Recently, it has been argued that the use of Big Data transforms the sciences, making data-driven research possible and studying causality redundant. In this paper, I focus on the claim on causal knowledge by examining the Big Data project EXPOsOMICS, whose research is funded by the European Commission and considered capable of improving our understanding of the relation between exposure and disease. While EXPOsOMICS may seem the perfect exemplification of the data-driven view, I show how causal knowledge is necessary (...) for the project, both as a source for handling complexity and as an output for meeting the project’s goals. Consequently, I argue that data-driven claims about causality are fundamentally flawed and causal knowledge should be considered a necessary aspect of Big Data science. In addition, I present the consequences of this result on other data-driven claims, concerning the role of theoretical considerations. I argue that the importance of causal knowledge and other kinds of theoretical engagement in EXPOsOMICS undermine theory-free accounts and suggest alternative ways of framing science based on Big Data. (shrink)

There are three questions associated with Simpson’s Paradox (SP): (i) Why is SP paradoxical? (ii) What conditions generate SP?, and (iii) What should be done about SP? By developing a logic-based account of SP, it is argued that (i) and (ii) must be divorced from (iii). This account shows that (i) and (ii) have nothing to do with causality, which plays a role only in addressing (iii). A counterexample is also presented against the causal account. Finally, the causal and (...) logic-based approaches are compared by means of an experiment to show that SP is not basically causal. (shrink)

Causality and game theory are two influential fields that contribute significantly to decision-making in various domains. Causality defines and models causal relationships in complex policy problems, while game theory provides insights into strategic interactions among stakeholders with competing interests. Integrating these frameworks has led to significant theoretical advancements with the potential to improve decision-making processes. However, practical applications of these developments remain underexplored. To support efforts toward implementation, this paper surveys key concepts in game theory and causality (...) that are essential to their intersection, particularly within the context of probabilistic graphical models. By rigorously examining these concepts and illustrating them with intuitive, consistent examples, we clarify the required inputs for implementing these models, provide practitioners with insights into their application and selection across different scenarios, and reference existing research that supports their implementation. We hope this work encourages broader adoption of these models in real-world scenarios. (shrink)

Many maintain that petitionary prayer is pointless. I argue that the theist can defend petitionary prayer by giving a general account of how divine and creaturely causation can be compatible and complementary, based on the claim that the goodness of something depends on its cause. I use Thomas Aquinas’s metaphysical framework to give an account that explains why a world with creaturely causation better reflects God’s goodness than a world in which God brought all things about immediately. In such a (...) world, prayer could allow us to cause good things in a distinctive way: by asking God for them. (shrink)

This paper explores the origins of the term "causa sine qua non" used by Durand de Saint-Pourçain to describe the role of material things in knowledge. I show that its technical meaning comes from the Stoics and was transmitted to the Middle Ages by Boethius' commentary on Cicero's Topics. The expression "sine qua non" here does not have the ordinary and restricted meaning of "indispensable", "necessary condition", which can also apply to direct, per se causes of an effect. In the (...) present context, sine qua non causes do not act on the effect in question, either as concomitant, secondary, or instrumental causes, or as remote causes. They act only on that which hinders the actualization of a potentiality, in order to remove that obstacle. For example, the removal of a support that prevented something from falling does not act on that thing, nor does it add anything to its tendency to fall; it simply enables that thing to exercise its own actualization. Similarly, in cognitive processes, external things do not impose anything on the soul, but simply give it the opportunity to actualize its faculties of its own accord. I situate Durand's use of this form of causality in the context of late 13th/early 14th century theories of cognition, among several other attempts to find an alternative theory to the standard Aristotelian model and to maintain the pure activity of the soul with respect to the body. (shrink)

There is widespread belief in a tension between quantum theory and special relativity, motivated by the idea that quantum theory violates J. S. Bell’s criterion of local causality, which is meant to implement the causal structure of relativistic space-time. This paper argues that if one takes the essential intuitive idea behind local causality to be that probabilities in a locally causal theory depend only on what occurs in the backward light cone and if one regards objective probability as (...) what imposes constraints on rational credence along the lines of David Lewis’ Principal Principle, then one arrives at the view that whether or not Bell’s criterion holds is irrelevant for whether or not local causality holds. The assumptions on which this argument rests are highlighted, and those that may seem controversial are motivated. (shrink)

The paper is concentrated on the special changes of the conception of causality from quantum mechanics to quantum information meaning as a background the revolution implemented by the former to classical physics and science after Max Born’s probabilistic reinterpretation of wave function. Those changes can be enumerated so: (1) quantum information describes the general case of the relation of two wave functions, and particularly, the causal amendment of a single one; (2) it keeps the physical description to be causal (...) by the conservation of quantum information and in accordance with Born’s interpretation; (3) it introduces inverse causality, “backwards in time”, observable “forwards in time” as the fundamentally random probability density distribution of all possible measurements of any physical quantity in quantum mechanics; (4) it involves a kind of “bidirectional causality” unifying (4.1) the classical determinism of cause and effect, (4.2) the probabilistic causality of quantum mechanics, and (4.3) the reversibility of any coherent state; (5) it identifies determinism with the function successor in Peano arithmetic, and its proper generalized causality with the information function successor in Hilbert arithmetic. (shrink)

