Lessons on Causality

Intelligence does not require causality. Nor do sciences. Bertrand Russell published a paper titled “On the Notion of Cause” over one century ago in which he explained this in great detail. Many scientific fields have no notion of cause. Instead, they speak merely in terms of formulas. A simple, non-scientific, case where intelligence is used without any notion of cause is our prediction that the sun will rise every morning in the future. We know this simply because of our past experience: every morning in our past that we are aware of coincided with sunrise. No notion of cause whatsoever. Unless you think that the night causes the day.

That would mean everything that has happened had a cause which would rule out a past infinite Universe
But that logic is not currently supported by science because at this point in time it simply does not know

By that bizarre logic then the Sun will carry on rising for ever just because it always has or for at least as long as we have existed
Good job that we do not have to rely on assumption to understand the natural world because it is not as reliable as you think it is

Well, you can’t really say that. Logic is merely the consistency of language. It has nothing to do with physical reality, other than how we use the language. My question is whether you can use a perfectly consistent language (aka “logic”) to show that uncaused events are necessarily and absolutely impossible.

I agree that such is true. But the question is whether one can prove that it must absolutely (beyond any possible logical doubt) be true to reality.

The Quantum Mystics claim that down on the ultra small scale, where no one can perceive what is happening, there are events that have no cause at all. They can only claim that because Science cannot prove them wrong. But I believe that a good philosopher can prove them wrong.

So you’re saying humanity, brains, people, just pop into existence magically? People don’t have sex? Evolution is not a process over time?

You’re wrong. You have a cause (your parents had sex). Sciences have a cause. Everything has cause. Again, just because you don’t have the reasoning ability to understand causes, doesn’t mean they don’t exist. It’s fairly obvious to most people, common sense really, that having sex produces people, hence is very much the reason and cause behind the re-production of intelligence.

You must believe that things pop into and out of existence magically…

Logic is a trait of cognition and therefore represents the configuration of synaptic connections and patterns within the brain.

So logic is physical. It is an aspect of your brain. Neuroscientists and brain surgeons know this much.

Damaging a person’s brain can and will damage their logical capabilities and overall cognitive functions. To claim otherwise, is obviously false. Imagine somebody falling off a cliff or their head striking a rock and receiving concussion. You saying that “logic has nothing to do with physical reality” is like saying consciousness is unaffected by physical conditions of the body-skull-brain organ.

You’re basically presuming that logic is “disconnected from reality”. I disagree.

Logic, the father of mathematics, is no more than a rule used to allow thought to take place, a rule of mental and/or spoken language. The rule is not physical in the conventional sense any more than an algebraic rule in mathematics.

But I guess all of this answered my question.

We need to make some distinctions between subjective causes and objective causes. Objective causes are “the real world” and existence, what occurs despite human wishes and intervention. Objective causation is “Nature” or “God”. So any human attempting to learn or understand “the world” is an attempt to recognize objective causation.

People confuse that with subjective causation. In other words, the ability to learn and known causes, to attribute them to real-world events and occurrences, is flawed. People can be very wrong about causes. You thought something was one way, based on some information. Turns out you were wrong, with additional information, you learned that it was another way entirely. So the logical process of attributing causes, is subjective. Also, another aspect of subjective causation, is the way in which people attempt to “take responsibility” for actions, that they may or may not be in fact (objectively) responsible for. For example, people can take responsibility for the actions of another. A parent can take responsibility for a child. A military officer can take responsibility for a soldier. A king can take responsibility for a peasant. A state can take responsibility for a citizen.

Etc.

Think bigger.

I would distinguish those as “actual” vs “theoretical”.

Perhaps you need to start with the understanding of what intelligence is. The purpose of intelligence is quite simply to choose the best guess regarding some future observation. That’s what it is (even when it concerns itself with the question of what was in the past, because the reason we ask what was in the past is in order to form a better idea regarding what will happen in the future so that we can prepare ourselves in advance.) The purpose of intelligence isn’t a vague “in order to understand how the universe operates”. The universe DOES NOT operate. To say that the universe OPERATES is to impose a strict form on sensory information. It is to say that sensory information can only take CERTAIN form and that to take any other form is IMPOSSIBLE. In other words, it is to FILTER THROUGH sensory information. It is to make reality boring, repetitive, formulaic . . . which is why every creative person despises determinism. There is much more variety to reality than simple causal chain of events. In other words, sensory information can take any form whatsoever. That sensory information presents itself in a single form consistently through time does not mean that it will present itself like that for all eternity.

So yes, the purpose of intelligence is to predict, not to discover how “the universe” operates. It builds formulas or models which are basically generators of predictions. And it builds them, if it truly is intelligence, by generalizing from sensory information. Formula, in fact, is nothing but a compressed form of sensory information. And different sensory information compresses differently i.e. different formulas/models for different sensory information. Some formulas/models involve the strict concept of causality, some don’t. And these formulas/models, I have to repeat, once again, do not describe how the universe works. The universe DOES NOT operate according to the rules of our formulas/models. Formulas/models merely describe the compressed version of our individual (personal) sensory information (that is if they are grounded in sensory information and not merely in our imagination.)

