Because that's what had to obtain for the effect in question.

Say that A causes B, which causes C. Well, if A caused B but B didn't subsequently produce C, then A is irrelevant to C, even though A causing B might be identical in both cases.

I am working on Hume's two definitions of causation so I would prefer not to leave Hume out of it completely. — Jamesk

Got it. I don’t know the angle your approaching this topic from, but if this helps out:

There’s a weird paradox that can emerge from Humean causation when it is envisioned to be devoid of all instances of agency (here knowing that Hume himself did sponsor the necessity of agency … I don’t recall that he provided a positive account of how this all works, but I do recall that he concludes that both agency and determinism are equally necessary aspects of the world … it’s been a while though).

The paradox:

Given that each cause is itself the effect of a previous cause, a causal chain can be represented in the following manner:

… e/c – e/c – e/c – e/c … etc. This where “e” stands for “effect” and “c” stands for “cause”.

It doesn’t matter how complex the chain or web of necessarily conjoined instances of e/c becomes. In all instances, it produces a reality devoid of change—for there is no link which is not perfectly determinate and, thereby, immutable. This logical derivation of a perfectly static reality stands in rough parallel to Zeno’s paradoxes.

Discerning what given causes what effect here becomes fully arbitrary and fully contingent on the subjects that so discern, which a) are themselves fully enmeshed into this perfectly changeless reality and, paradoxically, b) cannot experientially be in the absence of change.

Ignoring the awareness of subjects that, here, arbitrarily discern links between causes and effects, what logically results is a changeless space wherein no cause or effect can be validly distinguished—wherein all that is becomes a changeless block with continuous presence devoid of valid instances of causation.

In other words, premising a world of efficient causation devoid of agency can, I think quite validly, result in an objective reality fully devoid of causation.

But this is contrary to our lived reality … everything from personal experience to our scientific enquiries.

If this makes sense and you’re so inclined, feel free to make use of it.

The immediately temporarily antecedent action(s) or event(s) that produce a particular subsequent event. — Terrapin Station

Why temporarily? Are you looking to create some sort of distinction between causal chains/events?

He meant Temporal.

Lol, oh. I should have caught that. Still, “immediately temporal” implies the same thing.

Hume claimed causation is Temporal priority, spatial contiguity and constant conjunction. All “immediately temporal” means is that the cause comes before the effect.

Say that A causes B, which causes C. Well, if A caused B but B didn't subsequently produce C, then A is irrelevant to C, even though A causing B might be identical in both cases. — Terrapin Station

Say that A causes B, which causes C. Then we can say that A causes C just as easily a A causes B.

Does A always cause B?

Does A always cause B? — Jamesk

In a deterministic world, yes.

Hume claimed causation is Temporal priority, spatial contiguity and constant conjunction. All “immediately temporal” means is that the cause comes before the effect. — Jamesk

I have no ideas what you or Hume are talking about.

Time is change. Causation is change and thetefore the essence of time. Causation is also meaning as effects mean, or represent, or carry information about, their causes.

I have no ideas what you or Hume are talking about. — Harry Hindu

We witness the cause happening before the event - temporal priority, we witness a physical proximity between the two objects - spatial contiguity, and we witness these things happen the same way all of the time - constant conjunction.

Those are the three things we observe in what we conceive to be some necessary connection between events or some 'hidden power' in the objects that causes events to happen. We don't actually observe anything else so when we attribute cause we do so by means of inference alone. Hume believes that all forms of knowledge from induction is suspect.

DingoJones Hume claimed causation is Temporal priority, spatial contiguity and constant conjunction. All “immediately temporal” means is that the cause comes before the effect. — Jamesk

That is what “temporal” means, the “immediate” implies a distinction between the one proceeding cause and all the relevent proceeding causes. That is a curious distinction to make, so I inquired.

Does A always cause B? — Jamesk

I'm a nominalist. There's only one A and one B.

As Jamesk noted, I meant temporally, and I'm pretty sure I typed temporally, but I was posting from my kindle and it often "autocorrects" to something I don't actually want.

Are you looking to create some sort of distinction between causal chains/events? — DingoJones

"Temporally" because the events occur "in time." If I don't specify "temporally antecedent" folks might have something they consider a non-temporal antecedent in mind instead, like the "If" clause of a conditional.

Am I just reading into your use of “immediately”?

Reading what into it? :confused:

That it was intended to create a distinction between the one proceeding cause and all the proceeding relevant causes.
Lol, I suppose the answer should be obvious enough to me by now, sorry for the confusion.

Those are the three things we observe in what we conceive to be some necessary connection between events or some 'hidden power' in the objects that causes events to happen. We don't actually observe anything else so when we attribute cause we do so by means of inference alone. — Jamesk

What about when a criminal confesses to a crime? The evidence is the effect and the criminal's actions is the cause. Is the criminal desribing an inference or an actual experience when he recounts the crime in detail which explains the evidence perfectly?

What about your own intent being the cause of changes external to you. In essence you are a power of cause and directly experience your will moving your hands to type a post. Or are you inferring that your will, or intent, is causing your hands to move?

Wouldn't Hume say that the mind is the cause of ideas? Can ideas exist without a mind? Think of a cause as the prerequisite conditions for some emergent property.

Another way of thinking about it is energy transfer/flow.

What about when a criminal confesses to a crime? The evidence is the effect and the criminal's actions is the cause. Is the criminal desribing an inference or an actual experience when he recounts the crime in detail which explains the evidence perfectly? — Harry Hindu

The criminal has provided the explanation of the event not the cause.

What about your own intent being the cause of changes external to you. In essence you are a power of cause and directly experience your will moving your hands to type a post. Or are you inferring that your will, or intent, is causing your hands to move? — Harry Hindu

Agent causation means that I do x, the problem is that there will be as many if not more external, deterministic factors going on to make me do x. So when I raise my arm it is my mind telling me to do so, however my mind has been pre-influenced to already do it.

Wouldn't Hume say that the mind is the cause of ideas? Can ideas exist without a mind? Think of a cause as the prerequisite conditions for some emergent property. — Harry Hindu

I don't think so. Hume says that our ideas come from impressions of the senses or from associations of ideas, so I need to have seen an apple to have an idea of one but once I have the idea I can play around with it in my imagination.

Causation.

1. Temporal priority: Indeed the general consensus, to put it mildly, is to have the cause precede the effect. The accepted definition of causation is such but I hear quantum physics has issues with this. Which means the definition of causation is atemporal in some way. Can't wrap my head around this. How would an atemporal definition of causation look like?

One of the fallacies of causation we're supposed to guard against is, well, ''reverse'' causation which , simply put is to think A causes B but infact it's the other way round. The way we avoid this fallacy is to find out the temporal sequence of A and B. If A precedes B then, we're supposed to conclude, B cannot be the cause of A.

There's a thread on quantum weirdness and claims about effects preceding causes. What I'd like to know is how they avoid the fallacy of reverse causation. Looks like it's not a fallacy in the quantum world but what definition of causation is being used? I'd like to know that.


2. Spatial contiguity: Well, this is, literally, the space dimension of the whole matter. Cause and effect must be spatially limited. If I slap the wind and you, 1200 miles away, feel pain then you wouldn't hold me responsible for your suffering. Would you? This makes sense but unlike 1. Temporal priority, it isn't necessary as a definitional element. Causality could be independent of space. As a simple example take gravity. It's effects reach over billions of kilometers.

3. Constant conjunction: This is a necessary part of the definition of causality. If A and B aren't correlated then A and B could be just an acausal coincidence.

1. Yes indeed the Quantum theory upsets causation as it does everything else. It does look like the effect can come before the cause, but we can forgive Hume on this one.

2.There is no causation at a distance. I may not hold you responsible at 1200 miles distance because the explanation of the event is not the cause of the event.

3.Hume puts the major emphasis on constant conjunction, it is the regularity and uniformity of events that lead us to conceive of necessary connections and causal powers.

We can't get over over the hurdle of time. A cause must precede its effect.

Our whole understanding of causality is based on this basic premise.

One could, however, look at it from another angle.

Imagine, if ''classical'' causality proves that A causes B based on the premise that cause precedes effect.

There could arise a situation, say in Quantum Mechanics, where B precedes A in time. This means two things:

1. We've committed the reverse causation fallacy

2. Effect actually precedes cause

Which of the two is the case?

If it's 1 then we're still in the domain of ''classical'' causality.

If it's 2 then we need to redefine causation. How does one remove time from a definition of causality?

Do we look at the mechanism of the event. We could know that cause A is endowed with features that explains its effect B. Then when B precedes A then it is truly a case of effect B preceding the cause A. Afterall we don't know the process that leads from B to A but we do know and understand how A causes B.


I don't know what Hume had in mind but I think he wants to say that causation is a mental construct rather than something real. A constant conjunction of events is very tempting to humans whose minds are pattern seeking.

There is no logical necessity in the pattern but there is one and we see it and think of it as causation.

Of course one could question Hume's view on this based on the fact that we can, after understanding a causal chain, fine-tune the results. Isn't that what science is all about.

The fact that we can do that seems to favor a view that causation is real and not just a mental construct. How else can we explain our ability to guide and modify causality?

I don't know what Hume had in mind but I think he wants to say that causation is a mental construct rather than something real. A constant conjunction of events is very tempting to humans whose minds are pattern seeking.

There is no logical necessity in the pattern but there is one and we see it and think of it as causation. — TheMadFool

Exactly what Hume means when he defines causation as 'an event followed by another , where the appearance of the former always conveys the thought of the latter. '

Of course one could question Hume's view on this based on the fact that we can, after understanding a causal chain, fine-tune the results. Isn't that what science is all about.

The fact that we can do that seems to favor a view that causation is real and not just a mental construct. How else can we explain our ability to guide and modify causality? — TheMadFool

Science would love to make an equation for causality if it could, it still believes that one day it will be able to. If we had such an equation we could then accurately predict events on the first experience of them, a priori. We also feel some sympathy with objects under causal influence. We build machines and form sentiments to them because they 'do' something. Big machines that do more are assigned gender, usually the female, but again machines are inert and any personality they have is projected on them from ourselves.

I don't think so. Hume says that our ideas come from impressions of the senses or from associations of ideas, so I need to have seen an apple to have an idea of one but once I have the idea I can play around with it in my imagination. — Jamesk

This is a ridiculous response. To say that our ideas come from something is to say that they are caused by that something. You are also saying that mind isn't necessary for the existence of ideas - that ideas can exist without a mind. Nonsense.

In other words, you and Hume cannot escape the notion of causation because it would be incoherent to do so.