Abstract
This paper explores the scientific viability of the concept of causality—by questioning a central element of the distinction between “fundamental” and non-fundamental physics. It will be argued that the prevalent emphasis on fundamental physics involves formalistic and idealized partial models of physical regularities abstracting from and idealizing the causal evolution of physical systems. The accepted roles of partial models and of the special sciences in the growth of knowledge help demonstrate proper limitations of the concept of fundamental physics. We expect that a cause precedes its effect. But in some tension with this point, fundamental physical law is often held to be symmetrical and all-encompassing. Physical time, however, has not only measurable extension, as with spatial dimensions, it also has a direction—from the past through the present into the future. This preferred direction is time’s arrow. In spite of this standard contrast of time with space, if all the fundamental laws of physics are symmetrical, they are indifferent to time’s arrow. In consequence, excessive emphasis on the ideal of symmetrical, fundamental laws of physics generates skepticism regarding the common-sense and scientific uses of the concept of causality. The expectation has been that all physical phenomena are capable of explanation and prediction by reference to fundamental physicals laws—so that the laws and phenomena of statistical thermodynamics—and of the special sciences—must be derivative and/or secondary. The most important and oft repeated explanation of time’s arrow, however, is provided by the second law of thermodynamics. This paper explores the prospects for time’s arrow based on the second law. The concept of causality employed here is empirically based, though acknowledging practical scientific interests, and is linked to time’s arrow and to the thesis that there can be no causal change, in any domain of inquiry, without physical interaction.
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Notes
- 1.
See, e.g., Davies (1977, p. 26), who puts it this way: “All known laws of physics are invariant under time reversal,”—though noting the singular exception of processes involving K-mesons and the weak force. Cf. Greene (2004, p. 145): “… not only do known laws fail to tells us why we see events unfold in only one order, they also tell us that, in theory, events can unfold in reverse order”.
- 2.
Cf. e.g., Fodor (1974), “all events that fall under the laws of any science are physical events and hence fall under the laws of physics”.
- 3.
Weinberg (1992, p. 9).
- 4.
- 5.
Savitt (1995, p. 6).
- 6.
See e.g., Susskind (2008, p. 87): “There is another very subtle law of physics that may be even more fundamental than energy conservation. Its sometimes called reversibility, but let’s just call it information conservation”.
- 7.
Carroll (2010, p. 121).
- 8.
Callaway (2014, p. 76).
- 9.
Einstein and Infield (1938, p. 277).
- 10.
Cf. Einstein (1940, p. 488).
- 11.
Einstein (1940, p. 488).
- 12.
Laplace and Simon (1820/1902) the Introduction to his Théorie Analytique des Probabilités.
- 13.
See James (1909/2008, p. 47), in the 2008 edition: “Every single event is ultimately related to every other, and determined by the whole to which it belongs.” In James’ general conception of the block universe, the determination need not be causal.
- 14.
Laplace and Simon (1820/1902, p. 4).
- 15.
Contrast Lloyd (2006, p. 98): “Even if the underlying laws of physics were fully deterministic, however, … to perform the type of simulation Laplace envisaged, the calculating demon would have to have at least as much computational power as the universe as a whole.” This is to suggest that the required computation is physically impossible.
- 16.
Eddington’s note: “There are, however, others beside myself who have recently begun to question it.” See Eddington (2014, p. 85, Footnote 1).
- 17.
Eddington (2014, p. 85).
- 18.
Einstein (1940, p. 488).
- 19.
Ibid.
- 20.
Cf. Sauer (2014, p. 287).
- 21.
See, e.g., the very influential “EPR paper”: Einstein et al. (1935).
- 22.
See, for instance, Hewett et al. (2012). The editors of the volume comment that the Standard Model of particles physics “leaves some big questions unanswered;” Some of these questions “are within the Standard Model itself,” such as “why there are so many fundamental particles and why they have different masses;” and “In other cases, the Standard Model simply fails to explain some phenomena, such as the observed matter-antimatter asymmetry in the universe, the existence of dark matter and dark energy, and the mechanism that reconciles gravity with quantum mechanics.” If what is regarded as “fundamental” is viewed as open to question and inquiry, then the concept is much less problematic.
- 23.
Green (2000, p. 341).
- 24.
See, for instance Weinberg (1977/1988, pp. 147–148): “Gravitational radiation interacts far more weakly with matter than electromagnetic radiation, or even neutrinos” and he continues, “For this reason, although we are reasonably confident on theoretical grounds of the existence of gravitational radiation, the most strenuous efforts have so far apparently failed to detect gravitational waves from any source.” On the history of the decades long theoretical debate, including Einstein’s own occasional doubts, see Kennefick (2007). Approximate solutions of the Einstein equations predicting gravitational waves date to Einstein (1916). See Einstein (1916).
