OK. Right. And this is lecture four in lecture three.
We looked at a new interpretation of Hume as a sceptical realist.
We looked at singulars theories of causation, which insists the causation is a force or a power or a necessary connexion.
We looked at Strauss' argument for the new interpretation. We looked at an ambiguity in the new interpretation,
whether it should be empirical in the sense of real essence or in the sense of a fault functional definition.
And we clarified the new interpretation. So I.
I suggested that it couldn't be real essence and that it would be functional definition.
But we're going to have another look at that.
So in this lecture, we're going to have a recap on last week because I realised that two weeks is a very long time to remember anything.
So we're going to have a quick look at Strauss' Hume. We're going to have a quick look at singulars theories of causation.
And we're going to have a quick look at Strauss' arguments for the singulars theory offered for the new interpretation of Hume.
And then we're going to have a look at types of singler this theory. So types of empirical analysis of causation.
We're going to have a look at problems for such analysis.
And we're going to consider how philosophical analysis and philosophers work with empirical analysis and with scientists,
because it's a reasonable question to say, well, if if causation is going to be discovered by science, then then what job do philosophers have?
I mean, philosophers have any role in the discovery of the nature of causation.
And finally, we're going to end with a summary of where we are, because this is the last week I'm going to look at theories of causation.
Next week, I'm going to look at causation time and the last week.
I'm going to look at mental causation. So mental states causing actions and so on.
Okay, so let's have a look at Straus and Hume.
Straus says that Hume doesn't reduce causation to regularities.
The knee jerk or traditional interpretation of Hume says that Hume does do that.
But Straus says that he doesn't reduce causation to regularities, even those that give rise to counterfactual dependencies.
In other words, lawful regularities are not where it's at for Stauss or Strauss' Hume.
Instead, he's a sceptical realist. He's a realist about causation.
So Strauss' Hume does say that we can't know anything about necessary connexion.
So if you remember, he says that you cannot tell empirically whether something's necessary or not.
So he's sceptical about knowing anything about a necessary connexion.
But he doesn't say, according to Strauss', that there is no necessary connexion.
He's not an anti realist when it comes to causation. So this is Strauss' Hume.
So Straus Intune, the idea that he's sceptical about necessary connexion,
but that he admits the possibility of a necessary connexion introduces the possibility of a
scientific account of causation and empirical rather than a philosophical account of causation.
So let's have a look at what that would be, an empirical or singular arrest account.
Causation would say that singular causal relations are more fundamental and causal regularities.
So if you remember, we looked at humans billiard balls.
So one billiard ball hits, another billiard ball and the other billiard ball runs off.
But Hume says there's no causation in that.
There's only causation when we see a regularity of billiard balls hitting other billiard balls in the first billiard ball running off.
So for Hume, regularities are more fundamental than the causal relation.
So something we can talk about singular causes only because we can talk about regularities.
But with Strauss' Hume, we can talk about causation in the single case and they're more fundamental than regularities.
So there's causation in the individual case. It's an intrinsic, not an extrinsic relation.
So if we see the billiard ball hitting the other billiard ball thought pots and pans somewhere.
Hume would say you have to see several of these in order to see causation.
But the singular is says this causation there already. Not that we have to wait and see lots of different cases.
Now, some singler is think that we can observe causation in the individual case.
Now, Hume denies that one. And so Anscombe, for example, says that as we're slicing through the loof with our knife,
we can feel that the knife is causing the bread or the pushing of the knife is causing the bread to to be cut.
And Armstrong thinks that we are aware of causation when we act on the world or indeed when the world acts on us.
We're aware of causation. We observe the causation in the single case.
But other singular ists agree with Hume that regularities are needed,
but they're needed as evidence for causation and they're not needed for causation to exist.
They just needed as evidence for the singular relation that is causation.
And some single arist accept the mill.
Ramsey Lewis account of laws, which, if you remember, was nothing more than laws,
are those regularities that feature in our best, i.e. our strongest and simplest theories of the world.
But others offer a metaphysically robust account of laws.
So Armstrong, for example, believes that laws are real.
No make necessities that hold between universals.
So a universal is a is a property like redness. So it's not an individual instance of red light.
My dress is red. It's redness. The universal that my dress partakes in.
If you're a Plato so you can have a metaphysically robust account of laws together with a metaphysically robust account of causation.
Or you can have a metaphysically robust account of causation, but accept the austere account of laws.
But the important thing about the singular IST is that it allows causation in the individual case.
It's an intrinsic relation. It's not a relation that comes from other things in the world.
So just recap on an intrinsic relation.
Any intrinsic relations is a rent relation or property of mine is a property that I have, whether anything else exists or not.
And it's a property that I have in myself. Whereas an extrinsic relation, somebody else must exist.
So I can't be a daughter unless there's a mother or a father or mother under father.
So that's an extrinsic relation. Being five foot six, I'd be that even if the rest of you were to completely disappear.
So causation is there, whether there's anything else or not in the individual case.
Okay, so that's the nature of an empirical or single arrest account of causation.
Now let's have a look at some particular examples of empirical accounts of causation.
Incidentally, I should just say, before we look at these, that as their empirical accounts causation,
the most philosophers can do is gesture them to say what they might be.
Obviously, science, who would establish that these are indeed cases of causation.
So nobody's saying that these philosophers are what they're doing is suggesting that these are hypotheses as to what the causal relation might be.
So fair thinks that it's energy or momentum transfer.
So when A causes B, there is a transfer of energy or transfer of momentum between A and B,
and his coach thinks that the cause event and the effective vent are both composed of particles and that when you have a causal relation between them,
you've got an exchange of field's quanta between these particles.
Someone thinks that when A causes B, a mark of some kind is transmitted from A to B.
So there's got to be some structural alteration in B that is a result of a Kistler thinks it's the transfer of a property.
So a transfer is a property to be if A is the cause of B dowl, think it's a world line of objects exhibiting physical persistence.
So I understand that the world line of objects is is a point in space to all line of a point in space time.
The physicists amongst this here can tell me whether I'm right or wrong. But there's physical persistence of some kind.
Between cause and effect and Armstrong. Thinks it's real.
No McInnis recitation that there's a relation of necessitate ition, but empirical resuscitation, it's of contingent relation between cause and effect.
OK. So those are types of Cingular esque theories of causation.
All right. And common to all these. I thought this whole slide was going to change, but.
Okay. Common to all these counts. Is that causation is a physical process transmitted from cause to effect.
And the job of science is to find out what that physical process is.
Okay, so Straughan, where we're looking now, so we've had a quick look at Strauss' interpretation of Hume.
We've had a quick look at what sort of account this would give us some examples of this type of count.
And now we're looking at Strauss' argument for these accounts of causation.
So firstly,
he thinks they hold the promise of solving the problems faced by the regularity theory of causation and the counterfactual theory of causation.