In short, the universe does not operate according to a set of rules (a Divine Plan of some sort.) The universe does not determine events. There is no mechanism that calculates what event will follow what other event. Rather, it is our brains that determine our guesses regarding what’s going to take place in the future.

I didn’t say there aren’t causal relations (or at the very least correlations.) I said that just because some events have causes does not mean that all events have causes. I have also stated that many scientific fields do not think in terms of causes. The more advanced a scientific field, the less it concerns itself with the strict concept of causality.

I think that you’re incapable of differentiating between formulas/models and sensory information.

Magnus Anderson

Apologies in advance for cutting in . . . I read an article that mentioned correlation implies causation - QM related.

I am curious as to what events would not have causes.

The scientific fields that do not think in terms of causes, simply have no need for that - I would say because they are focusing on a smaller field of knowledge - id est more specialized. When you say more advanced, do you actually mean more focused? In other words - more specialized.

I am in need of clarification of what you mean - I am not intending on a debate with you. I just find the way we express ourselves these days is a little loose and some of the intended meaning is lost on the receivers end. I hope that makes some sense.

What is the cause for that? Don’t do that. Stick around, even if we disagree, especially if we disagree. Echo chambers are boring.

Urwrongx1000

Why make this your last thread?

I just want to say that I do not understand where you are coming from on a lot of things but I would hate to see you go. Are you not going to be posting at all on ILP?

I know you do things on you own terms and I have no problem with that - but you get people communicating, which I commend you for. I still remember a post you made in a thread of mine that I thought was quite well written. I don’t care if you think you are better than me - I would hate to see you leave.

Maybe I am reading things the wrong way - but if I am not then I am at least glad I have spoken up on this occasion.

I have theories people would consider crazy - but I have no intention of leaving.

Serendipper

I am glad somebody else agrees . . .

My thoughts exactly - thank you for speaking up Serendipper, as you say, echo chambers are boring.

:smiley:

Glad we agree :slight_smile:

I like your sensitivity:

That’s good stuff! I’ll have to copy you :wink:

Serendipper

Very kind of you . . .

Sure, what ever I post here is for everyone. Copy away . . . I particularly like what you said - especially if we disagree - to me if the person who is disagreeing is legitimate in their disagreement then there is cause for re-evaluation on the receivers end - if the receiver is still agreeing to his or her own premise or whatever then the premise or whatever can be strengthened in the receivers mind - causing stronger arguments.

Urwrongx1000 has some ideas about pride that I disagree with, however I am still very interested to see where Urwrongx1000 is going to take these ideas regarding pride - the results might prove useful to me or anyone else and for different reasons.

What particular events don’t have causes is irrelevant.
What is relevant is that there are people who say that every event has a cause regardless of what our experience (i.e. what we normally call reality) says.
Perhaps we do not see a cause of some event X but think that it is very probable that if we made an effort to explore reality using certain approach that we would find the cause of that event X within some period of time.
I don’t deny the validity of such a thought so as long the probability of successful discovery is grounded in our experience.
This is, however, different from people who say that every event has a cause no matter what our experience says.
It is different because it is an empirical generalization i.e. it is dependent on experience.
Whereas what these people express is a claim that is based on their personal preference i.e. it is independent from experience.
There is a cause behind every event not because reality suggests so but because we like it that way.

Again, sensory information can take any form.
You can search for causes for hundreds of years – say if you’re very long lived – and still find no causes.
There must be a point at which you have to stop and say “okay, enough, there simply aren’t any causes here”.
This isn’t an absolute claim. Just a claim based on personal experience.
It might turn out that you are wrong.
But you can be wrong about anything.
You can even be wrong about being wrong about thinking that the event has no cause.

When I say “there is no God” I am not making an absolute claim.
It is not an unconditional claim i.e. a claim that is independent from experience.
Someone or something might prove me wrong in the future.
It’s a claim that is dependent on evidence.
Today I have no evidence that God exists so I have no choice but to conclude that God does not exist.
But tomorrow I may have evidence that God exists and then I will have no choice but to conclude that God does exist.

They say that the idea of “uncaused events” is illogical.
This is non-sense.
They don’t think that non-existence of God (and anything else) is illogical but they think that non-existence of causes is illogical.
Ridiculous.
I don’t know what else to say but ridiculous.

Magnus Anderson

Everything you said up to your last paragraph made perfect sense to me. Thank you for clearing things up.

Hmm . . . perhaps you have a point here - I mean looking for a cause for each event is abstract in itself given that if cause is indeed ubiquitous then everything would be part of a causal chain. An infinite causal chain that had no initial cause - humans single out events for convenience to help them understand the event - the event is merely part of a “no event” if there was no initial cause. But then a “no event” would seem not to have taken place.

I wonder if we are still ill equipped to deal with causality/non-causality - much like zero/infinity.

Urwrongx1000

A distinction between logic and physical reality can be made.

Is that really the presumption that James is making?

I meant I’ll have to copy your demeanor and consideration for people. If we disagree on something, that is good because then we have something to talk about. The bad part about disagreeing is when people don’t have respect and consideration for the other’s point of view. I can imagine that displaying consideration is especially hard for most guys to do, not because they’re inconsiderate, but showing emotions in any form other than anger is difficult. Anyway, it’s good to have a role model around to teach us :wink: