Robin Le Poidevin - What is Causation?

In a "billiard-ball world" of Newtonian science, causation was obvious—things had to touch each other in space and a cause always had to precede an effect. But quantum mechanics destroys such notions. What then is causation? Moreover, must causes always be physical? Is "mental causation" a coherent concept? What about "top-down causation"?

[fvjbbds]

I was lucky enough to study metaphysics at Leeds in 2015 - Robin's enthusiasm and wit made the lectures and seminars even more interesting. His writing also reflects this as he is both an engaging writer and clear thinker. He also always remembered everyone's names - a top guy, loved by everyone in my year and, I am sure, by everybody after.

[wadeslea]

Robin was a charismatic lecturer - Doesn't look day older than when he taught us 21 years ago!

[stevesayewich]

Somehow, I am attracted to the idea of backward causation because it is so counterintuitive. Reading a book just out by, Douglas Hoffman, "The Case Against Reality." It also presents a counter intuitive proposal that evolution hide the, "truth, " from us. Keep up the good counterintuitive work.

[BYMYSYD]

3:49
"That's what the 'earlier-than' relation is....It's accentually a causal relation"
Look up "Delayed choice Quantum Eraser". Not saying this definition is wrong. But the results of the experiment will get you think about retro-causality (which I'm not saying is correct).

[RalphDratman]

Backwards causation seems to be the exception rather than the rule in our everyday world. We only observe bc when one or a few particles can be studied individually in carefully conceived and executed experiments. The novelty of a backward causation phenomenon might be compared with studying a mesoscopic chunk of ordinary matter that does not have a temperature because it has not reached thermal equilibrium. The lifetime of such a non-thermal state must be short. But a truly microscopic system consisting of one or a few particles might not be expected to have a temperature at all. Just as non-thermal states are quickly thermalized, backwards causation is usually swallowed up in the statistics and never becomes apparent.

[cowdog]

Really enjoy your channel and all of the various discussions. I’ve listened to quite a few of them recently, not all mind you. Summing them up, my take away is this... There seems to be quite a majority that wants this so called ‘Unified Theory of Everything’ more than Anything, let the theory’s they don’t agree with and the facts be damned! They simply are not going to settle for anything less. This type of biased thinking plagues the scientific community just like it does the rest of academia. We could be hundreds of years ahead of where we are today in our search for knowledge if this wasn’t the case. Sadly this type of thinking is ingrained so deep that it will never change, and humanity will continue to remain in the dark for the foreseeable future.

[jamesruscheinski]

From the classic viewpoint, the effect happens after the cause; the cause happens before time on the effect? The cause starts time for an event, and the effect ends time for an event; with time bringing the cause to the effect?

[medexamtoolscom]

The way to determine if effects can precede causes is through experimentation. If there are any quantum mechanical experiments where you can make electrons effected by the future for instance, that would be an example of a break of causality. It would likely inevitably allow for time travel of some sort, sending if not tangible objects, then information into the past.

[thejackanapes]

Yes, I think what seems like an "arrow of time" and "causation" is a function or property of what amounts to information processing in the brain. I think it works out the same, more or less, at the scale we can be directly aware of, to say that causation is real, and happens. It doesn't happen in the way we think it does, at the quantum scale, rather emerges as a property of interactions and the falloff of our ability to process information (power requirements/sensory field, etc.)


So we end up with some kind of semantic distinction that makes no functional, practical difference to us, when we talk of "material vs. immaterial" or "physical vs. non-physical."


Physics doesn't care about these distinctions, especially for symmetry vs. asymmetry. Most of the asymmetries are a function of our own intuitions (being false) and how we helplessly have evolved to perceive our environment.


When we say "I caused X to happen" vs. "I was caused to do X" - they are both true.

It's simply the case that "I caused X to happen" requires a fallacy of single causation (ignorance of antecedents or other factors) and is thus not absolutely true, it is true relative to a set of detectable patterns and boundary conditions; and this to the degree my actions can be modified or vary in the future with (because of the awareness of) this information.


So the physical/mental is a linguistic distinction born of essentialism, animism, "breath of life" primitive beliefs and intuitions which are actually incoherent (infinite regresses /homunculus fallacy).


