First Things First: The Physics of Causality

yusrob

Claudio Marchesan
I recommend reading these revolutionary articles:
Solving the Fundamental Problem of Time
https://philpapers.org/archive/YUSSTF.pdf
What is time?
https://philpapers.org/archive/YUSWIT.pdf
The Secret of Time (The second Treatise on Time)
https://philpapers.org/archive/YUSTSO-3.pdf
Treatise on Time
https://philpapers.org/archive/YUSTOT.pdf

Claudio Marchesan

In my view, the discussion on causality becomes more transparent once this basic fact is recognized: physical dynamics presupposes a temporal parameter that is not produced by the equations themselves. The real conceptual issue is not “what moves the numbers,” but what role we assign to time within the formalism.

From this perspective, nothing in the argument requires an external agent, a consciousness, or any entity that “evaluates” quantities. The temporal parameter is not an actor; it is a structural ingredient of the mathematical description. When we say that a physical quantity has different values at different times, we are not implying that something performs an operation. We are simply acknowledging that the formalism orders physical states along a parameter that the equations themselves do not generate.

Treating time as a category whose value changes does not mean that the world must “know” its own numbers or actively modify them. It only means that the mathematical representation of the world includes an ordering variable. The change of numerical values is not a process that needs to be caused by matter or by any form of agency; it is a relational statement within the model.

So the question is not whether matter has the ability to alter its own numbers, nor whether some external evaluator assigns them. The question is how a physical theory incorporates temporal ordering, and whether that ordering is taken as primitive, emergent, or derived. My point is simply that cosmology, in practice, treats it as primitive. Recognizing this avoids attributing metaphysical properties to matter that go beyond what the formalism requires.

Lorraine Ford

Claudio Marchesan
Nup.
You have introduced aspects of consciousness and agency and tried to cover it up with a lot of heavy jargon.

Lorraine Ford

Claudio Marchesan
You are saying that time is not just a descriptive category that physicists represent with a symbol as part of an equation. You are saying that time has an ordering role, a purpose, a function, a life of its own.

You are saying that instead of matter possessing primitive aspects of life, it is time (a mere descriptive category) that possesses the required aspects of life.

I.e. you are saying that time is performing algorithmic ordering procedures. I.e., with each awareness of number change, or number jump change, time moves to add one to the time tally, or something like that.

You are saying that at the very foundations of the world, the world is aware and moving itself (clearly, this awareness and movement can only be represented algorithmically). Except that it is not matter that possesses this awareness and moves its own numbers, it is time that possesses this awareness and moves its own numbers.

OR are you saying that Platonic knowledge of order just automatically and objectively, simply exists, and that the world somehow knows about this Platonic knowledge of order?

Lorraine Ford

The causality issue is not about what drives a petrol engine or what drives an electrical motor.

The causality issue is about what drives a real-world mathematical system.

And what drives a mathematical system is:

The input of new numbers that apply to categories like relative position.
The mathematical system’s awareness of these numbers and categories (and the relationships between the categories).
And the further number change caused by the input of the new numbers to the categories, combined with the relationships between the categories.

And in a standalone, self-sufficient mathematical system (or universe), with no assistance from external Gods, Platonic realms or computer programs devised by alien entities, it is the mathematical system itself (or small parts of the system) that is creating its own new numbers.

Lorraine Ford

Re Causalworlds 2026 https://causalworlds2026.inria.fr :

I guess that a whole lot of people are going to gather and talk and talk absolute stuff and nonsense. Again. And again.

But I think that the causality issue is a problem for people because of the failure to clearly recognise that we need to use manmade symbols to represent the world.

Number movement in the world can’t be represented as relationships between categories, i.e. as equations. These equations can only represent a readjustment of the numbers that occurs IF number-jump (i.e. number assignment) movement has already occurred.

But the aspect of the world that CAUSES the number jumps (i.e. causes number assignments to the categories) can’t itself be represented.

Instead of representing what CAUSES number movement, what CAN be represented is the fait accompli fact that some numbers have been jumped (i.e. assigned to some categories), and this “IS TRUE” fait accompli fact can only be represented algorithmically in two basic ways, e.g. as something like:

(category4=number4 AND category5=number5 AND category6=number6) IS TRUE
IF (category1=number1 AND category2=number2 AND category3=number3) IS TRUE, THEN (category4=number4 AND category5=number5 AND category6=number6) IS TRUE

Similarly, the aspect of the world that KNOWS about the categories, relationships and numbers can’t itself be represented.

