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September 23 - October 2, 2021
Empirical testing remains the mark of science and is thought the ultimate tribunal of scientific truth.
Empirical testing
The causal connection itself seems unobservable. It hides away and we have to infer its presence from other factors of the situation. This is why we often struggle to pin down causal connections. To a large extent it is a vast scientific endeavour to figure out what causes what and even when we think causation has been established there is no guarantee that we are right.
Deep down it is not clear what the links are
There are weaker and stronger ways of stating this view. The weaker would be a reductive strategy, which would be to claim that what we commonly take to be causation is actually just something else: something far less mysterious and elusive.
Reductive strategy
The stronger kind of strategy, however, could be called eliminativist. The idea here is to find some reason to eliminate a certain category of thing from our considerations altogether.
Eliminativist
Whereas the reductionist says that what we took to be causation was actually something else—something that is more obviously part of the world—the eliminativist says simply that there is no causation. Nothing in reality matches that for which we thought we needed the notion of cause.
Difference
the effect cannot then produce the cause. Causation has a direction. Hence, if the throwing of a stone caused a window to break, then the breaking of the window did not cause the stone to be thrown.
Direction
Russell noted that in science, asymmetric causal relations don’t appear at all. Rather, physics is full of equations such as E = mc2 and F = Gm1m2/d2. And an equation can be read left to right or right to left. In other words, the directionality of causation is not really a feature of the world because in its scientific formulation it can just as easily run in the opposite direction.
Interesting! asymmetric But not in maths. But formulas are for quantity though
We say that 2 + 2 = 4, for instance, which is to say that each side is of equal sum. But it is less obvious that 4 = 2 + 2 insofar as 4 can also be the sum of 1 + 3. The point is that 2 + 2 can equal only one sum, 4; whereas 4 can be the sum of several combinations (2 and 2, 1 and 3, 10 and minus 6, and so on). And in this respect there is at least some asymmetry.
Amount. Asymmetric
Physics provides a representation of the world: a largely mathematical one. It is useful that it does so. Results within a mathematical model are sometimes borne out and used in explanation, prediction, and technology. But we should not forget that physics is the representation and should not be mistaken for the world itself.
True
In that case, if we felt that physics had left out of its representation a central datum about the world—the asymmetry of causation—then we might be entitled to ask for a better physics. The world is not a number, nor an equation. It is a concrete particular inhabited by physical objects and some of them appear to be causally related to others. Physics sometimes forces us to rethink and revise common sense, which may be perfectly legitimate. But it should not follow automatically that because a theory works out mathematically, within a model, the world is exactly like that model or like the
...more
Without causation, nothing in our universe would seem to hang together. Hume even called it ‘the cement of the universe’ (‘Abstract of the Treatise’, 1740).
Hume thought that we couldn’t say that causation explains correlation. On the contrary, correlation explains causation. We shouldn’t say that one kind of thing regularly follows another because they are causally connected. Rather, we think that one thing causes another only because one regularly follows another.
Correlation explained causation. Hume
Hume’s theory was that it is only through observation of regularities that we get any idea at all of causation. Repetition is the key. One type of event is always followed by another and this is what leads us to believe that the first type of event caused the second.
regularity. repetition
there is only conjunction, never connection.
hume. constant conjunction account
The problem here is that our experience of regularities can only be of what is regular thus far. In cases we have observed, A has been followed by B; but given that nothing about A makes B occur—it’s just a fact that it has done so—then there is no rational justification for saying that in the future As will be followed by Bs.
rational justification
Induction is a form of inference we arguably draw from past observed cases to future unobserved cases. Having seen matches light when struck, one assumes future struck matches will light. The regularity view offers us no explanation of why this should be, however, so the inductive inference looks to be entirely groundless.
induction
A singularist is looking for causal connections between individual dated events: such as John’s clapping of his hands at midday on Thursday causing a distinctive sound. Singularists think that we can ignore everything else but these two events, if all we want to know is whether one caused the other.
singularist
regularity is not quite all that we need in order to say that one thing causes another. But regularity is a major part of the notion of cause. And it has to be conceded that in many sciences we are mainly searching for correlations.
Regularity. Correlation
Hume thought that our notion of cause included the ideas of temporal priority and contiguity. Temporal priority means that causes must precede their effects in time. Contiguity means that causes and effects must be at places next to each other.
Temporal priority and contiguity
This raises all sorts of questions of philosophical interpretation: about whether we can know of anything other than our own experiences.
Hmm. Solipsism
Suppose we were to find that happy people tend to be friendly. There is a correlation between happiness and friendliness. We might decide that there is a causal connection between these two factors, but which was the cause and which was the effect? A sensible way of settling this would be to investigate which comes first. Were these people happy first and then became friendly? Or were they first friendly and then became happy?
Temporal priority. Which comes first
If A caused B, then B did not cause A. The acceptance of temporal priority might explain this asymmetry. If A caused B, and causes must be prior to their effects, then it follows that A is before B. It follows again that B cannot, therefore, be before A; and thus that B cannot be a cause of A.
Make sense
Hume’s view was that if A and B are constantly conjoined and A occurs before B, then this still would not be enough for us to conclude that A is a cause of B. The reason for this is that A and B would also need to be next to each other; that is, spatially adjacent. This is what Hume means by contiguity.
Spacially
What caused World War II immediately was Chamberlain’s issuing of an ultimatum that was ignored. But what led to Chamberlain issuing such an ultimatum is more illuminating: Nazi aggression against Germany’s neighbours. There is a story of how we got to that point too. The standard account in history is that Archduke Franz Ferdinand was assassinated in Sarajevo, leading to the outbreak of World War I. The settlement of that war produced the Treaty of Versailles, the harshness of which upon Germany led to the rise of an expansionist movement of National Socialism.
History
The cue ball cannot affect the object ball once it has moved away until they clash again at some other time. What happens to it after it has run away is just the story of what happens to it after the cue ball has caused it to move. This suggests that the causation between the cue ball and object ball occurs at the time that they are touching, where momentum is being passed from one to the other.
Interesting take. That means maths equations are correct reflection?
Immanuel Kant (1724–1804), a philosopher following Hume, thought the idea of simultaneous causation to be a credible one. His example concerned a ball resting on a cushion, which caused the cushion to deform whenever it was there, and would cease doing so once it was removed.
Simultaneity
Similarly, no dissolving is occurring while the sugar cube is being held in someone’s hand, being moved towards a cup of tea, for instance. The causation with respect to the dissolving of sugar occurs only once the sugar is in the tea. Someone placing it in the cup is just the explanation of how it got there. It’s not really the cause of it dissolving.
Example. Sugar
Another Kantian thought is to make a distinction between instantaneous and simultaneous causation. Just because causes and effects can occur simultaneously does not mean that they occur instantaneously. Some causes have their effect over a lengthy period of time.
Instantaneous not simultaneous
Philosophers of physics are still trying to interpret exactly what is going on in these cases but one interpretation that is still entertained is that quantum entanglement involves instantaneous action over a distance, without any intermediate chain. This would be deeply puzzling because it seems to involve causation travelling faster than the speed of light, which is supposedly the fastest of all things.
Hmm. Quantum entanglement
By necessity, they may mean that something is strictly entailed, that it has to be the case, or that it is true in all possible worlds. By contingent, they may mean something that could be true or not, that it might be the case, or that it is true in some but not all possible worlds.
Necessity. Contingency.
Hume considered necessity as a possible fourth element to the idea of cause, alongside the three ideas we have already discussed: regularity, temporal priority, and spatial contiguity.
Hume. Necessity
John Mackie (1917–81) noted that for almost every effect, there could be multiple causes at work. Suppose someone drops a cigarette in a house, which subsequently burns down. The house is unlikely to have burnt down just from the dropping of the cigarette. It also needed the presence of flammable materials, such as furniture, and plenty of oxygen so that the flame could take hold. The dropped cigarette was not sufficient on its own to cause the fire but it certainly was an essential part of the whole cause of it. In other words, there would not have been a fire without the cigarette.
Multiple causes
this whole set of factors, while being sufficient for the fire, was not itself necessary for it. The fire could have been caused in some other way, such as from an electrical fault. The set of factors was thus not necessary but nevertheless sufficient for the fire.
