You're getting at a human-centric bias? If so, sounds plausible, but can you develop a more specific example? — Baden

In terms of time reversed. The 'cause' of our existence would see us 'born' in a variety of ways (usually after being dug up or rising from ashes), yet all would die under the same circumstances in some woman's womb.

In this situation we could notice patterns that relate to 'prior to' life (the commonality of burning/burying in forwards time) but the actual 'start' of life would be a purely arbitrary matter - death occurs in many ways.

You can also imagine time sped up too if that sits better with you. What occurs immediately prior to would be regarded as the Cause, but if time is appreciated at a faster pace then my hand knocking something off of a table may be regarded as the Cause in a slower sense, yet if sped up the Cause of the object falling form he table may be viewed as the result of someone else putting it there.

The strength or weakness of the cause varies by perspective. Correlation can certainly be a red herring, but sometimes what people have regarded as a red herring for some time turns out to possess some affect upon an outcome through processes previously unknown.

I would say this is also a cultural bias not just a human bias. The way we view time varies from culture to culture. Animism would be regarded as some less apparent 'cause' because there would be particular concept of causation in early cultures (especially if our earliest ancestors were non-languaged peoples). With literacy language becomes more ordered, and prior to literacy of any kind there would be mnemonics as a means of ordering, yet no real concept of ordering in the sense we think today.

In some cultures today we see prepositions of time differ quite dramatically, with some using 'size' to measure time with, "a small time ago" where others view the future as "behind" or "below".

In this sense I am suggesting that causation is a 'belief' rather than a concrete reality. It seems almost like the equivalent of when children acquiring a theory of mind, yet we are still besotted with our Causal view even though it is minimal in scope preferencing the immediate over the long-term. We are temporally short-sighted, and necessarily so, so as to avoid immediate dangers (this would be the human bias part). Our Cultural bias has led us to create a definitive view of Causation, but it is at least partly a construction.

Turning to Isaiah Berlin in The Hedgehog and The Fox:

Freedom of the will is an illusion which cannot be shaken off, but, as great philosophers have said, it is an illusion nevertheless, and it derives solely from ignorance of true causes. The more we know about the circumstances of an act, the farther away from us the act is in time, the more difficult it is to think away its consequences; the more solidly embedded a fact is in the actual world in which we live, the less we can imagine how things might have turned out if something different had happened. For by now it seems inevitable: to think otherwise would upset too much of our world order. The more closely we relate an act to its context, the less free the actor seems to be, the less responsible for his act, and the less disposed we are to hold him accountable or blameworthy. The fact that we shall never identify all the causes, relate all human acts to the circumstances which condition them, does not imply that they are free, only that we shall never know how they are necessitated.
- I.Berlin, p.

It is the part in bold that can allow us to view the human-centric view (as Baden put it) as something unquestioned.

Note: This is a critique of the Sociology. Something Tolstoy was wholly opposed (whom Berlin is writing about) to in the era of historicism in the 19th century.

To say that causation (C) is direct or indirect or anything else is to tell a story. The story is never true, but it can be useful.

Why are some stories useful and other ones not useful? Seems to me that "stop drinking, it's the cause of your liver disease," is true in a way that "take this snake oil, it will cure your liver disease," or "stop taking hot showers, they are causing your liver disease," are not, no?


If not, should someone who fears lung disease stop smoking? If this would be "useful" why?

That is, C is a useful descriptive fiction that in the story itself is taken to be true. The mistake is to unreflectingly suppose that what is true in and for the story is true outside of and beyond that context.

Asbestos only causes disease within the context of a fiction? I suppose this is true or Roundup too; "our product only causes disease within a certain story context." Maybe Bayer should use this defense in court. Unfortunately, I don't see the jury buying it.

As J.S. Mill once said, "one must have made some significant advances in philosophy to believe it."

Surely it useful for partisans of Donald Trump to claim he won the popular vote "in a landslide) in all his elections. Are they just as right as the official tallies showing him losing by millions of votes?



lol, my thoughts exactly. Reading further, I'm still totally unclear about what is being said.

