Principles of Classical Physics - Causality
Causality is another principle of classical physics. The idea is that every event, every action and motion is the result of a previous event. And thus if enough data is known, like location and momentum of a particle at a particular time, it can be infallibly predicted where the particle will be in the future. Inherent in this view is the irreversible flow of time from past -> present -> future.
Again, this works out well for most practical everyday events and allowed science to progress quite well for a couple of centuries. But, also again, this principle as a universal law of how things work, went down the drain with the discoveries of quantum physics. First, it was found that events don't definitely happen in an A then B fashion, but in a probabilistic fashion. Given A there is a chance that B will happen (perhaps large), but also other probabilities that say C and D will happen. There is nothing definite about it. As a corollary if there is any possibility at all of a particular outcome, even if minute, it will occur sometime. Another discovered behavior is that Event A can be both the cause and effect of Event B, simultaneously. And, of course, particles can be in more than one location at the same time, the quantum principle of superposition. So, the real world is not neat and tidy like if A then always B, there are always sets of probabilities of various outcomes, all of which exist until the outcome is fixated by an observation.
If that is not enough to upset the Causality apple cart, also events from the future can affect outcomes now, and events now can change outcomes in the past. This is very non-intuitive because of the way our minds are conditioned to think, but it has been shown to be true with experimental data.
There are many other facts and observations that make the point, but I think this is enough to get the idea that Causality as a concept maybe useful in many areas of life but is not real as a foundation of reality.
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