Regarding your question on Berkeley, I have not really looked at his work. But I can disprove Hume's view of the external world when he is in his more skeptical moods. One of my papers does refute dream skepticism.

Thank you for the reference. Yes, I cite Schliesser's work. I noticed Hume's anti-newtonian outlook before I knew of Schliesser's work. I had just read the Principia and then read Hume's Treatise. I was shocked at how much Hume was going after Newton without ever naming him. And all I had seen up to that point were papers by philosophers saying that Hume was a great Newtonian. Then I found Schliesser. He said many good things in this paper but also left things unsaid. http://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/5382/

Regarding the journal, the real challenge is the length of the paper. I plan to write a total of three papers contra Hume. I have completed the first draft of the first two. Both are very long. Possible journals include Philosophical Review, Synthese or Philosophers' Imprint because these accept long articles. Many of the other high impact journals have a max word length of 10,000 words and that would be very difficult.

Yes, my thoughts on that earlier thread grew into this paper.

I'm sorry. It's a long paper.

It's long. Just over 50 pages double spaced.

By the way, atheism has zero connection to evolutionary theory. — Terrapin Station

That's not true. Richard Dawkins has said that evolution has made it possible to be an intellectually fulfilled atheist. It is possible for someone to hold to the view of theistic evolution - that is, that God used the process of evolution as his method of achieving diversity of life. But it is incorrect to say that "evolution has zero connection to evolutionary theory."

Also, I would point out that evolutionary theory is closely tied to the theory of abiogenesis. Abiogenesis is an hypothesis in distress. Sometimes people claim there is no relation between abiogenesis and evolution, but that is not true. Charles Darwin proposed both ideas. In a letter, Darwin suggested the first life could have arisen "in a warm little pond." At the time, no one understood how complex life was and so Darwin's proposal seemed plausible, but the more we study unicellular life, the more we understand how complex it is.

Of course, abiogenesis and evolution were more plausible than the atheist positions in Isaac Newton's day. In Newton's day, atheists proposed the spontaneous generation of humans. They claimed that humans did not need to be created by God, the first humans probably just popped into existence long ago. Seems like a crazy idea, right? Now we understand that abiogenesis is just about as crazy.

Back this up with a mathematical demonstration then. — Metaphysician Undercover

I'm not sure what you are looking for exactly. But here's a website that will explain the basic equation which can be applied in different ways.
https://www.physicsclassroom.com/class/energy/Lesson-1/Kinetic-Energy

This next lesson explains that kinetic energy can do work directly as mechanical energy.
https://www.physicsclassroom.com/class/energy/Lesson-1/Mechanical-Energy

Another problem with science is that it says that two identical things will always act in the same way. This is an assumption. Two things are at least in different places, which can affect how they act. — Gregory

There you are going all anti-science again. You don't know how science works and so your criticisms of it are useless.

That one ball stops having kinetic energy, and the other one starts, does not mean that kinetic energy was transferred. — Metaphysician Undercover

Yes, it does. The energy is conserved and transferred from one ball to the other. Forget that for a minute. How does denying that kinetic energy is transferred help your position that we cannot observe cause and effect? It doesn't matter what you call it. The two balls cannot both occupy the same space. One ball knocks the second ball out of its position. You can watch that happen. You can plainly see that one ball has caused the other ball to move. What can you possibly gain by trying to deny what everyone can see with their own eyes?

Every pool shark with $20 riding on the outcome of a game of 8 ball knows that cause and effect is in play. When the pool hustler makes the prediction "8 ball in the corner pocket," it is because he knows that when the cue ball hits the 8 ball it will cause it to move. Only a pseudo-philosopher would attempt to deny what we can all plainly see.

First, we cannot say that the ball "is" kinetic energy, because a ball is more than just that, and the fact that it stops moving and has no more kinetic energy, in your example indicates that it is more than just kinetic energy. — Metaphysician Undercover

The ball isn't kinetic energy. The moving ball is kinetic energy. When the ball is moving, the ball and the kinetic energy are inextricable.

