I want to say that causality is not physical because causality is a principle and principles are not physical. — Leontiskos

That makes sense to me - and makes sense of many intuitions. I think properly, though, the word would simply be a description of a physical process (once fully understood). Currently, it seems to be as you say for lack of an actual descriptive grounding.

it does not follow that distance belongs to the same genus as points, lines, and curves — Leontiskos

You're right, it doesn't. But they cannot be left out of the discussion, lest you end up with merely overlapping geometric elements and no shape at all. The distance creates what we're observing as a 'curve' for eg.

One reason we know this is because distance is infinitely divisible whereas physical objects are not infinitely divisible. — Leontiskos

That seems superficial: distance exists as a relation. The space which the distance describes is physical and reduces quite well into the standard theory. The distance is a ratio of sorts between the the position of the points and the next-considered points. The space which creates that ratio is fully real, in a physical sense. There is no distance without a physical medium. I do not htink it right to consider "distance" as some kind of property in and of itself. "the space between" is probably better.

Likewise, we could say that kinetic energy is transferred from one ball to another, and given that kinetic energy is physical this is a physical phenomenon. — Leontiskos

It is, though. It describes the transfer of particles. The cause for your question has been ascertained in physical terms. What, exactly, causes those particles to move from one object to another, i'm unsure of but I understand it breaks down to physical forces we understand pretty well. If I am wrong, we have more to discuss, definitely.

I would again say that "energy" is a highly theoretical entity, and is not obviously physical. — Leontiskos

I cannot see another avenue to explore, even, so I have to reject this. It begins with light, i suppose, as fundamental. IT just goes upwards from there in terms of density. I am not a physicist, though. I'm not quite sure what gaps you're seeing in the descriptions above. You may have something with gravity, but (unknown to you, clearly) i've always been skeptical about gravity (not in a Bryce Mitchell kind of way, but in terms of "nah, you guys don't know what's going on at all").

I am saying that the proposition that causation is necessarily physical ought to be a conclusion rather than an assumption — Leontiskos

With this, I definitely agree. I am not entirely convinced against substance dualism, so I need to accept this line.

he very fact that we can talk about causation without committing ourselves to physicalism — Leontiskos

We can also talk about things in totally incoherent terms elsewhere (if that's hte case, I mean). That we can talk about causation without being committed to physical looks to me more like a lack of knowledge. It was a thousand years before we stopped thinking a giant guy dragged the sun across the sky. Or before we dropped the assumption that the Lord interferes, non-physically, in people's deliberative endeavours (changing hearts).

It at least seems fairly clear that energy is of a different genus than the two billiard balls. — Leontiskos

I am unsure this is reasonable. Sufficiently dense energy is physical matter, no? They are the same stuff on that account. ice/water/steam.

The energy is not physical; it is potential. — Leontiskos

Again, I don't think this is true. With all of that information (and some more whcih I assume you would allow) a correctly-trained physicist could give you the exact amount of force/distance/heat/noise etc... that car could make. It doesn't seem to me many of these objections are, in fact, theoretical.

I think the concept of causality can be a very useful one, depending on the situation. At other times, it can be misleading. — T Clark

I think we can make it stronger than "very useful." When an investigation determines the cause of a plane crash, this is of course useful. But I'm confident the investigators also mean it to be true. Is there any reason to withhold that designation, in such a case?

macroscopic causality is always a bit fuzzy around the edges. Someone concludes the plane crashed because someone exploded a bomb on the plane. Does that mean all times a bomb explodes on a plane, it will result in a crash? Or just sometimes? If it's just sometimes, it seems like it's not the whole story of causality. A lot of instances of macroscopic causality are like that - it feels like you've sufficiently explained the chain of cause and effect but there's stuff left out

Agreed, but is the explanation nonetheless true, as opposed to merely useful? We can bracket questions about how all bombs behave, and ask whether the causal explanation involving this one is correct, can't we?

When an investigation determines the cause of a plane crash, this is of course useful. — J

Yes, this is exactly the kind of situation I was talking about - where the idea of causality is useful.

But I'm confident the investigators also mean it to be true. Is there any reason to withhold that designation, in such a case? — J

Causality and truth are apples and oranges. An understanding of what caused the crash is useful for figuring out how to keep it from happening again and for figuring out responsibility and liability. In order for that understanding to be useful it must be correct - true.

I think maybe it makes this one not correct. Maybe you have to say more, like the plane crashed because the bomb went off and it broke the left engine - because without specifying the left engine bit, saying the bomb caused the plane to crash is a bit like saying this person's poverty caused their crime.

Causality and truth are apples and oranges. — T Clark

I don't quite see this. Aren't you saying that the statement "{some set of Xs} caused the plane crash" has to be true, in order to be of use? How then is causality an "apple" in regard to such a statement? The predication seems the same as in any other similarly phrased statement, and would follow the same inferential rules.

Yes, I took the more detailed explanation to be part of what a good investigation would uncover. Taken at whatever level of detail seems important, then, would we also say the explanation is true?

Okay, but how does any of that help your thesis which holds that causality is physical? — Leontiskos

I feel no burden of proof.

Yet, we are aware of things that do not exist for us through abstractions. We are 'aware' of abstractions. — I like sushi

Through our physical brains.

Of course the onus is on non-physical positions to help physicalist positions rethink what 'physical' means now and coudl mean under a cognitive paradigm shift — I like sushi

Exactly. Can you point something out to me that exists but isn't somehow physical?

I don't quite see this. Aren't you saying that the statement "{some set of Xs} caused the plane crash" has to be true, in order to be of use? How then is causality an "apple" in regard to such a statement? The predication seems the same as in any other similarly phrased statement, and would follow the same inferential rules. — J

I think we’re just getting tangled in language here. Causality is not the same thing as truth. Causality is a relationship between events. Truth is a characteristic of statements - propositions.

But aren't Aristotle's four causes attempting to answer questions such as, "Why a duck?" — Leontiskos

I think that's the question that Aristotle and Darwin were attempting to answer, if in different ways. — Leontiskos

First of all, Aristotle and Darwin were not answering the same question. Aristotle was offering a broad and rough classification of different types of explanation, whereas Darwin was proffering a specific answer to a specific question.

Second, explanations, causal or otherwise, are always sought and given within a specific context. The various examples of "explaining a duck" that I gave are not complimentary. Each would separately make sense in its proper context, but this would not make sense at all:

The explanation for a duck will presumably include why it is in this locale, why its plumage is of a certain color, and what its evolutionary history (and genesis) is. — Leontiskos

There is no such thing as the cause of a thing, simpliciter, with no context of who is asking and for what purpose. This is why the so-called PSR is a nonsensical exercise, language on holiday.

Causality is not the same thing as truth. Causality is a relationship between events. Truth is a characteristic of statements - propositions. — T Clark

OK.

Though as we've often discussed on this forum:

Is "If P then Q; P; therefore Q" about events or propositions -- or both? It can be given either a causal or a logical construal.

Is "If P then Q; P; therefore Q" about events or propositions -- or both? It can be given either a causal or a logical construal. — J

OK, let’s be specific. Question - What caused the crash? That’s an important question and its correct answer is useful. Answer - the frange punctured the kambo which severed the gringle cord. That’s a proposition that is either true or false. And it would be true or false whether or not it was useful.

That’s enough here. I don’t want to go back-and-forth on this any more. You can give your response and we’ll leave it at that.

There is no such thing as the cause of a thing, simpliciter, with no context of who is asking and for what purpose. — SophistiCat

I just gave you a whole post arguing otherwise, and in response you've merely begged the question. Do you have any arguments for your position, or just assertions?

For example, you asserted:

But to ask what accounts for the duck's existence doesn't seem sensible, because there is no way to answer such a question. — SophistiCat

I responded with the argument:

To take a simplistic example, someone might say, "We can't ask what causes ice. We can ask whether ice requires H2O and we can ask whether ice requires low temperatures, but those are two different questions." The answer is that they are two interrelated questions, and that to give the cause of ice we will need to answer both questions (and others as well). One cause/reason for ice is H2O and another cause/reason for ice is low temperatures, and yet they are both causes and they will both be needed to explain, "What accounts for the ice's existence." Surely someone who understands these two things about ice understands what accounts for ice's existence more than someone who does not understand these two things (ceteris paribus). — Leontiskos

And then in response you just re-asserted your initial assertion, avoiding all argument. So at this point I can see that in your opinion we can never ask, "What accounts for the ice's existence?," and I can see that you have not yet provided any arguments for your opinion.

I am asking what you think. You sound like you are buried in the physicalist reductionist camp. What flaws are there with this position?

