ABSTRACT
The assessment of causal status for quantum phenomena is complicated by a seeming lack of spatiotemporal continuity between putative cause events and effect events. In cases of causation-by-omission, there often is a conflict between the results of a "scientific" causal analysis and the results of causal analysis that invokes questions of responsibility or guilt. The effects of electromagnetic fields qualify as causal on a manipulability criterion. Although the two-slit experiment qualifies as a causal relation on the inferability criterion and the counterfactual dependence criterion, it is a noncausal relation on the spatiotemporal continuity criterion. So do the effects realized in the two-slit experiment. Observations of electrons at slit A is an intervention that alters the behavior of electrons passing unobserved through slit B. The pattern on the screen changes from an interference pattern to a juxtaposition pattern as a result of the intervention. The instantaneous transfer of energy over a distance violates a basic principle of the theory of relativity.