When the sun rises it heats the ground. The causal linkage here seems pretty direct. When the Mets give up a hit it certainly seems like this is caused by the Dodger's players' bats hitting the ball.

Asbestos only causes disease within the context of a fiction? — Count Timothy von Icarus

You're missing my point. One way for you to see it is to try to explain exactly how asbestos causes illness. And you will see that asbestos never did and never will cause any illness.

The idea is that "cause" is an informal, convenient shorthand for complicated events that with respect to the events themselves is almost or entirely irrelevant, a fiction - while in terms of its usage, of course being true. Or another way: what exactly is a cause? I don't think there is any such thing as a cause - except, again of course, as convenient descriptive fiction. And as I said above, people get to mistaking the useful fiction for a reality in its own right.

"Cause," then, properly regarded, is like "truth." We can certainly talk about them, and usefully, but it's a big mistake to think they exist in themselves. In the case of "cause," people supposing there are such things look for or posit first causes or "uncaused" causes as being actual, often to ground a theology that they can represent as real. And of course having such a flaw deep in the foundations of any belief system can have explosively destructive consequences.

And you will see that asbestos never did and never will cause any illness...

The idea is that "cause" is an informal, convenient shorthand for complicated events that with respect to the events themselves is almost or entirely irrelevant, a fiction

I see, so it was wrong for jurors to award damages against tobacco companies, pesticide manufacturers, etc. on account of their products causing diseases? I presume the answer is here "no" and I presume that you also wouldn't put asbestos or lead paint in your child's room.

Or another way: what exactly is a cause? I don't think there is any such thing as a cause - except, again of course, as convenient descriptive fiction

This is an abuse of the word "fiction." Children get real brain damage from lead paint.

But let's even allow your theory some room, you still have yet to explain why some fictions are "convenient" or "useful." Why is this?

Here is my position: it is useful to believe that smoking or asbestos will give you lung disease because these things do in fact cause lung disease. It is useful to believe that running in front of a train will kill you because being run over by a train causes death.

Cause," then, properly regarded, is like "truth." We can certainly talk about them, and usefully, but it's a big mistake to think they exist in themselves.

I am not sure what it would mean for truth to "exist in itself," as opposed to simply "existing?" Truth exists though no? Else your statement simply cannot be true.

And of course having such a flaw deep in the foundations of any belief system can have explosively destructive consequences.

Presumably not as destructive as actually believing things like "'sticking my hand or my child's hand in a fire will cause me to suffer burns' is a 'fiction.'" If one actually believed this, and wasn't using terms like "fiction" in an entirely equivocal way, it seems quite dangerous indeed, but then again no one actually acts as if they believe this sort of thing is true.

Causation and the natural world being "complicated," is not grounds for saying it doesn't exist either.

Truth exists though no? — Count Timothy von Icarus

Does it? Truth is a noun, by assumption a person, place, or thing. The only "thing" it can be is an abstract noun. That is, truth as a genus, its species being true statements, the only thing them having in common being truth. So, no. Truth (itself) not an existing thing.

Here is my position: it is useful to believe.... — Count Timothy von Icarus

Bingo! And if informally you want to say "cause," not a problem (for me). But if formally you want to assert that the cause exists, then it's a fair question to ask what, where, when, why, and how it exists. And that a difficult - and I think ultimately impossible - set of questions to answer.

Judicial uses of "cause" is another topic, but I will observe that judicial usage does indeed take cause as a useful fiction in the story being told. That is, for the purposes of the story, tobacco and asbestos do cause diseases. At this point I can only conclude that you are using words with less care than the OP requires. He asks about causes without troubling, apparently, to even think about what a cause is, much less to say what he thinks it is. But you can do that, or if I've missed it, be good enough to point me back to it.

Bingo!

You have once again refused to elaborate on why some stories are useful and some are not. Is this impossible to explain? Or are all stories equally useful?

and I think ultimately impossible - set of questions to answer.

I think this total nescience is unwarranted. It is understood why sticking your hand in boiling water causes burns and pain for instance. You seem to be holding to the standard that one must understand everything in order to claim to understand anything.

All right. To cases: what is a cause? Above, third from the top, I used an example of a use of dynamite and then asked what caused the result. Not a rhetorical question. Maybe you'll try an answer?