So if you remember one, there was we had Lucy threw a brick and it went through a window and Brian threw a
brick and but it sailed through window that had already been broken by Lucy's brick.
But it did so,
so quickly afterwards that actually it's problematic for RTC and CTC to say what it is that makes Lucy's brick the cause are not Bryans brick.
Well, the singulars theory of causation has no problem with that.
It just says that while there's a physical process that holds between the throwing of Lucy's brick and the shattering window,
and there isn't one between broughton's brick and the shattering of the window. End of story is easy.
And you can see why once you postulate a real physical process linking cause and effect,
you can see that you don't have problems with the fact that there are cases of causation without counterfactual dependency and stauss,
and also believes that the empirical counts of causation avoids the absurdity of it,
insisting that nothing explains the regularities we observe or the counterfactual different dependencies that we postulate.
So the thing about I remember being an undergraduate and first first understanding, or at least I didn't think I understood.
I thought I didn't understand Hume's theory because it seemed to me.
Just doffed, you know, how do you think that there's no more to causation than regularity?
Surely the regularity must have an explanation.
So I have quite a lot of sympathy with the idea that there's an absurdity involved in saying that there's nothing more,
that the regularities are nothing more than a brute fact about our world, that there isn't anything that explains them further.
So those are Strauss' two arguments for the singular theory of causation.
But of course, what he's doing is making a philosophical case for the existence of a scientific theory.
He's not trying to put forward a scientific theory because, of course, that's what scientists do.
Okay, so there are two questions we ought to ask about this theory.
Firstly, how likely is it that an empirical analysis of causation will tell us what we want to know, which is about the nature of causation?
So if you remember, we're here and these lectures because we want to know what's causation is.
We've seen how important causation is for prediction and explanation of manipulation.
We'd like to know what it is we've seen. We've had problems with philosophical accounts, causations the heart RTC in CTC.
But how likely is it that that science will come up with an analysis of causation?
And secondly, we'd like to know, well, if they're successful, if science does come up with a philosophical analysis.
Does that mean that philosophers have no role to play? Does this is this.
Have we shown, in effect, that this is another area where philosophers must just bowed to science and hold back?
Okay, so let's have a look at problems for the singular IST theory of causation.
And I'm going to look at several first the I'm going to look at all their
physical processes that are both necessary and sufficient for causal relations.
See, we're still playing the philosophical game there a bit. But I'll say more about that in a minute.
I'm going to ask what the relation is between the concept of causation in science and the concept of causation used by the folk, i.e. us.
I'm going to look at whether there could be empirical evidence for nomic necessities.
So Armstrong claims that causation is nomic necessity.
So if that's put forward as an empirical theory, which it is, then there must be empirical evidence for it.
I want to have a look at what that evidence might be.
And we've got to be able to say, I mean, if we've got all these candidate hypotheses for a physical account of causation,
then clearly we need to be able to to say something about how we decide between them.
How would we decide which empirical analysis of causation is correct?
And finally, I suggested last week that if we think of causation as a functional concept,
then we've got to look first at identifying the functional role of causation.
Okay. So I'm going to look at each of these in turn. Okay.
So. Oh, right. Hang on.
So I'm going to look at the first one first and I. This is a sort of last gasp of the philosophical account,
because what what the philosophers have been thinking over the last couple of
weeks is that the analysis of causation is a question of an a priori a problem.
In other words, we can analysis that analyse it from our armchair. We don't have to get up and do any science.
All we have to do is to decide what are the conditions necessary and the conditions sufficient for the application of this concept.
And so the first objection, if you like, to singular theories of causation, is if you like, a last gasp of that a priori I analysis.
So some people suggest that physical processes can't be sufficient for causation.
So, for example,
Pam throws her brick through the well window while Tom watches in dismay or sprays purple paint in the air through which Pams brick passes.
So neither Tom's watching nor whose paint space spraying calls the window shattering.
But both of them are physical processes. So clearly, just being a physical process can't be sufficient for causation.
This is a sort of yourn argument that I think discredits philosophy.
I mean, who's saying that any physical process will do it?
Nobody is. But I put this in just just to show you how it it fits in.
So if you're still engaging in the a priori eye analysis and you still believe that
therefore the concept of causation has necessary and sufficient conditions for application,
then you're going to apply this to the empirical counts.
And. It's certainly true, isn't it, that if we take Fair's claim,
we've got what fare's claim was but energy or momentum transfer, if there's energy or momentum transfer and no causation?
That would be a black mark. Wouldn't there. Get it, wouldn't it, against energy transfer?
But it doesn't seem to be a particular black mark against these theories because nobody's postulated these theories in the first place.
OK. So if we're going to talk about misconnection, we have to be looking at one of the theories.
This has been actually postulated. Okay.
Disconnection cases, on the other hand, suggests that no physical processes necessary for causation.
Now, I have to admit, I don't understand this. So I've put it in the hope that somebody can explain it to me.
But the suggestion here is that there's a case of causation here.
But there's no physical connexion between cause and effect.
So if I remember right there, I was going to look this up before I came and I forgot.
The catch is locked up. And when Pam releases it, this launch is the catapult and the window shatters.
But there's no physical process between some Pams releasing the catapults, which is already cocked and the window shattering.
Okay. Does anyone understand that? I disagree with it.
I guess a physical process. Well, I can't see that there isn't.
You haven't. You haven't described everything the catapult launches, that is.
It goes into motion. It transfers energy. And I say to the brake, the brake flies through the air.
It hits the window. The window shatters. Yes. But there's a complete leakage of events.
Yes, but between Pams releasing, I think the claim is between Pams releasing the catch and the window shattering.
You have to reach for a counterfactual, don't you? Had she not released the catch, the window would not have shattered.
And the thought is that there is no physical threat.
Anyway, I'm going to leave that with you. All I want to point out is it's certainly true, isn't it, that if this is a case of causation,
without a case of energy or momentum transfer or something like that, then it looks as if this this empirical account isn't good.
So we can save as far as we're concerned here. We may disagree with the actual examples given, but there is a point to asking the question.
They're very exercised that there is a need to meet.
Oh, it's got to be more than that, because if it was intermediate, we'd still have a causal chain, wouldn't we?
Well, where you'll find that, I mean, all the references are, as usual on the handouts and you'll be able to find that and look at it yourself.
I can't explain it further because I don't understand it myself. Like Sean, I think why isn't there a physical connexion?
Don't understand this. But anyway, so if we're still playing the game, if necessary, insufficient conditions,
if we're still engaged in conceptual analysis, then we do have problems for certain physical processes.
But I thought there was another. Slide here, but there obviously isn't.
So let's. Okay. Necessar insufficient conditions.
There are different analysis of concepts.
I mean, the classical structure of a concept is that to be able to have a concept is to have a set of conditions necessary,
insufficient for its application.
And that's why conceptual analysis involves trying to find the conditions necessary, insufficient for the application.
But in later years, we will in more recent years, we've started to think, well, actually, not all concepts are classical concepts.