After the first ball strikes the second ball, the first ball no longer has kinetic energy, and the second ball has kinetic energy. So one ball looses kinetic energy, and another ball gains kinetic energy. — Metaphysician Undercover

Correct. This is why we call it a transfer of kinetic energy.

By what principle do you say that this is a "transfer"? One object looses a property and another gains a similar property, why would this be a transfer of property? — Metaphysician Undercover

Because of the conservation of energy.

Do you observe the property coming off of the one and going into the other? — Metaphysician Undercover

No, we observe one slow or stop and the other begin to move. You observe the first ball lose kinetic energy. The second ball had inertia and the force of the impact was enough to overcome inertia and give the second ball kinetic energy.

If it is true that two solid objects cannot occupy the same space, how does this premise validate your claim that one object transfers a property to another? — Metaphysician Undercover

Because two solid objects cannot occupy the same space, when one moves into that space, the second ball has to move out of the space. This is the physical necessity I've explained.

What we observe is that one object ceases to be in motion, and the other starts to be in motion. We do not see any transfer of motion. — Metaphysician Undercover

No, what we see is a transfer of kinetic energy. The first ball was moving, now the second ball is moving. It was knocked out of its space because two solid objects cannot occupy the same space.

When you understand a ball as consisting of many parts, molecules, rather than as a mass with a centre of gravity, you'll see that all the kinetic energy of the one ball must be transformed into potential energy before that potential energy can act as a force to accelerate the second ball. — Metaphysician Undercover

False. Kinetic energy does not need to be transformed into potential energy before doing any work. Kinetic energy directly does work.

So there is no transferral of kinetic energy, there is a deceleration of the first ball, as its kinetic energy is transformed to potential energy, and an acceleration of the second ball, as that potential energy acts to create kinetic energy in the second ball. Potential energy acts as a medium between the two instances of kinetic energy, therefore there is no transferral of kinetic energy, only two instances of kinetic energy, with potential energy separating the two. — Metaphysician Undercover

False, but let's say this weird theory were true. In that case, we would still be observing cause and effect.

I've found another interesting paper. This one is by Erica Shumener. Her article is forthcoming in Synthese and is titled "Humeans Are Out of This World."

Quote
I defend the following argument in this paper:
1. Laws of nature are intrinsic to the universe.
2. Humeanism maintains that laws of nature are extrinsic to the universe.
C. Humeanism is false.

This argument is inspired by John Hawthorne’s (2004) argument in “Humeans are out of their Minds”. My argument differs from his; Hawthorne focuses on Humean views of causation and how they interact with judgments about consciousness. He thinks Humeans are forced to treat certain mental properties (insofar as they involve causal features) as extrinsic to conscious minds. I do not discuss causation or consciousness here. Instead, I focus on Humean accounts of laws. I argue that Humean laws are extrinsic to the entire universe. As such, Humeans are not just out of their minds; they are out of this world.

I aim to show that premises 1 and 2 are well-supported and that denying either of them comes at a cost. Nevertheless, some Humeans may prefer to reject 1 or 2 rather than give up Humeanism. Even if the Humean takes one of these routes, the argument above has philosophical import: it shows that Humeanism involves surprising commitments.
End Quote

http://ericashumener.net/Shumener%20out%20of%20this%20world.pdf

Sure. But first, take your foot out of your mouth. — Banno

We don't have to talk about you. If you want to take up the challenge of refuting me, I've given you the four propositions you have to defend. Go to work!

I just found an interesting article by John Hawthorne. It's titled "Why Humeans Are Out of Their Minds." Published in Nous in 2004.

