Let’s just be nominalists, and claim that only particulars exist, and that these particulars can be predicated. Let’s allow generalisation but not universalisation and claim that “cause and effect” is merely a description of certain select properties of things. So, it is a property of a billiard ball that if struck in a certain way, it will roll into a pocket of a billiard table. There is no causal mechanism, as Hume of course said. And, also following Hume, constant conjunction is a diversion - durable properties of particulars are what we are attempting to describe with causality. These durable properties allow for practical generalisation of “causes” and “effects” - indeed, those properties define objects and events for us, so that we can describe them without too many different words. As long as those properties are durable, and to the extent that they are durable, we still have the “same” objects, which behave the same way under materially similar conditions.
Isn’t that simple?
Causes and effects are experienced in time, but causality isn’t seated in temporality, per se - it is seated in the properties of things. Those properties can change, yes, but that changes the cause-and-effect relations between things. Causality itself does not change - it just has differing applications according to the change in properties a given thing undergoes. In other words, as things change, so change their properties - as sure as when properties change, things change. Predicated entities are functions. We have a language problem - how much change need occur before we rename the predicated object - but that is only a language problem.
At bottom causality is a generalisation. If we start with causality, rather than particualrs, we are led to believe that causality it is a thing that we need to describe. But causality is a description. This problem has been around since Plato, who thought that descriptions can and should be be described. Causality has been regularly approached “backwards” ever since.
I don’t see how we can define and solve anything with imaginary concepts. We need to align ourselves with reality to solve reality, not get lost in beautiful rethorics.
Your thesis are subject to free interpetation, as you havn’t stated any specific anology taken from the real world, without precedens psycotic and skitzo people will have it as a playground with their distorted imagination.
It’s not an “analogy” - the idea that only particulars exist means that only those things with physicality exist. That’s not real-world enough for you?
Uhmmmm …no, it should be notorious that even the most simplest of things needs precedens, just look at all the court rulings, where everybody will have their vastly different oppininon and interpetation, guess you never spend time with any such thing.
because life isn’t defined around a billiard ball, besides you are devoid of real life understanding that most people will be glaringly ignorent of the physics described.
You have your focus too narrow on the goal, which doesn’t allow you to see the broader perspective.
What is “precedens”? Are you trying to say “precedence”?
I guess you wouldn’t know if i had or not. But if it’s legal precedence you are talking about, I fail to see the relevance to my thesis. Legal precedence doesn’t “cause” anything.
phyllo -
You tell me, phyllo - we have two other active threads on this question, and two thousand years of the history of philosophy wherein the question constantly comes up. In other words, there is plenty of “presedens” for it.
If you really have deeper understanding of legal precedence, you should know that EVERYTHING needs to be spelled out, to remove misunderstandings and misinterpetation.
Surely it does not come up so frequently with respect to physical phenomena. Physics can handle that adequately. There must be some other reason for ‘solving’ it.
The issue is always framed in physical terms. The motive is always usually else - morality. Moral agency in a determined universe, usually. There are many variations, depending upon the flavor of determinacy chosen, mostly. What is usually not so varied is the employed concept of moral agency. In my case, since I use a Nietzschean version of will and therefore of agency, my version will be a little different than the usual.
I would say that this statement is completely wrong. The ball doesn’t know about the pocket and it doesn’t care about the pocket. It can’t be the property of the ball to do that. The ball has physical properties which determine how it responds to external forces. If a force gets it moving in a direction which is in line with the pocket, it may or may not go into the pocket depending on the forces in effect at the pocket. For example if the ball is moving fast enough, then it will hit the back of the pocket and bounce off without falling in. So if you want to make ‘ball rolling into pocket’ a property of the ball then you need to introduce a lot of other factors like gravity at the pocket, speed of ball and bounciness of pocket material and somehow attach them to the ball as well.