Apocrisis was talking about a generic force rather than a generic cause, or generic agent. I think is makes sense to speak of a general background condition that isn't happily conceived of as a cause of the events that they enable to occur (randomly, at some frequency). — Pierre-Normand
So, there may be events that are purely accidental and, hence, don't have a cause at all although they may be expected to arise with some definite probabilistic frequencies. Radioactive decay may be such an example. Consider also Aristotle's discussion of two friends accidentally meeting at a well. Even though each friend was caused to get there at that time (because she wanted to get water at that time, say), there need not be any cause for them to have both been there at the same time. Their meeting is a purely uncaused accident, although some background condition, such as there being only one well in the neighborhood, may have made it more likely. — Pierre-Normand
If the particular causes cannot be identified, it is a cop-out to claim it's a "general background condition" — Metaphysician Undercover
There is a clear problem with this example, and this is the result of expecting that an event has only one cause. When we allow that events have multiple causes, then each of the two friends have reasons (cause) to be where they are, and these are the causes of their chance meeting. — Metaphysician Undercover
So the event, the chance meeting, is caused, but it has multiple causes which must all come together.
When we look for "the cause", in the sense of a single cause, for an event which was caused by multiple factors, we may well conclude that the event has no cause, because there is no such thing as "the cause" of the event, there is a multitude of necessary factors, causes.
It is not that they can't be identified. It is that the identification would miss the causal point. — apokrisis
It's true, in a sense, that 'events' have multiple causes. Recent work on the contrastive characters of causation and of explanation highlight this. But what it highlights, and what Aristotelian considerations also highlight, is somewhat obscured by the tendency in modern philosophy to individuate 'events' (and hence, also, effects) in an atomic manner as if they were local occurrences in space and in time that are what they are independently from their causes, or from the character of the agents, and of their powers, that cause them to occur. This modern tendency is encouraged by broadly Humean considerations on causation, and the metaphysical realism of modern reductionist science, and of scientific materialism. — Pierre-Normand
If we don't endorse metaphysical realism, then we must acknowledge that the event consisting in the two acquaintances meeting at the well can't be identified merely with 'what happens there and then' quite appart from our interest in the non-accidental features of this event that we have specifically picked up as at topic of inquiry. Hence, the event consisting in the two individual meeting can't be exhaustively decomposed into two separate component events each one consisting in the arrival of one individual at the well at that specific time. The obvious trouble with this attempted decomposition is that a complete causal explanation of each one of the 'component events' might do nothing to explain the non-accidental nature of the meeting, in the case where this meeting indeed wouldn't be accidental. In the case where it is, then, one might acknowledge, following Aristotle, that the 'event' is purely an accident and doesn't have a cause under that description (that is, viewed as a meeting). — Pierre-Normand
How could identifying the causes miss the causal point? — Metaphysician Undercover
I believe that an "event" is completely artificial, in the sense that "an event" only exists according to how it is individuated by the mind which individuates it. So the problem you refer to here is a function of this artificiality of any referred to event. It is a matter of removing something form its context, as if it could be an individual thing without being part of a larger whole. — Metaphysician Undercover
(...) And when we see things this way we have to ask are any events really accidental or coincidental. it might just be a function of how they are individuated and removed from context, that makes them appear this way.
You missed the point. Read what I wrote and reply to what I wrote. — apokrisis
It is the inability to suppress fluctuations in general, rather than the occurrence of some fluctuation in particular, which is the contentful fact. — apokrisis
If the particle is perfectly balanced on top of the dome, then there it shall remain until some net force moves it. — LD Saunders
But the very same reductionist tendency can lead one to assume that whenever a 'composite' event appears to be a mere accident there ought to be an underlying cause of its occurrence expressible in terms of the sufficient causal conditions of the constituent material processes purportedly making up this 'event'. Such causes may be wholly irrelevant to the explanation of the occurrence of the composite 'event', suitable described as the purported "meeting" of two human beings at a well, for instance. — Pierre-Normand
And metaphysically, it says instability is fundamental to nature, stability is emergent at best. And that flips any fundamental question. Instead of focusing on what could cause a change, deep explanations would want to focus on what could prevent a change. Change is what happens until constraints arise to prevent it. — apokrisis
Stability is fundamental and instability is fundamental. — Metaphysician Undercover
My OP wasn’t ruling out the idea of deliberate action. It was focused on the causation of accidents in unstable situations. — apokrisis
As soon as one specifies which class of mathematical models one refers to by “classical mechanics,” one can unambiguously formulate and perhaps answer the question of determinism as a precise mathematical statement. But, I emphasize, there is no a priori reason to choose a sole one among these. In practice, the choice of a particular formulation of classical mechanics will depend largely on pragmatic factors like what one is trying to do with the theory. — Fletcher
So I wouldn't worry too much about these singular limits; just as in the case of the division by zero, no solution makes more sense than any other, they are all meaningless. — SophistiCat
If that's right, then the only concrete example used to argue against the solution that suggests we should rule out the dome as an inadmissable idealisation because of the infinite curvature at the top, has failed. All that is left to argue against that solution is the second last paragraph on p21 that begins with 'It does not.' But I found that para rather a vague word salad and didn't feel that it contained any strong points. Indeed I'm not sure I understood what point he was trying to make in it. Perhaps somebody could help me with that. — andrewk
But then I reasoned (while simultaneously realizing that it made no sense!) that, on the one hand, there couldn't be any horizontal force on the top screw without there being a torque on the middle screw (...) — Pierre-Normand
And then, of course, as SophistiCat astutely concluded (and I didn't concluded at the time) the ideal case might be inderminate because of the different ways in which the limiting case of a perfectly rigid body could be approached. — Pierre-Normand
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