I'm guessing that Anscombe's assertion that "determinism is impossible" was based on Quantum Probability, — Gnomon

No.

There remains the possibility of your reading the article rather than guessing.

Linguistic AND in the world
https://ctmucommunity.org/wiki/Principle_of_Linguistic_Reducibility

true, if one equates causality to mean determinism

Can you expand on this a little? Is this a claim that reality is language? Who's claim is this? How does this relate to causation? etc.

What's your take on how gravity work? Newton famously confessed his ignorance (hypothesis non fingo) in re how mass attracted mass. Albert Einstein came along, 3 centuries later, and explained the mechanism viz. that mass warps spacetime. — Agent Smith

Einstein's explanation is the best we have, but I'm not sure we have reached the most fundamental understanding of gravity yet.

determinism is impossible — Gnomon

Most interesting. — Ms. Marple

I'm guessing that Anscombe's assertion that "determinism is impossible" was based on Quantum Probability, — Gnomon
No.
There remains the possibility of your reading the article rather than guessing. — Banno

I did scan the article, but its circuitous reasoning lost me. So, I was hoping you could summarize how she arrived at the bold "assertion that determinism is impossible". In the quote below, it sounds like she was saying that the "inventions of indeterministic physics" are merely linguistic "dogma" instead of a physical fact. What's your guess? Is classical determinism a natural fact, or just a philosophical metaphor to fill-in our ignorance of what's really going on in the world?

My own understanding of Causation is expressed in terms of Mathematical & Logical relationships. Even causal Energy is defined in terms of Proportions & Ratios (E=MC^2 ; where C is a dimensionless number). Since our knowledge of Math is mental instead of sensory -- inferred instead of observed -- it makes sense to me that human reasoning & intentions could have some effect on those causal relationships. In which case, I could say that "orderly determinism is normal & probable, but abnormal (intentional) deviations (indeterminism) are statistically possible". I just made that up, so don't hold me to it. :smile:

Causation (philosophy) :
Relation that holds between two temporally simultaneous or successive events when the first event (the cause) brings about the other (the effect).
https://www.britannica.com/topic/causation

Hume on Causation :
Causation is a relation between objects that we employ in our reasoning in order to yield less than demonstrative knowledge of the world beyond our immediate impressions.
Note -- Hume's problem of Induction reminds us that our reasoning from-this-to-that is fallible, hence some skepticism is advisable. But to conclude that "determinism is impossible" would cripple the disciplines of Science & Philosophy. Yet, to infer that "determinism is inevitable" would deny the universal human assumption of free choice, upon which our personal behavior & communal culture are based.

Anscombe :
Yet my argument lies always open to the charge of appealing to
ignorance.. . . .
It has taken the inventions of indeterministic physics to shake the
rather common dogmatic conviction that determinism is a
presupposition, or perhaps a conclusion, of scientific knowledge.
https://iweb.langara.ca/rjohns/files/2016/09/anscombe_causality.pdf

It's more than a claim - the page gives an argument. Causation is the telic (wilful) rearrangement of vocabulary according to a grammar or syntax

I did scan the article, but its circuitous reasoning lost me. — Gnomon

Well, this thread is not about Anscombe, and there is already a thread on that article, so this is probably not the place. Further, your use of "circuitous" indicates some antipathy. And I've already suggested that her first argument is that the notion of causation remains undefined, hence "Yet my argument lies always open to the charge of appealing to ignorance..." in reference to that argument, and her moving on to the Dalton Box.

Given a single ball being dropped into a Dalton Box, can you tell me where the ball will finish? Isn't it the case that, for some given degree of accuracy in measuring the position of the ball and the poles in the box, there is a point at which it becomes impossible to predict the outcome? Perhaps if your measurements are accurate to a micron, you might predict the outcome for a Dalton box with five rows, but not six; for six rows you might need an accuracy of a tenth of a micron. But then you could not predict the outcome for seven rows... and so on.

