Causality, Determinism and the Block Universe

Abstract

One lesson we can draw from Laplace’s Demon is that notions like determinism and causality should be kept apart. The Greeks made fairly accurate predictions of planetary motions without having any knowledge of their dynamical cause. Newton’s laws equally allow the prediction and retrodiction of planetary orbits, even though his notion of gravitation implies a dubious action-at-a-distance. By contrast, one may have causal knowledge of events, without the benefit of precise predictions. Evolutionary biologists, for instance, are able to causally explain the splitting of lineages in the past, without being able to predict when lineages will split in the future.

As far as mechanics is concerned, we could also remember events in the future.

Hemmo/Shenker, The Road to Maxwell’s Demon (2012: Chap. 10.6)