well take the famous 'butterfly effect'...the idea being that a butterfly flapping its winds, leads, in a series of cause and effect paths, and in a kind of domino amplification process to tropical storms.

You can set up a computer program to supposedly simulate this process, by building some kind of computer model, where you can set your own initial conditions, you can set up the model of some kind of analogous butterfly and run the program lots of times and alter the initial behaviour of the butterfly and see how that affects the model somewhere down the line.

Problems with this are:
In the real world you can't set up the initial conditions; whether the butterfly flaps its wings or not, is part of a pre-existing reality development. Making a simulated butterfly do this or that, isn't a model of the real world.

Another problem with modelling this on a computer is that computers are digital. They operate on finitely defined variables as opposed to variables with an infinite number of decimal places.
They also operate in non-continuous development, ie they jump in steps from one moment to the next. This presumably also isn't an accurate model of reality.

With these serious problems with modelling the butterfly effect on a computer, make them of limited value, in showing cause and effect.

Yes we can see that small decisions can lead to big outcomes, in some ways of modelling things..

I also think that a dynamic model that has no beginning is hard to grasp..the idea that one thing lead to another seems very one or two dimensional...whereas the real world is more dimensional than that....having the choice between two options is very binary, but how you chose which option to take isn't binary...everything in history has lead up to the point where you make the decision between limited options, and if history has no beginning in the greater scheme of things, then maybe it is hard to define cause and effect. Maybe the outcome of your decision is partly what made you choose that option if you invoke retro-causation..

Anyway those are some of my vague thoughts on cause and effect...I do believe in freewill though.

I'm not denying that cause and effect is how reality works, only trying to outline maybe that you maybe can't prove that is how things work.

Well, thanks for your elaboration of your understanding of cause and effect. I do think adding those factors in, most of them, kind of even complicates it more. The butterfly effect is essentially just a larger explanation for causal occurrences. Definitely complicates.

Models can be used in experimentations. These are usually closed system occurrences, which thus allow for some closure about particular events. Just thought of that.

Causation is a logical phenomena that encompasses physical and hence biological phenomena, which is what happens and that’s all very good. But likewise, it also ought to encompass to the consciousness phenomena, as consciousness grows out of the usual pathway in which reality operates, viz logic on which physics is based on which biology is based. (For reasons unknown obviously). But apparently not, judging by those existential crises that so many of us unwantedly suffer sometimes. Unless one believes that there is a creator God, and God made an error in this regard, it is simply another variety of the universe’s mysterious processes. None of it should happen out of nothingness, and yet it does. And it gets more and more unpredictable even though there are governing laws for everything. Laws themselves are effects and the cause is either unknown, or, more likely, nonexistent.

Also, I’d like to add that, when one says ‘cause’ as in ‘cause and effect’, there is a risk of wrongly assuming that cause is a singular entity or phenomenon. But it rarely is (perhaps it never is). For example, she overcooked the stake because she was busy using social media. Oversimplifying statement that fails to mention the half a dozen reasons like it was also her birthday, she was busy earlier taking a call so she was using social media now instead of earlier, because this was a leap year today wasn’t a Sunday and her day off, the customer wanted to have stake because of his own dozen or so reasons, the meat itself wasn’t very fresh, and so on and so forth, all of which assisted in the stake being overcooked. A problem naturally occurring from our view of the world as a collection or different things rather than being one single phenomena, and our language that conveniently institutionalizes that view, for good or bad.

Well, thanks for your elaboration of your understanding of cause and effect. I do think adding those factors in, most of them, kind of even complicates it more. The butterfly effect is essentially just a larger explanation for causal occurrences. Definitely complicates — Josh Alfred

I think sometimes to get to a more basic understanding of something, you sometimes have to go through divergent thinking process...and then gather ideas from that process to then put together a condensed version.

I guess one has to step down from the fog into the kitchen and see what's cooking to get into the realities of cause and effect. The fog still roams around other parts of the home though, never really fading out. :)

There is no other proper way.

Definitely complicates. — Josh Alfred

I think what I can condense from some of my thinking is:

if someone say that cause and effect take place; what do they mean by 'cause', and what do they mean by 'effect'?