So for any given accuracy, there is always a Dalton Box for which the outcome cannot be calculated.

Notice carefully that this argument is not rejecting causation, but determinism. It puts the lie to the assumption that physics - even Newtonian Mechanics - is deterministic.

Further, your use of "circuitous" indicates some antipathy. And I've already suggested that her first argument is that the notion of causation remains undefined, — Banno

I had never heard of Anscombe or her absolute assertion that "determinism is impossible". So, I couldn't have approached the article with antipathy -- more like curiosity. Anyway, if she is going to reach a definitive conclusion about causation & determinism, why would she be content to leave her subject undefined, or undefinable? What kind of argument is that? If she had said, more modestly, "determinism is not inevitable", I would have to agree.

From their historical experience, ancient humans seemed to believe that divine causation was inevitable. Hence the pessimistic (or heroic) attitude of Fatalism. But, I doubt that modern physicists were fatalists. Instead, to them, Classical Determinism merely meant that Causation was consistent enough to make practical (or pragmatic) projections into the future course of events. Yet. Quantum Physicists were perplexed by the inherently unpredictable nature of quantum events. That's why Heisenberg proposed his Uncertainty Principle, to introduce a bit of Doubt into Determinism. Nevertheless, quantum physicists still use Schrodinger's equation to make useful predictions, despite the inherent margin of error.

On the macro scale of human experience, consistent causal Determinism seems to be reliable -- to a high degree of certainty -- as illustrated in the DART experiment sending a missile to intercept the path of an asteroid ten months into the future, and thousands of miles from Earth. So, to say that "determinism is impossible" seems to be a bit extravagant, even though we now know it is not inevitable. Instead, human FreeWill (purposeful action) seems to allow us to choose "different paths" to destiny, which modifies, but does not deny the general rule of Cause & Effect.

Therefore, I would say that Determinism is generally how the randomly interacting physical world works, but for rational humans the purposeful mental world introduces both Linguistic (Mental) & Physical degrees of freedom into the chain of Cause & Effect. That's because willful Intention, for all practical purposes, is a goal-directed form of causal Energy. It's not just the ability to do haphazard work, but to cause specific desirable changes in the world. :smile:


Fatalism vs Determinism :
In short, fatalism is the theory that there is some destiny that we cannot avoid, although we are able to take different paths up to this destiny. Determinism, however, is the theory that the entire path of our life is decided by earlier events and actions.
https://www.mytutor.co.uk/answers/10942/A-Level/Philosophy/What-is-the-difference-between-determinism-and-fatalism/

Determinism Is Not Just Causality :
Determinism is more than belief in causality. The defining feature of determinism is a belief in the inevitability of causality. The essence of determinism is that everything that happens is the only thing that could possibly happen (given the past) under those circumstances.
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/cultural-animal/200906/determinism-is-not-just-causality

Heisenberg's uncertainty principle is any of a variety of mathematical inequalities asserting a fundamental limit to the accuracy with which the values for certain pairs of physical quantities of a particle, such as position, x, and momentum, p, can be predicted from initial conditions. . . . It is vital to illustrate how the principle applies to relatively intelligible physical situations since it is indiscernible on the macroscopic scales that humans experience.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncertainty_principle

Mental versus Physical Causation :
Pragmatic science assumes that anything not detectable by our physical senses, or by their mechanical extensions, is unreal — merely a side effect of brain operations. That materialistic presumption also applies to causality, in which physical events are predictably followed by effects in the real world; but, non-physical events, such as conscious thoughts, are effective only within the body. Those metaphysical activities are called "brain functions", and while personally useful, they are not in the mainstream of objective causation. Nevertheless, for ordinary humans, they are not mere side-effects, but our direct link to reality.
http://bothandblog2.enformationism.info/page69.html

Given a single ball being dropped into a Dalton Box, can you tell me where the ball will finish? — Banno

I will read. Shouldn't have neglected her.

In the meantime, and acknowledging that I may be putting my foot in it, this is a slightly bizarre way to talk about Galton boxes, the point of which is that even if chance is real, and not just a consequence of our non-omniscience, nature rather makes a point of capturing chance and turning it to the creation of order. The path of any single ball on a Galton box is at least effectively, for us, random, if not genuinely random, but the result of thousands of balls flooding onto the board is a perfectly predictable gaussian distribution. The actual shape of the distribution will vary from run to run, and the amount of variance is also predictable. Nature seems to believe in statistics.

Hmm. There's not a lot of point in continuing a conversation about an article that you won't read. Your comments do not mesh with the article, nor with what I wrote about the article,

Anscombe does not deny causation. She denies determinism. She carefully examines several ways in which the word is used and shows them to be wanting. So your pointing to examples of causation is besides the point.

She also carefully distinguishes causation and determinism, something I do not see in your posts.

The path of any single ball on a Galton box is at least effectively, for us, random, if not genuinely random... — Srap Tasmaner

...and that'll do for her conclusion: "...that we have no ground for calling the path of the ball determined – at least, until it has taken its path".

Note that this is not the same as saying that the result is uncaused, nor unpredictable. One of the delights of her philosophical style is this clear and precise analysis of language, and one of the lessons of the article the clear differentiation between causation and determinism. By cleaving these concepts apart she is able to show that causation does not imply determinism.

I think you are over analyzing something really simple. Causality is not a force or an agent. This is a common error of idealistic thinking.
The abstract concept of causality is a term we use to describe a quality found in physical processes of this world. Physical events are caused in the process we call universe and in turn they produce additional events. In nature there are processes that produce entities which in turn produce new processes. Our universe is a group of processes, we as observers classify processes as entities (i.e. human being=biological process)
Just observe this process we call philosophical thread. Your OP caused others to respond to it.

I suppose if you’re going to say causation is a quality of physical processes the question is what IS this quality of physical processes?

For some (all?) things we say a thing HAS such and such quality, say the ball has the quality of redness or something like that.

But is causation really a quality in that way?

For example, let’s assume that cigarettes cause cancer. Are you saying causation is a quality of the cancer? So in some sense the cancer HAS causation? That doesn’t seem quite right.

Is causation the quality of the cigarettes being smoked? Does this mean the smoking of the cigarettes has the quality of causation? That doesn’t right either.

First of all let me define the common usage I am using for the term quality.
I quote :"a distinctive attribute or characteristic possessed by someone or something."
Now lets define the term labeled "cancer".
Its a biological process where biological cells divide uncontrollably!


-"is causation really a quality in that way?"
-Well the redness of a ball is caused by a long process(light reflected on the ball, hitting our retina, filtered by eyes' rods and cones, converted in to an electrical signal and interpreted by our brain based on the energy carried by that light wave). So does the properties of a process have the quality(attributes) to cause additional processes? Sure.

-"For example, let’s assume that cigarettes cause cancer. Are you saying causation is a quality of the cancer? So in some sense the cancer HAS causation? That doesn’t seem quite right."
-It doesn't seem quite right because your example is either wrong or you use bad language "mode"!
Cigarettes (can be the cause) cause cancer. The process that causes cancer is the inhaled toxic chemical produced by burning cigarettes creating mutations to our genetic material.
SMOKING causes issues on how our cells reproduce and how our cell reproduces cause health issues. (cancer)
So the process of smoking can cause the process of uncontrollable cell division that can cause a health issue (cancer) .
Different processes have the characteristic/ability/quality to produce/create/realize new process.


-"Is causation the quality of the cigarettes being smoked? "
-Again"Cigarettes being smoked" is not a quality, its a process. Causation is the quality(ability ) processes have(smoking cigarettes,balls reflecting or absorbing light) to trigger new processes.(cause cancer, cause a ball to appear red)

Perhaps I’m simply getting hung up on the choice of words but I think the fact you’re putting things in parentheses is showing us that causation is not a quality of a process.

Right at the start you even say that qualities that are possessed by things. This means that to be a quality of a process the process should ‘have’ that quality.

But that’s not how we talk about causation, processes don’t ‘have’ causation.

You say ‘the properties of a process have the quality (attributes) to cause additional processes’.

But this doesn’t support the idea that causation is a quality. For one you’re now talking about the ‘properties’ of the process having a quality rather than the process itself. Any even then you all but admit that ‘attributes’ is the word you’re searching for rather that ‘the quality’. And even THEN the attribute IS what is doing the causing rather than being causation itself.

I’m not trying to be obtuse but I don’t think ‘quality’ is the word you’re looking for to tell us what causation is. Unless I’m missing something!

Of course it is a quality/ability processes have in the physical world. We can observe it, demonstrate it , predict it and quantify its parameters.
btw Parentheses provide more information in addition to a sentence.

-"Right at the start you even say that qualities that are possessed by things."
-No there are many different usages of the term "quality", this is why I shared the usage I am using and the synonyms you can choose from. Just name the word you like and we can proceed to more useful and interesting things.

-" This means that to be a quality of a process the process should ‘have’ that quality."
-Yes processes have the quality/characteristic/ability/attribute to trigger/cause new processes. Can we agree on that? Causality is what drives the physical world and as I said it is quantifiable, observable and predictable. i.e. Snooker/pool and conversations are based on this quality displayed by physical processes.

-"But that’s not how we talk about causation, processes don’t ‘have’ causation."
-Processes have the ability to cause things to happen. Its one of the quality physical processes have.

-"But this doesn’t support the idea that causation is a quality. "
-I am offering you a definition and numerous words to replace the term quality if you don't like it!
So let me phrase it a bit different. Processes have the POWER to trigger new processes.(i.e.you eat a sandwich and a metabolic processes starts in your digestive track).
Can we agree on that?

-"But this doesn’t support the idea that causation is a quality. For one you’re now talking about the ‘properties’ of the process having a quality rather than the process itself. Any even then you all but admit that ‘attributes’ is the word you’re searching for rather that ‘the quality’. And even THEN the attribute IS what is doing the causing rather than being causation itself."
-Causation is a quality/attribute/characteristic of physical processes. There is NO debate there. Again if you have issues with the common usage of the word I use, pls communicate your preference.


-"Any even then you all but admit that ‘attributes’ is the word you’re searching for rather that ‘the quality’"
-No I don't admit anything...I just informed you that those words are used interchangeably by many...and this is why you can find this usage in Dictionaries.

-"And even THEN the attribute IS what is doing the causing rather than being causation itself.""
-Here is the main problem in your argument. As I predicted its bad language mode.
(lady is noun, consciousness is a noun, thus consciousness exist as an entity like ladies do...common mistake).
I guess your thinking is (correctly if I am wrong) "Causality is a noun thus it must exist in addition to the ability of a process to cause an effect."
Causality is an abstract concept labeling the quality/attribute displayed by a process.
You shouldn't assume an external agent in addition to the displayed property/quality/attribute/characteristic of a process.
Are we dealing with Phologiston, Miasma,Consciousness, Orgone energy etc etc all over again?I thought we were done with pseudo philosophy ages ago.

-"I’m not trying to be obtuse but I don’t think ‘quality’ is the word you’re looking for to tell us what causation is. Unless I’m missing something! "
-Common usages are numerous and easy to access/learn about . I defined which one I used, so you have no excuse for "missing something".but again I am willing to use the term you suggest...pls proceed.

Thanks for the reply.

I think you have diagnosed the problem accurately. ‘Causation’ is indeed a noun, presumably because it refers to a thing of some sort.

The attributes of physical processes I take you to mean things like the cancer that smoking gives rise to, or the damage to the cells that then give rise to cancer or something like that?

The problem with that is that attributes of the processes of those sort I think we call the EFFECTS of causation, not causation itself. Now of course the effects of causation are very real and can go on to cause more effects as you say, but we’re no closer to saying what causation itself is.

