Questions tagged [causality]
140 questions
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How do defenders of libertarian freewill reconcile it with constraints imposed by the laws of physics?
Libertarian freewill is the position that we have some measure of metaphysical freewill. Per this position, a free agent at a given point in time is able to freely select a course of action among several possible courses of action, i.e. given the…
Alexander S King
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Does the impossibility of an infinite regress prove God exists?
I'm strictly discussing one aspect of God: God as the First Cause. I am excluding all other qualities of God defined by any religion or belief system -- including the notion of God as a sentient being. For the scope of this question God could be…
Lynel Hudson
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Is there a causal influence of the mental on the physical?
Regardless of whether the mental is ultimately physical or not... doesn't the impact of human knowledge (science, mathematics, etc) on the world (ie: technology, agriculture, basically everything), give us proof that the mental affects the…
Ameet Sharma
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Does causality always require time?
For empirical facts, it seems obvious that causality requires a time flow for the concept to make sense: A causes B implies that A happened before B.
Is it ever possible to have a causal relationship without a flow of time? Presumably this is…
Alexander S King
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How does Quantum Mechanics affect the modern account of free will and determinism?
In the edition of Feb/Mar 2016 of the Philosophy Now Magazine says:
Under Feel Free to Differ it says:
[...] Determinism itself comes in different flavours. Hard determinism
of the most absolute sort is the theory that the entire history of the
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Edwin Dalorzo
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What philosophers, other than Schopenhauer and Nietzsche, examine "will" first, before "free will"?
It seems to me that talk about free will is premature, until 'will' itself has been examined.
As Hume noted, we don't have any direct experience of "causality"... two events follow each other and we might call them cause and effect after the…
Ameet Sharma
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Causality vs. implication
Implication is said to be more general than causality since, for example, being a dog implies being a mammal but it doesn't cause it. Is there a formalization of the difference between implication and causality (in the field of metaphysics or…
Atamiri
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Is it possible to have truth if objective randomness exists?
I will do my best to describe both of my terms as clearly as possible. I would describe true randomness as a process that has absolutely no predictability : even if you knew absolutely everything you still would not be able to predict the outcome of…
AlexW.H.B.
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When trying to identify causality, do we assume "nearness" between cause and effect?
When asking people what causes what, it seems that they assume that causality has something to do with "temporal nearness" and "space nearness". That is:
If I turn on the light switch and the lamp turn on a short time after that, then the light…
Red Banana
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Presentism and simultaneity
Presentism is the position that all that exists, exists in the present. Though one can speak of the past, and of events in the past, strictly speaking (in this position), there is no temporal event located there, that we are strictly referring to…
Mozibur Ullah
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Is free will a third option aside from chance and necessity?
The determinism dilemma is that if our actions are predetermined they are not free, and if they are random they are not willed, either way there is no free will. Even if will causation is a mixture of chance and necessity it can be split into the…
Conifold
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Do we cause words to mean things, or do words cause us to mean things?
This question occurred to me while reviewing a skeptical argument from Kripke regarding semantics:
Suppose that I’ve never dealt with numbers larger than 57. (Given our finite nature and the infinitude of the natural number series, there will…
Kristian Berry
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Is the delayed choice quantum eraser a refutation of principle of causality? How does contemporary philosophy make sense of it?
Causality, as per Wiki
Is the relation between an event (the cause) and a second event (the
effect), where the first event is understood to be responsible for the
second.
For this relationship to hold true, it is necessary that the first event…
Graviton
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Kant and causality as custom
According to Hume, causality cannot be found in "things themselves", nor can it be empirically accessible. Instead, it is we, the observers, who attach causal relations among things merely because we constantly see them occurring together, i.e.…
tchuncly
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Does Quantum Entanglement Disprove the Principle of Locality?
Regarding the debate between quantum mechanics and determinism I have encountered a problem I can't find the answer to. It is my impression that in order to solve Bell's inequality you would have to sacrifice the principle of locality or…
Torstein Hatlebakk
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