Lessons on Causality

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:

How do you think the universe came to be? I’m just curious.

I don’t understand how uncaused events can be logical. Logic is “if A, then B” at its core. How can we have B with no A? It seems like a whole new branch of logic. What could be the rules of this new system? Once events don’t require a cause, then there can be no if/then because ‘then’ can happen without the ‘if’.

Prediction of “the future” is only one aspect of intelligence. You’re too focused on one particular aspect instead of the whole of intelligence. Intelligence represents ability and efficiency of cognition, of all mental processes together. While you are blinded by “the future”, there are also other portions of time called “the present” and “the past”. Intelligence uses them all, not just one. After all, what is “the past” except collected memories? And what is “the present” except the synthesis of experience into memories?

For you to be so locked into “the future” demonstrates that you don’t have a complete understanding of intelligence.

There are Natural Laws, science, the premises of physics, discovered, rediscovered, and collected by philosophers for thousands of years. Maybe your ancestry has no roots in human civilization and cultivation of sciences. It’s very obvious that you’re wrong on these points. What is a Natural Law, except, humanity’s best theories and hypotheses with regards to exactly how “the universe operates”. There are laws of locomotion, conservation of energy, and thermodynamics. Energy is neither subtracted nor added ex nihilo.

So you obviously do not have a basic, elementary knowledge of physics. If you had then how could you make such huge errors of reasoning?

There is no “set of rules”, yet, how else would prediction be successful, in any limited way? Prediction works precisely because there are “sets of rules” to follow. Jump off a cliff, what do you predict, to fall or to fly? That is the “law of Gravity”. Do you disagree??? Can you fly?

Tell me some events, things, or descriptions about existence that are “uncaused”, that have no cause nor correlation to anything else. Tell me about some absolute vacuum of space, Nothingness, Ex Nihilo. Isn’t that what you believe?

That there are things uncaused in existence? Tell me about that. What is “not caused”? Tell me what is an “accident” or “totally random”.

Not my problem…

I’ve been wasting my time, like planting a crop, watering it, but only producing weeds. Time to move onto other pastures. Maybe my seeds can take to new soil and climate. This place is infertile.

Magnus, the idea was not for you to collapse from objectvism into solipsism. Both are moronities.

Yes…

Logic and rationality represent the synthesis that any individual, mind, brain, cognition can complete regarding mental abstractions of causes and events with “the real world”. It’s also represented by the difference between Experience and Memorization. How else does memorization occur in existence except that a mind and its senses observe events, and attempt to ‘copy’ them or solidify them, as a camera takes a photograph of a scene? Each human, and almost every evolved lifeform, have abilities to memorize existence as an aspect of the nervous system and general intelligence. Without the ability to memorize, organisms literally become lost and confused. They cannot navigate the world, environment, or existence. It would be like walking aimlessly through a maze, ultimately leading to doom. Organisms that cannot memorize, have no capacity for memory, are preyed upon by organisms that do have extensive memories.

Memory is a survival mechanism, a core aspect of cognition and intelligence.

Memories are imperfect, because human senses and perspectives are limited. Humans only have two eyes, two ears, a nose, a mouth, etc. Imagine having many eyes or ears. Imagine seeing in multiple directions at once, instead of face-forward. Some insects and animals do have eyes on the other side of their heads, like Avians. It creates a problem and challenge with synthesis, to merge multiple sensory perceptions into “one” mental abstraction, resulting in a “memory”.

The whole cause and purpose behind “logic and rationality” is to correctly, accurately, and efficiently synthesize reality and existence, into mental abstractions, so that they can become stored and memories. Even ‘genes’ are forms of memory, over time, beyond generations, as means and methods of passing upon behavioral instructions from one generation to the next.

Magnus is stuck on the idea of an “uncaused” event, representing any hypothetical “accident” or “randomness”.

But what can be called “random” is what beyond human cognition, specifically, by the human mind’s inability to calculate extreme probabilities. For example, a computer can calculate the rolls of a dice, whereas a human cannot. Thus the computer can make sense of “causes” that a human does not.

What appears “random” to one person, is not to another, therefore subjective. But randomness is based on intelligence anyway. Intelligence is limited. Magnus doesn’t seem to realize, or perhaps accept this, yet. Perhaps Magnus is ignorant of his own mental limitations. That is an important philosophical lesson, to become aware of your cognitive “blind spots”. Every single human has blind spots, limitations, of reasoning, of intellect, of ascribing causes in existence.

Evolution, on the other hand, raising the intellect, is the challenge. Isn’t it possible “to learn”, to understand, to become smarter, more knowledgeable, wiser??

Where are you going? Can I visit? :slight_smile:

I’m going to move over to youtube, sure, I’ll send you a link when I make progress.

Let’s discuss the matter of intelligence a bit.

Intelligence includes three processes in relation to time. There is Memorization, to remember the past. There is Cognition, to synthesize the present. And there is Prediction, to anticipate and decide about the future. All of these together, represent a bulk of the definition of ‘intelligence’. Thus the more intelligent an organism is (a particular human), the superior ability it will have to memorize, cognize, and predict.

Superior memorization is fuller, more accurate memories. Some recent, modern phenomenons of this, are the “Genius-Savants” who can look at an image, and paint or draw it based on memory. They have advanced, evolved, specialized memorization. Thus their mental ability to memorize is superior than average humans. Similarly, humans may specialize in Cognition, sensing the immediate present, and reacting quickly. Sports athletes, MMA fighters, soldiers, many people have distinct advantages in faster cognition and sensing abilities. For example, an NFL quarterback must make decisions rapidly, based on rapidly changing information, variables, threats, etc. Thus superior cognition is an advantage.

Superior predictability is an extension of memorization and logic. Human intelligence is defined and described as vastly superior to other animals and organisms, because human memorization is extensive. Consider books, texts, transcriptions, videos, recordings, and other information. All of this lends to massive amounts of memorization and memories that collective humanity pools together, and can use, to decide, anticipate, and predict future events. Thus humans can abstract and project in ways never done in previous eras. Human predictability (mental Projection), is evolving, along with the other cognitive faculties, or human intelligence in general.

All of this coincides with Causation, by how humanity understands “logic and rationality”. Logic and rationality is synonymous with ascribing causes between the “Objective” and “Subjective” world. In other words, there is the way the world is (objectivity) versus your singular human perspective (subjectivity). The world is one way, and your mind cognizes and renders existence, according to your individuality and perspective. The problem with this is, that people have different and unique perspectives, and thus will not share exactly the same experiences, but they can be similar. Thus when people attempt to communicate, there are barriers of understanding and empathy.

The same is true for Causation. What one person knows of causality, as a process of his or her rationality, is not the same as others.

People instinctively desire to “find cause” for most occurrences of life, hence the questions of “Why?” and “How?” Everytime why and how are asked, these are symbolic of the human need to find cause for existential concerns, which also revolve around anxiety and angst.

Because “knowledge is power”. The more that a human accurately and correctly understands the general, existential “causes of things”, the more confident and self-assured he or she becomes living life and navigating the harshness and cruelty of Nature. Knowledge and intelligence increase survivability and chance for survival. Collectively, summed together, the human specie “evolves” corresponding to all this.

That’s the purpose of intelligence.

There is no present. There is no future either. There is only past.
Future can only be imagined . . . in the past.

We study past (which also includes what we call present since present is merely our recent past) in order to predict the future.
Thinking isn’t something we do just for fun.

Yes, there are. These are formulas/models and not the universe itself.

You’re making an assumption that I am denying natural sciences. I am not.

You don’t get what I am saying. So you’re not talking to me. You’re talking to a hallucination.

The point is that our formulas/models are not the universe itself. That’s my point.

I am not the first to say this. I am not the first to say that “the universe” does not operate. Many other people said the exact same thing. Nietzsche, for example.

Aphorism #109 in Gay Science:
nietzsche.holtof.com/reader/frie … 3c0ff.html

Nietzsche says EXPLICITLY that “there are no laws in nature”.
When Nietzsche says it everyone agrees.

Jesus fucking Christ.

Prediction is possible because there is such a thing as SENSORY INFORMATION and because this sensory information can be REPRESENTED using a set of rules. Not because “the universe” operates according to a set of rules. To say that “the universe” operates according to a set of rules is to say that there is a hidden mechanism that determines every event at every point in time. It is to say that the universe is ORDERED rather than simply containing a degree of order within itself which we can represent with formulas. Your position is closer to Creationism than it is to Evolutionism. Theory of Evolution DOES NOT assume a teleological principle.

It’s like asking me to tell you about the absence of God. Or any other kind of absence. How can I talk about absence at all? That’s what you’re asking. And that’s why it’s a ridiculous question.

Exactly your problem.

It’s an irrelevant question. What I’m discussing here is logic i.e. how thinking works. For this purpose, imaginary sensory information is sufficient.

But if you really want an answer then I’d say abigionesis. Life came into existence (I suppose that’s what you’re asking) from inorganic matter.

I’m not a creationist. I don’t believe in extraterrestial origin of life.

On the other hand, if you’re asking me how the universe as in planets and galaxies and whatnot came into existence, then I don’t know, and personally, I don’t care.

