Causality, Natural Philosophy and the Present state of Physics
Francisco J. M?ller
A brief historical "tour" of the causality principle is presented, from Aristotle's four-fold view of causality, to its contemporary crisis in Quantum Physics and String Theory. The "tour" touches upon the views of Bacon, Kepler, Galileo, Newton, Laplace, Bernard, Mach, Hume and Einstein. Several contemporary crises are described (dark energy, multi-dimensionality, probabilism, exploding cosmological constant, pocket universes, multiverses, etc). A final view is proposed (old and yet new) to understand the present crisis, if not to "remedy" it.
