An action-related theory of causality

The paper begins with a discussion of Russell?s view that the notion of cause is unnecessary for science, and can therefore be eliminated. It is argued that this is true for theoretical physics, but untrue for medicine where the notion of cause plays a central role. Medical theories are closely connected with practical action (attempts to cure and prevent disease), whereas theoretical physics is more remote from applications. This suggests the view that causal laws are appropriate in a context where there is a close connection to action. This leads to a development of an action-related theory of causality which is similar to the agency theory of Menzies and Price, but differs from it in a number of respects, one of which is the following. Menzies and Price connect ?A causes B? with an action to produce B by instantiating A, but, particularly in the case of medicine, the law can also be linked to the action of trying to avoid B by ensuring that A is not instantiated. The action-related theory has in common with agency theory of Menzies and Price, the ability to explain causal asymmetry in a simple fashion, but the introduction of avoidance actions together with some ideas taken form Russell enable some of the objections to agency accounts of causality to be met. The paper begins with a discussion of Russell?s view that the notion of cause is unnecessary for science, and can therefore be eliminated. It is argued that this is true for theoretical physics, but untrue for medicine where the notion of cause plays a central role. Medical theories are closely connected with practical action (attempts to cure and prevent disease), whereas theoretical physics is more remote from applications. This suggests the view that causal laws are appropriate in a context where there is a close connection to action. This leads to a development of an action-related theory of causality which is similar to the agency theory of Menzies and Price, but differs from it in a number of respects, one of which is the following. Menzies and Price connect ?A causes B? with an action to produce B by instantiating A, but, particularly in the case of medicine, the law can also be linked to the action of trying to avoid B by ensuring that A is not instantiated. The action-related theory has in common with agency theory of Menzies and Price, the ability to explain causal asymmetry in a simple fashion, but the introduction of avoidance actions together with some ideas taken form Russell enable some of the objections to agency accounts of causality to be met

Environmental actions to reduce household ecological footprints

This paper presents the ideas of UK householders on how to reduce their Ecological Footprint (EF) after applying a tool called 'EcoCal', which assesses the environmental impacts of households by measuring footprints arising from Transport, Energy, Shopping, House and Garden, Water and Waste. Analysis of the EcoCal results of nearly 700 adult Open University (OU) student households showed that transport and energy impacts are the biggest contributors to the household footprint. Reducing these impacts poses the greatest challenge to achieving a globally sustainable household EF of approximately 0.5 hectares per person. Analysis of the ideas that the OU students were prepared to consider to reduce their household EF revealed a variety of technical and behavioural changes. However, in the context of their own household, the OU students identified several constraints on the implementation of their environmental action plans. Despite such constraints, many of the students instigated changes that helped to make their households more sustainable

Appropriating the Environment. How the European Institutions Received the Novel Idea of the Environment and Made it Their Own.

Environmental policy has become an important area of European Union (EU) policy making, even though it had not originally been foreseen in the Treaty of Rome. Its emergence in the early 1970s can be understood as a result of a transfer of the novel policy idea of the environment to the European level. This paper thus inquires into the emergence of a European environmental policy from a diffusion of ideas perspective. Rather than focusing on multi-level policy making it seeks to trace the diffusion of environmental ideas from the level of international organizations to the European Communities (EC) in the early 1970s. It analyzes how and why these new concepts were taken up by the European Communities and adapted to the specific institutional framework of the EC. Starting with a brief introduction into the historical context, the paper first explores the origins of the notion of the environment as a political concept emerging in the context of international organizations at the time. Secondly, an analysis of the first Environmental Action Programme of 1973 will be used to show how the EC conceptualized the environment, including the definition of problems and potential remedies. Thirdly, the origins of these ideas will be traced back to international models, from the UNESCO conference Man and the Biosphere in 1968 onwards. In a final step, the paper tries to explain the diffusion and reception of ideas. It examines how these ideas were received by the EC, which actors were involved in this process, and which mechanisms of diffusion played a role. The goal is thus to make a contribution to the debate about the transnational diffusion of ideas.environmental policy; Europeanization; Europeanization