Quote
According to Humeanism, the causal facts pertaining to any subregion of the world are extrinsic to that region,' supervening on the global distribution of freely recombinable fundamental properties.2 For example, according to the Humean, a spatio-temporal region in which a certain intrusion of a bullet into a body is followed by death is only extrinsically a region in which the intrusion causes the death. The latter causal fact will, if it obtains, be underwritten by certain global regularities (most obviously, those connecting death to certain bodily disturbances) that are extrinsic to the region in question. Embed an intrinsic duplicate of that region in a global setting where very different regularities are in play and it may be false of that duplicate region that its intrusion and its death are causally connected. Similarly a spatio-temporal region that contains a substance that has a certain causal power-say of poisoning human beings-is only extrinsically a region where that causal power is present. Embed an intrinsic duplicate of a region in very different global settings and the relevant power may be absent. Humeanism thus delivers the thesis that the causal facts pertaining to a region are extrinsic to it. But that thesis, no matter how it is embellished, is incompatible with a pair of very obvious facts about my own nature. Accordingly, Humeanism is untenable. That many philosophers subscribe to it ought not to convince us to the contrary. History
provides reminders aplenty of philosophers' willingness to believe absurd doctrines.
End Quote
https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/3506168.pdf?refreqid=excelsior%3A79e73f454721bd90ec09b3583ff765b3

But with billiard balls, you aren't feeling them, so the second ball might have moved without the first hitting it. — Gregory

When the first ball strikes the other, you can hear the click. Your senses confirm one another because the external world is real.

So science is subjective!!! Your attempt to salvage it is not working. — Gregory

Hume was anti-science. It sounds like you are also. Is that true?

This is a lie worthy of Trump. You provided the link to the Google search. Look at the Google Search. It does not support your contention that Newton wrote a law of cause and effect. — Banno

Why are you so emotional?

It's pretty astonishing that someone with pretences to philosophical reasoning can present such an argument. — Banno

If you want to take on the assignment of proving me wrong, go for it!

Some small number of folk do call Newton;s third Law the Law of Cause and Effect. It's certainly not common, and it is also misleading.

SO it seems to me that unfortunately your research is misguided. — Banno

The little google search I provided for you demonstrates that I did not come up with the idea on my own. It is too bad that Google retrieves a bunch of non-physicist websites, but the evidence still proves my point.

I don't wholly buy into the Principle of Sufficient Reason either. — ChatteringMonkey

Hume believed in the Principle of Sufficient Reason. Constantly throughout the Treatise he is inquiring after the cause of certain mental events. It's funny that he doesn't like the principle of sufficient reason regarding the external material world, but he is a true believer regarding mental events. Hume believes our thoughts are caused by impressions, ideas, contiguity, resemblance, connection, imagination. He comes up with all kinds of causes for mental events, but he want to suspend judgment on material objects.

I simply ask you what you directly observe. Answer pending.... — tim wood

I have provided this answer more than once, but will do so again. Let's take the four examples I've cited.

1. One billiard ball moves, strikes a second ball and causes it to move. This is cause and effect. What you are observing is a transfer of kinetic energy. The first billiard ball "has" or "is" kinetic energy. Either term is acceptable because kinetic energy exists because the ball is moving. The kinetic energy and the moving ball are inextricable. Because two solid objects cannot occupy the same space, when the first ball strikes the second, it causes the second ball to move. The first ball has slowed or stopped and the second ball which was stopped is now moving. That you are observing a transfer of kinetic energy is plainly obvious.

2. A match is consumed by the flame. When you strike a match, a flame ignites. The combustion process requires fuel, it is a physical necessity. As the match burns, you can see that it is consumed by the flame as smoke rises from the match. You can watch the flame progress down the match as it burns. The flame is causing the match to be consumed.

3. A brick shatters a window. When someone throws a brick through a window, we know the window is going to break. A physical necessity exists. Two solid objects cannot occupy the same space. You can even video record the brick breaking the window and watch in slow motion if you choose. You will see the brick begin to warp the window until the window cannot bend anymore without breaking, and then it breaks. There is no reasonable question about the brick causing or not causing the window to break. Causation is plainly visible.

4. Decapitation causes death. This form of execution was rarely used when Hume was alive but came back into fashion after Hume passed during the French Revolution. A physical necessity exists for anyone to be alive. Actually, many physical necessities exist, but we are only looking at one. The one is the head must be connected to the body. When you chop someone's head off, it causes them to die. There is no question about this. Cause and effect are in play. You can watch them as the axe or guillotine blade comes down.

If you wish to refute me, then you must defend each of these statements:
1. Two billiard balls can occupy the same space.
2. A flame does not require fuel to burn.
3. A brick cannot cause a window to break.
4. Decapitation does not cause death.