Not all concepts have the structure of having necessary, insufficient conditions.
For example, Vic Einstein points out that some concepts, the concept of a game, for example, are family resemblance concepts.
So chess is a game and so's tennis.
Well, can we think of a set of applications that are both necessary and sufficient for bringing both chess and tennis and Candy Crush and,
you know, think of whatever game you like into the category of games.
And if you starting to look for conditions that are necessary and sufficient for the application of the concept game,
and you're going to have serious trouble.
And so what Vic Stein suggests is that when you see members of the family say that everyone on the front, the front two rows or three rows,
this is a member of the same family and you don't look like you,
but you use similar noses or something and you've got similar eyes and you've got similar height or gestures or something like that.
And there's an overlapping of resemblances in a family.
And maybe a concept is more like that. Or maybe a concept is more like a prototype.
So we say that's water. And so there's a hidden indexical component, as there is with the real essence of water.
Well, if causation is a concept like that, we can see why there might be an empirical analysis,
but not an analysis in terms of necessary and sufficient conditions.
So for the necessary and sufficient condition analysis that we've been using so far to work,
the concept of causation has got to be a classical concept and.
We could have objected at any point in the first two weeks that actually causation isn't a classical concept.
It's one of these other concepts.
OK, let's ask about the relation between the concept of causation in science and the concept of causation of the folk.
Okay. If science is going to be looking for causation. One thing we might want to ask are are interested in the nature of causation that the folk use.
We're interested in the fact that we use causation to predict things, to explain things, to manipulate things.
You know, we say that it was a it was an ISIS bomb that brought down the Russian plane that caused the Russian plane to explode, etc.
So it's that sort of causation. And if we're going to have a scientific analysis of causation,
what we'd like is the scientific concept to be at least related to this, the concept that the folk hues.
Well, that's okay. Says so. Okay. Is the scientific concept of colonisation the same as the folk concept of science?
So DOWL, for example, who is one of the people whose candidate empirical analysis we looked at earlier says,
well, yes, science doesn't use the concept, of course, playfully.
You know, it's not using it in jest, nor does it offer a technical definition of causation.
So the concept, of course, in science is the same as the concept of cause that the folk use.
Okay, maybe. But we might also think that the science improves on the everyday concept of causation, might we not?
And the other thing we might ask is which science should we look to for an empirical analysis of causation?
And there are many different sciences. There's evolutionary biology. This chemistry.
There's there's nanotechnology. There's there's physics.
Which one should we look to? And most people think, I don't know.
Most people seem to think that it's physics we should look to for an analysis of causation.
So whereas evolutionary biology, for example, certainly talks about cause and so does chemistry,
it's on it's physics that that we think is going to give us the concept of causation,
at least judging by the people who've offered possible candidates.
But there's a problem with this. One is, does physics even have a concept of causation?
So, for example, the laws of physics that are used to do things like get rockets to the moon,
etc., and usually take the form differential equations and differential equations.
Talk about a property of one object depending.
Or a value of one variable having a value that's dependent on the value of another variable or other variables simultaneously rather than beforehand.
So the concept of causation implicit in physics is time reversible.
So the laws of nature used by physics are talking about simultaneous causation.
If they're talking about causation at all. Whereas surely the the folk concept of causation has the cause coming before the effect.
And if you remember the human right that into the definition of cause.
So if the folk causation, the cause and concept of the folk is time irreversible and the causal concept of physics,
is time reversible, then why should we think that the same concept at all?
And similarly, the equations of physics are symmetrical.
So we think that if if A causes B, then B also causes A again,
because of the reversibility of the equations, you can see that I'm talking beyond my real knowledge here.
But we certainly don't think that with the folk theory, of course, with folk theory,
of course, causes come before effects and effects are the effect of causes.
It's it's asymmetrical, not symmetrical. So we've got these two problems.
If we're going to use physics for our analysis of causation, then physics must have a concept of cause,
because otherwise what we're looking at and secondly, the concept of causation implicit in physics.
If it's going to tell us, I mean, it might tell us something very interesting about the physical concept of cause.
But if it's going to tell us anything about the folk concept, of course, then we've got a story to tell about reversibility and symmetry.
So, OK. So I've looked at the first two questions, the could that be necessary, insufficient conditions?
Moving on to the nomic necessity nation of Armstrong.
Okay. Oh. That's right.
OK. Armstrong claims that causal relations are contingent relations of nomic necessity between universals.
All this seems to permit two things would really like it to permit.
One is the multiple physical realisation of causation, a strength of the functional theory that we examined last week.
So do you remember when we looked at real lessons? We saw that the implication of the real essence theory was that water is H2O.
Scientists discovered that water is H2O. This is it.
So the claim water is H2O is an a posterior or a necessity.
Okay, it's a posterior eye because science had to discover it.
But it's necessary because if we travelled to another world in which this there's something that looks,
tastes and feels and behaves like water, but isn't H2O, it isn't water.
And that seems to be a problem for the case of causation,
because we felt quite strongly that there could be different types of causation in different worlds.
Well, if Armstrong is right, we can allow that because instead of being in a posterior or necessity, what we would have is a contingent necessity.
So an idea of an APUS is something we can discover that isn't necessary across different worlds.
So multiple physical realisation of causation, but also we can say that causation is the same thing in every possible world.
So, for example, in this world,
we discover that underpinning the regularities that we observe and that we take to be evidence for for causation are fields, Quanta say.
But then we travelled to another world and we find that underlying the regularities that seem to be causal, we find there's an exchange of momentum.
Okay, so. So but here we can say if we insist on the real essence accounts of causation,
that causation isn't science discovers an ape or posterior or a necessity.
If there fields quanta in this world, they would have to be fields' quanta in every world.
And therefore, the exchange of momentum in this other possible world isn't causation.
But Armstrong says, well, yes, it can be, because what's important is not what the realising relation is, but whether there is no McNiece recitation.
Do you see? He seems to allow us to have both things.
And if he does, this would be really nice.
Because, for example, we find it very difficult to if we went to Twin Earth and found something that looked exactly like water,
behaved exactly like water, etc., we would be tempted to call it H2O, wouldn't we?
But we couldn't call it H2O because science would have shown that it is not.
H2O behaves exactly like water.
No, it's not a. Ah, yes.
We'd have to say at a macro level, it behaved exactly like water because it couldn't behave exactly like water if it was not H2O at a micro level.
This is a thought experiment, not a real experiment. We are allowed to do that.
Okay. Well, no, that it would be perfectly reasonable.
It would look exactly like water and taste, exactly like water.
And it would flow downhills and it would come from the sky. And you would die.
Yes. And you would die without it. Perhaps because of the water.
Your biochemistry of your body depends on it. Yeah. Okay.
I'm not I'm not going to get involved in that sort of discussion. Okay.
Well, again, as we saw last week, the scientist. Well, okay.
