I think I mentioned this before, but I don't remember anyone responding.

How is causality different from determinism? They seem like the same thing to me, just looked out from a different direction. Can you have one without the other?

How do we rule out astrology, homeopathy, miracles, fate, and anything else that might rely on the appeal to lucky coincidence in our cynical old eyes then? — apokrisis

Causation as a criteria for demarcating science from non-science. That's something I hadn't come across before. Would you mind explaining how it works, or providing a reference I can follow up?

Patterns must have generators. — apokrisis

How do you know this? How could you know this?

How can we address that until after we find the answer to the titular question?

How is causality different from determinism? — T Clark

No real idea. But given that cause can't be established for certain what legs does 'determinism' have?

What leaves a bad taste in my mouth is when people fail to recognize their presuppositions are not somehow immutable aspects of reality. — T Clark

Ok, I think I see. One thing that might help is that words are entirely made up. They are just models we use within our personal context, and group context. Think of the word "tree". When you say tree, you think of something different than what I say tree. I might classify a bush as a tree, and a botanist may not. Who's right? Depends on what context is important to us. If I go into botany, then I better use words better than tree. If I'm with a group of friends, who cares?

If you're interested I've thought about these things for years. I have a paper I divided into several small sections here. https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/9015/a-methodology-of-knowledge/p1 The discussion is poor at first, but once Bob Ross jumps in, it gets going well.

But back to your point. No word is an immutable aspect of reality, including whatever you replace causality with. But there is something you're trying to find that bothers you about it. Could it be:

How is causality different from determinism? — T Clark

Its not. And that can put a damper on it if you don't like the idea of determinism. Unfortunately, not using the word causality won't eliminate that either. For a non-deterministic universe to happen, there must be something that happens without prior cause. I don't necessarily mean a God. I mean a particle would need to pop into the universe without any prior causality and then influence the matter in our universe.

You may like another post of mine here. https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/12098/a-first-cause-is-logically-necessary In the end I conclude that the end result of causality, is that there must exist something that is uncaused. There are a lot of people in there who are think its a God argument and make up straw mans, but ignore them. So logically, I suppose I conclude there that determinism is false. If you don't want to give my former post a read, give that latter one a read at least.

How can we address that until after we find the answer to the titular question? — Banno

If they're the same thing, then it's the same question.

Causation as a criteria for demarcating science from non-science. That's something I hadn't come across before. — Banno

I was talking about demarcating sense from nonsense. Surely you have heard of that?

So now you tell me how you rule out astrology, homeopathy and crackpottery in general. Then maybe I’ll tell you about how this played out in psi research as an interesting case study.

A clue. What defines a theory that is not even wrong apart from a failure to generate a testable counterfactual. Some causal hypothesis where the result is different depending whether the modelled cause is present or absent.

How is causality different from determinism? They seem like the same thing to me, just looked out from a different direction. Can you have one without the other? — T Clark

A constraint doesn’t determine an outcome, it just limits the probabilities. It places concrete bounds on the degrees of freedom or sources of indeterminism.

Of course, in the extreme, constraints become mechanical - that is, they can leave so little wiggle-room that the outcome is as good as determined.

One thing that might help is that words are entirely made up. — Philosophim

That's not true. They aren't just made up, they're made up and then agreed to. Imperfectly. That's what this thread is about for me. Getting to an agreement on what cause is or, if that fails, laying out the terms of the argument.

No word is an immutable aspect of reality, — Philosophim

There's a whole discipline in metaphysics about that. If you throw out the words, you throw out ontology. I'm just trying to get rid of causality. You're trying to get rid of reality.

But there is something you're trying to find that bothers you about it. — Philosophim

You ignored my previous response in which I discussed this.

If you don't want to give my former post a read, give that latter one a read at least. — Philosophim

If I remember correctly, I participated in both those threads.

A constraint doesn’t determine an outcome, it just limits the probabilities. It places concrete bounds on the degrees of freedom or sources of indeterminism.

Of course, in the extreme, constraints become mechanical - that is, they can leave so little wiggle-room that the outcome is as good as determined. — apokrisis

This just reinforces my understanding that you and I mean different things when we say "causality." That's not a bad thing and I've found your positions interesting. If I understand you correctly, you think I've focused in on a small part of what's included and not taken a holistic view. That's because my whole beef is with the way causality is usually understood, not the broader context you are describing.