Nor do I disqualify the use or deny the usefulness of the term in appropriate usage and understanding. Nor, finally, are you even right. I worked with asbestos so many years ago that if it caused diseases, I'd have had them. And I don't. So the categorical statement that "asbestos causes disease" is categorically false. And this, really, isn't about asbestos or any thing else. It is about the usage and understanding of language and the traps and rabbit holes that people can fall into or walk into eyes wide shut.

Btw, never saw "nescience" before; a good word to know (ty) and now there's seven of us.

When the sun rises it heats the ground. The causal linkage here seems pretty direct. When the Mets give up a hit it certainly seems like this is caused by the Dodger's players' bats hitting the ball. — Count Timothy von Icarus

When the sun rises it heats the ground. (Causal Perspective)

If played in reverse, when the 'sun rises' the it 'heats' the ground. (reverse-Causal Perspective)

When the sun is up the ground is hot. (Correlational Perspective)

Is our perspective of the world built upon the principles of Correlation OR Causation? Does one come prior to the other? If not, then what?

I would also add that there is a clear difference between inanimate and animate objects when it comes to contemplating causation. The two examples you give are vastly different - which is part of the problem I have with causation.

I think “distal” is a better term than “ultimate” because ultimate causes are never really ultimate, and are always also proximal to some effect in a chain. — Baden

I see your point about "ultimate" causes never really being ultimate, as they’re always proximal to something else in a chain. Personally, I prefer the term "necessary cause," especially when applying the conditio sine qua non test ("but for" test). The idea is that if X hadn't occurred, the entire chain leading to A wouldn’t have happened. So, in practice, you look for the most proximate cause where this test holds true.

But this might just be my legal upbringing in Dutch law, where we assess which damages naturally follow from a tortious act or negligence. The focus is on finding the most direct necessary cause that can be reasonably linked to the effect, rather than something more abstract like an ultimate cause.

Why are some stories useful and other ones not useful? — Count Timothy von Icarus

I think you misunderstood the "useful story" talk. It doesn't mean making up whatever story you like. ("Fiction" isn't helpful here, though.) In any event, there are innumerable causal links connected to it, but the vast majority of them are not of any interest to us. We pick the ones that seem the most salient within a given narrative framework.

In a murder case, the detective is searching for the perpetrator who fired the gun, thus causing the victim's death. The ballistics expert wants to know the cause of the bullet's hitting the victim. The pathologist wants to know the medical cause of the victim's death. The prosecutor and the defender each present a different cause of the perpetrator causing the victim's death.

These are all useful causal stories, and each and every one of them can be true! At the same time, one can think of any number of causal stories that are not useful in a given context. Indeed, the story of how the bullet travelled from the barrel of a gun to the body of the victim is not very useful to the pathologist. Moreover, the vast majority of contributing causes in the past light cone of the murder event are not useful to anyone.

I take it you are saying something very different from Tim Wood here. It's one thing to say that "everything is causally connected," thus causes are not discrete in the way our speech is, and to say that causes can be described in many different ways, and that our considerations may vary according to our purposes. It's another thing to claim that talk of causes is "fiction" (not my word choice), and deny them or truth any existence outside of "stories/fictions."

In most cases, sense experience is prior to the stories we tell (e.g. I would not say that airliners crashing into the Twin Towers is what caused them to fall had I not seen airliners crash into the Twin Towers). But if causes only exist in stories, then are our sense experiences uncaused, occuring as they do for "no reason at all?" Certainly they cannot have "causes" that are prior to our storytelling on this view. Nor could anything in nature have been caused prior to the emergence of language.

I would just ask the same question I asked Tim several times, which he refuses to answer, if it were just "stories all the way down," why exactly are some stories more useful than others?

Now, on you're view, it would seem that some stories are more useful than other because they are true, e.g. bullets do cause death in some cases, even if we might expand our analysis to ever more causes (e.g. the source of the bullet, damage to the heart, etc.). But then I would simply object to the term "fiction" here or "story." Story is less objectionable, but it seems like it is very easy to fall into equivocal usage here, such that "story" is deployed to try to push deflationary theories of truth and causality while avoiding having to own up to the dubious claims like "it is not true in any metaphysical sense that Caesar died because he was stabbed on the Senate floor, that is just a way of storytelling," or a denial that "fire causes burns" without qualification.