I question that the brain can be described in solely physical terms or as a physical thing. Of course, in some respects the brain is physical - it weighs so much, occupies such and such a volume, and so on. When extracted and placed in a bottle of formalin, it is a physical thing. And physical injuries to the brain plainly have consequences. But a functioning brain in situ is a different matter.

Consider that descriptions of physical things are necessarily static and structural - they tell us about composition, weight, neural connectivity, biochemical processes and interactions and the like. But a living brain exists in constant flux, generating experiences, meanings, and novel responses that seem to emerge from, but aren’t reducible to, these physical substrates. To measure them physically - to try and capture the so-called 'neural correlates' of thinking - would be like trying to capture a conversation by analyzing the acoustic properties of the sound waves of which it consists (although orders of magnitude more complex). Even if successful, it would miss the semantic content, the intentions, the meaning being imparted. 'It would be possible', wrote Einstein, 'to describe everything scientifically, but it would make no sense; it would be without meaning, as if you described a Beethoven symphony as a variation of wave pressure.'

Most physicalists will unthinkingly say that language, mathematics, abstract thought, and so on, can be explained as being physical, because they are produced by the brain. But the problem with this is how much weight is placed on 'produced by'. How any combination of neurochemicals can 'produce' or equate to an idea or some neural content is currently completely unknown. Many physicalists will just assume that it is something understood in principle, that will be known when the science is sufficiently advanced. But the principles are different to those in other areas of science (such as physics). This gets into the whole area of the explanatory gap and the hard problem, of course.

At any rate, I think the really interesting question is that of mental causation - of how ideas and thoughts can have physical consequences, as they plainly do. I don't think it's an insoluble problem, but I think that the assumption the brain is a physical thing is the wrong place to start.

↪Philosophim I am asking what you think. You sound like you are buried in the physicalist reductionist camp. What flaws are there with this position? — I like sushi

Answer my question and you will likely know what I think. I do not follow 'physicalism'. I'm simply asking you a question after answering yours.

There is an interesting mathematical model of cause/effect in compositions of functions.
$f\circ g(z)=f(g(z))$ like a force field where one function starts the movement, then another function causes further movement, etc. Over and over again the process can be written
${{F}_{n}}(z)={{f}_{n}}\circ {{f}_{n-1}}\circ \cdots \circ {{f}_{1}}(z)$. In certain settings (certain Banach spaces) this process approaches a limit as n grows larger and larger, provided there is what might be called a hidden "guiding principle" of each function and that the sequence of these converges as n grows.

I've mentioned before this relates to theology as well, for de Chardin's "Omega Point" might be so interpreted.

Mathematically, this is both a sufficient and necessary condition for convergence to a "final effect".

Perhaps a philosophical idea lurks herein. Otherwise, what I see is an endless word game being played. But pay no mind and continue.

I question that the brain can be described in solely physical terms or as a physical thing. — Wayfarer

By what means? Its the current scientific consensus.

But a living brain exists in constant flux, generating experiences, meanings, and novel responses that seem to emerge from, but aren’t reducible to, these physical substrates. — Wayfarer

Take an instrument. Take air. Alone they are physical substrates. Combine them together over time and you have interactions. But those actions cannot occur without the existence of the two physical identities.

Even if successful, it would miss the semantic content, the intentions, the meaning being imparted. — Wayfarer

If you don't include the meaning, content, and intentions, then of course they aren't included. If you do, they are.

'It would be possible', wrote Einstein, 'to describe everything scientifically, but it would make no sense; it would be without meaning, as if you described a Beethoven symphony as a variation of wave pressure.' — Wayfarer

I have no objection to describing things emotionally. Raw science is a careful breakdown to understand how and why it moves at a detailed level. I can scientifically describe a hinge on a door or simply say, "Its so the door swings open." We shouldn't confuse the context of emotional and colloquial language as somehow superceeding the underlying detailed reality we often gloss over. Scientific language does not call for the elimination of poetry, wonder, or emotion. It simply provides a detailed understanding behind it.

How any combination of neurochemicals can 'produce' or equate to an idea or some neural content is currently completely unknown. — Wayfarer

This is simply not true. Modern medical science and pharmacology would not be where its at if we did not understand the brain at the level we do. The brain being the local of thought is not a belief system, it is the only rational conclusion modern science can make. Until that rational conclusion is legitimately challenged, one can suppose or imagine that the thought comes somewhere else than the brain, but they cannot rationally assert it as a reasonable possibility.

