If the question is: Can you create an event that obtains energy from a bound system the answer is yes, but one should be certain that energy was put into the system initially. Think fuels, etc. Even setting up the domino to be pushed over changed its potential energy, even at ground level if the domino isn't at it's lowest potential (widest flat side down) there was energy involved in putting at that point. With fossil fuels, you have millions of years of pressure and heat changing complex molecules. With nuclear fuels, you have a few seconds of pressure and heat that you can't fathom and several billion years between formation and use.
The effect being greater than the cause is pretty much the definition of a non-linear system. Non linear systems are more or less the rule rather than the exception in nature.
Saying that pushing a row of dominos is what causes them to fall, is obviously incomplete. In order for them to fall, they had to be put upright to begin with, so setting them up is effectively part of the cause for why they can fall. If pushing a domino would be enough for it to fall, then pushing a lying domino (widest flat side down) while it lies on a flat surface would make it fall - which, of course, is absurd.
Based on these boundry conditions the answer is no. The answer is derived from the second law of thermodynamics.
Cause and effect is an example of 2-D thinking. Cause and effect are like the (x,y) axis on a graph, with logic zig zagging between. In most explanation of a cause leading to an amplified effect we need to begin with the system having potential energy that can be released by the cause. A better way to model that is with 3-D thinking. With 3-D we will add a z-axis. The new coordinate system is effect (z) cause (x) and effect (y). The effect (z) we begin with is the potential energy in the system. This had a cause of its own. Starting with this potential energy effect, we add a cause, such as a lighted match, that leads to an amplified effect (explosion).
Cause and effect is a physical phenomenon, not an "example of thinking". Regardless of the number of "dimensions". You're still spouting this "thinking in dimensions" rubbish. Stop it.
The cause and effect between you and I seems to be like this. One cause is I mention my thought dimensional theory, and the effect is you get bent out of shape. There is no physical explanation for this cause and effect, rather it all occurs in your mind. I can perceive this, not because this is a physical law of nature, but simply because I think in terms of cause and effect; 2-D. If I thought at less than 2-D, I would not see this. If I go greater than 2-D, I can infer the effect (potential energy) that already in play, before the cause induces the effect.
Nope. You post nonsense, I point out that it is nonsense. Bull. You aren't "thinking in greater than 2D".
Rather depends on what you define as the cause and the effect. If one looks at the example of pressing a button to detonate a nuclear bomb, one could look at the simple energy of the press as the cause, and the release of the vast amounts of energy as the effect... and see a massive imbalance. However I would argue that the true cause of the release of energy is the energy taken to initially form the nuclear material - i.e. the furnaces of the early universe, then the effort taken to extract the material from the earth, to rig up the device etc. The press of the button is just the last of the causes required, not the only cause. Where there is a single cause resulting in a single effect, the cause and effect are generally in balance. Alternatively, the sum of all causes generally balances with the sum of all causes. Differences will be perceived where one cherry-picks the cause and the effect. Alternatively, where one perceives a disparity between cause and effect, it is a safe bet that it is because one is not considering all the causes and/or effects.
The most commonly cited example is the "butterfly effect", in other words the weather. Another would be a near pass between two planetary bodies. My favorite though is the line of billiard balls thought experiment. Take a straight line of 15 or so billiard balls spaced an inch or so apart. The idea is to strike one end straight on with a cue ball so that the ball on the other end continues on straight. It can't be done. That is to say that if it does go straight it is strictly luck. Even if the balls, the table surface, etc are idealised as perfect an imbalence of a single air molecule impacting the cue ball can swing the final trajectory +/- 90 degrees. That's nonlinearity, a tiny difference in input makes a huge change in the output.
But that air molecule is precisely where it is because of an entire set of other causes. The trajectory of the last ball in the row is the result of the interaction among a large number of causes, including but not limited to the accuracy of the cue hitting the first ball, the trajectories of all the air molecules touching all of the balls, an earthquake in Japan shifting the floor under the table by a few femtometers, etc. BTW, I don't see any way the path of the final ball could be affected by ±90°. Did you mean ±45°? If these perturbations can result in the penultimate ball just "kissing" the end ball on a sideways trajectory, and they were only an inch apart, even 45° is probably a greater variation than could be achieved.
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Not many at all. But if the question is poorly defined and vague, such that it leaves a lot of room for different interpretations, then that's what you'll get: a whole bunch of different answers based on different interpretations of what the question might mean. "Can the effect be greater than its cause?" This is an ill-defined question. What is the effect of a cause? One thing can cause lots of other things, one after another. You can usually trace back a long line of causation. But the real problem is: what do you mean by "greater"? Greater in what way? Until you explain that, there's really nowhere to go without making assumptions as to what you might possibly mean.
