Physical Causation (Cambridge Studies in Probability, Induction and Decision Theory)

By Phil Dowe

Book Overview

This book, published in 2000, is a clear account of causation based firmly in contemporary science. Dowe discusses in a systematic way, a positive account of causation: the conserved quantities account of causal processes which he has been developing over the last ten years. The book describes causal processes and interactions in terms of conserved quantities: a causal process is the worldline of an object which possesses a conserved quantity, and a causal interaction involves the exchange of conserved quantities. Further, things that are properly called cause and effect are appropriately connected by a set of causal processes and interactions. The distinction between cause and effect is explained in terms of a version of the fork theory: the direction of a certain kind of ordered pattern of events in the world. This particular version has the virtue that it allows for the possibility of backwards causation, and therefore time travel.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0521039754
• ISBN13: 9780521039758
• Release Date: August 2007
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• Length: 236 Pages
• Weight: 0.77 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.5" x 6.0" x 9.0"