I guess a usual attempt to define those two terms would just end up as a repetition of the original statement, eg a cause leads to an effect....

Doesn't really answer anything though.

Yes, the two do seem to intertwine. In physics we learn about INITIAL CONDITIONS, or Velocity at time 0, and than go from there to the effects. Causation can be explained through physics, and through syntax. However, they are both different areas and for a young man not learned too well in either analytics I am rightly boggled.

I think the problem is that the word 'effect' implies cause, and the word 'cause' implies effect...so the two words are always linked, so perhaps we should just invent as new word to represent the statement.

A switch is either off or on, so the word 'off' implies the concept of 'on', but off and on are two different states, so they do need two different words, but if cause is synonymous with effect, maybe they really represent the same concept...not sure what word could be used..'event'? A single thing.

Hmm. Hume used the word conjunction. I could read up on it more. Events sounds right too. A good search might be something like "causation and physical events." That lead me to some info on "causal closure." Looks promising.

If there is causal closure what is its opposite? And how does that add on to an understanding of causation itself?

the thing in science with cause and effect is time's arrow I guess...cause comes before effect...but how can cause come before effect? How long before effect does cause come? What happens in betweens..

This interesting..I have read about the problem with cause and effect.

If 'cause' and 'effect', are more than intertwined, they are the same thing. A zero time event in history.
Maybe somehow history is made up of a continuum of these zero point events....which is pretty mind boggling...where does that leave time's arrow...in a non zero time progression of a continuum of these events.....times arrow then is not about cause and effect, it must be about something else.

I think maybe time's arrow not being about cause and effect it is about some kind of change over time. Maybe it is about the generation of information....I was going to say raising the level of complexity, but maybe complexity is infinite anyway, and so raising it wouldn't mean anything.

So it could be just about the raising of the level of information, but then one has to define what 'information' means....I think if I had an empty box, and then put an orange in it, then the level of information in the box has been raised; if I then put an apple in it, then I have raise it again, even thought the whole affair may be a continuum of complexity, so I haven't increased the level of complexity, or maybe I have, but then the orange and apple already existed outside the box within the whole system anyway.

Maybe information is about class of some system, so we have the class of an orange, and the class of an apple....which reminds me of Hilbert's hotel...if Hilibert's room capacity is doubled then you can put more things into the building, so although you haven't increased the size of the hotel, by putting things in one of the rooms, maybe you have increased the amount of information in the hotel..

This might be origin time's arrow, the creation of more class objects...

Firstly I don’t think it’s right to view time as an arrow, because that implies direction. As in a starting point, and ending point and many intermittent points in between. It also implies things like the opposite direction, a force that causes it, and a magnitude, like speed. But time isn’t fast or slow, or ‘going’ towards somewhere. There is only duration. But even that is a human concept, used more because of its usefulness rather than truth-seeking. Close your eyes and breathe and tryto notice the present. it’s already GONE, not left behind. Present is nonexistent because it’s always the past, which is gone, and future is also going to meet the same fate of being past without getting the opportunity of being a present. (I can’t describe this properly right now, its late, maybe another time)
Likewise, we should investigate on what is information, and if information is all there is?
And whether nature actually somehow has the urge to create as you suggested more and more class of different things or objects. One’s understanding of the nature of causes become blurred at this point bordering on religion or mere guesswork.

I was wondering how a cup falling off a table generated class objects, but then I forgot that if the table was set up in a field, then someone who was standing near the table, would see the cup falling, but if someone was on the Moon, then they might still see the cup sitting on the table, so when the cup falls off the table you generate more objects, because people further and further away in space see different things...?

So is there a way to just always simplify one's cognition of causal reality? — Josh Alfred

Indeed, there is way to think about causation without the logical inconsistencies that generally occur. For example, if a cause must exist before its effect, what then is it the cause of?

In the Eastern traditions, an effect is nothing other than the conjunction of its causes and so the two (causes and effect) arise, persist and perish simultaneously. In this causal system, there are two complementary kinds of causes, namely, the constitutive and the operative. Everything else in the chain of events that lead to the arising of an effect are merely the conditions which bring about the conjunction of these two mutually exclusive and jointly exhaustive causes.

