To say that ball A did not cause ball B to move when they impacted is like saying that event did not cause the proposition “ball A did not cause ball B to move when they impacted.”
If the proposition is “true,” and propositions are derived from empirical conditions, and empirical conditions are causal, then propositions are causal and the induction fallacy is a chimera.
Let’s walk through it.
I say “I cannot prove that the sun will rise tomorrow,” and rightly so, but not because it is impossible to predict, but rather because it is impossible to be in the future and the present at the same time. When tomorrow comes and the sun rises, I will be before myself with the recollection of the comment I made yesterday (today), and say that my prediction was an induction fallacy.
Now substitute all the conditions involved in a rising sun (the sun, earth, rotation , axis, space, etc.) as “ball A” and the proposition “I cannot prove that the sun will rise tomorrow” as “ball B.”
Here the induction turns on itself. Regardless of the “waiting to verify” the truth later on, what allows for the possibility of the induction, indeed, everything one way or another involves an induction, is the causal necessity of the “empirical” events, those which are the world and the “epiphenomena” of the “mind.”
It cannot be said that “causality” exists…
That statement is nonsense…
For the above two quips to be correct or incorrect, there must be something that caused one or the other, for it certainly can’t be both and if it is one or the other it is because of an effect.
Causality is happening where it is being argued that causality doesn’t exist and a prediction is an induction fallacy.
But remember, we aren’t talking about “predictions” anymore because we know we cannot be in the future and the present at the same time. All we are concerned about is the causal nature of experience and the how it happens in time and space…with “things” here and there. If, as the empircists suspect, propositions are results of impressions of physical data, then they would most certainly be quantifiable and causal.
I don’t need to know what a electron is made of to know that it bumps into things. There are trajectories and momentums and other causal effects which dictate the movements. If only we knew the grand masta plan, if only we could see the dice, if only we could find a constant, all the little laws we have found would be justified and we would finally see the biggin.
Alright, try this, Imp. Say that the sun doesn’t rise tomorrow because the solar system shifts from a force or something, and there is twenty-four seconds where the laws as we knew them are in disorder. Gravity becomes weaker, magnetic fields change, cellular growth rates increase drastically, and the price of a number four at Jersey Mike’s Subs drops almost fifty percent.
Everything is screwed and Humeans everywhere are celebrating in a great magnificent non-causal induction fallacy-free orgy, where nobody makes promises and loves Megadeath.
But look closer, Imp. You are standing outside of the solar system in your space ship watching this happen for twenty-four seconds, where the laws as you knew them are in tact. Your ship generates the same gravity fields, the poles have not changed, your cells are aging at the same rate, and your number four is still soggy and extremely over-priced.
Here you notice that the justification for the disruption of the laws on earth are not universal in that they are only local, but also that they had to be caused by something.
Now let’s say that it was a energy flare that happened every few hundred years, and Newton, who just happen to have knowledge of this energy flare, also happened to place a bet with his contemporaries one day that while sitting under a tree an apple that came loose from the branch would not fall on his head, but instead, Newton himself, as well as his contemporaries, would fall upwards themselves.
Newton timed it so he would be under the tree for the twenty-four seconds of disruption.
The question is, was Newtons bet an induction fallacy if he knew in advance an event was determined to happen which would change the laws of physics as he knew them, but nonetheless be part of a larger set of laws, which his contemporaries knew nothing about?
Do you, Imp, standing in your space ship, with the capacity to travel back in time, disguise yourself and join the group with Newton at the tree, and place a bet against him? Probably not, now that you know Newton knows about the disruption.
Dammit! Now my theory won’t work. Nevermind.