Causality is why.
Causality goes back to at least Aristotle around 350BC. So we humans have been grappling with the question of ‘why?’ for near 2500 years. Along the way everyone has had a go, think of any philosopher you can name, it is nigh certain they had a go at the problem. Einstein spent heaps of efforts on the problem of causality; partly due he was never satisfied with the probabilistic interpretation of modern quantum physics. The quote God does not play dice is not accurate, but it is well known… it depends if he intended it as a real serious comment or he made a throw away like ‘Damn it, Niels (Bohr that is) God doesn’t play dice’…which does place a different slant on the issue.
Then along came David Hume, around 1750AD, who showed conclusively that because the sun rose yesterday and the day before etc, it is no reason to state conclusively it will rise tomorrow. He showed us we need to separate ‘cause’ from ‘causal expectation’. We have heaps of causal expectation, but seldom if ever is it cause, which is why we get astounded when our teenager acts with poise and respect. It is so unexpected, where on earth did that come from we think.
Actually the problem is vastly easier than one thinks, well, like all things it is when you have the answer. Let’s stick with the issue of the sun rising and setting. No doubt at one time it was a function of the gods, but we are a bit beyond that. We know about gravity, we have various rules and theories that tell us quite exactly what is happening in the solar system. So, we have mathematics and models and theories that predict with great accuracy the events in time sequence, in short we know the ‘mechanisms’. And because we know these mechanisms, and how these mechanisms[1] work and interact etc, then we can predict with great accuracy not only that the sun will rise but exactly at what time it will rise and at any given point on earth. There is one proviso, namely that there is nothing that will interfere with the operation of the mechanism.
What exactly have we done to come to this obvious and quite simple revelation that 2500 years of philosophers have grappled with?
Think of a box; now place the solar system in total in the box. The sun rising and setting is then an output from the box. We can now say that it is the mechanism inside the box that results in the outputs of the box. Presto, cause in a box.
Let’s get bit more technical. Let’s now call our box a ‘system’, and let’s make it a closed system, so that nothing from outside the box can impact what happens in the box. Let’s think of a TV, they are definitely black boxes to me, I tweak knobs and presto, I get pictures and sound etc. why? Well, the pictures and sound etc are outputs derived totally from the workings of the mechanisms inside the box. I tweak knobs, and the quality and volume, intensity etc, change and I adjust things to suit me. Remember this is a black box, I do not have a clue what is happening inside the box, and nor do I need to. I discuss this in much more detail here[2].
To get fully technical, the outputs of any system depend on the mechanisms internal to that system. Once we understand those mechanisms we can then predict the outputs given the system is closed, and nothing from outside will alter the functioning of the mechanism.
The universe is a closed system; we don’t actually think there is anything outside it so we are reasonably confident that everything that happens within the universe depends on the mechanisms within the universe. The effort of trying to work out what those mechanisms are and how they work we call science.
Is this cause? Good question.
No, it is not. It is the mechanisms… not cause. That sort of does not take us further ahead. So let’s drill deeper. Imagine we have a black box; say for me a TV set. I know I can do all sorts of things and get different results by twiddling the knobs. Now let us say I did not know it was a TV set, I did not know what it was, only that by twiddling knobs or their equivalent I get different results. But I also know that all outputs of the box are generated by the internal mechanism of the box. Do I know cause? No, I know about mechanisms, they exist in the box; they are unknown to me since by definition we made it a black box. The mechanisms work according to their own internal forces, under their own steam, and given no external interference result in the outputs of the box.
Someone then gets sharp, and takes the lid off the box and begins to explore aspects of the mechanisms in the box, and slowly is unraveled the miracles of the box, through careful scientific endeavor we learn the mechanisms and can write them down.
So what do we have now? We have in the Reality[3], the mechanism, which we have conceptualized into formal sequence, perhaps mathematical, or electronic diagram or details of how a seed germinates. We now have something in Reality, some mechanism, and our conceptualization of that mechanism. And if the conceptualization is sufficiently precise[4], then we can indeed manipulate it to produce outputs more to our preference, what ever that may be.
The conceptualization is knowledge; precisely it is conceptualization of the mechanisms. We know the mechanisms drive all the outputs, so we know that the mechanisms are the necessity of the system which operates according via the mechanisms, which in themselves have their own internal necessity. So, ‘mechanism’ equals ‘necessity’ in Reality, in fact the two terms are quite interchangeable, since ‘necessity’ refers to the ‘mechanisms’ of a system that result in the outputs of that system, hence mechanisms implies the necessary operation of the system resulting in outputs[5]. Things happen due their own inherent mechanisms with or without our understanding.
In my paper I also show how ‘there is always a mechanism’, and gave detailed definition to this proposition I called the ‘universal mechanistic postulate[6]’.
We know nothing that is not knowledge. If we have no knowledge of something we do not know it, we can have senses and feelings about something, but this is strictly knowledge of how we feel and is not knowledge on the object we feel about.
Therefore what we know of cause must and can only be knowledge. So we can never know necessity, we can only know our model and approximation to the mechanism, and this approximation to the mechanism I call cause.
The conceptualization of the mechanism is our knowledge of necessity which I define as the cause.
The mechanism just is … cause is our understanding of the mechanism. So we can say with precision we know the cause of the sun rising and setting, and given our knowledge of the immediate vicinity of the solar system, so we know there is nothing to interfere with the causal analysis, we predict with great certainty exactly when the sun will rise over Karikari Bay and Rangiputa[7].
Closed system are great and easy, so we understand mechanism, and conceptualization of mechanism, that there always is a mechanism… it all ticks over just fine provided there are no external circumstances that will interfere with the workings of the mechanism. Let’s make it a bit more complicated, let’s make it that the internal workings inside the box depend on the circumstance of the box.
So, our teenager acted with poise and respect because an old friend was visiting and our daughter really fancied our friend’s son who came visiting with his mother, unwillingly, but they were from out of town and he could nothing else. And clearly during the visit he fancied our daughter, which we and our friend had really hoped for.
It can never pay to assume that the mechanism of any black box is not influenced by the situation of the box. It is perilous to assume that the outputs of any box are independent of the environment. All a bit esoteric one may think who would make that assumption. Well, a theoretical physicist does, it is assumed in quantum theory that photons are point objects with no internal mechanism, so by definition cannot be linked to the environment.
We put some such particle into a two slit environment, then single slit environment etc, and then we wonder why we get different and contradictory results, it would seem. Waves and particles, which is it? … Why does it have to be either, maybe it is just the assumptions we are making about the lack of internal structure, and that the internal structure is actually linked to the environment.
What if our friend’s young man was nerdy and really awkward… would our daughter have acted the same way? Not that there is anything wrong with nerds, Bill Gates has told us to be nice to them, likely we will end up working for one. But we know our daughter does not enjoy them …
It may seem a stretch to move from people to elementary particles, but from a scientific stand point that is wrong, both are merely systems, with mechanism dictating their outputs.
The real comparison is that we can assess both people and elementary particles using the same intellectual tools. From that conceptual stand point both are just systems… and we can apply the conceptualization tools to both systems, in exactly the same way. It is wrong to mix science up with other beliefs, it is wrong to argue and claim that in some manner social science is different in principle from physical science: It is not.
There is just one intellectual process that for now can use two clearly defined tools, one is mathematics, and other are the tools of ultimate and immediate effects of W Ross Ashby coupled with his process of primary operations. Both tools lead the key intellectual process, which is precisely the conceptualization of the mechanisms so that we build causal models of systems. That is what science is about; at least that is what it is about under the model of knowledge sketched here. There is no physical and social science, just science, same intellectual tools, same goal.
Once we have a causal model we can then of course use our understanding to tweak system toward our preferences, just like tuning the TV.
There are many questions, such has what happens when we apply the tools of conceptualization to the system a person in their environment, and what exactly are these tools of conceptualization, can anyone learn them, and how do we know when the tools have been applied rigorously, and what is being offered is good versus what is being offered is just some person seeking their moment of fame…?
These questions and many others must await further blogs.
[1] See the paper Little, A model of knowledge and tools for theory creation http://www.grlphilosophy.co.nz/paper3.htm
[2] Little, Perception and a general theory of knowledge, http://www.grlphilosophy.co.nz/paper2.htm
[3] Use of term Reality to specify that which exists beyond our perception, in this discussion then we can say that Reality is the name we apply to mechanism that we may or may not understand, but that are always present.
[4] It is not a topic here, but this position makes absolute nonsense of any suggestion that science is cultural bound or dependent in any way on the point of view of the observer.
[5] This model of knowledge has it that the lowest level of knowledge and understanding are black boxes which encapsulate our ignorance of the internal structure, hence ignorance of the links those black boxes make with the environment or with other black boxes. At this epistemological level the only tool we can use is statistics, and any outputs from any system built at this level will appear random and probabilistic. It is worthy of note, that the assumption that quantum particles, such as photons are assumed in the theory to be points with no internal structure, with this model of knowledge then it should come as no surprise that the outputs are perceived as probabilistic.
[6] Little, A model of knowledge and tools for theory creation http://www.grlphilosophy.co.nz/paper3.htm
[7] I am a New Zealander, look it up. Google will do. It is a really beautiful spot by the way; I camped there for six weeks each summer for 20 years, and my children joined me each year. My spirit belongs to this area, and I will have my ashes spread on the beach so for eternity I know I will reside in peace and contentment.
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