Hey Jeremy, I was googling Hume on causality for my modern philosophy class at Santa Clara! It was great to see a fellow ND grad getting philosophy out there! nicely done!
ANY THOUGHTS?....................1. Hume surrenders to the understanding that entities are distinct in what they are and by that, that which they are not. A square is distinctively that which it is for its characteristics (squareness) and that which it is not, possessing no characteristics of a circle (circleness). 2. That an entity can be that which it is distinctively and not other things is due to its “distinctive” physical characteristics or physicality. E.g., the billiard ball in his analogous refutation of the deterministic nature of cause and effect is distinctively just that, a billiard ball and not an apple or beach ball or the like. 3. He thus, by definition, accepted that entities are that which they are by the assertion of their form and function (characteristics) into materiality (quantum mechanics validates this unequivocally). Were this not so, he could not have appealed to them that they would be employed in his propositions. 4. He also, by definition, accepted that entities are material, i.e., physical, defined by their physical characteristics (a ball is round and not square, etc.) or they could not be considered at all and could not be participants in his propositions. That he specifically chose billiard balls for the players in his analogy demonstrates his acceptance of this (above) as a recognition. 5. By this he submitted to the understanding that motion for being intangible, could NOT be a characteristic of the billiard ball which is moving but a phenomenon in the context of consideration, it moving toward a stationary billiard ball that it might cause it to move when struck. Motion of the billiard ball in this context is only a phenomenon of concern with the billiard balls physicality or characteristics. 6. Given the above, we know analytically that the motion of the billiard ball had to have been imparted to it by the force of another entity of which it was concerned when it struck the billiard ball. 7. Thus, by that same means by which the motion of the billiard ball was imparted to it by a prior entity also effected by motion, it would be imparted to the stationary billiard ball by the moving billiard ball. 8. We are able then to induce that the stationary billiard ball would in fact move if struck by the first because of the nature of motion as opposed to that of the physicality of the billiard balls for we know analytically that motion cannot be a part or characteristic of the physicality of the billiard balls but only an imparted phenomenon. So if it was imparted to the first billiard ball by it being struck, so too would it be imparted to the second when being struck.
We can't observe with our senses a necessary connection between the cue ball striking the 8 ball (A), and the 8 ball moving (B). According to Hume, if we can't sense a necessary connection between the two events, than that connection does not exist in experience. All we see are two events A and B- we don't see a third event (C) or necessary connection.
"Hume doesn't really believe that the q ball is not causing the 8 ball to move. I take it that in practice that he would behave just as we all would. He would behave as though the q ball is what is causing the 8 ball to move" Yep, we all experience, know and in practice use causality. It's the only way to know how much to drink when out playing pool so as to have an enjoyable outing while keeping the chances of shooting straight enough to maintain some probability of sinking the 8 ball and winning the game. In times past ignorance of causality, such as the chemical alcohol and it's many physiological effects prevented more specific knowledge of causality, but it was always there whether known about or not, explainable or not ... association doesn't equal causality and that truth is probably what Hume is getting at, and it is true in many things but we now know about kinetic energy and conservation of momentum and can measure the loss of energy of the q ball and the increase in energy of the 8 including vectors of velocity etc i.e. the example certainly isn't that good these days when basic high school science teaches the underlying testable repeatable causality. I think Carroll Quigley summed up truly when he wrote "Thirty years ago, when I was reading the works of the great philosophers, they (with few exceptions) seemed to me surprisingly incompetent. Their writings were filled with undefined terms, with unstated assumptions, with egocentric attitudes, and with absolutes based on ethnocentric conceit. From dusty rooms, men like Kant pontificated on the structure of the human mind without ever taking time to examine how a person's mind develops as he grows up, or how minds in other periods or other societies were developed (and how they came to be constructed in the way they were)."
I don't think your high school physics example is a good counter argument since you are using laws of physics to deduce causality but these same laws aren't absolute but have actually been reasoned inductively. It's a circular argument. Hume's critique of causality comes directly out of problems with induction that it doesn't generate absolute knowledge but only builds confidence in our experience since we experience the same thing repeatedly. In your version causality is just another law of nature which you "prove" by assuming other laws of nature to exist. Hume's argument undermines the absolute certanity of the idea of a law of nature. Also just because your measurment of the path of the Q ball an the vector at which it hits the 8 ball is more accurate than simply observing and predicting the path doesn't add anything. Physics is merely labels we use to get around everyday life problems easily and can in no way be proven absolute, nor can be causality, which here acts merely as another law of nature.
I GUESS HE WAS TALKING ABOUT HOW PHILOSOPHICAL NECCESITY OF KNOWLEDGE, IN SCIENCE THAT NECCESITY IS PROBABLE BUT IN PHILOSOPHY IT IS SAID TO BE INVARIABLE. In science they can tell the reason and relation between cause and effect but that won't be invariable but probable.
@@Un-TedxTalks Hi Rahul Thanks for your reply. I'm not sure what you are referring to by *necessity of knowledge* in science and philosophy and how they are *probable* and *invariable* respectively. I would appreciate it if you give your clearest real world examples, from your own experience, to bring out what you mean. Cheers sincerely david
Where does Hume think our idea of God originates? A. Deduction from axioms of mathematics and logic. B. Reflection on the operations of our own minds. C. Inference from the appearance of order in the world. D. Imagination of the authors of religious scriptures. E. Testimony of people who witnessed miracles
Precisely. Here's the caveat though: QFT completely changes our understanding of causality, insofar as it indicates that there can exist "spontaneous" events. Now, given that a causeless event is possible, the strength of this idea is enhanced not reduced. Even though I agree with your statement that this idea is weak, I don't believe that the probabilistic nature of the universe is the correct way to show the weakness of the idea.
I think that was a nice wrap-up, thank you Doctor Neill.
Thank you for clarifying this!
Thanks for making your example simple and easy to understand =)
Thank you Jeremy, you might have saved my degree
Hey Jeremy, I was googling Hume on causality for my modern philosophy class at Santa Clara! It was great to see a fellow ND grad getting philosophy out there! nicely done!
That's so cool, Madeline! Thank you so much for the kind words! Good luck with your class at Santa Clara!
thank you
ANY THOUGHTS?....................1. Hume surrenders to the understanding that entities are distinct in what they are and by that, that which they are not. A square is distinctively that which it is for its characteristics (squareness) and that which it is not, possessing no characteristics of a circle (circleness).
2. That an entity can be that which it is distinctively and not other things is due to its “distinctive” physical characteristics or physicality. E.g., the billiard ball in his analogous refutation of the deterministic nature of cause and effect is distinctively just that, a billiard ball and not an apple or beach ball or the like.
3. He thus, by definition, accepted that entities are that which they are by the assertion of their form and function (characteristics) into materiality (quantum mechanics validates this unequivocally). Were this not so, he could not have appealed to them that they would be employed in his propositions.
4. He also, by definition, accepted that entities are material, i.e., physical, defined by their physical characteristics (a ball is round and not square, etc.) or they could not be considered at all and could not be participants in his propositions. That he specifically chose billiard balls for the players in his analogy demonstrates his acceptance of this (above) as a recognition.
5. By this he submitted to the understanding that motion for being intangible, could NOT be a characteristic of the billiard ball which is moving but a phenomenon in the context of consideration, it moving toward a stationary billiard ball that it might cause it to move when struck. Motion of the billiard ball in this context is only a phenomenon of concern with the billiard balls physicality or characteristics.
6. Given the above, we know analytically that the motion of the billiard ball had to have been imparted to it by the force of another entity of which it was concerned when it struck the billiard ball.
7. Thus, by that same means by which the motion of the billiard ball was imparted to it by a prior entity also effected by motion, it would be imparted to the stationary billiard ball by the moving billiard ball.
8. We are able then to induce that the stationary billiard ball would in fact move if struck by the first because of the nature of motion as opposed to that of the physicality of the billiard balls for we know analytically that motion cannot be a part or characteristic of the physicality of the billiard balls but only an imparted phenomenon. So if it was imparted to the first billiard ball by it being struck, so too would it be imparted to the second when being struck.
We can't observe with our senses a necessary connection between the cue ball striking the 8 ball (A), and the 8 ball moving (B). According to Hume, if we can't sense a necessary connection between the two events, than that connection does not exist in experience. All we see are two events A and B- we don't see a third event (C) or necessary connection.
"Hume doesn't really believe that the q ball is not causing the 8 ball to move. I take it that in practice that he would behave just as we all would. He would behave as though the q ball is what is causing the 8 ball to move" Yep, we all experience, know and in practice use causality. It's the only way to know how much to drink when out playing pool so as to have an enjoyable outing while keeping the chances of shooting straight enough to maintain some probability of sinking the 8 ball and winning the game. In times past ignorance of causality, such as the chemical alcohol and it's many physiological effects prevented more specific knowledge of causality, but it was always there whether known about or not, explainable or not ... association doesn't equal causality and that truth is probably what Hume is getting at, and it is true in many things but we now know about kinetic energy and conservation of momentum and can measure the loss of energy of the q ball and the increase in energy of the 8 including vectors of velocity etc i.e. the example certainly isn't that good these days when basic high school science teaches the underlying testable repeatable causality.
I think Carroll Quigley summed up truly when he wrote "Thirty years ago, when I was reading the works of the great philosophers, they (with few exceptions)
seemed to me surprisingly incompetent. Their writings were filled with undefined terms, with unstated assumptions, with egocentric attitudes, and with absolutes based on ethnocentric conceit. From dusty rooms, men like Kant pontificated on the structure of the human mind without ever taking time to examine how a person's mind develops as he grows up, or how minds in other periods or other societies were developed (and how they came to be constructed in the way they were)."
I don't think your high school physics example is a good counter argument since you are using laws of physics to deduce causality but these same laws aren't absolute but have actually been reasoned inductively. It's a circular argument. Hume's critique of causality comes directly out of problems with induction that it doesn't generate absolute knowledge but only builds confidence in our experience since we experience the same thing repeatedly. In your version causality is just another law of nature which you "prove" by assuming other laws of nature to exist. Hume's argument undermines the absolute certanity of the idea of a law of nature. Also just because your measurment of the path of the Q ball an the vector at which it hits the 8 ball is more accurate than simply observing and predicting the path doesn't add anything. Physics is merely labels we use to get around everyday life problems easily and can in no way be proven absolute, nor can be causality, which here acts merely as another law of nature.
I GUESS HE WAS TALKING ABOUT HOW PHILOSOPHICAL NECCESITY OF KNOWLEDGE, IN SCIENCE THAT NECCESITY IS PROBABLE BUT IN PHILOSOPHY IT IS SAID TO BE INVARIABLE. In science they can tell the reason and relation between cause and effect but that won't be invariable but probable.
@@Un-TedxTalks
Hi Rahul
Thanks for your reply.
I'm not sure what you are referring to by *necessity of knowledge* in science and philosophy and how they are *probable* and *invariable* respectively.
I would appreciate it if you give your clearest real world examples, from your own experience, to bring out what you mean.
Cheers
sincerely
david
"based on ethnocentric conceit" opinion discarded.
Where does Hume think our idea of God originates? A. Deduction from axioms of mathematics and logic. B. Reflection on the operations of our own minds. C. Inference from the appearance of order in the world. D. Imagination of the authors of religious scriptures. E. Testimony of people who witnessed miracles
Is it because we cant empirically observe "causation" ?
Yes, exactly. All we see are events contiguous in time and space firing off without any rational reason to believe that one causes the other.
This idea is weak. No reasonable person actually believes in 'certainty'. Everything in the universe is probabilistic.
Aaron and what's your justification for that?
Quantum physics.
Precisely. Here's the caveat though: QFT completely changes our understanding of causality, insofar as it indicates that there can exist "spontaneous" events. Now, given that a causeless event is possible, the strength of this idea is enhanced not reduced. Even though I agree with your statement that this idea is weak, I don't believe that the probabilistic nature of the universe is the correct way to show the weakness of the idea.
You should read more about Kant's metaphysics, and his opposition to Hume's ideas of causality. I believe that you would find it very enticing.
How does the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle enhance the idea certainty is possible?