So is there a way to just always simplify one's cognition of causal reality? — Josh Alfred

One way of simplifying one's thinking about causation is to stop thinking about it. WHEN we can only trace a series of causal events back a few steps, then there may be (practically) nothing to think about. Take "your" arrival in the world: You were born because your gestation was successful. A particular "You" was conceived because your father had sex with your mother when she was fertile at a particular time.

Your parents may have attempted to conceive a child many times before they were successful. The failures to conceive are part of your causation, because if they had succeeded in conceiving at an earlier time, a different child would have been conceived, fulfilling their desire to have just one child. That child would not have been 'you'.

Is there any reason to continuing to muddle over the causation of your birth? No, because as soon as we start thinking about it, too many causal elements arise, and we haven't asked anything about the cause of both of your parents coming into the world, or their 4 parents, their 8 grandparents, and so on back in time. The causal factors aren't infinite, but they might as well be.

Almost everything that happens is the result of uncountable causal interactions. It isn't just the big numbers that are the difficulty of identifying causes, it's their complexity. Take the butterfly beating its wings while it sits on a plant on the NE coast of Africa. The perturbations of air caused by the butterfly could (ultimately) cause a hurricane that will wreak havoc in Florida. It might -- if all the air in the world were still, and all other weather and climate factors were in perfect equilibrium. And maybe if the planet weren't spinning, and maybe if the sun wasn't shining, and so on. And we have to assume that there is only ONE butterfly, because if there were two, one butterfly's wing beating perturbations might cancel out the other butterfly's valiant efforts to destroy Miami.

Asking what caused you is like asking what were the 1918 causes that led to the hurricanes of 2018.

So, looking for a nice clean cut cause for a discrete effect is only going to work in certain nice clean cut situations. On Friday 11 March 2011 a 9.0-9.1 magnitude earthquake occurred off the shore of northern Japan. The earthquake caused a very large tidal wave that was very destructive (wrecking the Fukushima nuclear power plant, among other things). That cause/effect relationship is clean, clear, and definite. It would be quite difficult for us to trace a chain of causation leading to the big earthquake because the fault that slipped is 18 miles below the ocean floor, which makes it rather inconvenient to look at the details. But at least we can say the quake caused the wave, and everything was pretty much downhill from there.

Causal chains are infinite, they cannot be completed without arbitrarily defining starting points. Which is why the human minds always ultimately attributes events to a subject.

Causation is a logical phenomena that encompasses physical and hence biological phenomena, which is what happens and that’s all very good. — unforeseen

What is a "logical phenomenon"?

A switch is either off or on, so the word 'off' implies the concept of 'on', but off and on are two different states, so they do need two different words, but if cause is synonymous with effect, maybe they really represent the same concept...not sure what word could be used..'event'? A single thing. — wax

The concept cause and effect represent is time.

The concept cause and effect represent is time. — Echarmion

but if 'cause' happens at time1, and 'effect' happens at time2, what is happening between those times?
if time1=time2 then how can you say which came first and so how can it represent an arrow of time?

but if 'cause' happens at time1, and 'effect' happens at time2, what is happening between those times?
if time1=time2 then how can you say which came first and so how can it represent an arrow of time? — wax

Other events are happening in between time 1 and time 2 (thoughts included). You perceive a bunch of sensory information, and your brain structures this by grouping these into "things" and "events". The events are then ordered according to cause-effect relationships, and thus seem to follow another in time.

That's one way to describe it, anyways.

Other events are happening in between time 1 and time 2 (thoughts included). You perceive a bunch of sensory information, and your brain structures this by grouping these into "things" and "events". The events are then ordered according to cause-effect relationships, and thus seem to follow another in time. — Echarmion

but why wouldn't cause and effect happen at the same time?
Why would there be any kind of delay in the process?

but why wouldn't cause and effect happen at the same time?
Why would there be any kind of delay in the process? — wax

If there was not a delay, we'd have a situation reminiscent of Zeno's paradoxes. Every event could be infinitely divided into smaller and smaller constituent events, all effects would have to happen simultaneously with all causes, and there would be no change at all. Obviously, this is not how human perception actually works.

