Examining Issues Of Causality - Why Is It So Difficult To Nail Down Causes?

It is a remarkable fact that in many debates, religious as well as political issues of cause and causality arise yet the debaters have little conception of what these terms mean.   Did  some faction of stupid, uninformed voters "cause" a deformed and deranged creature like Trump to ascend to power?   Or was it the end process of a Neoliberal system which left too many in the country feeling insecure and full of grievance?  Or, was it a reaction to Obama's unfulfilled promise of "hope and change"?  Or was it a disjunctive plurality of these acting in concert?  Up to now  the main pundits can't  even agree, only that in 2016 we had a dumpster fire of an election. 

In this blog post I want to explore issues of causality and how they can best be argued and assessed   .

Much general confusion inheres in conflating efficient causality and regular conditionality – which is what “necessary and sufficient conditions” are really all about. (cf. Mario Bunge, Causality and Modern Science, pp. 33-34, 1979). The other part of the problem resides in extrapolating conditions peculiar to general traits for scientific laws into human domains.

I want to focus on the first of these for now.

The criteria of necessary and sufficient conditions was actually invoked originally by Galileo to replace the concept of efficient cause (ibid., p. 33). In this regard, it was recognized from early on that "efficient causation" was often too limited or narrow a concept to be practical or workable. As for “necessary and sufficient conditions” - they are really a statement of regular conditionality that exposes no real criteria for causal efficacy.

Nonetheless, in many venues they are about the best we can hope for in approaching a feasible discussion of causes. For example, Robert Baum, in his textbook, LOGIC, p. 469-70, correctly observes that n-s conditions are practical replacements (in logic) for causes. In other words, instead of saying or asserting "x caused y", one stipulates that a, b are necessary conditions for x to exist at all, and c,d are sufficient conditions for y to have been the sole effect of cause x.

Baum’s reasoning is clear (ibid.): because “cause” (generic) can be interpreted as proximate or remote, or even as the “goal or aim of an action” and is therefore too open-ended, ambiguous and construed in too many different ways. Thus, “cause” is too embedded in most people’s minds with only one of several meanings, leaving most causality discussions unproductive and confused. If my “cause” and your ‘cause” in a given argument diverge, then we will not get very far.

Because of this one uses the more neutral term “condition” and specifies necessary and sufficient ones. The latter terms are specifically meaningful in the context of determining causal conditions, and hence, causes. If one eschews them, then one concedes he is incapable of logical argument incorporating the most basic affiliation with cause or causation.

Given this, let's explore further the concept of conditionalness or conditionality. The goal is to see if or how we can drive n-s conditions toward a firmer basis, say of causal efficacy. Generally four characteristics are assigned for efficient causality: conditionalness, existential succession, uniqueness and constancy. The first, conditionalness is a generic trait of scientific law.

Thus, for example, applying conditionalness to the occurrence of large solar flares, I know I must include such factors as: steepness of the magnetic gradient in the active region, rate of proper motion of sunspots in the active region, magnetic class of said spots, magnetic flux, and helicity of the magnetic field. Each of the above allows a degree of determinacy in the prediction, once I make the measurements.

For example, the magnetic gradient: grad B = [+B_n - (-B_n)] / x

where the numerator denotes the difference in the normal components of the magnetic field (between opposite polarities of the active region) as measured by vector magnetograph and the denominator the scale separation between them. If I calculate grad B = 0.1 Gauss/km, then I know a flare is 96% probable within 24 hrs. In the case of existential succession, in the physical case of the solar flare I know that when the magnetic gradient spikes or steepens to 0.1 Gauss/km a flare is imminent to 96% probability – in 24 hrs.

Unlike conditionalness, the attribute of uniqueness (or high level determinacy such that a one-to-one onto mapping occurs between C(cause) and E (effect)) is absent from certain kinds of law – such as statistical regularities peculiar to statistical mechanics (e.g. the Maxwell-Boltzmann distribution function) or the empirical- statistical correlations that show how sunspot morphology is related to the frequency of certain classes of flares.

