Foreword

The paper below is an attempt to develop in outline a general theory of cause and effect that is derived, in the first instance, from the experimental evidence of matter and energy on the smallest scale.  This is not a theory of particles and forces but rather, it is an account that seeks to justify and describe from a wide range of natural evidence details of a cause acting in addition to the known forces.  From the small or quantum scale evidence alone such a cause has only been described in an account of quantum mechanics called de Broglie-Bohm interpretation (de B-BI). Over a dozen different kinds of interpretation can be listed. But by accounting for the observable quantum behaviour in terms of a distinct cause and its effects upon objects in motion, de B-BI  can lead to the question as to whether such a causal interpretation could be developed into a more general theory that also considers larger scale evidence.  We find that such a development is possible by seeking to justify causal properties that can be verbally described and diagrammatically represented and where measurement and calculation is of secondary significance.  We suggest that, on the small scale, our account could thus provide a cosmological answer to the questions of what causes the quantum wave property and quantum entanglement.