Causal invariance is a crucial characteristic for any rule of Wolfram Physics.

According to Wolfram MathWorld, if a rule is causally invariant, then “no matter which evolution is chosen for a system, the history is the same, in the sense that the same events occur and they have the same causal relationships.”

Causal invariance is one of the assumptions Jonathan Gorard needs to make to derive the equations of General Relativity from the hypergraph. That’s how crucial it is!

Given that not every rule of Wolfram Physics is causally invariant, I asked Jonathan how we find the ones that are.

Here, in another excerpt from our recent conversation, is his answer: how to find causally invariant rules.

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Jonathan Gorard

• Jonathan Gorard at The Wolfram Physics Project
• Jonathan Gorard at Cardiff University
• Jonathan Gorard on Twitter

• The Centre for Applied Compositionality
• The Wolfram Physics Project

People and concepts mentioned by Jonathan

• Stephen Wolfram
• Max Piskunov

• Causal invariance

• Wolfram Function Repository
• Wolfram Engine
• Wolfram Mathematica
• Wolfram Programming Lab

• CausalInvariantQ
• TotalCausalInvariantQ

• Associative
• Commutative

• Automated theorem proving

• Undecidable problem

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The Last Theory is hosted by Mark Jeffery, founder of Open Web Mind