It has been stated that the notion of cause and effect is one object of study that sciences and engineering revolve around. Lately, in software engineering, diagrammatic causal inference methods (e.g., Pearl’s model) have gained popularity (e.g., analyzing causes and effects of change in software requirement development). This paper concerns diagrammatical (graphic) models of causal relationships. Specifically, we experiment with using the conceptual language of thinging machines (TMs) as a tool in this context. This would benefit works on causal relationships (...) in requirements engineering, enhance our understanding of the TM modeling, and contribute to the study of the philosophical notion of causality. To specify the causality in a system’s description is to constrain the system’s behavior and thus exclude some possible chronologies of events. The notion of causality has been studied based on tools to express causal questions in diagrammatic and algebraic forms. Causal models deploy diagrammatic models, structural equations, and counterfactual and interventional logic. Diagrammatic models serve as a language for representing what we know about the world. The research methodology in the paper focuses on converting causal graphs into TM models and contrasts the two types of representation. The results show that the TM depiction of causality is more complete and therefore can provide a foundation for causal graphs. (shrink)

This paper argues that the explanatory limits of theoretical frameworks are structurally determined by scale. Any framework that is sufficiently general to apply across domains necessarily loses explanatory power, while frameworks that provide strong explanations are inevitably restricted to specific scales. To formalize this tension, the paper introduces three concepts: scale-dependent causality, threshold-based stability, and thought frameworks as emergent constraints. It is shown that many phenomena commonly described as “complex” are in fact artifacts of scale mismatch between the analytical (...) framework and the underlying system. Meaning is treated as a relational output rather than a primary cause, and social or systemic conflicts are interpreted as consequences of connectivity structures rather than individual preferences. The paper proposes a minimal meta-theoretical model for evaluating explanatory frameworks and suggests that the failure of many theories is not empirical but structural: they operate at an incompatible scale. The framework is formulated in a way that allows for potential falsification through scale transformation and comparative analysis. (shrink)

The purpose of this article is to examine two important issues concerning the agency theory of causality: the charge of anthropomorphism and the relation of simultaneous causation. After a brief outline of the agency theory, sections 2–4 contain the refutation of the three main forms in which the charge of anthropomorphism is to be found in the literature. It will appear that it is necessary to distinguish between the subjective and the objective aspect of the concept of causation. This (...) will lead, in section 5, to contrast two kinds of anthropomorphism, one which has been rightly rejected by modern science and one which is fully compatible with the objective reality of the causal processes. Finally, section 6 will apply the preceding considerations to simultaneous causation. On the one hand, in a basic sense, there can be no simultaneous causal relations. On the other hand, simultaneous causation arises when we consider the natural change by abstracting from the agent and from her/his projects of interven.. (shrink)

This paper interprets classical Daoist metaphysics as an ontology of drift rather than an origin-based cosmology. Through close readings of the Dao De Jing and Zhuangzi, it argues that Dao is not a primordial source but a structural logic of deformation in which identity, causality, and differentiation never stabilize. Concepts such as fan (reversal), wu-wei (non-action), and ziran (spontaneous-so) function not as doctrines but as operators within a non-linear, non-originary structure. Drift becomes the pattern through which reality sustains itself: (...) a recursive refusal of arrival, coherence, and ground. (shrink)

The last few decades have witnessed intense debates in Hume scholarship concerning Hume’s account of causation. At the core of the “old–new Hume” debate is the question of whether causation for Hume is more than mere regularity, in particular, whether Hume countenances necessary connections in mind-independent nature. This chapter assesses this debate against the background of Hume’s “foundational project” in the Treatise. The question of the role and import of Hume’s account of the idea of cause is examined and compared (...) with Hume’s treatment of other ideas. (shrink)

A Causal Symmetry Approach to Quantum Nonlocality and Information -/- This paper develops a time-symmetric informational formulation of quantum mechanics in which both initial and final boundary conditions jointly constrain physical evolution. Quantum randomness is treated as a manifestation of incomplete information about correlations that extend across time, rather than as fundamental indeterminacy. The core concept is an informational coupling κ that quantifies how strongly the temporal boundaries are aligned. κ is derived from entropy balance and mutual information and defines (...) a dissipative, completely positive, trace-preserving dynamics with a unique informational equilibrium state. This dynamics preserves no-signaling and admits a standard generator of open-system type, but with the “environment” reinterpreted as a future boundary condition instead of a physical bath. -/- Conceptually, the framework is close to two-state and transactional approaches, yet it avoids hidden variables and superdeterministic assumptions by working directly at the level of the density operator and information-theoretic quantities. The paper links κ to thermodynamic quantities, yielding a generalized second law and a clear relation between information flow and heat in the spirit of informational thermodynamics. It also outlines a delayed-choice quantum random number generator as a realistic experimental test to estimate or bound κ. In the limit κ → 0, standard quantum mechanics is recovered; for nonzero κ, small but measurable deviations encode informational feedback between temporal boundaries. The result is a causally symmetric picture in which determinism and statistical behavior are unified through information rather than sacrificed to fundamental randomness. (shrink)

Causal Set Theory (CST) is a promising approach to fundamental physics that seems to treat causation as a basic posit. But in exactly what sense is CST causal? We argue that if the growth dynamics is interpreted as a physical process, then CST employs relations of actual causation between causal set elements, whereby elements bring one another into existence. This is important, as it provides a better sense of how CST works, highlights important differences from general relativity---where relations between spacetime (...) points are typically seen as cases of mere causal connectibility rather than actual causation of the relevant type---and points toward a specific understanding of the emergence of spacetime within CST. (shrink)

