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The British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 2000 51(3):445-475; doi:10.1093/bjps/51.3.445
© 2000 by British Society for the Philosophy of Science
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Stochastic outcomes in branching space-time: analysis of Bell's theorem

T Placek

Department of Philosophy, Jagiellonian University, Kraköw, Poland E-mail: uzplacek@cyf-kr.edu.pl

The paper extends the framework of outcomes in branching space-time (Kowalski and Placek [1999]) by assigning probabilities to outcomes of events, where these probabilities are interpreted either epistemically or as weighted possibilities. In resulting models I define the notion of common cause of correlated outcomes of a single event, and investigate which setups allow for the introduction of common causes. It turns out that a deterministic common cause can always be introduced, but (surprisingly) only special setups permit the introduction of truly stochastic common causes. I analyse next the Bell-Aspect experiment and derive the Bell-CH inequalities. I observe that we postulate there not a common cause for outcomes of a single event but rather a common common cause that accounts for outcomes of many events, where 'events' mean 'measurements with (different) directions of polarization'. Since the inequalities are violated, I claim that no causal story can be told about the Bell correlations, where causality is subliminal and restricted by screening-off condition. Similarly, given certain intuitive principles, no deterministic story can be told about these correlations.


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