Re: Could you give me your analysis of this?

[Howard Pattee <***>]

John writes,
Howard, I don't understand your claim that A-causality is metaphorical. In a
causal analysis it provides the elements of the analysis. A metaphore is
something that is "like" something else. Here we are saying that these
causes are real.

Saying causes are real is your assertion. It is not an argument. I agree with most modern 
philosophers and scientists (see, e.g. ?Causation? in the Encyclopedia of Philosophy) 
that the concept of cause is an anthropomorphic concept that is gratuitous for scientific 
models. I am not as extreme as Bertrand Russell who regarded the concept of cause as ?a 
relic of a bygone age.? I think the concept of causality is useful, but not because it 
corresponds to anything that a physicist would call real. It is a metaphor for what 
humans feel when they think they have control. Hume explains why the concept of control 
is only a metaphor.

The anthropomorphic metaphors of Aristotle?s four causes are made clear by his examples, 
all of which involve human or divine control of events. I am not at all against metaphor. 
The most creative ideas in physics are metaphors. I am only recommending not confusing 
metaphors with reality.

As a matter of the history of religion and science, early Christian theologians, like St. 
Augustine, adopted Aristotle?s causes, along with his logic. The concept of determinism 
follows from the idea that nothing happens without a cause. Only God was uncaused, but 
everything else was determined by causes. Classical physics inherited determinism largely 
because Newton was a good Christian. Even Einstein couldn?t believe God played dice.

The Epicurean concept of cause is now accepted in physics as ontologically chaotic events 
that have no cause. The world is not deterministic. All we can observe is that 
probabilistic events occur in a temporal sequence. We can write laws that predict some of 
these sequences. To say why one event follows another is to try to say more than what the 
laws say, and this is pure metaphysics. The concept of cause arises when we humans think 
we have control of events, or a choice. All jurisprudence is based on this assumption. 
When a plane crashes we do not think of gravity as the cause. We try to find the person 
who screwed up.

Howard