It is also absent from those quantum phenomena (including the spontaneous inception of the cosmos) which are governed by quantum logic, not binary classical logic. This is why it is futile to get into arguments with people who merely use classical either-or logic and haven't been exposed to quantum logic. See also my previous blog on this issue:

http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2009/09/foray-into-quantum-logical-and.html

One example I gave therein was in a claimant who asserted: "No primary cause can be physical". The trouble is, that this assumption is based on a classical system of logic that is binary and uses binary {1,0} or (yes, no) operators. Thus, since a careless person- perhaps attempting to execute a "proof" of a creator, will assert all physical entities must be caused, he will make the classical error of applying this to the cosmos' origin.

But what if instead of classical mechanics and its deterministic provisions, quantum mechanics is incorporated, say at the level of quantum gravity? Can the proposition still hold? No, since we saw the binary{0,1}-valued observables may be regarded as encoding propositions about properties of the state of the system. Thus a self-adjoint operator P with spectrum contained in the two-point set {0,1} must be a projection; i.e., P^2 = P. Such operators are in one-to-one correspondence with the closed subspaces of H, the Hilbert space. But they are not in such correspondence with classical operators that one might assign to classical causality conditions!

Anyway, we move on. Uniqueness is a characteristic, but not an exclusive trait of causation. When one avers “uniqueness of causation” one really means “the rigidity of causation” as opposed to say plasticity which would be associated with human processes, influences, choices and outcomes. For example, plasticity was at work in the 2000 presidential election, embedded in the (disjunctive) plurality of proximate causes of why Al Gore lost Florida to Bush, and hence the presidency in the electoral vote count (though he did win the popular vote across the U.S. by 500,000). . Among these causes: i) 200,000 Dem voters bailed and voted Repub (bear in mind in the final count Bush only won by 537 votes), ii) Nader garnered nearly 50,000 votes - and they were claimed "taken from Dems" - though this has never been proven, and iii) more than 58,000 African -Americans were disenfranchised as documented by Greg Palast in the first chapter of his book, The Best Democracy Money Can Buy.

The distinguishing aspect of plasticity in causality is that a given outcome (say the potential election of Gore in 2000) could be attained by a whole range of alternative means. (E.g. Gore could have won in 2000 if Nader had not run, OR if Gore had fought hard enough for the purged votes to be reinstated, OR if he had fought for the 3,100+ butterfly ballot votes to be reinstated in Palm Beach County, OR if he had demanded all the votes in every county be counted- which the Miami Herald later showed would have won it for him). Note that the key aspect here is that the alternatives are not mutually exclusive.

If only “necessary and sufficient conditions” are to be regarded as antecedents in a casual connection then a simple causation is implied (which lies at the heart of regular conditionality):

If C, then (and only then) E 

Again, this is justifiably applied in the context of totally deterministic – and “rigidly causal” examples such as occur in the scientific realm (Newton’s 2nd law: F= ma) but NOT human dynamics or processes. For the latter, the imposition of linear causal chains to describe events and outcomes is defective ontologically since it crafts an artificial line of development in a whole stream of causes (e.g. disjunctive plurality of causes).

As Bunge observes (p. 132) this amounts to a fabrication that may prove useful in terms of description or conveying complex information, say about the 2000 election, but it falls way short in arriving at the efficient causation we seek. The gist of all the preceding is that it is facile, naïve and utterly preposterous to over-extrapolate the“necessary and sufficient conditions” to human affairs and events. That will remain the case until such time the human agents and actors are at least as predictable as the particle of a gas are, say, in terms of their velocities in the Maxwell-Boltzmann distribution.

The Problem of employing False Conditionality- Hence False Causation:

While the whole preceding section may appear to be a rarefied discussion, it actually has significant practical application: namely in ferreting out false causation arguments. Most of these, in fact, mistake a false conditionality for an efficient causation. Some examples from the past are really extreme, but I will point out just one - the classic used by mathematician Leonhard Euler on the French atheist Denis Diderot (who also, alas was innumerate).