We can know this, but it is almost impossible to get everyone to stop behaving as if these incoherent beliefs are true. They helplessly insist they are true because they cannot get past their own cognitive dissonance, despite the evidence their view is incoherent. That's not a condemnation or pejorative; it's simply our general condition at the moment.

[microtrabecula]

Hans Reichenbach said something very similar in 1925! Check out his seminal paper: Kausalstruktur der Welt und der Unterschied von Vergangenheit und Zukunft (The Causal Structure of the World and the Difference between Past and Future).

[fvjbbds]

@closer to truth - where are the other robin lepoidevin videos? There were more uploaded a few years ago, one where Robin went on to add that if his theory of time were true, events of the past are more like areas of space that havent gone "theyre just over there!" - i have been looking all night through all of your videos to find the video so i can send it to my aunt who is mourning the death of her beloved cat, as his take on space time was comforting to me at the time of my dogs death. Please can you reupload that video or kindly direct me to it? Much love x

[jamesruscheinski]

If causation leads to time and not the other way around, then causation can start event in quantum future to end with effect in classic present?

[rhYT]

The claim/opinion that "Causation" as a primitive principal comes from Immanuel Kant, late 18th century, in his book "Critique of Pure Reason". It's a very tedious and difficult read but he makes the point that all of what we consider "reason" comes from primitives, or "aprioris" that reason itself can't explain. Kant's claim was that we are niether right nor wrong in assuming causation because we can do no other, our minds being wired that way. And based on how the mind is wired we will only accept evidence of a causal claim...feel it is satisfactory....when explanations of evidence fit certain mind-based templates. He opined that the odds are highly unlikey that the human mind was so perfectly wired that it could really understand everything. (I added "wired" as a language updation, Kant did not use that word. I think he used "constructed". )

[jamesruscheinski]

Is local communication / causation not detectable classically, just the regularity of patterns? Do human observers see non-local patterns in classic reality, even though there is a local causation?

[catherinemira]

Since I can't argue with this level of philosophical debate, I'll go for a bit of trivia: Robin looks shocked on the photo attached to this video... Is this to prove that there's no cause to believe in causation?

[petervandenengel]

Causation is just the singularity principle in relation to its future space time. Which is a symmetry principle: to reach equality. It's purely natural physics acted out by humans as well.

[xspotbox]

There is another example for arrow of time besides entropy, gravity works in all directions from center of it's mass. This means space is curved both in past and in the future. Massive objects are always there, stars and planets doesn't just pop in and out of existence, leaving causal effects behind. Only strength of space curvature does change, when gravitational fields interact trying to find new equilibrium during constant motion of everything. Relative distances among small objects doesn't matter, only distance from center of the mass all objects are emerged in counts. Maybe this is why quantum gravity is so hard to detect, it doesn't mater, can't change a thing in relation to large body of mass in space. So i would seek for origin of causality where internal relations does disturb entire gravity system, like when stars go supernova when chemical entropy inside has reached the critical stage, chaos can tear entire stars apart. This would imply causality is just a natural way to avoid chaos.

[jamesruscheinski]

Does causation come before time, not time before causation?

[myothersoul]

The very beginning: I've tried to approach reality by asking whether God exists. That seems like a complicated place to start from, it entails so many assumptions about the meaning or "reality" and "god". There must be a simpler, more retractable, place to start.

(maybe by asking why do I find not blinking a distraction? ;-)

[mackdmara]

Thank you much for this concept. At first glance I think he has over simplified it, but if I sat down to talk with him about the majority of my opinions on reality from what I know, I doubt he would deny me any of it. What he said that was ground breaking was the concept that time is a fake term for causation. That will keep mind a buzz for quite a bit I think.

We assume there is A & B theories of time, but this gives us a C. If C is true, A & B become meaningless. A & C or B & C could be seen as the same thing. Still I have to agree with him on reversing causation, making time travel impossible (which I dismiss over huge numbers of paradoxes & alternate realities you end up forming to say it exists). This also applies for time going backwards.

Still, I am interested to see if string theory or other such ideas pan in science. I could be wrong.