The concept of causality, determinism.All certainty in our relationships with the world rests onacknowledgement of causality. Causality is a geneticconnection of phenomena through which one thing (the cause)under certain conditions gives rise to, causes something else(the effect). The essence of causality is the generation anddetermination of one phenomenon by another. In this respectcausality differs from various other kinds of connection, forexample, the simple temporal sequence of phenomena, of theregularities of accompanying processes. For example, apinprick causes pain. Brain damage causes mentalillness. Causality is an active relationship, a relationshipwhich brings to life some thing new, which turns possibilityinto actuality. A cause is an active and primary thing inrelation to the effect. But 'after this' does not alwaysmean 'because of this'. It would be a parody of justiceif we were to say that where there is punishment there musthave been a crime.
Causality is universal. Nowhere in the world can there be anyphenomena that do not give rise to certain consequences andhave not been caused by other phenomena. Ours is a world ofcause and effect or, figuratively speaking, of progenitors andtheir progeny. Whenever we seek to retrace the steps of causeand effect and find the first cause, it disappears into theinfinite distances of universal interaction. But the conceptof cause is not confined to interaction. Causality is only apart of universal connection. The universality of causality isoften denied on the grounds of the limited nature of humanexperience, which prevents us from judging the character ofconnections beyond what is known to science and practice. Andyet we know that no scientist restricts his reasoning to whathe can immediately perceive. The whole history of humanity, ofall scientific experiment knows no exception to the principleof determinism.
The connection between cause and effect takes place intime. This temporary relation may be defined in variousways. Some people believe that cause always precedes effect,thatthere is a certain interval between the time when the causebegins to act (for example, the interaction of two systems)and the time the effect appears. For a certain time cause andeffect coexist, then the cause dies out and the consequenceultimately becomes the cause of something else. And so on toinfinity.
Causality Causality refers to the relationship between events where one set of events (the effects) is a direct consequence of another set of events (the causes). Causal inference is the process by which one can use data to make claims about causal relationships. Since the 2013 publication of the “Causality assessment of an adverse event following immunization (AEFI), user manual for the revised WHO classification”, there has been extensive global interest in adopting the new revised causality assessment methodology for vaccine pharmacovigilance systems. In 1900, for every 1,000 babies born in the United States, 100 would die before their first birthday, often due to infectious diseases. Today, vaccines exist for many viral and bacterial diseases. The National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act, passed in 1986, was intended to bolster vaccine research. Causality Analysis of Pearl and Inguo belongs there - a graph model is assumed (based on physical relationships) which is used to minimize certain information measures that can yield the final causal structure. So, no magic here! SEM has been around much longer - causality is a holy grail. We need better and better methods.
Other thinkers believe that these intervals partiallyoverlap. It is also maintained that cause and effect arealways strictly simultaneous. Still others maintain that it ispointless to speak of a cause already existing and thereforetaking effect while the effect has not yet entered the sphereof existence. How can there be a 'non-effective cause'?
Causality Tattoo
The concepts of 'cause' and 'effect' are used bothfor defining simultaneous events, events that are contiguousin time, and events whose effect is born with the cause. Inaddition, cause and effect are sometimes qualified asphenomena divided by a time interval and connected by means ofseveral intermediate links. For example, a solar flare causesmagnetic storms on Earth and a consequent temporaryinterruption of radio communication. The mediate connectionbetween cause and effect may be expressed in the formula: if Ais the cause of B and B is the cause of C, then A may also beregarded as the cause of C. Though it may change, the cause ofa phenomenon survives in its result. An effect may haveseveral causes, some of which are necessary and othersaccidental.
An important feature of causality is the continuity of thecause-effect connection. The chain of causal connections hasneither beginning nor end. It is never broken, it extendseternally from one link to another. And no one can say wherethis chain began or where it ends. It is as infinite as theuniverse itself. There can be neither any first (that is tosay, causeless) cause nor any final (i.e., inconsequential)effect. If we were to admit the existence of a first cause weshould break the law of the conservation of matter andmotion. And any attempt to find an 'absolutely first' or'absolutely final' cause is a futile occupation, whichpsychologically assumes a belief in miracles.
The internal mechanism of causality is associated with thetransference of matter, motion and information.
Effect spreads its 'tentacles' not only forwards (as anew cause giving rise to a new effect) but also backwards, tothe cause which gave rise to it, thus modifying, exhausting orintensifying its force. This interaction of cause and effectis known as the principle of feedback. It operates everywhere,particularly in all self-organising systems where perception,storing, processing and use of information take place, as forexample, in the organism, in a cybernetic device, and insociety. The stability, control and progress of a system areinconceivable without feedback.
