Postgraduates work in progress

Speaker: Nicholas Rebol (University of Edinburgh)

Title: Why Do Causes Precede Effects: The limits of a statistical mechanical approach

Abstract: Causal notions display a temporal asymmetry; effects never come before causes. There is a proposal put forward by David Albert and Barry Loewer to explain this asymmetry by appealing to statistical mechanics and an assumption about origin of the universe—that it began in a particularly low entropy state. Their explanation purports to link together other various temporal asymmetries, specifically: when we deliberate about what action to take, we deliberate with an aim to change the future, not the past; our knowledge of the future is different from our knowledge of the past; counterfactuals with consequences about states of affairs occurring before the antecedent will always be false. Because their account gives a scientific explanation of the fact that causes come before effects, it takes this fact to be an objective feature of the world. I argue that this approach fails to deliver on its promise to explain all of these temporal asymmetries unless it also appeals to features that we have as beings that deliberate.