Causal Ubiquity in Quantum Physics
A Superluminal and Local-Causal Physical Ontology
Summary
Excerpt
Table Of Contents
- Cover
- Title
- Copyright
- About the author
- About the book
- Preface
- This eBook can be cited
- Contents
- Chapter 1. Introduction: The Law of Causality and Its Methodology
- 1.1. Some Ontological Questions in Quantum Physics
- 1.2. Universal Causality and Constancy of Nature
- 1.3. Purely Ontological Definition of Causality
- 1.4. Physical-ontological Definition of Causality
- 1.5. From Physical Causality to Universal Law of Causality
- 1.6. Statement of the Main Theses and Attitudes
- 1.7. Methodology of Causal Horizonal Research
- 1.8. Our Procedure of Study of Causality in QM
- Chapter 2. Recent Causal Realism in Quantum Physics
- 2.1. Way of Procedure of the Literature Review
- 2.2. Physicists and Ontologists on Orthodox and Causal QM
- 2.3. Quantum Ontologists on Realist Quantum Causality
- Chapter 3. The Law of Causality: Hume, Quine and Quantum Physics
- 3.1. The “What” of Causality in QM
- 3.2. Hume, Russell and Cartwright on Causation
- 3.3. From Particularist- to Universalist Causation and Regularity
- 3.4. Causality and Ontological Commitment: Beyond Quine
- 3.5. Way of Causal Solution in QM Ontology
- 3.6. Determinism and Causalism: General Considerations
- 3.7. Determinism and Causalism in QM: Details
- Chapter 4. Ontological and Probabilistic Causalisms
- 4.1. Causalism, Non-causalism, Probabilism, Probabilistic Causalism
- 4.2. Universal Law of Causality and Law of Regularity of Nature
- 4.3. Nature of the Causal / Non-causal Disjunction
- 4.4. Nature of Physical-Ontological Discourse
- 4.5. Involvement of Consciousness in Subjectivist QM
- Chapter 5. Laplacean Causalism in Quantum Physics
- 5.1. Ontology and Epistemology of Laplacean Causalism
- 5.2. Kernel of Laplacean Determinism Present in QM
- 5.3. Paradoxes of Laplacean Determinism in QM
- Chapter 6. Ontological Commitment in Quantum Physics
- 6.1. Objectual-ness, Ontological Commitment, Subjectivity, Objectivity
- 6.2. Objectual-ness and Quinean Quantification
- 6.3. Ontological Commitment vs. the Quantum Concept
- Chapter 7. Causality in Some Quantum Experiments
- 7.1. Starting Point of Causal Arguments in QM
- 7.2. Black Body Radiation and Meaning of ‘Quantum’
- 7.3. Wave-Particle Complementarity and Causality
- 7.4. Elements of Causation in QM Probabilism
- 7.5. Traditional Double Slit Experiment vs. Causality
- Chapter 8. Interpretations of Important Results in Quantum Physics
- 8.1. Hidden Variables Interpretation
- 8.2. Propensities- and Potentialities Interpretation
- 8.3. Copenhagen Complementarity Interpretation
- Chapter 9. Causality in the Epr Paradox: Part 1. The Physics
- 9.1. Non-causality, Causality, Subjectivity, Objectual-ness in EPR
- 9.2. Wave-, Particle- and Wavicle Natures
- 9.3. Essence of the EPR Entanglement Experiment
- 9.4. Causal Interpretation of the EPR Experiment in General
- 9.5. Causal Solution of the EPR Paradox: Detailed Discussion
- 9.6. “Upward” and “Downward” Causality
- Chapter 10. Causality in the Epr Paradox: Part 2. The Physical Ontology
- 10.1. Causal Realist Ontology in the Entanglement Experiment
- 10.2. Ontological Commitment and Causality in the EPR Paradox
- 10.3. Non-locality and Causality in the EPR Paradox
- 10.4. Causal Pervasiveness in QM
- Chapter 11. Causality in a New Double Slit Experiment and in Epr
- 11.1. A Recent Double Slit Experiment and the EPR Paradox
- 11.2. Classical Simultaneity in QM as Unacceptable
- 11.3. Meaning of Causality in the Uncertainty Principle
- 11.4. Causality vs. Phenomena-Noumena Continuity
- 11.5. Causal Existence vs. Instrumentalism over Mathematical Results
- 11.6. A Non-mechanistic, Non-probabilistic Causal Law
- Chapter 12. Causality in the Special Theory of Relativity
- 12.1. Source-Independence and Highest Velocity
- 12.2. QM-STR Marriage and the Causal Paradox
- 12.3. Superluminality and Causality via STR Transformations
- 12.4. Consequences of Local-Causal STR and EPR
- 12.5. Luminally and Superluminally Causal Velocities
- Chapter 13. Micro-Physical and Cosmic Causal Continuity
- 13.1. Classical and Reformed Views of Causal Continuity
- 13.2. Causal Wavicles vs. Mathematical Description
- 13.3. Falkenburg on Physics and Mathematics of Wavicles
- 13.4. Physical Wavicle vs. Mathematical Wave / Particle
- 13.5. Causal Realism of Quantons
- 13.6. Micro-causal Solution to the Many Worlds Interpretation