<This is Incomplete Version. Provisional Complete Version is "The Causality Game: Redefining Academics as a Game with Causality as its Rule Based on Blind Faith" (HORTCG-2)> -/- Modern academia suffers from a profound neglect of causality, the very foundation of all scholarly inquiry. Although causality remains an unproven experiential belief, it must be embraced with blind faith; without this axiom, neither description nor inference is possible. A theory is strictly bound by its specific preconditions, and any (...) forced expansion beyond these leads to a decisive collapse of logical consistency, rendering further theoretical development impossible. This paper argues that even the most dominant frameworks—Kant’s philosophy, Special Relativity, and Quantum Mechanics—suffer from such foundational deviations and are essentially invalid as coherent theories. While strict adherence to causality renders the attainment of absolute truth impossible, it remains the only method for generating human-intelligible descriptions. Recognizing academia as a "game" governed by causality is essential to halt the immense squandering of human talent and resources on invalid, ad hoc constructs and to restore the legitimacy of scholarly inquiry. (shrink)

<This is Incomplete Version. Provisional Complete Version is "The Causality Game: Redefining Academics as a Game with Causality as its Rule Based on Blind Faith" (HORTCG-2)> This paper proposes "The Causality Game," a comprehensive framework that redefines academic inquiry as a rule-governed system founded on the strict adherence to causality. Neglecting these foundations has led to the logical fragility observed in modern physics and philosophy. In Part I, we establish the logical and physical requirements of a (...) causal universe, defining it as a non-local, deterministic, and isolated system. We examine minimal units in non-uniform distribution and their spatial relationships, analyzing how structure and intelligence emerge from these fundamental elements. In Part II, we bridge ontology and epistemology, arguing that while the world is deterministic, human perception remains imperfectly epistemological. Based on the structure, we derive the concepts of profit and loss, further analyzing the validity of regimes and rights. This includes a critical examination of natural rights theory and the social mechanics of discrimination through the lens of acceptance and community strategy. Finally, in Part III, we explore the necessity of "blind faith" in causality for efficient action and examine the historical shift where science deviated into myth by abandoning causal rigor. We conclude that forming a common foundation based on causality is an urgent prerequisite for preventing conflict and ensuring the expansion of human freedom. (shrink)

If only the present exists, how can we make sense of causal chains that stretch across time, the irreversible processes we observe in nature, and the one-way arrow of time? This question strikes at the heart of temporal metaphysics and physics. Existential Realism (ER) is a present-centered ontological framework that claims only present entities exist in the fullest sense, yet past and future entities are still in some sense real due to their causal connections and informational traces. Unlike standard presentism (...) (which would render past and future wholly unreal, raising puzzles about truth, memory, and cause), ER draws a crucial distinction between existence and reality. Under ER, the present is the locus of existence, but the past remains ontologically real insofar as it has left enduring effects and information in the world. The future, likewise, though not yet existent, can be treated as real in the mode of anticipated possibilities that influence current plans and expectations. This nuanced ontology aims to resolve presentism’s classic problems — for example, how past causes can still have effects, or how past-tense statements can be true if the past is utterly nonexistent. In what follows, we will deepen the case for Existential Realism by showing how it accounts for causal relations, the linear order of time, the sense of temporal becoming, and the thermodynamic arrow of time. We will draw on insights from the philosophy of physics – including Hans Reichenbach’s analysis of time’s direction, Huw Price’s reflections on retrocausality and perspective, and Barry Loewer’s work on entropy and the “Past Hypothesis” – to demonstrate that a present-centric metaphysics can be fully time-compatible. Ultimately, we argue that ER not only accommodates modern physics but preserves our intuitive and scientific understanding of time’s asymmetries and the unfolding causal story of the universe. (shrink)

(June 11, 2026. profit → benefit) <br> This paper discusses the relationship between individual self-interest and the role of the community, framed through the "Causality Game." It begins by examining the stages of logic and the necessity of definitions. It then explores the importance of grasping the "preconditions" of oneself and others, and the restriction of others' actions as a means of maximizing self-interest. The paper also outlines the stages at which individuals should consider benefit and loss, discusses the (...) role of communities and partisanship, and concludes with a mathematical metaphor emphasizing that preconditions are the fundamental objects of concern rather than surface-level results. (shrink)

As physical entities that translate symbols into physical actions, computers offer insights into the nature of meaning and agency. • Physical symbol systems, generically known as agents, link abstractions to material actions. The meaning of a symbol is defined as the physical actions an agent takes when the symbol is encountered. • An agent has autonomy when it has the power to select actions based on internal decision processes. Autonomy offers a partial escape from constraints imposed by direct physical influences (...) such as gravity and the transfer of momentum. Swimming upstream is an example. • Symbols are names that can designate other entities. It appears difficult to explain the use of names and symbols in terms of more primitive functionality. The ability to use names and symbols, i.e., symbol grounding, may be a fundamental cognitive building block. • The standard understanding of causality—wiggling X results in Y wiggling—applies to both physical causes (e.g., one billiard ball hitting another) and symbolic causes (e.g., a traffic light changing color). Because symbols are abstract, they cannot produce direct physical effects. For a symbol to be a cause requires that the affected entity determine its own response. This is called autonomous causality. • This analysis of meaning and autonomy offers new perspectives on free will. (shrink)

