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I am aware that the idea is venerable, going back through Lucretius to the Stoics and Epicurus, and even to Aristotle with his prime mover argument. But isn't this a pre-scientific notion? The Atomists thought that collisions cause motion. But that's only half right. Collisions are where an exchange of motion (momentum, energy) happens. A collision assumes there's already some kinetic energy--i.e. motion-- in the system of particles that are colliding. So saying collisions cause motion doesn't explain much. Of course, the Greeks didn't know all this, and it's no fault of theirs.

Look at how the concept of cause usually makes an appearance in physics. Typically, it only appears implicitly. There is talk of certain effects, like the Hall effect, the Mossbauer effect, the Zeeman effect, etc. Following philosophical tradition, and the normal meaning of the word effect, each of these effects presumably has some cause. For the Zeeman effect the "cause" is applying a magnetic field where there previously wasn't one, resulting in the splitting of atomic spectral lines. I think a fairly general definition of cause used this way in physics is a change in the degree of constraint. It could be the complete removal of a constraint, such as removing a partition that is confining a gas to one side of a container. Or it could be applying a "constraint" such as an external field.

The physical explanation of such effects is not a long list of "laws" of the form "A causes B", "B causes C", "C causes D", etc. Instead, a physical theory is developed in which the laws of evolution of the system take the form of equations (usually differential equations). You solve the equations under one constraint (boundary conditions, forcing functions, etc.), solve them again under the changed constraint, and see how the resulting behaviors are different. That is the explanation of the "effect". Physical explanations are not of the form "this domino knocks over that domino, which then knocks over this other one, which in turn..." In fact, Bertrand Russell pointed out that once you have a developed physical theory, you can completely do without talk of causes and effects. There are only regularities.

In spite of this situation, when people begin to reason philosophically, they start talking about causal chains. Maybe it's out of respect for tradition. They do it even when they are trying to be hard-nosed scientific types--trying to explain mental events in terms of physical events without resorting to dualism. And they nearly always assume that physical causes are the only kind of causes that could really matter in a scientific explanation of anything. But how can this be, when talk of causes only rarely arises in physics, and talk of "causal chains" is practically nonexistent? Won't this imprecision inevitably lead to confusion?

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    Yes, causal chains better fit the archaic (Aristotelian) conception of causality, with some substances having inherent causal powers than the modern conception with laws of nature. It is closer to the folk causation talk where we single out causes from a fixed background of other initial conditions as pragmatically significant. But when it comes to mental and physical events it is easy to rephrase such talk in terms of mental and physical regularities and their relations, while the folk talk version makes the ideas more accessible.
    – Conifold
    Commented Mar 23, 2020 at 4:16
  • @Conifold Exactly. And I'm not arguing against all talk of cause and effect. I happen to think Aristotle got things basically right with his four types of cause. I am arguing against talk of causes, and especially causal chains, as if they were the epitome of physical reasoning. That's the area where they are least appropriate. If my interpretation above is right, then, in the context of physics, causes always refer to some breach of law-like behavior. A constraint is changed from the outside. The system is not quite autonomous. Perhaps there are counterexamples. Commented Mar 23, 2020 at 6:11
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    That is not what is meant in the mind/body problem discussions, at least by physicalists and dualists. "Causal chains" are just stand-ins for the unfolding of physical vs mental processes. Since most of the background is (agreed to be) irrelevant to the brain/mind relation one can collect all the relevant factors into autonomous "brain states" and "mental states", and work with a single cause/single effect toy model for them. The shorthand of "causal chains" cuts out the clutter.
    – Conifold
    Commented Mar 23, 2020 at 7:03
  • @WillieBetmore - You say - 'A constraint is changed from the outside. The system is not quite autonomous.' .This seems close to the old idea that 'collisions cause motion'. If one includes observations as collisions then this may boil down to the idea that all motion is relative. Just pondering.
    – user20253
    Commented Mar 23, 2020 at 10:47
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    ...And it's not wrong to say that applying a magnetic field causes the Zeeman effect. It just isn't a physical explanation. But in the absence of a physical explanation, that's the only way to talk about it. I don't know the history of physics in much detail, but I assume that's how all these named "effects" started out. Something that was surprising and needed an explanation. Commented Mar 23, 2020 at 22:45

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I see two factors at play. First our cognitive bias to structure the world in terms of intentions, those of ourselves & others. And supervenient explanatory layers, where units in those layers are causes in their own terms, but the layer is constituted fundamentally or reducibly of the physicists world of regularities.

We learn physical skills and the use of our bodies in large part through the action of complexes of mirror neurons, which activate motor control areas in our brains from watching an action, that we would need to perform it, we mentally project our own body into the position of others for physical insight. More broadly, we learn from Dunbar's number that the close correlation for mammal species of brain size with social group size, indicates much or most of our brain development has been for social complexity, and theory of mind - and of intentions of others. Our brains are wired to make sense of the world as composed of identities with intensions. Be call the results of the intensions of others what they caused. We might expect non-social cephalopod intelligence to differ, for instance. And it's interesting to note 1 in 4 engineers have someone in their immediate family on the autistic spectrum, and that is characterised largely as an impairment of theory-of-mind.

Because it is a cognitive bias, does not mean grouping the world into identities with intensions or teleological aims isn't useful, in particular it can help make things tractable. The extreme example is predicting other humans, we accept they are made of atoms obeying laws but that is not a tractable way to interact, but heuristics like character are, and exist in a self-consistent explanatory layer with it's own terms. More generally this is very useful for learning from fragmentary data about complex systems.

Our mode of thinking about particles is to see them as like individuals, with a story. What our real understanding says, is that transformations are happening with certain probabilities, that maintain the relevant conserved quantities. A Feynman diagram is like a story, and the sum-over-histories assembles the possible stories, and that gives us insight into general behaviour.

We interpret the principle of least action, and increasing entropy, as part of the character of the universe. As we assemble the stories of systems, we picture these as causal, as having teleological intensions to maintain themselves. But fundamentally we just have patterns, and these are heuristics, which we must be careful to keep in their own relevant explanatory layer.

Noether's theorem shows us that conservation laws are symmetries under transformation, that these are dimensions. Particles are local consistencies in the transformations. The symmetries are literally a pattern, in the structure of physical laws, an efficient abstraction of experiences which narrows possibilities, making prediction forwards and backwards (far more) tractable.

'Causal' can definitely become problematic if it gets outside of it's layer. We have the pathetic fallacy, at the level of everyday experience. In science there is a huge risk of accepting a narrative explanation because it 'makes sense', which usually means conforms with our sense of the character of a system. Underestimating the impact of exponentials, and over-estimating the regularity of one off events, are known risks there. We have to actively find ways to check and counteract these biases in assembling narratives. But, identifying locii within systems and 'telling their stories' is powerfully useful.

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    This is a really good answer about the role that causal language plays and how it came about (through treating nearly everything as if it had intentions). I especially appreciated the points you made about tractability, and that there are different levels of explanation/description. What is your view on talk of "physical causes" and "causal chains" in particular? Also, is the fact that causal thinking is a useful shortcut for making otherwise intractable problems tractable the end of the story? Could there be reasons why this tends to work? Commented Apr 2, 2020 at 1:23
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    @WillieBetmore: Thankyou. I see 'physical cause' as identifying a simplifying locus in a story. Consider the challenge problem of working out the function of a microprocessor, only from outside, it turned out to be nearly impossibly hard (this is to compare reverse engineering brains). Purposes hugely simplify this, the narrative of why a structure creates certain causes, links the large scale (evolution) and microscale (cells, ganglia & c). Chains I see as identifying useful locii in the transformations/iterations to pay attention to. A salience landscape, foregrounding conceptual 'nodes'
    – CriglCragl
    Commented Apr 2, 2020 at 1:58
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    That is great. It sounds as if you see causation as being closely bound up with explanation, as I do. That is why I actually kind of like Aristotle's four types of causes. Those are the types of questions that come to mind when you want to know how something got to be the way it is, and why. And it is also why I find the tendency to think of "physical causes" as being the gold standard, which obviates the need for other types of causes, disturbing. Commented Apr 2, 2020 at 2:37
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    @RamTobolski: I see that as too simplistic. Some overlays are extremely powerful. It's not about putting one set on a pedestal, or dispensing with all others. What we seek is integrity of worldview. Consider Deutsch's idea in Fabric of Reality, of needing 4 modes: epistemology, quantum theory, information theory, and biological evolution. Different modes, different languages, interoperable but separate.
    – CriglCragl
    Commented Apr 4, 2020 at 3:24
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    I like that, interoperable but separate. Your comments encouraged me to have another look at Real Patterns. It comes to similar conclusions, probably from a different angle. Commented Apr 5, 2020 at 23:26
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The Atomists thought that collisions cause motion. But that's only half right. Collisions are where an exchange of motion (momentum, energy) happens. A collision assumes there's already some kinetic energy--i.e. motion-- in the system of particles that are colliding. So saying collisions cause motion doesn't explain much.

That collisions cause motion is obvious. Physics gives us a deeper and more comprehensive account, but it does not deny the obvious.

The word cause is usually not itself a scientific term, although it can be translated to scientific terms. Even with the ancients, we can see that the use of causal language is often independent of specific physical theories. Thus we can see in Cicero's On Fate Aristotelians, Atomists and Stoics debate on causal chains in the context of fate (i.e. determinism) where each party believes in a different physics.

a physical theory is developed in which the laws of evolution of the system take the form of equations (usually differential equations) … Physical explanations are not of the form "this domino knocks over that domino, which then knocks over this other one, which in turn..."

But surely even physicists occasionally talk in such terms as "A knocks over B". It is that they know how to translate the causal language, when needed, into the up to date physical terms.

In fact, Bertrand Russell pointed out that once you have a developed physical theory, you can completely do without talk of causes and effects. There are only regularities.

Bertrand Russell is indeed relevant here. He didn't just comment on the present subject, the usefulness of the concept of cause in the face of modern physics. He wrote a seminal essay about it - On the Notion of Cause (1912)

The reduction of causation to regularities (regular succession) is due earlier, in the classic treatment of causality by David Hume. It is worth mentioning that it has been argued, against this reduction, that not all regularities are causal. One classic example is the regular succession of day, night, day, night, etc. Whereas day does not cause night, and vice versa.

In spite of this situation, when people begin to reason philosophically, they start talking about causal chains … But how can this be, when talk of causes only rarely arises in physics, and talk of "causal chains" is practically nonexistent? Won't this imprecision inevitably lead to confusion?

Not inevitably. Causal talk is often useful, and precise enough. It can often be unproblematically translated into modern physical terms, where needed.

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    Great answer. Thanks for the Russell link, too. You're right, confusion is evitable, but only with more care than what is sometimes exercised. I really think some people who should know better take the "physical cause" language too literally, and imagine something like being pushed into a swimming pool, or being moved around by marionette strings. And, to be clear, I reject the reduction of causes to regularities. I argued that in the physical context,causes represent a type of irregularity. So they aren't really part of the physical theory proper, which is about regularities. Commented Mar 29, 2020 at 23:53
  • "That collisions cause motion is obvious. Physics gives us a deeper and more comprehensive account, but it does not deny the obvious." There might be some ambiguity of scope here. Yes, a collision can cause motion in a body that was at rest. But are collisions the cause of motion in general? Do we have to assume an original unexplained moving particle, The Cosmic Cue Ball? It could be that the Greeks merely meant it in the obvious (and correct) sense, and I misunderstood. Commented Mar 30, 2020 at 0:03
  • @WillieBetmore Thanks. And you're right, there is an ambiguity about "collisions cause motion". Also, I don't recall a "cosmic cue ball" in ancient atomism.. so they must have assumed that atoms have initial movements which are not caused by collisions. At least for Epicurus's version of atomism, I recall that he assumed (1) that atoms move of their own "downwards", and also (2) the infamous "swerve", small random spontaneous shifts in the paths of the atoms. Commented Mar 30, 2020 at 18:40
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There are competing views, e.g. Russell's belief that 'causation' is harmful, vs Cartwright's that without 'causation' science would be "crippled"

https://www.oxfordhandbooks.com/view/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199284221.001.0001/oxfordhb-9780199284221-e-15

I think calling either view a "folk" belief is really quite misleading. As far as I know, everyone who believes in the "causal relation" would also believe in a "causal chain", though unlikely with its historical baggage.

What is the metaphysical basis for causal connection? That is, what is the difference between causally related and causally unrelated sequences?

The question of connection occupies the bulk of the vast literature on causation. One finds analyses of causation in terms of nomological... agential manipulability... contiguous change ... physical processes... and property transference... One also finds views that are hybrids of some of the above... and even eliminativism (Russell 1992, Quine 1966).

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

The difference between a regularity and causal connection is a hot topic in philosophy of science

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    Regarding the last paragraph: Yes, it is still discussed, but I think there is a baseline agreement: Where there is a very high correlation between two events (energetic states) and a physical mechanism for the transformation between the states (direct succession of events that follow our theories/"laws"), there we can speak of causation. The problem is rather about the demarcation between "A causes B" and "There is a causal chain between A and B" IMHO. Either way, it is a meta-description of the relation between two arbitrary energetic states, ie. causation is always "problem-related".
    – Philip Klöcking
    Commented Mar 9, 2021 at 7:51
  • i hadn't heard of that specific problem, can you link to something short please @PhilipKlöcking
    – user62233
    Commented Mar 9, 2021 at 14:36
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    scholar.google.de/scholar_url?url=https://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/… not exactly "short", but capturing the main thrusts of the discourse in philosophy of science. It is all about what an "event" is.
    – Philip Klöcking
    Commented Mar 9, 2021 at 15:40
  • great, thanks @PhilipKlöcking even though it's just too long for me...
    – user62233
    Commented Mar 9, 2021 at 17:29
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You misunderstand Aristotle's metaphysics, as well as his prime mover argument.

Aristotle's prime mover:

God (the prime mover) necessarily exists. Because:

I. Something cannot be the efficient cause of itself. a) If A exists, another caused it (another necessarily caused the potential of its existence to become reality).

II. A thing's continued existence is potential, for it is not actual. b) Therefore if A continues to exist, another keeps causing it.

III. Therefore, as everything continues to exist, God (the prime mover) exists, continually and without change (if God changes from potence to act, another would have to cause Him, wherefore we conclude that God is an immutable, eternal, unchanging substance from eternity).

Now, as for the physicality of the causal chain, Aristotle's causality is metaphysical so it is above the realm of physics. His thought is not lower than current scientific thought, but in a higher and more abstract sphere.

You are confusing physical "causation" -- the interaction between physical substances -- with metaphysical "causation," or the movement of potence to act.

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    But potency is not supposed to be purely metaphysical in a sense that might admit it's irrelevant to actually predicting measurable empirical changes, akin to epiphenomenalism about consciousness--Aristotelian notions of form and potency were part of a proto-scientific explanation for empirical changes like motion and organic growth, see p. 643-644 here. So if science can predict these things using mathematical models that don't involve cause or potency it's a problem.
    – Hypnosifl
    Commented Mar 23, 2020 at 20:29
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    "You are confusing physical "causation" -- the interaction between physical substances -- with metaphysical "causation," or the movement of potence to act." Tell me more about how physical causation works so I can understand the difference. Commented Mar 23, 2020 at 22:09
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For me Leibniz's ideal rationalism can easily explain that the apparent causality in the realm of our perceived physical world is nothing but an illusion from the underlying objects' coordination. The common view of causality is nothing but an "interaction" influence chain between different objects as time unfolds, but Leibniz's Monadology clearly visualizes it in a completely alternative way as mere "synchronization" of all windowless substances (he called monads), there's no interaction or influence between substances at all ontologically. This philosophy also completely avoids the entangled mind-body dualism such as espoused by Descartes.

An example in object-oriented computer design can easily describe this non-causal process, since the whole software is nothing but composed of numerous objects each having its own properties and methods pre-coded. So when u hit a submit button, you "feel" from your sense organs that your clicking-a-button event "causes" your paragraph to be saved in the server's database. However, what's really going on is the button object code is just "called back" within its own pre-established laws in order to collect your data and send it out, and after receiving serialized data from internet, the backend database is also just "invoked" within its own table object's code to further deserialize and persist data to drive, be it MySQL or Oracle.

Using computer science jargon, there're no actions/reactions, there're only callbacks. This view has derived a major flexible programming pattern called Event Drive architecture used almost everywhere now.

Of course per Leibniz there's true "final cause" of a substance he called Entelechy borrowed from Aristotle which sits beyond the laws of physics and only accessible to its creator, this also make sense by easily expanding previous analogy as the programmer can always come back and change object's code even during runtime for some programming language...

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In a Kantian vein: causes and effects form a sort of "chain" because time itself is represented by a linear structure. We synthesize events over time according to causality so that causes at time A yield effects at time B (note that Kant mentions simultaneous cause/effect situations in the discussion of causality itself, which are relevant to his additional principle of physical community; here the chain metaphor is compromised by having A = B, but maybe we can revive the metaphor by reference to the integrity of two halves of a chain link itself).

As a metaphor, the notion of causal chains can be interchanged with that of causal dominoes (as you bring up) or other things (causal Rube Goldberg machines, maybe). These are images/examples, of temporal structure, which seems physical enough as a concept ("events in time are regularly synthesized" doesn't seem counterphysical or counterscientific, anyway).

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  • But, there are various theories of time, growing block, presentism etc. A growing likelihood from quantum-gravity research is that both space & time are emergent, from a kind of network of quantum information. Where would that leave your argument?
    – CriglCragl
    Commented Mar 12, 2021 at 19:45
  • I don't really have an argument, here, just an explanation of a metaphor, and a note regarding the physicality of the metaphor's meaning. Commented Mar 12, 2021 at 20:10

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