Does the relationship between cause and effect really exist?

Question

Max Planck, the Father of Quantum Physics once quoted "We have no right to assume that any physical laws exist, or if they exist up until now, that they will continue to exist in a similar manner in the future."

Answer 1

Consistancy.

That is the key to the human comprehension of pattern.
We get this notion into our head that the more something is perceived to happen, the more likely it is that it will happen again.

Whether it is "true" or not is irrelevant. I don't believe there is an objective truth anyway.
What matters is that it seems to work.... which is certainly enough to live by.
We can't necessarily know 100% any of the workings of the Universe.... but if we have working proxies, then they can represent the function of the Universe as long as they display validity to observed results.

If you flick a switch and a light turns on in the room, and it happens several times consistantly.... it honestly doesn't matter if the flicking of the switch really does cause the light to come on or not. What matters is that it appears to work, and you only need concern yourself when it stops working.

Answer 2

Well said my friend. But assumptions are assumptions, everyone has there own right to assume. The relationship between cause and effect does exist. Remember that whatever the cause there is always an effect. Max Planck may have all the right to say that but this does not stop the people to make such an assumption.

Answer 3

I think that science is backing away from strict cause and effect. It is now stated in a more statistical form. If you produce the same action time after time, you will get an average effect that is related to the average cause. But statistics have no meaning when there is only one incident.

This means we cannot, even in principle, trace a chain of cause and effect. The great French scientist, Laplace reported told Napoleon that if the positions and velocities of all particles were known, that he could then trace the course of the universe both forward and backward. We now know that is not possible, even in principle.

Answer 4

our entire perception of the world is based around sense experience. For example, we assume that when we put water over a flame it will got hot rather than cold, but if the water did freeze, we would have to alter all our perceptions relation to thermal energy etc. But as for the relationship between cause and effect, I think we can say that it does exist, because even if the water did freeze unexpectedly, there would still be a cause for it, it would not have done it of its own accord.

Regardless of changes to our knowledge etc, everything appears to have some form of cause and effect. Hope that answered your question!

madi

Answer 5

This is more easily understandable if one considers the actual scale of the components of an atom. If one takes into account the fact that the neutrons, protons and electrons of an atom actually have huge spaces between them it becomes clear that the atoms that make up seemingly solid objects are made up of 99+ percent empty space.

This alone does not seem too important till you add the idea that the atoms that make up seemingly solid objects are more of a loose conglomeration that share a similar attraction but never really touch each other.

At first glance this does not really seem relevant, but closer analysis reveals that this adds a tremendous amount of empty space to solid objects that are already made up of atoms that are 99 percent space. When so-called solid objects are seen in this light it becomes apparent that they can in no way be the seemingly solid objects they appear to be.

We ourselves are not exceptions to this phenomenon.

These seemingly solid objects are more like ghostly images that we interpret as solid objects based on our perceptual conclusions.

From this we must conclude that Perception is some sort of a trick that helps us to take these ghostly images and turn them into a world we can associate and interact with. This clever device seems to be a creation of our intellect that enables us to interact with each other in what appears to be a three dimensional reality.

I hope that helps to answered your question.

Love and blessings Don

Answer 6

Perhaps cause/effect is the ONLY law that exists. Reality, the multi-dimensional field we share, mirrors the conflicted contents of consciousness in both our individual holographic experience and in its mirroring effect en masse.

It is not coincidental that the world religions (mystical core) has been trying to explain this intersection of psychology and physics for more than four thousand years - how to stabilize cause and effect, being/reality, mind/matter, etc.

Answer 7

Cause and effect would exist as long as time exists.... cause and effect define any change and it is change that defines time....
(If nothing changes, there would be no time to reckon).

Answer 8

There is no effect if there is no cause. Every action has an equal and opposite reaction.!