One thing that might help is that words are entirely made up.
— Philosophim

That's not true. They aren't just made up, they're made up and then agreed to. Imperfectly. — T Clark

And they are still entirely made up between different people. And many times, several people will not agree to them. Just look around here! Words are tools is all I'm noting. There is no "one" definition that is used the same everywhere. Different contexts, groups, and settings will have their own definitions and implicit meanings to words they use. The tool of words is to convey concepts and meanings that fit what the group desires.

Some words are more logical, detailed, and effective at communication than others within different contexts. If you find the word too broad, which is a fair assessment, then I would work on defining sub-groups of causality that are more detailed and to your satisfaction. Then, when people bring up causality, bring up the subgroups and try to get them to narrow their word down to your more detailed analysis.

No word is an immutable aspect of reality,
— Philosophim

There's a whole discipline in metaphysics about that. If you throw out the words, you throw out ontology. I'm just trying to get rid of causality. You're trying to get rid of reality. — T Clark

I rather like reality. Reality persists despite whatever definition and words we invent. My point is that words are attempts to represent reality, and their representation is not an immutable aspect of reality.
The point that I wanted you to think about is that the problem that you have with causality, is a macro representative of every single word you ever think about. The problem is a pattern, not isolated to causality only. Also what I am describing is ontology, not trashing it.

But there is something you're trying to find that bothers you about it.
— Philosophim

You ignored my previous response in which I discussed this. — T Clark

I did not mean to ignore, I simply misunderstood. I assumed you were unsure of the reason why you seemed against causality specifically. It was an attempt to determine what that was.

If you don't want to give my former post a read, give that latter one a read at least.
— Philosophim

If I remember correctly, I participated in both those threads. — T Clark

I hope I was helpful, or at least gave you a different view point to mull over.

This just reinforces my understanding that you and I mean different things when we say "causality." — T Clark

I've said that all along. You take it to mean just efficient cause. I take it to include all four Aristotlean causes.

Likewise, you take it to mean chains of events in an a-causal or unentangled spacetime backdrop. I see a need to make the container part of the holistic causal story along with its contents.

You identify causality with determinism. I set things up so that the determined and the random, the necessary and the contingent, are reciprocally defined as the global constraints vs the local degrees of freedom.

So at each turn, you want to reduce causality to some kind of ultimate simple - a monism. And I say no. Causality is irreducibly triadic in its structure. It is hierarchical in its holism. You have to have the three things of thesis, antithesis and their synthesis, to get a complete picture of a systematic relation.

If I understand you correctly, you think I've focused in on a small part of what's included and not taken a holistic view. That's because my whole beef is with the way causality is usually understood, not the broader context you are describing. — T Clark

But just because efficient causality is a quarter of the whole, that doesn't make it wrong. It just makes it incomplete. And it also makes life simpler to the degree you can get away using that as your sole modelling tool.

So yes, it is too simple. But also, simple can be good when your purposes are matchingly limited - as when you merely want to build machines, and not organisms.

Mill's 5 methods to determine causation

1. Method of Agreement:

A B C occur together with w x y
A E F occur together with w t u

Ergo,

A is a necessary cause of w

2. Method of Difference

A B C occur together with w x y
B C occur together with x y

Ergo,

A is a sufficient cause of w

3. Joint Method

A B C occur with w x y
A E F occurs with w t u
B C occurs with x y

Ergo,

A is a necessary and sufficient cause of w

4. Method of Residue

A B C occur together with w x y
B is the cause of x
C is the cause of y

Ergo,

A is the cause of w

5. Method of Concomitant Variation

A B C occur with w x y

Increasing/decreasing A causes increase/decrease (positive scalar correlation) or decrease/increase (negative scalar correlation) in w

Ergo,

A is the cause of w

Causation

A causes B IFF

1. A is correlated with B

2. B does not temporally precede A (rule out reverse causation)

3. There is no C that causes both A and B (rule out third-party causation)

4. The correlation is not coincidental (persists in spacetime, jibes with background knowledge, mechanism of causation is known, etc.)

So at each turn, you want to reduce causality to some kind of ultimate simple - a monism. — apokrisis

Guilty as charged.

But just because efficient causality is a quarter of the whole, that doesn't make it wrong. It just makes it incomplete. And it also makes life simpler to the degree you can get away using that as your sole modelling tool. — apokrisis

My problem; and I guess it's more a matter of taste, aesthetics, than substance; is that those broader issues are not what I would call causes. No need to go into this any further. I think I've understood what you've been saying and I don't disagree.

