scholarly journals Classifying Dependencies

2020 ◽  
pp. 46-68
Author(s):  
Alastair Wilson
Keyword(s):  
Causal Explanation ◽  
Clear View

Do causes always precede their effects? Is causation across a temporal gap possible? Is simultaneous causation possible? The comparative neglect of such questions means that we still lack a clear view of the underlying nature of causation. Metaphysicians typically distinguish sharply between grounding and causation, and philosophers of science typically distinguish sharply between causal and non-causal explanation, but there has been surprisingly little discussion of how exactly to draw these distinctions. This chapter argues that six of the most obvious criteria fail to capture the intended distinction between causation and grounding. The chapter proposes and defends an alternative criterion in terms of the principles mediating the dependency, and explores some of the implications of this criterion for the possibility of simultaneous causation in physics.

SAFETY AND RISK ASSESSMENT AT AUTOMATED WORKPLACE

2018 ◽  
pp. 78-84
Author(s):  
Marek Vagas
Keyword(s):  
Risk Assessment ◽  
Industrial Robot ◽  
Industrial Robots ◽  
Added Value ◽  
Growing Up ◽  
Target Setting ◽  
Clear View ◽  
General Safety

Urgency of the research. Automated workplaces are growing up in present, especially with implementation of industrial robots with feasibility of various dispositions, where safety and risk assessment is considered as most important issues. Target setting. The protection of workers must be at the first place, therefore safety and risk assessment at automated workplaces is most important problematic, which had presented in this article Actual scientific researches and issues analysis. Actual research is much more focused at standard workplaces without industrial robots. So, missing of information from the field of automated workplaces in connection with various dispositions can be considered as added value of article. Uninvestigated parts of general matters defining. Despite to lot of general safety instructions in this area, still is missed clear view only at automated workplace with industrial robots. The research objective. The aim of article is to provide general instructions directly from the field of automated workplaces The statement of basic materials. For success realization of automated workplace is good to have a helping hand and orientation requirements needed for risk assessment at the workplace. Conclusions. The results published in this article increase the awareness and information of such automated workplaces, together with industrial robots. In addition, presented general steps and requirements helps persons for better realization of these types of workplaces, where major role takes an industrial robot. Our proposed solution can be considered as relevant base for risk assessment such workplaces with safety fences or light barriers.

Probability and Explanation

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard Healey
Keyword(s):  
Quantum Theory ◽  
Quantum State ◽  
Causal Explanation ◽  
Born Rule ◽  
Correct Application

We can use quantum theory to explain an enormous variety of phenomena by showing why they were to be expected and what they depend on. These explanations of probabilistic phenomena involve applications of the Born rule: to accept quantum theory is to let relevant Born probabilities guide one’s credences about presently inaccessible events. We use quantum theory to explain a probabilistic phenomenon by showing how its probabilities follow from a correct application of the Born rule, thereby exhibiting the phenomenon’s dependence on the quantum state to be assigned in circumstances of that type. This is not a causal explanation since a probabilistic phenomenon is not constituted by events that may manifest it: but each of those events does depend causally on events that actually occur in those circumstances. Born probabilities are objective and sui generis, but not all Born probabilities are chances.

scholarly journals Beyond Causal Explanation: Einstein’s Principle Not Reichenbach’s

Entropy ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 23 (1) ◽  
pp. 114
Author(s):  
Michael Silberstein ◽  
William Mark Stuckey ◽  
Timothy McDevitt
Keyword(s):  
Quantum Mechanics ◽  
Quantum Information ◽  
Causal Explanation ◽  
Causal Structure ◽  
Minkowski Spacetime ◽  
Physical Principle ◽  
Causal Principle ◽  
Complete Rejection ◽  
Epr Correlations ◽  
Tsirelson Bound

Our account provides a local, realist and fully non-causal principle explanation for EPR correlations, contextuality, no-signalling, and the Tsirelson bound. Indeed, the account herein is fully consistent with the causal structure of Minkowski spacetime. We argue that retrocausal accounts of quantum mechanics are problematic precisely because they do not fully transcend the assumption that causal or constructive explanation must always be fundamental. Unlike retrocausal accounts, our principle explanation is a complete rejection of Reichenbach’s Principle. Furthermore, we will argue that the basis for our principle account of quantum mechanics is the physical principle sought by quantum information theorists for their reconstructions of quantum mechanics. Finally, we explain why our account is both fully realist and psi-epistemic.

scholarly journals Philosophy as Synchronic History

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-18
Author(s):  
DANIEL STOLJAR
Keyword(s):  
Causal Explanation ◽  
David Lewis ◽  
Analytic Philosophy ◽  
Philosophy Of History ◽  
Bernard Williams ◽  
History Of ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
Philosophical Progress ◽  
The Way

Abstract Bernard Williams argues that philosophy is in some deep way akin to history. This article is a novel exploration and defense of the Williams thesis (as I call it)—though in a way anathema to Williams himself. The key idea is to apply a central moral from what is sometimes called the analytic philosophy of history of the 1960s to the philosophy of philosophy of today, namely, the separation of explanation and laws. I suggest that an account of causal explanation offered by David Lewis may be modified to bring out the way in which this moral applies to philosophy, and so to defend the Williams thesis. I discuss in detail the consequences of the thesis for the issue of philosophical progress and note also several further implications: for the larger context of contemporary metaphilosophy, for the relation of philosophy to other subjects, and for explaining, or explaining away, the belief that success in philosophy requires a field-specific ability or brilliance.

scholarly journals The Inflation Technique Completely Solves the Causal Compatibility Problem

2020 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 70-91 ◽  
Author(s):  
Miguel Navascués ◽  
Elie Wolfe
Keyword(s):  
Linear Programming ◽  
Latent Variables ◽  
Causal Explanation ◽  
Causal Structure ◽  
Categorical Variables ◽  
False Negatives ◽  
The Given ◽  
Causal Structures ◽  
Compatibility Question ◽  
Structure Graph

AbstractThe causal compatibility question asks whether a given causal structure graph — possibly involving latent variables — constitutes a genuinely plausible causal explanation for a given probability distribution over the graph’s observed categorical variables. Algorithms predicated on merely necessary constraints for causal compatibility typically suffer from false negatives, i.e. they admit incompatible distributions as apparently compatible with the given graph. In 10.1515/jci-2017-0020, one of us introduced the inflation technique for formulating useful relaxations of the causal compatibility problem in terms of linear programming. In this work, we develop a formal hierarchy of such causal compatibility relaxations. We prove that inflation is asymptotically tight, i.e., that the hierarchy converges to a zero-error test for causal compatibility. In this sense, the inflation technique fulfills a longstanding desideratum in the field of causal inference. We quantify the rate of convergence by showing that any distribution which passes the nth-order inflation test must be $\begin{array}{} \displaystyle {O}{\left(n^{{{-}{1}}/{2}}\right)} \end{array}$-close in Euclidean norm to some distribution genuinely compatible with the given causal structure. Furthermore, we show that for many causal structures, the (unrelaxed) causal compatibility problem is faithfully formulated already by either the first or second order inflation test.

scholarly journals Anisotropy of the Microwave Background and Biased Galaxy Formation

1988 ◽  
Vol 130 ◽  
pp. 43-50
Author(s):  
Nick Kaiser
Keyword(s):  
Galaxy Formation ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Microwave Background ◽  
Galaxy Clustering ◽  
Clear View ◽  
Hot Gas ◽  
Density Perturbations ◽  
The Universe ◽  
Theoretical Developments

Fluctuations in the microwave background will have been imprinted at z ≃ 1000, when the photons and the plasma decoupled. On angular scales greater than a few degrees these fluctuations provide a clear view of any primordial density perturbations, and therefore a clean test of theories which invoke such fluctuations from which to form the structure we see in the universe. On smaller angular scales the predictions are less certain: reionization of the gas may modify the spectrum of the primordial fluctuations, and secondary fluctuations may be generated.Here I shall review some recent theoretical developments. A brief survey is made of the currently popular theories for the primordial perturbations, with emphasis on the predictions for large scale anisotropy. One major uncetainty in the predictions arises from the normalisation of the fluctuations to e.g. galaxy clustering, and much attention is given to the question of ‘biased’ galaxy formation. The effect of reionization on the primordial fluctuations is discussed, as is the anisotropy generated from scattering off hot gas in clusters, groups and galaxies.

Flock size and formation in black-billed gulls

1982 ◽  
Vol 60 (8) ◽  
pp. 1806-1811 ◽  
Author(s):  
Roger M. Evans
Keyword(s):  
Size Distribution ◽  
Causal Model ◽  
Causal Explanation ◽  
Flock Size ◽  
Group Foraging ◽  
Foraging Site ◽  
Site Tenacity

Black-billed gulls (Larus bulleri) depart form breeding colonies and foraging sites in nonrandom, clumped formations (flocks). Flocks leaving colonies were significantly smaller than those leaving foraging sites, in part owing to more "upflights" at foraging sites. When more birds left a colony per unit time, flocks were both larger and more frequent.A causal model was developed based on the assumptions that flock departures from a colony or foraging site result from the effects of social attractions superimposed on otherwise random departure intervals. This model successfully predicted the size distribution of flocks departing from four colonies and foraging sites. In conjunction with the concepts of site tenacity and habituation, the model also permits a causal explanation of differences in the size of flocks departing colonies compared with foraging sites, and of size differences in flocks arising from "upflights" as opposed to the more common "straggling" columnar formations. The model and results are consistent with the hypothesis that colonies function as assembly points that facilitate group foraging.

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