First, causation isn’t correlation.
Causation is a specific form of correlation.
Prediction can work just fine without the concept of causation.
All you need is correlation.
It appears legit that in order for prediction to work there must be some kind of correlation or as you say “if, then”.
I am not exactly sure on this point but it appears pretty legit so let’s say that’s true.
Prediction cannot work without correlation.

Now, what happens when there is no correlation?
What happens is that prediction cannot work.
You cannot predict.
And now tell me, how is that illogical?
I think it’s more logical to admit that you cannot predict certain events rather than to pretend that you can and that there are correlates even though you never observed them.

Logic refers to thinking itself (unless it referes to the study of thinking, but let’s ignore that for now.)
The purpose of thinking is to form assumptions regarding the unobserved.
It’s about choosing the best guess regarding the unobserved.
There are different ways in which thinking can proceed, which is to say, there are different ways to choose the best guess regarding the unobserved.
And when these ways stray away from the norm, the usual way of forming conclusions regarding the unknown, then we call them illogical.
Otherwise, we call them logical.

There is no doubt that there are different types of logic.
Different environments breed different logic.
Dense populations, for example, breed self-referential logic that is centered around personal preferences.
This is normal considering the fact that in such environments most of the interaction happens between human minds – there is very little interaction with non-verbal and non-mental elements of nature.
On the other hand, sparse populations, such as the ones you can find in cold climates, e.g. in Russia, breed information-based logic or quite simply empiricism.
Such a logic starts with what is evident, apparent, observed, experienced, sensed, etc and proceeds upwards.
It’s a natural way to think.

Now, if we agree that empiricism is superior to rationalism, then we have to agree that, in the absence of pattern in information, nothing can be predicted. That’s the only logical conclusion. Everything else is illogical.

Yeah, that’s what I’m asking. How can you not care?

The subject of this thread is what I don’t care about… except in the context of how the universe came to be.

Magnus you’re very solipsistic and essentially arguing that “we can only know models in our head”. Also it’s you who are claiming there are “uncaused events”, nobody else, thus far. You’re not explaining yourself. You’re not describing how there are “uncaused” events. What does that even mean, except what I already said, randomness, chaos, unpredictability… I’ve already covered these matters.

You are a subjectivist arguing that “there is no outside world”, or “there are no external causes”. These are false. The world does not revolve around you. The world does not revolve around me. Any originality or causality, is teleological, necessarily, by definition. Humans, brains, mind, cognition, these have all evolved to make sense of existence, to find position and locality, to navigate, and to survive.

You’re not presenting any serious considerations or counter-arguments. You don’t even seem to have a firm grasp on what you’ve already implied.

That seems an accurate assessment.

Because the only way to do that is to state a cause for the uncaused event. Otherwise there is no description because there is no cause. How can he describe something that doesn’t exist? There is no way to describe a cause for something that has no cause.

I’m not saying uncaused events do not exist, but we certainly can’t describe what caused them if they do.

I am pretty sure that you do not even know what solipsism is.
You are one of those people who throw around popular words without any genuine understanding of them.

Quite the opposite of what you say, it is actually YOU who shows solipsistic behavior since you start with a personal preference for predictability and then conclude that every event that you observe must be predictable no matter how much evidence there is against it.

That IS solipsism.
You think that reality has to fit your expectations (that there must be a cause behind every event) rather than that your expectations have to fit reality (that some events have causes and some don’t and that this depends on evidence.)

Any method of thinking that is INDEPENDENT FROM EVIDENCE is solipsistic.
Whenever you say that something is true NO MATTER WHAT you are being a solipsist.

Plenty of other people said it too e.g. Betrand Russell, Quantum Physicists, etc.
You are just horribly confused and unwilling to admit it.

I already did. An uncaused event is simply an event for which see no cause.
Very simple.

Your response was basically “just because you don’t see something does not mean it does not exist”.
Which is retarded.
What other way of judging what exists do we have other than the one based on evidence, on what we see?
You want us to abandon evidence simply because it reflects our own viewpoint . . . and then do exactly what?
Spend our time forever exploring reality never being able to make a judgment call?
It’s ridiculous because we can never transcend the fact that our conclusions are personal and never universal.

You have absolutely no clue what you’re talking about.

That’s EXACTLY what I am trying to explain TO YOU.

Yes, but that’s what you think. You think that if you want every event to be predictable that every event is by that virtue alone predictable.
No respect for evidence whatsoever.
You think that if you keep exploring reality that you will eventually find what you’re looking for.
Blind optimism, that’s how I call it.

You cannot describe a cause that does not exist. However, you can describe an event that does not have a cause.
In the same way you can describe humans who weren’t created by God.