Just look around here! Words are tools is all I'm noting. There is no "one" definition that is used the same everywhere. — Philosophim

Words are the tools we have to work with. It's our job as proto-philosophers to do our jobs with the tools at hand.

If you find the word too broad, which is a fair assessment, then I would work on defining sub-groups of causality that are more detailed and to your satisfaction. — Philosophim

That's what this thread has been about.

Reality persists despite whatever definition and words we invent. — Philosophim

Well.... that's for another thread.

Keeping in mind that he was writing about efficient cause and not the broader Aristotelian concept, here is what R.G. Collingwood wrote about causality in “An Essay on Metaphysics.”

That the term cause', as actually used in modern English and other languages, is ambiguous. It has three senses; possibly more; but at any rate three.

Sense I. Here that which is ‘caused' is the free and deliberate act of a conscious and responsible agent, and 'causing' him to do it means affording him a motive for doing it.

Sense II. Here that which is 'caused' is an event in nature, and its 'cause' is an event or state of things by producing or preventing which we can produce or prevent that whose cause it is said to be...Sense II-refers to a type of case in which natural events are considered from a human point of view, as events grouped in pairs where one member in each pair, C, is immediately under human control whereas the other, E, is not immediately under human control but can be indirectly controlled by man because of the relation in which it stands to C. This is the sense which the word 'cause' has in the practical sciences of nature, fi.e. the sciences of nature whose primary aim is not to achieve theoretical knowledge about nature but to enable man to enlarge his control of nature. This is the sense in which the word 'cause' is used, for example, in engineering or medicine...

Sense III. Here that which is 'caused' is an event or state of things, and its 'cause' is another event or state of things standing to it in a one-one relation of causal priority: i.e. a relation of such a kind that (a) if the cause happens or exists the effect also must happen or exist, even if no further conditions are fulfilled, (b) the effect cannot happen or exist unless the cause happens or exists, (c) in some sense which remains to be defined, the cause is prior to the effect; for without such priority there would be no telling which is which...Sense III refers to a type of case in which an attempt is made to consider natural events not practically, as things to be produced or prevented by human agency, but theoretically, as things that happen independently of human will but not independently of each other: causation being the name by which this dependence is designated. This is the sense which the word has traditionally borne in physics and chemistry and, in general, the theoretical sciences of nature... — R.G. Collingwood

When I first read this, I found it unsatisfying and confusing. As I’ve thought about it, I’ve come to think that the distinction between the first two senses he writes about and the third is worth considering. In the first two, the agent of causality is a human actor. In the third, it is another event. According to Collingwood, the first two senses are the original meaning of “cause,” while the third is a cause metaphorically by comparison to the first two. After thinking about it, that makes some sense to me. Perhaps the question I'm asking is whether that metaphorical understanding makes sense.

The very notion of 'causation' needs to be replaced with that of computation. At its most fundamental level reality is not 'physical' but information being computed. The elementary particles are the fundamental information elements. It's the human mind that simulates this information universe as the apparently physical world we experience around us. This is an evolutionary adaptation that makes it easier for us to function. Note there are NO physical variables for any notion of causation in any scientific equation. None! At its most fundamental level the universe is information being computed.

This is discussed in detail in my Complete Theory of Everything at https://EdgarLOwen.info.

Note there are NO physical variables for any notion of causation in any scientific equation. — Edgar L Owen

What about the coupling constants? How, at the fundamental level, is your information processed and what's the info about?

No real idea. But given that cause can't be established for certain what legs does 'determinism' have? — Tom Storm

Determinism is perhaps the most useless philosophy. Does not mean it is wrong, but useless.

And with my science hat on, it is untestable.

Determinism is perhaps the most useless philosophy. Does not mean it is wrong, but useless. — PhilosophyRunner

Determinism can have a strong impact on reality though. Determinism can lead to distancing. "Everything is determined. So let it all be". Or, "it's all determined, so it's my destiny to fight the power".

Yes, though if one really subscribes to determinism it is even more fundamental that that.

Take your example of someone thinking: "Everything is determined. So let it all be." But if determinism really is true, then they were always going to think that no matter what. And the next thing they are going to think? They were always going to think that as well. If determinism is true, then it has an absolute impact on reality.

In fact if determinism is true, those who think determinism is not true, were deterministically always going to think that as well. It is untestable, unknowable and frankly useless.