Good luck!

No it's not, that's a Newtonian way of speaking about it. There is no attraction, mass curves spacetime, and the curve of spacetime determines how masses move. Singling out causes and effects to describe a proces where everything influences everthing else seems to only complicate the matter unnecessarily. — ChatteringMonkey

If an apple drops from a tree, it still falls to the ground. It does not go into orbit following a curved spacetime. Attraction exists. The warping of spacetime explains planetary motion precisely, but I don't see that it is explains gravitational attraction on the surface of earth. Causes and effects are necessary due to the Principle of Sufficient Reason.

This is clear from the fact that gravity is a force, and it is not an object in motion. — Metaphysician Undercover

Objects in motion possess (or are) kinetic energy. Gravity is not a kinetic energy. Gravity is one of the four fundamental forces in nature. The other three are electromagnetism, strong nuclear force and weak nuclear force. Kinetic energy is not a fundamental force but a force that is bound to objects.

OK, then when someone like Newton declares a law, what is it based on? — Metaphysician Undercover

That's a good question. One element Newton and others look for is physical necessity. They also look for the ability to model the action mathematically. Newton used geometry in the Principia. Math can show that a physical necessity is at work, even if the physical necessity is not clearly understood. Newton also had the advantage of standing on the shoulders of giants like Copernicus, Galileo and Kepler. Kepler's laws of planetary motion provided important insights for Newton as he did his work.

It's a question. Given that you claim we can directly observe causation, you should be able to tell me what the actual cause is, in physical terms. — Echarmion

I have. And I have asked you to refute me. You have not.

Can you point out to me what physical laws make this a physical necessity? — Echarmion

It is the physical necessity that points to the laws, not the other way round. Are you doubting that it is physically necessary for the head to be attached to the body for a person to be alive?

It could be kept alive by machinery. That's not difficult to imagine given we can stop people's hearts for surgery. — Echarmion

Machines can keep the heart pumping and keep air going into and out of the lungs, but that isn't enough to sustain life for a person without a head.

So, if there are multiple, which one is the cause? Are all together the cause? — Echarmion

The cause of the death is separating the head from the body. This separation cuts off many physical necessities for life. If you cut off one physical necessity and not the others, death would take longer. By separating them all at once, death happens immediately. It's an interesting question why this accumulative effect brings immediate death and not slow death, but that is not really the subject before us.

No, there's a very big difference here. Force is equal to mass times acceleration. And momentum is equal to mass times velocity. "Kinetic energy" was developed from Leibniz' "vis viva" (living force), which was expressed as mass time velocity squared. This was later modified in the concept of "kinetic energy" such that kinetic energy is half of the vis viva — Metaphysician Undercover

No. Leibniz did not invent the term "kinetic energy." The term was not coined until the mid-1800s. And this really has nothing to do with the vis viva controversy between Newton and Leibniz. Newton clearly understood that an object in motion is a force, a term later seen to be equivalent to the term kinetic energy. Newton talked of this force being communicated to another object by "impulse" or "the shock of impulse." Today we speak of the transfer of kinetic energy. This is the same thing.

Despite your claim that I am thinking wrong, you clearly have this backward. The "physical law" is an inductive conclusion, produced from descriptions of natural occurrences. Any "necessity" which is apprehended is a logical necessity dependent on acceptance of the inductive law. — Metaphysician Undercover

No, a law is not declared based on frequentism. This is a mistake philosopher's sometimes make based upon Hume's errors. No natural process can be called a law unless the physical necessity is understood.

There is no necessary relationship between the physical law and any "natural law". — Metaphysician Undercover

For this discussion, physical law and natural law are equivalent terms. Laws of physics are laws of nature.

I think you slightly misunderstand the point of the example. It's about why cutting of the head can be labeled a "cause" even though it's only one element among many of the system. I turned your examples around to show that your "cause" is not sufficient. — Echarmion

No, you turned around my example to no point at all. If you want to refute my point, then you would have to explain how the body could continue to function and live when the neurological pathway between the brain and the heart are no longer functioning. There is a physical necessity that the head and body be connected. There are many physical necessities that must be present in order to allow for the possibility of life. I'm simply pointing to one.