Causes and effect are discrete to us, which means that when we identify a cause and and effect, we also identify some element parting one from the other. Usually, these are the events in the causal chain that we deem not important enough to be individual causes or effects, but are instead merely the mechanics unfolding the cause.

If there was not a delay, we'd have a situation reminiscent of Zeno's paradoxes. Every event could be infinitely divided into smaller and smaller constituent events, — Echarmion

that argument seems contradictory..

how could an event that had no time dimension be divided up into time segments?

that argument seems contradictory..

how could an event that had no time dimension be divided up into time segments? — wax

If events had no time dimension, there would be no time and no change. That was the point of the thought experiment. Since that is not how we see the world, events must have a time dimension.

If events had no time dimension, there would be no time and no change. That was the point of the thought experiment. Since that is not how we see the world, events must have a time dimension. — Echarmion

this seems a bit like circular logic to me, ie:

the arrow of time is based upon the assumption that cause coming before effect, ie a non-zero time delay.

if cause and effect is an event with no time-dimension, then our definition of time is wrong; but the argument isn't presented as the definition of time being wrong, it is presented as there would be no time at all, and no change.

To sum up the argument you presented; time happens because there is a time interval between cause and effect...summed up even further, there is time, because there is time....which isn't an argument at all, really.

this seems a bit like circular logic to me, ie:

the arrow of time is based upon the assumption that cause coming before effect, ie a non-zero time delay.

if cause and effect is an event with no time-dimension, then our definition of time is wrong; but the argument isn't presented as the definition of time being wrong, it is presented as there would be no time at all, and no change. — wax

I can see why it would seem circular. But I am not trying to make an argument about the objective reality of time or it's attributes. I am positing that time, as a human experience, is structured by our human concept of cause and effect.

As such, the way I exit the circle is by pointing out that humans do actually experience time. We experience this time as a sequence of events, and the proper order of the events is defined by cause and effect.

It follows that within the concept of cause and effect, events have a temporal extension and are discrete. Whether this perception has anything at all to do with objective reality is a different question.

I can see why it would seem circular. But I am not trying to make an argument about the objective reality of time or it's attributes. I am positing that time, as a human experience, is structured by our human concept of cause and effect.

As such, the way I exit the circle is by pointing out that humans do actually experience time. We experience this time as a sequence of events, and the proper order of the events is defined by cause and effect.

It follows that within the concept of cause and effect, events have a temporal extension and are discrete. Whether this perception has anything at all to do with objective reality is a different question. — Echarmion

I know what you mean...there obviously does seem to be a cause and effect process going on.eg a tennis player hits a tennis ball, and the ball flies off...but I'm not sure you need to perceive and interpret a process of what looks like cause and effect in order for there to be the experience of time...
If a person was sat in front of a computer monitor and watched random shapes flash up on the screen one after the other, they would perceive time, wouldn't they? Although there doesn't at first glance appear to be any perception of cause and effect.

If the causes of an effect are that which is individually necessary and collectively sufficient to bring abut the existence of an effect, then so long as an effect exists, so too must its causes exists.

Consider the case of a clay pot. Generally speaking, the potter is thought to be the operative cause of the pot. However, if the potter dies, the pot does not necessarily cease to exist. In the Eastern tradition, the operative cause of the pot is its structure (form) and the constitutive cause is the clay (matter) from which it was fashioned. The potter is merely one of the myriad set of conditions that brought the form and matter into conjunction – for any potter may have informed the clay with the same structure. Consequently, so long as the matter and form remain in conjunction, the pot continues to exist.

So is there a way to just always simplify one's cognition of causal reality? — Josh Alfred

Always a way to simplify one’s *cognition* of causal reality? Sure there is....reduction to principles. Of which the primary one would of course be, cause and effect. The complication comes from the examples of it, not from the principle itself.

Whether or not cause is real is quite easy to think, to cognize. If we acknowledge the ubiquitousness of observation with respect to it objectively, and acknowledge the legislative authority of pure reason with respect to it subjectively, the principle falls out as a necessary condition.

Simple, huh?