This article is about Consciousness and Causality through the creation and existence of causal effect relationships between variables such as facts from the past as strong character traits or causes which affect directly or indirectly future behavioral traits, events, or effects as conditions of measurement of the sizes of these relationships.
An in-depth overview about topics such as:
| The Principle of Causality |
| Causality vs Determinism |
| Causality and Free Will |
| What do People Believe of Causality? |
| Causality vs Teleology |
The Principle of Causality
For the human consciousness, the condition of the existence of a state or property as a precondition for the transition from one state or property to another through an intermediate action or interaction force that fulfills them both (conditions, states, or properties) is what we call causality or causation.
If we observe carefully the appearance of a child in the present it constitutes the causal effect as an interaction force for the activation of the relationship between cause and effect and therefore the birth of a child constitutes the necessary action or force through which this special or dedicated relationship (energetic tie) is activated.
In the above case, the birth of a child fulfills both properties or states as an energetic tie between a parent and a father or mother as energetic links. The child is just the occurrence as the precondition or the source cause that triggers that energetic tie.
In this way, possibility turns to actuality effect that is the state of existing in reality or a state of being actual. Actuality is the impact of a possible action in the past as a fact turning to an actual effect or future event.
However, probability turns to false certainty as a reaction to a possible action that is a state of being the actual root cause, for this reaction. The causal relationship between false certainty or provable solution (the actual root cause) which under certain conditions or circumstances gives rise to actuality (the actual effect) is causality or causation that is, in turn, the actual solution to a problem or risk.
Causality is universal. No other relationship can give rise to certain consequences. Ours is a world of cause and effect or, literally speaking, of progenitors and their progeny.
The universality of causality is often denied because of the limited nature of human understanding, which prevents us from judging the type and nature of relationships beyond what is known in science and subsequent practice.
An important feature of causality is the continuity of the cause-effect as a causal relationship. The chain of this causal relationship or causation has neither a beginning nor an end. It never breaks, it extends forever from one energetic link to another. It forms an energetic tie.
The causal relationship can be perceived as a one-way, following the one-way action-reaction forces. The idea of causality as the influence of one thing on another is applied to fields of knowledge where it is possible and necessary to really measure the qualitative aspects of causes and the opposite quantitative effects achieved by the causal relationships.
And any attempt to find an “absolutely first” or “absolutely final” cause is a futile pursuit. The internal mechanism of causality is related to the continuous transfer of notions, thoughts, and ideas into motion, information, and finally, matter through critical and analytical thinking.
Causality vs Determinism
And yet we know that no scientist limits his logic and understanding to what he can perceive. The whole history of mankind, of all scientific experiments, knows no exceptions to the principle of determinism.
Determinism was given its classical expression by Laplace, who formulated it as follows: “According to determinism, if someone knows the precise location and momentum of every atom in the universe, their past and future values for any given time are entailed; they can be calculated from the laws of classical mechanics”.
In quantum mechanics of consciousness, determinism is connected with the unique relationship with that of cause and effect. Determinism should be equated with causality. There is a specific “probabilistic causality” that turns to certainty and then to actuality due to the causal effect according to causal laws as some of the forms of the manifestation of determinism into actual reality.
Determinism comes from recognizing the diversity of causal relationships, depending on the nature of the regularities and specific character traits operating in a given consciousness sphere. Each level of the structural organization of the being has its own specific way of interaction of things, based on behavioral traits including its specific causal relationships.
The higher forms of causal relations must never be reduced to lower forms. They both connect through causal effects. From a methodological point of view, it is necessary to take into account the quantitative and qualitative peculiarities and the level of the structural organization of the reality creation and existence phase cycles.
The principle of determinism includes the recognition of objectivity, the universality of causal relationships and has always played an extremely important methodological and heuristic role in scientific knowledge. The primary assumption for any scientific research has always been that all events in the physical and spiritual worlds obey a fixed regular connection, known as the principle of causality. Any field of knowledge would cease to be scientific if it abandoned the principle of causality.
What is the concept of determinism?
Determinism, in philosophy, is the theory that all events, including moral choices, are entirely determined by pre-existing causes. Determinism is usually understood to preclude free will because it means that people can not act differently from what they do.
Causality and Free Will
What are the main points of the determinism perspective?