The thesis revolves around the following questions. What is time? Is time tensed or tenseless? Do things endure or perdure, i.e. do things persist by being wholly present at many times, or do they persist by having temporal parts? Do causes bring their effects into existence, or are they only correlated with each other? Within a realist approach to metaphysics, the author claims that the tensed view of time, the endurance view of persistence, and the production view of causality (...) naturally combine into what is called the dynamic view of temporal reality, and that the tenseless view of time, the perdurance view of persistence, and the correlation view of causality naturally combine into what is called the static view of temporal reality. The author argues in favour of a dynamic view. During the discussion a number of metaphysical problems are addressed. First, it is argued that the charges that the dynamic view is contradictory, made by J.M.E. McTaggart and David Lewis, are viciously circular. Secondly, it is argued that the static view cannot account for change, and deprives metaphysics of essential means to provide natural explanations to empirical phenomena. Thirdly, the author presents a novel account of the nature of necessary causal production. He suggests that the traditional conception of causes as essentially being external to the effects should be abandoned, and that causal production instead should be explicated in terms of reciprocal interactions between coexistent substances. (shrink)

Ontologies are some of the most central constructs in today's large plethora of knowledge technologies, namely in the context of the semantic web. As their coinage indicates, they are direct heirs to the ontological investigations in the long Western philosophical tradition, but it is not easy to make bridges between them. Contemporary ontological commitments often take causality as a central aspect for the ur-segregation of entities, especially in scientific upper ontologies; theories of causality and philosophical ontological investigations often (...) go hand-in-hand, and were essentially inseparable in medieval thought. This constitutes the foundation for a bridge, and this article analyzes the causality-based ontology of the late medieval philosopher Dietrich of Freiberg from the viewpoint of today's upper-ontology engineering. In this bridging attempt, it offers a translation into English of the first part of Dietrich's De origine (abbreviated title) that is a compromise between traditional scholarly translations of medieval Latin philosophical texts and contemporary ontology. (shrink)

This paper asks how a promise that carries no enforcing force — a vow, a betrothal document, a memorandum of understanding — can nonetheless generate real and well-founded trust. Beginning from the symptomatology of the contemporary condition, in which the apparatus of assurance proliferates at every scale while the trust it secures grows scarcer, it diagnoses the failure to a mistake about causation: the taking of force, the mechanical cause, for the cause of an effect, trust, that is inferential and (...) free. It traces, through the philosophy of law, the migration of the anchor of legal validity from force toward trust, which the law records at its own technical edge in the doctrine of promissory estoppel; and it argues that the inferential cause is a different kind of thing from the mechanical, the kind that addresses a free being as free. Its central contribution is a mechanism: trust is the precision a receiver's generative model assigns to the prediction that a promise will be kept, generated through three coupled channels — a structural prior, a high-fidelity self-committing likelihood, and a wagered prior — whose multiplicative coupling makes genuine trust robust where any single channel is forgeable. It gives this mechanism a geometric reading in the language of holonomy and a structural reading, for relational trust, in the language of open quantum-system dynamics; states the criterion of justice that distinguishes genuine trust from forged; develops a theory of the translation of sincerity across incommensurable epistemologies; and reconceives, in a historical-materialist register, the optimisation of the juridical as the decentralisation of enforcement. It rises, at its summit, to the claim that the self-legislation, self-adjudication, and self-keeping of a subject who binds himself without recourse is the descent of a relational divinity — so that the non-binding vow proves, in the dimension of the divine, the purer realisation of what a promise is. It concludes in plural conclusions, refusing, in its own form, the synthesis its thesis forbids. (shrink)

This paper examines the foundational validity and practical utility of the Theory of Relativity through the lens of strict causality. It argues that by denying absolute time—a necessary precondition for causality—Relativity fails as a coherent academic theory and results in descriptions that are fundamentally unmanageable for human beings. Furthermore, while Relativity is widely recognized as a practical theory through its application in GPS and other fields, this study demonstrates that such utility is not an inherent achievement of Relativity (...) itself; rather, it is Newtonian mechanics that relies on absolute time, masquerading as Relativity and performing numerical adjustments. The proliferation of ad hoc constructs, such as dark matter and dark energy, is identified as a direct consequence of this foundational collapse. Ultimately, this paper calls for the immediate rejection of Relativity to halt the massive squandering of human talent and to restore the integrity of scientific inquiry grounded in causality. (shrink)

This article presents a metaphysical approach to the interpretation of the role of things-in-themselves in Kant’s theoretical philosophy. This focuses upon identifying their transcendental function as the grounding of appearances. It is interpreted as defining the relation of appearing as the grounding of empirical causality. This leads to a type of dual-aspect account that is given further support through a detailed examination of two sections of Kant’s first Critique. This shows the need to embed this dual-aspect account within a (...) two-perspective framework. The resulting picture is contrasted with the main rival theories and objections are addressed. (shrink)

Causal accounts of scientific explanation are currently broadly accepted (though not universally so). My first task in this paper is to show that, even for a causal approach to explanation, significant features of explanatory practice are not determined by settling how causal facts bear on the phenomenon to be explained. I then develop a broadly causal approach to explanation that accounts for the additional features that I argue an explanation should have. This approach to explanation makes sense of several aspects (...) of actual explanatory practice, including the widespread use of equilibrium explanations, the formulation of distinct explanations for a single event, and the tight relationship between explanations of events and explanations of causal regularities. (shrink)

