Induction, Popper, Falsification

[Moreno]

Being a bachelor is not the cause of being an unmarried male. Those are merely two descriptions or words for the same thing. They are a descriptive relationship, not a causative relationship.

The point was to identify a causal relationship with sufficient definition so as to be able to know when it ("A") might again cause the same result, "B". Merely defining A and B as the same thing is not the same thing.

I see no difference between descriptive relationship and causative relationship for "A causes B". And it appears that those thins you brought up all fall for the problem of induction.

I have tried to get a sense of the context, but perhaps I missed something. 'being a bachelor' and 'being an unmarried male' are not two phenomena/things. They are two descriptions of the same 'thing'. Any connection of these two terms is analytic. A causes B posits two things/events, and as James points out, looking at them as events one comes before the other in time - generally with sufficient regularity to support claims of causation - unless, for example, they have a common cause, and really it is correlation. Amongst other issues that can get in there.

[ZenKitty]

Time is the difference. For "A" to be a "cause", "B" must come after "A".

I do not see this either. It makes sense to say that what came before is the effect of what came after. I see no difference in causation here. It meets your ideas, and so you have no reason to say cause is before and effect is after. This also looks arbitrary and so you are not finding any cause, just defining what cause instead of finding it. Like the Bachelor is defined as an unmarried male. You would also have to argue for a certain view of time.

[ZenKitty]

I have tried to get a sense of the context, but perhaps I missed something. 'being a bachelor' and 'being an unmarried male' are not two phenomena/things. They are two descriptions of the same 'thing'. Any connection of these two terms is analytic.

The point appears to be that James idea of causation is analytic or describing the situation.

A causes B posits two things/events, and as James points out, looking at them as events one comes before the other in time - generally with sufficient regularity to support claims of causation - unless, for example, they have a common cause, and really it is correlation. Amongst other issues that can get in there

Yes, and the problem becomes that we do not know that there are two events instead of one, or multiple events. This becomes the problem with such a situation. But this "looking at them as..." appears to be trying to get analytic move in there.

[Moreno]

I have tried to get a sense of the context, but perhaps I missed something. 'being a bachelor' and 'being an unmarried male' are not two phenomena/things. They are two descriptions of the same 'thing'. Any connection of these two terms is analytic.

The point appears to be that James idea of causation is analytic or describing the situation.

A causes B posits two things/events, and as James points out, looking at them as events one comes before the other in time - generally with sufficient regularity to support claims of causation - unless, for example, they have a common cause, and really it is correlation. Amongst other issues that can get in there

Yes, and the problem becomes that we do not know that there are two events instead of one, or multiple events. This becomes the problem with such a situation. But this "looking at them as..." appears to be trying to get analytic move in there.

I think I have to go over the whole exchange again since the liklihood we are writing/might write past each other seems high to me.

i have a lot of issues with the notion of 'cause', and I can imagine how what you and James are disagreeing over I actually agree with you. In fact, I will just wait and see what the next couple of posts clarify - being optimistic here.

[Deleet]

This springs from a simple valid logical argument.

If A implies B, then not B implies not A.

Emmm... "valid"??
I don' think so.

..unless you are using "implied" and "valid" in a very loose sense.

But I agree that a single failure disqualifies a hypothesis (except for QM).

A→B⊢¬B→¬A is valid in standard propositional logic. It's called contra-position.