On the Scientific Implications of Vertical

Causality
March 12, 2018 Philosophy of Science
Wolfgang Smith
Following Galileo, Descartes and Newton, Western civilization succumbed to the spell of what I
have termed horizontal causation. From the publication of Newton’s Principia, in 1687, to the
discovery of quantum physics in the early twentieth century, scientists assumed without question
that, at bottom, the universe constitutes but a gigantic “clockwork,” in which the disposition of the
parts determines — with mathematical precision! — the movement of the whole. And even after
physicists were forced, in light of the quantum facts, to abandon the aforesaid clockwork paradigm,
their view regarding causality remained yet every bit as “horizontal” as before: the only concession
on the part of the experts, it appears, was to add the term “random” as an admissible epithet in the
description of physical causality. Fundamentally the universe, to this day, is conceived officially as
a “clockwork,” howbeit one which no longer functions with one-hundred percent precision: one
might say that in addition to rigid cogwheels, it now comprises some “wobbly” components which
in effect play the role of “dice.” The large picture, therefore, has scarcely changed at all: to this day
Nature is perceived on scientific authority as a dull affair: merely “the hurrying of material
particles, endlessly, meaninglessly” as Whitehead1 lamented long ago.
With the rediscovery, however, of what we have termed “vertical causation” or VC, the picture has
changed. Let us recollect, first of all, how this finding came about: vertical causality made its
appearance precisely in our consideration of the so-called “quantum measurement
problem.”2 Having reached the conclusion that the measuring instrument could not be a physical
object, but must be corporeal, it became apparent that the so-called “collapse of the wave-function”
cannot therefore be effected by means of physical — or what I term horizontal — causation, since a
transition between two distinct ontological domains cannot but be instantaneous. And this fact in
turn entails the recognition of a hitherto unrecognized kind of causality: a mode which differs
fundamentally from physical causation by virtue of the fact that it acts, not by way of a temporal
chain of events, but instantaneously.
Following this recognition we discovered that the newly-found vertical causality explains a number
of physically incomprehensible phenomena, from Bell’s famed nonlocality to the prosaic fact that
cricket balls don’t multilocate.3 The story, however, does not end on the level of physics: turning to
the opposite end of the scala naturae — to man the anthropos namely — and availing ourselves of
William Dembski’s 1998 theorem to the effect that “horizontal causation cannot produce CSI
(complex specified information),” we drew the obvious yet startling conclusion that in producing
CSI, we humans avail ourselves (demonstrably!) of vertical causation. What confronts us here is a
scientific proof, no less, of what is traditionally termed “free will.”4
It appears thus that VC plays a decisive role not only in physics, but in the biosphere as well: that in
fact its effects preponderate as one ascends the ladder of organic forms. I might add that when it
comes to the enigma of visual perception, it turns out (in light of the discoveries of a cognitive
psychologist named James Gibson) that here too VC plays the pivotal role: for it happens that what
Gibson terms “the pick-up of invariants in the ambient optical array” is something horizontal
causation simply cannot effect.5 In particular: a perception of movement cannot be obtained by
sampling the data “in time”: here too a “supra-temporal” and consequently instantaneous mode of
causality proves to be necessary.
I would like finally to reiterate, in light of the aforesaid recognitions, that I consider scientific
inquiry into the effects of VC within the various ontological strata of interest to science — from the
“mineral” or inanimate to the different plant and animal genera, up to the human — to constitute the
most challenging vistas open to fundamental scientific inquiry in our time. As regards research of a
foundational kind, we seem to be approaching the end of what can in principle be understood on the
basis of horizontal causation; and I surmise that much of what presently obstructs us at the frontiers
of scientific inquiry may prove indeed to be effects of VC. In a word, I surmise that even from a
purely scientific point of view, what is called for at this moment in history is an enlarged and vastly
deepened understanding of Nature: it is high time to jettison our Galilean, Cartesian and Newtonian
assumptions to become philosophically literate once again.