Related papers: Causality re-established
This paper provides a thorough introduction to the causal set hypothesis aimed at students, and other interested persons, with some knowledge of general relativity and nonrelativistic quantum mechanics. I elucidate the arguments for why the…
Quantum measurement predictions are consistent with relativity for macroscopic observations, but there is no consensus on how to explain this consistency in fundamental terms. The prevailing assumption is that the relativistic structure of…
We study the causal structure of a class of weakly nonlocal gravitational theories (eventually coupled to matter) that are compatible with perturbative unitarity and finiteness at quantum level. In particular, we show that in nonlocal…
Causal structures give us a way to understand the origin of observed correlations. These were developed for classical scenarios, but quantum mechanical experiments necessitate their generalisation. Here we study causal structures in a broad…
We look into the ontology of quantum theory as distinct from that of the classical theory in the sciences, following a broadly Kantian tradition and distinguishing between the noumenal and phenomenal realities where the former is…
The causal set approach to quantum gravity embodies the concepts of causality and discreteness. This article explores some foundational and conceptual issues within causal set theory.
Involving only the measurements of commuting observables - the problem-setting and the corresponding solution - quantum algorithms should be subject to classical logic. This would allow flanking their customary quantum description with a…
Using a process-theoretic formalism, we introduce the notion of a causal-inferential theory: a triple consisting of a theory of causal influences, a theory of inferences (of both the Boolean and Bayesian varieties), and a specification of…
Lewis' theory of counterfactuals is the foundation of many contemporary notions of causality. In this paper, we extend this theory in the temporal direction to enable symbolic counterfactual reasoning on infinite sequences, such as…
Quantum theory has been proved as an outstanding mystery in modern science. The predictions of science have turned out to be probabilistic. The principle of determinism has failed. For systems like weather, earthquakes, rolling dices etc...…
Predicting the future is an important component of decision making. In most situations, however, there is not enough information to make accurate predictions. In this paper, we develop a theory of causal reasoning for predictive inference…
General Relativity traces the evolution of our Universe back to a Big Bang singularity. To probe physics before the singularity -- if indeed there is a ``before'' -- we must turn to quantum gravity. The Causal Set approach to quantum…
Philosophers now seem to agree that frequentism is an untenable strategy to explain the meaning of probabilities. Nevertheless, I want to revive frequentism, and I will do so by grounding probabilities on typicality in the same way as the…
We discuss the notion of causality in Quantum Gravity in the context of sum-over-histories approaches, in the absence therefore of any background time parameter. In the spin foam formulation of Quantum Gravity, we identify the appropriate…
By representing an event as the joint state of a detector-timer couple that interact with a system, we recover the familiar tensor product structure, used to describe spatially separated systems, in the context of timelike events.…
I apply some of the lessons from quantum theory, in particular from Bell's theorem, to a debate on the foundations of decision theory and causation. By tracing a formal analogy between the basic assumptions of Causal Decision Theory…
A non-relativistic quantum mechanical theory is proposed that describes the universe as a continuum of worlds whose mutual interference gives rise to quantum phenomena. A logical framework is introduced to properly deal with propositions…
The question of what ontological message (if any) is encoded in the formalism of contemporary physics is, to say the least, controversial. The reasons for this state of affairs are psychological and neurobiological. The processes by which…
Bell's 1964 theorem causes a severe problem for the notion that correlations require explanation, encapsulated in Reichenbach's Principle of Common Cause. Despite being a hallmark of scientific thought, dropping the principle has been…
It was recently realised that quantum theory allows for so-called causally nonseparable processes, which are incompatible with any definite causal order. This was first suggested on a rather abstract level by the formalism of process…