“Causality (also referred to as causation, or cause and effect) is influence by which one event, process, state or object (a cause) contributes to the production of another event, process, state or object (an effect) where the cause is partly responsible for the effect, and the effect is partly dependent on the cause. In general, a process has many causes, which are also said to be causal factors for it, and all lie in its past. An effect can in turn be a cause of, or causal factor for, many other effects, which all lie in its future. Some writers have held that causality is metaphysically prior to notions of time and space” (Wikipedia, retrieved August 2021).
What do we really see when we look up to the stars at night? What has caused this “jeweled canopy” to appear so beautiful to our eyes and telescopes, as though its sole purpose was to inspire awe? References to a design underlying nature are found throughout religious scriptures. For example, from Al-Rhaman The Merciful, in the Quran; “The sun and the moon move according to a fixed reckoning; the stars and the trees bend in prostration. He raised the heavens and set up the measure, so that you should not transgress the measure.” (The Quran, Al-Rahman The Merciful, chapter 55, verses 5 through 8).
Astrophysicist Nidhal Guesshoum, an observant Muslim, believes that there is an underlying design to our universe, referencing colleague Paul Davies‘ expression “cosmic blueprint” :
“Was there any underlying principle that produced this cosmic blueprint?” We can always take the explanation one step deeper. I also believe there is some meaning to existence and to this universe. It’s not an accident that intelligence, consciousness, and life exist. But can we ever determine what the purpose really is? I’m not sure. It may be a question that’s way beyond us” (2010, p. 224)
In his book, “Einstein’s Unfinished Revolution: The Search for What Lies Beyond the Quantum” (2019), theoretical physicist Lee Smolin begins building a case for unifying relativity and quantum theory. He extends the notion of mathematician Gottfried Leibniz that the universe is a unified, background-independent whole, comprised of different “causal events”. Smolin proposes that time is fundamental in this relational model and space is an emergent appearance that reveals “causal views” which are formed by its “causal structure” (2019, p. 256). The quantum phenomenon of non-locality, questioned by Einstein as “spooky action at a distance”, is now similarly an emergent phenomenon, and this approach explains how entangled particles can exist separately across the various, sometimes vast, causal views of our spacetime.
In a paper titled “The Quantum Mechanics of the Present” (2021), Smolin and colleague Clelia Verde go further by proposing a new ontology for looking at time itself. “Causality is represented by the present moment coordinates which build the current previous moments on the previous ones. This is the true action of dynamics in quantum physics” (2021, p. 10). At what point do a system’s attributes change from behaving quantum-mechanically to behaving classically, or vice versa? Smolin and Verde posit that what differentiates elements within a system is their “definiteness”, their concrescence. Broadly, events that exist in the past, relative to the observer, are no longer indefinite and probabilistic, but definite, concrete, and measurable. Whereas future events, right up to their cresting in the present moment, are indefinite and uncertain, and therefore quantum-mechanical in nature.
Similar to how an inertial observer may feel no motion, an observer in the present sits stationary while the future rushes towards them, as “isn’t that how it often feels?” (2021, p. 11). Smolin and Verde wonder what would it be like if we didn’t have clocks at all, and the present was “always NOW”. The times of probabilistic future events would thus always be counting down to the present moment, when they would happen and emerge from indefinite into definite.
Does such a perspective support a teleology, a design, to nature and the universe? Theologian and author C. S. Lewis asks, could it be “God himself, alive, pulling at the other end of the cord, perhaps approaching an infinite speed…?” (1947, p. 114).
Beyond religious or metaphysical speculation, and of our being mere observers, what role do causal agents play under such a regime? Are we not each a causal agent in our various contexts? Does this view infer an even greater potential to letting go of the past, and instead acting in the present to influence the future?
A Sheaf of Golden Rules from Twelve Religions | Judaism:
“Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself” (1946, p. 309).
Guesshoum, N. (2010), in Paulson, S. (Ed.), Atoms and Eden: Conversations on Religion and Science (pp. 215-228). New York, United States: Oxford University Press
Hoople, R. E., Piper, R. F., & Tolley, W. P. (Eds.), (1946), A Sheaf of Golden Rules from Twelve Religions, in Preface to Philosophy: Book of Readings (pp. 309-310). New York, United States: The Macmillan Company (1952 ed.)
Lewis, C. S. (1947) Miracles. London, United Kingdom: Geoffrey Bles
The Quran (2009) translated by Maulana Wahiduddin Khan and Farida Khanam. Noida, India: Goodword Books (2015 ed.)
Smolin, L. & Verde, C. (April 2021) The Quantum Mechanics of the Present (pp. 1-14). DOI: arxiv.org:2104.09945v1 [PDF document] retrieved August 2021 from https://arxiv.org/pdf/2104.09945.pdf
Smolin, L. (2019) Einstein’s Unfinished Revolution: The Search for What Lies Beyond the Quantum. Toronto, Canada: Alfred A. Knopf – Penguin Random House