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arXiv · 2411.05468

Noncommuting common causes revisited

Gábor Hofer-Szabó·Szilárd Szalay
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Abstract

In this paper, we revisit the concept of noncommuting common causes; refute two objections raised against them, the triviality objection and the lack of causal explanatory force; and explore how their existence modifies the EPR argument. More specifically, we show that 1) product states screening off all quantum correlations do not compromise noncommuting common causal explanations; 2) noncommuting common causes can satisfy the law of total probability; 3) perfect correlations can have indeterministic noncommuting common causes; and, as a combination of the above claims, 4) perfect correlations can have noncommuting common causes which are both nontrivial and satisfy the law of total probability.

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Gábor Hofer-Szabó, Szilárd Szalay. 2024-11-08. Noncommuting common causes revisited. https://arxiv.org/abs/2411.05468

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