Generational Inversions: \u27Working\u27 for Social Reproduction amid HIV in Swaziland

How do people envision social reproduction when regular modes of generational succession and continuity are disrupted in the context of HIV/AIDS? How and where can scholars identify local ideas for restoring intergenerational practices of obligation and dependency that produce mutuality rather than conflict across age groups? Expanding from studies of HIV/AIDS and religion in Africa, this article pushes for an analytic engagement with ritual as a space and mode of action to both situate local concerns about and practices for restoring dynamics of social reproduction. It describes how the enduring HIV/AIDS epidemic in Swaziland contoured age patterns of mortality where persons identified socially and chronologically as youth have predeceased their elders. Based on discourse analyses of ethnography at church worship services and life cycle rites between 2008 and 2011, the findings show how both elders and youth understood this crisis of ‘generational inversions’ as a non-alignment of age groups and articulated projects to restore succession and continuity in vernacular idioms of ‘work’ as moralised social and ritual action

Understanding social creativity amongst event professionals : an action research approach

Live events represent a significant and growing sector of the creative industries but the creative process underlying this sector is little researched in the event management context. Despite the increased consumption of virtual and online media, the live event remains a popular channel of expression for a wide range of creative art forms and commercial messages. Live events use such messages as \u27props\u27 or \u27stages\u27 to produce memorable and emotionally positive moments for audiences. The creative process behind developing a live event is in itself a live event, involving groups of event professionals working in a social context to conceptualise ideas for their audiences. This research fills the gap for event professionals in the creative industries by seeking to understand the creative process intrinsic to live events. This paper suggests that social creativity is used to develop live event concepts. The phenomenon of social creativity identified from the existing literature is explored in the context of its application to event professionals. An Action Research approach is recommended to better understand the key antecedents of social creativity and how they can influence event concept development.<br /

Emergent non-commutative matter fields from Group Field Theory models of quantum spacetime

We offer a perspective on some recent results obtained in the context of the group field theory approach to quantum gravity, on top of reviewing them briefly. These concern a natural mechanism for the emergence of non-commutative field theories for matter directly from the GFT action, in both 3 and 4 dimensions and in both Riemannian and Lorentzian signatures. As such they represent an important step, we argue, in bridging the gap between a quantum, discrete picture of a pre-geometric spacetime and the effective continuum geometric physics of gravity and matter, using ideas and tools from field theory and condensed matter analog gravity models, applied directly at the GFT level.Comment: 13 pages, no figures; uses JPConf style; contribution to the proceedings of the D.I.C.E. 2008 worksho

Anomalies and Wess-Zumino Terms in an Extended, Regularized Field-Antifield Formalism

Quantization of anomalous gauge theories with closed, irreducible gauge algebra within the extended Field-Antifield formalism is further pursued. Using a Pauli-Villars (PV) regularization of the generating functional at one loop level, an alternative form for the anomaly is found which involves only the regulator. The analysis of this expression allows to conclude that recently found ghost number one cocycles with nontrivial antifield dependence can not appear in PV regularization. Afterwards, the extended Field-Antifield formalism is further completed by incorporating quantum effects of the extra variables, i.e., by explicitly taking into account the regularization of the extra sector. In this context, invariant PV regulators are constructed from non-invariant ones, leading to an alternative interpretation of the Wess-Zumino action as the local counterterm relating invariant and non-invariant regularizations. Finally, application of the above ideas to the bosonic string reproduces the well-known Liouville action and the shift $(26-D)\rightarrow(25-D)$ at one loop.Comment: 30 pages, Latex file, KUL-TF-93/50, UB-ECM-PF 93/14, UTTG-16-93. (shortened version, to appear in Nucl. Phys. B