Causality

From: Tim May <tcmay.domain.name.hidden>
Date: Fri, 12 Jul 2002 10:07:16 -0700

On Friday, July 12, 2002, at 09:47 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:
> OK I will try to read Joyce's book asap. In general I am quite skeptic
> about the use of the notion of "causality". I have also no understanding
> of your posts in which you argue about a relationship between the search
> of a TOE and decision theory.

More so than in a lot of areas, we here on this list are sometimes like
orthogonal vectors in some Hilbert space...not having read the same
books, not having a good understanding of the language of others, etc.

I'm not exactly sure what you mean specifically by "causality," but in
my worldview it has central importance:

-- causes precede effects

-- the structure of spacetime is more causal than it is geometrical
(Smolin's point that most of what we mean when we talk about the
geometry of spacetime is about the causal structure of spacetime,
especially the orientations of light cones)

I haven't read Joyce's book either, but I have read (some of) Pearl's
book, "Causality,"

On the issues of mind-body, first person vs. third person, etc., I have
no particular views. I've never thought there was any fundamental
dichotomy between mind and body: our brains and sense organs are part of
the package.

But I have no particular philosophical or cognitive special competence
in this area, so I won't participate in the debate. Maybe later I will
turn my attention to it.

--Tim May
(.sig for Everything list background)
Corralitos, CA. Born in 1951. Retired from Intel in 1986.
Current main interest: category and topos theory, math, quantum reality,
cosmology.
Background: physics, Intel, crypto, Cypherpunks
Received on Fri Jul 12 2002 - 10:10:28 PDT