So, because we're incapable of long-term thinking, we're doomed? [ I tend to agree, but I'm just wondering if you intended that conclusion? ]

Maybe we aren't that wise and allowing things to evolve naturally without interference is the smarter plan. I'm prone to supporting that theory. — frank

Hasn't this kind of thinking lead to climate change, and the last-chance-saloon Extinction Rebellion? We have, acting naturally and without interference, consumed the natural resources, cleared the forests to grow cash-crops, and thereby taken the habitats away from the creatures living in them. A million species are currently in danger, and many thousands are already extinct. Our progress, largely based on short-termism, has been spectacularly unsuccessful: hurtling toward extinction as we are. We don't care about tomorrow, provided our employer's shareholders get their dividend, and our managers get their bonuses and pensions. Profit is all that matters. Short-term profit.

Despite there being guesswork to our choices, we still endeavor to to make the best possible guesses. — Relativist

Do we? Mostly we make these 'decisions' unconsciously. We give them little or no conscious attention. So we don't really know if we're trying to make our best guess or not, do we? :wink:

Imagine if you were to refrain from making your everyday choices simply because you could neither prove it optimal, nor compute the probability of your preferred outcome. That is not tenable. — Relativist

Refrain from making choices? No. We'd be paralysed. But to bear in mind - consciously - that we're working in uncertain territory, with no proof that our beliefs have use or value? That is useful. Especially in everyday life. So often people become confused, or make mistakes, because their certainty ain't as certain, or as justified, as they believe. :wink:

No, beliefs and knowledge ARE the results of physical processes of the brain. — YuZhonglu

Then I leave you in the ecstasy of certainty. Enjoy! :smile:

having CNS problems does not equal being an expert or telling others that they cannot think or speculate about such things — Christoffer

Indeed. And not having CNS problems probably equates to being even less of an expert, don't you think? But I wouldn't dream of telling anyone "they cannot think or speculate about such things". Speculate all you like, as far as I'm concerned. :up:

Having said that, I'm here to tell you that the effects of CNS problems are often difficult to describe, or even to imagine, if you don't have such problems. I experience sensations for which there are no words. I.e. no words have been coined to describe these things, partly because so few of us (sufferers) need them, and partly because the effect of a partly-functioning/partly-damaged nerve gives rise to feelings that are ... indescribable. The explanation is easy. Living with it is less so. And, for most CNS conditions, there is no cure, which is a little depressing.

is it more reasonable to believe everything has a cause or to not believe it? — Relativist

Given that I cannot place a number on the probability of it being correct, or not being correct, my answer to your question is: I don't know. No, I really don't know. Like everyone else, I will continue to use unjustified guesswork in my everyday life. But in a philosophy forum, a little more consideration seems appropriate.

an amalgam of evidence can be considered proof — Harry Hindu

No. Only conclusive evidence constitutes proof. Quantity (of evidence) does not equal 'conclusive', as you must know well.

Sorry, it's the way I use the words, but not everyone else does. :wink: That's fair enough. There are no terms defined, and distinguished, for this purpose.

Then wouldnt you say that the usefulness of the idea of causation is evidence that the idea is accurate? — Harry Hindu

No, I'd say it's evidence that the concept in question is useful. Use includes some degree of accuracy, of course, but evidence for causation? I suppose it is evidence, but it's not very strong evidence; in scientific terms, not very strong at all. If you - and maybe only you, in all the universe - believe something to be true, then your belief constitutes evidence, but that would be the weakest evidence I could imagine, and it wouldn't be what a scientist would find to be acceptable/useful. :chin:

As you note, we have no choice but to make guesses (i.e. form beliefs in this psychological sense), so why not make the best guesses possible? — Relativist

Why not indeed? :up: :smile:

The standard analysis of knowledge in philosophy is that knowledge is a type of belief. — Terrapin Station

In the way that I use the words, everything we think correct is belief, even the things we're certain of, which are also known. Because belief is less than "know". So I agree that knowledge is a type of belief. But maybe that's not quite the meaning you intended?

Yes, but one is certain, and the other (which applies to almost everything :wink:) is not. That's the only distinction between them, as far as I can see.

Knowing something doesn't imply certainty though. — Terrapin Station

Sorry, I tend to use "know" for what we certainly know, and "believe" for what we think we know. I forget not everyone uses that particular distinction. :blush:

Yes, certainty paralyses your thinking. Why would you question or consider anything, when you know you're right, that your beliefs are certain? [Or 'certainly correct', if you prefer.]

