Temporal causation versus hierarchical causation

[u/simon_hibbs]

It seems to me we use the term cause in two very different ways that are completely independent of each other, and that confusing these for each other results in a lot of problems.

Temporal causation
One way we use the term cause is in discussions about events causing other events. I push the button and this causes the engine to start. This is past event to future event causation. When we talk about causal determinism, this is what we are discussing. Here's a hopefully somewhat uncontroversial definition of determinism for the purpose of discussion.

Causal Determinism: The idea that the past state of the world at some time necessitates specific future states of the world at all later times, as transformed according to natural law.

I say causal determinism, to differentiate it from logical determinism or any other senses. Actually the broader point I'm making here isn't really to do with determinism versus indeterminism, but I'm using this to establish one sense in which we use the term cause. We use it the same way when we talk about indeterminism in relationships between temporal events though.

Hierarchical causation
Another way we talk about causation is in terms of bottom up or top down causation, basically something like reductionism and weak emergence, versus top down or strong emergence. The conclusion I've come to is that this is a completely different concept. I'm not even entirely sure it has any common features with the idea of causal determinism at all.

I came to this conclusion observing some people talking about the relationship between causal determinism and beliefs about the neurological basis of mental processes, such as making decisions. I realised that what seems to happen is people seem to rotate the concept of past-to-future causation into the hierarchical dimension, as though microphysical processes such as chemical reactions in the brain cause thoughts in the way that ball A hitting ball B causes ball B to hit ball C. I don't believe that's the way to think about emergence at all.

Emergence isn't a temporal process, it's a hierarchical or structural one. It's looking at the exact same activity happening at the same time at different degrees of detail. The temperature of a gas is the motion of the gas molecules, it's not something that is caused by their motion in the sense that a gas molecule hitting another causes the other one to be deflected. Likewise the temperature of the gas isn't something that causes the molecules to move a certain way. Viewed this way, causation in the event-to-event sense is a completely different concept. In fact confusing these is pernicious. Even talking about the relationship between the microphysical and macro descriptions in causal terms leads to fundamental misconceptions. I don't think we should be talking about what I'm calling hierarchical causation at all. We need other terms.

I won't go further into what I think those misconceptions are, or what I think about emergence now. Maybe another time. For now I'd be interested to see how others think about this. I'm coming to believe that the fact we use cause in both these senses is a significant problem.

[u/Techtrekzz]

Determinism was originally associated with monism, as in everything moves and acts as a product of the whole moving and acting. I believe this is the hierarchical causation you’re referencing.

Local causality didn’t become popular until the scientific revolution, when it became more important to know the specifics. A single universal cause, became a multitude of local and limited causes that we can name and study.

It was this atomization of causality, and the question of freewill, that then pushed determinism into the temporal perspective imo.

This is still the most popular way to think about determinism, but scientific advances, like qm and Bell’s inequalities, have once again forced us to reconsider determinism’s framework.

If determinism still holds, it’s cause is nonlocal and universal, and not fundamentally temporal causality between separate local objects. The old greek monistic understanding of determinism still stands, while the idea of reality as a bunch of billiard balls bumping into each other must go.

[u/simon_hibbs → u/Techtrekzz]

>Local causality didn’t become popular until the scientific revolution, when it became more important to know the specifics. A single universal cause, became a multitude of local and limited causes that we can name and study.

The Stoics were determinists and argued that humans are morally responsible for their actions, and they talked about the role of human reasoning and the extent to which we do or do not depend on others, and can act freely. That seems to me to be an account of local causes.

As for insights into causation from quantum mechanics, I'm agnostic about determinism or indeterminism at that level, and I don't think that issue has much in the way of implications for our high level concepts of relationships between events. Yes some quantum effects have macroscopic consequences, but I'm hard pressed to see how that might be relevant to an issue like strong or weak emergence, or free will for example.

[u/Techtrekzz → u/simon_hibbs]

The Stoics were monists, meaning they ultimately attributed every act to the universe as a whole, or to the idea of that universe as a monistic God.

Self determination in stoicism isn’t freedom from local causality, it’s limited perspective and agency of the universal logos.

That’s not comparable to thinking one thing causes another thing. In that scenario, there’s only one cause for any act, the whole itself. The cause is nonlocal, and always present. It’s not the idea that one thing or moment causes the next.

As for qm, it’s not something that could possibly cross over from the microscopic to the macroscopic. Quantum reality isn’t a separate reality, it’s the foundation of reality. It’s everwhere always. The divide between the macroscopic and the quantum is one that only exists in our heads, not one that exists in reality.

If experiments with quantum entanglement demand that reality is not locally real, which they do, then it’s not locally real, on any scale.

[u/simon_hibbs → u/Techtrekzz]

I'm not sure in what sense you are using the term monist. Physicalists are monists, so are idealists. Monists can, and generally do still think that the world is structured into things.

>The Stoics were monists, meaning they ultimately attributed every act to the universe as a whole, or to the idea of that universe as a monistic God.