Any effect is evoked by the interaction of at least twophenomena. Therefore the interactionphenomenon is the true cause of theeffect phenomenon. In other words, theeffect phenomenon is determined by the nature and state ofboth interacting elements. A word conveying tragically badnews may cause a condition of stress in a sensitive person,whereas it will bounce off an insensitive or phlegmaticindividual like 'water off a duck's back', leaving only aslight emotional trace. The cause of stress in this case wasnot the word itself but its information-bearing impact onvulnerable personality.
The cause-effect connection can be conceived as a one-way,one-directional action only in the simplest and most limitedcases. The idea of causality as the influence of one thing onanother is applied in fields of knowledge where it is possibleand necessary to ignore feedback and actually measure thequantitative effect achieved by the cause. Such a situation ismostly characteristic of mechanical causality. For example,the cause of a stone falling to the ground is mutualgravitation, which obeys the law of universal gravitation, andthe actual fall of the stone to the ground results fromgravitational interaction. However, since the mass of thestone is infinitely small compared with the mass of the earth,one can ignore the stone's effect on the earth. So ultimatelywe come to the notion of a one-way effect with only one body(the earth) operating as the active element, while the other(the stone) is passive. In most cases, however, such anapproach does not work because things are not inert, butcharged with internal activity. Therefore, in experiencingeffect they in their turn act on their cause and the resultingaction is not one-way but an interaction.
In complex cases one cannot ignore the feedback of the vehicleof the action on other interacting bodies. For example, in thechemical interaction of two substances it is impossible toseparate the active and passive sides. This is even more trueof the transformation of elementary particles. Thus theformation of molecules of water cannot be conceived as theresult of a one-way effect of oxygen on hydrogen or viceversa. It results from the interaction of two atoms ofhydrogen and one of oxygen. Mental processes are also a resultof the interaction of the environment and the cortex.
To sum up, all processes in the world are evoked not by aone-way or one-sided action but are based on the relationshipof at least two interacting objects.
Just as various paths may lead to one and the same place, sovarious causes lead to one and the same effect. And oneand the same cause may have different consequences. A causedoes not always operate in the same way, because its resultdepends not only on its own essence but also on the characterof the phenomenon it influences. Thus, the heat of the sundries out canvas, evokes extremely complex processes ofbiosynthesis in plants, etc. Intense heat melts wax buttempers steel. At the same time an effect in the form of heatmay be the result of various causes: sun rays, friction, amechanical blow, chemical reaction, electricity,disintegration of an atom, and so on. He would be a bad doctorwho did not know that the same diseases may be due todifferent causes. Headache, for instance, has more than onehundred.
The rule of only one cause for one effect holds good only inelementary cases with causes and effects that cannot befurther analysed. In real life there are no phenomena thathave only one cause and have not been affected by secondarycauses. Otherwise we should be living in a world of purenecessity, ruled by destiny alone.
To understand the cause that engenders a change in the stateof an object we should, strictly speaking, analyse theinteraction of the object with all other objects surroundingit. But experience shows that not all these interactions areequally significant in changing the state of the object. Someare decisive while others are insignificant. So, in practice,we are able to single out a finite number of decisiveinteractions and distinguish them from those that aresecondary.
In the sciences, particularly the natural sciences, onedistinguishes general from specific causes, the main from thesecondary, the internal from the external, the material fromthe spiritual, and the immediate from the mediate, withvarying numbers of intervening stages. The general cause isthe sum-total of all the events leading up to a certaineffect. It is a kind of knot of events with some very tangledthreads that stretch far back or forward in space andtime. The establishing of a general cause is possible only invery simple events with a relatively small number ofelements. Investigation usually aims at revealing the specificcauses of an event.
The specific cause is the sum-total of the circumstances whoseinteraction gives rise to a certain effect. Moreover, specificcauses evoke an effect in the presence of many othercircumstances that have existed in the given situation evenbefore the effect occurs. These circumstances constitute theconditions for the operation of the cause. The specific causeis made up of those elements of the general cause that aremost significant in the given situation. Its other elementsare only conditions. Sometimes an event is caused by severalcircumstances, each of which is necessary but insufficient tobring about the phenomenon in question.