I'm going to repeat myself here.
The scientific discovery, the real essence of water means that anything with a molecular structure other than H2O is not water, however much.
And this is where Mike disagrees with me. If it looks, tastes and behaves like water, says Mike, it would be H2O.
And I'm saying, if it isn't H2O, it's not water. So I'm saying a slightly different thing from Mike.
But Mike is disagreeing with this final clause in my sentence.
He's a killer. Yes. Okay. Not even the final clause.
The final bit of the final clause. Okay. And on the real essence story, science discovers in a or a necessity on Armstrong.
Sorry. Science discovers only contingent relations of nomic necessity.
Now, I have a bit of a problem with that.
But suppose science discovers that the regularity in this world realised by exchanges of fields quanta, as his coach says.
And suppose we travelled to another possible world and discovered that the regularities there are realised by transfers of energy.
Okay, as Dao says, to say that the regularities in this other world are causal,
we'd have to know that they were realised by nomic necessities as well as energy transfers, wouldn't we?
Because if there aren't any nomic necessities there, then there isn't any causation, is there?
There just there's just regularity. Can I.
Okay, listen. I'd like to get the argument out and then you can disagree with me.
Is that all right? But it's very difficult to get an argument out when somebody is disagreeing as I'm giving it.
Okay. So. OK.
The first thing it's very easy, is it not? We can imagine that the irregularities in this world have realised by exchanges, fields, quanta.
And then we can also imagine this other possibility.
We travel to another worlds and discover they're the regularities are realised by transfers of energy.
But what Armstrong is saying is that causation is not fields quanta and it's not transfers of energy.
It's no mcnish frosty relations of real nomic necessity.
That's why we can say that both of these are cases of causation, even though they're not the same thing.
Okay, that's that's this apparent strength of Armstrong's theory.
But to say that the realised the regularities in the other worlds are causal.
OK. So we're assuming that this causation in this world and science has discovered that it's realised by changes of fields quanta in the next world.
We see that there are regularities. Okay. That were they happening on this world would say they were causal.
And we discovered those are realised by transfers of energy.
OK, now to agree with Armstrong that they're both causation.
We'd have to say that. We know that the regularities in this world are causal by definition.
But all the regularities in that world causal. Well, if to be causal on on Armstrong's idea that have to be no societies.
Well, OK. So how do we tell that then nomic necessities?
I mean, how could we know this? How could we possibly know this?
We know that there are regularities, but we don't know that they're necessary regularities.
We don't we can't see empirically that there's a Moodle truth here.
So the two hypotheses are empirically equivalent. So every causal sees a sequence instantiates, and no, McNiece is necessity.
That's Armstrong's hypothesis. And every cause and sequence instantiates as an exception.
Life exceptionals enough to allow for probability regularity, i.e. the human theory.
Well, if those two are impaired, empirically equivalent, then Hume is right, isn't he?
We can't say there's nothing empirical that could tell us that there was a necessity here.
OK, Mike, I'm afraid you've you. Everyone's looking very askance at this.
Okay. I'm just thinking about how to because now we've introduced the idea that we don't like this one.
Should we discuss it now or should we discuss it later? Let's discuss each one now, so let's let's go back.
OK, let's have a look. Did you understand what I was saying when I said.
OK. One problem, the STC would be this.
Let's say causation is.
Energy transfer. One is energy, woops, causation and new energy transfer.
Two, is this energy chance for a new causation?
Okay, so if you're if you're postulating the claim that causation is energy transfer.
Okay, we're picking one of the candidate Estess. We're saying, okay, let's let's assume that one's Kret.
If we find that there's causation and no energy transfer, that would be a bad mark for that theory, would it not?
Yes. OK. And if we find energy transfer, but no causation, that would again be a black mark for it.
Would it not? OK, now we could say here that that this is going to be a probabilistic theory.
So we could allow some cases of causation without energy transfer, some cases.
But if there are too many, it's just going to be. Not Runnable, isn't it?
Where are you going to disagree with causations? Energy transfer, energy transfer causation.
You can have energy production of energy transfer if they're the same thing.
Yeah, but that is causation requires energy transfer.
Energy transfer does not like causation because there might be other purposes for transfer.
Okay. I've put an identity here, and it's certainly true that we could say that there are energy transfers and other things so that that's it.
If you're going to say it's identical to, then that would also be a black mark room and not proven yet.
Okay. So if we take out the if we say reduces to, that becomes much less of a black mark.
Yeah. Except that those black market. Yeah. Do you do you see the thought there.
So if you're saying that causation either is so is identical to it's the very same
thing as energy transfer or you're saying causation reduces to energy transfer,
then in the first case, if you find causation and no energy transfer, it's got to be false.
But if you find energy transfer, no causation, there is a possibility that energy transfer is one form of causation, but that there are other forms.
So that wouldn't be such a black mark, but you'd have to allow the possibility of there being other forms.
Okay, everyone understand why that would be a problem for causation,
even though the two examples that we gave were actually neither of them very convincing.
Okay. Do you accept that one?
But my question, I'll be supposing you found they were absolutely equivalent in the sense that every single transfer of energy.
Because he's become a boyfriend.
That would be an interesting scientific fact, but it wouldn't tell us what causation because we had a motive established.
Yeah, that's true. I agree with that. And I'm going to say something about that later on, so perhaps I can leave that to say later on.
Okay, everyone. Except that that would be a problem.
Okay, let's move on the relation between the concept of causation in science and that of the folk.
And so if you remember here, I said firstly, what was the first thing I said?
Oh, yes. Ah, so it's no the second one I said was which science?
We're going to look for.
But the first one I said was what's the relation between the folk concept of causation and the scientific concept of causation?
I mean, when evolutionary biologists talk about causation.
Do they mean the same thing as what the folk mean when we're talking about causation?
We can give an argument for yes, we can give arguments for no.
And if we're going to say that the science is going to find an account of the nature of causation,
we want there to be some claim that it's going to be. Yes. So you're looking at.
So the question is, is the scientific concept of cause identical to the folk concept?
And there are answers. There are yes arguments and there are no arguments, so Dow said yes.
Scientists don't use it playfully and they don't have a technical definition of it.
So that's a yes argument. And then I gave a no argument when I looked.
Next question was, which science do we look to? People tend to look to physics.
Well, if we're looking to physics. It looks as if the the physical concept of cause is actually very unlike the folk concept, of course.
And so even if we get a really good empirical account of the physical concept of cause.
Have we learnt anything at all about the folk concept? Of course, that's the question.
I mean, you might say it doesn't matter. The physical concept, of course, is much more interesting than the folk concept, of course.
So, you know, who cares if it isn't giving us an account of the causal concept of the folk concept?
OK. If a physicist stranger calls causation changing, I don't see the answer.
Okay. The concept we held two years ago come.
OK, well. And that that would be another argument for.
Yes. So we can say, even though the physical concept, of course,
looks at first glance very different from the folk concept, actually we can make another argument, say it is.
