Dynamics of Causal Sets and Discrete Variational Principles

The causal sets program is an approach to discrete quantum gravity. One core task is finding a way of evolving causal sets that leads to manifoldlike structures. This talk will begin with results of the classical sequential growth (CSG) dynamics. In a CSG process, elements are added one at a time, and the new element's past structure is determined by a sequence of parameters. I will show the properties of our simulated early ``universe'' based on the chain abundancy. The second part is our attempt to a discrete variation of action for causal sets in a sequential growth process in general. We apply the variation scheme on different types of dynamical processes, and will show some preliminary results.