So it must be the moving brick approaching the window. It must be that the brick, in some instant, while on a certain vector through spacetime, is just about to occupy the same space and time as the window, on a different vector through spacetime. But that is a description of a state, followed by another state, where various particles are now on different vectors. We might call the transition from one state to another an "interaction", but where, precisely, is the cause? Is the entire state of the universe that cause, and the entire next state the effect? — Echarmion

This is not a refutation. It is not even a positional statement about what happened.

Hume only made a sceptical argument about Causation, namely that (on a macro-level) we don't see anything like a mechanism or law of Causation, which was inferred by others at the time. For Causation to be true metaphysically it has to be true on a more fundamental level too, or what would 'metaphysical' mean otherwise? — ChatteringMonkey

False. What is true on classical scales does not have to be true on quantum scales. Also, Sean Carroll didn't mention this, but Einstein was correct when he said that GR and QM will never be unified because the spacetime continuum cannot be quantized.

On a classical scale means on the surface, emergent... that is not fundamentally or metaphysically. — ChatteringMonkey

The term "fundamentally" and "metaphysically" are not synonymous.

Edit: The point is not that Hume took a modern physics point of view, but that he was sceptical of people inferring something they had no evidence for. And as it turns out modern physics seems to justify his scepticism. — ChatteringMonkey

False. Sean Carroll is a modern physicist. He knows that we live in the classical scale universe and the video admits that cause and effect play a role in our everyday lives.

I don't think causes (and effects) are the best vocabulary to use here, the curvature of spacetime doesn't exactly 'cause' attraction... Edit: ... and although some of the math stayed the same, the whole paradigm has changed. — ChatteringMonkey

The use of "cause and effect" to describe the warping of the universe causing the attraction of gravity is exactly right. And someday we may learn why massive objects warp the spacetime continuum. The math between Newton and Einstein is very, very close. Newton's equations are much easier to work with and precise enough on smaller astronomical scales, that NASA used Newton's equations to plan the manned flight to the moon instead of Einstein's.

Cause and effect are not directly observable. One might be able to observe a sequence of events, and then to claim that one is the cause, another the effect; but that claim, while perhaps guided by observation, is not something one can see. — Banno

You keep making that claim. I've already given you four examples where we can see cause and effect. Please explain to me what we are seeing in these four examples that could convince you we are NOT seeing cause and effect.

Newton did not write a specific law of cause and effect; in particular, the law "To every action there is always opposed an equal action" is not a law of cause and effect. — Banno

Every physicist in the world has been taught that Newton's third law of motion is also called Newton's Law of Cause and Effect. How can you verify my claim that Newton's third law is commonly called Newton's Law of Cause and Effect? Let me Google that for you.
https://www.google.com/search?q=%22Newton%27s%20law%20of%20cause%20and%20effect%22

Notice that we conclude deductively that a force acted, by applying Newton's first law as a premise. We do not observe that a force acted. — Metaphysician Undercover

You are thinking about this wrong. We observe cause and effect directly. We come to understand the physical necessity involves. This leads us to understand the natural law at work. The physical law then allows us to make inductive inferences. This is how science works. Modern philosophers of science understand this, but Hume and his followers are still living in the Middle Ages.

Great! What colour are they? DImensions - large? Small? Rough? Smooth? Opaque? Translucent? Anything at all? — tim wood

You are asking the wrong questions. Why not try to find an argument that will refute the examples I've given instead of trying to change the subject?

Are you ready to discuss Newton's laws without substituting "force", and address directly what Newton meant by this term? — Metaphysician Undercover

Everyone knows that Newton uses the term "force" to mean "kinetic energy" and "impulse" to mean "transfer of kinetic energy."

Hume is also the better scientist because he takes what the world does. — TheWillowOfDarkness

Hume has no idea what the world does. He admits that he doesn't understand motion. He's the opposite of a scientist.

How many times do we have to test bread before we know infallibly what bread is? — Gregory

What does that even mean? We make bread. If we use the ingredients to make bread, then we know it will provide nourishment.

