It recently occured to me, after reading Feser's work on the subject, that we could easily defuse all of the quantum mechanics related objections to the Principle of Causality and Principle of Sufficient Reason simply by noting how all of the supposedly questionable discoveries follow law-like patterns. For example the decay of the hydrogen atom follows a unique law of decay that is different from other particles - which is a formal cause and thus doesn't violate causality or sufficient reason, the Bell inequalities showing correlations without causation are visibly lawlike and are  related to empirical predictions and results -  which is also a formal cause and also doesn't violate causality or sufficient reason in any way, Entanglement which produces an instant connection between two particles such that one particle somehow  "knows"  what measurement was performed on the other and instantly changes itself accordingly - which is once again a law-like phenomenon where we have expectations as to what is happening, meaning we still have (at least something like) formal causality.

And all of this without even attempting to produce equally experimentally valid alternative interpretations that allow for more locality and efficient causality (Cf. Bas Van Fraassen).
Even the  quantum vacuum  which supposedly makes particles pop out of nothing can easily be explained in this way, since, whatever the quantum vacuum is, it is not  nothing  and clearly has a describable nature - which is again no problem at all for PC and PSR.


It seems as if this is the shortest and easiest way to defuse all QM / science-based objections to PC and PSR. What do you think?

Last edited by aftermathemat (2/26/2018 2:24 pm)