Some ask for evidence of God's existence because some require evidence to believe that anything exists. — creativesoul

:smile: :up:

in this case we are talking about the existence of someone or something that has been expressed by millions of people, which is binary and cannot be compared to something that a single person or even a few people claim to have done but can't prove it. To put it quite simply, something either exists or it doesn't; there is no in-between, and this is true whether or not you or anyone else knows whether or not the thing exists. — Maureen

I think a lot of the problems with discussions like this one are encapsulated in what you say. When applied to God, 'existence' is not binary. Does it refer, for example, to (detectable and verifiable) 'existence' in the space-time universe that science describes so well? I don't think so. This is a mistake most atheists make ... and not a few believers too. To claim objective existence for God in the same way as we claim objective existence for (say) horses, is to make a false claim.

Personally, I believe that God exists, but not in that literal way that derails most discussions like this one. God's existence is more metaphorical than literal, I think. It may even be that She is just a moral story that I subscribe to. I don't know, and I don't care, because it would affect my beliefs not a jot. But that's just me.

Just one valuable thing I can offer in this discussion: if you apply binary thinking, as you have above, you will neither find nor understand God, as She is understood by believers.

Any belief is the result of physical processes of the brain. — YuZhonglu

Maybe. Please don't state possibilities - even those you believe to be highly probable - as certainties. This is a philosophy forum, after all. :smile:

I knew somebody who claimed it helped him be creative in problem solving and he was well-known as a very intelligent person — TheMadFool

This is also my belief and experience. :up:

Consciousness is our truest identity, if we have one at all, I would say. The empty space in which everything else unfolds, if it can even be roughly and vaguely described. And it would seem possible that “one” consciousness is somehow in some way connected with “all” consciousness... — 0 thru 9

Without trying to define or explain what consciousness is (we understand it well enough for anything except a direct investigation of consciousness itself), how would you incorporate our unconscious minds into what you say? Our current understanding is that most of our mental abilities are unconscious, so it might be a little rash to assume that "Consciousness is our truest identity", without further qualification?

This is a sincere question, not a criticism of what you say. :chin:

This question is irrelevant. If there is an ‘effect’ that isn’t ‘caused’ then it isn’t an ‘effect’ - that is the semantic problem. — I like sushi

Cause and effect are roles occupied by events, so you're right, of course. But cause and effect are a pair that go together in our vocabulary, even our everyday vocabulary, so "causeless effect" is probably the easiest way to communicate what is meant.

if we cannot comprehend such things then what place to we have to talk of them? — I like sushi

Can you point me to any topic of philosophical discussion where we "comprehend" the issues? :wink: OK, comprehension is a matter of degree, but I think the reason we discuss such things is to enhance (or create) our comprehension, yes? So we will necessarily be discussing things we don't properly understand. That's our lot in life, I think.

What does it mean to be useful if it doesn't carry some degree of accuracy? — Harry Hindu

I can't quite see how it could/would have been useful if it did not offer some degree of accuracy, can you?

You say you are agnostic to all things that are unproven. Compare your position to mine: my position is that if something isn't proven, then we should be open to the possibility it is false. — Relativist

Yes, that's half of a description of agnosticism, isn't it? Open to the possibility it's TRUE; open to the possibility it's FALSE.

If we will only allow that, as we progress, we remain unsure, we will leave opportunities for alternatives. We will not become enthusiastic for the fact, the knowledge, the absolute truth of the day, but remain always uncertain … In order to make progress, one must leave the door to the unknown ajar. — Richard P. Feynman

-------------------------------------------------------

I would regard as "extreme skepticism" the attitude that one could have no degree of trust in anything that is unproven (the sun might not rise tomorrow; the world external to my mind actually might not exist,...). Are you indeed extreme in that sense, or are you closer to my position - such that you acknowledge uncertainty, but accept that we can have varying degrees of confidence about many aspects of the world? — Relativist

No degree of trust? No, I wouldn't go that far. I don't accept that we "can have" "varying degrees of confidence", but that's because the phraseology is not what I would've chosen. :wink: To say that we assume "varying degrees of confidence" is to describe what we actually do, in RL. Because we have no choice, in practice. But those assumptions are unjustified; they're just guesses, nothing more. But most of the time, our guesses work, so we use them. :up:

But there's more to my stance than this. Take the possibility that Objective Reality bears little or no resemblance to the apparent world our senses show to us. Most people would say "Oh yes, but the chance of that being so is infinitesimally small." And there lies my problem. It is so very, very unknown that we have no way to assign a probability value to it. There is no valid part of the science of statistics that would allow us to assign a probability value to it. We know that all probabilities must lie between 0 and 1. But we cannot progress beyond that. You could tell us what you believe, of course, but there is no science or logic that would allow you - justifiably - to place a numerical value on that probability. When I realised that, it was quite a discovery for me. Maybe it's obvious to others, but I was pretty stunned when I found out.

So I acknowledge the possibility of anything that's even slightly credible, until evidence shows me otherwise.

If you give the government enough power to radically redistribute the wealth in society and centrally manage all large scale economic activity going forward, they will almost certainly abuse that power. — Dusty of Sky

This characterises "government" as something malevolent, something external. It is neither. Government is simply a collection of individuals we have appointed to make decisions on our behalf, so that we don't all have to spend our lives doing so. We are the government; the government is us. Government does (should do) what we ask it to, whether we ask for a little (right-wing) or a lot more (left-wing).

Having those feelings (vague or not so vague) is NOT a substitute for KNOWING. — Frank Apisa

Well yes, it is, in practice. We use guesswork to get past the fact that the things we know are so few. The "feelings" you mention are guesswork, and we have no alternative but to guess, or to proceed with no answer at all.

"Objective Truth" just means "I'm really really sure this is correct and if you don't agree with me you're dumb." — YuZhonglu

No, "Objective truth" describes a statement/proposition/etc that accurately and correctly reflects that which actually is. The word you have described is "opinion".

Philosophers fail to realize that they are creating a separate world that can fall apart if applied too closely to the real world. — TheSageOfMainStreet

If philosophers are doing this, I suggest they're doing it wrong. If philosophy does not relate to the world we experience, what use is it?

what would proof of causation look like? What reasons do we have to argue for causation? Why would anyone have posited such an idea and how did it become common if there is no proof? — Harry Hindu

Good questions. I don't have answers, sadly, but they're good questions. Especially the last one. I imagine the idea became popular because it proved useful?

Well, the relevant point to make here is that causality is a pattern in the world at a human scale i.e. the world we experience through our naked senses and their extensions. — TheMadFool

Causality is certainly something we think we have identified, but have we? There are always different ways of looking at things. If we think A causes B, Pirsig suggests we can say that B values pre-condition A instead. I don't doubt there are many other ways we could look at this. Perhaps one of them might prove interesting?

We could also wonder if we would or could identify a causeless effect even if we saw one? Is our perception of the causality pattern an accurate perception? I'm not saying it isn't, I'm just wondering....

Yes, the success of science offers useful evidence. For the practical purpose of advancing science, causality should be assumed. — Relativist

You say the success of science offers evidence, but you don't say what it is, and I can't see it in what you write. :chin: Then you follow up simply by asserting that causality should be assumed (i.e. accepted as an axiom). Why? Causality wasn't invented to facilitate science; science was built onto a pre-existing theoretical scaffold already founded by causality, and the other axioms that we usually use.

Are you agnostic to all things that are unproven? — Relativist

Absolutely, yes. To have any other position than this would be to go beyond the available evidence - scientific heresy! :wink: - and to deny logic (in its everyday sense; I'm not advocating de Morgan's Theorem here).

That's pretty extreme skepticism, which (if applied consistently) means you can actually believe very little. — Relativist

Extreme? How can accepting what is be extreme? And yes, welcome to the world of uncertainty, the real world. Although I would have put it slightly differently: I believe all kinds of nonsense, as we all do, but I know very little, as you observe.

I wish you'd stop using the semantically problematic term "causeless effect" instead of "brute fact" — Relativist

I'm afraid I prefer the former. I started this topic to consider cause-and-effect, and the possibility of causeless effects: effects that have no cause. The phrase "brute fact" is less well-known and therefore less well understood. And Wikipedia says "...brute facts may be defined as those facts which cannot be explained (as opposed to simply having no explanation)." This isn't exactly what I'm trying to get at. I'm focussing on spontaneous events, to give them another name, not mysterious facts.