Science has worked so far, but so far we haven't seen the argument that it will continue too. — Gregory

It is irrational to argue that science will not continue to work. You have no evidence to support that view.

You'd go to a scientist. What Hume is saying is not relevant to science, per se, so to interpret him as a lousy scientist is to misunderstand the point. — Wayfarer

Not true. Hume is arguing against the possibility of science. He is saying that we cannot possibly learn the things about the essence and nature of matter that we have learned. Hume makes the claim that we will never learn the nature and essence of bread that makes it fit to nourish the body. That claim certainly has not aged well. We know all about calories, protein, carbohydrates, fats, antioxidants and more. We understand biology, anatomy, the digestive system and cell biology that tells how a bagel eaten in the morning can end up as part of your earlobe in the afternoon. Hume is anti-science. Philosophy will never progress out of its current state of darkness until Hume is seen as entirely refuted.

...because it remains a possibility that the world, and all of what we know in it, remains a consistent illusion. There's nothing a scientist would be able to say about that, as science starts with the presumption that it is not. — Wayfarer

My first paper on Hume is not published yet, but it is not possible that the world is a consistent illusion. My paper demonstrates my point.

How many heads does a caveman have to cut off before he knows about this "law"? — Gregory

One. However, we don't have any cavemen to test the question on. When I say that you can observe cause and effect in a decapitation, it assumes you know enough about biology and anatomy to know that the head and brain cannot be detached from the body without causing death. I would assume a caveman would know that. But the question is irrelevant. We certainly know it today.

Newton is like yang and Hume is like yin. You need both in life. Hume is more mystical you might say, but it is pure rational argumentation. Those who dismiss Hume are like the Thomists who think they understand matter so well as to "know" that it needs a spiritual being to sustain it. As for Kant, Hegel said that he made the Enlightenment into philosophical methods — Gregory

I don't buy the yang and yin analogy. The two ideas are mutually exclusive. Newton is the most important philosopher in the history of philosophy. The Treatise is a frontal attack on Newton, his methods, natural philosophy, geometry, and Newton's Law of Cause and Effect. It springs out of Hume's ignorance of natural philosophy. He's just wrong.

Hume is questioning the nature of knowledge, the steps by which we arrive at understanding, whereas you're simply accepting the apparent veracity of the senses in the matter. — Wayfarer

No, I'm not. The veracity of the senses can be tested. Testing is the whole point of experimental philosophy.

All of what you say about Hume's argument about causation is directly comparable. You're simply appealing to common sense -saying, in effect, that 'obviously a causes b because we can see it'. Then you wonder how the subject of philosophy could be so daft as to fall for such an obvious fallacy. — Wayfarer

Hume's argument is based on his skeptical idealism and his skeptical materialism. The first paper I will submit for publication deals with Hume's skeptical idealism. It includes a proof of the external world which completes defeats skeptical idealism. This second paper will deal with Hume's skeptical materialism. In other words, once we know that objects external to our minds exist, how can we learn about them? The answer is that we can test our senses to gain confidence in their integrity. We learn that under certain circumstances our senses may deceive us, but we learn that through the use of other senses and reason. When our senses are in agreement, that increases our confidence in our senses. The great philosopher Dallas Willard liked to say "Reality is what you run into when you are wrong." Our senses have proven to be highly reliable.

All we sense is matter. Hume says we are so far from understanding matter that it get even in the way of understanding motion! — Gregory

Hume says a lot of things, most of which is nonsense. If you wanted to know the nature or essence of a bar of metal, would you go to a philosopher or to a scientist? I would go to a condensed matter physicist who could tell me all about the bar of metal: the alloy, the tensile strength, the density, the melting point, relative strength compared to stainless steel or titanium. The scientist could tell me everything I could want to know. Hume can tell me nothing. Why do you have any faith in Hume's comments at all? Shouldn't you be a little more skeptical of him?

And that's why I would probably not read your paper - it would seem to be arguing thatHume misunderstood something Newton did not say. — Banno

I've already quoted Newton's Principia. I've already proven what Newton said.