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Most of what is experienced is not governed by causality - but rather by 
probabilities. The probability that if A happens B will follow may be 
extremely close to unity but in the physical world - it is most likely 
never unity and it doesn't mean that A causes B. This revolution in the 
change of how we view the natural world came about as we started to 
explore the world of the atom - quantum mechanics. This caused a riff 
between the two greatest physicists in the first half of the 20th 
century - Neils Bohr and Albert Einstein. Einstein invented quantum 
physics with his explanation of the photoelectric effect and spent the 
rest of his life trying to tame the child he bore with his "hidden 
variables" theory

We know now through 50 years of experimentation and the work of the 
greatest physicists in the second half of the 20th century, Richard 
Feynman, that Einstein was wrong, dead wrong - there are not hidden 
variables and causality really doesn't exist in the physical world.

Some are going to say "now Truman you have gone off the deep end - if 
you come off your horse you will fall down and go boom every time." You 
can formulate the laws of classical mechanics in a quantum mechanical 
setting (it has been done and you get the same predictions) and what you 
will find is no it is not a certainty that I will hit the ground hard 
and go boom, but has a probability so close to one that I would have 
come off my horse more time than there are electrons in the universe to 
float off and come to a nice soft landing on my feet. But that doesn't 
mean that it is not impossible.

To paraphrase Steve Weinberg, Nobel Laureate in physics, causality 
requires faith and more rightly belongs in the regime of religion.

Truman

Sisu West Ranch wrote:
> "....Prediction causation is best left to the philosophers and 
> theologians...."
>
> And we all know that the above groups never make wrong predictions or 
> cause any harm.
>
>
>
> An old illustrative example follows:  Living near a tropical swamp is 
> highly correlated with catching Malaria, but living near a swamp does 
> not cause Malaria.  The observation of the correlation enabled the 
> testing of the hypothesis that being bitten by certain mosquitoes has 
> a better correlation, and that ultimately the testing of a further 
> hypothesis that the mosquitoes carried protozoal parasites of the 
> genus Plasmodium which do cause malaria.
> The problem is then two fold.  First, the hypothesis must be 
> testable.  (God made Mosquitoes is not testable.  Mosquitoes transmit 
> Malaria is testable). Second, you must be able to perform the test and 
> observe the results.  Since there are only a few AERC regions, and the 
> ride managers and members in those regions independently, and 
> stubbornly decide to manage and ride as they wish, it would be 
> difficult if not almost impossible to do an experiment designed to 
> find out what caused the differences in behavior.  We have to live 
> with correlation.  (Often correlation is all that is required to make 
> progress.  The Romans knew that living near swamps was correlated with 
> catching Malaria.  Some of their "Natural Philosophers" decided that 
> it was the "bad air" that caused the malaria.  Others, more practical, 
> (we call them engineers today)  simply drained the swamps and got rid 
> of the disease).
>
> Ed
> Ed & Wendy Hauser
> 2994 Mittower Road
> Victor, MT 59875
>
> (406) 642-9640
>
> ranch(at)sisuwest(dot)us


--

“Ethical axioms are found and tested not very differently from the 
axioms of science. Truth is what stands the test of experience.” Albert 
Einstein


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