Reflections on the asymmetry of causation. Issue 3 (14th April 2023)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Ismael, Jenann
• Is Part Of: Interface focus. Volume 13:Issue 3(2023)
• Publication Date: 2023-04-14
• Subjects: causation -- interventionism -- causal asymmetry -- statistical mechanics -- thermodynamic gradient -- temporal asymmetry; Physical sciences -- Periodicals; Life sciences -- Periodicals; 500
• DOI: 10.1098/rsfs.2022.0081
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 2042-8898

Abstract

Abstract : The most immediately salient asymmetry in our experience of the world is the asymmetry of causation. In the last few decades, two developments have shed new light on the asymmetry of causation: clarity in the foundations of statistical mechanics, and the development of the interventionist conception of causation. In this paper, we ask what is the status of the causal arrow, assuming a thermodynamic gradient and the interventionist account of causation? We find that there is an objective asymmetry rooted in the thermodynamic gradient that underwrites the causal asymmetry: along a thermodynamic gradient, interventionist causal pathways—scaffolded intervention-supporting probabilistic relationships between variables—will propagate influence into the future, but not into the past. The reason is that the present macrostate of the world, in the presence of a low entropy boundary condition, will screen off probabilistic correlations to the past. The asymmetry, however, emerges only under the macroscopic coarse-graining and that raises the question of whether the arrow is simply an artefact of the macroscopic lenses through which we see the world. The question is sharpened and an answer proposed.