---
title: "Causality · Library · Simulation Hypothesis"
url: https://simulation-hypothesis.com/library/causality
description: "Causality is the link between causes and their effects."
license: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
credit: "Ross Allan Dahl, Simulation Hypothesis (simulation-hypothesis.com)"
---

## Time & causality

# Causality

Definition

Causality is the link between causes and their effects. In physics, it’s the rule that an effect never comes before its cause in any reference frame.

On this site

The Time model dial: linear, looped, forked or simultaneous.

Role in the model

The Time model dial sets the cause-and-effect structure: one timeline, a loop, a pruned tree, or every branch at once. Each one takes a different amount of computing. Each gives a different answer to whether yesterday had to happen the way it did.

Related

[Determinism](https://simulation-hypothesis.com/library/determinism)[Block universe](https://simulation-hypothesis.com/library/block-universe)[Arrow of time](https://simulation-hypothesis.com/library/arrow-of-time)

## The people behind the terms

14 short pages, one per thinker, each with its matching dial. See also the [reading list](https://simulation-hypothesis.com/reading).

[Plato’s cave](https://simulation-hypothesis.com/thinkers/plato)[Zhuangzi’s butterfly](https://simulation-hypothesis.com/thinkers/zhuangzi)[Vasubandhu’s dream](https://simulation-hypothesis.com/thinkers/vasubandhu)[Shankara’s māyā](https://simulation-hypothesis.com/thinkers/shankara)[al-Ghazali’s doubt](https://simulation-hypothesis.com/thinkers/ghazali)[Ibn Arabi’s imagination](https://simulation-hypothesis.com/thinkers/ibn-arabi)[Calderón’s life is a dream](https://simulation-hypothesis.com/thinkers/calderon)[Descartes’ demon](https://simulation-hypothesis.com/thinkers/descartes)[Berkeley’s perceiver](https://simulation-hypothesis.com/thinkers/berkeley)[Borges’ circular ruins](https://simulation-hypothesis.com/thinkers/borges)[Nozick’s experience machine](https://simulation-hypothesis.com/thinkers/nozick)[Putnam’s brain in a vat](https://simulation-hypothesis.com/thinkers/putnam)[Bostrom’s trilemma](https://simulation-hypothesis.com/thinkers/bostrom)[Chalmers: virtual worlds are real](https://simulation-hypothesis.com/thinkers/chalmers)