Now if determinism is not true, yet someone thinks determinism is true, then that line of thinking will have a strong affect on reality. Whether they think "Everything is determined. So let it all be" or, "it's all determined, so it's my destiny to fight the power" will affect their actions in reality.

Universe is a computational system. Everything contains the complete data of what it is. Elementary particles contain the complete data of what they are. Now maybe at the most fundamental level everything actually IS this complete data of what it is. That would enable the universe to compute everything that happens on the basis of that fundamental data. By analogy a virtual reality game consists entirely of computer data, but appears as an actual world in the mind of the player. Human minds then simulate the data world as the 'physical' world just as they do with virtual reality games.

Determinism is of course incompatible with quantum theory where quantum events occur randomly. In my view that in itself is enough to consign determinism to the scrap heap of pre-quantum history. No one should consider it seriously any more.

Determinism is of course incompatible with quantum theory where quantum events occur randomly. In my view that in itself is enough to consign determinism to the scrap heap of pre-quantum history. No one should consider it seriously any more. — Edgar L Owen

Local determinism is incompatible with quantum theory. Global determinism can be consistent with quantum theory - if the experimenter is also being determined. There is no test you can perform to disprove determinism, as the result of the test and your interpretation of that could always have been determined, whatever it is.

But I agree no one should consider it because it is useless. It is a good way to waste time without any progress.

Don't agree because quantum randomness is intrinsic to decoherence. It doesn't depend on an observer or experimenter.

Don't agree because quantum randomness is intrinsic to decoherence. It doesn't depend on an observer or experimenter. — Edgar L Owen

If the experimenter and experiment are both determined in such a way as they are correlated, current quantum mechanics is consistent with determinism.

But there is an even simpler thought experiment. Imagine a very long piece of code sitting outside the universe, with every outcome of every quantum recoherence. The list is random, but determined.

In such a universe, what experiment can I do to show this determinism? There is none. Of course this question even doesn't make sense, as I have no real choice in performing the experiment, whether I do so and when is all down to what is already determined on that list.

Consider a volume of free particles that interact. Their particle properties such as energy, momentum, spin orientation, etc. are INdeterminate with respect to each other to a certain degree determined by their wave functions. Now, for particles to interact they must decohere, their particle properties must become exact with respect to each other. That is because their particle properties must be conserved in any interaction. Eg. energy exiting an interaction must equal the energy entering the interaction. In decoherence exact particle properties such as energy are randomly chosen (within wave function limits). Decoherence occurs in all particle interactions. It happens irrespective of whether a human is arranging the particle interaction or not. It's because of this innate INdeterminism of quantum processes that determinism cannot be true.

Consider a volume of free particles that interact. Their particle properties such as energy, momentum, spin orientation, etc. are INdeterminate with respect to each other to a certain degree determined by their wave functions. Now, for particles to interact they must decohere, their particle properties must become exact with respect to each other. That is because their particle properties must be conserved in any interaction. Eg. energy exiting an interaction must equal the energy entering the interaction. In decoherence exact particle properties such as energy are randomly chosen (within wave function limits). Decoherence occurs in all particle interactions. It happens irrespective of whether a human is arranging the particle interaction or not. It's because of this innate INdeterminism of quantum processes that determinism cannot be true. — Edgar L Owen

This is innate local indeterminism. Not global indeterminism (or universal indeterminism may be a better term).

Read about superdeterminism, here is a quote from John Bell, he of the famous Bell inequality and Bell test:

"There is a way to escape the inference of superluminal speeds and spooky action at a distance. But it involves absolute determinism in the universe, the complete absence of free will. Suppose the world is super-deterministic, with not just inanimate nature running on behind-the-scenes clockwork, but with our behavior, including our belief that we are free to choose to do one experiment rather than another, absolutely predetermined, including the "decision" by the experimenter to carry out one set of measurements rather than another, the difficulty disappears. There is no need for a faster than light signal to tell particle A what measurement has been carried out on particle B, because the universe, including particle A, already "knows" what that measurement, and its outcome, will be."

You can have a universal script that determines the behaviour of the entire universe, including all quantum decoherence, and we would not be able to tell as we too are inside this determined path of events.

On top of my previous two posts, I should add that a lot of quantum mechanics is consistent with even local hidden variables. That was only discredited by the Bell's theorem experiments.

Global determinism remains a possibility, as far an quantum mechanics is concerned.