1 00:00:10,750 --> 00:00:15,690 OK. Right. And this is lecture four in lecture three. 2 00:00:15,690 --> 00:00:20,640 We looked at a new interpretation of Hume as a sceptical realist. 3 00:00:20,640 --> 00:00:29,070 We looked at singulars theories of causation, which insists the causation is a force or a power or a necessary connexion. 4 00:00:29,070 --> 00:00:35,760 We looked at Strauss' argument for the new interpretation. We looked at an ambiguity in the new interpretation, 5 00:00:35,760 --> 00:00:43,950 whether it should be empirical in the sense of real essence or in the sense of a fault functional definition. 6 00:00:43,950 --> 00:00:48,010 And we clarified the new interpretation. So I. 7 00:00:48,010 --> 00:00:53,310 I suggested that it couldn't be real essence and that it would be functional definition. 8 00:00:53,310 --> 00:00:55,410 But we're going to have another look at that. 9 00:00:55,410 --> 00:01:05,010 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. 10 00:01:05,010 --> 00:01:12,030 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. 11 00:01:12,030 --> 00:01:19,500 And we're going to have a quick look at Strauss' arguments for the singulars theory offered for the new interpretation of Hume. 12 00:01:19,500 --> 00:01:27,660 And then we're going to have a look at types of singler this theory. So types of empirical analysis of causation. 13 00:01:27,660 --> 00:01:32,050 We're going to have a look at problems for such analysis. 14 00:01:32,050 --> 00:01:42,510 And we're going to consider how philosophical analysis and philosophers work with empirical analysis and with scientists, 15 00:01:42,510 --> 00:01:51,320 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? 16 00:01:51,320 --> 00:01:57,180 I mean, philosophers have any role in the discovery of the nature of causation. 17 00:01:57,180 --> 00:02:03,870 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. 18 00:02:03,870 --> 00:02:08,280 Next week, I'm going to look at causation time and the last week. 19 00:02:08,280 --> 00:02:15,480 I'm going to look at mental causation. So mental states causing actions and so on. 20 00:02:15,480 --> 00:02:20,790 Okay, so let's have a look at Straus and Hume. 21 00:02:20,790 --> 00:02:25,320 Straus says that Hume doesn't reduce causation to regularities. 22 00:02:25,320 --> 00:02:31,200 The knee jerk or traditional interpretation of Hume says that Hume does do that. 23 00:02:31,200 --> 00:02:38,970 But Straus says that he doesn't reduce causation to regularities, even those that give rise to counterfactual dependencies. 24 00:02:38,970 --> 00:02:46,680 In other words, lawful regularities are not where it's at for Stauss or Strauss' Hume. 25 00:02:46,680 --> 00:02:52,110 Instead, he's a sceptical realist. He's a realist about causation. 26 00:02:52,110 --> 00:02:57,900 So Strauss' Hume does say that we can't know anything about necessary connexion. 27 00:02:57,900 --> 00:03:06,420 So if you remember, he says that you cannot tell empirically whether something's necessary or not. 28 00:03:06,420 --> 00:03:11,450 So he's sceptical about knowing anything about a necessary connexion. 29 00:03:11,450 --> 00:03:15,510 But he doesn't say, according to Strauss', that there is no necessary connexion. 30 00:03:15,510 --> 00:03:23,010 He's not an anti realist when it comes to causation. So this is Strauss' Hume. 31 00:03:23,010 --> 00:03:28,050 So Straus Intune, the idea that he's sceptical about necessary connexion, 32 00:03:28,050 --> 00:03:33,810 but that he admits the possibility of a necessary connexion introduces the possibility of a 33 00:03:33,810 --> 00:03:42,900 scientific account of causation and empirical rather than a philosophical account of causation. 34 00:03:42,900 --> 00:03:47,100 So let's have a look at what that would be, an empirical or singular arrest account. 35 00:03:47,100 --> 00:03:54,420 Causation would say that singular causal relations are more fundamental and causal regularities. 36 00:03:54,420 --> 00:03:59,010 So if you remember, we looked at humans billiard balls. 37 00:03:59,010 --> 00:04:03,690 So one billiard ball hits, another billiard ball and the other billiard ball runs off. 38 00:04:03,690 --> 00:04:07,410 But Hume says there's no causation in that. 39 00:04:07,410 --> 00:04:16,800 There's only causation when we see a regularity of billiard balls hitting other billiard balls in the first billiard ball running off. 40 00:04:16,800 --> 00:04:21,530 So for Hume, regularities are more fundamental than the causal relation. 41 00:04:21,530 --> 00:04:28,380 So something we can talk about singular causes only because we can talk about regularities. 42 00:04:28,380 --> 00:04:36,810 But with Strauss' Hume, we can talk about causation in the single case and they're more fundamental than regularities. 43 00:04:36,810 --> 00:04:43,950 So there's causation in the individual case. It's an intrinsic, not an extrinsic relation. 44 00:04:43,950 --> 00:04:53,490 So if we see the billiard ball hitting the other billiard ball thought pots and pans somewhere. 45 00:04:53,490 --> 00:05:00,270 Hume would say you have to see several of these in order to see causation. 46 00:05:00,270 --> 00:05:10,290 But the singular is says this causation there already. Not that we have to wait and see lots of different cases. 47 00:05:10,290 --> 00:05:15,210 Now, some singler is think that we can observe causation in the individual case. 48 00:05:15,210 --> 00:05:24,960 Now, Hume denies that one. And so Anscombe, for example, says that as we're slicing through the loof with our knife, 49 00:05:24,960 --> 00:05:33,190 we can feel that the knife is causing the bread or the pushing of the knife is causing the bread to to be cut. 50 00:05:33,190 --> 00:05:43,300 And Armstrong thinks that we are aware of causation when we act on the world or indeed when the world acts on us. 51 00:05:43,300 --> 00:05:50,820 We're aware of causation. We observe the causation in the single case. 52 00:05:50,820 --> 00:05:54,750 But other singular ists agree with Hume that regularities are needed, 53 00:05:54,750 --> 00:06:01,500 but they're needed as evidence for causation and they're not needed for causation to exist. 54 00:06:01,500 --> 00:06:08,430 They just needed as evidence for the singular relation that is causation. 55 00:06:08,430 --> 00:06:12,090 And some single arist accept the mill. 56 00:06:12,090 --> 00:06:18,060 Ramsey Lewis account of laws, which, if you remember, was nothing more than laws, 57 00:06:18,060 --> 00:06:27,900 are those regularities that feature in our best, i.e. our strongest and simplest theories of the world. 58 00:06:27,900 --> 00:06:33,060 But others offer a metaphysically robust account of laws. 59 00:06:33,060 --> 00:06:36,900 So Armstrong, for example, believes that laws are real. 60 00:06:36,900 --> 00:06:41,310 No make necessities that hold between universals. 61 00:06:41,310 --> 00:06:48,750 So a universal is a is a property like redness. So it's not an individual instance of red light. 62 00:06:48,750 --> 00:06:55,770 My dress is red. It's redness. The universal that my dress partakes in. 63 00:06:55,770 --> 00:07:05,880 If you're a Plato so you can have a metaphysically robust account of laws together with a metaphysically robust account of causation. 64 00:07:05,880 --> 00:07:13,350 Or you can have a metaphysically robust account of causation, but accept the austere account of laws. 65 00:07:13,350 --> 00:07:19,020 But the important thing about the singular IST is that it allows causation in the individual case. 66 00:07:19,020 --> 00:07:26,400 It's an intrinsic relation. It's not a relation that comes from other things in the world. 67 00:07:26,400 --> 00:07:30,480 So just recap on an intrinsic relation. 68 00:07:30,480 --> 00:07:39,650 Any intrinsic relations is a rent relation or property of mine is a property that I have, whether anything else exists or not. 69 00:07:39,650 --> 00:07:46,920 And it's a property that I have in myself. Whereas an extrinsic relation, somebody else must exist. 70 00:07:46,920 --> 00:07:53,730 So I can't be a daughter unless there's a mother or a father or mother under father. 71 00:07:53,730 --> 00:08:01,560 So that's an extrinsic relation. Being five foot six, I'd be that even if the rest of you were to completely disappear. 72 00:08:01,560 --> 00:08:07,840 So causation is there, whether there's anything else or not in the individual case. 73 00:08:07,840 --> 00:08:14,550 Okay, so that's the nature of an empirical or single arrest account of causation. 74 00:08:14,550 --> 00:08:21,030 Now let's have a look at some particular examples of empirical accounts of causation. 75 00:08:21,030 --> 00:08:26,640 Incidentally, I should just say, before we look at these, that as their empirical accounts causation, 76 00:08:26,640 --> 00:08:31,560 the most philosophers can do is gesture them to say what they might be. 77 00:08:31,560 --> 00:08:38,010 Obviously, science, who would establish that these are indeed cases of causation. 78 00:08:38,010 --> 00:08:48,270 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. 79 00:08:48,270 --> 00:08:52,170 So fair thinks that it's energy or momentum transfer. 80 00:08:52,170 --> 00:09:00,780 So when A causes B, there is a transfer of energy or transfer of momentum between A and B, 81 00:09:00,780 --> 00:09:12,180 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, 82 00:09:12,180 --> 00:09:18,360 you've got an exchange of field's quanta between these particles. 83 00:09:18,360 --> 00:09:27,300 Someone thinks that when A causes B, a mark of some kind is transmitted from A to B. 84 00:09:27,300 --> 00:09:38,910 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. 85 00:09:38,910 --> 00:09:49,980 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. 86 00:09:49,980 --> 00:09:57,690 So I understand that the world line of objects is is a point in space to all line of a point in space time. 87 00:09:57,690 --> 00:10:04,890 The physicists amongst this here can tell me whether I'm right or wrong. But there's physical persistence of some kind. 88 00:10:04,890 --> 00:10:11,110 Between cause and effect and Armstrong. Thinks it's real. 89 00:10:11,110 --> 00:10:23,650 No McInnis recitation that there's a relation of necessitate ition, but empirical resuscitation, it's of contingent relation between cause and effect. 90 00:10:23,650 --> 00:10:29,730 OK. So those are types of Cingular esque theories of causation. 91 00:10:29,730 --> 00:10:35,380 All right. And common to all these. I thought this whole slide was going to change, but. 92 00:10:35,380 --> 00:10:43,360 Okay. Common to all these counts. Is that causation is a physical process transmitted from cause to effect. 93 00:10:43,360 --> 00:10:49,560 And the job of science is to find out what that physical process is. 94 00:10:49,560 --> 00:10:55,950 Okay, so Straughan, where we're looking now, so we've had a quick look at Strauss' interpretation of Hume. 95 00:10:55,950 --> 00:11:03,210 We've had a quick look at what sort of account this would give us some examples of this type of count. 96 00:11:03,210 --> 00:11:07,920 And now we're looking at Strauss' argument for these accounts of causation. 97 00:11:07,920 --> 00:11:08,760 So firstly, 98 00:11:08,760 --> 00:11:17,850 he thinks they hold the promise of solving the problems faced by the regularity theory of causation and the counterfactual theory of causation. 99 00:11:17,850 --> 00:11:27,000 So if you remember one, there was we had Lucy threw a brick and it went through a window and Brian threw a 100 00:11:27,000 --> 00:11:35,220 brick and but it sailed through window that had already been broken by Lucy's brick. 101 00:11:35,220 --> 00:11:35,940 But it did so, 102 00:11:35,940 --> 00:11:47,710 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. 103 00:11:47,710 --> 00:11:51,630 Well, the singulars theory of causation has no problem with that. 104 00:11:51,630 --> 00:11:58,860 It just says that while there's a physical process that holds between the throwing of Lucy's brick and the shattering window, 105 00:11:58,860 --> 00:12:05,820 and there isn't one between broughton's brick and the shattering of the window. End of story is easy. 106 00:12:05,820 --> 00:12:13,530 And you can see why once you postulate a real physical process linking cause and effect, 107 00:12:13,530 --> 00:12:22,910 you can see that you don't have problems with the fact that there are cases of causation without counterfactual dependency and stauss, 108 00:12:22,910 --> 00:12:29,700 and also believes that the empirical counts of causation avoids the absurdity of it, 109 00:12:29,700 --> 00:12:38,250 insisting that nothing explains the regularities we observe or the counterfactual different dependencies that we postulate. 110 00:12:38,250 --> 00:12:47,080 So the thing about I remember being an undergraduate and first first understanding, or at least I didn't think I understood. 111 00:12:47,080 --> 00:12:51,580 I thought I didn't understand Hume's theory because it seemed to me. 112 00:12:51,580 --> 00:12:58,060 Just doffed, you know, how do you think that there's no more to causation than regularity? 113 00:12:58,060 --> 00:13:01,120 Surely the regularity must have an explanation. 114 00:13:01,120 --> 00:13:09,310 So I have quite a lot of sympathy with the idea that there's an absurdity involved in saying that there's nothing more, 115 00:13:09,310 --> 00:13:18,880 that the regularities are nothing more than a brute fact about our world, that there isn't anything that explains them further. 116 00:13:18,880 --> 00:13:24,250 So those are Strauss' two arguments for the singular theory of causation. 117 00:13:24,250 --> 00:13:30,790 But of course, what he's doing is making a philosophical case for the existence of a scientific theory. 118 00:13:30,790 --> 00:13:37,530 He's not trying to put forward a scientific theory because, of course, that's what scientists do. 119 00:13:37,530 --> 00:13:42,540 Okay, so there are two questions we ought to ask about this theory. 120 00:13:42,540 --> 00:13:51,780 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? 121 00:13:51,780 --> 00:13:57,420 So if you remember, we're here and these lectures because we want to know what's causation is. 122 00:13:57,420 --> 00:14:02,850 We've seen how important causation is for prediction and explanation of manipulation. 123 00:14:02,850 --> 00:14:10,980 We'd like to know what it is we've seen. We've had problems with philosophical accounts, causations the heart RTC in CTC. 124 00:14:10,980 --> 00:14:17,850 But how likely is it that that science will come up with an analysis of causation? 125 00:14:17,850 --> 00:14:26,100 And secondly, we'd like to know, well, if they're successful, if science does come up with a philosophical analysis. 126 00:14:26,100 --> 00:14:30,840 Does that mean that philosophers have no role to play? Does this is this. 127 00:14:30,840 --> 00:14:39,660 Have we shown, in effect, that this is another area where philosophers must just bowed to science and hold back? 128 00:14:39,660 --> 00:14:46,020 Okay, so let's have a look at problems for the singular IST theory of causation. 129 00:14:46,020 --> 00:14:49,860 And I'm going to look at several first the I'm going to look at all their 130 00:14:49,860 --> 00:14:55,890 physical processes that are both necessary and sufficient for causal relations. 131 00:14:55,890 --> 00:15:02,430 See, we're still playing the philosophical game there a bit. But I'll say more about that in a minute. 132 00:15:02,430 --> 00:15:13,140 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. 133 00:15:13,140 --> 00:15:18,480 I'm going to look at whether there could be empirical evidence for nomic necessities. 134 00:15:18,480 --> 00:15:23,400 So Armstrong claims that causation is nomic necessity. 135 00:15:23,400 --> 00:15:32,310 So if that's put forward as an empirical theory, which it is, then there must be empirical evidence for it. 136 00:15:32,310 --> 00:15:35,850 I want to have a look at what that evidence might be. 137 00:15:35,850 --> 00:15:45,000 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, 138 00:15:45,000 --> 00:15:51,450 then clearly we need to be able to to say something about how we decide between them. 139 00:15:51,450 --> 00:15:56,850 How would we decide which empirical analysis of causation is correct? 140 00:15:56,850 --> 00:16:04,830 And finally, I suggested last week that if we think of causation as a functional concept, 141 00:16:04,830 --> 00:16:10,650 then we've got to look first at identifying the functional role of causation. 142 00:16:10,650 --> 00:16:15,900 Okay. So I'm going to look at each of these in turn. Okay. 143 00:16:15,900 --> 00:16:21,040 So. Oh, right. Hang on. 144 00:16:21,040 --> 00:16:28,420 So I'm going to look at the first one first and I. This is a sort of last gasp of the philosophical account, 145 00:16:28,420 --> 00:16:33,730 because what what the philosophers have been thinking over the last couple of 146 00:16:33,730 --> 00:16:41,590 weeks is that the analysis of causation is a question of an a priori a problem. 147 00:16:41,590 --> 00:16:48,220 In other words, we can analysis that analyse it from our armchair. We don't have to get up and do any science. 148 00:16:48,220 --> 00:16:57,730 All we have to do is to decide what are the conditions necessary and the conditions sufficient for the application of this concept. 149 00:16:57,730 --> 00:17:09,880 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. 150 00:17:09,880 --> 00:17:18,340 So some people suggest that physical processes can't be sufficient for causation. 151 00:17:18,340 --> 00:17:19,450 So, for example, 152 00:17:19,450 --> 00:17:30,430 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. 153 00:17:30,430 --> 00:17:37,870 So neither Tom's watching nor whose paint space spraying calls the window shattering. 154 00:17:37,870 --> 00:17:49,260 But both of them are physical processes. So clearly, just being a physical process can't be sufficient for causation. 155 00:17:49,260 --> 00:17:55,110 This is a sort of yourn argument that I think discredits philosophy. 156 00:17:55,110 --> 00:18:00,510 I mean, who's saying that any physical process will do it? 157 00:18:00,510 --> 00:18:06,690 Nobody is. But I put this in just just to show you how it it fits in. 158 00:18:06,690 --> 00:18:13,890 So if you're still engaging in the a priori eye analysis and you still believe that 159 00:18:13,890 --> 00:18:21,090 therefore the concept of causation has necessary and sufficient conditions for application, 160 00:18:21,090 --> 00:18:25,080 then you're going to apply this to the empirical counts. 161 00:18:25,080 --> 00:18:33,990 And. It's certainly true, isn't it, that if we take Fair's claim, 162 00:18:33,990 --> 00:18:45,760 we've got what fare's claim was but energy or momentum transfer, if there's energy or momentum transfer and no causation? 163 00:18:45,760 --> 00:18:51,790 That would be a black mark. Wouldn't there. Get it, wouldn't it, against energy transfer? 164 00:18:51,790 --> 00:18:59,260 But it doesn't seem to be a particular black mark against these theories because nobody's postulated these theories in the first place. 165 00:18:59,260 --> 00:19:05,020 OK. So if we're going to talk about misconnection, we have to be looking at one of the theories. 166 00:19:05,020 --> 00:19:11,260 This has been actually postulated. Okay. 167 00:19:11,260 --> 00:19:17,380 Disconnection cases, on the other hand, suggests that no physical processes necessary for causation. 168 00:19:17,380 --> 00:19:24,460 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. 169 00:19:24,460 --> 00:19:31,210 But the suggestion here is that there's a case of causation here. 170 00:19:31,210 --> 00:19:35,170 But there's no physical connexion between cause and effect. 171 00:19:35,170 --> 00:19:40,270 So if I remember right there, I was going to look this up before I came and I forgot. 172 00:19:40,270 --> 00:19:51,640 The catch is locked up. And when Pam releases it, this launch is the catapult and the window shatters. 173 00:19:51,640 --> 00:20:01,270 But there's no physical process between some Pams releasing the catapults, which is already cocked and the window shattering. 174 00:20:01,270 --> 00:20:07,990 Okay. Does anyone understand that? I disagree with it. 175 00:20:07,990 --> 00:20:11,360 I guess a physical process. Well, I can't see that there isn't. 176 00:20:11,360 --> 00:20:16,290 You haven't. You haven't described everything the catapult launches, that is. 177 00:20:16,290 --> 00:20:21,740 It goes into motion. It transfers energy. And I say to the brake, the brake flies through the air. 178 00:20:21,740 --> 00:20:28,000 It hits the window. The window shatters. Yes. But there's a complete leakage of events. 179 00:20:28,000 --> 00:20:38,290 Yes, but between Pams releasing, I think the claim is between Pams releasing the catch and the window shattering. 180 00:20:38,290 --> 00:20:46,630 You have to reach for a counterfactual, don't you? Had she not released the catch, the window would not have shattered. 181 00:20:46,630 --> 00:20:50,270 And the thought is that there is no physical threat. 182 00:20:50,270 --> 00:21:02,650 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, 183 00:21:02,650 --> 00:21:12,220 without a case of energy or momentum transfer or something like that, then it looks as if this this empirical account isn't good. 184 00:21:12,220 --> 00:21:27,130 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. 185 00:21:27,130 --> 00:21:37,910 They're very exercised that there is a need to meet. 186 00:21:37,910 --> 00:21:45,790 Oh, it's got to be more than that, because if it was intermediate, we'd still have a causal chain, wouldn't we? 187 00:21:45,790 --> 00:21:54,070 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. 188 00:21:54,070 --> 00:22:02,350 I can't explain it further because I don't understand it myself. Like Sean, I think why isn't there a physical connexion? 189 00:22:02,350 --> 00:22:13,240 Don't understand this. But anyway, so if we're still playing the game, if necessary, insufficient conditions, 190 00:22:13,240 --> 00:22:23,980 if we're still engaged in conceptual analysis, then we do have problems for certain physical processes. 191 00:22:23,980 --> 00:22:31,440 But I thought there was another. Slide here, but there obviously isn't. 192 00:22:31,440 --> 00:22:35,760 So let's. Okay. Necessar insufficient conditions. 193 00:22:35,760 --> 00:22:39,240 There are different analysis of concepts. 194 00:22:39,240 --> 00:22:46,890 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, 195 00:22:46,890 --> 00:22:49,800 insufficient for its application. 196 00:22:49,800 --> 00:22:56,310 And that's why conceptual analysis involves trying to find the conditions necessary, insufficient for the application. 197 00:22:56,310 --> 00:23:06,300 But in later years, we will in more recent years, we've started to think, well, actually, not all concepts are classical concepts. 198 00:23:06,300 --> 00:23:11,310 Not all concepts have the structure of having necessary, insufficient conditions. 199 00:23:11,310 --> 00:23:19,980 For example, Vic Einstein points out that some concepts, the concept of a game, for example, are family resemblance concepts. 200 00:23:19,980 --> 00:23:23,910 So chess is a game and so's tennis. 201 00:23:23,910 --> 00:23:34,750 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, 202 00:23:34,750 --> 00:23:40,020 you know, think of whatever game you like into the category of games. 203 00:23:40,020 --> 00:23:47,640 And if you starting to look for conditions that are necessary and sufficient for the application of the concept game, 204 00:23:47,640 --> 00:23:50,850 and you're going to have serious trouble. 205 00:23:50,850 --> 00:23:58,510 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, 206 00:23:58,510 --> 00:24:04,290 this is a member of the same family and you don't look like you, 207 00:24:04,290 --> 00:24:13,530 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. 208 00:24:13,530 --> 00:24:17,850 And there's an overlapping of resemblances in a family. 209 00:24:17,850 --> 00:24:23,730 And maybe a concept is more like that. Or maybe a concept is more like a prototype. 210 00:24:23,730 --> 00:24:33,510 So we say that's water. And so there's a hidden indexical component, as there is with the real essence of water. 211 00:24:33,510 --> 00:24:41,460 Well, if causation is a concept like that, we can see why there might be an empirical analysis, 212 00:24:41,460 --> 00:24:46,350 but not an analysis in terms of necessary and sufficient conditions. 213 00:24:46,350 --> 00:24:53,400 So for the necessary and sufficient condition analysis that we've been using so far to work, 214 00:24:53,400 --> 00:24:59,550 the concept of causation has got to be a classical concept and. 215 00:24:59,550 --> 00:25:06,450 We could have objected at any point in the first two weeks that actually causation isn't a classical concept. 216 00:25:06,450 --> 00:25:10,370 It's one of these other concepts. 217 00:25:10,370 --> 00:25:18,750 OK, let's ask about the relation between the concept of causation in science and the concept of causation of the folk. 218 00:25:18,750 --> 00:25:29,070 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. 219 00:25:29,070 --> 00:25:36,420 We're interested in the fact that we use causation to predict things, to explain things, to manipulate things. 220 00:25:36,420 --> 00:25:44,700 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. 221 00:25:44,700 --> 00:25:51,240 So it's that sort of causation. And if we're going to have a scientific analysis of causation, 222 00:25:51,240 --> 00:26:00,300 what we'd like is the scientific concept to be at least related to this, the concept that the folk hues. 223 00:26:00,300 --> 00:26:10,320 Well, that's okay. Says so. Okay. Is the scientific concept of colonisation the same as the folk concept of science? 224 00:26:10,320 --> 00:26:21,030 So DOWL, for example, who is one of the people whose candidate empirical analysis we looked at earlier says, 225 00:26:21,030 --> 00:26:26,880 well, yes, science doesn't use the concept, of course, playfully. 226 00:26:26,880 --> 00:26:32,940 You know, it's not using it in jest, nor does it offer a technical definition of causation. 227 00:26:32,940 --> 00:26:39,360 So the concept, of course, in science is the same as the concept of cause that the folk use. 228 00:26:39,360 --> 00:26:51,460 Okay, maybe. But we might also think that the science improves on the everyday concept of causation, might we not? 229 00:26:51,460 --> 00:26:58,290 And the other thing we might ask is which science should we look to for an empirical analysis of causation? 230 00:26:58,290 --> 00:27:02,150 And there are many different sciences. There's evolutionary biology. This chemistry. 231 00:27:02,150 --> 00:27:06,150 There's there's nanotechnology. There's there's physics. 232 00:27:06,150 --> 00:27:11,310 Which one should we look to? And most people think, I don't know. 233 00:27:11,310 --> 00:27:17,580 Most people seem to think that it's physics we should look to for an analysis of causation. 234 00:27:17,580 --> 00:27:23,970 So whereas evolutionary biology, for example, certainly talks about cause and so does chemistry, 235 00:27:23,970 --> 00:27:29,490 it's on it's physics that that we think is going to give us the concept of causation, 236 00:27:29,490 --> 00:27:35,040 at least judging by the people who've offered possible candidates. 237 00:27:35,040 --> 00:27:42,420 But there's a problem with this. One is, does physics even have a concept of causation? 238 00:27:42,420 --> 00:27:51,360 So, for example, the laws of physics that are used to do things like get rockets to the moon, 239 00:27:51,360 --> 00:27:58,410 etc., and usually take the form differential equations and differential equations. 240 00:27:58,410 --> 00:28:03,840 Talk about a property of one object depending. 241 00:28:03,840 --> 00:28:18,180 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. 242 00:28:18,180 --> 00:28:25,890 So the concept of causation implicit in physics is time reversible. 243 00:28:25,890 --> 00:28:33,030 So the laws of nature used by physics are talking about simultaneous causation. 244 00:28:33,030 --> 00:28:43,320 If they're talking about causation at all. Whereas surely the the folk concept of causation has the cause coming before the effect. 245 00:28:43,320 --> 00:28:48,990 And if you remember the human right that into the definition of cause. 246 00:28:48,990 --> 00:28:58,320 So if the folk causation, the cause and concept of the folk is time irreversible and the causal concept of physics, 247 00:28:58,320 --> 00:29:05,310 is time reversible, then why should we think that the same concept at all? 248 00:29:05,310 --> 00:29:12,070 And similarly, the equations of physics are symmetrical. 249 00:29:12,070 --> 00:29:18,460 So we think that if if A causes B, then B also causes A again, 250 00:29:18,460 --> 00:29:26,640 because of the reversibility of the equations, you can see that I'm talking beyond my real knowledge here. 251 00:29:26,640 --> 00:29:31,690 But we certainly don't think that with the folk theory, of course, with folk theory, 252 00:29:31,690 --> 00:29:37,930 of course, causes come before effects and effects are the effect of causes. 253 00:29:37,930 --> 00:29:44,740 It's it's asymmetrical, not symmetrical. So we've got these two problems. 254 00:29:44,740 --> 00:29:51,820 If we're going to use physics for our analysis of causation, then physics must have a concept of cause, 255 00:29:51,820 --> 00:29:58,810 because otherwise what we're looking at and secondly, the concept of causation implicit in physics. 256 00:29:58,810 --> 00:30:04,510 If it's going to tell us, I mean, it might tell us something very interesting about the physical concept of cause. 257 00:30:04,510 --> 00:30:16,690 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. 258 00:30:16,690 --> 00:30:27,880 So, OK. So I've looked at the first two questions, the could that be necessary, insufficient conditions? 259 00:30:27,880 --> 00:30:35,840 Moving on to the nomic necessity nation of Armstrong. 260 00:30:35,840 --> 00:30:42,340 Okay. Oh. That's right. 261 00:30:42,340 --> 00:30:52,180 OK. Armstrong claims that causal relations are contingent relations of nomic necessity between universals. 262 00:30:52,180 --> 00:30:58,120 All this seems to permit two things would really like it to permit. 263 00:30:58,120 --> 00:31:06,130 One is the multiple physical realisation of causation, a strength of the functional theory that we examined last week. 264 00:31:06,130 --> 00:31:17,090 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. 265 00:31:17,090 --> 00:31:20,530 Scientists discovered that water is H2O. This is it. 266 00:31:20,530 --> 00:31:26,900 So the claim water is H2O is an a posterior or a necessity. 267 00:31:26,900 --> 00:31:30,850 Okay, it's a posterior eye because science had to discover it. 268 00:31:30,850 --> 00:31:37,000 But it's necessary because if we travelled to another world in which this there's something that looks, 269 00:31:37,000 --> 00:31:45,180 tastes and feels and behaves like water, but isn't H2O, it isn't water. 270 00:31:45,180 --> 00:31:48,330 And that seems to be a problem for the case of causation, 271 00:31:48,330 --> 00:31:54,750 because we felt quite strongly that there could be different types of causation in different worlds. 272 00:31:54,750 --> 00:32:08,610 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. 273 00:32:08,610 --> 00:32:15,990 So an idea of an APUS is something we can discover that isn't necessary across different worlds. 274 00:32:15,990 --> 00:32:28,740 So multiple physical realisation of causation, but also we can say that causation is the same thing in every possible world. 275 00:32:28,740 --> 00:32:31,860 So, for example, in this world, 276 00:32:31,860 --> 00:32:42,870 we discover that underpinning the regularities that we observe and that we take to be evidence for for causation are fields, Quanta say. 277 00:32:42,870 --> 00:32:52,680 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. 278 00:32:52,680 --> 00:32:59,580 Okay, so. So but here we can say if we insist on the real essence accounts of causation, 279 00:32:59,580 --> 00:33:04,830 that causation isn't science discovers an ape or posterior or a necessity. 280 00:33:04,830 --> 00:33:10,620 If there fields quanta in this world, they would have to be fields' quanta in every world. 281 00:33:10,620 --> 00:33:16,950 And therefore, the exchange of momentum in this other possible world isn't causation. 282 00:33:16,950 --> 00:33:28,600 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. 283 00:33:28,600 --> 00:33:33,600 Do you see? He seems to allow us to have both things. 284 00:33:33,600 --> 00:33:37,380 And if he does, this would be really nice. 285 00:33:37,380 --> 00:33:48,060 Because, for example, we find it very difficult to if we went to Twin Earth and found something that looked exactly like water, 286 00:33:48,060 --> 00:33:55,470 behaved exactly like water, etc., we would be tempted to call it H2O, wouldn't we? 287 00:33:55,470 --> 00:34:01,200 But we couldn't call it H2O because science would have shown that it is not. 288 00:34:01,200 --> 00:34:06,990 H2O behaves exactly like water. 289 00:34:06,990 --> 00:34:12,830 No, it's not a. Ah, yes. 290 00:34:12,830 --> 00:34:23,090 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. 291 00:34:23,090 --> 00:34:30,100 This is a thought experiment, not a real experiment. We are allowed to do that. 292 00:34:30,100 --> 00:34:33,950 Okay. Well, no, that it would be perfectly reasonable. 293 00:34:33,950 --> 00:34:37,970 It would look exactly like water and taste, exactly like water. 294 00:34:37,970 --> 00:34:42,560 And it would flow downhills and it would come from the sky. And you would die. 295 00:34:42,560 --> 00:34:48,150 Yes. And you would die without it. Perhaps because of the water. 296 00:34:48,150 --> 00:34:51,680 Your biochemistry of your body depends on it. Yeah. Okay. 297 00:34:51,680 --> 00:34:56,000 I'm not I'm not going to get involved in that sort of discussion. Okay. 298 00:34:56,000 --> 00:34:59,900 Well, again, as we saw last week, the scientist. Well, okay. 299 00:34:59,900 --> 00:35:01,250 I'm going to repeat myself here. 300 00:35:01,250 --> 00:35:10,740 The scientific discovery, the real essence of water means that anything with a molecular structure other than H2O is not water, however much. 301 00:35:10,740 --> 00:35:18,320 And this is where Mike disagrees with me. If it looks, tastes and behaves like water, says Mike, it would be H2O. 302 00:35:18,320 --> 00:35:26,360 And I'm saying, if it isn't H2O, it's not water. So I'm saying a slightly different thing from Mike. 303 00:35:26,360 --> 00:35:30,510 But Mike is disagreeing with this final clause in my sentence. 304 00:35:30,510 --> 00:35:34,220 He's a killer. Yes. Okay. Not even the final clause. 305 00:35:34,220 --> 00:35:45,990 The final bit of the final clause. Okay. And on the real essence story, science discovers in a or a necessity on Armstrong. 306 00:35:45,990 --> 00:35:51,830 Sorry. Science discovers only contingent relations of nomic necessity. 307 00:35:51,830 --> 00:35:54,860 Now, I have a bit of a problem with that. 308 00:35:54,860 --> 00:36:04,370 But suppose science discovers that the regularity in this world realised by exchanges of fields quanta, as his coach says. 309 00:36:04,370 --> 00:36:11,550 And suppose we travelled to another possible world and discovered that the regularities there are realised by transfers of energy. 310 00:36:11,550 --> 00:36:19,970 Okay, as Dao says, to say that the regularities in this other world are causal, 311 00:36:19,970 --> 00:36:26,900 we'd have to know that they were realised by nomic necessities as well as energy transfers, wouldn't we? 312 00:36:26,900 --> 00:36:33,890 Because if there aren't any nomic necessities there, then there isn't any causation, is there? 313 00:36:33,890 --> 00:36:37,810 There just there's just regularity. Can I. 314 00:36:37,810 --> 00:36:42,860 Okay, listen. I'd like to get the argument out and then you can disagree with me. 315 00:36:42,860 --> 00:36:48,680 Is that all right? But it's very difficult to get an argument out when somebody is disagreeing as I'm giving it. 316 00:36:48,680 --> 00:36:52,330 Okay. So. OK. 317 00:36:52,330 --> 00:37:00,310 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. 318 00:37:00,310 --> 00:37:03,370 And then we can also imagine this other possibility. 319 00:37:03,370 --> 00:37:09,130 We travel to another worlds and discover they're the regularities are realised by transfers of energy. 320 00:37:09,130 --> 00:37:17,770 But what Armstrong is saying is that causation is not fields quanta and it's not transfers of energy. 321 00:37:17,770 --> 00:37:21,940 It's no mcnish frosty relations of real nomic necessity. 322 00:37:21,940 --> 00:37:28,630 That's why we can say that both of these are cases of causation, even though they're not the same thing. 323 00:37:28,630 --> 00:37:33,040 Okay, that's that's this apparent strength of Armstrong's theory. 324 00:37:33,040 --> 00:37:38,710 But to say that the realised the regularities in the other worlds are causal. 325 00:37:38,710 --> 00:37:48,670 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. 326 00:37:48,670 --> 00:37:56,200 We see that there are regularities. Okay. That were they happening on this world would say they were causal. 327 00:37:56,200 --> 00:38:00,610 And we discovered those are realised by transfers of energy. 328 00:38:00,610 --> 00:38:08,410 OK, now to agree with Armstrong that they're both causation. 329 00:38:08,410 --> 00:38:14,830 We'd have to say that. We know that the regularities in this world are causal by definition. 330 00:38:14,830 --> 00:38:25,840 But all the regularities in that world causal. Well, if to be causal on on Armstrong's idea that have to be no societies. 331 00:38:25,840 --> 00:38:31,450 Well, OK. So how do we tell that then nomic necessities? 332 00:38:31,450 --> 00:38:34,750 I mean, how could we know this? How could we possibly know this? 333 00:38:34,750 --> 00:38:42,130 We know that there are regularities, but we don't know that they're necessary regularities. 334 00:38:42,130 --> 00:38:48,080 We don't we can't see empirically that there's a Moodle truth here. 335 00:38:48,080 --> 00:38:57,380 So the two hypotheses are empirically equivalent. So every causal sees a sequence instantiates, and no, McNiece is necessity. 336 00:38:57,380 --> 00:39:03,300 That's Armstrong's hypothesis. And every cause and sequence instantiates as an exception. 337 00:39:03,300 --> 00:39:10,920 Life exceptionals enough to allow for probability regularity, i.e. the human theory. 338 00:39:10,920 --> 00:39:17,670 Well, if those two are impaired, empirically equivalent, then Hume is right, isn't he? 339 00:39:17,670 --> 00:39:26,310 We can't say there's nothing empirical that could tell us that there was a necessity here. 340 00:39:26,310 --> 00:39:34,880 OK, Mike, I'm afraid you've you. Everyone's looking very askance at this. 341 00:39:34,880 --> 00:39:44,920 Okay. I'm just thinking about how to because now we've introduced the idea that we don't like this one. 342 00:39:44,920 --> 00:40:14,830 Should we discuss it now or should we discuss it later? Let's discuss each one now, so let's let's go back. 343 00:40:14,830 --> 00:40:24,190 OK, let's have a look. Did you understand what I was saying when I said. 344 00:40:24,190 --> 00:40:43,360 OK. One problem, the STC would be this. 345 00:40:43,360 --> 00:40:49,020 Let's say causation is. 346 00:40:49,020 --> 00:41:08,380 Energy transfer. One is energy, woops, causation and new energy transfer. 347 00:41:08,380 --> 00:41:18,330 Two, is this energy chance for a new causation? 348 00:41:18,330 --> 00:41:23,360 Okay, so if you're if you're postulating the claim that causation is energy transfer. 349 00:41:23,360 --> 00:41:30,670 Okay, we're picking one of the candidate Estess. We're saying, okay, let's let's assume that one's Kret. 350 00:41:30,670 --> 00:41:39,080 If we find that there's causation and no energy transfer, that would be a bad mark for that theory, would it not? 351 00:41:39,080 --> 00:41:47,380 Yes. OK. And if we find energy transfer, but no causation, that would again be a black mark for it. 352 00:41:47,380 --> 00:41:57,490 Would it not? OK, now we could say here that that this is going to be a probabilistic theory. 353 00:41:57,490 --> 00:42:03,790 So we could allow some cases of causation without energy transfer, some cases. 354 00:42:03,790 --> 00:42:10,360 But if there are too many, it's just going to be. Not Runnable, isn't it? 355 00:42:10,360 --> 00:42:19,560 Where are you going to disagree with causations? Energy transfer, energy transfer causation. 356 00:42:19,560 --> 00:42:26,100 You can have energy production of energy transfer if they're the same thing. 357 00:42:26,100 --> 00:42:30,190 Yeah, but that is causation requires energy transfer. 358 00:42:30,190 --> 00:42:35,390 Energy transfer does not like causation because there might be other purposes for transfer. 359 00:42:35,390 --> 00:42:45,330 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. 360 00:42:45,330 --> 00:42:52,180 If you're going to say it's identical to, then that would also be a black mark room and not proven yet. 361 00:42:52,180 --> 00:42:59,060 Okay. So if we take out the if we say reduces to, that becomes much less of a black mark. 362 00:42:59,060 --> 00:43:04,510 Yeah. Except that those black market. Yeah. Do you do you see the thought there. 363 00:43:04,510 --> 00:43:10,180 So if you're saying that causation either is so is identical to it's the very same 364 00:43:10,180 --> 00:43:16,090 thing as energy transfer or you're saying causation reduces to energy transfer, 365 00:43:16,090 --> 00:43:21,670 then in the first case, if you find causation and no energy transfer, it's got to be false. 366 00:43:21,670 --> 00:43:30,010 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. 367 00:43:30,010 --> 00:43:36,700 So that wouldn't be such a black mark, but you'd have to allow the possibility of there being other forms. 368 00:43:36,700 --> 00:43:41,560 Okay, everyone understand why that would be a problem for causation, 369 00:43:41,560 --> 00:43:48,150 even though the two examples that we gave were actually neither of them very convincing. 370 00:43:48,150 --> 00:43:52,980 Okay. Do you accept that one? 371 00:43:52,980 --> 00:44:04,370 But my question, I'll be supposing you found they were absolutely equivalent in the sense that every single transfer of energy. 372 00:44:04,370 --> 00:44:07,880 Because he's become a boyfriend. 373 00:44:07,880 --> 00:44:19,220 That would be an interesting scientific fact, but it wouldn't tell us what causation because we had a motive established. 374 00:44:19,220 --> 00:44:27,510 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. 375 00:44:27,510 --> 00:44:30,990 Okay, everyone. Except that that would be a problem. 376 00:44:30,990 --> 00:44:36,550 Okay, let's move on the relation between the concept of causation in science and that of the folk. 377 00:44:36,550 --> 00:44:44,630 And so if you remember here, I said firstly, what was the first thing I said? 378 00:44:44,630 --> 00:44:50,530 Oh, yes. Ah, so it's no the second one I said was which science? 379 00:44:50,530 --> 00:44:51,230 We're going to look for. 380 00:44:51,230 --> 00:45:00,110 But the first one I said was what's the relation between the folk concept of causation and the scientific concept of causation? 381 00:45:00,110 --> 00:45:05,060 I mean, when evolutionary biologists talk about causation. 382 00:45:05,060 --> 00:45:11,150 Do they mean the same thing as what the folk mean when we're talking about causation? 383 00:45:11,150 --> 00:45:15,710 We can give an argument for yes, we can give arguments for no. 384 00:45:15,710 --> 00:45:23,090 And if we're going to say that the science is going to find an account of the nature of causation, 385 00:45:23,090 --> 00:45:31,190 we want there to be some claim that it's going to be. Yes. So you're looking at. 386 00:45:31,190 --> 00:45:48,610 So the question is, is the scientific concept of cause identical to the folk concept? 387 00:45:48,610 --> 00:45:53,620 And there are answers. There are yes arguments and there are no arguments, so Dow said yes. 388 00:45:53,620 --> 00:45:58,030 Scientists don't use it playfully and they don't have a technical definition of it. 389 00:45:58,030 --> 00:46:04,600 So that's a yes argument. And then I gave a no argument when I looked. 390 00:46:04,600 --> 00:46:10,130 Next question was, which science do we look to? People tend to look to physics. 391 00:46:10,130 --> 00:46:20,260 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. 392 00:46:20,260 --> 00:46:26,890 And so even if we get a really good empirical account of the physical concept of cause. 393 00:46:26,890 --> 00:46:32,530 Have we learnt anything at all about the folk concept? Of course, that's the question. 394 00:46:32,530 --> 00:46:39,910 I mean, you might say it doesn't matter. The physical concept, of course, is much more interesting than the folk concept, of course. 395 00:46:39,910 --> 00:46:49,510 So, you know, who cares if it isn't giving us an account of the causal concept of the folk concept? 396 00:46:49,510 --> 00:47:06,540 OK. If a physicist stranger calls causation changing, I don't see the answer. 397 00:47:06,540 --> 00:47:14,360 Okay. The concept we held two years ago come. 398 00:47:14,360 --> 00:47:17,770 OK, well. And that that would be another argument for. 399 00:47:17,770 --> 00:47:22,270 Yes. So we can say, even though the physical concept, of course, 400 00:47:22,270 --> 00:47:30,070 looks at first glance very different from the folk concept, actually we can make another argument, say it is. 401 00:47:30,070 --> 00:47:36,650 But the problem I'm drawing attention to is the fact that we've got. 402 00:47:36,650 --> 00:47:43,400 Well, we've got two concepts here, which might actually be the same concept or might not. 403 00:47:43,400 --> 00:47:50,420 And if what we're after is is an account to the folk concept of cause and the empirical count 404 00:47:50,420 --> 00:47:57,600 would have to be an account of a folk concept in order for us to for it to be acceptable to us. 405 00:47:57,600 --> 00:48:05,590 If you think Newton. Concern me very much. 406 00:48:05,590 --> 00:48:14,800 You know, what I mean is we'd have to give a yes to the question that the science concept is the folk concept. 407 00:48:14,800 --> 00:48:20,030 Yeah. Yeah, I know it is. Yes. And that's why you're not arguing against what I'm saying. 408 00:48:20,030 --> 00:48:28,250 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. 409 00:48:28,250 --> 00:48:32,370 If that's true, if it's really true, then. 410 00:48:32,370 --> 00:48:40,500 There's no empirical accounts concept, on the other hand, we can surely tell some sort of story to the effect that it is. 411 00:48:40,500 --> 00:48:48,510 Which is what Christopher is suggesting. And as long as we can, then that's not an objection. 412 00:48:48,510 --> 00:48:58,130 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. 413 00:48:58,130 --> 00:49:02,010 OK. Now, this is the one that is causing the problems. OK. 414 00:49:02,010 --> 00:49:10,890 Could there be empirical evidence for nomic necessities? And let's go over this one again and then perhaps more. 415 00:49:10,890 --> 00:49:15,060 Mike, you can explain what your problem with it is. 416 00:49:15,060 --> 00:49:32,420 Okay. So on Earth, science discovers that all regularities that we take as evidence for causation are realised. 417 00:49:32,420 --> 00:49:39,080 By exchanges of fields conter. 418 00:49:39,080 --> 00:49:47,810 OK, that's straightforward. Then we travelled to Twin Earth, so it immediately becomes a thought experiment of kind. 419 00:49:47,810 --> 00:49:58,680 But we travelled to twin Earth. And science discovers that all the regularities. 420 00:49:58,680 --> 00:50:06,600 That we will hang on, that we would take to be evidence of causation, 421 00:50:06,600 --> 00:50:12,990 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. 422 00:50:12,990 --> 00:50:23,690 But we find that they realised. By transfers of momentum. 423 00:50:23,690 --> 00:50:31,530 Okay, well, there are two possibilities, either on Earth and onto an earth with that both causation. 424 00:50:31,530 --> 00:50:36,050 They're both causal, but they are realised by different things. 425 00:50:36,050 --> 00:50:44,810 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. 426 00:50:44,810 --> 00:50:53,180 He's saying that we can say that Fields' Quanta are in the context of Earth realises of causation and energy chance. 427 00:50:53,180 --> 00:50:59,210 Well, momentum transfers are in the context of twin earth causal regularities. 428 00:50:59,210 --> 00:51:08,290 And that's because both are. Nomic necessities. 429 00:51:08,290 --> 00:51:19,840 In both cases, the there's a real relation of nomic necessity relating cause and effect, even though they realised by different physical relations. 430 00:51:19,840 --> 00:51:23,570 Well, what I'm suggesting there is. 431 00:51:23,570 --> 00:51:30,490 Okay. What we've got to do is say that. We need empirical evidence. 432 00:51:30,490 --> 00:51:41,620 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. 433 00:51:41,620 --> 00:51:47,450 That's what causation is. Do we say the same thing there? 434 00:51:47,450 --> 00:51:52,270 It's only r intuitions that would say these are causal. 435 00:51:52,270 --> 00:52:00,010 Isn't it? Why are these not regularities for human human regularities? 436 00:52:00,010 --> 00:52:05,950 The difference is that. These must be more. 437 00:52:05,950 --> 00:52:14,510 What Armstrong is suggesting is that the moodle. 438 00:52:14,510 --> 00:52:29,100 There's Moodle impacts both here and here. Not the case that here and here, that human. 439 00:52:29,100 --> 00:52:34,900 Do you see the point? Okay, Mike, what's the problem with that? 440 00:52:34,900 --> 00:52:39,640 Two problems. One is contingent. And one is much more fundamental. 441 00:52:39,640 --> 00:52:45,730 The contingent problem is that energy momentum transfers are mediated by quanti exchanges. 442 00:52:45,730 --> 00:52:51,970 There's no difference in the two cases. Not out. Not out. I said it was contingent, but it goes deeper than that. 443 00:52:51,970 --> 00:52:57,580 Looking at the original list of possible topics along the way. 444 00:52:57,580 --> 00:53:06,210 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. 445 00:53:06,210 --> 00:53:13,480 In fact, they were talking about the same things from slightly different point of view, from slightly different levels of the contagion. 446 00:53:13,480 --> 00:53:18,670 From what? Okay, that's not an interesting problem from a philosophical point of view. 447 00:53:18,670 --> 00:53:27,590 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. 448 00:53:27,590 --> 00:53:31,000 Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Do people understand that? 449 00:53:31,000 --> 00:53:39,370 What what Mike saying is that all the apparently different theories that I gave initially all come to the same thing. 450 00:53:39,370 --> 00:53:49,060 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. 451 00:53:49,060 --> 00:53:55,930 Okay. But is is more than the mental problem. And that is so far we are talking about physical explanation of causation. 452 00:53:55,930 --> 00:54:01,200 We cannot just talk about possible worlds other than physically possible. 453 00:54:01,200 --> 00:54:09,760 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, 454 00:54:09,760 --> 00:54:15,930 I was objecting to the behaviour or behaviour, even on a macro level, a bus, electricity or water. 455 00:54:15,930 --> 00:54:23,050 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. 456 00:54:23,050 --> 00:54:31,480 In other words, what I'm saying is the absolute fact that the contradiction you are trying to present here is, according to physics, 457 00:54:31,480 --> 00:54:40,020 physically impossible and the right possible worlds just don't come into focus will also satisfy the physical. 458 00:54:40,020 --> 00:54:46,270 Okay. So we are saying that if water is H2O, then it isn't H2O. 459 00:54:46,270 --> 00:54:53,020 Nothing that. Oh, no, hang on. 460 00:54:53,020 --> 00:55:00,510 No, that water must be H2O because no other substance can behave exactly like H2O in all circumstances. 461 00:55:00,510 --> 00:55:12,820 It is not physically possible, that's what it promises to be. Okay, so if water is H2O, then nothing else can look taste. 462 00:55:12,820 --> 00:55:18,550 And in particular, behave, behave like water. 463 00:55:18,550 --> 00:55:24,150 So it couldn't be water is what you're saying. Okay, so you're rejecting the whole twin thought experiment? 464 00:55:24,150 --> 00:55:28,960 No, no, no. Do enough experiment is fine provided you don't become physically possible worlds. 465 00:55:28,960 --> 00:55:38,440 But here we are. We must stick to physically possible roles because we are talking about physical explanations. 466 00:55:38,440 --> 00:55:55,220 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. 467 00:55:55,220 --> 00:56:01,120 I think there is an answer. There is an answer to the other physical world. 468 00:56:01,120 --> 00:56:11,610 What? What passes as water for us, which has the atomic number, whatever it is that is slightly different on that world, 469 00:56:11,610 --> 00:56:21,310 that that world that developed with slightly different isotopes. And in fact, instead of just being HRR is now a to something else. 470 00:56:21,310 --> 00:56:25,150 Which makes it. Well, the thought of me is slightly different. 471 00:56:25,150 --> 00:56:30,860 But behaves identical to the way water does on this world. 472 00:56:30,860 --> 00:56:46,400 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. 473 00:56:46,400 --> 00:56:51,710 Water of H2O. And on twin Earth. 474 00:56:51,710 --> 00:56:58,850 You've got Oscar who's looking at a glass of X, Y, Z. 475 00:56:58,850 --> 00:57:06,660 Now both them. This this one saying that's water. 476 00:57:06,660 --> 00:57:19,480 And thinking. That's water. And twin Oscar is also thinking that's water. 477 00:57:19,480 --> 00:57:26,470 Saying that's water. So they're they're identical. 478 00:57:26,470 --> 00:57:37,580 With respect to their phenomenological. States, in other words, everything seems to them exactly the same. 479 00:57:37,580 --> 00:57:50,350 Their behavioural dispositions are the same. Now, that is one that Mike is going to have a problem with in a minute. 480 00:57:50,350 --> 00:57:54,820 And the then neurophysiology is the same. 481 00:57:54,820 --> 00:58:06,130 This is the thought experiment. And now you'd have to if you had that pre the Dunkin's discovery of. 482 00:58:06,130 --> 00:58:15,530 Who discovered the water was H2O? Duncan, I think, but I can't remember when anyway. 483 00:58:15,530 --> 00:58:21,350 If you had that before. So there's nobody on Earth who knew the water was H2O. 484 00:58:21,350 --> 00:58:29,850 The question is that you ask in the thought experiment is, do these two mean the same thing by that? 485 00:58:29,850 --> 00:58:42,290 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. 486 00:58:42,290 --> 00:58:51,970 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. 487 00:58:51,970 --> 00:59:00,770 Behavioural dispositions with respect to the concept and the way our brains behave with respect to the concept, then us. 488 00:59:00,770 --> 00:59:05,270 These are identical. They'd have to be have the same meaning. 489 00:59:05,270 --> 00:59:12,160 But if you say. The meaning is determined by something outside, something external. 490 00:59:12,160 --> 00:59:23,930 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. 491 00:59:23,930 --> 00:59:32,380 OK, so you say you don't think it's externally determined, you think all concepts must be determined. 492 00:59:32,380 --> 00:59:43,700 Is that even the main thing? Okay, um, I think I'm going to agree with you in the end. 493 00:59:43,700 --> 00:59:55,520 So why don't I continue? I think we will know what's what's important is that you see the problem for this. 494 00:59:55,520 --> 01:00:08,030 So going back to what I said originally. 495 01:00:08,030 --> 01:00:19,640 OK, so forget Mike's first objection because because that's I mean, by his own admission, uninteresting, so it might just confuse you. 496 01:00:19,640 --> 01:00:24,500 No, it's not. It's not him. Not important. Okay. 497 01:00:24,500 --> 01:00:33,260 So on Earth, science discovers that all regularities are realised by fields, cancer and on twin earth, 498 01:00:33,260 --> 01:00:44,810 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. 499 01:00:44,810 --> 01:00:47,990 What Armstrong is saying is that both of these can be. 500 01:00:47,990 --> 01:01:00,790 Whereas if we're going to go along with the Twin Earth thought experiment, we'd have to say that. 501 01:01:00,790 --> 01:01:06,670 You know, I should have put my lost objection first. I'm going to put my last objection. 502 01:01:06,670 --> 01:01:11,410 Then come back to this one. Don't worry, I will explain it to you. 503 01:01:11,410 --> 01:01:17,190 Can I do that? You're not getting hopelessly confused by this. 504 01:01:17,190 --> 01:01:24,670 OK, I want to talk about how we're going to decide that empirical analysis of causation are correct. 505 01:01:24,670 --> 01:01:38,920 And I'm gonna go on to. And this is quicker. 506 01:01:38,920 --> 01:01:48,940 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? 507 01:01:48,940 --> 01:01:56,310 I listed above many candidates, or at least I thought there were many candidates for empirical analysis of causation, 508 01:01:56,310 --> 01:02:00,460 and I might have listed many more. There are lots of people out there. 509 01:02:00,460 --> 01:02:06,610 Lots of them are physicists, actually, also philosophers who think they are different. 510 01:02:06,610 --> 01:02:13,180 If we're to an adopt an empirical account of causation and there are different hypotheses, I say. 511 01:02:13,180 --> 01:02:23,170 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? 512 01:02:23,170 --> 01:02:30,800 We have to be able to give. Some claim, and this is importantly not an empirical decision. 513 01:02:30,800 --> 01:02:37,520 And I suspect Mike would agree with this. Okay, imagine that we're deciding between two different claims. 514 01:02:37,520 --> 01:02:42,510 This is on Earth now. Not not we're not talking about any thought experiment like that. 515 01:02:42,510 --> 01:02:49,610 And each candidate theory would have to make different predictions about what would be observed in different situations. 516 01:02:49,610 --> 01:02:53,030 So in order for them to be different hypotheses, 517 01:02:53,030 --> 01:02:59,930 they've got to make different predictions about what's going to happen in certain different situations. 518 01:02:59,930 --> 01:03:08,030 And we'd either have to try and create or we try and have to try and observe these different situations. 519 01:03:08,030 --> 01:03:18,290 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. 520 01:03:18,290 --> 01:03:21,770 So. OK. 521 01:03:21,770 --> 01:03:27,290 Let's imagine there are such situations and that we can observe them or create them. 522 01:03:27,290 --> 01:03:33,290 And it's still necessary to decide whether causation is present in these situations. 523 01:03:33,290 --> 01:03:39,770 Wouldn't it? So we see that fields, quanta are being exchanged. 524 01:03:39,770 --> 01:03:45,230 But the marks are not being transferred. But is there a causation here? 525 01:03:45,230 --> 01:03:52,250 Because if if there isn't, then the Mark Tranced transmission theory might still be correct. 526 01:03:52,250 --> 01:03:58,220 If it is, then the Mark transmission theory isn't correct, is it? 527 01:03:58,220 --> 01:04:08,720 So if you are intuitions about what counts as causal that are actually the deciding feature. 528 01:04:08,720 --> 01:04:13,160 So I can see some people nodding and I can see other people looking very perplexed. 529 01:04:13,160 --> 01:04:25,100 So let me see if I can make that a bit clearer. So two hypotheses. 530 01:04:25,100 --> 01:04:31,880 Okay. Different hypotheses. Two different. 531 01:04:31,880 --> 01:04:44,380 Sets of predictions in identical situations. 532 01:04:44,380 --> 01:04:49,090 OK. That's what we want in order for it to be empirically testable, don't we? 533 01:04:49,090 --> 01:04:59,590 So we want one situation. In which so let's say two different sets of predictions. 534 01:04:59,590 --> 01:05:04,900 So set one and set two in the identical situation. 535 01:05:04,900 --> 01:05:12,100 So one situation in which set one are true. 536 01:05:12,100 --> 01:05:20,610 And set two or not. OK, well, how is the fact there's this? 537 01:05:20,610 --> 01:05:27,930 OK. There aren't any mark transferred transmissions in this situation. 538 01:05:27,930 --> 01:05:38,340 The question is, is there causation in this situation? 539 01:05:38,340 --> 01:05:48,480 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. 540 01:05:48,480 --> 01:05:53,480 And if you've already decided that it's Fields' Quanta, then if there isn't any. 541 01:05:53,480 --> 01:05:59,290 Sorry, if there is Fields' quantum being strange, you're going to say yes, but actually it's are we. 542 01:05:59,290 --> 01:06:05,750 What we want to know here is, is this situation a situation in which there's causation? 543 01:06:05,750 --> 01:06:14,860 And the only thing that can tell us that is our own intuitions about whether this is a causal situation or not. 544 01:06:14,860 --> 01:06:22,600 Science cannot tell us that because science is trying to tell us what causation is. 545 01:06:22,600 --> 01:06:28,690 But it can only do that if we already know what causation is. 546 01:06:28,690 --> 01:06:40,800 To some extent so. The only way we can tell whether there's causation presence is by using our intuition. 547 01:06:40,800 --> 01:06:46,040 And it's quite intuitions about the proper applications of our concepts frequently 548 01:06:46,040 --> 01:06:50,390 play a part in decisions about the correctness of scientific theories. 549 01:06:50,390 --> 01:06:54,350 So, for example, in nineteen hundred nineteen thirty four, 550 01:06:54,350 --> 01:07:02,660 Ball came up with two different accounts of the electron in what they were different because in the nineteen hundred theory, 551 01:07:02,660 --> 01:07:14,930 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. 552 01:07:14,930 --> 01:07:24,500 So. We had there a situation in which it was decided that instead of saying that the nineteen hundred theory was wrong, 553 01:07:24,500 --> 01:07:29,210 we had shown in the 1934 theory that electrons didn't exist. 554 01:07:29,210 --> 01:07:37,070 Instead, we decided that actually the 19th thought 34 theory was the successor to the nineteen hundred theory. 555 01:07:37,070 --> 01:07:41,900 It's just that in nineteen hundred we had some false beliefs about electrons. 556 01:07:41,900 --> 01:07:50,870 Not that electrons didn't exist. The beliefs weren't so false that we were prepared to say electrons didn't exist. 557 01:07:50,870 --> 01:07:58,280 And we decided, on the other hand, that phlogiston didn't exists. 558 01:07:58,280 --> 01:08:02,810 We didn't say that it's the same thing as Valence electrons, for example. 559 01:08:02,810 --> 01:08:08,030 So here we decided that something did exist. We just had false beliefs about it. 560 01:08:08,030 --> 01:08:13,580 Here we decided that our beliefs were so false that it didn't exist. 561 01:08:13,580 --> 01:08:25,210 And that's the. A decision that we have to make about how you apply the concept, not itself an empirical decision. 562 01:08:25,210 --> 01:08:33,340 So decisions about identification and therefore reduction are in the final analysis, philosophical decisions. 563 01:08:33,340 --> 01:08:42,370 So, for example, if somebody says that pain is C fibre firing or something like that. 564 01:08:42,370 --> 01:08:51,070 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. 565 01:08:51,070 --> 01:08:59,800 That's a philosophical decision. And I'm not saying for one minute that empirical evidence doesn't play a crucial role. 566 01:08:59,800 --> 01:09:04,360 I mean, it's empirical evidence that provides us with likely candidates. 567 01:09:04,360 --> 01:09:12,280 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, 568 01:09:12,280 --> 01:09:19,960 we've got to use our intuition about what causation is, about what pain is, etc. 569 01:09:19,960 --> 01:09:31,600 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? 570 01:09:31,600 --> 01:09:37,090 Okay. And I'm going to say that philosophers are going to help identify the functional role of our causal concept, 571 01:09:37,090 --> 01:09:47,800 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. 572 01:09:47,800 --> 01:09:57,430 So we look at what licences a causal claim. We see a regularity in this license's us to say that A causes B. 573 01:09:57,430 --> 01:10:03,140 We see. We also look at what lyson what causal claims will licence. 574 01:10:03,140 --> 01:10:12,490 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. 575 01:10:12,490 --> 01:10:21,220 So that's looking at the inferential role. That causation in play is in our causal theories. 576 01:10:21,220 --> 01:10:30,580 And. You know, I've just said that and there are empirical sciences, I mentioned them right at the beginning of robotics. 577 01:10:30,580 --> 01:10:36,490 Any science that looks at are thinking about causation that tries to determine 578 01:10:36,490 --> 01:10:41,230 what the empirical evidence is that we look to to decide whether something is, 579 01:10:41,230 --> 01:10:50,560 of course, or not. We'll also have an important role to play in the identification of functional role of our concept. 580 01:10:50,560 --> 01:10:55,000 So, OK. My claim is that there are still jobs of losses, 581 01:10:55,000 --> 01:11:04,600 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. 582 01:11:04,600 --> 01:11:12,060 On the contrary, I'm quite pro the idea that there's an empirical analysis. 583 01:11:12,060 --> 01:11:17,940 Philosophers still ask of every relation suggested whether it's necessary and or sufficient. 584 01:11:17,940 --> 01:11:24,360 That may or may not be interesting. I disagree with Mike. 585 01:11:24,360 --> 01:11:32,580 I do think that we should identify analysis that have modal implications that aren't therefore empirical claims at all. 586 01:11:32,580 --> 01:11:41,980 I think that Armstrong's claim is empirically equivalent to the regularity theory of causation and therefore that it isn't an empirical theory. 587 01:11:41,980 --> 01:11:49,800 And I think philosophers have a job in comparing empirical causal concepts, for example, 588 01:11:49,800 --> 01:11:56,190 the causal concept that is used in physics to the concept of causation and therefore saying whether this is 589 01:11:56,190 --> 01:12:04,260 indeed an account of our folk concept and deciding whether an empirical account of causation is correct. 590 01:12:04,260 --> 01:12:08,020 I suspect that's. And this is something I'd like to think about more. 591 01:12:08,020 --> 01:12:12,680 I suspect that that's actually coming. 592 01:12:12,680 --> 01:12:20,500 In the disagreement that Mike and I were having, if we were having a disagreement, and I think Fluck philosophies also help to identify. 593 01:12:20,500 --> 01:12:30,380 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. 594 01:12:30,380 --> 01:12:39,200 So still plenty of jobs for philosophers, even if there is an empirical account of causation. 595 01:12:39,200 --> 01:12:43,870 Okay, so we've looked at. 596 01:12:43,870 --> 01:12:53,610 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. 597 01:12:53,610 --> 01:13:00,090 But so far, we've considered three types of reductive analysis of causation. 598 01:13:00,090 --> 01:13:08,670 So we've looked at the regularity theory of causation, the human theory of causation, according to which causation is lawful regularity. 599 01:13:08,670 --> 01:13:13,590 And that's an a priori ie a philosophical theory. 600 01:13:13,590 --> 01:13:20,880 We've looked at the counterfactual theory of causation where counter causation is counterfactual dependencies of some kind. 601 01:13:20,880 --> 01:13:26,550 And if you remember, we saw that you have to add there are chains of counterfactual causation and so on. 602 01:13:26,550 --> 01:13:30,450 And again, that's an a priori a theory. 603 01:13:30,450 --> 01:13:36,420 It's a philosophical analysis. And then we've looked at the singularity theory of causation, 604 01:13:36,420 --> 01:13:44,370 where the claim is that causation is either a physical process or a set of physical processes. 605 01:13:44,370 --> 01:13:49,110 So that's not an empirical not a philosophical analysis. 606 01:13:49,110 --> 01:13:52,920 That would be a scientific analysis, an empirical analysis. 607 01:13:52,920 --> 01:14:02,520 But I'd argue that there are plenty of jobs for philosophers in deciding whether any such there is correct. 608 01:14:02,520 --> 01:14:08,940 We've not considered either primitivism. Do you remember I said right at the very beginning. 609 01:14:08,940 --> 01:14:13,680 By analysing the concept of causation, we're hoping to either reduce it, 610 01:14:13,680 --> 01:14:19,230 show that it's privative that is so fundamental and so central to our thinking. 611 01:14:19,230 --> 01:14:23,850 It can't be reduced at all, either empirically or philosophically. 612 01:14:23,850 --> 01:14:31,360 So that might be like the idea of truth, for example, is arguably a primitive concept. 613 01:14:31,360 --> 01:14:37,740 And we haven't looked at illuminative ism, the idea that causation doesn't exist. 614 01:14:37,740 --> 01:14:42,480 So, for example, Russell thinks that causation doesn't exist. 615 01:14:42,480 --> 01:14:50,490 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. 616 01:14:50,490 --> 01:14:59,680 And there's quite nice quotation in your hand out. So you can have a look at that. 617 01:14:59,680 --> 01:15:05,870 Okay, so that's what I've done. Although I think that we've got so. 618 01:15:05,870 --> 01:15:15,890 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. 619 01:15:15,890 --> 01:15:21,560 Theory of causation was Strauss' argument for the singular theory, which, if you remember, 620 01:15:21,560 --> 01:15:30,560 was it improves on the regularity theory and the other one, and that it's explains regularity. 621 01:15:30,560 --> 01:15:36,560 It doesn't just insist they're bruit. We looked at types of STC, which is if Mike is right. 622 01:15:36,560 --> 01:15:41,870 Are all the same type. We looked at problems for the singulars theory of causation. 623 01:15:41,870 --> 01:15:44,360 We looked at several different ones. 624 01:15:44,360 --> 01:15:56,560 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. 625 01:15:56,560 --> 01:16:01,850 OK. And I've summarised where we are. And next week we're going to consider that. 626 01:16:01,850 --> 01:16:08,120 And we've got ten minutes for questions. Good. 627 01:16:08,120 --> 01:16:14,230 Chris, you were talking earlier on about just. 628 01:16:14,230 --> 01:16:23,000 Yes, when it was this way. Consider the possibility of without a cause. 629 01:16:23,000 --> 01:16:26,860 No, this is a case where there's a cause and and in fact. 630 01:16:26,860 --> 01:16:32,330 But no physical process. Linking the two. 631 01:16:32,330 --> 01:16:41,240 So disconnection was that that catapults. One that I gave disconnection. 632 01:16:41,240 --> 01:16:53,930 The idea is that there is a causation. But no physical process. 633 01:16:53,930 --> 01:16:58,200 Does that come? The same thing I'm looking for. 634 01:16:58,200 --> 01:17:04,480 Oh, apparently seeing in effect, that you can't see, of course. 635 01:17:04,480 --> 01:17:11,130 No, it's that you would say that A causes B. 636 01:17:11,130 --> 01:17:19,020 But there's no physical process linking A and B. 637 01:17:19,020 --> 01:17:24,870 In which case, if you really have got cause, but you haven't got a physical process, 638 01:17:24,870 --> 01:17:32,190 then the thought is that causation can't be a physical process, at least in this case. 639 01:17:32,190 --> 01:17:36,540 That's disconnection. And you had a question. 640 01:17:36,540 --> 01:17:41,400 Well, I was going to say that I've lost track. 641 01:17:41,400 --> 01:17:52,530 Good stuff. Sorry about that. It's come down to a question of definitions. 642 01:17:52,530 --> 01:17:58,810 It seems to me that the what we mean by courts, of course, I. 643 01:17:58,810 --> 01:18:10,730 Drifting around. For that reason, they pin back. 644 01:18:10,730 --> 01:18:20,030 It was particularly evident when you were talking about. Water is different, world water for sea, five different people. 645 01:18:20,030 --> 01:18:25,230 And whether. Kindling set on a Ferris wheel. 646 01:18:25,230 --> 01:18:30,490 Fast. Switch course, Asian society. Yes, that's water. 647 01:18:30,490 --> 01:18:35,080 Yeah. Might actually relate to something which has taken the opposite. 648 01:18:35,080 --> 01:18:39,360 But those two things are different. Oh. 649 01:18:39,360 --> 01:18:43,880 I will tell you that if, in fact, that a deep level, right, different. 650 01:18:43,880 --> 01:18:53,200 It's. Safely, but one hasn't observed sufficient for no to be able to distinguish. 651 01:18:53,200 --> 01:18:57,540 Yes. Absolutely. So, Ben. 652 01:18:57,540 --> 01:19:05,470 The question of causation. All we can to say, but we're observing the same thing. 653 01:19:05,470 --> 01:19:11,710 It depends whether we're focussing clearly on the Observer or Pury on me. 654 01:19:11,710 --> 01:19:19,890 Serious stuff. I couldn't agree more. 655 01:19:19,890 --> 01:19:25,850 I'm not yet. I don't worry. 656 01:19:25,850 --> 01:19:28,170 I understand that. You're absolutely right. 657 01:19:28,170 --> 01:19:35,470 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. 658 01:19:35,470 --> 01:19:46,890 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? 659 01:19:46,890 --> 01:19:49,950 I haven't got the foggiest idea. 660 01:19:49,950 --> 01:19:58,650 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? 661 01:19:58,650 --> 01:20:04,610 I mean, that's writing large. What the problem is that you're identifying. 662 01:20:04,610 --> 01:20:09,870 You know, what you're saying is that what we mean by cause is drifting around in your words. 663 01:20:09,870 --> 01:20:18,660 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, 664 01:20:18,660 --> 01:20:27,990 meaning minutes without realising we're doing that, then we're guilty of a quick equivocation and nothing we say is of any use. 665 01:20:27,990 --> 01:20:41,060 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? 666 01:20:41,060 --> 01:20:50,120 Which it is, then it's not surprising it's drifting around, because what we're doing is we're trying out different hypotheses. 667 01:20:50,120 --> 01:20:58,970 And one of the reasons as it becomes so difficult is that in trying to to square the philosophical question, 668 01:20:58,970 --> 01:21:03,590 what does causation mean with the scientific question? 669 01:21:03,590 --> 01:21:10,670 What is causation? It looks as if we might be equivocating. 670 01:21:10,670 --> 01:21:14,840 So which is why you get the feeling that this sleight of hand going on. 671 01:21:14,840 --> 01:21:27,070 But actually what we're doing is we've got two different. What does causation mean? 672 01:21:27,070 --> 01:21:39,250 And what is causation? Do you remember right at the beginning, I said that there are semantic issues and there are ontological issues. 673 01:21:39,250 --> 01:21:47,970 And the two have got to go together. We can't say what causation is until we know what causation means. 674 01:21:47,970 --> 01:21:58,820 And arguably, it's also true that we can't say what causation means until we have some idea of what causation is. 675 01:21:58,820 --> 01:22:04,220 And one of the reasons we start looking at logical situations, thought experiments, 676 01:22:04,220 --> 01:22:17,940 as well as empirical experiments is the twin thought experiment is precisely an experiment that's designed to pull apart our intuition about meaning. 677 01:22:17,940 --> 01:22:27,120 So some people think and Mike is obviously one of them. 678 01:22:27,120 --> 01:22:35,460 That meaning is determined by ensuring or properties. 679 01:22:35,460 --> 01:22:47,640 Intrinsic to human subjects. In other words, you might think, well, hang on, meanings, that's that's all business, isn't it? 680 01:22:47,640 --> 01:22:51,650 You know, we decide what the meaning of a word is. 681 01:22:51,650 --> 01:22:59,660 So properties intrinsic to us. I do remember the difference between intrinsic properties in relation extrinsic properties. 682 01:22:59,660 --> 01:23:08,640 And if that's true, if we've got to intrinsically identical twins. 683 01:23:08,640 --> 01:23:14,820 Then the meaning of water should be identical as well. 684 01:23:14,820 --> 01:23:25,570 Shouldn't it? And the twin thought experiment. 685 01:23:25,570 --> 01:23:36,030 Suggests that the meaning differs. 686 01:23:36,030 --> 01:23:41,100 And therefore, meaning cannot be determined by intrinsic properties. 687 01:23:41,100 --> 01:23:49,010 It's also. Determined by the world. 688 01:23:49,010 --> 01:23:57,560 So our word water is not just it's not that we decide what counts as evidence for water, 689 01:23:57,560 --> 01:24:04,970 what water looks like, what it's the world also decides what counts. 690 01:24:04,970 --> 01:24:14,590 And one answer, you might come to this. You might say that the meaning of water is actually X, Y, Z and H2O. 691 01:24:14,590 --> 01:24:19,300 OK. You've got a disjunctive. Theory of water here. 692 01:24:19,300 --> 01:24:27,630 So one possibility is that water. Is H2O, not X, Y, Z. 693 01:24:27,630 --> 01:24:33,480 Another is that. And that's your. You were saying we just haven't seen enough yet. 694 01:24:33,480 --> 01:24:43,020 So we discover that that all instances of water in in on Earth are X H2O. 695 01:24:43,020 --> 01:24:47,270 But that's actually what we didn't realise, is that there are different types of water. 696 01:24:47,270 --> 01:24:56,850 There is X, Y, Z as well. We could decide that is what you're saying is not. 697 01:24:56,850 --> 01:25:08,080 Don't you? One day after your reading to my very recent discussion about whether to phase out. 698 01:25:08,080 --> 01:25:13,090 It's a question of. What a plan this is. Yes, sir. 699 01:25:13,090 --> 01:25:19,800 So what you mean by. This is in the case of a long. 700 01:25:19,800 --> 01:25:23,600 Not in civil cases, but the same principle. 701 01:25:23,600 --> 01:25:30,130 Well, you have to decide. I think. What's your read? 702 01:25:30,130 --> 01:25:36,980 Yeah, but that that's what we're doing, isn't it? That's I mean, what we're doing is we're giving. 703 01:25:36,980 --> 01:25:43,370 We might think that that it's obvious that the meaning of water is determined by intrinsic properties. 704 01:25:43,370 --> 01:25:48,980 Here's a thought experiment that makes it look as if it's not determined by intrinsic properties. 705 01:25:48,980 --> 01:25:57,920 Here's a reply to that thought experiment that says, no, we were wrong about that, which still determined by intrinsic properties. 706 01:25:57,920 --> 01:26:09,680 It's just that we've got to allow that there are difference. Situations that that feed into the intrinsic properties. 707 01:26:09,680 --> 01:26:15,740 So what we're doing is expanding the behavioural dispositions that we allow to include X, 708 01:26:15,740 --> 01:26:20,970 Y, Z in the copy of what I mean, the determination of meaning. 709 01:26:20,970 --> 01:26:29,210 Do you see that if we're going to determine identity, that A is B? 710 01:26:29,210 --> 01:26:36,960 This relation of identity and reduction? One sort of reduction is is an identity. 711 01:26:36,960 --> 01:26:40,590 We've got to know both, both A and B are. 712 01:26:40,590 --> 01:26:47,730 So meaning decisions about meaning are going to come into it, as well as decisions about what happens in the world. 713 01:26:47,730 --> 01:26:57,260 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. 714 01:26:57,260 --> 01:27:00,410 Get to grips with how it is drifting around. I mean, 715 01:27:00,410 --> 01:27:07,400 I'm going to enjoy going home tonight and actually working out how the objection 716 01:27:07,400 --> 01:27:13,940 to Armstrong that I've given relates to the fifth objection that I gave, 717 01:27:13,940 --> 01:27:20,490 because I think I haven't thought seriously enough about that. I thought I had, but I don't think I have now. 718 01:27:20,490 --> 01:27:25,790 That was my can then Bob. And then Dot. Mike. Yeah. 719 01:27:25,790 --> 01:27:32,630 You mentioned Russell. This is believed that physics doesn't talk about personality causation. 720 01:27:32,630 --> 01:27:38,150 That is actually not true because causation is extremely important in the relativity theory. 721 01:27:38,150 --> 01:27:47,360 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, 722 01:27:47,360 --> 01:27:55,700 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. 723 01:27:55,700 --> 01:27:59,160 It cannot be stopped according to our best theories that the car. 724 01:27:59,160 --> 01:28:03,870 Okay. Well, of necessity, because that's the only way we can know about the world. 725 01:28:03,870 --> 01:28:13,100 So currently about according to our best theories and any account of causation must somehow preclude 726 01:28:13,100 --> 01:28:19,370 causation without information exchange to the point where something is essentially saying here, 727 01:28:19,370 --> 01:28:24,520 all of these possibilities if you listed soda at the bottom of the information exchange. 728 01:28:24,520 --> 01:28:28,060 Yeah. Okay. What it does give us information without saying what it is. 729 01:28:28,060 --> 01:28:35,390 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, 730 01:28:35,390 --> 01:28:43,230 possible worlds is there's no information exchange between them and therefore no causation between the frozen earth experiment. 731 01:28:43,230 --> 01:28:48,200 Exactly. Because there you are assuming the two world wars are not accessible to each other. 732 01:28:48,200 --> 01:28:53,860 Yes, but that's what is the moment they are. You would discover the difference would be. 733 01:28:53,860 --> 01:28:57,590 Yes, but no, I'll have to talk to you about thought experiments, 734 01:28:57,590 --> 01:29:03,130 because I thought experiments are constrained by the laws of logic, not by the laws of physics. 735 01:29:03,130 --> 01:29:07,810 Also constrained by the assumptions. And so far as here you are talking about physical theories. 736 01:29:07,810 --> 01:29:12,130 You have to assume physical series underway. OK. 737 01:29:12,130 --> 01:29:18,040 We'll obviously have to discuss that. Bob, I'm worried about water. 738 01:29:18,040 --> 01:29:24,740 We were having this this discussion of 500 years before we knew water was H2O. 739 01:29:24,740 --> 01:29:33,350 We wondered what this stuff water really is. And somebody said, well, we might discover, for instance, that it consists of two atoms. 740 01:29:33,350 --> 01:29:36,100 And so one thing in an atom of something else. 741 01:29:36,100 --> 01:29:41,770 And then someone else said we might go to another planet or something just like water, which is a different consistency. 742 01:29:41,770 --> 01:29:45,700 And I think we would unanimously agree that that would not be water. 743 01:29:45,700 --> 01:29:49,270 Oh. Oh. So I was expecting you to say the other. 744 01:29:49,270 --> 01:29:54,670 I think if we just if we decided that one day we'd find that water actually consistent with something that's water. 745 01:29:54,670 --> 01:30:01,590 That would be water. Which is why then I don't find causation parallel to water at all. 746 01:30:01,590 --> 01:30:07,690 Causation. OK. Well, I completely agree with you that causation isn't like water. 747 01:30:07,690 --> 01:30:11,400 And I agree with you because I think water has a real essence. Yeah. 748 01:30:11,400 --> 01:30:21,050 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, 749 01:30:21,050 --> 01:30:23,410 well, I was thinking, you know, your post listed planet. 750 01:30:23,410 --> 01:30:34,120 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. 751 01:30:34,120 --> 01:30:40,060 To a creature that grows up on that planet. They might call methane water because it has the same properties. 752 01:30:40,060 --> 01:30:45,460 It comes down from the sky. It gives them life. They presumably drink methane, liquid methane to survive. 753 01:30:45,460 --> 01:30:48,490 Their bodies are made of 80 percent methane, whatever. 754 01:30:48,490 --> 01:30:55,720 You know, you could choose any substance to liquefy solidifies and had a large presence on various planets. 755 01:30:55,720 --> 01:31:03,560 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, 756 01:31:03,560 --> 01:31:08,510 which we can drink and which falls in the sky and lands and freezes. 757 01:31:08,510 --> 01:31:13,060 If you will, majority substance is not H2O, but is another thing. 758 01:31:13,060 --> 01:31:18,090 You might have the same concept. Water is liquid thing. 759 01:31:18,090 --> 01:31:21,890 But it could actually refer to something completely different. Yeah, it could. 760 01:31:21,890 --> 01:31:26,690 It could be that way. Some students have chemistry. A bored stiff. 761 01:31:26,690 --> 01:31:31,580 One day they live in Cheshire and they decide to test the water. 762 01:31:31,580 --> 01:31:37,760 And lo, it's X, Y, Z, you know. Oh, you know, this is most peculiar. 763 01:31:37,760 --> 01:31:43,250 I mean, at that point, I think we probably would say water is is H2O. 764 01:31:43,250 --> 01:31:49,840 I guess all X, Y, Z. Yes. 765 01:31:49,840 --> 01:32:00,260 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, 766 01:32:00,260 --> 01:32:07,580 Y, Z is on twin Earth rather than an on earth, then you're saying it doesn't count as water. 767 01:32:07,580 --> 01:32:15,050 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. 768 01:32:15,050 --> 01:32:24,770 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. 769 01:32:24,770 --> 01:32:28,520 But we can equally fool everything we put you on could be done. 770 01:32:28,520 --> 01:32:32,260 Yeah. Well, you're you're a Cartesian, believe it or not. 771 01:32:32,260 --> 01:32:36,770 I've move away from splotched, which actually is the pollution word for water splotched. 772 01:32:36,770 --> 01:32:42,260 Right. Because we think holy water on your chain on slide. 773 01:32:42,260 --> 01:32:48,310 You never know the lady in the. Oh yeah. 774 01:32:48,310 --> 01:32:55,540 We got you somewhere. Somebody that does not need to be a physical thing. 775 01:32:55,540 --> 01:33:03,070 Well, that that's what. What this is supposed to to this one day. 776 01:33:03,070 --> 01:33:10,140 Yeah, well, it was necessary and sufficient. 777 01:33:10,140 --> 01:33:14,880 And if you look to any of those things, you can look at any of those activities and say, 778 01:33:14,880 --> 01:33:20,080 is it necessary for that activity to take place in order for the window to shatter? 779 01:33:20,080 --> 01:33:27,250 And the answer would be, in that case, yes, you could not have the windows shattered less panellist released the captures rates, et cetera. 780 01:33:27,250 --> 01:33:37,210 But if you just took one of those. I just had one word, and it's not like would shatter someone's not sufficient. 781 01:33:37,210 --> 01:33:42,010 Everything. Yeah. Absolutely right. 782 01:33:42,010 --> 01:33:46,030 An actual linkage to anything in that. 783 01:33:46,030 --> 01:33:54,670 Well, do do be careful here, because if you remember, we've seen to talk about the cause is nonsense, always nonsense. 784 01:33:54,670 --> 01:34:04,810 And we talk about the cause when we're actually thinking about explanation rather than causation. 785 01:34:04,810 --> 01:34:09,670 Okay. But but in that case, you'll think if if. 786 01:34:09,670 --> 01:34:18,160 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, 787 01:34:18,160 --> 01:34:26,740 then there may be a counterfactual dependency. But will be operational. 788 01:34:26,740 --> 01:34:31,270 Well, hang on, if there doesn't have to be a physical relationship, then then that. 789 01:34:31,270 --> 01:34:35,460 I mean, if there's no physical relationship between that and that. 790 01:34:35,460 --> 01:34:45,970 Then and yet that is the cause of that, then causation must be counterfactual dependency, not physical process. 791 01:34:45,970 --> 01:34:52,700 I thought counterfactual. Which means probabilistic. 792 01:34:52,700 --> 01:35:01,510 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. 793 01:35:01,510 --> 01:35:04,360 But there is a causal relationship, 794 01:35:04,360 --> 01:35:16,560 then causation has to be analysed along the lines of counterfactual dependency or regularity theory after read my notes. 795 01:35:16,560 --> 01:35:25,310 So a relationship may be, well, releasing. 796 01:35:25,310 --> 01:35:29,990 Yeah. And the relationship is causal, did not release. Not allow. 797 01:35:29,990 --> 01:35:35,640 Yeah, well, we know that there's a we know that there's a causal relationship because we're we're assuming 798 01:35:35,640 --> 01:35:43,020 that what we're trying to do is find a causal relationship without a physical process. 799 01:35:43,020 --> 01:35:49,620 I mean, I don't know whether this is succeeding or not, but if that causes that. 800 01:35:49,620 --> 01:35:58,050 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. 801 01:35:58,050 --> 01:36:04,280 Then I suppose we do. Well, no. 802 01:36:04,280 --> 01:36:11,190 No. What it would show is that causation isn't a physical relationship, but it is a counterfactual dependency, 803 01:36:11,190 --> 01:36:18,720 because as you rightly pointed out, it's certainly true that had Pam not released the catch, the window would not have shattered. 804 01:36:18,720 --> 01:36:23,010 But this is not an objection to the counterfactual theory of causation. 805 01:36:23,010 --> 01:36:31,580 This is an objection to the empirical theory of causation, or that's what the thought is, a sign of physical presence. 806 01:36:31,580 --> 01:36:38,310 Well, yeah, that's what I don't understand either. 807 01:36:38,310 --> 01:36:45,300 Well, no, it's this the the catches up and it's low. 808 01:36:45,300 --> 01:36:48,990 Everyone's leaving and we're going to have to finish because I ought to be leaving as well. 809 01:36:48,990 --> 01:37:09,764 My cats are suffering. Okay.