Maybe causality is something we apply to the world, rather than something we find in the world?
This is my response to this week's POB Word of the Week: Causality
And the stock POB WOTW image is MOST relevant!
Causality - a Comforting, but Deluded Concept...?
The concept of causality is a comforting one - it is the premise that enables us to believe that we can solve problems, by finding their 'cause' and thus making the world (what we think to be) a better place.
The concept of causality is further predicated on the concept of linearity - the idea that time runs in one direction and something that happened in the past influences what happens in the future.
(Unless you subscribe to the idea of reverse-causality paradoxes as fictionalised in, well, science fiction, but this concept isn't one anyone of us is qualified to discuss, it's mere conjecture, so enough of that!)
The concept of causality is also predicated on 'categorisation' - on being able to identify distinct, independent phenomena which then have an affect on, or are affected by, other independent phenomena - and if we apply the correct 'objective' methodology to uncover the relationship between phenomena, then we can attribute causality to one or more of them, or at least probabilities that a conflation of particular phenomena might have a particular influence on others.
However, this causal model of the universe may well be an illusion...
It could well be that the concept of causality DISTORTS the way we see the actual universe, which in reality is....
- Fluid and unbounded
- Non linear
- Chaotic and
- None of the above because it can't accurately be described by an analytical brain.
Maybe the universe 'just is' and maybe 'true experience' of it is only possible beyond the limited capacity of the senses and the deluded ideas of discrete objects, linearity and causality.
Scientism hasn't helped
Science, which tends to infer causality, applied to technology has led to what most of us would call progress (although what counts as 'progress' is open to debate, and TBH not a bad idea for a future WOTW).
But just because something (science) 'works’, doesn’t mean it is true.
For example, Newtonian Mechanics provided us with a model of the universe that enabled us to achieve great feats such as going to the moon and yet this model is no longer regarded as a true representation of the way the world works.
NB not all scientists fall into this trap of 'scientism' (thinking causality is truth) - some, such as Einstein, can be humble about the capacity of their scientific models to actually describe the world as it really is, and see these models as being just one way of helping us to make sense of the world.
Final thoughts...
Perhaps this is the 'correct' way to see causality - as something useful but not necessarily true?
I wonder if this post will 'cause' me to get an NFT.? (I never learn).
I like the punchline in "Final thoughts"
It caused a little chuckle.
Hahaha.... It made me laugh as well 😅😅
Hey cheers! That was the general idea
Perhaps causality can be perceived as reality
My thought though
I guess it's as real as we decide it is! A bit like why the dollar has 'value'
If I was opportuned to read this before making my post, I would've love to posit that causality is an endless circle.
If I find a cause, I can as well find the cause to the cause, I can also find a cause to the cause of the cause.... We can continue.
Universism is really beyond the cope if senses. All we can do is to find concepts that helps, just to do that we keep evolving.
Fair point, there is no end to the quest for ultimate causality which doe kind of suggest the concept is a little flawed maybe?!?
It seems flawed, till we determine the very beginning of all matter.
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STOPMaybe causality can be viewed more as a high likelihood than an absolute?
If I step off the balcony on the 100th floor, there's a high likelihood that I will be a splat on the pavement below... but it's not an absolute certainty.
=^..^=