By what means? Its the current scientific consensus. — Philosophim

Citations, please. First, your appeal to “scientific consensus” is misleading unless you specify what kind of consensus you mean. Neuroscience as a practice generally assumes a physicalist framework, because that is the methodological stance required to investigate physical systems. But method is not metaphysics. Many scientists are methodological physicalists for the purposes of doing their work, while remaining agnostic or noncommittal on the ontological status of consciousness.

Moreover, many philosophers of mind—including those working closely with cognitive science—do not regard physicalism as an adequate or complete explanation of consciousness. David Chalmers, Thomas Nagel, Galen Strawson, Evan Thompson, and many others explicitly challenge physicalist orthodoxy. So no, it is not a settled consensus unless you simply mean, “this is the working assumption in one domain of science.” But working assumptions are not metaphysical conclusions.

Saying that physicalism is true because science assumes it is, is like saying that only metal objects are real because metal detectors never find wooden objects.

Take an instrument. Take air. Alone they are physical substrates. Combine them together over time and you have interactions. But those actions cannot occur without the existence of the two physical identities. — Philosophim

This analogy misses the point. Yes, physical material and interaction is required. But what is not explained by appealing to physical substrates is why and how such interaction results in semantic content, intentions, or meaning. To continue with the analogy: you can describe how a violin works in physical terms—strings, bow pressure, air movement—but that doesn’t explain what makes a musical phrase evocative, expressive, or meaningful. Nor does it explain the act of composing music or understanding it. You could play a melody on many different physical instruments, but it would still be recognisably the same melody. So the melody is something other than the physical instrument.

Semantic content is not a mere epiphenomenon of molecular motion. It’s a distinct order of intelligibility, one that involves interpretation, context, and intention—none of which are physical properties. They're not found in the particles or interactions.

If you don't include the meaning, content, and intentions, then of course they aren't included. If you do, they are. — Philosophim

This is tautological. The issue is how you include them. To "include" meaning or intention in your description is not to reduce them to physics, unless you're simply smuggling them in and calling them physical. But physical properties are defined in terms of extension, motion, mass, energy, etc.—not meaning. So what kind of thing is “meaning”? Where does “aboutness” (intentionality) fit into physical ontology?

The problem is not that you forgot to mention content and meaning, but that the physicalist framework can’t account for them. That’s what the “explanatory gap” and the “hard problem” are actually pointing to: not a temporary lack of data, but a categorical difference between the vocabulary of physics and the nature of conscious experience.

This kind of physicalist reasoning has been subjected to careful critique by philosophers and neuroscientists alike. A notable example is Philosophical Foundations of Neuroscience by Max Bennett (a neuroscientist) and P. M. S. Hacker (a philosopher of mind and Wittgenstein scholar - review). They argue that many claims made in the name of neuroscience rest on category errors—particularly the idea that “the brain thinks,” “the brain interprets,” or “the brain understands,” when in fact it is persons who do these things. The brain is a necessary condition, yes—but not the experiencing subject. Treating the brain as a standalone thinking agent or process is not a scientific theory but philosophical confusion.

We can only experience causation physically so it seems presumptious to assume that causation is a matter of fact beyond physicalism. The very term becomes problematic at micro and macro levels.

Even if it is the case that mental operations are purely manifest in the physical, rather than instigated by physical acts, then I see no reason to also propose atemporality as part of mental acts.

If the mental is simply an unknown physical phenomenon then I see a possible problem with causation depending on the phsyical scale we are likley having to talk about.

When it comes to mental and physical I also see an issue with a conflict between evidence and proof. Meaning, propositional attitudes are tied to mental acts rather than to physical acts.

So when I say that Mental to Mental causation does not exist I see this as stating something akin to saying the rock had an attitude and so rolled down the hill. So if we are talking about the philosophy of mind we need to keep in mind that physical and mental acts are probably not best clumped together under a singular use of the term 'causal'.

I guess I could simply ask what kind of difference (if any) people see between physical and mental causes. If there is a difference then surely when we talk about mental acts causing physical act, or vice versa, then terminological use of 'causal' would necessarily have to shift?

It depends what you mean by 'physical'. Plenty of people happily refer to subjective feelings as non-physical entities (qualia and such).

Then there is the question of what you mean by 'exist'. Numbers do not exist and nor does love (physically), and there is a vast array of abstract concepts that have no physical existence too.

Also, historically, phenomenon regarded as non-physical in the past is now called physical - such as time and gravity.