Perhaps you mean to say something like causation occurs when a process leads to an effect? I suppose that’s true as far as things go but then we still need to explain what ‘leading to’ means, does it just mean we often see things of that type go together for instance? Does it mean the process raises the probability of the effect somehow?

-"I think you have diagnosed the problem accurately. ‘Causation’ is indeed a noun, presumably because it refers to a thing of some sort."
-well in the case of an abstract noun it refers to (I quote):
"noun: abstract noun; plural noun: abstract nouns
a noun denoting an idea, quality, or state rather than a concrete object, e.g. truth, danger, happiness."
So the term "quality" if used when we identify abstract nouns.

-"The attributes of physical processes I take you to mean things like the cancer that smoking gives rise to, or the damage to the cells that then give rise to cancer or something like that?"
-By attributes of physical processes I mean the quality/attribute/ability elements of a process have to generate an additional process. One of the qualities of the elements of a process is to form structures and interact with other structures. i.e. a moving cue ball can cause the movement of an other ball by physically interacting with it .

-"The problem with that is that attributes of the processes of those sort I think we call the EFFECTS of causation, not causation itself."
- in the example with the pool balls,the effect of causation is the colored ball rolling on a table.
That was caused by the cue ball bumping on the colored ball. Watching that ball moving we can assume the causation behind that process. The effect is the produced outcome caused by the ability physical processes have to initiate addition processes(effects).

-" Now of course the effects of causation are very real and can go on to cause more effects as you say, but we’re no closer to saying what causation itself is"
-Yes we can...its an abstract noun we made in our need to describe a specific quality of the physical world. Things don't happen all at once but there is an hierarchy of cause and effect.

-"Perhaps you mean to say something like causation occurs when a process leads to an effect?"
-Again causality doesn't occurs. Causality is just an abstract noun, a label of a specific quality where a process forces an effect or an other process to initiate.
The effect occurs and we try to identify the "causal agent" responsible for it.

-" I suppose that’s true as far as things go but then we still need to explain what ‘leading to’ means, does it just mean we often see things of that type go together for instance? Does it mean the process raises the probability of the effect somehow? "
-I don't really find that term useful. What causality examines (as I pointed out above) its the moment in time where a process (causal agent) forced a specific effect to emerge in reality.

↪Gnomon
Hmm. There's not a lot of point in continuing a conversation about an article that you won't read. Your comments do not mesh with the article, nor with what I wrote about the article,
Anscombe does not deny causation. She denies determinism. She carefully examines several ways in which the word is used and shows them to be wanting. So your pointing to examples of causation is besides the point.
She also carefully distinguishes causation and determinism, something I do not see in your posts. — Banno

Sorry. I didn't mean to offend you. I was just quibbling with Anscombe's definitive statement : "determinism is impossible". That's what we do on TPF isn't it : quibble? "She denies determinism". I don't. However, I do see a philosophical place for limited FreeWill within a general milieu of Causation & Determinism. If "determinism is impossible" then empirical Science is impossible. And if FreeWill is impossible, then human Culture is impotent. I was merely arguing in favor of human Intention as one of many causes in the world. So, if she had said "determinism is not inevitable" I would have no quibble.

She also "distinguishes causation and determinism", which seems to be a linguistic quibble. The OP asks if causation is just a word (belief) with no referent in reality. Perhaps in Linguistic Philosophy that interpretation is meaningful. But in Scientific Philosophy, the word "causation" should have a solid grounding in physics. Admittedly, inevitable Determinism is a belief, not a verified fact. But it's a belief based on lots of objective evidence. However, Freewill is also a belief, and based on personal subjective experience. It's the lack of empirical evidence that allows some to deny the common belief in FreeWill.

