Causing Yesterday's Effects

In this paper I wish to examine the claim that it would be possible for us now to do something which would be the posterior efficient cause of some past event. I am not prepared to discuss the physics of elementary particles, and I will not consider what is sometimes called time reversal. Rather my analysis will be limited to cases in which it is alleged that we, in a world of middle-sized physical objects where most causes precede or are simultaneous with their effects, could conceivably do something so that something else should have happened. I will argue that some of the cases which meet this description are indeed backwards causation if one is prepared to make certain (not uncommon) assumptions about time. I will not evaluate these assumptions; rather I will try to clarify them and to make plain their implications for causality. For the argument about backwards causation is most fundamentally, or so I will try to show, an argument about the nature of time.

Download Full-text

Isolated Objects and Their Evolution: A Derivation of the Propagator’s Path Integral for Spinless Elementary Particles

Foundations of Physics ◽

10.1007/s10701-021-00535-9 ◽

2022 ◽

Vol 52 (1) ◽

Author(s):

Domenico Napoletani ◽

Daniele C. Struppa

Keyword(s):

Time Reversal ◽

Equivalence Principle ◽

Relativistic Effects ◽

Elementary Particles ◽

State Variables ◽

Consistent Theory ◽

General Potential ◽

Limiting Case ◽

Weak Fields ◽

Spacetime Paths

AbstractWe formalize the notion of isolated objects (units), and we build a consistent theory to describe their evolution and interaction. We further introduce a notion of indistinguishability of distinct spacetime paths of a unit, for which the evolution of the state variables of the unit is the same, and a generalization of the equivalence principle based on indistinguishability. Under a time reversal condition on the whole set of indistinguishable paths of a unit, we show that the quantization of motion of spinless elementary particles in a general potential field can be derived in this framework, in the limiting case of weak fields and low velocities. Extrapolating this approach to include weak relativistic effects, we explore possible experimental consequences. We conclude by suggesting a primitive ontology for the theory of isolated objects.

Download Full-text

Dialogues about Emergence

KronoScope ◽

10.1163/15685241-12341345 ◽

2016 ◽

Vol 16 (1) ◽

pp. 15-135

Author(s):

Rémy Lestienne

Keyword(s):

Free Will ◽

Charles Darwin ◽

Specific Effect ◽

Elementary Particles ◽

Point Of View ◽

James Clerk Maxwell ◽

Famous Book ◽

Nature Of Time ◽

To Come ◽

The Brain

What is Emergence? Some scientists nowadays have revitalized this already old idea, according to which, when one climbs the ladders of complexity, from elementary particles to galaxies and amebas to humankind, new properties appear. “The whole is more than the sum of its parts,” they say. Some among them even refer to a specific effect of the whole on the parts: Do not our conscious decisions change what the neurons in our brain do, thereby justifying our free will? Going beyond the old scientific ideal of reductionism, this revival of emergence augurs a revolution to come, somewhat similar to that which occurred when Galileo argued for the inversion of the old cosmology to adopt the Copernican point of view. Here thus the return of the three protagonists of the famous book of Galileo, brought up to date: Sagredo, Simplicio, and Salviata. Each day during a certain spring in Paris, they go to Saint Germain des Près, the museum of the Conservatoire des Arts et Métiers, and so forth. They meet there famous scientists, such as James Clerk Maxwell, Charles Darwin, Ilya Prigogine, or Roger Sperry. With them, they discuss emergence in their respective disciplines. By listening to them, one can measure the formidable challenges of this new debate for science and philosophy and better understand phenomena as various as the shape of molecules, the workings of the brain, or, perhaps more importantly, the nature of time.

Download Full-text

Elementary Particles and the Laws of Physics

10.1017/cbo9781107590076 ◽

1987 ◽

Cited By ~ 38

Author(s):

Richard P. Feynman ◽

Steven Weinberg

Keyword(s):

Elementary Particles

Download Full-text

AN INTRODUCTION TO ELEMENTARY PARTICLES : THE OPEN UNIVERSITY APPROACH

Le Journal de Physique Colloques ◽

10.1051/jphyscol:1973162 ◽

1973 ◽

Vol 34 (C1) ◽

pp. C1-447-C1-450

Author(s):

F. R. STANNARD

Keyword(s):

Elementary Particles ◽

Open University

Download Full-text

The Moving Cause of Artefacts: the role of techne in metaphysical explanation

Ancient Philosophy Today ◽

10.3366/anph.2019.0005 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 1 (1) ◽

pp. 64-83

Author(s):

Margaret Cameron

Keyword(s):

Alternative Theory ◽

Metaphysical Explanation ◽

Efficient Cause ◽

The Creation

The essence of artefacts is typically taken to be their function: they are defined in terms of the goals or aims of the artisans that make them. In this paper, an alternative theory is proposed that emphasizes, via a reconstruction of Aristotle's various comments about the nature of artefacts, the role of the moving, or efficient, cause of artefacts. This account shifts the emphasis to the role played by the investment of expertise into the creation (and subsequent being) of artefacts. It turns out that expertise is prior in being and prior in explanation to the function of artefacts, and thus plays the most fundamental role in the explanation of the ontology of artefacts.

Download Full-text