Do you see any breakthroughs? — TheMadFool

Plenty, I imagine. ... Provided, of course, we remember to spend some time in sober reflection, following our stoned insights. :smile: Some of those insights are thoroughly worthwhile; others prove to be less, er, useful. :up: It's our creative faculties that can be enhanced by marijuana, but this enhancement is matched by a similar dis-benefit when carrying out more rigorous tasks, like a code review (if you're into software), or the like.

Can we not analyze all things we call the good in life in the same way? As not being genuinely good in themselves but rather as some combination of a reduction or cessation in suffering/dissatisfaction/lack...

Do you agree with this (admittedly) bleak view? Why/why not? — Inyenzi

No, I don't. Your treatment seems to isolate pleasure and suffering, to see them as two things, separate and distinct. My view is to see them as a pair, like yin and yang are a pair. They describe the extremes of one spectrum. So an experience of this type, that you judge to be positive, you describe as "pleasure". And for the experiences you judge negatively, you call them "suffering". But that doesn't make them different. They are still the same thing, but some are viewed more positively than others.

Just my two pennyworth.... :up:

By my observations, it might be that Parkinson's disease disjoints the nerve signals so that the intention to move and the movement gets fractured and overlap. — Christoffer

Please be careful about theorising what people with neurological conditions might experience - unless you have Parkinson's yourself? I have MS, and your 'explanation' seems garbled to me. How much do you know about the human CNS, and how it actually works?

In novice smokers, marijuana can cause acute paranoia — VagabondSpectre

Oh, thank you. I've never experienced it myself. I didn't know it was mainly novices that suffer.

The problem is the meritocratic nature of our society. — ssu

The problem being that our societies are not meritocratic?

How do you know that we don't have proof of cause and effect? The assumption isnt just made up. There must be a reason for this assumption and why it is so common. — Harry Hindu

Because if we had a proof, we'd use it. No need for guesses (axioms), we'd justifiably assert the truth of causation, based on our proof, and that would be that.

Theists rule out brute facts because we don't know of any brute facts existing. But on the other hand, we don't know of any necessary existents that are causally efficacious (i.e. the only thing we know that exists necessarily are abstractions, like the law of non-contradiction).

Therefore, at minimum, I think it reasonable to argue that that it is at least as likely that brute facts exist as it is for a necessarily existing non-physical creator to exist. I lean strongly toward brute fact because it cannot be shown that a creator has properties that exist necessarily (theists simply assume the properties are necessary). — Relativist

I'm really uneasy about introducing theism or atheism into this topic. Uneasy because I see no justification for that introduction. What does it add to the discussion? Little that I can see. There may or may not be brute facts (causeless effects). I wonder if we would realise their actual nature if we observed such things? Or would we just assume they were caused, and thereby miss them? Maybe.

An uncertain world is an interesting world.

Some things simply ARE. Whether we humans know they ARE or not...does not impact on whether they ARE or not...or at least, I do not think it does. (It may.) — Frank Apisa

:smile: :smile: :smile:

...the success of science provides good inductive support to accept [causation] as true (or at least, as highly likely to be true). — Relativist

Does it? :chin: Empirical evidence supports causality in some (many/most) instances. But mostly we do not look for or consider empirical evidence. We just adopt causality as an axiom. Does the "success of science" offer useful evidence? I can't see that it does. And should we accept that causality is true, just because science is successful? I can't see why.

And finally, should we conclude that causation is "highly likely" to be true? If we have reason - reason based on the scientific discipline of statistics, that is - then yes, of course we should. But do we have any statistical justification at all for assigning a numerical probability to the supposed truth of causation? No, I don't think we do.

Most important of all: nothing I have written here points to the collapse of causation, or of science. I am only trying to explore the long-held axiom of causation, to see if there is anything to be learned, other than blind acceptance.

IMO the interesting question is: are brute facts possible? — Relativist

I agree! It would be exciting if we could show that some effects are causeless, or maybe that the causes of some effects follow them chronologically. Exciting because it would be a new discovery, promising new conclusions, and maybe new avenues of research. But neither science nor the universe offers novelty for its own sake. The likelihood is that causation will remain axiomatic, because it looks to be true. For the sake of accuracy, we'll leave it as vague as that. :smile: :up:

I personally see no reason to embrace the PSR as anything more than a description of what we tend to do. — pomophobe

I personally agree. :wink: