Why, as opposed to not being determinate at all. Have a read of the Geiger-counter/bomb example in the article. Why should the only two options be determination-by-something (soul, matter, whatever) or bare randomness? What of acting for a reason?
“Determinate” is a brand new word. I understand that it seems etymologically closed to the word “determined” that you used in the previous quote, but there are drastically different assumptions being struggled it.
When you ask, “what determined that that event would happen rather than something else?” that question doesn’t imply a determinATE answer. The answer could be in some way indeterimnate.
If you observe one event happen, and you use your imagination to think of another thing that seems like it could have happened in that circumstance instead, “why did this event happen and not that one?” is a pretty natural question to ask. “What determined that that event happened rather than the other one?” is just another phrasing of the same question, and it doesn’t imply determinism.
So I disagree with you taking my question and smuggling in assumptions. The leap from the question of what determined an event or action, and assuming that means the answer must be determinATE, just doesn’t really make sense to me.
So, without smuggling in that assumption with similar-sounding words, can you answer the question? As opposed to what? You said the notion of our actions being determined by our physiology suffer - if they’re suffering, some other notions must be gaining ground in exchange. What are those other notions?
The problem is logical necessity. Or, facts are contingent, meaning that they could be otherwise, even if, in reality some never are. As long as you can coherently conceive of it not being the case, without a contradiction, then there is no logical link between the purported cause and effect. So while it may turn out that some things are truly constantly conjoined, they are still not necessary. Probability is better for this reason, more than change being assured. It is just the lack of logical connection, or contradiction in effects not following proposed causes.
In my view, causality doesn’t disappear with closer examination, but rather becomes even more defined. Initially, we viewed cause as a point with an arrow pointing to a uniquely determined future. Today, we view cause as a point from which statistically determined probabilities radiate like a fan. But causality remains the same point—strictly defined by any retrospective view. Causality doesn’t disappear, no matter how closely we study it, so the principle of causality remains the fundamental principle of the universe.
Some events are caused yet undetermined (determined being a variant on determinate). Those used in the article include Feynman’s bomb/Geiger counter and the Galton board. There are other examples. The difference is set out clearly by anscombe as
…a thing hasn’t been caused until it has happened; but it may be determined before it happens.
Interesting article, thanks for making it available. I appreciate Anscombe’s insistence that “cause” and “causality” have many meanings and applications.
Turning to her overall argument, I have a question which may appear minor but I find that it’s affecting my understanding of what she’s saying about determinism in science. Anscombe places great weight on the “Feynman bomb” thought-experiment. In describing it, she says that the geiger counter “is so placed near some radioactive substance that it may or may not register that reading.”
Could you – or anyone – explain this? What would such a placement involve? Sorry, I’m not up on how geiger counters work.
Yes, cause cannot always be set out in terms of necessity. The article names Hume as the source of the rejection of necessity, but notes that Hume himself immediately reinstated it as “an instance of some exceptionless generalization”. Kant understood causation as an a priori conception, as conformity to a rule. And so on. Anscombe shows that causality and determination are different notions.
Probability describes populations, not an individual case. In the case of the Coca-Cola mosaic, no causal account is given in terms of probabilities; no account of why the words “Coca-Cola” happen to appear in this instance can be given. The point being that while a probabilistic law tells you the frequency across a population of trials, it says nothing about what caused this token event. The point being made is hypothetical: that if the box happened, we’d be forgiven for looking for some cause, perhaps a hidden mechanism, where there might not be one.
So probability goes part way to helping us here. But there is more to causality.
Is that causality, or is it, rather, determinism? Anscombe shows that causality need not be “strictly defined by any retrospective view”. Have a read.
Some read Hume as suggesting that there is no causal efficacy whatsoever, or no real difference between correlation and causation. I don’t. I think it is a reaction specifically to rationalism, and determinism as logical necessity in nature. That is the only kind I too care to disavow. So anything in the way of attempts to establish causal efficacy in various forms besides is of far less concern to me.
Anscombe is using a fairly standard account that has many variations. It’s not dissimilar to Schrödinger’s cat, except that the consequence is somewhat more disturbing. The AI search found reference in the electron two-slit lecture (The Character of Physical Law, ch. 6), where Feynman’s own bomb example runs through a photocell and a single electron’s path rather than a Geiger counter and radioactive decay. That might be technically preferable.
Imagine a two-slit experiment in which one detector is connected to a bomb, such that if the electron enters that detector the bomb explodes. Fire a single electron into the apparatus. The bomb has a 50-50 chance of exploding.
The Galton Box provides much the same point in a classical context; the rejection of determinism in this article is not reliant on Quantum effects. Place a switch connected to a bomb at the bottom of every second pipe in a Galton box, and drop a single ball. The chance of the bomb exploding is 50-50.
In both cases, the bomb exploding is caused, but not necessitated.
Right, so I was trying to get a fix on whether the geiger-bomb indeterminacy was quantum-level or macro-level. I was wondering: Could the counter be kinda near something radioactive but not very near, or . . . ? I dunno. But clearly no, it’s a quantum-level example, where the indeterminacy is fundamental.
So, about the Galton Box then. Again, excuse me if this is a dull question, but isn’t any given ball’s path determined, regardless of what the overall probability is over many drops? If we could (impossibly) know all we needed to know about the ball’s velocity and trajectory, the minute irregularities it will encounter as it drops, etc., we’d know which pipe the ball would enter. No? If we had all that information before the ball was dropped, the odds would no longer be 50/50, but 100% certain. Whether that counts as “necessitated” is arguable, but it surely isn’t indeterminate.
Just so. One additional assumption is that we have perfect knowledge. Another is that the Newtonian laws provide only one answer in any given situation, which we know is not so, from the Dome - there are situations where even with perfect knowledge, the outcome is not fixed.
Another aspect concerns the error calculations one learns to do in the very first physics classes - measuring the pencil to 9.2 ± 0.1cm. That error prevents a deterministic outcome.
Indeterminacy is not restricted to quantum effects. It is present in classical physics.
I wrote “initially.” Today, no one views it that way.
Here’s another paper for those with a scientific disposition, from a more scientific perspective: Causation as folk science
…the concepts of cause and effect are not the fundamental concepts of our science and that science is not governed by a law or principle of causality
A longer paper, but with the same analytic strategy of dismantling one by one the posited accounts of causality; however, the conclusion here is stronger than Anscombe’s. Anscombe accepts causation but rejects determinism, while this paper removes causal accounts as central to science.
I’m pretty sympathetic to it.
And again, note the consequence for so very many of the folk philosophy discussions on these fora.
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No one views what, in what way? Every second thread here makes the assumption of determinism, from discussions of free will, through ethics and consciousness, to proving there is a god, the idea permeates our discussions; and it may be mistaken.
Every event in this world has a cause that led to it. A completely clear and definite cause. That’s our world. If we look at the future consequences of a given event, everything depends on scale. In the microworld, the consequence of a given phenomenon is blurred and represented by a wave function. If we zoom out and look at complex objects consisting of interacting elementary particles, the probability of the consequence becomes increasingly easier to calculate. These are facts established by science; I merely stated them, without drawing any conclusions other than that causality in one form or another exists and is real.
How could you possible know that?
And also, how could anyone possible disprove that?
You can’t have viewed every possible event and determined its cause. And if you view an event and cannot find its cause, you cannot conclude that there is none.
Your supposition is both unprovable and undisprovable.
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These are the conclusions human knowledge has reached to this point. We emerged knowing nothing about this world, and as we gain knowledge, we draw conclusions. This is the logical conclusion from observations to date. Since we know no other truth, and in principle, no other can be known, we accept this as the truth. As a probable truth, of course.
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Read the Folk science PDF. Science has matured out of the old metaphysics that once dominated the way it was done. Another piece of evidence for the science-philosophy split.
I’m a bit lost here as I’m going over my notes in statistics and it has an entire chapter on causal relationships.
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Philosophy has simply developed specific practical areas, and the problem is that those who specialize in these narrow fields have lost the opportunity to gain comprehensive knowledge from both other fields and the original source. Our brains and lives are too limited for this. Therefore, the only solution is to exchange opinions on achievements and conclusions.
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