Philosophy: Losing Causality

[Ani_Ibi]

But I thought the idea was that somehow my observations had a causal effect on the object observed, even apart from any actions on my part?

Yes, I understand what you are saying.

I do not understand how observations have a causal effect on the what is observed. Can’t explain it. But who is to say that observation does not have an effect which is removed as in the example of shooting the deer/dingo?

Heisenberg’s double-slit experiment simply showed results, not process. The deer/dingo example sets out process.

Does anyone know of a writer who has set out a process which explains the double-slit results?

 

[cpayne]

Yes, I understand what you are saying.

I do not understand how observations have a causal effect on the what is observed. Can’t explain it. But who is to say that observation does not have an effect which is removed as in the example of shooting the deer/dingo?

Heisenberg’s double-slit experiment simply showed results, not process. The deer/dingo example sets out process.

Does anyone know of a writer who has set out a process which explains the double-slit results?

My own footnote to Ani Ibi’s final question: “In very clear terms?” (Thanks, by the way, for the commentary on this thread–very helpful for my understanding.)

 

[john_doran]

I do not understand how observations have a causal effect on the what is observed. Can’t explain it.

no one can - it’s the “measurement problem” of (canonical) quantum mechanics.
Ani Ibi:

Does anyone know of a writer who has set out a process which explains the double-slit results?

depends on what you mean by “explain”…

traditional QED explains it as the collapse of the wave function, a process which isn’t a part of the formal math of the wave equation; feynman’s transactional interpretation explains it as a “handshake” between advanced and retarded waves; the many-worlds interpretation explains it as “quantum decoherence”, which is simply the appearance of wavefunction collapse…

anyway, there’s lots of stuff all over the internet going into this stuff in more detail, but i’m not sure how satisfying the explanations will be…

 

[Ani_Ibi]

john doran:

traditional QED explains it as the collapse of the wave function, a process which isn’t a part of the formal math of the wave equation; feynman’s transactional interpretation explains it as a “handshake” between advanced and retarded waves; the many-worlds interpretation explains it as “quantum decoherence”, which is simply the appearance of wavefunction collapse…

Thanks for this. I’m glad things seem to have stopped at the handshake stage. Wouldn’t want those waves going overboard right under our noses. Little whippersnappers.
john doran:

anyway, there’s lots of stuff all over the internet going into this stuff in more detail, but i’m not sure how satisfying the explanations will be…

They’d be satisfying to me, at least to read. :bounce:

 

[cpayne]

a “handshake” between advanced and retarded waves;

It’s been worth it to me just to have a new metaphor for my spiritual life.

 

[Ani_Ibi]

john doran:

a “handshake” between advanced and retarded waves;

cpayne:

It’s been worth it to me just to have a new metaphor for my spiritual life.

 

[Gottle_of_Geer]

Well, I know that science has given up on “final” causation, but I think science still describes material and efficient causation, and the biological classification system seems an awful lot like a “formal causation” type of description.

As for quantum physics–well, as I said earlier, I’m in over my head anyway.

P.S. Even though science has given up on final causation, I personally think scientists smuggle in a lot of final causation language. For example, “Blood clotting occurs not only to stop bleeding, but also to help prevent infection.” “Sea turtles swim ashore in order to lay their eggs.” And so on. If unintelligent nature has such intentions, wouldn’t they be put there by an intentional intelligence? (Aquinas’s 5th argument for God.)

But my biologist friend thinks I’m way wrong.

That’s very helpful - thanks ​

As for the use of the language of causation - Bertrand Russell is quoted by Joad:

• This brings me to the third point, that modern physics has ceased to represent the world as a series of separate events happening in or to separate pieces of matter, located in separate places, and has substituted the notion of continuity of physical processes. A clap of thunder, for example, is no longer regarded as a single event, but the travelling outward from a centre at an ascertainable velocity of waves in the atmosphere, which are characterized by a certain periodicity and frequency of wave-length. When the waves reach the place at which our eardrums are, we are said to “hear” the clap, and this so-called hearing of the clap would normally be regarded as an event separate from the events which constitute the clap. In fact, however, the physiological events in my outer and inner ears, and the neural impulses that travel as a result of these events to the brain, are only later events in the process whose earlier events were the spreading outward of the waves in the atmosphere. When the notion of a continuous process is substituted for that of a series of separate events, the conception of cause and effect as a law operating between two separate events becomes inappropriate. Thus for a variety of reasons the kind of causation which the mechanist theory of the universe requires, long regarded as untenable by philosophers, is now in large measure rejected by physicists; as Bertrand Russell puts it, “the language of cause and effect (of which ‘force’ is a particular case) is thus merely a convenient short-hand for certain purposes; it does not represent anything that is genuinely to be found in the physical world.”
  Maybe St. Thomas, Russell, & physicists of today (rather than of 60 years ago) are talking of different things. ##

 

[cpayne]

Wow. So it sounds like Russell was even arguing against the existence of efficient causation–just the bare idea of one event causing something else to happen?