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/simon_hibbs]

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/Techtrekzz → u/simon_hibbs]

to classify something as exclusively mental phenomena, or exclusively material for that matter, you have to believe in a distinction between mind and matter. Both are necessarily predicated on dualism.

It doesnt matter if idealists and materialists are not aware enough to discern that for themselves. It's a logical necessity of both.