The Paradigm of Kinematics and Dynamics Must Yield to Causal Structure

Abstract

The distinction between a theory’s kinematics and its dynamics, that is, between the space of physical states it posits and its law of evolution, is central to the conceptual framework of many physicists. A change to the kinematics of a theory, however, can be compensated by a change to its dynamics without empirical consequence, which strongly suggests that these features of the theory, considered separately, cannot have physical significance. It must therefore be concluded (with apologies to Minkowski) that henceforth kinematics by itself, and dynamics by itself, are doomed to fade away into mere shadows, and only a kind of union of the two will preserve an independent reality. The notion of causal structure seems to provide a good characterization of this union.