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CONNECTIONS
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Causes and Effects What does it mean when we say that one thing causes another? It seems obvious enough, we assume it every day without even thinking about it, pressing the button makes the doorbell ring, turning the key in the lock makes the door open, who could question it?  How about another example that is not so clear - give some medicine to a sick person and they get better, so has the medicine cured them? Maybe they would have got better by themselves, or they may have done something else that cured them. Maybe they believed so much in the medicine and the doctor that they convinced themselves they felt better. Maybe they said they felt better because they didn't want to disappoint the doctor. There are a lot of connections going on at the same time and it is difficult to isolate the one that we are interested in, it needs a carefully designed test and a lot of effort to be sure of the result. On the elevator panel in the photo taken in a building in Taiwan there is no 4th floor, or 13th, or 14th. In this case there are other connections, the Mandarin word for 4 sounds similar to the word for "death", so nobody wants to live on the 4th floor. Of course the 4th floor is still there, it's just called number 5 instead, there is no dummy floor full of empty units. Whether the building owners believe this is significant or not, they know that rooms on the 4th floor will be slow movers, so there's a connection between the floor numbers and their business results. And in this particular building also rents a lot of rooms to foreigners so they have decided that 13 had better be missed out too, despite this number having no bad associations for local people. So is number 4 unlucky? Well you'd be unlucky if you owned some flats on the 4th floor in Taiwan and had to find tenants quickly. And if people who lived on the 4th floor had unfortunate things happen to them they might explain it by a bad choice of housing and want to move. Connections are clearly there, but what are the real causes and effects? In fact we don't ever see the actual connection between events that we think cause each other. We push the elevator button and it goes to a certain floor. It seems obvious that one thing causes the other, but all we ever see is that one event follows the other. In this case there is a long chain of connections between the first event and the second, we assume a connection because we never see the second event happening without the first. The connection, if it exists at all, is in our minds. You might say we can analyse things with scientific methods, we can see atoms and forces, chemical reactions, electrical circuits causing things to happen at a distance and so on. It appears to have all been explained. But this analysis, although practically powerful and useful, does not advance the philosophical understanding of causality, it just moves it down a level to the point at which science no longer sees the relationship but relies on observing that a second event always follows a first. The connection itself is still not accessible. And so we can be misled into seeing connections that are not really there. In the past people believed that good harvests were ordained by the Gods, so they'd sacrifice an animal, if the crops were good next year that proved that the sacrifice had worked. If they weren't good then they'd try a bigger sacrifice the next year until the crops succeeded. They never dared to try the experiment of seeing if the crops would be good if they didn't make the sacrifice. They never saw a good harvest without an offering to the Gods, so one thing appeared to cause the other. Historical
perspective Nowadays it's assumed that
causation goes from
past to present to
future, that things we do now will affect the future. It wasn't always
thought to be so. Before
the time of David Hume
(1711-1776), Aristotle's view
of causality had been widely accepted. This suggested 4 factors caused
each event, namely:- 1
- Material
cause (the matter) Descartes
(1596-1650) tried to explain efficient causation by the impulse effect
between
corpuscles of matter but was unable to explain the causal interaction
of mind
and body. The mind/body problem is a subject that whole books have been
written about, and trying to think how the mind can
influence the material body but have free will independently, it is
difficult to find any convincing explanation. Malebranche
(1638-1715) among others, proposed the thery of occasionalism, in which
the two
events which appear as cause and effect are not directly linked. God is
proposed as the cause of both events; on the occasion of the first he
brings
about the second. And so we can see that two events that appear
together may not be directly linked but may both have a common cause
that is hidden from us. Hume's
Analysis  So
we see the windmill move,
and we feel the force of the wind. Both those things are
perceived by our senses and we have an impression in our mind of both
of them. We only see the windmill move when the wind blows,
so we have an impression of the connection between them.
Hume
therefore asks "where is the impression from which the idea of
causality is formed ?" "Let
an object be presented to a man of ever so strong natural reason end
abilities;
if that object be entirely new to him, he will not be able, by the most
accurate examination of its sensible qualities to discover any of its
causes or
effects". (David Hume, An Enquiry Concerning
Human Understanding). Thus the idea of what events
cause other events
can only come from experience, it is an empirical thing. And it can
only come from seeing multiple instances of similar results.
Single
instances give no idea of connection In
a
single instance of seeing two events that are apparently cause and
effect there is
no impression of connection, we just see one thing following
another. Hume
further argues that observing a single instance of cause and effect
does not
reveal any connection between them. The
central argument is that there is nothing in the cause to lead us to
the effect. The only thing we observe is "constant conjunction", or
seeing two events happening together and we presume the connection
ourselves. The
idea of cause and effect
therefore comes about by many
observations of the two things happening together. By many
instances of constant conjunction we presume that one event causes
another, because we always see those things happening together and we
never see one without the other. So
what appears as connection of
objects is actually a connection of ideas. Previous
experience of
seeing But
the designers of the first iron boats had an uphill struggle to
convince people that they would ever float, such a thing was far from
obvious, and it needed demonstrations before the idea was accepted. It
was well known that wood floats and iron sinks, so how could an iron
boat stay afloat? I
remember being
amazed as a
child by how a bicycle could balance on two narrow wheels. Someone who
sees a bicycle for the
first time would not expect it to be able to stand upright. This is
because we build up a model of the way the world works in our minds, we
are used to things with wide bases being able to stand up, but things
with narrow bases tend to fall over. The bicycle in motion can beat
these rules due to gyroscopic effects of the wheels and the feedback
effect that a trained rider makes in constantly adjusting the steering
to keep the bike under him. The
first time we see this it is
amazing, like magic, but after seeing it a few times it becomes
included into our normal model of how the world works. In other words
the connection of ideas in our mind is continually being formed, and
the rules are being rewritten every day. How
the
connection of ideas is formed So getting back to Hume's theory of cause and effect, the way we form the connection in our minds is this. Each time we see a cause (say a boat) this is associated with all the past impressions we have had of boats. Those previous impressions have also included the effect, that of them floating on water. Therefore now when we see a boat being launched we expect it to float. Looking
at two events A and
B when we say that
A causes B, in fact all we can say is that B frequenty
follows A. The principle of induction says that the future will resemble the past. Boats float on water today, so we expect them to do so tomorrow. The sun came up yesterday, so we can sleep soundly believing it'll come up again tomorrow. It's the principle underlying all of science and technology and of everyday life, and we assume it without question. But where is the proof of the principle itself? Why should the future resemble the past? There
is no fundamental reason why it should be
so, it just happens to be the case. But we have good reasons
to believe it, because different bits of the
past resemble each other. The sun has risen every day of our lives, so
we feel pretty sure in the assumption that it'll happen in the future.And we'd be in a bit of a mess if the way the world worked was constantly changing, as we would have no basis on which to understand anything. And so far we have had a lot of success with the principle of induction, because the future does tend to resemble the past. Empiricism  Empirical results are things known by experience. Rational results are things known by reason and thought. In the time of Descartes, it was thought that the world could be understood by reason, if we thought long enough and hard enough about it. Empiricism turned that upside down by saying that we understand the world by trying things and seeing what works, and it has been very successful. It is the basis of all modern science and technology. In Dutch there is a saying that rhymes satisfyingly "meten is weten", which means "measuring is knowing". This wing is flying because air is flowing over its surface, and it is generating a pressure difference between top and bottom surfaces that balances the weight of the load applied to it. A great deal of careful calculation was needed to design this wing.
These wings are doing the same thing rather more efficiently, with less effort and for exactly the same reasons. They came about through millions of years of trial and error without a single calculation or measurement. Well that's not quite true, there were many, many practical tests, the birds that were born by accident of nature with wings of less than ideal shape were at a disadvantage in finding food and getting away from predators, so they stood less chance of passing on those characteristics to their descendents. And the birds that happened to be born with very efficient wings did well, so had more chance of rearing successful young. Present day birds carry all the benefits of their successful ancestors and the aeons of practical tests in their wings, which are aerodynamically close to ideal. So empiricism is nothing new, it is woven into the fabric of life, it has shaped the form of all living things, and it continues to shape our technology today. That is the basis of science and technology, to test whether things work or not, to keep what works and to discard what doesn't. Traditions We live in a world of empirical science and technology, a world that grasps and follows ideas that are proven to work and discards things that show no proven benefit. Most people embrace wholeheartedly the benefits technology has brought to our lives. At
the same time there is often an element of
regret, that by going forward we have lost something important from the
past. And some wish to go back to a less complicated age.At the same time many people follow religions and traditions which have no proven basis or support in science. But they nonetheless feel that these things bring benefits to their lives. What causes us to do this? After all as people we are products of biological natural selection, a very definite choice of what works and what survives. And in our lives we choose technologies and materials that are the most practically effective. We choose what works, and these traditional ideas and beliefs must also work for us in some way. While empirical technology undoubtedly teaches us a lot about how the world works, it does not always do the right things to make us satisfied and fulfilled. I avoid using the word "happy" because happiness is often transient and difficult to define. For all its benefits in terms of comfort and wealth, technology often leaves us unfulfilled. Traditional beliefs and ideas may well have something to teach us there. They have been around a long time, and they have in many cases been developed for that very intention - to make us better, happier and more fulfilled people. That's something technology never set out to do, and it's hardly surprising that it rarely achieves it. Perhaps technology gives us too much power, more than we are psychogically equipped to deal with. To feel that there is some outside influence taking care of us, particularly a benevolent one is a comforting idea. Even the idea of fate can be very reassuring, if our lives are mapped out, then there is no point worrying about every detail. These are ideas that work, so we use them. Whether they are actually true is an interesting question. Because this depends on our ideas of causality again. How to make things happen  It's
not always obvious how to achieve the results we desire in life. If someone who has a religious faith wants something to happen, they will probably pray for it. If they want it badly they will pray for it regularly and fervently, perhaps go to the church or temple to petition for that very thing. If that thing comes about then they will probably think their prayer has been answered. This might be due to divine intervention, or it might be due to something that person did themselves or something that other people did for them. Or it may have happened anyway whatever they did. How do we know for sure what caused it? Another example is "affirmations", the idea is if you want something, then you should get up early in the morning and write down on a piece of paper every day many times an affirmation that you will achieve it. People who do this claim that it works and brings results in their lives. So what is the connection? We can never really know if a prayer has been answered. To test this would need an experiment with a "control" case, where the same person did not pray for the event but kept everything else the same. It is obvious that this experiment is impossible to set up, because that person, while praying for an event would also alter their whole frame of mind of how they thought about that thing and the rest of their life. And by Hume's principle the very idea of deducing cause and effect from a single instance is meaningless. Because the causal link as such is not accessible, only the connection of ideas, then this can only be seen from multiple instances of the same thing. It's often said "God helps those who help themselves". Religions encourage spiritual meditation but also the practical application of hard work and good living. And praying for a thing daily fixes it in the mind and may make that person behave in a more positive way to achieve that thing. Likewise affirmations - the act of getting up earlier in the morning and taking trouble to write down some definite goals could have the same effect of making us direct our efforts to best achieve what we really want. A respected friend of mine says if you want to achieve something, then simply look at people who've already achieved that thing, and copy what they do. And this brings us back to Hume's idea, that we cannot access the link between causes and effects. The connection between what people do and what they achieve may not be obvious or clear. In some cases it may not even exist. But over a number of cases there will be some pattern. It may be that the achievement involves sacrifices and compromise we're not prepared to make, or it may inspire us to make life-changing decisions. By focussing less on what people achieve and more on what they do we change the perspective and may well see some obvious connections that were not so obvious before.
References Hume
:
An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding Vesey
and Foulkes : Collins Dictionary of Philosophy Russell : A History of Western Philosophy |
This idea might appear
laughable at first,
after all we can predict all sorts of new things, such as being able to
design bridges that have never been built before and know that they
will stand up. However if we look at it more closely it's clear that
the design of new bridges comes from many previous experience of
similar designs in the past. The new one might be bigger, or different
in some way, but it is just an extension of an existing rule. It
is
impossible to dream up something completely new and original
and to predict whether it will work.