You seemed to assume that I was arguing in favor of strict Determinism. Which is just the opposite of my intent. I suppose, if you interpret her argument to be not just against absolute Determinism, but also in favor of relative Freedom, I could agree. But, if that's what she meant, I missed it in my perusal. I did a search for "freewill" in the article, and found only one instance. So, the point of the article seemed to be mostly a linguistic quibble between Causation & Determinism, not an attempt to show that FreeWill is possible. :smile:

Causality vs Determinism :
Determinism is more than belief in causality. The defining feature of determinism is a belief in the inevitability of causality. The essence of determinism is that everything that happens is the only thing that could possibly happen (given the past) under those circumstances
https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=causality+vs+determinism
Note-- If you interpret human Intention as a form of causation, then there is no need to postulate a gap in the chain of causation. Hence, natural Determinism is supplemented with cultural Intention. :nerd:

Anscombe :
"It was natural that when physics went indeterministic, some thinkers should have seized on this
indeterminism as being just what was wanted for defending the freedom of the will".
https://iweb.langara.ca/rjohns/files/2016/09/anscombe_causality.pdf
Note -- that is just what some philosophers did -- equating quantum indeterminism with human freedom. But, to empirical scientists that sounds like a Quantum Leap of Faith over the lack of evidence. So, I'm content with a non-empirical (theoretical ; philosophical) justification of FreeWill. :cool:

Sorry. I didn't mean to offend you. — Gnomon

The only offence is your ongoing refusal to directly address the article you are pretending to critique, your preference for quoting the results of Google searches to doing any real thinking. If only you would put some small part of your efforts into understanding before you jump into evaluating. But that's Banno's Law: It is far easier to criticise something if you begin by misunderstanding it.

I'd expected you to address the Dalton Box example, at the least, but instead you wave irrelevancies. You talk past the article you want to talk about.

So why shoudl I give you my time?

The only offence is your ongoing refusal to directly address the article you are pretending to critique — Banno

I'm not dialoging with Anscombe. So, my intention was not to critique her article, but the statement you quoted from it. I was trying to dialog with Banno. Assuming you agreed with it, I was hoping you would defend that quote. My interest was in the definitive dismissal of Causal Determinism, not in pursuing off-topic "irrelevancies". Sorry to have wasted your time. But I have learned something from this one-sided dialog. :smile:

PS__I once used the Galton board of bouncing balls to argue in favor of Freedom from Determinism. But my interlocutor was not buying it. So, I moved on to other arguments.

"In the last issue, John Hartung rejected my clumsy attempt at a mechanical
analogy to human freedom within a context of determinism. Specifically, he defined
"free will" in terms of "purpose", which is a property of living beings, not of ping pong
balls. Nevertheless, he still seems to believe that even human beings have no personal
freedom, hence no more purpose in life than a ping pong ball. Unfortunately, I failed to
clearly show that personal purpose is the very thing that elevates human actions above the
purely mechanical cause and effect system envisioned by Mr. Hartung".

As if choosing freely were the same as choosing randomly.

Causality is just an abstract noun, a label of a specific quality where a process forces an effect or an other process to initiate. — Nickolasgaspar

First up, I meant causation was a thing in a very broad sense such that qualities, ideas and states can be things too, but no matter.

I’m just trying to get a sense of where your ideas map onto other thinkers and traditions.

Do you know the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy well? Might be worth checking out their entry on causation, or even this one https://iep.utm.edu/causation/

I wouldn’t disagree with most of your intuitions. There are processes, when causation happens a new process starts, that’s all perfectly fine.

I’m sure we agree on most examples of causation too. The cue ball hits a pool ball and it causes another ball to roll into a particular direction. Of course, no problem with that.

Yet philosophy is not settled on what causation IS at bottom (see that link). It might not exist at all for instance, we might not need the notion. It might have something to do with counterfactuals (which might in turn mean thoughts about possible worlds). You might think it’s about raising probabilities (after all not all instances of smoking result in cancer). You might think that’s there nothing over and above causes and effects just being adjacent in some sense. You might think it’s a pattern of one sort of thing being followed by a thing of another sort.

I’m just finding it a little hard to see which ideas you support. Do you have a thinker or a theory which resonates with you? Or is this, as with my ideas, a novel theory?

The OP asks if causation is just a word (belief) with no referent in reality — Gnomon

I fear that my ideas are being lost in translation! (In particular I’m not sure what the word ‘belief’ is doing here!)

I’m not sure I would completely sign off on ‘no referent in reality’. If I have said this I misspoke (sorry!).

Causation is still referring to a relationship between the cause and the effect but in a surprising way.

Most verbs, I would say, refer to a relationship between the subject and object of the sentence in a pretty simple way . ‘Bill kicked the ball’ tells us about the relationship between Bill, a physical thing in the world, and the ball, also a physical thing in the world.

‘To cause’ is doing something quite special I think.

It’s talking about the relationship between the WORD for the subject and the object (itself) as well as the WORD for the object and the subject (itself).

So that’s my idea, that causation is a special sort of word. Please ask more I’d be delighted to show precisely what this relationship is and how it’s parsimonious and echoes Aristotle etc, but that’s the gist.

↪Gnomon
As if choosing freely were the same as choosing randomly. — Banno

Yes. The Galton illustration of randomness within the normal curve of statistical determination does not take into account Intentional choices. Instead, the fundamental randomness, or uncertainty, on the quantum scale of physics, merely indicates that causal Determinism, although the norm, is not absolute. Thus providing gaps (statistical uncertainty) to be exploited by Intentional Causation.

I'm currently reading Werner Heisenberg's book, Physics and Philosophy. There he makes a statement that, at first glance, sounds similar to Anscombe's denial of Causality & Determinism : "The law of causality is no longer applied in quantum theory". But then, he goes on to say, "Therefore, the law of causality is reduced to the method of scientific research ; it is the condition which makes science possible. Since we actually apply this method, the law of causality is 'a priori' and is not derived from experience".

By "a priori" he means intuitive & logical. But his own Uncertainty Principle implies that the logical natural "law" of Causation is somewhat flexible. In my own theory of Freedom within Determinism, the natural world has produced a new kind of causation : human Intention (Will). And history records many instances of culture (including Science) modifying the natural course of causation. Nevertheless, the current ecological crises indicate that un-natural (artificial) causation may conflict with, but does not negate the normal processes of natural laws governing Cause & Effect. The bottom line is that human behavior & choices & effects are somewhat unpredictable, from merely extending past causal norms into the near future. :smile:


Statistical Uncertainty :
Uncertainty in statistics is measured by the amount of error in an estimate of the mean or average value of a population.
https://www.encyclopedia.com/environment/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/uncertainty-science-statistics

The uncertainty principle implies that it is in general not possible to predict the value of a quantity with arbitrary certainty, even if all initial conditions are known.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncertainty_principle

I fear that my ideas are being lost in translation! (In particular I’m not sure what the word ‘belief’ is doing here!) — invizzy

I added the "belief" because our words are usually expressions of belief, which does not always correspond to objective reality. Hence our language may "cause" erroneous or undesirable effects in the natural & cultural worlds. I apologize, if that goes off-topic. :yikes:

So that’s my idea, that causation is a special sort of word. — invizzy

Yes. We normally use the word "cause" in reference to natural exchanges of energy that result in physical changes in the material world. But, human Will (Intention or Purpose) is an artificial form of causation, which causes changes in both physical and psychical realms of the world. So, in that sense, the word "causation" is indeed "special". :wink:

PS__I would say that Causation is both Linguistic (mental) and "in the world (physical).

Intentional Causation :
Ironically, it was Science, not Religion, that revealed the teleological tendencies of the natural world -- that it is evolving in a positive direction. Most traditional religions have always assumed a steady-state universe that either stays the same forever, or simply goes around in circles. But agnostic or godless scientists determined that the evidence from Biology, Geology, and Paleontology indicates that many small random changes add-up to progressive evolution toward increasing order and complexity -- at least in the corner of the cosmos we can study in detail. Of course, that development is not perfectly deterministic -- more like a little dance of creation : two steps forward and one step back. But it seems to imply some purpose behind the prancing procession.
http://www.bothandblog.enformationism.info/page29.html

-"First up, I meant causation was a thing in a very broad sense such that qualities, ideas and states can be things too, but no matter."
-Yes this is exactly what abstract nouns describe! So I think we can agree on that. Causation is a real phenomenon with specific characteristics.

-"I’m just trying to get a sense of where your ideas map onto other thinkers and traditions."
-That would be a difficult thing to do since we haven't talked about any ideas yet . We are still struggling to define the word. In that aspect you can check the work of Philosophers stressing the importance of clear and precise definitions (Wittgenstein, Rand etc).

-"I wouldn’t disagree with most of your intuitions. There are processes, when causation happens a new process starts, that’s all perfectly fine."
-I have to clarify. I am offering a description not an intuitive take on the phenomenon.

Yet philosophy is not settled on what causation IS at bottom (see that link). It might not exist at all for instance, we might not need the notion. — invizzy

-Well there are philosophers that argue against causality...but that doesn't make their objections "philosophical material".
Now Causality "doesn't exist" , at least like other physical entities do but it a descriptive label of a real phenomenon. It is Observable, Verifiable, Quantifiable that occurs in physical interactions. We can study the phenomenon and Produce technical Applications and Accurate predictions.
I don't really know a reasonable philosophical argument against causality but that doesn't mean there isn't one. Maybe you are aware of one and we can discuss it!

-"It might have something to do with counterfactuals (which might in turn mean thoughts about possible worlds)''
-Parsimony and Demarcation render such speculations irrational and place them outside the philosophical realm. The moment to speculate about anything (Metaphysics) is when you have data in hand and you can rationally project them beyond our current epistemology. Making up a mechanism and assuming it qualifies as an answer when in fact its unnecessary, that is more of a pseudo hypothesis than philosophy.

You might think it’s about raising probabilities (after all not all instances of smoking result in cancer). — invizzy

No, because we can not talk about probabilities without first verifying "possibilities". Probability is a mathematical concept and it demands a sample of verified and unverified cases for any calculations to be made !!!! Without a single verified case how can we even start talking about probabilities?

-"You might think that’s there nothing over and above causes and effects just being adjacent in some sense."
-I don't even have to go their. As a methodological Naturalism I am only concerned with what I can register and verify. The burden is on the claim the moment to take such claims seriously is only after some type of objective verification occurs.

I’m just finding it a little hard to see which ideas you support. Do you have a thinker or a theory which resonates with you? Or is this, as with my ideas, a novel theory? — invizzy

-Well I don't follow any ideas or theories. I obey the rules of logic and the Principles of methodological Naturalism(the best and only way to do philosophy).

Well there’s a long tradition about whether physics needs causation at all for instance. Arguments that we can seemingly do physics pretty well without causation might add credence to the idea that causation is not real in the sense of being a folk, or loose, way of talking about things that’s not really referring to anything useful.
You can read about some of that here:

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/causation-physics/

But in general I’m finding it hard to understand what your claims are. You seem to take it for granted that there is causation - and yes I know you don’t mean a thing with spatiotemporal location - and gesture at processes. But you seemingly don’t seem to want to engage in the philosophy surrounding causation.

Now maybe you’re just unaware of the literature out there, but I can assure you that it’s a very open question about what causation is. Even those who draw up successful causal models will often tell you they don’t actually claim to know what causation is.

Now perhaps you might say ‘well it’s a process’. But what kind? How does it differ from other processes? How do I recognize that it is happening? For example people struggled for years to tell us that cigarettes cause cancer. In some ways it’s still a little mysterious and some will tell you that that statement is shorthand for ‘smoking cigarettes sometimes causes cancer’.

How would you verify when causation happens? After all it is often confused with mere correlation.