Causation and Time

In Chapter Eight, we consider one final reason to believe that spacetime must emerge. Namely, that it is needed to support the existence of conscious observers. We argue that spacetime need not emerge, because there can be observation without it. That’s because there can be causation even if there is no spacetime, and causation is sufficient for observation. We consider a number of arguments against the idea that causation can exist without time and find them all wanting. After that, we present a positive theory of causation without time that draws on the idea that a non-spatiotemporal structure can approximate spacetime under the right conditions.