual lechery’. And Lorentz,
de Broglie, Schrodinger believed that the situation in the
micro world can be explained in details. All of them considered
that the particles and fields exist in real space and time and they
can move from one point to another. And this situation is possible
to describe not only probabilistically but in details too.
#
But other group of scientists didn’t agree with them.
Their leaders, Bohr and Heisenberg, said in micro world we must
refuse to describe particle’s behaviour to the smallest detail.
Here is enough to use Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle.
Most scientists agreed with them saying: ‘There isn’t better
interpretation quantum physics than Heisenberg’s ’.
From time to time somebody tried to give new interpretation
and explanation quantum situation (more concrete ) but without
success. And at last Feynman said: ‘I think I can safely say
that nobody understands quantum mechanics.’ And somebody
agreed with him saying, we cannot understand, but we can
accustomed to it.
Yes, they accustomed to the paradoxical quantum micro world
and now, developing it, they created new paradoxes ( quarks,
dark matter/ energy, string theory, new particles, new dimensions
and new symmetries . . .and etc)
#
I try to understand the situation.
1.
We have dualistic particle as a ‘ math point’.
2.
We have two kinds of space:
a) Minkowski ( -4D) and a its shadow -
b) separate independent space and independent time (3D+t)
3.
The dualistic particle/wave point can move from one point
to other, or (maybe) from one space (-4D) to another (3D+t).
#
This situation was known from 1908 but it still is unsolved.
Is this situation hard puzzle ?
Isn’t clear that we need to know: dualism of particle,(-4D )
and its shadow – (3D+ t) to solve this puzzle – problem ?
But these categories of being scientists try no debate now.
Why?
Maybe they are busy solving other problems . . . and . . .
. . . create new paradoxes . . .. . . . . . I don’t know.
#
I remember that about 50 years ago I have read one interesting
book. Maybe this book will help me to understand the situation.
I must reread it again.
Where is it? Here it is:
Desiderius Erasmus Roterodamus: ‘The Praise of Folly.’
===============.
All the best.
Socratus.

Cause & Effect: Determinism & Probability.
1.
Classical physics.
Between cause & effect the determining principle acts.
Is this principle correct?
The classical experiments say: it is correct.
2
Quantum physics.
Between cause & effect only probabilistic or
statistical principle acts.
Is this principle correct?
The quantum experiments say: it is correct.
3.
Why are they, both, correct?
Where their unity?
===========.
Socratus.

Causal determinism now seems to rest on quantum probability applied to macro events. I think it's true to say that the former has been supplanted by the latter. Because quantum events are probabilistic and cannot be precisely determined by prior events, it's not absolutely impossible that all the molecules of air in a room will suddenly occupy only one corner, or that, someday, someone will walk through a door without opening it first; but the probability of such macro events, depending as they do upon vast numbers of quantum probabilities, is so infinitesimal that we can reasonably be assured they will never happen.

I think the idea of true causal determinism can only be supported if one maintains that the 'probabilistic' quantum events are an effect of a cause outside our physical universe. In that case, the fact that we cannot predict quantum events would be due to our lack of access to information regarding the causative conditions.

Me: "I think the idea of true causal determinism can only** be supported if one maintains that the 'probabilistic' quantum events are an effect of a cause outside our physical universe."

** Probably(!) not true. I guess the hypothetical determinant events may be undiscoverable for another reason, i.e., they occur at the Planck scale, in accordance with the laws of physics at that scale.

Well there's the Aspect, Grangier, Roger experiment which was supposed to prove that no unknown cause (hidden variable) could be responsible for those seemingly random events. There's a few assumptions tho. Information can't travel faster than light and quantum mechanics is correct (not the interpretations of it). Perhaps they also assumed nothing outside our universe can interfere.

If QM is wrong then we're in a tricky situation of having a wrong theory which gives correct predictions whenever we test it, and no alternative theory which gives the same correct predictions, but also allows a hidden variable to exist.

Yes, QM works (flawlessly, so we're informed). Yet it does raise some well known questions:

- How does an event at one location affect an event at another location without any obvious mechanism for communication between the two locations?
- How is superposition possible?"
- Why does the wavefunction collapse? or does it?
...and so on.

The answer to each is a chorus of silence, punctuated by theories/interpretations that are logical but arguably unprovable.

I don't want to give the impression that I know what I'm talking about here. I don't (in case you hadn't noticed ) But - despite the apparent reasons to reject causal determinism - so long as so many questions are unanswered, my certainty remains on hold.

Yea that's the trouble, it's too complicated for most people to understand. I don't either, but I do have a book if that counts

How is superposition possible? Maybe the question should be "Why shouldn't superposition be possible?". It only seems strange to us because it's not a macroscopic phenomenon that we're used to. Actually we are used to it with light, and we're happy to accept the wave description of light.

Maybe these questions are a bit like asking classical physics "Why does an object with no forces acting on it, travel at a constant velocity?" There must be some mechanism that remembers its previous positions and moves it to the correct new positions continuously.

But I think it's an easy mistake to say "oh there could be some hidden mechanism controlling these random outcomes, we just haven't been able to find it yet". Yea perhaps, but all the evidence suggests not, no matter how hidden it is. We like to assume that causality should always occur, but we only assume that because we're familiar with it macroscopically. Again perhaps we should be asking of classical physics "How does the state of an isolated system at one time determine its state at a future time?" Is there some mechanism that remembers how it was and uses that information to control how it changes?

That's right, reality (re physics in this case), however objectionable, does not have to conform to the way we feel it should be; but I think the mistake is not in the opposing suppositions that hidden mechanisms may or may not exist, but in assuming that our supposition must be true.

Yep sure. As long as it's informed. Anyone can look at the no-hidden variable idea and say "oh it's just so hard to see we haven't found it yet". Sure it might be, anything might be, but to say that you've got to explain away the arguments against it, which isn't so easy.

It's still a bit unsatisfying not knowing what the wave function really is, etc. Why is it we can describe nature using this function that doesn't actually correspond to any known thing in the real world?