Instead of representing the aspect of the world that KNOWS about the categories, relationships and numbers, what CAN be represented is the fact of knowledge, and this fact of knowledge can also only be represented algorithmically, e.g. as something like:

(category1=number1 AND category2=number2 AND category3=number3) IS TRUE

The aspect of the world that knows, and the aspect of the world that moves/ creates, can’t be represented. What CAN be represented is the fact of knowledge, and the fact of movement/ creation.

Those people, at the upcoming Causalworlds 2026 conference, need to cut out the hubris, and they need to be a bit more humble about the nature of the world of which we are small parts.

Lorraine Ford

Lorraine Ford
It seems almost unbelievable that, in this age of computing, mathematicians and physicists can go to a conference, still believing that their mathematical equations and other such symbolic statements are sufficient to symbolically represent a viable moving real-world system.

But in fact, the proof is in the pudding, and only something like a computer program can symbolically represent a viable moving system.

What’s in a computer program, that is NOT in the mathematical equations, are symbolic statements that represent the systems knowledge of itself, and symbolic statements that represent the system jumping its own numbers.

A viable moving real-world system requires a fundamental-level aspect that knows its own categories, relationships and numbers, and a fundamental-level aspect that jumps its own numbers that apply to the categories.

Lorraine Ford

Lorraine Ford
The convoluted, long-winded, stuff and nonsense put out by some of the invited speakers for the upcoming Causalworlds 2026 conference has to be seen to be believed.

E.g. This is the sort of nonsense put out by Emily Adlam, Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Chapman University:

Is There Causation in Fundamental Physics? New Insights from Process Matrices and Quantum Causal Modelling. By Emily Adlam. Abstract: In this article we set out to understand the significance of the process matrix formalism and the quantum causal modelling programme for ongoing disputes about the role of causation in fundamental physics. We argue that the process matrix programme has correctly identified a notion of 'causal order' which plays an important role in fundamental physics, but this notion is weaker than the common-sense conception of causation because it does not involve asymmetry. We argue that causal order plays an important role in grounding more familiar causal phenomena. Then we apply these conclusions to the causal modelling programme within quantum foundations, arguing that since no-signalling quantum correlations cannot exhibit causal order, they should not be analysed using classical causal models. This resolves an open question about how to interpret fine-tuning in classical causal models of no-signalling correlations. Finally we observe that a quantum generalization of causal modelling can play a similar functional role to standard causal reasoning, but we emphasize that this functional characterisation does not entail that quantum causal models offer novel explanations of quantum processes. https://arxiv.org/abs/2208.02721
Constraints and Causal Powers [Preprint]. By Emily Adlam, 2025. Abstract: I propose a variant on a Humean dualist view of lawhood in which the world is ultimately governed by global constraints, but we extract local content from it by formulating conditional descriptions in terms of concrete entities and causal powers, where the entities and powers are arrived at jointly on the basis of the pragmatic usefulness of the patterns they encode. Thus in this picture we have both a realm of global constraints, and also a realm of causal powers which earn their status in our ontology in virtue of featuring in the best set of conditional statements that can be extracted from the global constraints. I argue that this approach has an advantage over Humean dualist views in which causal powers are irreducible, because it is a better fit with important trends in modern physics. https://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/27143/

Lorraine Ford

Lorraine Ford
The old guard (e.g. Adlam above, Rovelli, Carroll) indulge in convoluted and longwinded verbal gymnastics in order to support their quasi-religious beliefs that matter couldn’t possibly be causing its own numbers to jump.

Seemingly, the Causalworlds 2026 conference is being staged to shore up their “religion”.

Meanwhile, in the real world, here on Earth, wars rage, with their acts of cruelty, but also acts of kindness and heroism. I.e., matter in the form of human beings is jumping its own numbers.

Contrary to the quasi-religious beliefs of the old guard, matter is NOT being puppeteered by underlying supposedly-self-moving equations and supposedly-self-moving matrices.

Instead of the fanciful overblown scenarios of the old guard, Ockham's razor would say that matter, including living organisms, does in fact have agency, i.e. matter causes some of its own numbers (that apply to the categories) to jump.

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