But the problem I'm drawing attention to is the fact that we've got.
Well, we've got two concepts here, which might actually be the same concept or might not.
And if what we're after is is an account to the folk concept of cause and the empirical count
would have to be an account of a folk concept in order for us to for it to be acceptable to us.
If you think Newton. Concern me very much.
You know, what I mean is we'd have to give a yes to the question that the science concept is the folk concept.
Yeah. Yeah, I know it is. Yes. And that's why you're not arguing against what I'm saying.
So we can say, well, hang on the fine scientific concept because it's of no interest to us when we're trying to analyse the folk concept.
If that's true, if it's really true, then.
There's no empirical accounts concept, on the other hand, we can surely tell some sort of story to the effect that it is.
Which is what Christopher is suggesting. And as long as we can, then that's not an objection.
But it is something that we have to look at if we're asking the question whether an empirical count is a good account of causation.
OK. Now, this is the one that is causing the problems. OK.
Could there be empirical evidence for nomic necessities? And let's go over this one again and then perhaps more.
Mike, you can explain what your problem with it is.
Okay. So on Earth, science discovers that all regularities that we take as evidence for causation are realised.
By exchanges of fields conter.
OK, that's straightforward. Then we travelled to Twin Earth, so it immediately becomes a thought experiment of kind.
But we travelled to twin Earth. And science discovers that all the regularities.
That we will hang on, that we would take to be evidence of causation,
so if we're onto an earth and we see a regularity like this, we say, oh, A is causing B, that sort of thing.
But we find that they realised. By transfers of momentum.
Okay, well, there are two possibilities, either on Earth and onto an earth with that both causation.
They're both causal, but they are realised by different things.
Now, it would be really nice to say that, wouldn't it? And what Armstrong is doing is he's a lot giving us a way of saying that.
He's saying that we can say that Fields' Quanta are in the context of Earth realises of causation and energy chance.
Well, momentum transfers are in the context of twin earth causal regularities.
And that's because both are. Nomic necessities.
In both cases, the there's a real relation of nomic necessity relating cause and effect, even though they realised by different physical relations.
Well, what I'm suggesting there is.
Okay. What we've got to do is say that. We need empirical evidence.
OK, we've got the empirical evidence there because we know, don't we, that the regularities we see here are causal because by definition they are.
That's what causation is. Do we say the same thing there?
It's only r intuitions that would say these are causal.
Isn't it? Why are these not regularities for human human regularities?
The difference is that. These must be more.
What Armstrong is suggesting is that the moodle.
There's Moodle impacts both here and here. Not the case that here and here, that human.
Do you see the point? Okay, Mike, what's the problem with that?
Two problems. One is contingent. And one is much more fundamental.
The contingent problem is that energy momentum transfers are mediated by quanti exchanges.
There's no difference in the two cases. Not out. Not out. I said it was contingent, but it goes deeper than that.
Looking at the original list of possible topics along the way.
It struck me that as far as I could see on that very quick glance, they were all reducible to the same physics underneath it.
In fact, they were talking about the same things from slightly different point of view, from slightly different levels of the contagion.
From what? Okay, that's not an interesting problem from a philosophical point of view.
You accept that it it is interesting in the sense that if it is true that nobody has suggested an alternative, there's only one theory.
Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Do people understand that?
What what Mike saying is that all the apparently different theories that I gave initially all come to the same thing.
That may be true, but even if it does, all that means is we've only got one hypothesis instead of the five or whatever that I gave.
Okay. But is is more than the mental problem. And that is so far we are talking about physical explanation of causation.
We cannot just talk about possible worlds other than physically possible.
Well, we are talking about physically possible ways that we are not. Once you start talking about H2O being salt water being of H2O, for example,
I was objecting to the behaviour or behaviour, even on a macro level, a bus, electricity or water.
It decomposes into, I imagine an oxygen purity of water in another world would have to do the same because, you know, it wouldn't behave the same.
In other words, what I'm saying is the absolute fact that the contradiction you are trying to present here is, according to physics,
physically impossible and the right possible worlds just don't come into focus will also satisfy the physical.
Okay. So we are saying that if water is H2O, then it isn't H2O.
Nothing that. Oh, no, hang on.
No, that water must be H2O because no other substance can behave exactly like H2O in all circumstances.
It is not physically possible, that's what it promises to be. Okay, so if water is H2O, then nothing else can look taste.
And in particular, behave, behave like water.
So it couldn't be water is what you're saying. Okay, so you're rejecting the whole twin thought experiment?
No, no, no. Do enough experiment is fine provided you don't become physically possible worlds.
But here we are. We must stick to physically possible roles because we are talking about physical explanations.
Okay, I think I got answer that, but it's very difficult to think about it here and now let me think about that as I continue going.
I think there is an answer. There is an answer to the other physical world.
What? What passes as water for us, which has the atomic number, whatever it is that is slightly different on that world,
that that world that developed with slightly different isotopes. And in fact, instead of just being HRR is now a to something else.
Which makes it. Well, the thought of me is slightly different.
But behaves identical to the way water does on this world.
And that's possible. These thoughts. If the original thought experiment was this on Earth, you've got Oscar who's looking at a glass of.
Water of H2O. And on twin Earth.
You've got Oscar who's looking at a glass of X, Y, Z.
Now both them. This this one saying that's water.
And thinking. That's water. And twin Oscar is also thinking that's water.
Saying that's water. So they're they're identical.
With respect to their phenomenological. States, in other words, everything seems to them exactly the same.
Their behavioural dispositions are the same. Now, that is one that Mike is going to have a problem with in a minute.
And the then neurophysiology is the same.
This is the thought experiment. And now you'd have to if you had that pre the Dunkin's discovery of.
Who discovered the water was H2O? Duncan, I think, but I can't remember when anyway.
If you had that before. So there's nobody on Earth who knew the water was H2O.
The question is that you ask in the thought experiment is, do these two mean the same thing by that?
Now, if you think that a concept is a human thing, that what determines the reference of a concept is how we would use that concept.
In other words, what what would what we'd see or touch or taste or feel or sound that would cause us to apply the concept.
Behavioural dispositions with respect to the concept and the way our brains behave with respect to the concept, then us.
These are identical. They'd have to be have the same meaning.
But if you say. The meaning is determined by something outside, something external.
They can't have the same meaning, can they? I have no problem with that because I do not believe it is determined by anything external as simple that.
OK, so you say you don't think it's externally determined, you think all concepts must be determined.
Is that even the main thing? Okay, um, I think I'm going to agree with you in the end.
So why don't I continue? I think we will know what's what's important is that you see the problem for this.
So going back to what I said originally.
OK, so forget Mike's first objection because because that's I mean, by his own admission, uninteresting, so it might just confuse you.
No, it's not. It's not him. Not important. Okay.
So on Earth, science discovers that all regularities are realised by fields, cancer and on twin earth,
science discovers that all regularities are exchanged by, sorry, our momentum transfers and forget the fact that they're the same thing if they are.
What Armstrong is saying is that both of these can be.
Whereas if we're going to go along with the Twin Earth thought experiment, we'd have to say that.
You know, I should have put my lost objection first. I'm going to put my last objection.
Then come back to this one. Don't worry, I will explain it to you.
Can I do that? You're not getting hopelessly confused by this.
OK, I want to talk about how we're going to decide that empirical analysis of causation are correct.
And I'm gonna go on to. And this is quicker.
OK, so so this is the final objection that I put down, which is how would you be to decide whether empirical analysis of causation are correct?
I listed above many candidates, or at least I thought there were many candidates for empirical analysis of causation,
and I might have listed many more. There are lots of people out there.
Lots of them are physicists, actually, also philosophers who think they are different.
If we're to an adopt an empirical account of causation and there are different hypotheses, I say.
So two things that if they're different hypotheses and where we want to adopt one of them, we have to be able to say which one is correct, don't we?
We have to be able to give. Some claim, and this is importantly not an empirical decision.
And I suspect Mike would agree with this. Okay, imagine that we're deciding between two different claims.
This is on Earth now. Not not we're not talking about any thought experiment like that.
And each candidate theory would have to make different predictions about what would be observed in different situations.
So in order for them to be different hypotheses,
they've got to make different predictions about what's going to happen in certain different situations.
And we'd either have to try and create or we try and have to try and observe these different situations.
And what we'd be hoping for, for one in which fields quantum or exchange, but no mark is transmitted, for example, or vice versa.
So. OK.
Let's imagine there are such situations and that we can observe them or create them.
And it's still necessary to decide whether causation is present in these situations.
Wouldn't it? So we see that fields, quanta are being exchanged.
But the marks are not being transferred. But is there a causation here?
Because if if there isn't, then the Mark Tranced transmission theory might still be correct.
If it is, then the Mark transmission theory isn't correct, is it?
So if you are intuitions about what counts as causal that are actually the deciding feature.
So I can see some people nodding and I can see other people looking very perplexed.
So let me see if I can make that a bit clearer. So two hypotheses.
Okay. Different hypotheses. Two different.
Sets of predictions in identical situations.
OK. That's what we want in order for it to be empirically testable, don't we?
So we want one situation. In which so let's say two different sets of predictions.
So set one and set two in the identical situation.
So one situation in which set one are true.
And set two or not. OK, well, how is the fact there's this?
OK. There aren't any mark transferred transmissions in this situation.
The question is, is there causation in this situation?
If you've already decided that causation is mark transmission, then if there isn't any more transmission, you're going to say it's not causal.
And if you've already decided that it's Fields' Quanta, then if there isn't any.
Sorry, if there is Fields' quantum being strange, you're going to say yes, but actually it's are we.
What we want to know here is, is this situation a situation in which there's causation?
And the only thing that can tell us that is our own intuitions about whether this is a causal situation or not.
Science cannot tell us that because science is trying to tell us what causation is.
But it can only do that if we already know what causation is.
To some extent so. The only way we can tell whether there's causation presence is by using our intuition.
And it's quite intuitions about the proper applications of our concepts frequently
play a part in decisions about the correctness of scientific theories.
So, for example, in nineteen hundred nineteen thirty four,
Ball came up with two different accounts of the electron in what they were different because in the nineteen hundred theory,
electrons had a trajectory. And in the 1934 theory, they didn't have a trajectory, but it was decided that but that they're the same thing.
So. We had there a situation in which it was decided that instead of saying that the nineteen hundred theory was wrong,
we had shown in the 1934 theory that electrons didn't exist.
Instead, we decided that actually the 19th thought 34 theory was the successor to the nineteen hundred theory.
It's just that in nineteen hundred we had some false beliefs about electrons.
Not that electrons didn't exist. The beliefs weren't so false that we were prepared to say electrons didn't exist.
And we decided, on the other hand, that phlogiston didn't exists.
We didn't say that it's the same thing as Valence electrons, for example.
So here we decided that something did exist. We just had false beliefs about it.
Here we decided that our beliefs were so false that it didn't exist.
And that's the. A decision that we have to make about how you apply the concept, not itself an empirical decision.
So decisions about identification and therefore reduction are in the final analysis, philosophical decisions.
So, for example, if somebody says that pain is C fibre firing or something like that.
We've still got to say, well, okay, we can use that as an instrumental definition, but all we are going to say, it's the same thing.
That's a philosophical decision. And I'm not saying for one minute that empirical evidence doesn't play a crucial role.
I mean, it's empirical evidence that provides us with likely candidates.
As with here, we've got to set different sets of predictions. But when we're trying to decide between the two different sets of predictions,
we've got to use our intuition about what causation is, about what pain is, etc.
So philosophers are going to. Oh, okay. And the final problem I was going to look at was who tells us what the functional definition of causation is?
Okay. And I'm going to say that philosophers are going to help identify the functional role of our causal concept,
because actually that's what we've been doing in doing conceptual analysis, is looking at the role that the concepts play in our inferences.
So we look at what licences a causal claim. We see a regularity in this license's us to say that A causes B.
We see. We also look at what lyson what causal claims will licence.
So if smoking causes cancer, then that license's the decision to give up smoking because you want to be healthy or something like that.
So that's looking at the inferential role. That causation in play is in our causal theories.
And. You know, I've just said that and there are empirical sciences, I mentioned them right at the beginning of robotics.
Any science that looks at are thinking about causation that tries to determine
what the empirical evidence is that we look to to decide whether something is,
of course, or not. We'll also have an important role to play in the identification of functional role of our concept.
So, OK. My claim is that there are still jobs of losses,
even if there is an empirical analysis of causation and nothing I've said suggests that that there isn't that they couldn't be.
On the contrary, I'm quite pro the idea that there's an empirical analysis.
Philosophers still ask of every relation suggested whether it's necessary and or sufficient.
That may or may not be interesting. I disagree with Mike.
I do think that we should identify analysis that have modal implications that aren't therefore empirical claims at all.
I think that Armstrong's claim is empirically equivalent to the regularity theory of causation and therefore that it isn't an empirical theory.
And I think philosophers have a job in comparing empirical causal concepts, for example,
the causal concept that is used in physics to the concept of causation and therefore saying whether this is
indeed an account of our folk concept and deciding whether an empirical account of causation is correct.
I suspect that's. And this is something I'd like to think about more.
I suspect that that's actually coming.
In the disagreement that Mike and I were having, if we were having a disagreement, and I think Fluck philosophies also help to identify.
They help. They don't just do it because they're all sciences that also look at the application of our folk concept of causation.
So still plenty of jobs for philosophers, even if there is an empirical account of causation.
Okay, so we've looked at.
OK. This is where we are now at the end of the fourth lecture. Next week I'm going to go on to causation time and then causation and the mental.
But so far, we've considered three types of reductive analysis of causation.
So we've looked at the regularity theory of causation, the human theory of causation, according to which causation is lawful regularity.
And that's an a priori ie a philosophical theory.
We've looked at the counterfactual theory of causation where counter causation is counterfactual dependencies of some kind.
And if you remember, we saw that you have to add there are chains of counterfactual causation and so on.
And again, that's an a priori a theory.
It's a philosophical analysis. And then we've looked at the singularity theory of causation,
where the claim is that causation is either a physical process or a set of physical processes.
So that's not an empirical not a philosophical analysis.
That would be a scientific analysis, an empirical analysis.
But I'd argue that there are plenty of jobs for philosophers in deciding whether any such there is correct.
We've not considered either primitivism. Do you remember I said right at the very beginning.
By analysing the concept of causation, we're hoping to either reduce it,
show that it's privative that is so fundamental and so central to our thinking.
It can't be reduced at all, either empirically or philosophically.
So that might be like the idea of truth, for example, is arguably a primitive concept.
And we haven't looked at illuminative ism, the idea that causation doesn't exist.
So, for example, Russell thinks that causation doesn't exist.
He thinks that physics has shown that. And the reason he thinks the physics is shown that is because physics never mentions the word cause.
And there's quite nice quotation in your hand out. So you can have a look at that.
Okay, so that's what I've done. Although I think that we've got so.
Tied up in it. I hope you see the structure here. I explained how Strauss' Hume was different from the traditional whom what the singulars thing.
Theory of causation was Strauss' argument for the singular theory, which, if you remember,
was it improves on the regularity theory and the other one, and that it's explains regularity.
It doesn't just insist they're bruit. We looked at types of STC, which is if Mike is right.
Are all the same type. We looked at problems for the singulars theory of causation.
We looked at several different ones.
And I argued that even if the empirical theory is the correct one, that doesn't mean there isn't plenty of work for philosophers to do in finding it.
OK. And I've summarised where we are. And next week we're going to consider that.
And we've got ten minutes for questions. Good.
Chris, you were talking earlier on about just.
Yes, when it was this way. Consider the possibility of without a cause.
No, this is a case where there's a cause and and in fact.
But no physical process. Linking the two.
So disconnection was that that catapults. One that I gave disconnection.
The idea is that there is a causation. But no physical process.
Does that come? The same thing I'm looking for.
Oh, apparently seeing in effect, that you can't see, of course.
No, it's that you would say that A causes B.
But there's no physical process linking A and B.
In which case, if you really have got cause, but you haven't got a physical process,
then the thought is that causation can't be a physical process, at least in this case.
That's disconnection. And you had a question.
Well, I was going to say that I've lost track.
Good stuff. Sorry about that. It's come down to a question of definitions.
It seems to me that the what we mean by courts, of course, I.
Drifting around. For that reason, they pin back.
It was particularly evident when you were talking about. Water is different, world water for sea, five different people.
And whether. Kindling set on a Ferris wheel.
Fast. Switch course, Asian society. Yes, that's water.
Yeah. Might actually relate to something which has taken the opposite.
But those two things are different. Oh.
I will tell you that if, in fact, that a deep level, right, different.
It's. Safely, but one hasn't observed sufficient for no to be able to distinguish.
Yes. Absolutely. So, Ben.
The question of causation. All we can to say, but we're observing the same thing.
It depends whether we're focussing clearly on the Observer or Pury on me.
Serious stuff. I couldn't agree more.
I'm not yet. I don't worry.
I understand that. You're absolutely right.
I mean, the fact if I were to utter a sentence now I'm going to stay in Russian, but I know there's at least one Russian person in this room.
But but if that person shuts up, if I ask for a sentence in Russian and then say, well, is it true you're all going to say reasonably enough?
I haven't got the foggiest idea.
Because in order to determine the truth of a sentence or the falsehood of a sentence, you've got to know what it means, don't you?
I mean, that's writing large. What the problem is that you're identifying.
You know, what you're saying is that what we mean by cause is drifting around in your words.
And if that's so, then we're guilty of equivocation. What if we're used in cause in one meaning and one minute and one meaning the other,
meaning minutes without realising we're doing that, then we're guilty of a quick equivocation and nothing we say is of any use.
On the other hand, if one of the things that we're trying to work out in saying what is the nature of causation, is what does causation mean?
Which it is, then it's not surprising it's drifting around, because what we're doing is we're trying out different hypotheses.
And one of the reasons as it becomes so difficult is that in trying to to square the philosophical question,
what does causation mean with the scientific question?
What is causation? It looks as if we might be equivocating.
So which is why you get the feeling that this sleight of hand going on.
But actually what we're doing is we've got two different. What does causation mean?
And what is causation? Do you remember right at the beginning, I said that there are semantic issues and there are ontological issues.
And the two have got to go together. We can't say what causation is until we know what causation means.
And arguably, it's also true that we can't say what causation means until we have some idea of what causation is.
And one of the reasons we start looking at logical situations, thought experiments,
as well as empirical experiments is the twin thought experiment is precisely an experiment that's designed to pull apart our intuition about meaning.
So some people think and Mike is obviously one of them.
That meaning is determined by ensuring or properties.
Intrinsic to human subjects. In other words, you might think, well, hang on, meanings, that's that's all business, isn't it?
You know, we decide what the meaning of a word is.
So properties intrinsic to us. I do remember the difference between intrinsic properties in relation extrinsic properties.
And if that's true, if we've got to intrinsically identical twins.
Then the meaning of water should be identical as well.
Shouldn't it? And the twin thought experiment.
Suggests that the meaning differs.
And therefore, meaning cannot be determined by intrinsic properties.
It's also. Determined by the world.
So our word water is not just it's not that we decide what counts as evidence for water,
what water looks like, what it's the world also decides what counts.
And one answer, you might come to this. You might say that the meaning of water is actually X, Y, Z and H2O.
OK. You've got a disjunctive. Theory of water here.
So one possibility is that water. Is H2O, not X, Y, Z.
Another is that. And that's your. You were saying we just haven't seen enough yet.
So we discover that that all instances of water in in on Earth are X H2O.
But that's actually what we didn't realise, is that there are different types of water.
There is X, Y, Z as well. We could decide that is what you're saying is not.
Don't you? One day after your reading to my very recent discussion about whether to phase out.
It's a question of. What a plan this is. Yes, sir.
So what you mean by. This is in the case of a long.
Not in civil cases, but the same principle.
Well, you have to decide. I think. What's your read?
Yeah, but that that's what we're doing, isn't it? That's I mean, what we're doing is we're giving.
We might think that that it's obvious that the meaning of water is determined by intrinsic properties.
Here's a thought experiment that makes it look as if it's not determined by intrinsic properties.
Here's a reply to that thought experiment that says, no, we were wrong about that, which still determined by intrinsic properties.
It's just that we've got to allow that there are difference. Situations that that feed into the intrinsic properties.
So what we're doing is expanding the behavioural dispositions that we allow to include X,
Y, Z in the copy of what I mean, the determination of meaning.
Do you see that if we're going to determine identity, that A is B?
This relation of identity and reduction? One sort of reduction is is an identity.
We've got to know both, both A and B are.
So meaning decisions about meaning are going to come into it, as well as decisions about what happens in the world.
So you're absolutely right. The meaning is drifting around. And what you've got to do if you want to do philosophy well is.
Get to grips with how it is drifting around. I mean,
I'm going to enjoy going home tonight and actually working out how the objection
to Armstrong that I've given relates to the fifth objection that I gave,
because I think I haven't thought seriously enough about that. I thought I had, but I don't think I have now.
That was my can then Bob. And then Dot. Mike. Yeah.
You mentioned Russell. This is believed that physics doesn't talk about personality causation.
That is actually not true because causation is extremely important in the relativity theory.
And in effect, it gives an example which seems to be absent from all this discussion of how science can affect our notion of causation,
not in a positive way, but in a negative way. It can tell us what causation isn't and cannot be and specifically and cannot be.
It cannot be stopped according to our best theories that the car.
Okay. Well, of necessity, because that's the only way we can know about the world.
So currently about according to our best theories and any account of causation must somehow preclude
causation without information exchange to the point where something is essentially saying here,
all of these possibilities if you listed soda at the bottom of the information exchange.
Yeah. Okay. What it does give us information without saying what it is.
It does, but it says yes. Okay, well, that would be right because I mean, Fruit Lewis, for example, would say that the thing about logical,
possible worlds is there's no information exchange between them and therefore no causation between the frozen earth experiment.
Exactly. Because there you are assuming the two world wars are not accessible to each other.
Yes, but that's what is the moment they are. You would discover the difference would be.
Yes, but no, I'll have to talk to you about thought experiments,
because I thought experiments are constrained by the laws of logic, not by the laws of physics.
Also constrained by the assumptions. And so far as here you are talking about physical theories.
You have to assume physical series underway. OK.
We'll obviously have to discuss that. Bob, I'm worried about water.
We were having this this discussion of 500 years before we knew water was H2O.
We wondered what this stuff water really is. And somebody said, well, we might discover, for instance, that it consists of two atoms.
And so one thing in an atom of something else.
And then someone else said we might go to another planet or something just like water, which is a different consistency.
And I think we would unanimously agree that that would not be water.
Oh. Oh. So I was expecting you to say the other.
I think if we just if we decided that one day we'd find that water actually consistent with something that's water.
That would be water. Which is why then I don't find causation parallel to water at all.
Causation. OK. Well, I completely agree with you that causation isn't like water.
And I agree with you because I think water has a real essence. Yeah.
So I would agree with that. I as I was just going to add to that, just thinking about the meaning of things and you were saying,
well, I was thinking, you know, your post listed planet.
I mean, you know, there are planets where liquid methane, not something takes over the role of water in the atmosphere, in lakes, in oceans and to.
To a creature that grows up on that planet. They might call methane water because it has the same properties.
It comes down from the sky. It gives them life. They presumably drink methane, liquid methane to survive.
Their bodies are made of 80 percent methane, whatever.
You know, you could choose any substance to liquefy solidifies and had a large presence on various planets.
As an example. And that would be for them water. Now, because water is just an arbitrary word, we just use to describe something which is liquid,
which we can drink and which falls in the sky and lands and freezes.
If you will, majority substance is not H2O, but is another thing.
You might have the same concept. Water is liquid thing.
But it could actually refer to something completely different. Yeah, it could.
It could be that way. Some students have chemistry. A bored stiff.
One day they live in Cheshire and they decide to test the water.
And lo, it's X, Y, Z, you know. Oh, you know, this is most peculiar.
I mean, at that point, I think we probably would say water is is H2O.
I guess all X, Y, Z. Yes.
But but if it's not if every instance of water in this world is H2O, I mean, what we're doing here is saying that if X,
Y, Z is on twin Earth rather than an on earth, then you're saying it doesn't count as water.
But you're saying it could still count as water. So you're going for a disjunctive fairy, even if it's across different worlds.
To me, the key word concept on the physical thing is just what we attach on our table to all the good things that we put stuff on.
But we can equally fool everything we put you on could be done.
Yeah. Well, you're you're a Cartesian, believe it or not.
I've move away from splotched, which actually is the pollution word for water splotched.
Right. Because we think holy water on your chain on slide.
You never know the lady in the. Oh yeah.
We got you somewhere. Somebody that does not need to be a physical thing.
Well, that that's what. What this is supposed to to this one day.
Yeah, well, it was necessary and sufficient.
And if you look to any of those things, you can look at any of those activities and say,
is it necessary for that activity to take place in order for the window to shatter?
And the answer would be, in that case, yes, you could not have the windows shattered less panellist released the captures rates, et cetera.
But if you just took one of those. I just had one word, and it's not like would shatter someone's not sufficient.
Everything. Yeah. Absolutely right.
An actual linkage to anything in that.
Well, do do be careful here, because if you remember, we've seen to talk about the cause is nonsense, always nonsense.
And we talk about the cause when we're actually thinking about explanation rather than causation.
Okay. But but in that case, you'll think if if.
And, you know, I tend to agree with you, but if there's no physical relation between Pams releasing the catch and the window shattering,
then there may be a counterfactual dependency. But will be operational.
Well, hang on, if there doesn't have to be a physical relationship, then then that.
I mean, if there's no physical relationship between that and that.
Then and yet that is the cause of that, then causation must be counterfactual dependency, not physical process.
I thought counterfactual. Which means probabilistic.
Well, even if it's probabilistic, it that's irrelevant. If there's no physical process but to a physical process between that and that.
But there is a causal relationship,
then causation has to be analysed along the lines of counterfactual dependency or regularity theory after read my notes.
So a relationship may be, well, releasing.
Yeah. And the relationship is causal, did not release. Not allow.
Yeah, well, we know that there's a we know that there's a causal relationship because we're we're assuming
that what we're trying to do is find a causal relationship without a physical process.
I mean, I don't know whether this is succeeding or not, but if that causes that.
But there's no physical process between that and that, then what we've shown is there is a causal process without a physical process.
Then I suppose we do. Well, no.
No. What it would show is that causation isn't a physical relationship, but it is a counterfactual dependency,
because as you rightly pointed out, it's certainly true that had Pam not released the catch, the window would not have shattered.
But this is not an objection to the counterfactual theory of causation.
This is an objection to the empirical theory of causation, or that's what the thought is, a sign of physical presence.
Well, yeah, that's what I don't understand either.
Well, no, it's this the the catches up and it's low.
Everyone's leaving and we're going to have to finish because I ought to be leaving as well.
My cats are suffering. Okay.