Physical Causation

di Phil Dowe (Autore)

Cambridge University Press, 2007

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.

• Autore: Phil Dowe
• Editore: Cambridge University Press
• Collana: Cambridge Studies in Probability, Induction and Decision Theory
• Anno: 2007
• Rilegatura: Paperback / softback
• Pagine: 236 p.
• Dimensioni: 228 x 152 mm
• Peso: 359 gr.
• EAN: 9780521039758

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