Questions tagged [causation]
The causation tag has no usage guidance.
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Can loops/cycles (in a temporal sense) exist without beginnings?
I know this might seem like a question that might belong in a Computer Science forum but I wanted a more philosophical explanation and example.
When programming, I sometimes write poor implementations ...
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Theism's secondary causation vs Simulation Theory
One persistent worry about the sole-source thesis has its roots in the
medieval debate over whether there is secondary causation (i.e.,
genuine causation by created things). Suppose that created ...
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What kind of things have causes and are causes for Aristotle?
In Aristotle's Categories he tells us there are a certain number of kinds of things for example; quantity, quality and substance. Later in the works he writes about causes of things but I don't know ...
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causal triads and infinite recursion in medieval and/or classical philosophy
I recall reading sometime that medieval or possibly classical scholars had a widespread theory of causation or interaction in which all interactions were necessarily triads of subject, object, and ...
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causality and locality in universe
In continuation to Mechanistic view of the universe my second question is does locality implies causality and vice versa ? We have seen in previous question where causality sometimes locality doesn't ...
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Act and Potency Prescinded From Causality in Thomism
Did the Thomistic Commentators, including but not limited to Cajetan, prescind potency and act from causal relations? In other words, did they consider the notion of potency and act as separate from ...
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upward downward topdown bottomup causation
can u tell me more about upward and downward causation . Is it same as bottom up and top down causation. What about one cause having lot of effects and one effect having lot of causes ?
Any chart/...
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Sheldrake's Fields as Formal Causes
Why do we not consider fields as formal causes, especially in light of Rupert Sheldrake's analysis of morphogenetic fields? How does Sheldrake's hypothesis of formative causation challenge our ...
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Can the absense of something be a cause?
I wonder, can the absence of something be a cause? My first inclination is to say yes. For example, if someone is in a room with no air, the lack of air will cause them to die. But what really is the ...
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what is difference between "trumping preemption," "preemption," and "not trumping"?
I'm reading Lewis's paper "Causation as Influence," and I understand the example of the Major-Sergeant command as a case of trumping preemption, while the example of Suzy and Billy throwing ...
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The question about "trumping" in Lewis's "causation as influence
In Lewis's "Causation as Influence," in section 1.4 titled "Trumping," Lewis describes a scenario as a case where a causal chain can be said to preempt a potential causal chain ...
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Causation in physics equation
Granted that physicists have always been concerned about causation, the laws of physics stated in terms of equations have nothing to say about causation. Are they correlational laws, causal ...
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What is causation?
I suppose the common idea of “causation” to me seems like it is supposed to reduce to physical causation, at least this is a standard worldview in modern times. In other words, the implied metaphysics ...
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Reference request for texts on causation
I have been very interested in causation lately. I am especially interested in whether it can be defined at all, or it must be taken as a brute fact. I would love to read some texts on causation, and ...
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Does ontological commitment to unobservables in science give one ontological commitment to causality?
If we have ontological commitment to an unobservable like electrons, are we ontologically committed to the causal relationship between their existence and the observable phenomena we use to know that ...
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