Causation as Constraints in Causal Set Theory

Many approaches to quantum gravity—the theory that should account for quantum and gravitational phenomena under the same theoretical umbrella—seem to point at some form of spacetime emergence, i.e., the fact that spacetime is not a fundamental entity of our physical world. This tenet has sparked many philosophical discussions: from the so-called ‘empirical incoherence problem’ to different accounts of emergence and mechanisms thereof. In this contribution, I focus on the partial order relation of causal set theory and argue that causation can be characterized as an a-temporal constraint over the kinematic space defined by the theory. The relation constrains the growth of a new element/event with respect to the other elements/events of a given set. Therefrom, the flow of time emerges from the collection of the possible growths of the given set, where each possibility is characterized by a classical probability assigned by the dynamics of the theory.