Some notes on the comments I made here, inspired by correspondence.
Note 1: My comment was original in the sense that I didn’t pick it up from anywhere. However, its by no means a philosophical leap and so I would be shocked if no one has asserted it, even if there is some straight forward demonstration that it is wrong.
Note 2: When I say causality is superfluous I mean that it is not a meaningful metaphysical construct. Either you are talking about something plainly physical or you are talking about nothing.
You may be simply making a description of space-time. So if I say: “the cue ball hit the eight ball and caused it to move.” I may simply be describing the shape of these objects through time.
This is the same kind of statement as: “The camera is on the table”
We can further talk about the “statics” underlying the camera being on the table. Or we can talk about the “dynamics” of the cue ball hitting the eight ball. However, these are all generalizations of observations we have regarding objects in space-time.
And, importantly the generalizations are derived from objects that we have in fact experienced.
On the other hand, if you mean that there is some sort of metaphysical necessitation such that when cue balls hit eight balls the latter must move. And, further that this metaphysical necessitation may be hidden from us (ala David Hume) then you are speaking of nothing.
When people utter the words “the cue ball caused the eight ball to move” they are usually providing a description of how they feel about the cue ball and the eight ball.
And, the reason that confirmation of this statement alludes us is because there is no truth to be had outside of the mental and emotional state of the speaker.
Note 3: None of this is to say that we can’t apply the term causation to our generalizations about the shape of objects through time. It is simply that this re-defining strips away any metaphysical specialness associated with the term.
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Friday ~ February 10th, 2012 at 1:02 pm
sherifffruitfly
Fun = when people who have no idea wtf they’re talking about try to just wing it.
Friday ~ February 10th, 2012 at 1:23 pm
Russell Conner
Try to remember…
there is no spoon.
Friday ~ February 10th, 2012 at 3:38 pm
Daniel
“A caused B” = “A is the most usefully predictive precursor to B.”
And, yeah, there’s a judgment call (and a linguistic context) embedded in the decision of which predictive precursor is most useful.
Sunday ~ February 12th, 2012 at 6:05 pm
Matt (@MeCampbell30)
You’re still confused Karl. When we’re talking about causes (and logical necessity) we are talking about SOMETHING.
You try and make a distinction between “generalizations” and “metaphysical properties” that I think is superfluous.
Think of what it means to make a generalization. You can take it step-by-step. To make a generalization is to acknowledge that the world abides by some consistent rule(s). Without that acknowledgement generalizations/categorizations/logic would be useless. These are the tools thinking beings use to understand their world. In fact, when people say that an event is “random” we aren’t saying there is something physically unique about the random event, we are REALLY saying that our knowledge of the universe on that particular subject is incomplete. (That is to embrace Enestien’s idea that god does not play dice with the universe.)
Also you shouldn’t conflate existence with the corporeal. There are plenty of intangible objects that most people commonly expect to exist. Numbers and geometry are things that exist but are not tangible.
Monday ~ February 13th, 2012 at 4:27 pm
Jeffrey G. Johnson
But when the cue ball hits the eight ball, the eight ball and the cue ball must move in a particular way, which is determined by the conservation of momentum. So the movement, or relation of the balls to space and time, subsequent to the collision event has nothing to do with the way anyone feels.
What if I said that “When supply increases and demand remains constant, then prices must fall” is only a statement about how you feel about supply and demand. “And, the reason that confirmation of this statement eludes us is because there is no truth to be had outside of the mental and emotional state of the speaker.”
Tuesday ~ February 14th, 2012 at 7:08 am
Diego Navarro
My take (derived more or less from a synthesis on various influences) is that there are no statics — there’s just a very, very large dynamical system where everything can be traced to everything and causality can’t be narrowed down to a small number of factors. This becomes clearer when you consider culpability: you’re running on the sidewalk and trip on someone having a seizure on the floor, cracking his skull as you fall. Did you kill him? Did epilepsy kill him? Did the absence of grassy, soft sidewalks kill him?
This is why culpability has to be about incentives, not causality models. As Lauryn Hill once sang, everything is everything.