Maudlin (2007) points out that when reading (ii), premise 2 is wrong, because not all fundamental laws of physics are actually invariant of time reversal. According to the CPT theorem, any plausible quantum theory is invariant under the combination of parity transformation plus charge conjugation plus time inversion. Since there is experimental evidence of CP violations, we should conclude that quantum theories violate time reversal invariance. According to Field, “in physics, the concept of causal signal is only necessary for operational construction,” while “in a less operational view, terms such as energy-momentum-flow and various temporal concepts such as the structure of the cone of light are sufficient to speak of causal signals” (Field 2003, p. 436). Field does not justify his assessment that the light cone structure of relativistic physics can replace the concept of causal process. It seems more correct to say that the structure of the cone of light provides a framework to represent the causal stress imposed on all processes that transport matter-energy to propagate at infraluminal speed. O1 A first challenge to the hypothesis that transmission fulfills the role of causality from a physical point of view was put forward by Dieks (1986). In classical physical theories, “energy and momentum are introduced as quantities that obey the global laws of conservation”, so that “it is not necessary to consider energy and momentum as a kind of substance that is transferred from particles and fields before interaction to those after interaction, while retaining their identity” (Dieks 1986, p.
88). Since conservation laws are global, not only is there no need to understand quantities such as energy as substances, but physics also offers no reason to understand them in this way. As Maxwell said, “We cannot identify a particular part of energy or follow it through its transformations. It has no individual existence, for we attribute it to certain parts of matter” (Clerk Maxwell 1925, 90). [17] Unlike the metaphysical project, the descriptive project aims to describe our practices of causal argumentation. Traditionally, philosophers tend to understand this project as a central goal, to provide conceptual analyses of our everyday concept or concepts of causes. A conceptual analysis provides the necessary and sufficient prerequisites for claims of the form “c causes e”. Regularity reports, Mackie`s INUS state calculation or David Lewis` counterfactual analysis are examples of the descriptive project. In principle, the project could draw on a wide range of data, including empirical work by psychologists and cognitive scientists. In general, however, the descriptive project has focused almost exclusively on examining what philosophers, upon reflection, consider reasonable intuitions regarding causal judgments (often with Billy and Suzy throwing stones, or assassins pouring poison into drinks). Those who develop conceptual analyses tend to focus their analyses on the causal claims of common sense, rather than on the use of causal terms in physics or science in general.
According to causal imperialists like Lewis, this explanation is causal because it provides information about the causal history of a metal sample. Does this interpretation of the explanation, as an indication of a hidden causal structure, allow us to clarify its explanatory meaning? As we have seen, Pearls and Woodward`s accounts of causality emphasize two characteristics as characteristic functions of causal ideas. First, knowledge of causal structures allows us to identify relationships that are manipulable and controllable; And second, common cause reasoning allows us to draw conclusions from one point in time to another, even if we have only incomplete knowledge of the state of a system on an area of initial or final value. However, according to the analysis of the concept of causality described above, the dependence of one measure on the other in an EPR-type experiment does not meet the necessary conditions for causal dependence. The two measurement events in such an experiment can be space-like, while special relativity requires that only pairs of events related to time (or light) can be causally related. The non-causal nature of the dependence of one measurement result on the other can also be emphasized (using the interventionist condition (5)) by the fact that it is impossible to manipulate one result by intervening in the other (Hausman and Woodward 1999, p. 565). Correlations between measurement events on entangled pairs of particles, which are spatially related, are cases of non-local, but non-causal, determination. [19] Other authors have proposed more direct arguments for deriving causal asymmetry from assumptions in the fundamental principles of thermodynamics than those developed by Albert and Loewer, arguing that we can deduce the common cause principle and thus the direction of causality directly from the initial probabilistic independence hypothesis. For a large class of microscopic conditions, the probabilistic assumption of independence follows from the assumption of initial microscopic chaos (Horwich, 1987; Papineau, 1985). In particular, as Arntzenius argues, the probabilistic assumption of independence for spatially separated microstates is fulfilled if we initially assume microscopic chaos (Arntzenius 1999 [2010]).
There is also an active debate in the literature about how causal and thermodynamic asymmetries are related to various epistemic asymmetries, such as record asymmetry or asymmetry regarding our epistemic approach to past and future. For various accounts of knowledge asymmetry and document asymmetry, see Horwich, 1987; Albert, 2000, 2015; Loewer, 2007; Frisch, 2007, 2014; and Ismael 2016. Although conservation quantity calculations provide an analysis of the concept of causal relationship, they do not in themselves provide a distinction between cause and effect. In order to introduce the direction of the causal relationship, Dowe completes his computation of conserved quantity with reference to Reichenbach`s (1956) gabelassymmetry. Reichenbach distinguishes between open forks in time and closed forks. If an event C occurred in the past that protects A from B, but there is no shielding event in the future of A and B, then this represents an open range. If there is an event C in the past and in addition an event (C`) in the future of A and B that protects A from B, we have a closed fork. Now, Reichenbach`s gabelasymmetry thesis consists in the assertion that all open forks are open to the future. Dowe (2000:204) defines the direction of causal processes by the direction of the majority of open forks (which in principle takes into account the possibility of backward causality). To better understand the Newtonian force, which is a change of momentum, we should briefly examine the predecessor of the momentum, the momentum of the scholastic.
The Arab philosopher Ibn Sina (980-1037) first postulated that moving objects have an inclination (mayl) to motion that is proportional to the mass multiplied by the velocity, and this inclination is resolved only by external forces of resistance. Thus, a moving object of a given mass would continue to move at the same speed without air resistance or other external forces. A moving object retains its own movement until something changes it. The scholastic John Buridan (ca. 1300-1360), Ibn Sina`s hypothesis, developed into a full-fledged quantitative theory of impulse, a propensity to move that can be transferred from one object to another in proportion to the speed of an object. Buridan agreed with Ibn Sina that impulses are not dispersed except by external forces of resistance. He added that gravity pushes projectiles down. His successors, the Mertonian scholastics, combined impulses even more explicitly with violent movements. When an agent moved an object by force, it was said to transmit both a real force or a driving force and an impulse or inclination. In Mertonian physics, force and momentum are things mediated by an agent violently moving an object.
Again, the challenge can be posed in each of the three philosophical projects, with subtle but important projects different in each case. In the descriptive project, the argument would aim to show that a certain characteristic of our common sense of cause does not allow this notion, at least in certain theoretical frameworks of physics. The causal imperialists, as we might call them, argue that all scientific explanations are fundamentally causal. Neo-Russellians, on the other hand, deny that causal ideas and causal explanations can play a role in the corresponding fundamental theories of physics. Yet despite their glaring disagreements, neo-Russellians and causal imperialists share a commitment to what Woodward called “the strategy of hidden structure” (Woodward 2003b [2019]).
