understandings of causation — invizzy

My own views on causation, in response to the issue you raise, is that it's a pattern:

1. sunlight + water + soil + seeds $\to$ germination of seeds

2. Ditto

3. Ditto

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This pattern consists of antecedent conditions (sun + water + soil + seeds) and consequents, here one (germination of seeds). As (just) patterns in nature, causation is as simple as that.

Interesting, so some sort of regularity theory (like Hume?) is what I think you're describing?

From memory there are reasons why a naive version of regularity theory is out of favour. One might be that things can sometimes cause other things when they are genuine 'one offs'. One might think the Big Bang caused the universe to expand or something like that. Can your idea cover that type of causation too?

The Big Bang isn't, to my knowledge, a cause as much as it's the purported beginning (of our universe), oui mon ami?

As for singleton events, like for example this: 2, the question of pattern and therefore cause is moot.

I think that’s one where intuitions differ. I might not say the Big Bang caused the universe, but it surely seems correct to say the Big Bang caused the universe to expand.

I’d love to hear what others think!

What if something novel happens though. What if man made climate change causes human civilization to end? Surely plausible that this could happen. But nothing like that has happened before. Wouldn’t we still use ‘cause’?

A good question!

The implication for so-called ‘entangled’ particles seems to be that the detection of a particle here can cause the spin of a particle on the other side of the galaxy. — invizzy

That the particles are entangled only means that there will be a correlation between the two spin measurements. As physicist Asher Peres noted, "Bell’s theorem does not imply the existence of any nonlocality in quantum theory itself. In particular relativistic quantum field theory is manifestly local." (longer quote here).

This is NOT to say the detection of a particle here can cause you to KNOW the spin of a particle on the other side of the galaxy, which would have been a more easily explainable fact. — invizzy

Assuming the other particle is measured in the same basis as your particle, you will know what the other particle's spin will be.

Sorry I should have been clearer! I was assuming realism. In that case isn’t it true that Bell’s theory implies non-locality? (And also the fact that the measurement of spin in one place cause the spin in another?)

I was assuming realism. In that case isn’t it true that Bell’s theory implies non-locality? (And also the fact that the measurement of spin in one place cause the spin in another?) — invizzy

Basically, yes. Superdeterminism is the one exception - it is local and real in Bell's sense, and instead rejects statistical independence.

I’m just looking up superdeterminism and trying to get my mind around it. Does the idea imply that causes somehow change things from one thing to another?

I’m just looking up superdeterminism and trying to get my mind around it. Does the idea imply that causes somehow change things from one thing to another? — invizzy

No, it just means that the choice of measurement settings and the measurement outcomes are predetermined.