Determinism is the view that free will is an illusion and that human behavior is governed by uncontrollable internal or external forces. Consequently, human behavior is considered absolutely predictable. Therefore, the causal laws of determinism form the basis of science.
What is the argument for determinism?
The mind does not experience as much the cause as the experience of the cause. On this basis, the argument for determinism proceeds as follows: As the effects have similar causes, the effect is like the cause, the effect is in fact the cause being transformed, as lightning is the result of previous electrical conditions.
Is determinism the same as fate?
For example, some people may think we have a fate pre-decided by a higher power but that is only one version of fatalism. Determinism, on the other hand, means not only that we have a predetermined destiny to which we will end up, but also that every event in our lives is decided by past events and actions-reactions.
Is human behavior deterministic?
The aim is to prove that human behavior, just like in a complex system, follows specific rules, natural laws that govern the Universe, and, consequently, a deterministic and irreversible pattern. That is, although behavior has a deterministic structure, it is by no means predictable.
Which of these is the best definition of determinism?
Determinism is the doctrine that people are programmed to do what they do. Every human action-reaction is determined by the belief system under certain conditions (including thoughts, habits, ideas, desires, and preferences) that exist within the individual just before this action-reaction is taken.
What do People Believe of Causality
Causal illusions arise when people misinterpret random patterns as evidence of a causal relationship. New research published in the British Journal of Psychology provides evidence that this illusion of causality is linked to belief in pseudoscience.
Some people believe that the connection between cause and effect is made in time. This temporary relationship can be defined in several ways. Some other people also believe that the cause always precedes the effect, that there is a certain interval between the time when the cause begins to act (for example, the interaction of two systems) and the time when the effect appears. For a while, cause and effect coexist, then the cause disappears and the consequence eventually becomes the cause for something else. And so on to infinity.
Other thinkers believe that these intervals overlap in part. It is also argued that cause and effect are always strict at the same time. Still, others argue that it is pointless to talk about a cause that already exists and therefore takes effect while the effect has not yet entered the realm of existence. How can there be an “ineffective cause”?
Any effect is caused by the interaction of at least two phenomena. Therefore the interaction effect is the real cause of the effect. In other words, the phenomenon of influence is determined by the nature and state of both interacting elements.
Causes operate independently of the will and conscience of people. Causes are rooted in psychological factors, in consciousness, in the actions of the person or a social group, in their determination, their organization, their experience, their prominence, and so on.
Every phenomenon is related to other phenomena by connections of more than one value. It is the result both of certain conditions and certain basic factors that act as its cause.
To sum up, all processes in the world are evoked not only by a one-way or one-sided action-reaction but are also based on the relationship of at least two interacting objects due to the existence of cause and effect and their subsequent causal effect.
Causality vs Teleology
Causation and purpose. Observing the astonishing adaptation and “rational” organization of plants and animals or the “harmony” of the celestial spheres, people even in antiquity wondered where this harmonious organization of all that exists came from.
The idea of teleology (from Greek word τέλος, telos, ‘end’, ‘aim’, or ‘goal,’ and λόγος, logos, ‘explanation’ or ‘reason’) arises when a cause that operates spontaneously is considered to be a consciously active cause, even that which acts in a predetermined direction, i.e. a goal-oriented cause.
This means that the ultimate cause or goal in the future, which determines the process that takes place in the present. The doctrine that the universe as whole proceeds according to a specific plan cannot be proved empirically. The existence of an ultimate goal presupposes that someone must have set it.
So teleology leads to theology. Instead of giving an explanatory explanation for why this or that phenomenon happened in nature, teleology asks for what purpose it happened. And to prove his point, the teleologist usually refers to the deliberate structure of organisms in nature.
It is enough to observe the structure of a butterfly’s wing, the behavior of an ant, a mole, a fish, to realize how deliberately everything is made. The crudest form of teleology is the claim that nature provides some living creatures for the benefit of others, for example, cats are provided to eat mice and mice are there to feed cats. The goal of the whole process of evolution of the animal world is that man and all other animals were created to make things comfortable for mankind.
Summing up, then, what we have is a choice without a selector, autonomous, blind and ruthless, working tirelessly and relentlessly for countless centuries, choosing vibrant exterior shapes and colors and the smallest details of the internal structure, but only on one condition, that all changes must benefit the body. The cause of the perfection of the organic world is the law of evolution by natural selection! Time and death are the regulators of its harmony.