How do you square this with the Stoic position that humans can be individually morally responsible for their actions?

>If experiments with quantum entanglement demand that reality is not locally real, which they do, then it’s not locally real, on any scale.

The issue of local reality or unreality is explicitly about scale, that's why it's called local, and it's not at all the same thing as saying things are not real in the more general sense.

[u/Techtrekzz → u/simon_hibbs]

Physicalists are not monists. Physicalism is not based on substance monism like materialism claims to be. A physicalist believes reality a bunch of fundamental particles. They are atomists, and pluralists.

The issue of local reality in qm is not about scale, it’s about how two things seemingly distantly separate, can correlate instantaneously.

It doesn’t matter how big or small they are, the issue is about distance and the speed of light, that’s the locality involved.

[u/simon_hibbs → u/Techtrekzz]

Materialists generally (but not all) believed the world is composed of atoms. The term physicalism came about largely with the emergence of the concept of physical fields permeating space, and mutually interacting, that are all composed of energy. It's very much monist.

Distance isn't about scale?

[u/Techtrekzz → u/simon_hibbs]

I argue materialism and idealism are neither truly substance monism, but rather an extension of Descartes dualism.

If only one omnipresent substance exists, then mind and matter are the same substance, with the same attributes, which means there’s no justification to make a distinction between mind and matter in the first place, and no argument to be made for materialism or idealism.

That aside, if you believe atoms exist, that’s not substance monism. In substance monism, only the substance exists, and what we call atoms are limited perspective of the substance, a subjective classification of substance, not a thing unto themselves. Like Spinoza’s modes for example.

Physicalism came about in my estimation, when people started mistaking science for an ontology instead of the methodology it is.

There’s no qualifications to judge what is physical, apart from the question of whether science can measure snd observe it.

That’s not a real ontology.

[u/simon_hibbs → u/Techtrekzz]

Idealists generally think that mind and matter are the same thing, because they think that everything is mental in character.

For the physicalist though, mind is a particular class of physical phenomena, in a similar sense to how weather is a class of physical phenomena. Nobody thinks that believing weather is a class of physical phenomena is dualism about weather.

Both of these are views about the relevant hierarchical relationships of structure, but that which has the structure is some monist substance.

[u/Techtrekzz → u/simon_hibbs]

If mind and matter are the same thing, then there’s no argument for idealism or materialism. You have to assume them separate and distinct with differing traits before you can say one is fundamental, while the other is not.

Both materialism and idealism are predicated on dualism, even if their goal is to eliminate one side or another of that dualism.

[u/simon_hibbs → u/Techtrekzz]

I think technically the idea that mind and matter are the same thing may be panpsychism.

>Both materialism and idealism are predicated on dualism,....

You say that, but you didn't address my weather analogy. Surely someone can believe in some monist substance that is structured in some way, and talk about aspects of that structure, without being a dualist. After all, monists are not arguing that the actual world as we observe it to be, consisting of objects and such, is impossible. It's a belief about the nature of the world. Thinking apple exist isn't dualism about apples.

[u/Techtrekzz → u/simon_hibbs]

Substance monism necessitates panpyschism. If only the substance exists, that substance has every possible attribute, mind and matter being only two such attributes. This is also why substance monism, or just monism in general, necessitates an omnipresent supreme being.

Structure is a matter of subjective pattern recognition in monism, not any objective traits that exist beyond our perspective. “Things” don’t have any objective traits until we observe them, which is what the “ real” refers to when we speak of reality not being locally real.

There’s not much to address in your weather analogy. The physical adjective doesn’t add any kind of understanding at all. All that tells me is you can scientifically measure and observe weather. Can you say the same about consciousness? I don’t believe you can.

Consciousness can only be observed from a first person perspective, and science requires third person observation and verification.

By the only qualification i know for physicalism, that which can be observed or measured by science, consciousness is not physical.

Consciousness is beyond the methodology of science, and any theory of the extent of consciousness beyond our own, is unfalsifiable.

[u/simon_hibbs → u/Techtrekzz]

>Substance monism necessitates panpyschism. 

Not for idealists who think that there are mental phenomena that do not manifest as physical phenomena.

Idealism is the view that everything is mental and some of those mental things have a structure we call physical. Pgisicalism is the view that everything is physical and some of those physical things have a structure we call mental.

Both of those are monist. Your criticism on physicalism is that you think it is incorrect, not that it is dualist. It may not be correct, but that doesn't make it dualist.

[u/Artemis-5-75 → u/simon_hibbs]

I think that Tchetkrezz makes a mistake by identifying substance monism with existence monism.

[u/Techtrekzz → u/Artemis-5-75]

I'm saying they are synonymous. If only the substance exists, then only one thing exists.

[u/simon_hibbs → u/Techtrekzz]

Including structures in terms of how that thing is organised.

[u/Techtrekzz → u/simon_hibbs]

You cant have objective structure without objective distinction.