Anyway, the story goes like this: on being informed of a new "proof for God's existence" Diderot expressed a desire to hear it, from Euler. Euler then walked toward him and announced (without cracking even a slight grin):

"Sir, (a + b)^n/ n = x, hence God exists! Reply!"

The poor Diderot, lost in any abstract math, was so stunned - the story goes- that he nearly lost his mind and senses and had to leave Paris.

However, had he even basic training in logic and the nuances of causation, he could have easily peered calmly at Euler, and informed him: "Sir, the so-called proof is nothing but nonsense that has nothing to do with the entity you are trying to prove. You have merely given a mathematical equation, nothing more - and hence, a false conditionalness which you mistake for efficient causation!"

Of course, any number of other examples can be substituted for Euler's false conditionality. For example, "God is two-dimensional in time" - proves efficient causation. Or "God is the uncaused cause", when in fact all that's being done is to insert a noun which hasn't even been vetted for the bare necessary and sufficient conditions for it to exist.

The point is that most such arguments fall because while they invoke some form of efficient causation, they don't use or deliver it. They deliver a fraud masquerading as it, which we recognize as a false conditionalness. Worse, asserting "God is a first cause" is actually and technically unprovable within an axiomatic system based on cause! (Of course, one may eschew such a system - but then he loses the ability to argue from or about "cause"!) This is directly from application of Gödel's Incompleteness theorems.

In this case the set of causal elements in the axiomatic system, call the set: Z ={C1, C2, C3,........Cn) has ONE element which is uncaused. It matters not whether it is C1 or any other. The point is, the proof of its existence can't be rendered from within the axiomatic system that uses the set Z for a causal argument. Thus, one will inevitably find at least one contradiction, and this contradiction means the system is incomplete, so the set must be also.

Look at it this way: say Z = C1 is equivalent to saying C1 is "the first cause of all Z". But if: Z = C1 were provable-in-the-system, we have a contradiction: for if it were provable in-the-system, then it would not be unprovable-in-the-system, so that "Z= C1 is unprovable-in-the-system" would be false. Again, it can't be provable in the system since C1 is an element from a presumed CAUSAL set. So, Z = C1 is unprovable-in-the-system is not provable-in-the-system (Z), but unprovable-in-the-system (Z). Technically, one would require a "meta-set" such that Z' = Z + k', the uncaused element- with Z purged of it. However, it can be shown that invoking such a meta-set leads to an infinite regression.

This shows why - before one interjects false conditionality- he or she had first better be sure Kurt Gödel isn't looking over his shoulder!

Response To Tom McLeish's Counter Arguments In Physics Today

Following my letter appearing in the June issue of Physics Today, Religionist Tom McLeish was allowed an extensive response to all the published letters - numbering six. Here I focus on his response to my letter and I rebut each of his counter arguments in turn:

McLeish writes (p. 14):

"Although religious tradition naturally requires discourse about personal and corporate encounters with divinity in order to make sense of history and experience, it is far less concerned with the supernatural than with life, hope and justice here on Earth."

Of course this is too clever by half and is yet another permutation of the 'No true Scotsman' fallacy. Antony Flew, in his Thinking about Thinking, first made people aware of the "No True Scotsman" Fallacy.

As he put it:

"Here we have Angus, a Glaswegian (inhabitant of Glasgow), who puts sugar on his porridge, and who is proposed as a counter-example to the claim “No Scotsman puts sugar on his porridge”.

Then the ‘No true Scotsman’ fallacy would run as follows:

(1) Angus puts sugar on his porridge.

(2) No (true) Scotsman puts sugar on his porridge.

(3) Therefore: Angus is not a (true) Scotsman.

And:

(4) Therefore: Angus is not a counter-example to the claim that no Scotsman puts sugar on his porridge.

Thus the 'No true Scotsman fallacy' is a way of reinterpreting evidence in order to prevent the refutation of one’s position.  In this case, McLeish bids us not to look at or address the 'elephant' (actually wooly Mammoth) in the 'mind space' of religiosity - i.e. the supernatural - but to look instead at religion's emphasis on "hope, life and justice"..   In other words, the supernaturalist- bound entity I had addressed was not the "true" religious tradition but a specious one. 

Indeed, if McLeish's claim was in any way sound, the rational skeptic could simply retort: "Then if you're just invested in life, hope and justice why not dispense with the  redundant window dressing of supernatural hokum and embrace humanism?"  Of course they can't do that because the supernatural - including a supernatural divinity - is an integral part of their whole tradition.   So rather than robustly defend the supernatural as a physicist - which McLeish knows he can't - he punts and resorts to a deflecting fallacy.

McLeish again:

"So it is not right to declare a parting of the ways at the start."

Really? Then WHEN exactly are we enjoined to do so?   If there are indeed two orders or putative orders, one scientific and submitting to some form of objective inquiry, and the other (supernatural)  not, then when does one part ways? It would seem to me for clarity sake alone and to avoid obfuscation one clearly delineates the separate orders at the outset -  so there can be no ambiguity. Obviously, McLeish doesn't wish to do this because it would effectively mean 'game, set, match' and he goes home without a rejoinder.

He continues:

"Nor is it appropriate to complain that experience and exploration of God is devoid of rationality.  Stahl's presentation of two alternatives and fundamentally competing worldviews derives not from a knowledge of history or theology but ultimately from the Draper and White polemics, whose alternative history introduced that perspective. (For a more nuanced reading of history see: F. Harrison 'The Territories Of Science and Religion)."

Actually, I  have never heard of Draper or White far less their "polemics". I come at McLeish's claims from the position of reason alone, as well as from my extensive university (Loyola - run by Jesuits) exposure to comparative religion, theology, metaphysics, biblical exegesis and textual analysis.   I have also blogged on these and related matters before, for those interested, e.g.

http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2010/07/apologetics-textual-analysis-and.html


http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2011/04/some-basics-on-exegesis-textual.html


 No one is asserting btw, that rationality cannot be enlisted in religious explorations, say of "divinity", but we would be remiss if we didn't also acknowledge how easily such rationality can be perverted toward deformed ends.

Thus, Pope Innocent VIII summoned excellent theological reasons for issuing a Bull allowing for the wholesale pursuit and torture of witches, warlocks, familiars and others in the form of incubi or succubi.  Much of this was formalized in the Malleus Maleficarum of Heinrich Kramer (Dean of Cologne University) and Jacob Sprenger (Dominican Inquisitor General of Germany). On account of this well-reasoned Bull, tens of thousands were subjected to vile tortures, including finally being crushed in the Iron Maiden or barbecued on large, heated griddles.   

Then there is the hyper rational Xtian moralist C.S.  Lewis . Recall Lewis’ rational justification for Inquisitional tortures is mind-boggling in itself  and effectively renders whatever morality he espouses as useless, and indeed dangerous!  In this case, in his book Mere Christianity, he pardons the witch burners for making a “mistake of fact”, i.e. in believing women described as witches were evil incarnate.  To quote one critic[1]:

If Lewis is willing to accept that witches do not exist, and that, while believing in them, it was right to put them to death, what other "ungodly" transgressions can we forgive as mere "mistakes of fact”?

Interestingly, Lewis’  "rational" pseudo-morality could easily have been incorporated into the Third Reich’s justifications for genocide. I mean, the Nazis really believed the Jews were “vermin” – as so much of their propaganda portrayed- so by Lewis’ standards they’d be excused for making a “mistake of fact”.  Lewis might well reply here that the Nazis really knew better than that so their actions were inexcusable. But how do we know there were also not more percipient Inquisitors who also knew better than to believe more than a quarter million women burned as witches did not really embody evil or have pacts with “Satan”? It amounts to mere question begging.