- 13.7. Causal-Realistic Sinusoidal Wavicle Path
- Chapter 14. Conclusion: Causal Ubiquity in the Micro-World
- 14.1. Causal Extent in Ultra-quantal Causal Wavicle Realism
- 14.2. Causal Continuity and Ubiquity in QM Reality: A Summary
- 14.3. Important Results and Their Prospects
- Bibliography
- Index
← 12 | 13 → Chapter 1. Introduction: The Law of Causality and Its Methodology
1.1. Some Ontological Questions in Quantum Physics
The present work is a new way of questioning quantum physical (QM)1 ontology of causality and attempting to establish the Law of Causality2 as central for all sciences including philosophy. If Extension and Motion, after Matter-Energy, are the primary, purely ontological and categorial qualities of all that exist, Space and Time are the epistemologically measuremental explication respectively of Extension and Motion. This is the categorial plank from which I begin my arguments. Space and Time belong epistemologically to the categories of all existence. I take Matter-Energy, Extension-Motion and Causality to be the classificational physical ontological categories of science, where the physical world is real. Concepts like mass are more specific and subsequent to Matter-Energy.
By ‘real’ I mean, negatively, all that connote whatever is not absolute nullity or vacuum. This serves to include not only what is materially physical but also all that is “physical” in any other manner. By ‘reality’ is meant, negatively, all that denote whatever is not absolute nullity. Thus, in the expressions in ordinary parlance, ‘This is real’ and ‘This is the reality’ one does not differentiate between them. In philosophizing, it is better to differentiate, since the first, an adjective, is connotative of a state of affairs, whereas the second, a noun, tends to denote a matter of fact.
← 13 | 14 → A “process” includes in one such instance all the four of (1) one real object undergoing a difference within, (2) the one, at least by partial instrumentality, producing a difference in another or others that are parts of the process, and (3) both the parts being different from their earlier states and still being part of a finitely mutually physically related whole, not entirely different from the earlier states, and (4) the whole and its parts having simultaneous similar relationships with other such wholes. The measure, duration, or extension of the difference brought about need not be definite in such a general concept.
To begin with the theme of the work in the very Introduction, I place some questions for inquiry. First of all, what can an “appearance” be, if not based on a state of affairs in which some real and causally connected3 processes exist4 in extension and motion, cognized at least partially as real processes in themselves and partially as processes toward other processes, and measured spatiotemporally? The present work deals with Causality as a law and causality as obtained in QM.
Causality is a relation that produces a difference in things. Thus, it includes any relation in a matter of fact in which the one real antecedent (cause) has a differentiating impact (giving rise to some change in an effect process by the impact of transfer of elements onto it) on the consequent (effect) – a relation that qualifies the effect to be different from what it would otherwise have been if not ← 14 | 15 → under the said relation with the cause. One often forgets (1) that due to the very act of the cause upon the effect, a subsequent act causes the cause to be different from what it has been before the act, after it has caused the difference called the first effect proper, and (2) that this second process is a different causal process and must always be differentiated from the first – not absolutely but relative to the extension-motion region assignable.
This portion of difference in the cause is a second real state of relation, but not one that might be due to any simultaneous impact by the effect as such upon the cause as such of the first act. Thus, in the alteration in the cause of the first act, the so-called function of an alleged absolute mutual symmetry between the cause and effect of the first act is improperly taken to be due to absolute mutual symmetry. Instead, the difference in the cause within the first act of causation is that portion of difference in the cause, which makes it different within at least portions of itself due solely to a second causal act of enabling a difference in the cause of the first act.
