Talk: Causality
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The topics "causality" and "causation" should be a "pointer page," if in fact there is a significant body of physics research about causality, that should properly be so titled. There is, of course, a very old tradition of analyzing the notion of causality in philosophy, which continues robustly to this day; philosophers, to my knowledge, don't pay much attention to what physicists have to say on the topic, but then, this isn't my area. Anyway, if indeed there is a body of physics research into causality per se, then we might have a causality (physics) page as well as causality (philosophy) or causation (philosophy) page. In any case, it's certainly the case that what physicists have said on the topic should not be billed as the only thing Wikipedia has to say on the topic.
- A body of physics research into causality? I think that would be the entire field of mechanics... Jaleho
Speaking as a philosopher, not as a physicist, the following looks like a lot of pseudoscientific, pseudophilosophical rubbish to me. I'm familiar with Osher Doctorow from Nupedia, and I have serious doubts that anything from him deserves such prominent mention in any Wikipedia article. As for the physics, there might be something salvagable in it--for all I know, it's a good start, but I know nothing about physicists' approach to this otherwise purely philosophical topic, so I couldn't say. In the meantime, I'd like to request that a physicist (other than Osher Doctorow) have a look at this and give his or her opinion. --Larry_Sanger
- I agree that the text below is mostly rubbish. AxelBoldt
- Causality or causation in mathematics/physics may be considered to have begun its modern treatment by Professor Garrett Birkhoff of Harvard in the 1950s, who considered that causation is embodied in time-related differential equations (ordinary or partial) because they involve time and because they involve change through time whereby intuitively an independent variable x or t influences a dependent variable y, although derivatives/rates of change of y with respect to time (velocity, speed, acceleration, etc.) may also do the influencing.
- Although David Hume in the 1700s had given up on the possibility of locating the exact connection involved in causality/causation, Birkhoff felt that differential equations involving time embody what (in historical/philosophical language) Hume had been trying to analyze. In reply to the question of how the influencing variable x at time t influences variable y at an immediately later time, which of course is in a sense incapable of formulation since there is no immediately later event, Birkhoff's PDEs (partial differential equations) and ODEs (ordinary differential equations) rely on limits, noting that lim [f(t + h) - f(t)]/h as h--> 0, when it exists, is the derivative f'(t), which is the instantaneous rate of change of f at time t, but can also be regarded as the influence of time t on an infinitesimally small increment f(t + h) when h is positive but approaches 0 (from the right). Although the approach to 0 from the left seems to complicate things, it does not change the above facts.
- The next major step forward in causation/causality was its application to probability-statistics by Marleen and Osher Doctorow, in their paper "On the nature of causation", (Philosophy of Education Proceedings 1983), based on seminars and talks in the previous years in part, in which they formulated a probability-statistics criterion for causation/causality. See abstracts of 72 of their papers (publications, papers presented, technical reports, and some better internet contributions) at http://www.logic.univie.ac.at, Institute for Logic of the University of Vienna. After accessing the site, select in this exact order:
- ABSTRACT SERVER
- BY AUTHOR
- Doctorow, Osher and/or Doctorow, Marleen
I removed the paragraph:
- In reality ceteris paribus analyses are always false. Causality is always multipolar. Only abstractions can create a circle with a single pen, in reality a circle is always caused by multiple forces that flux in a point. Such kind of Platonic causality, far more realistic than simple unicausal Aristotelian thought proper to western science, however has only been developed in Eastern philosophy.
- ceteris paribus ("all other things being equal") analyses are not "always false"; one can question their utility in a world where one cannot control "all other things", but this seems a bit over the top to me.
- Only abstractions can create a circle... is too poetic to make any sense; at any rate this assertion is not backed up by any argument.
- ... has only been developed in Eastern Philosophy. is contradicted by the paragraph following in the article, as well as by the "many worlds" interpretation of quantum mechanics (amongst others).
Not that my additions are flawless, but this just seemed rather non-NPOV to me.
Cheers. Chas zzz brown 23:38 Oct 26, 2002 (UTC)
I have moved a lot of what was in the "Physics" section of this page to causality (physics) and have added a link to that page. There was some text in the physics section that didn't seem to me to have much to do with physics, so it was placed under the new heading of "philosophy".
--Anakolouthon 22:41 3 Jul 2003 (UTC)
There is a band named "Cause and Effect", a consulting group http://www.causeandeffect.co.uk/ and a charity organization called http://www.causeaneffect.org/
I'm not sure what the best way to fit them in would be, seeing as the current Cause and effect page is nothing but a redirect. Jaleho - A WikiNewbie
- Welcome to Wikipedia, Jaleho! I would suggest expanding that redirect page into a disambiguation page that lists all those items as well as listing, and linking to, this article. It might be a good article-building exercise for you. --Gary D 18:11, Sep 23, 2004 (UTC)
- P.S.: Jaleho, it's a good practice to date as well as sign your talk page entries; I usually just hit the button second from the right above the edit box, which does both. Had the contributors above done this, it would be easier for you to know that your Physics/Mechanics comment above was responding to comments made two and a half years ago whose authors have probably moved on. Cheers! --Gary D 18:18, Sep 23, 2004 (UTC)
Odd - I made a *bunch* of additions about a week ago, and all I see in the updates list is the minor change - anybody want to look over all the new stuff and see if it's too crazy now? :) --Jaleho 21:58, 7 Oct 2004 (UTC)
- I see a total of two edits to the article by you on Sept. 30. Sometimes I do a "show preview" and then forget and move to another page without hitting "save page", and my changes never get recorded. As to the new stuff you added from that talk page, I would say it could use to move from coversational tone to encyclopedic tone, and from a semantic focus to a causality focus. It could be an interesting addition here. --Gary D 22:36, Oct 7, 2004 (UTC)
Causality and Philosophy
The Programming section of this article (IF...THEN...) is walking very close to the the common confusion of Logical Implication with Causality. It would be worth elucidating the differences.
The Nietzche section violates NPOV. Much of the entire article should probably be moved to a linked page on Determinism
Hume's view may not be accurately presented. He does not argue there might be some other intermediate causal explanation, but argues against causality entirely.
As pointed out in one section (regarding moon's gravity causing tides) there are problems with the temporal requirements for causal claims.
Lightning may be said to cause thunder; OR both lightning & thunder may be thought of as two manifestations of the same event (electrical discharge) which just happen to have a temporal separation. This argument hinges somewhat on the definition of lightning.
Neccesary vs. sufficient condition discussion would also be relevant. Also discussion (relevant to Hume) of the protype case of causality - Our linguistic framework that has us as agents in the universe.
--JimWae 22:30, 2004 Nov 18 (UTC)
Examples
The example using TCP, IP packets, and HTTP headers in the "Aristotle" subsection will be generally incomprehensible to most people who are not terribly familiar with computers (a massive subset, even of wikipedia readership). Trust me. In the social science PhD program at a prominent institution that I attend, most of the other graduate students don't know the real difference between the World Wide Web and the Internet. I think it would be better if one could reword the example in terms of something which assumed a less specific cultural background. Just a suggestion. (if no one objects, I'd rather use the example which Heidegger uses in The Question Concerning Technology, but I don't know when I'll have the time to type that up) --Fastfission 04:10, 20 Nov 2004 (UTC)