At any rate, I think the really interesting question is that of mental causation - of how ideas and thoughts can have physical consequences, as they plainly do. I don't think it's an insoluble problem, but I think that the assumption the brain is a physical thing is the wrong place to start.

The way I see it is that a human has something extra than anything else in the world. An ability to act in a unique way, free of instinctive, or deterministic patterns. Which other animals and plants, or physical objects do.
This unique ability is like a vast pool of choices. Any choice can be made and there is no way that external influences, or states determine which choice is made. A human is a chooser, a chooser can choose any order of notes when choosing a musical score, Beethoven for example. But to be able to make more sophisticated choices, the chooser needs a more intelligent way of deciding, rather than a random choice generator. In a human this intelligence takes the form of a being developed by having been evolved in a natural world, of plants and animals.

So a human chooser is intimately acquainted with the ways of the world, through evolution. This means it’s difficult to tease apart the intelligent being from the animal, it evolved in. In a way they are fused together body and mind.

Otherwise, what I see is an endless word game being played. — jgill

A very common judgement I make for many philosophical arguments. I think sometimes philosophical machinations can be so reductive that they fall prey to becoming so abstracted from any real life scenario that the crux of the matter is lost. That said, it is certainly worth while exploring extreme imagined cases in order to sift out problems that were initially unseen.

Balancing between these extremities -- of real world, severe abstraction and analogy -- is something every philosophical approach struggles with (and so it should!).

@Leontiskos To use technical jargon I am more or less approaching this as a mistake where the 'causal features' in a nomological approach are being equated with 'causal features' in a metaphysical approach. This is a faulty approach.

I think sometimes philosophical machinations can be so reductive that they fall prey to becoming so abstracted from any real life scenario that the crux of the matter is lost.

Yes and this issue is a good example, it’s quite a simple issue when one realises that causes regress to a first cause. Unless they are the result of an intelligent mind. In which case in order to regress to a first cause, it would mean that the agency in the first cause had in mind, Beethoven’s fifth, or Hamlet, (or anything which a mind can produce), when determining to create the universe.

In particular the focus here is on the use of Mental Acts and Physical Acts in terms of Philosophy of Mind. I think there is still worthy groudn to cover within more a more focused scope.

As I have noted previously the demarcation I am highlighting is the use of 'causal' between nomological and metaphysical approaches (to throw in the technical jargon). This is where I see a mistake that may go some way towards identifying pitfalls when trying to articulate ideas around the Hard Problem.

In particular the focus here is on the use of Mental Acts and Physical Acts in terms of Philosophy of Mind. I think there is still worthy groudn to cover within more a more focused scope.

Yes and I’m hoping to learn something.

I’m not a philosopher so can’t use the terminology much and might not be familiar with the arguments.
I would say though, that the problem seems to be in the idea that a human being is both a mind and an animal and how to account for it. I think that some of the approaches have baggage as a result of other philosophical arguments. For example accounting for how it came to exist and whether a mind can exist without a body (idealism), or how a body can have a mind (physicalism).

I come to this from a different direction, where I am interested in what is going on. Not necessarily how it came to be, or how it works. But rather what are we, what are we doing and where are we going.

When I look at a human in this way, I see a being*, in a world, learning, practicing, participating in a world of dense objects (material), where there are a set of very hard constraints and how they adapt and live in such a place. With the goal of becoming proficient, or wise as beings who can act as creators in that world.

*a being, with a highly integrated mind and body, resulting in an agent with the ability to mould their surroundings.

'It would be possible', wrote Einstein, 'to describe everything scientifically, but it would make no sense; it would be without meaning, as if you described a Beethoven symphony as a variation of wave pressure.' — Wayfarer

like trying to capture a conversation by analyzing the acoustic properties of the sound waves of which it consists (although orders of magnitude more complex). Even if successful, it would miss the semantic content, the intentions, the meaning being imparted. — Wayfarer

I question that the brain can be described in solely physical terms or as a physical thing — Wayfarer

Just to clarify -- Aren't the first two examples descriptions in solely physical terms? Understood thus, they would starkly reveal the limits of such description. I'd have expected your point to be that the brain can be described solely in physical terms, but that such a description has to leave out what we think of as the mental.

I think what you mean is that there cannot be a physical brain-description that also describes mental content. Is that close? Or perhaps, the more uncontroversial point that any physical description of a thing may not necessarily tell us what the thing does?