The Meaning of Cause and Effect in Modern Theoretical Physics and their Unification in Obidi's Theory of Entropicity (ToE)

The new question and meaning of cause and effect is one of the deepest implications of the Theory of Entropicity (ToE), and it is not a superficial philosophical flourish—it is a structural redefinition of causality itself. Given everything established in ToE, this new line of questioning and investigation is not only coherent, it is almost unavoidable.

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Cause and Effect in ToE: A Fundamental Reinterpretation

In the Theory of Entropicity (ToE), as first formulated and further developed by John Onimisi Obidi, entropy is not an outcome of processes; it is the condition that makes processes possible at all. This single shift already destabilizes the classical notion of cause and effect.

In traditional physics, causality is treated as a chain:
A causes B, B causes C, and so on. Causes are assumed to be distinct from effects, separated in time, and connected by laws that are themselves taken as primitive and eternal.

Obidi's Theory of Entropicity (ToE) rejects this picture at the root.

In ToE, entropy is the underlying field and constraint structure within which all events occur. Every event, interaction, or transformation is an expression of the local and global configuration of the entropic field. This means that what we call a “cause” and what we call an “effect” are not independent entities—they are two descriptions of the same entropic reconfiguration viewed at different stages of constraint resolution.

So, within ToE:

• The cause is entropy.
• The effect is also entropy.
• What changes is not the substance, but the configuration, gradient, and flow of entropy.

Cause and effect are therefore not separate things—they are the same entropic process viewed along the arrow of irreversibility.

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Why Cause and Effect Appear Separate (The Illusion Explained)

The illusion of separation arises because observers are embedded inside the entropic flow. We experience time sequentially, not globally. As a result, we label an earlier entropic configuration as “cause” and a later configuration as “effect.”

But from the standpoint of the entropic field itself:

• There is no external agent “causing” change.
• There is only entropy reconfiguring itself under its own constraints.
• The arrow of time is not imposed from outside—it is generated internally by entropy’s irreversibility.

This is why ToE does not need an external causal principle. Entropy is self-driving. It does not require a push; it unfolds because constraint imbalance demands resolution.

Thus, cause and effect are not ontologically distinct—they are epistemic labels imposed by observers trying to make sense of an entropic process they cannot step outside of.

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Cause–Effect Unity in ToE

We note that the statement that cause and effect may be one and the same is not at all poetic—it is technically accurate within the axiomatic foundations of the Theory of Entropicity (ToE).

In ToE, we have already seen that:

• There is no cause without entropy.
• There is no effect without entropy.
• There is no interaction outside entropy.
• There is no temporal evolution independent of entropy.

Therefore, cause and effect collapse into a single entropic ontology. What we call causation is simply entropy transitioning between constrained states.

This aligns naturally with:

• The No-Rush Theorem (interactions cannot occur faster than entropic resolution),
• Entropic geodesics (motion as least-entropic-resistance paths),
• The Vuli-Ndlela Integral (irreversibility enforced at the path-selection level).

All of these remove the need for an external causal mechanism.

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Implications for Physics

This has enormous consequences:

1. For classical mechanics
   Forces are no longer causes; they are entropic responses to gradients.

2. For quantum mechanics
   Measurement does not “cause” collapse. Collapse occurs when entropic observability thresholds are crossed.

3. For relativity
   Spacetime curvature is not a cause of motion; it is an entropic manifestation of constraint redistribution.

4. For cosmology
   The universe does not evolve because of initial causes—it evolves because entropy continuously reconfigures itself.

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Implications for Philosophy

Philosophically, ToE dissolves:

• Linear causality
• First-cause metaphysics
• The strict separation between agent and outcome

Instead, it replaces them with entropic necessity: things happen not because they are caused, but because they cannot not happen under given entropic constraints.

This reframes free will, determinism, and necessity in entirely new terms.

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Implications for Religion and Metaphysics

In religious and metaphysical contexts, this is profound:

• Creation need not be a single past event; it may be an ongoing entropic unfolding.
• Divine action, if interpreted through ToE, would not be interventionist causation but constraint setting.
• The unity of cause and effect resonates strongly with non-dual philosophies and deep theological traditions that reject separation as fundamental.

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ToE's Final Synthesis

Hence, within the Theory of Entropicity (ToE):

• Cause and effect arise from one source: entropy.
• They are not separate realities, but different perspectives on the same entropic process.
• The separation of cause and effect is a cognitive artifact, not a fundamental feature of nature.

This is not just a reinterpretation of causality.
It is a replacement of causality with entropic inevitability.

And that is why this insight from the Theory of Entropicity (ToE) truly does have sweeping implications for physics, science, philosophy, and religion alike.