Does this construal of the explanation as pointing to a hidden causal structure allow us to make perspicuous its explanatory import? Both views are committed to the existence of what Peter Railton has called an "ideal explanatory text" (Railton 1981) that contains all the information relevant to a complete explanation of some phenomenon. Earlier defenders of causal accounts of explanation took one distinguishing feature of causal accounts to be their metaphysical, or-as Alberto Coffa called it-ontic conception of explanation. Consider for example an explanation of the heat capacity of metals and, in particular, of the fact that the heat capacity is much lower than predicted classically (Kittel 2005: 141ff). The explanation appeals to the Pauli exclusion principle and shows how the heat capacity depends on particle statistics. They then show that the quantum correlations predicted for Bell experiments conflict with the conjunction of three postulates: relativistic causality, according to which an event’s causal past is its past lightcone; free choice, which states that measurement settings can be freely chosen and, hence, have no causes within the system under consideration; and Reichenbach’s principle of a common cause, according to which correlations among events that are not related as cause and effect are explained by a common cause in their joint past that screens off the correlation.



































More recent discussions by contrast, What are billiard balls made of focus on the problem that nonlocal quantum correlations violate Bell inequalities as presenting a challenge to causal analyses. But if it’s not like anything to instantiate coherent superpositions of neuronal feature-processors, then non-materialist physicalism is false and the Hard Problem returns. If non-materialist physicalism is true, then we are dealing with superpositions of micro-experiences. Then their brain works and they can think. The timing of the blinkers is up to the designer with the constraint that neighboring orthogonal blinkers can not be in the same generation. Earman’s criticism cannot undermine a functional account of causation in physics, since it invokes the very same probabilistic considerations that, on a functional account, underwrite representing radiation phenomena in terms of causal models. Thus, certain criticisms of causal accounts of the asymmetry of radiation, such as Earman (2011), are most charitably understood as attacking a metaphysical account of the role of causation in accounting for radiation phenomena. Moreover, as Sally Shrapnel (2014) has argued, there are macroscopic phenomena, such as the avian magneto-compass, that seem to require multi-level explanations that include quantum causal effects, which play an apparently causal, difference-making role.



































Neo-Russellians, by contrast, deny that causal notions and causal explanation can play any role in suitably fundamental theories of physics. The philosophical literature on causal explanation in general and in physics, more specifically, has developed largely independently of, and without engaging with, philosophical discussions in the neo-Russellian tradition questioning the legitimacy of causal concepts in physics (with Woodward’s work being a notable exception). That’s just a work of… If work is done by a system, it loses energy to the surroundings. A kick of a soccer ball or any number of similar examples illustrate the idea that the kinetic energy of an object can be increased by application of a force. Yet we can experimentally interact with quantum systems and can intervene in and control such systems in ways that appear to be causal in similar ways to our interactions with classical physical systems. That is available. God brings it about that brain events of certain kinds give rise to mental events of certain kinds in order that animals and men may learn about the physical world, see it as imbued with color and smell making it beautiful, and learn to control it.



































Consider now the evolution of animals and humans. Debates on these questions have a long history. That is, the explanation does enable us to answer what Woodward calls what-if-things-had-been-different questions (Woodward 1979), which, according to Woodward’s account of explanation is an important feature of causal explanations. According to causal imperialists, such as Lewis, this explanation is causal by virtue of the fact that it provides information about the causal history of a sample of metal. Causal imperialists, as we might call them, argue that all scientific explanations are fundamentally causal. One might want to conclude from the fact that quantum correlations are incompatible with the conjunction of faithfulness and the Markov condition that causal notions are inapplicable in the quantum realm. One might reply, however, that canceling path violations of faithfulness result from a system’s specific causal structure: the causal structures at issue appear to be designed precisely to allow for what amounts to violations of faithfulness. Rejecting free choice amounts to accepting superdeterminism, according to which measurement settings cannot be freely chosen. Faced with the choice between saying that there are simply brute coincidences in the behavior of objects, and saying that their behavior is brought about by a common cause, a person-we choose the latter on the grounds that its simplicity is high and it gives some probability to what we observe.