McLeish continues:

"Stahl's letter also manages to capture the misinformed philosophy of most late modern confusions, especially neo-atheist ones, about the nature of deity."

Actually, in my book, Beyond Atheism, Beyond God, I had been highly critical of the "neo atheists" (cf. The Problem For Hard Core Atheist Reductionism, Ch. XII, p. 294))  - not that McLeish would have read it any more than I'd have read his referenced text, 'Atheist Delusions' by David Bentley Hart.   Regarding the latter, one reviewer's take on it is especially noteworthy, e.g.:

"Atheist Delusions is a misleading title: this book is really, as the author says in his introduction, a historical essay, only tangentially related to these delusions. It is not, or only as the argument demands, concerned with philosophy, metaphysics or theology."

So why does McLeish commend it as capturing a "misinformed philosophy"? Who knows? Again, it may most likely be merely a 'hail Mary' tossed out so he can muster some kind of weak retort, even if irrelevant.  And before McLeish gets too high on his high horse about "atheist delusions" one wonders if he is at all familiar with the work 'Why God Won't Go Away: Brain Science and the Biology of Belief' wherein the authors (Andrew Newberg and Eugene D’Aquili) trace the God concept directly to an area of the brain- the OAA or orientation association area. 

The authors’ investigation of how the brain’s OAA translates an image into a religious reality is also described in detail[2].This is in connection with a person given an image of Christ and asked to focus on it. Within minutes, neurological measurements, i.e. from PET and SPECT scans[3], showed electrical discharges spiraling down from the right attention area (right OAA) to the limbic system and hypothalamus “triggering the arousal section of the structure”. The authors’ test results and measurements revealed the activation of both the left and right association regions as their subjects focused on an image of Christ. As assorted cortical thresholds were crossed, a maximal stimulation (given by spikes in the SPECT scans) produced a neural “flood” that generated feedback to the attention association area.

To make a long story short, the visual attention area of the OAA was seen to begin to deprive the right orientation area (responsible for balance)  of all neural input not originating with the contemplation of Jesus. In order to compensate, and thereby preserve the neuro-spatial matrix (in which the self could still exist) the right orientation area had to default to the attention area focusing on “Jesus”.  As the authors describe the situation: [4]:

It has no choice but to create a spatial matrix out of nothing but the attention area’s single-minded contemplation of Jesus

Newberg and D’Aquili note that as the process of re-cerebralization continues, all irrelevant neural inputs are stripped away until the only reality left is Jesus. That reality (actually a pseudo-reality confected by the right attention area) thereby takes over the entire mind. Or, in the words of the authors, “it is perceived by the mind as the whole depth and breadth of reality.”   This is a profound insight, and fully explains why it is essentially impossible to wean believers away from their objects of worship or devotion based on logic and reason alone. What has happened, in other words, is the subject’s whole existence and identity has become bound up with the focus of his brain’s OAA-  or more specifically – the right attention area’s focus which channels nearly all neural inputs to that region.More to the point here, is that such a brain is singly directed to craft its own version of rationality to support its ideations.Hence, we simply cannot trust the rational expressions of believers, or those like McLeish who defend religious accommodation. Their brains are likely hijacked in the service of the OAA.

McLeish's next move is to invoke Aquinas:

"Everything has a cause", says Stahl, quoting Paulos….He omits the reminder that the argument of no infinite causal recursions was used by Aquinas who ran it in reverse as an argument for theism."

I was aware of Aquinas' trick - of course- but there are limits of space for letter writers in PT. I did address it in my book, Beyond Atheism, Beyond God. 

