NONSEPARABLE PROCESSES AND CAUSAL EXPLANATION

If physical reality is nonseparable, as quantum mechanics suggests, th en it may contain processes of a quite novel kind. Such nonseparable p rocesses could connect spacelike separated events without violating re lativity theory or any defensible locality condition. Appeal to nonsep arable processes could ground theoretical explanations of such otherwi se puzzling phenomena as the two-slit experiment, and EPR-type correla tions. We find such phenomena puzzling because they threaten cherished conceptions of how causes operate to produce their effects. But nonse parable processes offer us an alternative deal of natural order, confo rmity to which makes such phenomena seem quite normal and not at all u nexpected. Attempts to answer the further question, as to whether an a ppeal to a nonseparable process provides a genuine causal explanation, have something to teach us about our concept of causation, but do not threaten to undermine the value of the explanation itself.