So the categorical statement that "asbestos causes disease" is categorically false. And this, really, isn't about asbestos or any thing else. It is about the usage and understanding of language and the traps and rabbit holes that people can fall into or walk into eyes wide shut.

This is just sophistry and bad faith lol. I obviously didn't not mean something like "all adults who smoke cigarettes develop lung disease." Nonetheless, smoking is responsible for some cases of lung disease. Same with asbestos. Unless your point is to deny this?

BTW, you still have yet to attempt any explanation for why some fictions are more useful than others? Is this inexplicable or arbitrary? Why is it useful to believe the fiction that one should not inhale asbestos or plutonium but not useful to believe the fiction that drinking mercury will cure your syphilis?

BTW, the argument that an explanation of causes will lead to an infinite (or practically infinite) number of other explanations applies equally to all fact claims about the natural world. Consider:

"Why is Albany the capital of New York?"
"Why are deer called mammals?"
"Why do people vacation near the equator in winter months?"

All of these could lead through a seemingly endless series of why questions. But this only makes sense if the order of becoming is the order of contingent being. In any case, on this view, one can only ever know facts about self-enclosed axiomitized systems, and even here there are plenty of arguments (e.g. Quine) against even this sort of knowledge.

I'd argue that part of the solution here lies in Aristotle's criticism of Anaxagoras in the Physics, namely that he confuses causes and principles. There can be infinite causes because a single principle can manifest at many times and in many places. However, there is only a finite number of principles, else the world would be unknowable, since we could never come to know the principles at work in the world (one cannot traverse an infinite space in a finite time or come to know an infinite multitude in a finite time). Were there infinite principles at work in all things our understanding of them would also be infinitesimal, n/∞.

Unfortunately, Anaxagoras’ mistake is still alive and well in his reductive physicalist descendants. Sam Harris’ The Moral Landscape is a prime example here. Throughout the book, Harris points out that feelings of suffering or challenges to human flourishing can be correlated with changes in the brain. For instance, children in foster care show elevated stress hormone levels when compared to children from unseparated families. From this he draws the conclusion that “neuroscience” and “knowledge of the brain,” is the key to understanding morality, since morality relates to human well-being, and our experience of well-being relates to neuronal activity.

Harris would do well to reflect on Aristotle’s dictum that the “specific and concrete will be 'better known to us,' whereas what is more general will be that which is 'better known in itself.'"6 To be sure, Harris is correct that there are things we can learn about human flourishing and the human good from studying the brain (pace the common post-modern claim that the Good is simply arbitrary social convention). And it is certainly in some ways easier to study concrete phenomena, such as hormone levels, rather than general principles. However, Harris’ reductive account of morality is akin to claiming that we are best able to understand flight (the principles of lift, etc.), by looking at the individual cells making up the wings of all the animals that fly (i.e. a focus on the "many," to the exclusion of any unifying "one.")

Yet this is demonstrably not the best way to understand flight or lift. We did not learn to build machines that would let us fly through an intensive study of the chemistry at work in insect or bird wings. Rather we mastered the more general generating principles at work across all instances of heavier than air flight in nature. The fact that “the cells in insects' wings are necessary for flight” need not compel us to conclude that flight is best understood through a study of these cells, just as the fact that we need our brains to “know the Good” need not suggest that the Good is itself something that can be best known through studying neurons.

And yes, the endocrine system is not "in the brain." Harris has a habit of ignoring that brains do not produce concious experience when removed from bodies

why exactly are some stories more useful than others? — Count Timothy von Icarus

Utility in the eye of the beholder.

I would not say that airliners crashing into the Twin Towers is what caused them to fall had I not seen airliners crash into the Twin Towers — Count Timothy von Icarus

Apparently - please correct if I'm mistaken - you say that the airlines crashing into the WTC towers is what caused them to collapse. And no one as a practical matter would disagree. Unless he or she was a person actually interested in what made them fall. Because it is blindingly obvious that the airlines crashing into the WTC did not cause them to fall: they stood after the crashes for quite a while. And that's why yours a convenient descriptive fiction true in the context of the "story" being told. But beyond that, not true.

