Is causation linguistic rather than in the world?
It seems most people who write about causation take causation to be in the world in some way, as some sort of force or a relationship (e.g. perhaps regularity as per Hume) between things in the world or something like that. I think probability raising would be covered by this seeing as were talking about probabilities of things in the world.
What are the alternatives?
Perhaps causation is a relationship between a WORD for a thing in the world and the FACT of another thing in the world.
In particular It might be that a cause is when the WORD for the cause can give you information about the effect, and the FACT of the effect can give you information that there is a cause.
I think this can unify Aristotelian causes and what we mean by cause.
It seems Aristotles four causes break down to whether the WORD for the cause is sufficient or not to give you the information about the effect, and whether FACT of the effect is sufficient or not to tell you there is the cause.
Material cause:
So Aristotle would say the bronze causes the statue and one explanation = the words the bronze ARE sufficient to give information about the statue (e.g. information about what the statue is made of) however the mere fact there is the statue is NOT sufficient to tell you that there is bronze, only that there might be bronze (i.e. statues can also be marble).
Formal cause:
So Aristotle would say ratio of 2:1 causes the octave, one explanation is that this is a different permutation of necessity and sufficiency = the words a ratio of 2:1 ARE sufficient to give you information about the octave (in particular about the relationship between its sound waves) but in the case of formal causes the mere fact there is an octave IS sufficient to tell you there is a ratio of 2:1.
Efficient cause:
So this is the example we are more used to. Aristotles example is situated in the present such as when the father causes the child, once again another permutation = the words the father are NOT sufficient to give you information about the child (i.e. you will need other words too such as in the sentence the father of the child is Terry) and the mere fact there is there is a child is not sufficient to tell you there is a father (now) only that there might be a father (now).
When we use caused in English we are using efficient causes but not talking about what IS, we are talking about whether the causes DID exist. And when we use cause(s) we are talking about whether the causes DID, and CONTINUE, to exist.
So a spark caused a fire = a spark is NOT sufficient to give information about a fire (i.e. you would need other words such as in a spark started/preceded the fire) and the mere fact is a fire is also NOT sufficient to tell you there was a spark only that there might have been a spark.
The word cigarettes is NOT sufficient to give information about cancer and the mere fact there is cancer is NOT sufficient to tell you there was or is cigarettes, only that there might have been and continue to be cigarettes (so we use cause).
The words detection of a particle are NOT sufficient to tell you the location of a particle and the mere fact there is a location of a particle is NOT sufficient that there is a detection of a particle (only that there is, and was, the possibility of a detection of a particle) = detection of a particle cause(s) the location of a particle.
The only difference with Aristotles and our causes are that with Aristotle that there is a child in insufficient to tell you there IS a father now, whereas with ours the cancer is insufficient to tell you if there IS and WAS smoking or cigarettes etc.
Final cause:
So in this example Aristotle tells us health causes walking and this is the final permutations = the word health is NOT sufficient to give you information about walking (one would need other words), but the fact there is walking IS sufficient to tell you there is health.
So the four permutations of necessity and sufficiency track with Aristotles causes, with efficient cause tracking with to cause in English.
What do you think? Could causation be a relationship between words and things rather than things and things?
What are the alternatives?
Perhaps causation is a relationship between a WORD for a thing in the world and the FACT of another thing in the world.
In particular It might be that a cause is when the WORD for the cause can give you information about the effect, and the FACT of the effect can give you information that there is a cause.
I think this can unify Aristotelian causes and what we mean by cause.
It seems Aristotles four causes break down to whether the WORD for the cause is sufficient or not to give you the information about the effect, and whether FACT of the effect is sufficient or not to tell you there is the cause.
Material cause:
So Aristotle would say the bronze causes the statue and one explanation = the words the bronze ARE sufficient to give information about the statue (e.g. information about what the statue is made of) however the mere fact there is the statue is NOT sufficient to tell you that there is bronze, only that there might be bronze (i.e. statues can also be marble).
Formal cause:
So Aristotle would say ratio of 2:1 causes the octave, one explanation is that this is a different permutation of necessity and sufficiency = the words a ratio of 2:1 ARE sufficient to give you information about the octave (in particular about the relationship between its sound waves) but in the case of formal causes the mere fact there is an octave IS sufficient to tell you there is a ratio of 2:1.
Efficient cause:
So this is the example we are more used to. Aristotles example is situated in the present such as when the father causes the child, once again another permutation = the words the father are NOT sufficient to give you information about the child (i.e. you will need other words too such as in the sentence the father of the child is Terry) and the mere fact there is there is a child is not sufficient to tell you there is a father (now) only that there might be a father (now).
When we use caused in English we are using efficient causes but not talking about what IS, we are talking about whether the causes DID exist. And when we use cause(s) we are talking about whether the causes DID, and CONTINUE, to exist.
So a spark caused a fire = a spark is NOT sufficient to give information about a fire (i.e. you would need other words such as in a spark started/preceded the fire) and the mere fact is a fire is also NOT sufficient to tell you there was a spark only that there might have been a spark.
The word cigarettes is NOT sufficient to give information about cancer and the mere fact there is cancer is NOT sufficient to tell you there was or is cigarettes, only that there might have been and continue to be cigarettes (so we use cause).
The words detection of a particle are NOT sufficient to tell you the location of a particle and the mere fact there is a location of a particle is NOT sufficient that there is a detection of a particle (only that there is, and was, the possibility of a detection of a particle) = detection of a particle cause(s) the location of a particle.
The only difference with Aristotles and our causes are that with Aristotle that there is a child in insufficient to tell you there IS a father now, whereas with ours the cancer is insufficient to tell you if there IS and WAS smoking or cigarettes etc.
Final cause:
So in this example Aristotle tells us health causes walking and this is the final permutations = the word health is NOT sufficient to give you information about walking (one would need other words), but the fact there is walking IS sufficient to tell you there is health.
So the four permutations of necessity and sufficiency track with Aristotles causes, with efficient cause tracking with to cause in English.
What do you think? Could causation be a relationship between words and things rather than things and things?
Comments (60)
Material cause:
So we say the bronze causes the statue = the meaningful use of the words the bronze IS sufficient to give information about the particular statue (e.g. information about what it is made of) however the words the statue is NOT sufficient to give information about bronze.
Formal cause:
So we say ratio of 2:1 causes the octave = the meaningful use of the words a ratio of 2:1 IS sufficient to give you information about a particular octave (in particular about the relationship between its sound waves) but here the meaningful use of the octave IS sufficient to give you the information about the ratio 2:1 (i.e. that something has it).
Efficient cause:
Aristotles example is situated in the present such as when the father causes the child = the meaningful use of the words the father is NOT sufficient to give you information about the (particular) child because 'the father' is more general than that, and the meaningful use of the words the child is NOT sufficient to tell you about the father i.e. the child might not have a father.
When we use caused in English we are using efficient causes but not talking about what IS, we are talking about whether the causes DID exist. And when we use cause(s) we are talking about whether the causes DID, and CONTINUE, to exist.
So a spark caused a fire = the spark is NOT sufficient to give information about the particular fire, and a fire is NOT sufficient to tell you about a spark (in general) i.e. the fire might not have had a spark.
The word cigarettes is NOT sufficient to give information about (particular) cancer and cancer is NOT sufficient to tell you about cigarettes (in general) i.e. the person with cancer might not have had cigarettes.
The words detection of a particle is NOT sufficient to tell you about a particular location and location of a particle is NOT sufficient that the detection of a particle = detection of a particle cause(s) a particle to be at a particular place.
The only difference with Aristotles and our causes are that ours seem to be in the past tense.
Final cause:
So in this example Aristotle tells us health causes walking = the word health is NOT sufficient to give you information about particular walking walking IS sufficient to tell you about health.
Two lines of thought.
First, you write about a kind of linguistic creation of causation as a phenomenon that somehow doesn't "really" exist. I understand what you're saying, but I think it's true of many, maybe most phenomena. The physical process I usually think of is force, which is really just a relationship between mass and movement. Speed is just a relationship between distance and time.
Second, the idea that causation is not real, or more accurately is not a useful way of thinking about interactions between phenomena, is not a new one. Bertrand Russell wrote an essay - "On Causation" - in 1912 that claimed it was no longer needed. We've had discussions on that several times on the forum.
IF the word latches on to something, and we can isolate a state before an event and afterwards, and we notice the effect changes the state, we would likely be using the word "cause" correctly. But it's hard to find a "final" cause, other ones, that go deeper could be discovered.
The ideal would be to encapsulate a "thing to thing" relationship, since we are interested in the world.
Your examples of Aristotle's causes are interesting indeed, though perhaps introduce more technicality than is warranted:
Quoting invizzy
This is tricky. Strictly speaking, if you say "the bronze", you need to have the concept "statue", if you lack the concept, bronze won't tell you anything. It's similar to your example of "spark" causing a fire. If you don't know what a fire is, spark tells you very little.
It's true that cause become harder to pin down the more complicated the phenomena you are analyzing are, but I think we would still like to maintain the concept cause as simple as possible.
In the case of someone with lung cancer, we might need to speak of multiple causes. Not only the cigarettes influenced getting the disease, but perhaps also air quality and genetic issues. Here we then speak of multiple causes, but maybe not of different kinds of them.
Worth me thinking about some more though.
Nevertheless, very interesting post.
I'll commend to you Anscombe's Causality and Determination.
There's a discussion of it here.
Rather than being either in the world or in the word, causation has a foot in both camps. Perhaps think of it as a way of talking about the world, a grammar or logic that is presumed, with no further justification than its usefulness, but that dissipates when one attempts to examine it.
Is this usefulness just brute fact, or can we hope to explain why this grammar is useful?
If Anscombe addresses that, you can just point at her again.
Hmmm. Is there going to be any way to flesh out the idea of using something to do something that doesn't rely on causality?
Perhaps the linguistic confusion you are referring to is due in part to the use of a single English word, "cause", to translate Aristotle's four causal relationships. Today, we usually think of "Causation" in terms of Energy. But for Ari, the word "energeia" simply meant objective (productive) physical "work", and "ation" meant a subjective rational explanation, a reason, a why. We observe the Fact of change, and then explain it in Words.
Apparently, he thought of Causation in terms of changed relationships on several levels of being, such as before & after, which could be either intentional (artificial) or accidental (natural). The most basic relationship is between a "Material" substance (physical properties) and its shape (formal properties) : natural metallic bronze vs culturally-enformed statue. Next, is the "Formal" relationship between the old & new shape : accidental (natural) rock shape vs designed sculpture shape. Then, the sculptor's mental design intent, the "why", is what he means by the "Final" cause.
However, our modern scientific notion of Causation puts the emphasis in the middle, on the "Efficient" cause, which in most cases involves the application of Energy to an object or substance. Natural change is presumed to be random & accidental, while Cultural change is intentional & teleological. It mentally envisions the future state or shape, toward which to aim in the process of applying efficient causation to the material cause. Plan the work, then do the work.
The bottom line is that Aristotle's four causes cover the full range of possible causal relationships : for example, 1> between natural state & artificial state ; 2> original observed form & final imagined form ; 3> between physical force & material bronze ; 4> between innate shape & envisioned alternative (designed) shape. The pre-change state is an observed Fact, while the envisioned state is an imaginary future Fact. The first is a sensory Thing, the second is a mental Idea of a thing.
Plato & Aristotle used the term LOGOS ("word") in reference to rationally caused change, as opposed to natural (factual) change. Our modern language seems to have trouble making such philosophical distinctions. Which may be why Quantum Physics seems so paradoxical & counterintuitive. The Mind of the observer/causer was left out of the equation. :smile:
WHAT WAS THE SCULPTOR THINKING ?
Interesting, but I'm unsure how to address this. In a sense, the grammar just is what is useful here, looking to use rather than meaning. If it wasn't helpful, we wouldn't do it.
But I think you're saying less than you think you are.
Usefulness admits of comparison: a thimble is useful for emptying a swimming pool, but not as useful as a giant shop-vac on wheels. For that matter, almost anything can be used to empty a swimming pool. A pencil will hold onto a few drops each time you dip it in.
So is this grammar optimal in some way? Do we use it because it is more useful than alternatives? Are some of those alternatives truly awful, like emptying a swimming pool with a piece of paper?
If the claim is only that the grammar is usable, that's a pretty low bar to clear. Thimbles, pencils and scraps of paper clear that bar for emptying swimming pools.
Or is the idea of usefulness just there to point at the purpose for which we use this bit of cognitive-linguistic technology? To point out that the grammar is being used?
No doubt this is so - but it might be a start.
Perhaps cause is useful up until the point where we try to define and delineate it, philosophically speaking. A giant shop-vac on wheels will be of no use in emptying a glass of water. That we talk of cause in our day-to-day dealing with the world does not mean that it works in other areas, and moreover, if it is to be taken as a metaphysical principle, that it works in all areas.
The Wittgensteinian argument agains applying our ideas too generally.
In this scientific age, it seems like the obvious way to take "useful" here is to say it's an approximation, and it's cheap. It's interesting that we can get by with what may be a pretty drastic simplification of what's going on with us and our surroundings; what we idealize as cause-and-effect would be a pattern that events show a tendency to instantiate reversing things, so that the data seem to approximate the mathematical formula that idealizes and approximates the data. Whatever's going on there, whatever relates those two, is real.
But this is just shifting ground again. We know what it means to say an approximation is useful: when we rely on an approximation, we know our actions will produce a result that's near what's predicted and predictably varying from it. But that very description relies on the idea of an action producing a result, and I find it hard to imagine there will be any way of putting this that doesn't smuggle in causality somewhere. Point being that explaining our reliance on the idea of causation as something we do because it's useful may be no explanation at all. (We rely on causation because we rely on causation.) But it won't fly as description either because it deliberately obscures the place of causality in our thinking.
I dont think think I did a good job of explaining.
Im not saying causation is not real precisely. Im certainly not making the trivially true claim that causation has no spatiotemporal location like mass and force.
Im saying, I suppose, that most words refer to things in the world, not necessarily in the sense of in the world as having spatiotemporal location, but broadly, including relationships and even abstract ideas. Democracy is in the world in that sense, even if you cant touch it.
The claim is that cause refers to a relationship between the WORD for the cause and the effect rather than between the cause and effect itself.
So you can have a relationship between the bronze and the statue themselves, which I imagine most people think Aristotle is talking about with cause. That relationship is about what the statue is made of for instance.
But theres an interesting relationship between the WORD the bronze and a (particular) statue. Thats what I think Aristotle is interested in.
Although I agree that causation is both in the world and and in the word I suspect we might be talking about different things! See the above comment I made to @T Clark
Seems like I didn't understand the distinction you were trying to make. To be honest, I still don't. I don't think we need to go any further.
Superb post!
Here's what I know about causation:
A causes B IFF
1. A and B are correlated (binary/scalar correlation, positive/negative)
2. There is no C that causes both A and B (rule out 3[sup]rd[/sup] party causation, is there a tertium quid?)
3. B is not the cause of A (rule out reverse causation; A can't be the cause of B if B precedes A temporally)
4. The correlation between A and B isn't a coincidence (persistence over time; the discovery of a mechanism of causation)
---
Quoting Agent Smith
---
[quote=Wikipedia]Koch's postulates are the following:
1. The microorganism must be found in abundance in all organisms suffering from the disease, but should not be found in healthy organisms.
2. The microorganism must be isolated from a diseased organism and grown in pure culture.
3. The cultured microorganism should cause disease when introduced into a healthy organism.
4. The microorganism must be reisolated from the inoculated, diseased experimental host and identified as being identical to the original specific causative agent.
However, Koch later abandoned the universalist requirement of the first postulate altogether when he discovered asymptomatic carriers of cholera and, later, of typhoid fever.[/quote]
That's not something I want to do. I would stand away from pragmatism and utilitarian approaches, since neither goes quite as far as is needed. Supposing that causation stands in need of explanation misunderstands that causation is fundamental to explanation. As Anscombe puts it, a bit of Weltanschauung (p.2); "causality consists in the derivativeness of an effect from its causes" (p.6, my emphasis). As a rule can be understood not only by being stated but by being implemented, causation is to be understood by seeing it occur.
But while I think this is right, it is also all too vague and hand-wavy.
Cheers. Anscombe was of course very familiar with Aristotle, however what she is doing in the article does not relate readily to your OP, and her target is more determinism than causation, but there is a firm attack on the " Always when this, then that" (final paragraph) that and seem to advocate. It irritates me because (!) I maintain some sympathy for Davidson's treatment of human actions in causal terms.
SO I'm not offering an answer so much as sharing in the puzzle.
Gracias for bringing that up! The keyword is "control" I suppose.
Thanks for clarifying. Yeah I couldnt immediately see Anscombe in dialogue with my ideas, although I appreciate the relationship to necessity and determinism.
When I am talking about sufficiency of course I am talking about whether certain words are enough/sufficient to give information about a particular effect. Im not sure if everyone participating in the thread quite appreciates what I mean by this although perhaps they do and just disagree!
Okay, right, that's why I bristled at saying something like "taking a causal stance" toward the world is something we do because it is useful. The word "useful" is being asked to do something here that it can't.
I have thought previously about what exactly comprises a mechanism of causation. And I keep finding that the mechanisms of causation are themselves claims of causation. And so you end up with nested claims of causation like:
I punch you and you flinch. In addition to the correlation I observed, I know punching you causes you to flinch because I know that the punch causes receptors in your skin to send a signal to the brain, which causes your muscle to move. But you see the mechanism of action that I used as a support for causation, is itself comprised of claims of causation. So what is my support for those claims of causation? More claims of causation?
I think it is impossible to describe a mechanism of action without stating a claim about causation (implicitly or explicitly).
What's your take on how gravity work? Newton famously confessed his ignorance (hypothesis non fingo) in re how mass attracted mass. Albert Einstein came along, 3 centuries later, and explained the mechanism viz. that mass warps spacetime.
That out of the way, it's true that the mechanisms of causation themselves are a series of intermediate causal claims. Interesting.
" Always when this, then that" sounds like absolute Determinism, or Fatalism. But Gnomon "advocates" Compatibilism : freedom within determinism. It assumes that human Will is a non-natural (artificial) Cause. By that I mean, human Culture has found ways to modify natural causation, to suit their own needs & desires. Would Nature put men on the Moon or Mars?
Can you summarize Anscombe's "attack", and Davidson's "treatment"? Do they argue in favor of human FreeWill -- sometimes but not always pre-determined? Is their approach physical or linguistic or noetic? :smile:
Compatibilism is the doctrine that determinism is logically compatible or consistent with what is said to be a single idea of freedom that really concerns us and with a related kind of moral responsibility -- the freedom in question being voluntariness.
https://www.ucl.ac.uk/~uctytho/dfwTerminology.html
Freewill within Determinism :
Science depends on predictable determinism. But philosophy looks for unpredictable unique meanings : "the difference that makes a difference". Free choice interferes with the smooth flow of cause & effect determinism, because it introduces an element of non-random novelty, directed toward self-interest. Even an if-then dichotomy, in a complex system, becomes a multiple-choice question. In a computer, a diode is a simple either-or choice, with no chance for conflict. But in a self-conscious person, each fork in the road has two viable options, the predetermined path or My Way. After countless steps up the ladder from energy exchange, to information flow, to knowledge transfers, metaphysical Consciousness gradually evolves from Quantum Physics.
http://bothandblog2.enformationism.info/page33.html
I just read in Werner Heisenberg's book, Physics and Philosophy, that "causality can only explain later events by earlier events, but it can never explain the beginning". The First Cause. :smile:
:up:
While I worry that further pursuing issues of volition and intentionality will lead us too far from the OP, I'll give potted answers to your questions.
Quoting Gnomon
Rather, Anscombe asks what causation is, and puzzles over the "always". It's not material implication, nor modal necessity, nor statistical correlation. Given that the various definitions of causation are fraught, the conclusion may well be along the lines of WIttgenstein's approach to rules. Roughly, while one can't say exactly what causation is, one nevertheless recognises it when one sees it.
The determinism in the article is in contrast, not to freedom, but to indeterminism. Anscombe points out that determinism is an impossible, or at least quite unnecessary, goal for physics.
One does not need compatibilism if cause does not necessitate determination. IF the physical world is not a clockwork mechanism - and it seems it is not - then there is room for free will without resort to compatiblism.
Davidson gave a controversial treatment of intentional action in causal terms, with the example "I flicked the switch, turning on the light and alerting the burglar". For Davidson this forms a single casual chain, in which only flicking the switch and turning on the light were part of my intent, and alerting the burglar to my return certainly was not intentional. Anscombe wished to reserve causality for physical and not intentional happenings. I am not sure exactly how she might deal with Davidson's example.
I'll consider adding "useful for us to believe" to the OP I want to write about "context dependent" and "purpose relative."
Maybe I'll save it for the one about "from our human perspective."
I'm guessing that Anscombe's assertion that "determinism is impossible" was based on Quantum Probability, Uncertainty and Indeterminacy. But early Quantum physicists (e.g. Einstein) argued that "god does not play dice". The implication being that Classical physics was based on an uninterrupted causal chain (i.e. no miracles). Eventually, Quantum physicists grudgingly revised their classical worldview, to include a bit of indeterminism, as long as it was confined to the invisible quantum level of reality.
From that acccomodative perspective, the universe is still viewed as mostly mechanical & deterministic, but with minor glitches in some of the smaller clockwork cogs. On the scale of Cosmology though, scientists also have to deal with incomplete knowledge of initial conditions : the original setting of the clock. Nevertheless, most physicists act as-if they believe that indeterminacy is an exception to the rule. Hence, free-will philosophers are still challenged to specify some kind of causes to fill any presumed minor gaps in the chain of cause & effect. So, human agency must be somehow justified as compatible with general/universal energy-mediated Causation.
I looked up Donald Davidson to see what he had to say about FreeWill. His notion of "reasons as causes" seems to be compatible with my own concept of Freedom within Determinism, in which human Reason has evolved into a non-physical causal agency that can have physical effects (e.g. to put a man on the moon). What he calls 'reasons" are based on purposeful teleological concepts of a future state that results from human "intentions or motives", rather than natural forces.
Even so, human culture is still working within the general constraints of physics. As President Kennedy said, "we want to go to the moon, not because it is easy, but because it is hard". Collective human Will, finds ways to overcome physical obstacles, not by ignoring physics, but by learning to leverage physics in ways that are un-natural, (i.e. Cultural), but compatible. :smile:
Reasons as Causes :
Davidsons first major philosophical publication was the seminal paper Actions, Reasons and Causes (1963). In that paper Davidson sets out to defend the view that the explanation of action by reference to reasons (something we do, for instance, when we refer to an agents intentions or motives in acting) is also a form of causal explanation. Indeed, he argues that reasons explain actions just inasmuch as they are the causes of those actions. This approach was in clear opposition to the Wittgensteinian orthodoxy of the time.
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/davidson/#ReasCaus
No.
There remains the possibility of your reading the article rather than guessing.
https://ctmucommunity.org/wiki/Principle_of_Linguistic_Reducibility
Can you expand on this a little? Is this a claim that reality is language? Who's claim is this? How does this relate to causation? etc.
Einstein's explanation is the best we have, but I'm not sure we have reached the most fundamental understanding of gravity yet.
[quote=Ms. Marple]Most interesting.[/quote]
I did scan the article, but its circuitous reasoning lost me. So, I was hoping you could summarize how she arrived at the bold "assertion that determinism is impossible". In the quote below, it sounds like she was saying that the "inventions of indeterministic physics" are merely linguistic "dogma" instead of a physical fact. What's your guess? Is classical determinism a natural fact, or just a philosophical metaphor to fill-in our ignorance of what's really going on in the world?
My own understanding of Causation is expressed in terms of Mathematical & Logical relationships. Even causal Energy is defined in terms of Proportions & Ratios (E=MC^2 ; where C is a dimensionless number). Since our knowledge of Math is mental instead of sensory -- inferred instead of observed -- it makes sense to me that human reasoning & intentions could have some effect on those causal relationships. In which case, I could say that "orderly determinism is normal & probable, but abnormal (intentional) deviations (indeterminism) are statistically possible". I just made that up, so don't hold me to it. :smile:
Causation (philosophy) :
Relation that holds between two temporally simultaneous or successive events when the first event (the cause) brings about the other (the effect).
https://www.britannica.com/topic/causation
Hume on Causation :
Causation is a relation between objects that we employ in our reasoning in order to yield less than demonstrative knowledge of the world beyond our immediate impressions.
Note -- Hume's problem of Induction reminds us that our reasoning from-this-to-that is fallible, hence some skepticism is advisable. But to conclude that "determinism is impossible" would cripple the disciplines of Science & Philosophy. Yet, to infer that "determinism is inevitable" would deny the universal human assumption of free choice, upon which our personal behavior & communal culture are based.
Anscombe :
[i]Yet my argument lies always open to the charge of [b]appealing to
ignorance[/b].. . . .
It has taken the inventions of indeterministic physics to shake the
rather common dogmatic conviction that determinism is a
presupposition, or perhaps a conclusion, of scientific knowledge.[/i]
https://iweb.langara.ca/rjohns/files/2016/09/anscombe_causality.pdf
Well, this thread is not about Anscombe, and there is already a thread on that article, so this is probably not the place. Further, your use of "circuitous" indicates some antipathy. And I've already suggested that her first argument is that the notion of causation remains undefined, hence "Yet my argument lies always open to the charge of appealing to ignorance..." in reference to that argument, and her moving on to the Dalton Box.
Given a single ball being dropped into a Dalton Box, can you tell me where the ball will finish? Isn't it the case that, for some given degree of accuracy in measuring the position of the ball and the poles in the box, there is a point at which it becomes impossible to predict the outcome? Perhaps if your measurements are accurate to a micron, you might predict the outcome for a Dalton box with five rows, but not six; for six rows you might need an accuracy of a tenth of a micron. But then you could not predict the outcome for seven rows... and so on.
So for any given accuracy, there is always a Dalton Box for which the outcome cannot be calculated.
Notice carefully that this argument is not rejecting causation, but determinism. It puts the lie to the assumption that physics - even Newtonian Mechanics - is deterministic.
I had never heard of Anscombe or her absolute assertion that "determinism is impossible". So, I couldn't have approached the article with antipathy -- more like curiosity. Anyway, if she is going to reach a definitive conclusion about causation & determinism, why would she be content to leave her subject undefined, or undefinable? What kind of argument is that? If she had said, more modestly, "determinism is not inevitable", I would have to agree.
From their historical experience, ancient humans seemed to believe that divine causation was inevitable. Hence the pessimistic (or heroic) attitude of Fatalism. But, I doubt that modern physicists were fatalists. Instead, to them, Classical Determinism merely meant that Causation was consistent enough to make practical (or pragmatic) projections into the future course of events. Yet. Quantum Physicists were perplexed by the inherently unpredictable nature of quantum events. That's why Heisenberg proposed his Uncertainty Principle, to introduce a bit of Doubt into Determinism. Nevertheless, quantum physicists still use Schrodinger's equation to make useful predictions, despite the inherent margin of error.
On the macro scale of human experience, consistent causal Determinism seems to be reliable -- to a high degree of certainty -- as illustrated in the DART experiment sending a missile to intercept the path of an asteroid ten months into the future, and thousands of miles from Earth. So, to say that "determinism is impossible" seems to be a bit extravagant, even though we now know it is not inevitable. Instead, human FreeWill (purposeful action) seems to allow us to choose "different paths" to destiny, which modifies, but does not deny the general rule of Cause & Effect.
Therefore, I would say that Determinism is generally how the randomly interacting physical world works, but for rational humans the purposeful mental world introduces both Linguistic (Mental) & Physical degrees of freedom into the chain of Cause & Effect. That's because willful Intention, for all practical purposes, is a goal-directed form of causal Energy. It's not just the ability to do haphazard work, but to cause specific desirable changes in the world. :smile:
Fatalism vs Determinism :
In short, fatalism is the theory that there is some destiny that we cannot avoid, although we are able to take different paths up to this destiny. Determinism, however, is the theory that the entire path of our life is decided by earlier events and actions.
https://www.mytutor.co.uk/answers/10942/A-Level/Philosophy/What-is-the-difference-between-determinism-and-fatalism/
[u]
Determinism Is Not Just Causality[/u] :
Determinism is more than belief in causality. The defining feature of determinism is a belief in the inevitability of causality. The essence of determinism is that everything that happens is the only thing that could possibly happen (given the past) under those circumstances.
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/cultural-animal/200906/determinism-is-not-just-causality
[u]
Heisenberg's uncertainty principle[/u] is any of a variety of mathematical inequalities asserting a fundamental limit to the accuracy with which the values for certain pairs of physical quantities of a particle, such as position, x, and momentum, p, can be predicted from initial conditions. . . . It is vital to illustrate how the principle applies to relatively intelligible physical situations since it is indiscernible on the macroscopic scales that humans experience.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncertainty_principle
[u]
Mental versus Physical Causation[/u] :
Pragmatic science assumes that anything not detectable by our physical senses, or by their mechanical extensions, is unreal merely a side effect of brain operations. That materialistic presumption also applies to causality, in which physical events are predictably followed by effects in the real world; but, non-physical events, such as conscious thoughts, are effective only within the body. Those metaphysical activities are called "brain functions", and while personally useful, they are not in the mainstream of objective causation. Nevertheless, for ordinary humans, they are not mere side-effects, but our direct link to reality.
http://bothandblog2.enformationism.info/page69.html
I will read. Shouldn't have neglected her.
In the meantime, and acknowledging that I may be putting my foot in it, this is a slightly bizarre way to talk about Galton boxes, the point of which is that even if chance is real, and not just a consequence of our non-omniscience, nature rather makes a point of capturing chance and turning it to the creation of order. The path of any single ball on a Galton box is at least effectively, for us, random, if not genuinely random, but the result of thousands of balls flooding onto the board is a perfectly predictable gaussian distribution. The actual shape of the distribution will vary from run to run, and the amount of variance is also predictable. Nature seems to believe in statistics.
Anscombe does not deny causation. She denies determinism. She carefully examines several ways in which the word is used and shows them to be wanting. So your pointing to examples of causation is besides the point.
She also carefully distinguishes causation and determinism, something I do not see in your posts.
...and that'll do for her conclusion: "...that we have no ground for calling the path of the ball determined at least, until it has taken its path".
Note that this is not the same as saying that the result is uncaused, nor unpredictable. One of the delights of her philosophical style is this clear and precise analysis of language, and one of the lessons of the article the clear differentiation between causation and determinism. By cleaving these concepts apart she is able to show that causation does not imply determinism.
The abstract concept of causality is a term we use to describe a quality found in physical processes of this world. Physical events are caused in the process we call universe and in turn they produce additional events. In nature there are processes that produce entities which in turn produce new processes. Our universe is a group of processes, we as observers classify processes as entities (i.e. human being=biological process)
Just observe this process we call philosophical thread. Your OP caused others to respond to it.
I suppose if youre going to say causation is a quality of physical processes the question is what IS this quality of physical processes?
For some (all?) things we say a thing HAS such and such quality, say the ball has the quality of redness or something like that.
But is causation really a quality in that way?
For example, lets assume that cigarettes cause cancer. Are you saying causation is a quality of the cancer? So in some sense the cancer HAS causation? That doesnt seem quite right.
Is causation the quality of the cigarettes being smoked? Does this mean the smoking of the cigarettes has the quality of causation? That doesnt right either.
First of all let me define the common usage I am using for the term quality.
I quote :"a distinctive attribute or characteristic possessed by someone or something."
Now lets define the term labeled "cancer".
Its a biological process where biological cells divide uncontrollably!
-"is causation really a quality in that way?"
-Well the redness of a ball is caused by a long process(light reflected on the ball, hitting our retina, filtered by eyes' rods and cones, converted in to an electrical signal and interpreted by our brain based on the energy carried by that light wave). So does the properties of a process have the quality(attributes) to cause additional processes? Sure.
-"For example, lets assume that cigarettes cause cancer. Are you saying causation is a quality of the cancer? So in some sense the cancer HAS causation? That doesnt seem quite right."
-It doesn't seem quite right because your example is either wrong or you use bad language "mode"!
Cigarettes (can be the cause) cause cancer. The process that causes cancer is the inhaled toxic chemical produced by burning cigarettes creating mutations to our genetic material.
SMOKING causes issues on how our cells reproduce and how our cell reproduces cause health issues. (cancer)
So the process of smoking can cause the process of uncontrollable cell division that can cause a health issue (cancer) .
Different processes have the characteristic/ability/quality to produce/create/realize new process.
-"Is causation the quality of the cigarettes being smoked? "
-Again"Cigarettes being smoked" is not a quality, its a process. Causation is the quality(ability ) processes have(smoking cigarettes,balls reflecting or absorbing light) to trigger new processes.(cause cancer, cause a ball to appear red)
Perhaps Im simply getting hung up on the choice of words but I think the fact youre putting things in parentheses is showing us that causation is not a quality of a process.
Right at the start you even say that qualities that are possessed by things. This means that to be a quality of a process the process should have that quality.
But thats not how we talk about causation, processes dont have causation.
You say the properties of a process have the quality (attributes) to cause additional processes.
But this doesnt support the idea that causation is a quality. For one youre now talking about the properties of the process having a quality rather than the process itself. Any even then you all but admit that attributes is the word youre searching for rather that the quality. And even THEN the attribute IS what is doing the causing rather than being causation itself.
Im not trying to be obtuse but I dont think quality is the word youre looking for to tell us what causation is. Unless Im missing something!
Of course it is a quality/ability processes have in the physical world. We can observe it, demonstrate it , predict it and quantify its parameters.
btw Parentheses provide more information in addition to a sentence.
-"Right at the start you even say that qualities that are possessed by things."
-No there are many different usages of the term "quality", this is why I shared the usage I am using and the synonyms you can choose from. Just name the word you like and we can proceed to more useful and interesting things.
-" This means that to be a quality of a process the process should have that quality."
-Yes processes have the quality/characteristic/ability/attribute to trigger/cause new processes. Can we agree on that? Causality is what drives the physical world and as I said it is quantifiable, observable and predictable. i.e. Snooker/pool and conversations are based on this quality displayed by physical processes.
-"But thats not how we talk about causation, processes dont have causation."
-Processes have the ability to cause things to happen. Its one of the quality physical processes have.
-"But this doesnt support the idea that causation is a quality. "
-I am offering you a definition and numerous words to replace the term quality if you don't like it!
So let me phrase it a bit different. Processes have the POWER to trigger new processes.(i.e.you eat a sandwich and a metabolic processes starts in your digestive track).
Can we agree on that?
-"But this doesnt support the idea that causation is a quality. For one youre now talking about the properties of the process having a quality rather than the process itself. Any even then you all but admit that attributes is the word youre searching for rather that the quality. And even THEN the attribute IS what is doing the causing rather than being causation itself."
-Causation is a quality/attribute/characteristic of physical processes. There is NO debate there. Again if you have issues with the common usage of the word I use, pls communicate your preference.
-"Any even then you all but admit that attributes is the word youre searching for rather that the quality"
-No I don't admit anything...I just informed you that those words are used interchangeably by many...and this is why you can find this usage in Dictionaries.
-"And even THEN the attribute IS what is doing the causing rather than being causation itself.""
-Here is the main problem in your argument. As I predicted its bad language mode.
(lady is noun, consciousness is a noun, thus consciousness exist as an entity like ladies do...common mistake).
I guess your thinking is (correctly if I am wrong) "Causality is a noun thus it must exist in addition to the ability of a process to cause an effect."
Causality is an abstract concept labeling the quality/attribute displayed by a process.
You shouldn't assume an external agent in addition to the displayed property/quality/attribute/characteristic of a process.
Are we dealing with Phologiston, Miasma,Consciousness, Orgone energy etc etc all over again?I thought we were done with pseudo philosophy ages ago.
-"Im not trying to be obtuse but I dont think quality is the word youre looking for to tell us what causation is. Unless Im missing something! "
-Common usages are numerous and easy to access/learn about . I defined which one I used, so you have no excuse for "missing something".but again I am willing to use the term you suggest...pls proceed.
Thanks for the reply.
I think you have diagnosed the problem accurately. Causation is indeed a noun, presumably because it refers to a thing of some sort.
The attributes of physical processes I take you to mean things like the cancer that smoking gives rise to, or the damage to the cells that then give rise to cancer or something like that?
The problem with that is that attributes of the processes of those sort I think we call the EFFECTS of causation, not causation itself. Now of course the effects of causation are very real and can go on to cause more effects as you say, but were no closer to saying what causation itself is.
Perhaps you mean to say something like causation occurs when a process leads to an effect? I suppose thats true as far as things go but then we still need to explain what leading to means, does it just mean we often see things of that type go together for instance? Does it mean the process raises the probability of the effect somehow?
-"I think you have diagnosed the problem accurately. Causation is indeed a noun, presumably because it refers to a thing of some sort."
-well in the case of an abstract noun it refers to (I quote):
"noun: abstract noun; plural noun: abstract nouns
a noun denoting an idea, quality, or state rather than a concrete object, e.g. truth, danger, happiness."
So the term "quality" if used when we identify abstract nouns.
-"The attributes of physical processes I take you to mean things like the cancer that smoking gives rise to, or the damage to the cells that then give rise to cancer or something like that?"
-By attributes of physical processes I mean the quality/attribute/ability elements of a process have to generate an additional process. One of the qualities of the elements of a process is to form structures and interact with other structures. i.e. a moving cue ball can cause the movement of an other ball by physically interacting with it .
-"The problem with that is that attributes of the processes of those sort I think we call the EFFECTS of causation, not causation itself."
- in the example with the pool balls,the effect of causation is the colored ball rolling on a table.
That was caused by the cue ball bumping on the colored ball. Watching that ball moving we can assume the causation behind that process. The effect is the produced outcome caused by the ability physical processes have to initiate addition processes(effects).
-" Now of course the effects of causation are very real and can go on to cause more effects as you say, but were no closer to saying what causation itself is"
-Yes we can...its an abstract noun we made in our need to describe a specific quality of the physical world. Things don't happen all at once but there is an hierarchy of cause and effect.
-"Perhaps you mean to say something like causation occurs when a process leads to an effect?"
-Again causality doesn't occurs. Causality is just an abstract noun, a label of a specific quality where a process forces an effect or an other process to initiate.
The effect occurs and we try to identify the "causal agent" responsible for it.
-" I suppose thats true as far as things go but then we still need to explain what leading to means, does it just mean we often see things of that type go together for instance? Does it mean the process raises the probability of the effect somehow? "
-I don't really find that term useful. What causality examines (as I pointed out above) its the moment in time where a process (causal agent) forced a specific effect to emerge in reality.
Sorry. I didn't mean to offend you. I was just quibbling with Anscombe's definitive statement : "determinism is impossible". That's what we do on TPF isn't it : quibble? "She denies determinism". I don't. However, I do see a philosophical place for limited FreeWill within a general milieu of Causation & Determinism. If "determinism is impossible" then empirical Science is impossible. And if FreeWill is impossible, then human Culture is impotent. I was merely arguing in favor of human Intention as one of many causes in the world. So, if she had said "determinism is not inevitable" I would have no quibble.
She also "distinguishes causation and determinism", which seems to be a linguistic quibble. The OP asks if causation is just a word (belief) with no referent in reality. Perhaps in Linguistic Philosophy that interpretation is meaningful. But in Scientific Philosophy, the word "causation" should have a solid grounding in physics. Admittedly, inevitable Determinism is a belief, not a verified fact. But it's a belief based on lots of objective evidence. However, Freewill is also a belief, and based on personal subjective experience. It's the lack of empirical evidence that allows some to deny the common belief in FreeWill.
You seemed to assume that I was arguing in favor of strict Determinism. Which is just the opposite of my intent. I suppose, if you interpret her argument to be not just against absolute Determinism, but also in favor of relative Freedom, I could agree. But, if that's what she meant, I missed it in my perusal. I did a search for "freewill" in the article, and found only one instance. So, the point of the article seemed to be mostly a linguistic quibble between Causation & Determinism, not an attempt to show that FreeWill is possible. :smile:
Causality vs Determinism :
Determinism is more than belief in causality. The defining feature of determinism is a belief in the inevitability of causality. The essence of determinism is that everything that happens is the only thing that could possibly happen (given the past) under those circumstances
https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=causality+vs+determinism
Note-- If you interpret human Intention as a form of causation, then there is no need to postulate a gap in the chain of causation. Hence, natural Determinism is supplemented with cultural Intention. :nerd:
Anscombe :
"[i]It was natural that when physics went indeterministic, some thinkers should have seized on this
indeterminism as being just what was wanted for defending the freedom of the will"[/i].
https://iweb.langara.ca/rjohns/files/2016/09/anscombe_causality.pdf
Note -- that is just what some philosophers did -- equating quantum indeterminism with human freedom. But, to empirical scientists that sounds like a Quantum Leap of Faith over the lack of evidence. So, I'm content with a non-empirical (theoretical ; philosophical) justification of FreeWill. :cool:
The only offence is your ongoing refusal to directly address the article you are pretending to critique, your preference for quoting the results of Google searches to doing any real thinking. If only you would put some small part of your efforts into understanding before you jump into evaluating. But that's Banno's Law: It is far easier to criticise something if you begin by misunderstanding it.
I'd expected you to address the Dalton Box example, at the least, but instead you wave irrelevancies. You talk past the article you want to talk about.
So why shoudl I give you my time?
I'm not dialoging with Anscombe. So, my intention was not to critique her article, but the statement you quoted from it. I was trying to dialog with Banno. Assuming you agreed with it, I was hoping you would defend that quote. My interest was in the definitive dismissal of Causal Determinism, not in pursuing off-topic "irrelevancies". Sorry to have wasted your time. But I have learned something from this one-sided dialog. :smile:
PS__I once used the Galton board of bouncing balls to argue in favor of Freedom from Determinism. But my interlocutor was not buying it. So, I moved on to other arguments.
[i]"In the last issue, John Hartung rejected my clumsy attempt at a mechanical
analogy to human freedom within a context of determinism. Specifically, he defined
"free will" in terms of "purpose", which is a property of living beings, not of ping pong
balls. Nevertheless, he still seems to believe that even human beings have no personal
freedom, hence no more purpose in life than a ping pong ball. Unfortunately, I failed to
clearly show that [b]personal purpose is the very thing that elevates human actions above the
purely mechanical cause and effect system[/b] envisioned by Mr. Hartung"[/i].
First up, I meant causation was a thing in a very broad sense such that qualities, ideas and states can be things too, but no matter.
Im just trying to get a sense of where your ideas map onto other thinkers and traditions.
Do you know the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy well? Might be worth checking out their entry on causation, or even this one https://iep.utm.edu/causation/
I wouldnt disagree with most of your intuitions. There are processes, when causation happens a new process starts, thats all perfectly fine.
Im sure we agree on most examples of causation too. The cue ball hits a pool ball and it causes another ball to roll into a particular direction. Of course, no problem with that.
Yet philosophy is not settled on what causation IS at bottom (see that link). It might not exist at all for instance, we might not need the notion. It might have something to do with counterfactuals (which might in turn mean thoughts about possible worlds). You might think its about raising probabilities (after all not all instances of smoking result in cancer). You might think thats there nothing over and above causes and effects just being adjacent in some sense. You might think its a pattern of one sort of thing being followed by a thing of another sort.
Im just finding it a little hard to see which ideas you support. Do you have a thinker or a theory which resonates with you? Or is this, as with my ideas, a novel theory?
I fear that my ideas are being lost in translation! (In particular Im not sure what the word belief is doing here!)
Im not sure I would completely sign off on no referent in reality. If I have said this I misspoke (sorry!).
Causation is still referring to a relationship between the cause and the effect but in a surprising way.
Most verbs, I would say, refer to a relationship between the subject and object of the sentence in a pretty simple way . Bill kicked the ball tells us about the relationship between Bill, a physical thing in the world, and the ball, also a physical thing in the world.
To cause is doing something quite special I think.
Its talking about the relationship between the WORD for the subject and the object (itself) as well as the WORD for the object and the subject (itself).
So thats my idea, that causation is a special sort of word. Please ask more Id be delighted to show precisely what this relationship is and how its parsimonious and echoes Aristotle etc, but thats the gist.
Yes. The Galton illustration of randomness within the normal curve of statistical determination does not take into account Intentional choices. Instead, the fundamental randomness, or uncertainty, on the quantum scale of physics, merely indicates that causal Determinism, although the norm, is not absolute. Thus providing gaps (statistical uncertainty) to be exploited by Intentional Causation.
I'm currently reading Werner Heisenberg's book, Physics and Philosophy. There he makes a statement that, at first glance, sounds similar to Anscombe's denial of Causality & Determinism : "The law of causality is no longer applied in quantum theory". But then, he goes on to say, "Therefore, the law of causality is reduced to the method of scientific research ; it is the condition which makes science possible. Since we actually apply this method, the law of causality is 'a priori' and is not derived from experience".
By "a priori" he means intuitive & logical. But his own Uncertainty Principle implies that the logical natural "law" of Causation is somewhat flexible. In my own theory of Freedom within Determinism, the natural world has produced a new kind of causation : human Intention (Will). And history records many instances of culture (including Science) modifying the natural course of causation. Nevertheless, the current ecological crises indicate that un-natural (artificial) causation may conflict with, but does not negate the normal processes of natural laws governing Cause & Effect. The bottom line is that human behavior & choices & effects are somewhat unpredictable, from merely extending past causal norms into the near future. :smile:
Statistical Uncertainty :
Uncertainty in statistics is measured by the amount of error in an estimate of the mean or average value of a population.
https://www.encyclopedia.com/environment/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/uncertainty-science-statistics
The uncertainty principle implies that it is in general not possible to predict the value of a quantity with arbitrary certainty, even if all initial conditions are known.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncertainty_principle
I added the "belief" because our words are usually expressions of belief, which does not always correspond to objective reality. Hence our language may "cause" erroneous or undesirable effects in the natural & cultural worlds. I apologize, if that goes off-topic. :yikes:
Quoting invizzy
Yes. We normally use the word "cause" in reference to natural exchanges of energy that result in physical changes in the material world. But, human Will (Intention or Purpose) is an artificial form of causation, which causes changes in both physical and psychical realms of the world. So, in that sense, the word "causation" is indeed "special". :wink:
PS__I would say that Causation is both Linguistic (mental) and "in the world (physical).
Intentional Causation :
Ironically, it was Science, not Religion, that revealed the teleological tendencies of the natural world -- that it is evolving in a positive direction. Most traditional religions have always assumed a steady-state universe that either stays the same forever, or simply goes around in circles. But agnostic or godless scientists determined that the evidence from Biology, Geology, and Paleontology indicates that many small random changes add-up to progressive evolution toward increasing order and complexity -- at least in the corner of the cosmos we can study in detail. Of course, that development is not perfectly deterministic -- more like a little dance of creation : two steps forward and one step back. But it seems to imply some purpose behind the prancing procession.
http://www.bothandblog.enformationism.info/page29.html
-"First up, I meant causation was a thing in a very broad sense such that qualities, ideas and states can be things too, but no matter."
-Yes this is exactly what abstract nouns describe! So I think we can agree on that. Causation is a real phenomenon with specific characteristics.
-"Im just trying to get a sense of where your ideas map onto other thinkers and traditions."
-That would be a difficult thing to do since we haven't talked about any ideas yet . We are still struggling to define the word. In that aspect you can check the work of Philosophers stressing the importance of clear and precise definitions (Wittgenstein, Rand etc).
-"I wouldnt disagree with most of your intuitions. There are processes, when causation happens a new process starts, thats all perfectly fine."
-I have to clarify. I am offering a description not an intuitive take on the phenomenon.
Quoting invizzy
-Well there are philosophers that argue against causality...but that doesn't make their objections "philosophical material".
Now Causality "doesn't exist" , at least like other physical entities do but it a descriptive label of a real phenomenon. It is Observable, Verifiable, Quantifiable that occurs in physical interactions. We can study the phenomenon and Produce technical Applications and Accurate predictions.
I don't really know a reasonable philosophical argument against causality but that doesn't mean there isn't one. Maybe you are aware of one and we can discuss it!
-"It might have something to do with counterfactuals (which might in turn mean thoughts about possible worlds)''
-Parsimony and Demarcation render such speculations irrational and place them outside the philosophical realm. The moment to speculate about anything (Metaphysics) is when you have data in hand and you can rationally project them beyond our current epistemology. Making up a mechanism and assuming it qualifies as an answer when in fact its unnecessary, that is more of a pseudo hypothesis than philosophy.
Quoting invizzy
No, because we can not talk about probabilities without first verifying "possibilities". Probability is a mathematical concept and it demands a sample of verified and unverified cases for any calculations to be made !!!! Without a single verified case how can we even start talking about probabilities?
-"You might think thats there nothing over and above causes and effects just being adjacent in some sense."
-I don't even have to go their. As a methodological Naturalism I am only concerned with what I can register and verify. The burden is on the claim the moment to take such claims seriously is only after some type of objective verification occurs.
Quoting invizzy
-Well I don't follow any ideas or theories. I obey the rules of logic and the Principles of methodological Naturalism(the best and only way to do philosophy).
Well theres a long tradition about whether physics needs causation at all for instance. Arguments that we can seemingly do physics pretty well without causation might add credence to the idea that causation is not real in the sense of being a folk, or loose, way of talking about things thats not really referring to anything useful.
You can read about some of that here:
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/causation-physics/
But in general Im finding it hard to understand what your claims are. You seem to take it for granted that there is causation - and yes I know you dont mean a thing with spatiotemporal location - and gesture at processes. But you seemingly dont seem to want to engage in the philosophy surrounding causation.
Now maybe youre just unaware of the literature out there, but I can assure you that its a very open question about what causation is. Even those who draw up successful causal models will often tell you they dont actually claim to know what causation is.
Now perhaps you might say well its a process. But what kind? How does it differ from other processes? How do I recognize that it is happening? For example people struggled for years to tell us that cigarettes cause cancer. In some ways its still a little mysterious and some will tell you that that statement is shorthand for smoking cigarettes sometimes causes cancer.
How would you verify when causation happens? After all it is often confused with mere correlation.