Thoughts on our discussion of the "Theory of Everything" article

I've been thinking more about our discussion today in class, and I think I have a better idea of why I don't like the concept proposed in the paper. The "Theory of Everything" paper suggests that, at a fundamental level, we cannot derive the laws/theories of some higher level processes with the theories of lower ones (as an example I'll stick with, that high temperature superconductivity might be fundamentally unexplainable with Schrodinger's equation and Maxwell's equations).

We talked about not liking it because we want all of the math to line up; that the math and equations for, say, high temperature super-conductivity, should ultimately line up with the equations of Maxwell's equations and Schrodinger's equation. But after thinking about it I'm not sure this the real problem (I at least have) with it. The real problem I think is causation.

The reason we think high-temp superconductivity's (HTS) equations should relate back to Maxwell/Schrodinger equations is that we think HTS should be caused by those more fundamental theories. And as we discussed, if that's not the case, that should just mean Maxwell and Schrodinger aren't the complete story, and we need a more general fundamental theory that will allow us to describe HTS from fundamental principles. What this paper describes, that fundamental principles simply cannot be used to describe higher level ones, seems to me to imply that higher level processes are not caused by lower level ones. If a process is caused by something, we should be able to trace that causation back, or start from fundamentals and show how the fundamentals cause the higher level behavior. My (potentially flawed) idea here is that if one thing causes another, we should, in one way or another (even if it requires something more advanced than our current tool of math), be able to trace that causation through theory.

If that is a correct assumption, that would mean that if HTS cannot be traced back to fundamental theories, that it must not have a cause. It would be a completely spontaneous process that occurs for absolutely no reason. It would mean that if you were to analyze HTS and perform the classic child analysis of continuously asking "why", that if you kept asking why some part of HTS happens the way it does, then you would eventually run into a dead end. Which flies in the face of everything (I think) being a physicist is about. We never let go of that child-like behavior, and we always strive towards some fundamental "why" of the universe. Which is why I'm so unwilling to accept the paper's premise. As far as I know, the one and only truly spontaneous process physicists are willing to accept (and only begrudgingly) is the big bang. From then on, I would think that all things must be caused by something else, and as such that all things can be traced back to more fundamental equations and theories.

I'm really curious about everybody else's opinion on this, and whether or not I might be off base.