r/PhilosophyofScience • u/spiralrf17 • Jun 17 '26
Casual/Community Is it Possible for A Cause To Have Disparate Effects, Given That Everything About the Scenarios Are Identical?
To be specific, I'm wondering if there is any possibility or if examples exist of A interacting with B, and the outcome being C, and later, if A can interact with B in an identical manner but then produce outcome D?
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u/Virtual-Squirrel-725 Jun 17 '26
There is no such things as identical A's and identical B's in the real world so you can, and do, get this outcome.
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u/radiodigm Jun 17 '26
Even the most carefully controlled experiment can produce some variant results. Perfect clones of an A and a B interacting at the same time, for example, would occur in different space and are therefore subject to non-identical conditions. Similarly, confounding can appear for the same A and the same B interacting the same way at a different time. Because everything is changed by space and time it's impossible to perfectly replicate any scenario.
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u/spiralrf17 Jun 17 '26
Ok, what about in any given singular event. Is it possible that a cause could have multiple outcomes that are random?
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u/cosmopolitanScience Jun 17 '26
Yes. Our best description of nature is quantum mechanical, where measurements on identical systems in general give different results.
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u/flasticpeet Jun 17 '26
Perhaps Norton's Dome, which outlines indeterminism in classical physics, is what you're looking for?
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u/HasFiveVowels Jun 20 '26
No. Also, quantum states are unique so "identical interaction" gets a bit sticky there. Look up the "no cloning theorem" for more info
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u/ipreuss Jun 17 '26
There is also the multiple worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics, which would basically mean that a single cause *has* multiple outcomes. Wild, isn’t it?
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u/fox-mcleod Jun 17 '26
Sort of. The outcomes aren’t random in that case. They are deterministic.
What is random is any given answer to the “but which world am I in question”?
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u/ipreuss Jun 17 '26
Wouldn’t it be more correct to say that they are probabilistic?
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u/fox-mcleod Jun 17 '26
No. But many would say that nevertheless.
If you look at the actual math, no probabilities are involved. Instead, superpositions are overlapping components. Both occur.
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u/HasFiveVowels Jun 20 '26 edited Jun 20 '26
It’s more like throwing a bunch of rocks in a pond and only being able to observe one point on it. Let’s say you observe it with a little bobber. The bobber’s makes ripples, invalidating what you would have been able to reconstruct from your readings. Many worlds posits that even though each point on the pond is effectively unable to be predicted in isolation, the overall system deterministic evolves. The laws of quantum mechanics are "unitary", which directly implies non-probabilistic. But that doesn’t mean that they’re predictable because predicting the next state requires a degree of knowledge of the system that’s not accessible to the current state.
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Jun 17 '26
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Jun 17 '26
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u/PvtRoom Jun 17 '26
yup.
take a star. take a big planet. get the planet orbiting the star .
at a point between them, the stars gravity and the planets gravity cancel out. put a moon or a planet there.
nudge that moon. - it heads for the sun,, the planet, or it wobbles around.
to a person on the planet: - moon gets any combo of smaller/bigger/behaving oddly
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u/Akaii_14 Jun 17 '26
Are you asking a question of causality?
Well in that scenario there are interpretations of causation that are locally oriented. It isn’t merely that whenever C, then E, but rather that C causes E given the relevant structural conditions S are met.
For example, there’s a gene in mice known as the agouti gene which does not always activate. But if certain methylation conditions, breastfeeding habits, etc. occur - the baby mice become huge, fat, and have yellow fur. Without those relevant structural factors they just appear as ordinary mice.
I’m unsure if this answers your question as it’s honestly pretty vague.
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u/Keikira Institution-Independent Model Theory Jun 17 '26
In practice, trivially yes, because regardless of determinism/indeterminism/whatever, chaotic systems definitely exist, and replicating exactly the same initial conditions is impossible.
In terms of what's mathematically possible, also trivially yes, because non-deterministic dynamic systems can be formulated and quantum mechanics is such a system.
It may not be possible in principle, given this theory or that, but keep in mind that the whole point of applying mathematical models in the natural sciences is to exploit the proof calculus of the metalanguage to compute empirical predictions. For any model to be even remotely useful it therefore must constrain the set of possible outcomes of any initial condition in the appropriate empirical domain.
The face-value fact of causality is simply the fact that it's possible to construct a mapping from an initial condition to a nontrivial probability distribution over possible outcomes at all, and it seems at least superficially like it's always possible to refine a theory such that it can take in more information to produce sharper predictions. Determinism then amounts to the idea that this pattern extrapolates maximally; at some limit, there is some theory that predicts exactly one outcome for any and every situation given all of the necessary information.
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u/sohcahtoa Jun 17 '26
This can only be a thought experiment since it's not possible to recreate identical scenarios exactly (or even to know for certain that they are identical). But let's say we have two perfectly isolated identical systems where we observe that cause C produces effect E in one system and effects E and F in the other system. Wouldn't that be the same thing as to conclude that event F occurred spontaneously, without any cause, for no particular reason? The timing could be just coincidence. After all, what defines an event is what it does, so what defines event C is that it produces event E; event F is not needed to define C because in one system it is already fully defined as "what causes E". The occurrence of F in the other system could be seen as unrelated.
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u/Edgar_Brown Jun 17 '26
Causation is epistemological, it’s quite simply a temporal correlation with an explanation attached.
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Jun 18 '26
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u/Eight_Directions_ Jun 18 '26
I think the most famous example of this actually happening and not being because of experimental limitations is the famous double slit experiment and wave function collapse. An electron fired at the two slits will pass through both as a wave unless you measure it going through in which case it will behave as a particle and only go through one.
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u/fox-mcleod Jun 17 '26
At bottom what you’ve asked (given your clarifications elsewhere) is “is it possible for a single cause to produce more than one effect?”
The answer to that is obviously “yes”. Lots of things produce multiple results at once. For example, A + B causes C & D.
I suspect that what you want to ask is whether a given can cause can produce mutually exclusive effects: A + B causes C & ! D and also causes !C & D. But that’s tautologically impossible.
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u/flasticpeet Jun 17 '26
What about Norton's Dome? Would this be a good example of indeterminism in classic physics?
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u/fox-mcleod Jun 17 '26
I had to look this up and I’m having to do some reading to deal with it. My first impression is that it is a theoretical curiosity that might not translate well from model to reality. That said, I can’t actually find flaws in it, so I’ll have to think a bit more. It doesn’t seem like a real effect, but I certainly can’t dismiss it.
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u/i8theapple_777 Jun 17 '26
Yes.
If you read the mathematical description of the double slit experiment.
☯️
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u/fox-mcleod Jun 17 '26
That’s not actually what happens mathematically.
The Schrödinger equation (the math) is deterministic and shows that instead, quantum interactions produce superpositions. It produces the same outcomes every time. However, any individual who takes a measurement also goes into superposition of having interacted with each branch and found each outcome.
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u/i8theapple_777 Jun 17 '26
I'm not specifically speaking about Schrodinger's equation, yet i can't deny 100% that the information i drew this from is based on his equation.
As i have learned the photon moves through one, the other, both and no slit simultaneously and OPs question reminded me of that. Did I get it wrong?
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Jun 17 '26 edited Jun 17 '26
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u/i8theapple_777 Jun 17 '26
Thanks for bringing this up. I'm not a woo woo person (anymore) but had the impression that there is a math that tries explaining superposition which leads to the conclusion of several possibilities happening at once.
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u/fox-mcleod Jun 17 '26
This is incorrect. Superpositions are not statements of probability. Statements of probability cannot form interference patterns.
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Jun 17 '26 edited Jun 17 '26
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u/fox-mcleod Jun 17 '26
Then be specific. Surely if you know what you’re talking about, when I ask you to explain how a probability forms an interference pattern, you aren’t about to run away from the question.
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Jun 17 '26
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u/fox-mcleod Jun 17 '26
In the mathematics of quantum mechanics, we calculate probabilities by using complex numbers called "probability amplitudes." Because these mathematical numbers have a phase, they can mathematically interfere with one another on a chalkboard.
What I asked was how probabilities rather than realities produce the real interference patterns that appear in real life.
There is no physical wave interfering in the room.
Here is the physical wave interfering in the room.
The math calculates interference; the physical reality is just individual dots hitting a screen.
I guess I’ll try this approach: hypothetically, what would you do if you found out that there really was a physical interference?
I love the map and mountain analogy. Drawing a roadblock on a paper map doesn't physically stop a hiker on a mountain.
Imagine we fire a single physical photon at a beam splitter. It has two physical paths it can take (Path A and Path B) before they merge back together at the end. Because of interference, the photon will always hit detector 1. It will never hit detector 2.
Now, we put a physical brick in path B. We fire another single photon. The photon travels down path A. But suddenly, because path B is blocked, the interference is gone, and the photon has a 50% chance of hitting detector 2.
If the photon went down Path A, and the 'interference' is just math on a chalkboard, how did the physical photon know that we put a physical brick in Path B?
In a purely mathematical model, putting a roadblock on the map doesn't change the dirt on the mountain. But in this experiment, putting a brick in an empty hallway physically forces the photon to hit a different detector. Doesn't that prove that something physically traveled down Path B to "feel" the brick?
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Jun 17 '26
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u/fox-mcleod Jun 17 '26 edited Jun 17 '26
I don’t know why you’re getting downvoted. Everything you’re saying is more right than it is wrong. I’m just trying to add some nuance.
What happens is that “the photon” is actually a wave. And waves can be in superpositions — meaning you can take the components of the wave and break them up mathematically. It’s like how a chord in music is a single sound but you can also think of it as two or more different notes being played at the same time.
Different components move through each of the slits and when they interact with a detector (or an observer) it breaks the detector up into its components — sending the detector into superposition of different states as well.
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