Related papers: Toy Models of Top Down Causation
Can a large system be fully characterized using its subsystems via inductive reasoning? Is it possible to completely reduce the behavior of a complex system to the behavior of its simplest "atoms"? In the following paper we answer these…
Considering what the world would be like if backwards causation were possible is usually mind-bending. Here I discuss something that is easier to study: a toy model that incorporates a very restricted sort of backwards causation. It defines…
It is often argued that bottom-up causation under a physicalist, reductionist worldview precludes free will in the libertarian sense. On the one hand, the paradigm of classical mechanics makes determinism inescapable, while on the other,…
Discussions on causal relations in real life often consider variables for which the definition of causality is unclear since the notion of interventions on the respective variables is obscure. Asking 'what qualifies an action for being an…
In previous publications, we have argued that a form of panprotopsychism based on quantum states and events offers a solution to the combination problem. This framework explains the emergence of complex phenomenal qualities and conscious…
We present a novel task that measures how people generalize objects' causal powers based on observing a single (Experiment 1) or a few (Experiment 2) causal interactions between object pairs. We propose a computational modeling framework…
With a mathematical eye to Matt Visser's multihistory approach to the time-travel-paradoxes of General Relativity, a non relativistic toy model is analyzed in order of characterizing the conditions in which, in such a toy model, causation…
Bayesian probability theory is one of the most successful frameworks to model reasoning under uncertainty. Its defining property is the interpretation of probabilities as degrees of belief in propositions about the state of the world…
In this paper we consider the problem of combining multiple probabilistic causal models, provided by different experts, under the requirement that the aggregated model satisfy the criterion of counterfactual fairness. We build upon the work…
It is often claimed that the fundamental laws of physics are deterministic and time-symmetric and that therefore our experience of the passage of time is an illusion. This paper will critically discuss these claims and show that they are…
This paper presents a framework for Quantum causal modeling based on the interpretation of causality as a relation between an observer's probability assignments to hypothetical or counterfactual experiments. The framework is based on the…
Mechanistic interpretability aims to reverse engineer neural networks by uncovering which high-level algorithms they implement. Causal abstraction provides a precise notion of when a network implements an algorithm, i.e., a causal model of…
Downward causation is self-causation, the causel effect from the whole to its parts, and is considered a promising theory for the problem of mental causation. However, it remains to be clarified how an irreducible but supervenient downward…
The Causal Set approach to quantum gravity asserts that spacetime, at its smallest length scale, has a discrete structure. This discrete structure takes the form of a locally finite order relation, where the order, corresponding with the…
From behavioral sciences to biology to quantum mechanics, one encounters situations where (i) a system outputs several random variables in response to several inputs, (ii) for each of these responses only some of the inputs may "directly"…
Causal Models are like Dependency Graphs and Belief Nets in that they provide a structure and a set of assumptions from which a joint distribution can, in principle, be computed. Unlike Dependency Graphs, Causal Models are models of…
In previous papers, we demonstrated that an ontology of quantum mechanics, described in terms of states and events with internal phenomenal aspects (a form of panprotopsychism), is well suited to explain consciousness. We showed that the…
Causality among events is widely recognized as a most fundamental structure of spacetime, and causal sets have been proposed as discrete models of the latter in the context of quantum gravity theories, notably in the Causal Set Programme.…
Uncertainties in the real world mean that is impossible for system designers to anticipate and explicitly design for all scenarios that a robot might encounter. Thus, robots designed like this are fragile and fail outside of…
The eigenstates and eigenenergies of a toy model, which arose in idealizing a local quenched tight-binding model in a previous publication [Zhang and Yang, EPL 114, 60001 (2016)], are solved analytically. This enables us to study its…