Secondly, what else can any process be, if it is not a process of causation throughout its parts, none of which can exist without the same sort of (causal) connections within and without its extension-motion? Thirdly, what else can causation be, if not expressed as a “measurementally” spatiotemporal relation, which, in its processual extension-motion, is a relation from the antecedent but yet mutually related processes towards the formation of the consequent in every minute or near-infinitesimal part of the former and latter aspects of the process? Here ‘spacetime’ is a physically epistemological concept of measurement or quantity with its qualitative aspects to be conceived as ways of being (universals). Everything other than ways of being is not qualitative but quantitative. To that extent, spacetime is also a mathematical concept. Space and Time are traditionally taken in physical science to be the categories in place of Extension and Motion. At the very start of the present work I suggest that space and time are the measures of extension and motion. Space and time are the (mathematically and physically measuremental) epistemological categories, whereas Extension and Motion are the real physical-ontological categories thereof. To the mathematical and physical concept of spacetime is extension-motion the physical categorial counterpart. This sort of interpretation of spacetime and its mathematical aspect of measurement may inspire revamping of the categories of physics into Matter-Energy, Extension-Motion, Causality, and also the epistemologically physical and mathematical category of Space-Time.
Thirdly, what can QM and in general science be, if some parts of their theory with their interpretations obstruct recognition of causal-processual existence of entities in extension-motion, limit the province of the Universal Law of ← 15 | 16 → Causation, and do not describe the chances of the process being causal? All is in the name of the “statistical probability” or “probabilistic causality” that describes just the chances of entities to be tracked down during a process. Do they contain any reasonable world view or the foundational “truth dimension” that makes ever better world views possible?
Fourthly, suppose one speaks of physical reality as not part of consciousness or not created haphazardly and non-physically by consciousness. Can one then remain satisfied saying ‘Non-causality is part of reality’, without knowing that the “reality” here is mixed up paradoxically with some epistemic (‘epistemic’ denoting ‘what happens in the mind in the process of knowing and such feeling’) subjectivity which (1) makes decision between causation and non-causation impossible and (2) elevates certain lack of access to causal history from within itself to the status of a reality totally instantiated within mind, with nothing physically of the order of extension-motion and nothing causally relational to do with realities other than itself?
Does such epistemically subjective “probabilistic causality” (probably causal in the nature of knowing, and not in the ontological nature) mean anything to the reality of “freedom”, if freedom is essentially self-determination? Self-determination is self-causation considered in isolation from routes of past causal inheritance from beyond itself. Does probabilistic causality which allegedly includes some element of non-causality save self-determination or self-causation? Can self-causation in any way isolate itself from causation in general? Can such isolated self-causation save “freedom” for religious, anthropological, ethical and legal consumption, and if yes, how without ontological clarification about its nature (qualifications), structure and process? The current work treats only of the questions of the Law of Causality and probabilistic causality in QM. The remaining parts of the questions, related to freedom, are equally relevant but are postponed to future work on my part.
1.2. Universal Causality and Constancy of Nature
The connection between the concepts of causality and constancy of Nature is worth noting, since absence of causality means absence of constancy. Often in the physical sciences the empirical principle or empirically founded assumption of constancy of (processes of) Nature has been taken to be the axiomatic basis for the extent of validity of the Law of Causality: “the principle of causality and the law of constancy of energy are very closely related and … the latter was in the last century regarded as the basis of the former.”5 The causality meant ← 16 | 17 → here may be the classical one. The present-day scientific-ontological concept of causality is not akin to it in its connection to the concept of constancy of Nature, due to the element of causal doubts in QM. With relevant adaptations proper to the most general use of the physical-ontological concept of causation to be developed here – as one of the physical-ontological categories of science – the Law of Causality is ontologically more categorial than that of constancy of Nature, since all-pervasiveness of Causality alone can vouchsafe for constancy. This we will discuss in what follows and in the discussions of causality in microphysics.
Details
- Pages
- 361
- Publication Year
- 2015
- ISBN (Hardcover)
- 9783631652237
- ISBN (PDF)
- 9783653047011
- ISBN (MOBI)
- 9783653981834
- ISBN (ePUB)
- 9783653981841
- DOI
- 10.3726/978-3-653-04701-1
- Language
- English
- Publication date
- 2014 (October)
- Keywords
- Quantenphysik EPR Paradox Überlichtgeschwindigkeit
- Published
- Frankfurt am Main, Berlin, Bern, Bruxelles, New York, Oxford, Wien, 2014. 361 pp.
- Product Safety
- Peter Lang Group AG
Biographical notes
Raphael Neelamkavil (Author)
Raphael Neelamkavil is a philosopher of physics. He has published articles in philosophy of physics, cosmology, metaphysics etc., and a book: Physics without Metaphysics? Categories of Second Generation Scientific Ontology.