And just for the sake of triangulation on the idea, it's a commonplace that the RMS Titanic sank because it hit an iceberg. And completely true within the limits of that "story." But it sank because it took on too much water. It took on too much water as a result of striking the iceberg because the metallurgy of the day did not know about the effects of very cold water on the steel that was used to make the hull. Basically, the cold made it brittle, and it shattered. For people who want(ed) to know what caused the Titanic to sink, that's the story, the cause, that is the cause.

And is metallurgy and chemistry and cold - or heat for the WTC towers - the end stories? Nope. They continue down into the subatomic. Which brings us back to cause, and exactly what "cause" means. And a first step is to recognize that "cause," like truth, is an abstract collective term whose meaning is entirely dependent upon and derivative from its applications in stories, and nothing else. Thus a mistake to look for cause as a thing-in-itself.

Nonetheless, smoking is responsible.... — Count Timothy von Icarus

Responsibility and cause are different words....

So the categorical statement that "asbestos causes disease" is categorically false. And this, really, isn't about asbestos or any thing else. It is about the usage and understanding of language and the traps and rabbit holes that people can fall into or walk into eyes wide shut.

This is just sophistry and bad faith lol — Count Timothy von Icarus

No, but yours evidence that you neither understand words nor their meanings nor much care about usage. As evidence, I direct your attention to the usages of the two words "categorical" and "categorically." Eyes wide shut indeed!

lol, yes that's the issue, my inability to comprehend "categorical" not your addition to it in a statement that clearly does not imply it. When people say "smoking causes lung disease," they do not mean "anyone who smokes will necessarily develop lung disease." :roll:

Then again, "good faith" is only good if one finds it useful, right?

Utility in the eye of the beholder.

And it's entirely arbitrary? Can anyone ever be wrong about what is useful for them?

If I think drinking mercury will help my arthritis, and then develop heavy metal poisoning from drinking mercury and regret doing it, was the original story useful for me when I thought it was useful? Seems to me this story would not be useful for me, even when I thought it was useful, and the reason it isn't useful has to do with the truth about how mercury interacts with the body.

But on the view that truth and cause are just about stories that are affirmed on the basis of an arbitrary personal ranking of utility, science and philosophy are entirely useless and pointless, since it is impossible for anyone to ever be wrong about what is good or true.

In most cases, sense experience is prior to the stories we tell (e.g. I would not say that airliners crashing into the Twin Towers is what caused them to fall had I not seen airliners crash into the Twin Towers). But if causes only exist in stories, then are our sense experiences uncaused, occuring as they do for "no reason at all?" Certainly they cannot have "causes" that are prior to our storytelling on this view. Nor could anything in nature have been caused prior to the emergence of language. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Let's not confuse sense and reference. The point is not that a cause is a frivolous concoction, but that it doesn't map neatly onto the sensible world - it depends in large part on the human perspective, perhaps more so than most theoretical entities and postulates in the sciences.

but that it doesn't map neatly onto the sensible world

Causal analysis maps neatly enough for us to cure many diseases, fly around the world, travel to space, etc. Medicine is a prime example where a large focus of research is separating causation mere correlation, and here causal explanations (e.g. how antibiotics cure infections, how pseudoexfoliative glaucoma is caused by irregular elastin, etc.) can be pretty damn detailed. I guess it just depends on what you mean by "neat" here, but calling these "stories" or "useful fictions" seems to like demanding that one know everything before being able to claim one knows anything.

I'm curious, though what would be examples of postulates in the sciences, say economics or physics, that do not involve causation (material, formal, or efficient?) Or, to put it another way, do not involve "reasons why" vis-á-vis phenomena?

And I'd be curious if any of these postulates could avoid the same exact sort of criticism re incompleteness and the relevance of perspective. For example, if we want to say "water is H2O," (material cause) we could eventually drill down into quantum foundations and find a great deal of uncertainty about what exactly this means. Does this mean science only tells a story here?