Berlin 2024 – wissenschaftliches Programm

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AGPhil: Arbeitsgruppe Philosophie der Physik

AGPhil 4: Quantum Gravity 3

AGPhil 4.2: Vortrag

Montag, 18. März 2024, 17:45–18:15, PTB SR AvHB

Causation in Quantum Gravity: an Assessment — •Luca Gasparinetti — University of Italian Switzerland, Lugano, Switzerland

Is there causation in fundamental physics? It has been argued in several places that causation does not play any legitimate role in fundamental physical theories. Based on recent developments in cutting-edge physics, I will show that this tradition can be renovated with a novel challenge. I will call it the timeless challenge. As I will present it in more detail, the challenge roughly proceeds as follows. According to several approaches to the most fundamental theory called Quantum Gravity (QG), time is fundamentally unreal. Hence, since causal relations are typically grounded in temporal relations, one might conclude that along with temporal relations, causal relations are fundamentally unreal. Therefore, there is no fundamental causation in our most fundamental physical theory. In this talk, I will reject this challenge and motivate that at least in some cases QG itself makes the case for anchoring causation in fundamental physics. In the first part, I will present in more detail the timeless challenge. In the second, based on specific approaches to QG, I will develop two strategies to address the challenge aimed at showing that there can be fundamental causation. I will finally conclude with some brief remarks on the current research about causation and QG.

Keywords: quantum gravity - time - causation