GENIUS FORUMS

Anyone read Hume's causation problem? From what I got out of it, it just seems to me to be Hume's superficiality and desire to have fun with skepticism. Can we actually not be able to 'see' this causality?

Post his causality problem.

If I hold an apple above the ground and let it go, I don't see that it must necessarily fall to the ground. In that sense we don't see causation. I can see the apple, and my hands opening up, and the apple then falling; but I'm not seeing the causation itself. Nothing logically necessitates the apple to fall to the ground when I let it go. Hume, of course, dismissed such skepticism on the grounds that nobody could possibly accept it non-hypocritically (the belief, that is, rather then the rational behind the belief), but I believe it was Hume's belief in philosophical rigor that led him to mention the problem, rather then simply ignore it to provide a stronger case for his views.

Doesn't this just reaffirm the level of uncertainty inherent in empiricism?

"Seeing" the casuality?

Isn't this a perfect illustration of Kant's synthetic (a posteriori) model?

You can't see gravity with your eyes, but you are aware of it through mostly intellectual means. It is true that the apple won't necessarily fall to the ground; a previously unnoticed dog may catch it mid-air and run off with it. Whether it falls to the ground because it is caused to by gravity or the interceding cause of the dog catching it prevents the gravity from being the prime cause of the apple's fate in that moment, causality still dictates the fate of the apple.

Some causes are seen, but many causes can not be visualized. We can have intellectual awareness of enough causes to make a certain amount of sense of the world, but the less we are aware of causes, the more unpredictable the world will seem.

If skepticism is taken too far, the world can look as unpredictable to the skeptic as to the mentally retarded person. It does not materially matter if one does not understand gravity or if one does not believe in it, the effect is the same.

Philosophical rigor makes it worthwhile to be aware that there is a possibility that the apple will not hit the ground, but for general practical application, it is not worth a major consideration.

This is just a drawn-out way to say that anything is possible.
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edit spelling and misplaced modifier

Steven,

Doesn't this just reaffirm the level of uncertainty inherent in empiricism?

Sure it does. Although, all it really demonstrated was that the empiricists had no more hope of making a perfectly rational philosophy then the rationalists who went before them did.

"Seeing" the casuality?

The empiricists abandoned the notion of a Platonic realm that could be examined by reason, so they wouldn't have been willing to grant the abstract concept of causality any sort of ontological status. To a philosopher like Hume causality could only be said to be real insofar as it was sensible.

Isn't this a perfect illustration of Kant's synthetic model?

I'm not sure what you mean by this, but to posit the existence of causality (as a sensible thing) would be to make a synthetic claim. I'm a bit rusty on my Kant (as evidenced in another thread), but I do know that the prevailing view amongst modern philosophers is that Kant failed to refute any of Hume's main points despite giving it a solid try.

Elizabeth,

You can't see gravity with your eyes, but you are aware of it through mostly intellectual means.

Exactly. We infer the existence of this "thing" called "causality" from our observations. Nevertheless, the inference is not a deductive one, and thus isn't considered to be logically ensured. Like "gravity", "causality" is merely the totality of its appearances if it is to be anything at all (beyond an arguably useful concept to help explain things).

I wrote this in Wisdom of the Infinite:

One of the great myths of our time is the belief that David Hume, the 18th century Scottish philosopher, undermined the concept of cause and effect, or at least undermined our ability to establish with certainty that things are caused. Hume argued that it is impossible for the mind and senses to directly perceive causal links between the things we observe in the world, that there will always be "gaps" in our perception, as it were. Moreover, since we can never know what lies beyond our field of perception, we can never be sure of what influences this unknown realm has on the observable world, if any.

When we observe a match being struck to produce fire, for example, we cannot be certain that the striking of the match was the actual cause of the fire. Our minds merely observe a succession of events - first, the match being struck and, second, the flame erupting into being - and it is only through our past experiences of watching a similar succession of events that enables us to assume the two are causally linked. But we can never be sure that this assumption is valid. The fire might well have been produced by something else entirely, by an event or force that our minds, for whatever reason, are unable to observe. It could be that hidden space aliens orbiting the earth produced the fire, to use an extreme example. Who knows? And even if we were able to observe the aliens producing this fire, we would have no way of knowing whether this was really happening either. Perhaps there are yet further hidden factors involved?

Obviously, this could go on forever. Even if we were to spend the rest of eternity investigating the world in increasingly smaller detail, we would still not be able to bridge the apparent gaps in causality. We would still be no closer to establishing direct causal linkages between anything at all.

This inability to bridge the gap between objects is partly a result of the perceptual process itself. Perception always involves the perception of "things", and things by their nature always present an appearance of being separate to some degree from the rest of the world, simply by virtue of their being distinguishable. Hume's argument also takes advantage of the fact that empirical knowledge and observation is always uncertain. Because our brains and senses are limited in their ability to observe what is in the world, we will never be able to have access to the full picture. We will always be in a state of ignorance to some degree. As such, we can never be certain that the causal processes that we do observe in the world are in fact what they appear to be.

Now, I do not dispute this reasoning from Hume. It is undeniable that our brains and senses are limited and that all of our empirical theorizing, which ultimately rests on what we perceive through our senses, is inherently incomplete and uncertain. However, where I begin to diverge from Hume, and from modern thinking in general, is the idea that it is inherently impossible for us to establish with certainty that all things are caused. Granted, we will never be able to uncover the precise causal linkages between things in an empirical sense, but nevertheless, what we can do is logically prove that causality is a reality which links all things together. We can do this by proving that it is logically impossible for anything to arise uncaused.

Cause and effect, as a universal law, can be proven to be true in the same way that 1+1=2 and A=A can be proven to be true. Namely, by thinking about it and discerning the logic which underpins it. It is something that is true by definition, which makes it a purely logical truth rather than an empirical theory. The reason why it is not an empirical theory, even though it necessarily applies to everything within the empirical universe, is because it is impossible to accumulate any empirical evidence which could either prove or disprove it. It is utterly beyond the capacity of empirical investigation to resolve. Instead, it is a conclusion which can only be proven by logic alone.

Stephen Coyle is right in saying that Hume was only demonstrating the limitations of empiricism when it comes to higher philosophic understanding. He believed in causality intuitively, but wanted to show that it could not be proven by empirical means. It is unfortunate that he didn't examine the principle of causality more deeply and create the logical proof for it, but I guess he had other agendas.

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Eexpetctantly Irno write:

We infer the existence of this "thing" called "causality" from our observations. Nevertheless, the inference is not a deductive one, and thus isn't considered to be logically ensured.

It can be reached deductively, if you have the desire to examine the matter closely.

A person might initially reach the idea of causality by inference - i.e. by examining empirical events and inductively formulating the principle - but that is only half the story. He needs to kick on and examine the very core of causality from a logical point of view, and it is here that he can establish the reality of causality via deduction.

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Doesn't this just reaffirm the level of uncertainty inherent in empiricism?

Not at all. There is nothing else.


One must start analysing questions like the first post under additional definition of

"all thing beings equal"

Exactly. We infer the existence of this "thing" called "causality" from our observations. Nevertheless, the inference is not a deductive one, and thus isn't considered to be logically ensured. Like "gravity", "causality" is merely the totality of its appearances if it is to be anything at all (beyond an arguably useful concept to help explain things).

Pitiful Postmodernist hogwash.

Logic is binary evaluation - something is either on or off, There or Not There, A or Not-A.

It is our first EMPIRICAL observation and from that we have a base for all our a-priori calculations.

James,

Pitiful Postmodernist hogwash.

Postmodernist? The view I expressed owes itself to a handful of early modern philosophers and some 20th century existentialists.

It is our first EMPIRICAL observation and from that we have a base for all our a-priori calculations.

How does this relate at all to what I said?

David,

It can be reached deductively, if you have the desire to examine the matter closely.

What you've "proven" deductively isn't any sort of causality I know. Unless you've altered your stance on the subject, you only demonstrate that a thing must exist in the circumstances in which it exists. Before encountering this board I'd never have imagined that such a thing might require a proof, but now that you've formulated it I suppose we can rest comfortably knowing that that matter is settled. I just wish you wouldn't dress such things up in a manner that makes them seem like they might not be obvious in the first place.

It goes much further and deeper than that. Your depiction of my conception of causality is very wide of the mark. I spell out my thoughts on causality and its logical poofs in some detail in my ebook, so I will refer you there if you're interested.

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David Quinn wrote:It goes much further and deeper than that. Your depiction of my conception of causality is very wide of the mark. I spell out my thoughts on causality and its logical poofs in some detail in my ebook, so I will refer you there if you're interested.

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But what caused causality? What's the reason for causality to exist? And don't say because you prefer rationality over irrationality. What I don't understand about the infinite causal chain of the universe is that there's no cause for this causal chain, and, there's no cause or reason for matter to exist.

Asking what caused causality is like asking what's on the outside of the Infinite. Infinity has no begining or end. It's like trying to conceive of the meaning of the over-used sci-fi phrase "before time began" as in that for there to be a before, there would have to be time to delineate it.

Causality is the fabric of the Infinite.

Your concept of the Infinite is too small.
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Faust13 wrote:

But what caused causality? What's the reason for causality to exist? And don't say because you prefer rationality over irrationality. What I don't understand about the infinite causal chain of the universe is that there's no cause for this causal chain, and, there's no cause or reason for matter to exist.

From my ebook:

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The Eternal Nature of Cause and Effect

If cause and effect is all there is, then where did cause and effect itself come from? Why is there cause and effect in the first place? Who or what created it?

This seem like reasonable questions to ask at this point. Having reduced everything down to a single principle, it is only natural to ask where this principle came from. Nonetheless, they are deluded questions and fundamentally unaskable. They are generated out of a false conception of causation, one that imagines it to be a finite phenomenon with a beginning and an end of some kind. Instead of discerning that cause and effect refers to the very process of creation itself, the deluded person falsely conceives of it as a created entity of some kind and unconsciously places it in the same category as trees, mountains, galaxies, humans, and every other created entity in the Universe. Causation, however, is not like this. Although it is responsible for everything which exists, it itself transcends existence and hence the question of who or what created it is a meaningless one.

From a logical point of view, it is easy to see that the process of cause and effect is necessarily causeless. This is because anything which can be postulated as being the cause of cause and effect will automatically be a part of cause and effect itself. It is thus irrational to think of cause and effect as being causally created in any way. It has always been around. There has never been a time when it was absent.

Note that I am not saying I don’t know where cause and effect came from. It is not an admission of ignorance on my part. The possibility of ignorance does not come into it, for there is nothing to know as far as this matter is concerned. The question cannot yield an answer because it has no foundations to begin with. It overlooks the fact that it is impossible for the process of cause and effect to come from somewhere because the very act of "coming from somewhere" will always be causal in nature.

A far more pertinent question, perhaps, is the question of why there is a process of causation in the first place and not nothing at all. In other words, why is there "something" rather than nothing? This is an important question to resolve because it goes to the very heart of understanding Reality itself.

In answering this, I must point again to the fact that the process of cause and effect is not a created thing, but the very principle behind all created things. This needs some qualification, however. Even though I use the word "principle", it should not be taken to mean that causation is a physical principle of some kind, or even a spiritual one. In fact, in a certain sense, it does not really exist at all. It isn’t a manifested entity which exists above or behind the realm of created things. In the end, created things are all that exists - there is nothing else apart from them, nothing beyond them.

The "principle of causation", then, is merely a figure of speech. It is a description of how created things change into other created things. It is a conceptual construct which points to the fact that objects arise out of what is already there in the world. It asserts that a thing is created out of necessity from the circumstances which are present and that it is impossible for anything else to be created in its place. It also points to the truth that things have no beginning or end, and thus points to the essential "oneness" of Reality.

Given this, the question of why there is causation rather than nothing at all is a meaningless one. Even the state of nothingness is itself a created thing, a product of causation. It can only occur in a region where things are entirely absent - that is, when the causal circumstances are ripe. Moreover, when one analyses it further, one finds that it is nothing more than a mental construct. Nothingness only comes into being when consciousness conceives of it - or more accurately, when consciousness conceives of things being absent. As such, a state of total nothingness, in which nothing exists at all, is logically impossible. At the very least, it would need the existence of consciousness to think it into being.

To sum up, then, the principle of causation which is responsible for the existence of all created things, including states of nothingness, itself never comes into existence and therefore is incapable of experiencing birth and death. If it was possible for it to experience birth, it would immediately cease being the core principle of creation and instead be just another created thing. Because it never experiences birth, it is timeless and beyond all explanation.

In the end, no matter where we look, we are literally staring into the very first moment of creation. Beginningless time and the present moment are the same. There is no "before".

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Elizabeth Isabelle wrote:Asking what caused causality is like asking what's on the outside of the Infinite. Infinity has no begining or end. It's like trying to conceive of the meaning of the over-used sci-fi phrase "before time began" as in that for there to be a before, there would have to be time to delineate it.

Causality is the fabric of the Infinite.

Your concept of the Infinite is too small.
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Clearly there's some emotional reaction in this.

