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Causal asymmetry from the perspective of a causal agent

Evans, Peter W. and Milburn, Gerard J. and Shrapnel, Sally (2021) Causal asymmetry from the perspective of a causal agent. [Preprint]

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Abstract

Agency accounts of causation are often criticised as being unacceptably subjective or anthropocentric. According to such criticisms, if there were no human agents then there would be no causal relations, or, at the very least, if humans had been different then so too would causal relations. Here we describe a model of a causal agent that is not human with a view to exploring this latter claim. This model obeys the known laws of physics, and we claim that it endows the causal agent with a "causal viewpoint: a distinctive mix of knowledge, ignorance and practical ability that a creature must apparently exemplify, if it is to be capable of employing causal concepts" (Price, 2007, p.255). We argue that this model of a causal agent provides a clear illustration of the epistemic constraints that define such a 'causal perspective', and we employ the model to demonstrate how shared constraints lead to a shared perspective. Furthermore, we use this model to scrutinise the alignment of three familiar asymmetries with the causal asymmetry: the thermodynamic arrow, the arrow of time, and the arrow of deliberation and action.


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Item Type: Preprint
Creators:
CreatorsEmailORCID
Evans, Peter W.p.evans@uq.edu.au0000-0003-0214-4748
Milburn, Gerard J.g.milburn@uq.edu.au
Shrapnel, Sallys.shrapnel@uq.edu.au
Keywords: Causal asymmetry, thermodynamic asymmetry, agency, causal perspectivalism
Subjects: General Issues > Causation
Specific Sciences > Physics > Statistical Mechanics/Thermodynamics
Depositing User: Dr. Peter W. Evans
Date Deposited: 24 Mar 2021 03:04
Last Modified: 24 Mar 2021 03:04
Item ID: 18844
Subjects: General Issues > Causation
Specific Sciences > Physics > Statistical Mechanics/Thermodynamics
Date: 23 March 2021
URI: https://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/id/eprint/18844

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