As I noted, asserting "God is a first cause" is actually and technically unprovable within an axiomatic system based on cause.  This follows from Kurt  Gödel's  1st and 2nd Incompleteness theorems.  Say C₁  ->  Z is equivalent to saying "C₁ is the first cause of all Z". But consider:  if C₁  ->  Z is really provable-in-the-system of axioms, we’d have a contradiction. If it were provable in-the-system, then it would not be unprovable-in-the-system.  Hence,  asserting: " C₁  -> Z is unprovable-in-the-system" would be false. Again, it can't be provable in the system since C₁ is an element from a presumed causal set. So, the statement “C₁  ->  Z is unprovable-in-the-system” is not provable-in-the-system (Z), but unprovable-in-the-system (Z). Technically, one would require a meta-set such that Z' = Z + k', e.g. including k’ as the uncaused element, i.e. with Z purged of it. However, it can be shown that invoking such a meta-set leads to an infinite regression.

This shows why, before one interjects first causes (or invokes Aquinas' trick), he had first better be sure Kurt Gödel isn't looking over his shoulder!  Of course, Gödel's Incompleteness theorems didn't exist at the time of Tommy Aquinas so he couldn't have known his arguments were basically hollow mush. Alas, Kurt Gödel and his Incompleteness Theorem(s) isn’t the only daunting challenge to the naïve God-thinker. 

Quantum acausality will also have a role in tempering the naïve believer’s simple causality propositions and claims .  See e.g.

https://physicstoday.scitation.org/do/10.1063/PT.6.1.20180328a/full/

An excellent way out of the causal morass is to consider necessary and sufficient conditions.  Say if a religious rationalist is proposing support for his divinity -then he must show the necessary and sufficient conditions for it to exist.  Robert Baum, in his textbook, LOGIC, p. 469-70, correctly observes that n-s conditions are practical replacements (in logic) for causes. In other words, instead of saying or asserting "x caused y", one stipulates that a, b are necessary conditions for x to exist at all, and c, d are sufficient conditions for y to have been the sole effect of cause x.
  

A necessary condition is one which, if absent, the entity cannot exist. A sufficient condition is one which, if present, the entity must exist. For example, a sufficient condition for the existence of a hydrogen emission nebula in space would be proximity of the nebula to a radiating star. The necessary condition is the nebula exists in the first place. Baum’s reasoning is clear (ibid.): because “cause” (generic) can be interpreted as proximate or remote, or even as the “goal or aim of an action” and is therefore too open-ended, ambiguous and construed in too many different ways. 

 Thus, “cause” is too embedded in most people’s minds with only one of several meanings, leaving most causality discussions unproductive and confused. If my “cause” and your ‘cause” in a given argument diverge, then we will not get very far. Also, if we confront a disjunctive plurality of causes, we may be at moot dead ends using a naïve causal paradigm.

 
McLeish's final parry is against the notion that religious traditions harbor any superstition, by appeal to the venerable Bede, e. g.

As  for "superstition",  8th century English Christian scholar Bede advocated the study of science as a God-given faculty to counter superstition!

Note the exclamatory emphasis here, as if, to suggest:  'How can Stahl have the temerity to even suggest this?'  But according to Frederick Harrison , in his book Medieval Man:

"Yet even Bede believed that storms could be raised by witches. He records that the ship in which Germanus, Bishop of Auxerre, and Lupus, Bishop of Troyes, were voyaging home was driven out of its course by demons, who, however, dispersed when the two holy men bade them, in the Name of the Trinity, depart. Then the storm ceased."

Witches raising storms? Demons driving ships off course?  Sorry, McLeish, but if a person - even in the 8th century (we make NO allowances because of era lived) embraces or invokes demons and witches, then they ARE purveyors of superstition.  Incredibly, McLeish via his absurd and irrelevant   arguments and citations, would have us interject even more of supernaturalism and superstition into our science.  But thankfully most physicists are dedicated physicalists so this misplaced agenda is not likely to get very far. And I am confident most physicists will not sacrifice their principles to being bought out by the Templeton Foundation.

---

[1] Inniss: The Secular Humanist Newsletter, (Spring, 1998), 1

[2] Newberg and D’Aquili., pp.  121-22.

[3] PET = positron emission tomography, SPECT = single photon image tomography.

[4] Ibid.