Date: Wed, 13 Aug 2003
Causality
Thomas M. Miovas, Jr.
I think causality is self-evident in the same way all the axioms
(existence, identity, consciousness) are self-evident, even though
causality is a corollary to the axiom of identity. By this, I certainly
do not mean that we perceive the abstraction "causality" any more
than we perceive the abstractions "existence," "identity," or
"consciousness." What I mean is that change is one of the
fundamental aspects of existence--all pervasive and not able to be
gotten away from--and that we are directly aware of this via
perception (for entities) and introspection (for consciousness).
Causality is a corollary of an axiom, as opposed to being an axiom
itself, for two primary reasons: 1) for there to be a change, there
must be something (identity) that is undertaking the change
(causality); 2) though causality is all pervasive-- that is, everything
is capable of some change--we are not directly aware of things
changing for every field of awareness. For example, if you look
around the room you are sitting in while you are reading this email,
the vast majority of the entities surrounding you are rather static
and unchanging. By contrast, the axioms--existence, identity, and
consciousness --are pervasive within every field of awareness; you
are aware (consciousness) of something (identity) existing
(existence), even if it is not changing (on the perceptual level).
Contrary to Hume, causality is not fundamentally about
predictiveness nor is causality fundamentally about interactions. If
one observes an entity acting in a totally unexpected manner,
without having first been acted upon by another entity, one is still
observing a specific entity (identity) acting in a specific manner
(causality). For example, let's say you have never been out of the
city and are going to a lake in the wilderness for the very first time.
You observe a small animal puffing up its throat and letting out a
loud noise. In the city, you have never seen a frog and have never
heard one, but you are a rational man and don't attribute such
actions to some sort of mystical behavior not based on the nature of
the entity. Why? Because you know, via perceptual validity, that it
is doing something it is capable of doing. How could it be otherwise
if it is the *frog* that is *making the noise*?
Date: Mon, 1 Sep 2003 23:02:20 -0400 (EDT)
Causality
Thomas M. Miovas, Jr.
Greg Salmieri wrote:
> It is not that we are perceptually aware of each of
> the features of the entity in isolation and see each of
> them as standing on some relation to the action.
> Rather we are aware of the entity and the action as
> wholes and we see a relationship between what the
> entity is and how it acts, which can only be spelled
> out once we have conceptualized the relevant
> features of the entity and the action.
I disagree with the formulation above. I wouldn't characterize the
entity and its own action as a relationship, but rather that the action
is something the entity is doing. And I disagree that we must be
aware of what aspect of an entity is most responsible for that
specific action before we can assert that we are perceptually aware
of causality.
I think there may be some confusion of the metaphysical versus the
epistemological in this thread. Perception gives us the facts,
including that fact of a specific entity acting in a specific manner;
and that is all we need to be aware of causality on the perceptual
level. That is, causality is primarily a metaphysical term. All the
other aspects of causality being discussed--delimiting the cause to a
specific feature of the entity, predictiveness, and extending our
understanding of causality to that which is not perceived by us
(radiation, molecular structure and actions of atomic components,
and other things mentioned in this thread)--come about as an
application of the perception of specific things acting in a specific
manner once these have been conceptualized and therefore require
epistemology.
<HB: Yes, good distinction. I don't think you meant "require
epistemology" you meant "are epistemological.">
Concepts of attributes, such as roundness, and concepts of actions,
such as rolling, are abstractions from abstractions and are dependent
upon the formation of the concept of the entities that are acting in
their characteristic manner.
<HB: Right. And even the preceding level, the level of "round"
and "rolls," is a matter of abstraction from abstraction.>
However, we don't need this level of abstraction to be able to
perceive causality. We do need such abstractions from abstractions
to be able to understand more fully what is occurring, but we don't
need those abstractions from abstractions to be able to perceive
specific entities acting in specific ways.
Causality occurs whether anyone understands it or not, since it is a
metaphysical principle; and causality occurs whether anyone exists
that can predict the actions or not, since causality is a metaphysical
principle.
Date: Sun, 7 Sep 2003 16:00:18 -0400 (EDT)
Causality
Thomas M. Miovas, Jr.
> <HB: <snip> Here we want to know: is there in the
> content of perception that which the philosopher
> will describe as something *causing* something.
> ... [C]an you say, "Causality is given in
> perception, only not ... <something>?"
How about: Causality is given in perception, insofar as we perceive
an entity acting (or changing), only the action (or the change) is not
isolated from the entity perceived.
I think that all of the confusions about causality came about because
once man learned how to isolate actions or changes from the entity
mentally, he didn't know how to put them back together again. In
other words, once he was able to form concepts of actions, he
couldn't explain how he got those concepts in his head in the first
place, thereby giving rise to the issue of how actions are derived
from entities. So, in a certain sense, the problem of causality really
comes down to the problem of universals, regarding the formation
of abstractions from abstractions.
Notice that throughout history, going back at least as far as the
Ancient Egyptians *five thousand years ago*, philosophers and
religionists have been struggling to convince us that change is
ungodly, illusory, or unimportant. The ancient Egyptians
mummified the remains of their leaders so they wouldn't change,
thereby making their leaders similar to the heavenly lights they
studied. Plato argued that change was an illusion, and that really
real things, the Ideals or the Forms, were unchanging and therefore
the most important things to study. The Christians argued that God
was unchanging because he was already THE IDEAL ENTITY, and
therefore the entities we observe on earth that do change are
unimportant.
And that is why I prefer Dr. Peikoff's presentation in OPAR that
the entity is the cause while its own action is the effect, a
formulation I am proud to say that I was using several years before
OPAR was published. In this formulation, the concept "effect" (the
concept "action") is an abstraction from an abstraction--the concept
"cause" (the concept "entity"). Or if you prefer the more classical
formulation, *an entity* acts according to *its nature*." And I
sometimes wonder if the terms "cause" and "effect" would even be
necessary had man grasped the nature of universals and abstractions
from abstractions a few thousand years ago.
Date: Thu, 11 Sep 2003 23:27:00 -0400 (EDT)
Causality
Thomas M. Miovas, Jr.
The terms "cause" and "effect" are certainly well woven into our
language, and I wasn't suggesting that we expunge them. I don't
know when these terms first appeared in an ancient language, but it
seems that Aristotle did not coin the terms the way he presents them
in his works, although he does seem to be the first philosopher to
use them extensively. Are there any Ancient Greek or Classical
scholars on the list that could elucidate on the lexicography of these
terms? Specifically, when the terms "cause" and "effect" appear in a
good English translation of Aristotle or other ancient Greek writing,
do they come from one Greek word each or a phrase?
The reason I bring this up is that I think we should keep in mind
that Objectivism is a new philosophy that has yet to have any great
influence on our language. When Miss Rand wrote her novels, she
had to write them in colloquial English or no one would understand
what she was saying unless they had a much larger version of The
Ayn Rand Lexicon beside them. For example, it's possible in the
future that the terms "moral" and "practical" will become
synonymous; or "soul" and "consciousness"; or "work" and
"philosophy"--whereby one of the terms will fall into disuse.
<HB: I don't agree with that. There are differences in meaning in
each case. I don't even see the relationship between "work" and
"philosophy.">
[Tom Miovas: See "Work and Philosophy" for my reply]
Speaking of the influence of philosophy on language, Aristotle
suggested that for sentences, the subject and the predicate ought to
be related as cause to effect. This works out very well in English
for simple sentences if one considers the cause to be the entity and
its own action being the effect. The dog is barking [The dog
(subject/cause)] [is barking (predicate/effect)]. The ball is rolling.
The bird is flying. The boy is jumping. The fish is swimming.
And, yes, I deliberately chose these examples because we can
perceive each of these specific entities acting in these specific ways.
As to the more complex examples that some people insist on
bringing into the discussion, each one of them can be resolved down
to specific entities acting in specific ways. In many cases, the entity
may not act in that specific way without there being a specific
circumstance, but it is still that specific entity (the cause) that is
acting in that specific manner (the effect).