Not necessary but sufficient
We commend this inus-condition account for recognizing causal complexity, to which we will return. But we also classify it as a sophisticated form of necessitarianism. To say that a set of causes, S, is sufficient for an effect is another way of saying that S necessitates it. These are just two different ways of saying that if S occurs, its effect must occur.
S
If causes necessitated their effects, then how would we escape the inevitability in the world? Wouldn’t everything be determined and human beings would just be slaves to necessity, like everything else? This is the view known as determinism.
Determinism
But here is one major problem. Just as necessity seems to impinge on our freedom, so too does contingency. Suppose your action is uncaused, or has some contingent element such as chance or randomness. That doesn’t seem to make you free. On the contrary, it makes you lose control. You would now be a slave to chance instead of a slave to necessity. You don’t want decisions to just pop into your head, as a matter of contingency: you want to retain power over them. There seems to be no free will if all is necessary; but no free will if all is contingent either.
The extremes
There are two ways in which a machine, or any kind of causal set-up, can fail. One would be if a part failed. Suppose a vital cog falls out of the machine, for instance, leaving a gap in the mechanism. The chain of causes that travels through the machine fails at that point. This is an instance of what we could call subtractive interference, which is the taking away of something from the cause, which prevents it having its usual effect.
Subtractive interference
In the second kind of case, we leave all parts of the machine intact but now we add some further element. Perhaps the cog in the machine gets covered in dust, which causes it to jam. Again the machine fails: not because something has been taken away but because something has been added. We will call this additive interference.
Addictive interference
The possibility of additive interference is a threat to the necessitarian view of causation, and Hume realized
Addictive interference
It seems possible to have a case of causation that is probabilistic, which is not to say that it is completely random.
Main. Not complete random. Probablistic
There may be a certain probability that a particle will have decayed after a certain period of time. There is nothing compelling it to have decayed by that time, and indeed it may not do so. But perhaps it is more likely to decay by that time than not. It has a propensity to do so. And when it does so, there seems no contradiction in the idea that the propensity caused the decay, even if it didn’t guarantee it.
Probablistic. Main. Anscombe
In philosophical terms, this would be known as a counterfactual dependence test of causation. And there is a philosophical theory that this is more than just a test: that causation itself consists in counterfactual dependence between events.
Prove that if it nof had been the elk would the train arrive on time. Counterfactual dependence
One idea is that the counterfactual dependence has to be between separate events. Causation needs to be a natural relation, concerning events that are happening in the world, rather than what Hume called relations of ideas. Some counterfactual dependences will be purely logical, mathematical, or analytic (Hume’s relations of ideas). Others will concern events and facts in the world depending on each other, and that is what interests us.
It needs to be happened
A relation connects two or more things and a question for the theory of causation is what those things are. Humeans tend to say that they are events whereas Aristotelians tend to think of them as substances: individual objects, for instance.
Aristotelian
An Aristotelian would point out that it is the elk, an individual biological entity, that is causing the lateness of the train. A Humean, on the other hand, would say it is the event of the elk being on the rail that causes the event of the train being late.
Difference
Causation seems to consist not in what there is, but in something that is not: something that is contrary to fact. One might think that the elk’s presence actually affected some other thing: it got in the way of the train. But we can only say the elk caused the delay, on this account, if it is true that had it not been there, the train would have run on time.
Facts and counterfact
One view of counterfactuals is called fictionalism. The idea is that when one thinks of a counterfactual supposition, it is like one is considering a fiction.
Fictionalism
Counterfactual dependence is not the reason why things are causally related; being causally related is the reason why some events have a counterfactual dependence. The latter might just be a product or symptom of causation.
If the elk had not been there, the train would still have been late because of the stuck signal. And if the signal had not been stuck, the train would still have been late because of the elk. So neither comes out as a cause of the delay if causation consists in counterfactual dependence.
Overdetermination
There is also the opposite case. There are some instances that do not seem causal but there is nevertheless a counterfactual dependence between distinct events. This sort of case is what we would call a sine qua non or necessary condition.
Necessary condition. All the other necessary conditions.. Like big bang