- 25.
The LIGO project, with major facilities in Louisiana and Washington State, is the largest scientific project ever funded by the U.S. National Science Foundation, to the tune of over $300 million in capital investment and $30 million per year, since the early 1990s.
- 26.
See “Introduction to LIGO and Gravitational Waves,” at the LIGO web pages.
- 27.
See e.g., Taylor’s Nobel Lecture, describing his work, 1997. The observed loss of energy is consistent with the generation of gravitational waves, in accordance with solutions of the Einstein field equations.
- 28.
See Dyson (2012). See also Dyson’s review of Brian Greene’s The Fabric of the Cosmos, in The New York Review of Books, May 13, 2004. On the prospect of detection of gravitons in a particle collider, Sean Carroll writes, “Gravitons are only produced by gravitational interaction, which is so weak that essentially no gravitons are made in a collider and we don’t have to worry about them.” See Carroll (2012, p. 104–105).
- 29.
- 30.
See e.g., Carroll (2010, p. 389): “… there must be dark matter, and we have ruled out all known particles as candidates…”.
- 31.
Weinberg (1992, p. 216).
- 32.
See e.g. Oriti (2009, p. xvi): “I think it is fair to say that we are still far from having constructed a satisfactory theory of quantum gravity, and that any single approach currently being considered is too incomplete or poorly understood, whatever its strength and successes may be, to claim to have achieved its goal, or to have proven to be the only reasonable way to proceed”.
- 33.
Cf. the discussion in Majid (2008, pp. 67–69).
- 34.
Maccone (2009, p. 5).
- 35.
Cf. the discussion in Greene (2004, pp. 159–163). Greene’s point is that the purely statistical reasoning of the second law equally suggests that entropy will be found to increase in the past of any system considered, since states of higher entropy are generally more probable.
- 36.
Maccone (2009, p. 1).
- 37.
Ibid.
- 38.
Ibid.
- 39.
Ibid.
- 40.
Ibid.
- 41.
Greene (2004, p. 177).
- 42.
See, e.g., Born (1954), the Nobel Lecture, p. 256.
- 43.
See e.g., the Journal of Cosmology, Vols. 3 and 14 on consciousness and the quantum; Bohm (1952), Bub (2010; arXiv:1006.0499v1), Bell (1993), Aspect et al. (1982).
- 44.
Regarding the “spontaneous collapse” proposal of Ghirardi, Rimini and Weber, Brian Greene remarks that “they introduce a collapse mechanism which does have a temporal arrow—an “uncollapsing” wavefunction, one that goes from a spiked to a spread out shape, would not conform to the modified equations.” See Greene (2004, p. 214).
- 45.
Greene (2004, p. 212).
- 46.
Ibid.
- 47.
Greene (2004, p. 210). Cf. Carroll (2010, pp. 253–254) “In the many-worlds interpretation, decoherence plays a crucial role in the apparent process of wavefunction collapse. The point is not that there is something special or unique about ‘consciousness’ or ‘observers’ other than the fact that they are complicated macroscopic objects. The point is that any complicated macroscopic object is inevitably going to be interacting (and therefore entangled) with the outside world, and its hopeless to imagine keeping track of the precise form of the entanglement. For a tiny microscopic system such as an individual electron, we can isolate it and put it into a true quantum superposition, but for a messy system such as a human being … that’s just not possible”.
- 48.
Greene (2004, p. 213). Cf. Weinberg (2012, p. 2): Weinberg proposes a “correction” to quantum mechanics which nonetheless eventuates in “inherently probabilistic collapse” of the state vector, with probabilities given by “the Born rule of ordinary quantum mechanics”; cf Ghirardi et al. (1985, 1986).
- 49.
The supposition is that this is true, even if, as sometimes argued, causality is an “emergent” phenomenon. See for instance Norton (2003, p. 1), where the thesis is that though causation is not fundamental, it “remains a most helpful way of conceiving the world”.
- 50.
Greene (2004, p. 215).
- 51.
Ibid, p. 212.
- 52.
Ibid, p. 214.
- 53.
See Lloyd (2006), Chaps. 4 and 5 on thermodynamics, information and quantum mechanics.
- 54.
Emphasis on the inflationary expansion in the early universe, the multiverse idea and the anthropic principle is even more pronounced in Sean Carroll’s recent book, Carroll (2010). But see pp. 339–345, where a range of doubts are discussed.
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Callaway, H.G. (2016). Fundamental Physics, Partial Models and Time’s Arrow. In: Magnani, L., Casadio, C. (eds) Model-Based Reasoning in Science and Technology. Studies in Applied Philosophy, Epistemology and Rational Ethics, vol 27. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-38983-7_34
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