If I were to affirm causality, I would have to ask what caused causality in order to be consistent. And some of your sentences in this reply are hysterical.

Appearantly, it isn't just your perception of the Infinite that is off. I provided you with some excellent comparisons in order to help explain a concept to you, and you read emotion into it. How odd.
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David Quinn wrote:Faust13 wrote:

But what caused causality? What's the reason for causality to exist? And don't say because you prefer rationality over irrationality. What I don't understand about the infinite causal chain of the universe is that there's no cause for this causal chain, and, there's no cause or reason for matter to exist.

From my ebook:

--

The Eternal Nature of Cause and Effect

If cause and effect is all there is, then where did cause and effect itself come from? Why is there cause and effect in the first place? Who or what created it?

This seem like reasonable questions to ask at this point. Having reduced everything down to a single principle, it is only natural to ask where this principle came from. Nonetheless, they are deluded questions and fundamentally unaskable. They are generated out of a false conception of causation, one that imagines it to be a finite phenomenon with a beginning and an end of some kind. Instead of discerning that cause and effect refers to the very process of creation itself, the deluded person falsely conceives of it as a created entity of some kind and unconsciously places it in the same category as trees, mountains, galaxies, humans, and every other created entity in the Universe. Causation, however, is not like this. Although it is responsible for everything which exists, it itself transcends existence and hence the question of who or what created it is a meaningless one.

From a logical point of view, it is easy to see that the process of cause and effect is necessarily causeless. This is because anything which can be postulated as being the cause of cause and effect will automatically be a part of cause and effect itself. It is thus irrational to think of cause and effect as being causally created in any way. It has always been around. There has never been a time when it was absent.

Note that I am not saying I don’t know where cause and effect came from. It is not an admission of ignorance on my part. The possibility of ignorance does not come into it, for there is nothing to know as far as this matter is concerned. The question cannot yield an answer because it has no foundations to begin with. It overlooks the fact that it is impossible for the process of cause and effect to come from somewhere because the very act of "coming from somewhere" will always be causal in nature.

A far more pertinent question, perhaps, is the question of why there is a process of causation in the first place and not nothing at all. In other words, why is there "something" rather than nothing? This is an important question to resolve because it goes to the very heart of understanding Reality itself.

In answering this, I must point again to the fact that the process of cause and effect is not a created thing, but the very principle behind all created things. This needs some qualification, however. Even though I use the word "principle", it should not be taken to mean that causation is a physical principle of some kind, or even a spiritual one. In fact, in a certain sense, it does not really exist at all. It isn’t a manifested entity which exists above or behind the realm of created things. In the end, created things are all that exists - there is nothing else apart from them, nothing beyond them.

The "principle of causation", then, is merely a figure of speech. It is a description of how created things change into other created things. It is a conceptual construct which points to the fact that objects arise out of what is already there in the world. It asserts that a thing is created out of necessity from the circumstances which are present and that it is impossible for anything else to be created in its place. It also points to the truth that things have no beginning or end, and thus points to the essential "oneness" of Reality.

Given this, the question of why there is causation rather than nothing at all is a meaningless one. Even the state of nothingness is itself a created thing, a product of causation. It can only occur in a region where things are entirely absent - that is, when the causal circumstances are ripe. Moreover, when one analyses it further, one finds that it is nothing more than a mental construct. Nothingness only comes into being when consciousness conceives of it - or more accurately, when consciousness conceives of things being absent. As such, a state of total nothingness, in which nothing exists at all, is logically impossible. At the very least, it would need the existence of consciousness to think it into being.

To sum up, then, the principle of causation which is responsible for the existence of all created things, including states of nothingness, itself never comes into existence and therefore is incapable of experiencing birth and death. If it was possible for it to experience birth, it would immediately cease being the core principle of creation and instead be just another created thing. Because it never experiences birth, it is timeless and beyond all explanation.

In the end, no matter where we look, we are literally staring into the very first moment of creation. Beginningless time and the present moment are the same. There is no "before".

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It seems inconsistent to say that causality is uncaused. That would mean that some things are indeed uncaused. How do you say that causality exists and is the ultimate principle, then say it doesn't exist?

Maybe if I break it down into even more basic chunks for you.

Elizabeth Isabelle wrote:Asking what caused causality is.....