This chapter moves from the most fundamental parts of Aquinas’s metaphysics to Aquinas’s thought about the created world, and especially the way in which things in the created world are able to act as beings in their own right, without altering their dependence on the creator. The result is an account of the causality of creatures that does not impugn their connection to the more basic causality of the Deity and that allows this part of Aquinas’s account to (...) be compatible with accounts of causality in modern science. (shrink)

According to orthodox causal decision theory, performing an action can give you information about factors outside of your control, but you should not take this information into account when deciding what to do. Causal decision theorists caution against an irrational policy of 'managing the news'. But, by providing information about factors outside of your control, performing an act can give you two, importantly different, kinds of good news. It can tell you that the world in which you find yourself is (...) good in ways you can't control, and it can also tell you that the act itself is in a position to make the world better. While the first kind of news does not speak in favor of performing an act, I believe that the second kind of news does. I present a revision of causal decision theory which advises you to manage the news about the good you stand to promote, while ignoring news about the good the world has provided for you. (shrink)

We develop a new version of the causal theory of spacetime. Whereas traditional versions of the theory seek to identify spatiotemporal relations with causal relations, the version we develop takes causal relations to be the grounds for spatiotemporal relations. Causation is thus distinct from, and more basic than, spacetime. We argue that this non-identity theory, suitably developed, avoids the challenges facing the traditional identity theory.

Abstract: Daniel Wegner’s theory of apparent mental causation is often misread. His aim was not to question the causal effectiveness of conscious mental states like intentions. Rather, he attempted to show that our subjective sense of agency is not a completely reliable indicator of the actual causality of action, and needs to be replaced by more objective means of inquiry.

The techniques of causal inference are widely used throughout the non-experimental sciences to derive causal conclusions from probabilistic premises. This poses a philosophical question. What in the nature of causation accounts for the possibility of causal inference? In this paper I shall seek to answer this question. I shall develop a metaphysical theory of causation designed to explain the success of causal inference techniques. I shall then indicate how this theory also accounts naturally for single-case causation and the relation between (...) causation and rational action. Finally, I shall compare the resulting picture with “interventionist” approaches to causation. (shrink)

I welcome with great enthusiasm Meling and Scheidegger’s (2023; henceforth “M&S”) timely contribution to advance an enactive approach to psychedelic therapy, especially to the complex causality involved. Their two main research questions concerned:(i) the causal interaction between the psychedelic molecule and brain activity; and (ii) the causal interaction between brain activity and the psychedelic experience. While I largely agree with and celebrate much of what is proposed by M&S, especially their employment of key enactive concepts to advance our understanding (...) of the first research question, in the following, I will present some worries regarding their answers to the second. Although I agree that there is probably a two-way reciprocal relationship between neural activity and experience, I have several points of contention regarding M&S’s proposal. My hope is to stimulate discussion on M&S’s important contribution, and to help advance a much-needed enactive science of psychedelics. (shrink)

The problems with grace and free will have prompted long-standing theological conflicts, chiefly revolving around certain disagreements over the nature of divine causality in respect to the free will's of creatures and His foreknowledge of free acts. Eleonore Stump offers a new interpretation of divine action on the will that holds God only acts by way of formal causality and that human cooperation with grace is only by way of "quiescence." I argue that this account lacks coherence in (...) certain important respects, especially in how human beings freely decide upon conversion - a process impossible on this model. I also argue that any model of divine causality cannot escape the dichotomy of holding a Molinist or a Banezian model of efficacious grace. In response, I offer a new interpretation of classical Thomist models of grace that preserves human freedom and divine sovereignty in grace. (shrink)

Traditionally, causal arguments for physicalism have been taken to favour a ‘reductive’ brand of physicalism, according to which all the mental stuff is identical to some of the physical stuff. Many flaws have been found with these traditional causal arguments. Zhong (Asian Journal of Philosophy, 2(2), 1–9, 2023) develops a new causal argument that avoids these flaws and favours a milder, non-reductive brand of physicalism instead. The conclusion is that all mental stuff is metaphysically necessitated by some of the physical (...) stuff. I argue that neither the traditional nor the new causal argument holds much sway over non-physicalism. The problem is that causation just does not run that deep. It is a fairly superficial relationship and a poor guide to the metaphysically weighty facts of our world, such as what is identical to what, and what metaphysically necessitates what. (shrink)

This essay develops a dynamic refinement of the realignment mechanism within the Dual-Layered Reality (DLR) framework. The standard formulation in the main manuscript adopts, for expository convenience, a superset framing in which the total informational endowment available across an individual's branching-tree is committed at root realignment. The refinement developed here is the operational implementation of that same superset at the node level: each node's informational allocation is committed at the moment of agent-realignment, with the superset's total capacity equal to the (...) sum of node-level allocations across all realigned life-paths for the individual. This operational implementation yields two structural gains. First, it maximizes the efficiency of finite informational resources: reservoir capacity is drawn only when an agent realigns with a node, so potential nodes that never receive realignment never consume reservoir capacity at all. Second, it maximizes the structural grounding of agency: choice, free will, and causality from the agent's perspective acquire a precise architectural locus through the dynamics of realignment and the cascading consequences of non-realignment at branching-events. The architecture rests on six interlocking commitments — pre-encoded determinism at the lattice level, agent realignment as the locus of genuine causality, path-bound agent identity within branching-trees, no-alteration of actualized nodes as the load-bearing structural principle, node-level informational allocation as efficient use of finite resources, and dynamic erasure of unrealigned potential from the agent's availability set Ai (not from the lattice of L1 itself). It is developed first for individual life-paths, where the relevant concepts have their natural domain, and then generalized to all nodes in the lattice, with phenomenological agency distinguished from structural agency. The result is an account of compatibilist free will in which agency is not the libertarian capacity to do otherwise, but the structural event by which a path-specific agent in superposition becomes actualized through realignment, sustaining the branching-tree's continuation against the structural pull toward collapse. (shrink)

In this paper, I propose a framework that supports both free will and anomalous mind-matter interaction (psychokinesis). I begin by considering the argument by the physicist Sean Carroll that the laws of physics as we understand them rule out psychokinesis (and other modes of psi). I find Carroll’s claims problematic, in part due to what I believe are misunderstandings of arguments borrowed from David Hume. I proceed to consider a more dispositional notion of causality (in contrast to one characterized (...) by universal and necessary laws) which I argue is more hospitable to both psychokinesis and free will. I then incorporate recent work from the philosophy of mind and science to arrive at a framework that supports both real volition and psychokinesis, which I argue are intimately linked. This approach is fundamentally dispositional, but grounded in an ontologically prior field of awareness and potentiality. I also consider that the regularities (or causal natures) we observe in our physical world are ultimately supported by what we might term teleological “intentions” within a nonlocal, mind-like quantum ground. (shrink)

The classic formulation of causal decision theory (CDT) appeals to counterfactuals. It says that you should aim to choose an option that would have a good outcome, were you to choose it. However, this version of CDT faces trouble if the laws of nature are deterministic. After all, the standard theory of counterfactuals says that, if the laws are deterministic, then if anything—including the choice you make—were different in the present, either the laws would be violated or the distant past (...) would be changed. And as several authors have shown, it's easy to transform this upshot of the standard theory of counterfactuals into full-blown counterexamples to CDT. In response to these counterexamples, I argue here that the problem lies, not so much with CDT's guiding idea—that it's the expected causal consequences of your actions that matter for rational decision-making—but with the fact that the classic formulation of CDT doesn't pay sufficient attention to the context-sensitivity of counterfactuals. I develop a contextualist version of CDT which better accounts for this context-sensitivity. And I show that my theory avoids the problems faced by the classic formulation of CDT in determinstic worlds. (shrink)

When agents violate norms, they are typically judged to be more of a cause of resulting outcomes. In this paper, we suggest that norm violations also affect the causality attributed to other agents, a phenomenon we refer to as "causal superseding." We propose and test a counterfactual reasoning model of this phenomenon in four experiments. Experiments 1 and 2 provide an initial demonstration of the causal superseding effect and distinguish it from previously studied effects. Experiment 3 shows that this (...) causal superseding effect is dependent on a particular event structure, following a prediction of our counterfactual model. Experiment 4 demonstrates that causal superseding can occur with violations of non-moral norms. We propose a model of the superseding effect based on the idea of counterfactual sufficiency. (shrink)

A Model Bridging General Relativity, Quantum Field Theory, and Quantum Thermodynamics. This paper proposes a two-layer fiber bundle space model where spacetime is composed of Planck-scale discrete units -Space Elementary Quanta (SEQ) and Sub-Planck-scale elastic substrate. (i)Time emerges from irreversible state transitions of the SEQ network, with each step corresponding to a calculable entropy(S=∏mᵢ, i∈N) from transformation matrices governing spatial changes. (ii) Matter itself is a manifestation of compressed space: SU(3) symmetry mediates local SEQ compression, storing energy as mass while (...) stretching surrounding space to generate gravity. The Higgs field stabilizes compressed regions via symmetry breaking, acting as a "quantum lock". (iii)This model explains why time slows near massive objects—local deformed SEQ network undergo fewer state transitions frequency. (iv)The model makes testable predictions, including a chiral asymmetry in electron-positron magnetic moments due to their distinct coupling to the fixed-spin SEQ ground state. (v)It also resolves black hole singularities by imposing an upper limit on SEQ tension. (vi)By establishing a correspondence between metric-scale geometry and quantum resonant frequencies, an alternative framework is presented.(vii) By treating spacetime as a dynamic quantum-elastic network, this framework bridges general relativity, quantum field theory, and thermodynamics. (viii)A GR Reformulation of Electromagnetic Interactions within the Quantum Elastic Spacetime Framework. (ix)This work presents a physical picture that accounts for the initial low entropy, the generation of matter and dark matter, and the observed anomalies in galaxy rotation curves during the early cosmic stage. (x) Degrees of Freedom in the Future and The essence of life in This Model. (xi)This model sets the resonant frequency and resonant axis vector of SEQ as two generalized coordinates in Hamiltonian formalism with the fundamental assumption of invariant spatial topology, naturally yielding global energy conservation and simplifying the Hamiltonian formulation of the system. (xii) Crucially, the framework offers mechanistic explanations for a broad spectrum of quantum and relativistic phenomena. It provides intuitive physical pictures for the non-additivity of the speed of light, wave-particle duality, the uncertainty principle, parity non-conservation, the electron's 1/2 spin, the neutron electric dipole moment problem, the fractional charge of quarks, the nature of energy in nuclear reactions, muon decay, the Structural Origins of Fermion Generations and Neutrino oscillation.(xiii)This model explains quantum entanglement through global energy conservation while preserving local causality. ★★★Model Originality Statement★★★:(1)Fundamental Structure: A Dual-Layer Substrate with Topologically invariant Space Configuration and SEQ spin with chirality fixed.(Section 1); (2)Time and Multiplicative Entropy: A Computable, Non-Statistical Entropy.(Section 2,3,4,5,6); (3)Mass-Gravity Unification: A Dual Expression of Spatial Elasticity. (Section9,10,12); (4)Mirror Relation Postulate Between Spacetime Geometry and Quantum Resonance Frequency. (Section 13); (5)Electromagnetic Waves: A Physical Picture Based on Maxwell’s Vortex Model and Topological Fiber Structure. (Section 14);(6) Cosmological Interpretations: Alternative Explanations for Cosmic Acceleration, Dark Matter and Galactic Rotation Anomalies. (Section 9.1); (7) Randomness of Evolution, Degrees of Freedom in the Future and The essence of life in This Mode. (Section13, Appendix 2); (8) The fixed chiral spin of SEQ assumed in this model can explain parity violation and the scarcity of antiparticles, while also providing a physical picture of the Higgs mechanism. (Section7,Section10,Section11); (9) The unique 'layered dynamic structural matrix' configuration of the SEQ network. (Section 11). (shrink)

Causal Dispositionalism provides an account of causation based on an ontology of causal powers, properties with causal essence. According to the account, causation can be analysed in terms of the interaction of powers and its subsequent production of their effect. Recently, Baltimore, J. A. (2022. “Dispositionalism, Causation, and the Interaction Gap.” Erkenntnis 87: 677–92) has raised a challenge against two competing approaches, the compositional view (CV) and the mutual manifestation view (MMV), to explain what makes powers interactive – the interaction (...) gap. In this paper, we raise the challenge of explaining what makes powers productive – the production gap. While Baltimore’s verdict is tentatively favouring (MMV), we find both approaches wanting. Our conclusion is that Causal Dispositionalists should take Baltimore’s and our critique seriously. Powers cannot cause their effects just by bearing the name “causal”. To deserve their names, more metaphysical details are needed. (shrink)

Causality is a property of the metric in which events are described, defined only where ordering, adjacency, and transitivity hold. Where any of these fail, causality becomes undefined — and the dichotomy "caused or random" collapses. Three positions on a spectrum emerge: pure causality (causes as law), operational acausality (causes as manipulable object), and pure acausality (pre-metric potentiality). The recursion of reflection proves that no level of description is absolute, exposing universal determinism as itself a postulate outside (...) the causal grid. Free will is the halting of this recursion: a projection of anti-metric content into a causal node, rendering it incompatible with the surrounding metric and establishing the subject as self-grounded. Since a closed system cannot generate the means of its own overcoming, the first postulate requires encounter with foreign content. A triad results — pre-metric potentiality (Tiamat), metric monopoly (Demiurge), anti-metric intrusion (Black Flame) — recasting the Left Hand Path as counter-order against monopoly. -/- . (shrink)

<This is Incomplete Version. Provisional Complete Version is "The Causality Game: Redefining Academics as a Game with Causality as its Rule Based on Blind Faith" (HORTCG-2)> -/- This paper asserts that the long-standing ambiguity surrounding the status of causality—the very foundation of academic inquiry—has caused profound intellectual and practical damage. To resolve this, I propose the concept of the "Causality Game." In the Causality Game, causality is first acknowledged as an empirical rule. However, since (...) causality is indispensable for any form of description, we must adopt a position of "conscious blind faith" in it to enable the establishment of any discipline. Scholarly inquiry is thus redefined as a game governed by the rules of causality. Within this framework, any deviation from or collapse of fundamental preconditions invalidates the description, rendering it unmanageable for human beings. -/- While the rigorous application of causality can never reach ultimate Truth, it remains the only viable method for coherent description. Furthermore, this paper demonstrates that mutual understanding arises not from dependence on phenomena, but from the sharing of conceptual preconditions. The historical ambiguity of causality's standing has bred confusion, resulting in significant harm to philosophy, science, and civil life. It is imperative to recognize academia as a Causality Game and to demand its rigorous execution. -/- ((April 5, 2026, ver2 update: Added information on Popper's falsifiability. (shrink)

Causal selection is the task of picking out, from a field of known causally relevant factors, some factors as elements of an explanation. The Causal Parity Thesis in the philosophy of biology challenges the usual ways of making such selections among different causes operating in a developing organism. The main target of this thesis is usually gene centrism, the doctrine that genes play some special role in ontogeny, which is often described in terms of information-bearing or programming. This paper is (...) concerned with the attempt of confronting the challenge coming from the Causal Parity Thesis by offering principles of causal selection that are spelled out in terms of an explicit philosophical account of causation, namely an interventionist account. I show that two such accounts that have been developed, although they contain important insights about causation in biology, nonetheless fail to provide an adequate reply to the Causal Parity challenge: Ken Waters's account of actual-difference making and Jim Woodward's account of causal specificity. A combination of the two also doesn't do the trick, nor does Laura Franklin-Hall's account of explanation (in this volume). We need additional conceptual resources. I argue that the resources we need consist in a special class of counterfactual conditionals, namely counterfactuals the antecedents of which describe biologically normal interventions. (shrink)

The physical realm is causally closed, according to physicalists like me. But why is it causally closed, what metaphysically explains causal closure? I argue that reductive physicalists are committed to one explanation of causal closure to the exclusion of any independent explanation, and that as a result, they must give up on using a causal argument to attack mind–body dualism. Reductive physicalists should view dualism in much the way that we view the hypothesis that unicorns exist, or that the Kansas (...) City Royals won the 2003 World Series: false, but not objectionable in any distinctively causal way. My argument turns on connections between explanation, counterfactuals, and inductive confirmation. (shrink)

Causal loops are circular chains of causally related events: each link causes others which in turn cause it. Not only are causal loops widely accepted as coherently conceivable; some are also provably self-consistent as well as seeming genuinely possible according to currently accepted laws of physics. On the common assumption that causation is transitive, each link in any causal loop would wind up causing itself; but the idea of self-causation is pretty much universally rejected as incoherent. A popular attempt to (...) resolve this dilemma distinguishes “direct” from “indirect” self-causation: the direct variety, which operates without the aid of causal intermediaries, is claimed to be impossible even if the indirect variety isn’t. I argue against this attempted resolution on the grounds that causal loops themselves, unlike the links that compose them, should be viewed as directly self-caused; so indirect self-causation via causal loop is possible only if direct self-causation is as well. An important consequence is the availability of groundbreaking solutions to several longstanding puzzles in philosophy of mind. (shrink)

(June 11, 2026. profit → benefit) <br> This paper examines the ideological position of the Causality Game. And for this purpose, also conducts an examination of postmodernism. Postmodernism, following the collapse of modernism's description of the world, denied the description of the world itself. Consequently, it results in sloppy, superficial, incompatible, and isolated descriptions with obscure preconditions. The promotion of fragmentation also follows this ideology. The Causality Game also remedies the neglect of causality, which was the cause (...) of the collapse of modernism. From this, characteristics such as "preconditions govern results," "I am my own king," and "grasp validly, handle validly" emerge. it also takes a critical stance toward Voltaire's famous quote. (shrink)

Evidential decision theory (EDT) says that the choiceworthiness of an option depends on its evidential connections to possible outcomes. Causal decision theory (CDT) holds that it depends on your beliefs about its causal connections. While Newcomb cases support CDT, Arif Ahmed has described examples that support EDT. A new account is needed to get all cases right. I argue that an option A's choiceworthiness is determined by the probability that a good outcome ensues at possible A‐worlds that match actuality in (...) the facts causally unaffected by your decision (the “unaffected facts”). Moreover, you should evaluate A on the assumption that A is compossible with the unaffected facts. This view entails that you should use EDT when evaluating A on the assumption that the unaffected facts determine your action, but use CDT when assessing A on the opposite assumption. A's choiceworthiness equals a weighted average of these conditional assessments. The weights are determined by your beliefs about whether the unaffected fact determine your action. This account gets both Newcomb and Ahmed cases right. According to an influential view, whether you take the unaffected facts to determine your action can make a difference to whether you can regard yourself as free and the action as being under your control. While my account is neutral on this issue, it entails that whether you take the unaffected facts to determine your action is important in a different way: it matters to whether you should follow EDT or CDT. (shrink)

(Upgraded on April 13, 2026!) This paper proposes a comprehensive framework called the Causality Game. This framework redefines academics as a game in which blind faith in causality is a rule. The crisis of academics caused by Hume's viewing causality as a mere rule of thumb is resolved by this. Also, the Causality Game is the first time in history that causality is mandated in academics. Since the beginning of history, academics has possessed a structural (...) vulnerability: the lack of any absolute ground for adopting causality. The redefinition provided by the Causality Game resolves this issue as well. It is shown that when the prerequisites collapse, descriptions cannot be handled by humans. It is impossible to reach the truth through the thoroughness of causality. However, description has no choice but the thoroughness of causality. This becomes a warning to science and philosophy, where the neglect of causality is accelerating. Furthermore, the universe based on causality is defined. The universe is composed of minimum units and spatial relationships. Based on these, structure, intelligence, and consciousness are analyzed. While ontology is deterministic, epistemology leaves room for freedom due to the imperfection of perception. Based on the structure, the concepts of profit and loss are derived. The dynamics of freedom and power are examined. Negotiation, violence, and community are also considered. This paper strongly demands the thoroughness of causality in all academics. This provides humanity with the benefits of academics and a foundation for shareable recognition. I believe the Causality Game will be to my personal profit. And this profit will be shareable with the selfishness of many people. (shrink)

Causal models show promise as a foundation for the semantics of counterfactual sentences. However, current approaches face limitations compared to the alternative similarity theory: they only apply to a limited subset of counterfactuals and the connection to counterfactual logic is not straightforward. This paper addresses these difficulties using exogenous interventions, where causal interventions change the values of exogenous variables rather than structural equations. This model accommodates judgments about backtracking counterfactuals, extends to logically complex counterfactuals, and validates familiar principles of counterfactual (...) logic. This combines the interventionist intuitions of the causal approach with the logical advantages of the similarity approach. (shrink)