Sometimes we can clearly perceive the phenomenon that givesrise to this or that effect. But more often than not avirtually infinite number of interlocking causes give rise tothe consequences we are concerned with. In such cases we haveto single out the main cause—the one which plays thedecisive role in the whole set of circumstances.
Objective causes operate independently of people's will andconsciousness. Subjective causes are rooted in psychologicalfactors, in consciousness, in the actions of man or a socialgroup, in their determination, organisation, experience, knowledge, and so on.
Immediate causes should be distinguished from mediate causes,that is to say, those that evoke and determine an effectthrough a number of intervening stages. For example, a persongets badly hurt psychologically, but the damage does not takeeffect at once. Several years may elapse and then in certaincircumstances, among which the person's condition at the timehas a certain significance, the effect begins to make itselffelt in the symptoms of illness. When analysing causality wesometimes speak of a 'minor' cause giving rise to majoreffects. This so-called 'minor cause of a major effect'is the cause not of the whole long and ramified chain ofphenomena that produces the final result, but only the causeof the first link in the chain. Sometimes the 'minorcause' is merely a factor that starts up quite differentcausal factors. These are 'triggering' factors, factorsrelating to the initial stage of avalanche processes and to awhole system's loss of labile equilibrium.
Any phenomenon depends on a definite diversity of conditionsto bring it into existence. While it is only one of thecircumstances conducive to a certain effect, the cause is themost active and effective element in this process, it is aninteraction that converts necessary and sufficient conditionsinto a result. We sometimes treat the absence of something asa cause. For example, some illnesses are attributed to lack ofresistance in an organism or a lack of vitamins. However,absence should not be regarded as a cause but merely as acondition for disease. For a cause to actually take effectthere must be certain conditions, that is to say, phenomenaessential for the occurrence of the given event but not inthemselves causing it. Conditions cannot in themselves giverise to the effect, but the cause is also powerless withoutthem. No cause can give rise to illness if the organism is notsusceptible to it. We know that when a person's organism isinfected with certain microbes he may fall ill or he maynot. The way a cause takes effect and the nature of theconsequence depend on the character of theconditions. Sometimes there is only one direct and immediatecause of death or injury—a bullet. But more often thecauses and conditions are intricately combined, some of thembeing only secondary circumstances.
When discussing the relationship of cause and condition onemust remember that the term 'condition' is used in twosenses, the narrow and the broad. Apart from what we mean bycondition in the narrow sense, conditions in the broad sensecomprise such factors as 'background' and'environment' and various factors of a causal nature. Butthere is no strict and consistent dividing line between thetwo basic senses of the term, just as there is no dividingline between condition and cause. This fact often leads to anincorrect use of the two terms and to wrong definition of thevarious conditioning factors. Avoidance of incorrect usage ismade all the more difficult by the overlapping of the acceptedmeanings of the two terms 'cause' and 'condition'and also the term 'foundation'.
Science is gradually evolving special concepts relating to thecategories of 'foundation', 'condition' and'cause', which, when used together with these categories,make it possible to define genetic links more exactly.
In various fields of knowledge the problem of the relationshipbetween cause and condition is solved in different ways,depending mainly on the complexity of the relationships thatare being studied, their uniformity or, on the contrary, thedistinctness and comparative importance of separatefactors. But the degree of abstraction usually employed in thegiven science also affects the treatment of this question. Sothe meaning of the cause and condition categories in thesystem of concepts of various sciences may also differconsiderably. One could scarcely apply the relation of causeand condition that is revealed in studying, for example,physical phenomena, to physiological processes, or vice versa.
Every phenomenon is related to other phenomena by connectionsof more than one value. It is the result both of certainconditions and certain basic factors that act as itscause. That is why the cause-effect connection has to beartificially isolated from the rest of conditions so that wecan see this connection in its 'pure form'. But this isachieved only by abstraction. In reality we cannot isolatethis connection from the whole set of conditions. There isalways a closely interwoven mass of extremely diversesecondary conditions, which leave their mark on the form inwhich the general connection emerges. This means that therecan never be two exactly identical phenomena, even if they aregenerated by the same causes. They have always developed inempirically different conditions. So there can be no absoluteidentity in the world.
Causality Game
One and the same cause operating in similar conditions givesrise to similar effects. When we change the conditions we mayalso change the way the cause operates and the character ofthe effect. But this principle becomes far more complex whenit is applied to such unique events as those of geology andsocial science. While stressing the close connection betweencause and condition, we should never confuse the two. Thedividing line between them is mobile but significant.
By creating new conditions we can even preclude the earlierpossible causes of a certain event, that is, we can'veto' the manifestation of one cause and allow free playto another. This explains the fact that by no means everycause unfailingly produces the expected effect.
A distinction should be made between cause and occasion, thatis to say, the external push or circumstance that sets inmotion a train of underlying interconnections. For instance, ahead cold may be the occasion for the onset of variousdiseases. One should never exaggerate the significance ofoccasions, they are not the cause of events. Nor should oneunderestimate them because they are a kind of triggeringmechanism.
One way of discovering causal connections is to studyfunctional connections. The causes of illness may be revealedby uncovering certain breakdowns in the functioning of theorganism. A functional connection is a dependence of phenomenain which a change in one phenomenon is accompanied by a changein another. Whereas, for example, a sociologist may beinterested in population growth over a period of time and aphysicist may be investigating changes in gas pressure inrelation to changes of temperature, a mathematician sees hereonly a functional dependence of X on Y.
The functional approach is particularly useful when we arestudying processes whose intrinsic causal mechanism is unknownto us. But when we wish to explain a phenomenon we have to askwhat caused it.
The concept of cause is identical not to the general conceptof regularity but to the concept of causal regularity, whichexpresses the fact that a regular sequence of phenomena andconditions always takes the form of realisation of causalconnections.
In science the deterministic approach seeks to explain aprocess as being determined by certain causes and thereforepredictable. Thus determinism is not a mere synonym forcausality. It involves the recognition of objective necessity,which in turn implies objective accidentality. Hence there isa close connection between the category of determinism andthat of probability. The relationship between determinism andprobability is one of the crucial philosophical problems ofmodern science. In quantum mechanics it is associated with theindeterminacy relation, and in living nature with that ofcause and aim. Determinism should not be contrasted toprobability. There is no special 'probabilisticcausality'. But there do exist probability, statistical laws,which are one of the forms of manifestation of determinism.
Determinism proceeds from recognition of the diversity ofcausal connections, depending on the character of theregularities operating in a given sphere. Every level of thestructural organisation of being has its own specific form ofinteraction of things, including its specific causal relationships. Higher forms of causal relationships should never bereduced to lower forms. From a methodological point of view itis essential to take into account the qualitativepeculiarities and level of the structural organisation ofbeing.
The dialectical approach is incompatible with mechanisticdeterminism, which interprets all the diversity of causes onlyas mechanical interaction, ignoring the unique qualities ofthe regularities of various forms of the motion ofmatter. Determinism was given its classical expression byLaplace, who formulated it as follows: if a mind could existthat knew at any given moment about all the forces of natureand the points of application of those forces, there would benothing of which it was uncertain and both future and pastwould be revealed to its mental vision.
Mechanistic determinism identifies cause with necessity andaccident is completely ruled out. Such determinism leads tofatalism, to faith in an overruling destiny. The developmentof science has gradually ousted mechanistic determinism fromthe study of social life, organic nature, and the sphere ofphysics. It is applicable only in certain engineeringcalculations involving machines, bridges and otherstructures. But this kind of determinism cannot explainbiological phenomena, mental activity, or the life of society.
The character of causality is conditioned by the levels of thestructural organisation of matter. In nature causalitymanifests itself in a different way from its manifestation insociety. And in human behaviour causality emerges in the formof motivation. In nature determination acts in only onedirection, from the present, which is a result of the past, tothe future. Because of people's knowledge of the world, humanactivity is determined not only by present things but also bythings, objects, events that are absent, not only bywhat surrounds man but also by that which may be far away fromhim in time and space, not only by the present and the past,but also by the future, which is viewed as an aim and becomesa motivation for men's activity. Determination may thus have atwo-way direction. Knowledge introduces the future into thedetermining principle of the present.
The animal's active relationship with the environment isassociated with a new type of determination: the conditioningof its behaviour by the task with which it is confronted. Forexample, birds build their nests in order to breed their youngand protect them.
The principle of determinism involves recognition of theobjectivity, the universality of causal connections and hasalways played a vastly important methodological and heuristicrole in scientific cognition. The primary assumption for anyscientific research has always been that all events of thenatural and intellectual world obey a firm regular connection,known as the law of causality. Any field of knowledge wouldcease to be scientific if it abandoned the principle ofcausality.
Causality Definition
Causality and purpose. When observing theastonishing adaptation and 'rational' organisation ofplants and animals, or the 'harmony' of the celestialspheres, people even in ancient times asked themselves wherethis harmonious organisation of all that exists had comefrom. Thinkers have proceeded from various principles intrying to explain this phenomenon. The teleologists assumethat there is an underlying purpose in everything, that atbottom nature has some intrinsic expectation and intention andis full of hidden meaning.
The idea of teleology arises when a spontaneously operatingcause comes to be regarded as a consciously acting cause, andeven one that acts in a predetermined direction, that is tosay, a goal-oriented cause. This implies that the ultimatecause or aim is the future, which determines the processtaking place in the present. The doctrine that the universe asa whole is proceeding according to a certain plan cannot beproved empirically. The existence of an ultimate goal assumesthat someone must have put it. Teleology therefore leads totheology. Instead of giving a causal explanation of why thisor that phenomenon occurred in nature, teleology asks for whatpurpose it occurred. And to prove his case the teleologistusually refers to the purposeful structure of organisms innature. One has only to observe the structure of the wing of abutterfly, the behaviour of an ant, a mole, a fish, in orderto realise how purposefully everything is constructed. Thecrudest form of teleology is the claim that nature providessome living creatures for the sake of others, for example,cats are provided in order to eat mice andmice are there to provide food for cats. The goal of the wholeprocess of evolution of the animal world is man and all theother animals were created to make things comfortable for man.
Heinrich Heine tells the story of the contented bourgeois witha 'foolishly knowing' face who tried to teach him theprinciples of such teleology. He drew my attention, saysHeine, 'to the purpose and usefulness of everything innature. The trees were green because the green colour was goodfor the eyes. I agreed with him and added that God had createdcattle because beef tea was good for man's health, that He hadcreated the donkey so that people could make comparisons, andthat He had created man himself so that man could eat beef teaand not be a donkey. My companion was delighted at finding afellow thinker in me, he beamed with joy and was quite sorryto leaveme.'[1]
Heine took the humorous view, but the scientific argumentagainst teleology in nature was provided by Darwin, who notonly struck a blow at teleology in the natural sciences butalso gave an empirical explanation of its rationalmeaning. Teleology feeds on the belief that everythingrevolves around us and has us in mind. Instead of giving acausal explanation why this or that natural phenomenonoccurred, teleology offers conjectures about the purposeserved by its appearance. But can one ask nature, as though itwere a rational being, why it created such a strange world offorms and colours? Can one accuse it of malicious intent whenit produces ugliness? Nature is indifferent, it does not carewhether it creates a lion or a fly. The relative perfectionthat allows its creatures to orient themselves in theenvironment, the adaptation to conditions and the adequacy oftheir reactions to external stimuli, which is found in allanimals and plants, are real facts. The structure, forexample, of the stem of a plant can serve as a model for anarchitect who sets himself the task of designing the strongestpossible structure with the smallest quantity of materials andthe greatest economy in weight. Spinoza, who provided asplendid criticism of teleology in his day, did not denypurpose in the structure of the human body. He urged us not togape at it 'like a fool' but to seek the true causes ofthe miracles and consider natural things with the eyes of ascientist. This was exactly what Darwin did, and he revealedthe naturalmechanism of this amazing adaptiveness of the organism to theconditions of its existence. His theories on natural selectionshowed that delightful blossoms exist not to please ouraesthetic feelings or to demonstrate the refinement of theAlmighty's taste, but to satisfy the extremely earthly needsof vegetable organisms, i.e., the normal process ofpollination and perpetuation of the species.
Causality Manipulation
Changes in the world of animals and plants come about throughinteraction with their conditions of life. If these changesbenefit the organism, that is to say, help it to adapt to theenvironment and survive, they are preserved by naturalselection, become established by heredity and are passed onfrom generation to generation, thus building up the purposefulstructure of organisms, the adaptiveness to the environmentthat strike our imagination so forcibly. Brightly colouredflowers attract the insects by means of which pollinationtakes place. The beautiful plumage of male birds was developedby means of sexual selection. But adaptation is neverabsolute. It always has a relative character and turns intoits opposite when a radical change in conditions occurs, ascan be seen, for example, from the existence of rudimentaryorgans.
To sum up, then, what we have is selection without a selector,self-operating, blind and ruthless, working tirelessly andceaselessly for countless centuries, choosing vivid externalforms and colours and the minutest details of internalstructure, but only on one condition, that all these changesshould benefit the organism. The cause of the perfection ofthe organic world is natural selection! Time and death are theregulators of its harmony.