Think about just that little chunk for a moment. "Caused causality" - If something caused causality, it too would be a cause, and therefore also part of causality. The cause of that would also be a cause, and again, part of causality. It goes back like that infinitely.
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Faust13 wrote:It seems inconsistent to say that causality is uncaused. That would mean that some things are indeed uncaused. How do you say that causality exists and is the ultimate principle, then say it doesn't exist?

It does seem inconsistent, which is why I disagree with the way he phrased that, even though it isn't technically wrong (because he didn't actually say it was "uncaused" rather the way he wrote it may look like that was what he was indicating). To say that it was uncaused suggests a begining, even though there was not one. I would rather have seen him directly say it was neither caused nor uncaused.
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edited to clarify interpretation of David's work

edit again - he did say it was "causeless" ... David, I guess I need to leave it to you to clarify your own work here...
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Elizabeth Isabelle wrote:Maybe if I break it down into even more basic chunks for you.

Elizabeth Isabelle wrote:Asking what caused causality is.....

Think about just that little chunk for a moment. "Caused causality" - If something caused causality, it too would be a cause, and therefore also part of causality. The cause of that would also be a cause, and again, part of causality. It goes back like that infinitely.
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I know that. So then it would be correct to say that something caused causality.

Faust13 wrote:So then it would be correct to say that something caused causality.

No, it would not. I will repeat myself only one more time, and I ask that you go and at least think about it for an hour before posting on this topic again (obviously this is not a command, as I have no authority over you - it is a suggestion based on my perception that you are not actually thinking about this, rather you are just defending your beliefs).

A cause is part of causality. Causality can not have a cause because every cause is part of causality.

This does not make causality literally uncaused because there were infinite causes.

Please, just go think about it for an hour. If you still don't see what I'm saying, then come back.
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I know that. So then it would be correct to say that something caused causality.

Yep, it sure did. Quinn and co just want to leave this issue at the penultimate level, as that is the last point from which an absolute viewpoint can be logically taken - anything past this point is speculation, and that is a no, no in their emotional book of absolute truth. I disregard this crap. Mind you what he has said above is not wrong, it is certainly well written and accurate, but it is still incomplete. Speculation is fine, in the end everything is speculation. As long as one does not create a scenario that has non-causal attributes then one should be able to create a reasonable explanation or cause for the causal process.

Causality is something observable and like all observable things it is an effect. Causality is a process so therefore it also has a cause. Everything type of thing we define MUST relate to some form of fundamental causal action. You can also disregard what Quinn says about empirical matters – there is no possible way he could ACCEPT cause and effect as a fundamental truth unless he had confirmed it with real occurrences. It is not pure logic, pure logic does not exist in any complex form, logic boils down to something being either a thing or not that thing, which once generalised, is pure duality.

No effect has its own separate existence, so David is right in that context, seeing as the cause and effect process is just an observation. Effects are merely coincidental, or unplanned outcomes of a preceding action. Cause and effect processes are caused by that action which precedes the creation of all forms of thingness, of all forms of finiteness. The action of The Totality at it’s most fundamental level is not strictly a cause and effect relationship, but only because it is entirely bi-causal by it’s very nature – there are no preceding causes or effects, and (at this most fundamental level only) no relativity to any thing existing in the physical world. While this process creates relativity as well as cause and effect, both these come into being post the initial action. At the base level, there is only an interaction between opposites whose entire nature is as a force or energy that each do one thing only – in general terms they expand or contract. These forces have no physical entity of their own, and are thus infinite and exist non-spatially. This interaction can only be termed “causal interaction”. The end result of causal action in things is to alter existing boundaries, while the fundamental causal action that precedes boundary altering causes, is a causal action that permanently CREATES such boundaries.

Cause and effect are finite just like everything else that occurs in the spatial domain. Finiteness has the attribute of - that which is closest to the finite thing has the strongest relativity to that thing. Finiteness only really exists in this manner, because as everything is interconnected then finiteness is a semi-delusion. There are of course two forms of realness that can be perceived, the first is observational realness (which is the realness of a totality, a whole, a one of any sort) and logical realness. Logical realness shows that observational realness is not entirely rational, while observational realness shows that logical realness is not entirely valid either.

Observational realness is an absolute truth because we can sense differentiation in things, and is any case differentiation is a requirement for the causal process - it couldn't work otherwise.

Logical realness is real because we can conceptualise the emptiness and non-inherency in the parts of things.

The only way one can be real is to take both points of view. The QRS fail to encompass observational realness in their philosophy as they are far too attached to the logical philosophy/realness that they have created. I find this pathetic.

Good post, James.
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