Related papers: On Causality and Predictivity
It is often claimed that one cannot locate a notion of causation in fundamental physical theories. The reason most commonly given is that the dynamics of those theories do not support any distinction between the past and the future, and…
Although general relativity is a predictively successful theory, it treats matter as classical rather than as quantum. For this reason, it will have to be replaced by a more fundamental quantum theory of gravity. Attempts to formulate a…
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…
The Hilbert space formalism describes causality as a statistical relation between initial experimental conditions and final measurement outcomes, expressed by the inner products of state vectors representing these conditions. This…
Causality is a seminal concept in science: Any research discipline, from sociology and medicine to physics and chemistry, aims at understanding the causes that could explain the correlations observed among some measured variables. While…
Retrocausal models of QM add further weight to the conflict between causality and the possible existence of free will. We analyze a simple closed causal loop ensuing from the interaction between two systems with opposing thermodynamic time…
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…
This thesis is situated within the context of quantum gravity, broadly understood as any effort to explore the interplay between gravitation and the quantum realm, without necessarily requiring the quantization of the gravitational field…
The principle of common cause is discussed as a possible fundamental principle of physics. Some revisions of Reichenbach's formulation of the principle are given, which lead to a version given by Bell. Various similar forms are compared and…
Causality is a non-obvious concept that is often considered to be related to temporality. In this paper we present a number of past and present approaches to the definition of temporality and causality from philosophical, physical, and…
A theory governing the metric and matter fields in spacetime is {\it locally causal} if the probability distribution for the fields in any region is determined solely by physical data in the region's past, i.e. it is independent of events…
In the light of some recent results, it is argued that usual concepts of causality and locality are approximations valid at scales greater than the Compton wavelength and corresponding time scales. It follows that the "spooky" non-locality…
Causal fermion systems are introduced as a general mathematical framework for formulating relativistic quantum theory. By specializing, we recover earlier notions like fermion systems in discrete space-time, the fermionic projector and…
In modeling multivariate time series for either forecast or policy analysis, it would be beneficial to have figured out the cause-effect relations within the data. Regression analysis, however, is generally for correlation relation, and…
We review the concept of purely virtual particle and its uses in quantum gravity, primordial cosmology and collider physics. The fake particle, or "fakeon", which mediates interactions without appearing among the incoming and outgoing…
The idea that events obey a definite causal order is deeply rooted in our understanding of the world and at the basis of the very notion of time. But where does causal order come from, and is it a necessary property of nature? We address…
Machine learning algorithms can produce biased outcome/prediction, typically, against minorities and under-represented sub-populations. Therefore, fairness is emerging as an important requirement for the large scale application of machine…
One of the basic assumptions implicit in the way physics is usually done is that all causation flows in a bottom up fashion, from micro to macro scales. However this is wrong in many cases in biology, and in particular in the way the brain…
Causal reasoning is essential to science, yet quantum theory challenges it. Quantum correlations violating Bell inequalities defy satisfactory causal explanations within the framework of classical causal models. What is more, a theory…
We expect a theory of Quantum Gravity to be both probabilistic and have indefinite causal structure. Indefinite causal structure poses particular problems for theory formulation since many of the core ideas used in the usual approaches to…