[This is an ‘Ultimates’ text. Please, don’t take it at face value.]<\/p>\n
\u2018The\u2019 cause is always a human concoction.<\/strong><\/p>\n Theoretically, a cause is a necessary prerequisite for the caused. A caused is a necessary follow-up of the cause. In view, of course, of \u2018everything else,\u2019 which makes causality also a characteristic of embeddedness. Without \u2018everything else,\u2019 not anything can cause anything.<\/p>\n Time is also intrinsic to the notion of causality. Although we can imagine the future causing the past \u2013 as we can also imagine a city of angels on Venus \u2013 it doesn\u2019t make sense. Something could cause itself? That would make the causal concept meaningless.<\/p>\n One reality<\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n So we get to several ideas that can only be caught together: time, cause, embeddedness\u2026 I guess that\u2019s because reality is just what it is. Our notions \u2013 even while being fuzzy \u2013 about reality are bound together by reality itself.<\/p>\n We can only take our human-made notions \u2013 which we call \u2018concepts\u2019 \u2013 apart in an artificial manner.<\/p>\n Between correlation and causality<\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n there will always be a gap. Say an apple falls from a tree. Gravity. Does gravity cause the falling of the apple? There is definitely a correlation. In space, the apple wouldn\u2019t fall. It would just hang on there. No gravity, no falling.<\/p>\n Causality, however, is a necessary<\/em> correlation. But \u2018necessary\u2019 is a very hard condition. Is anything \u2018necessary\u2019 at all? In theory, yes. The universe may even be a deterministic place as a whole. Or it may not. But that\u2019s theory in relation to the practice<\/em> of causality. The latter is:<\/p>\n In view of necessity, can we really prove<\/u> any one bit of causality?<\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n At presence, \u2018science about science\u2019 says \u2018no.\u2019 In order to prove causality, one needs to verify. The present-day theory about science says that verification is not possible.<\/p>\n And that\u2019s the end of proven causality.<\/p>\n Of course, in everyday life, we live with continuous causality.<\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n Our very thinking itself, our relationships, society as a whole is built upon the notion of causality. Causality glues everything together. It\u2019s the way we make sense of anything and everything.<\/p>\n According to me, that is what \u2018causality\u2019 eventually amounts to:<\/p>\n a way of making sense.<\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n It\u2019s not anything that exists in reality. Note that one cannot \u2018grab\u2019 causality. One cannot \u2013 as we just saw \u2013 \u2018prove\u2019 causality. \u00a0One cannot put any single dose of \u2018causality\u2019 in anything.<\/p>\n Take the universe with or without causality \u2013 but with correlations \u2013 and it would be the same universe.<\/p>\n Good enough?<\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n This leads us back to causality as a human instrument. The aim of this instrument \u2013 as of any other \u2013 is to be \u2018good enough.\u2019 It doesn\u2019t need to be perfect. It never is.<\/p>\n But \u2018good enough\u2019 is also the result of human appreciation. Always. In medicine, for instance, this is generally threaded very lightly. WAY too lightly especially at the borders of what one group (the medical) wants to see as its territory (medicine).<\/p>\n When used appropriately, the instrument of causality doesn\u2019t stop at any borders, nor can it be rightfully used to make any distinctions where there are none. That would make the instrument itself irrelevant \u2013 as it does \u2013 and even dangerous to many people\u2019s health.<\/p>\n [see: \u201cOf cause!<\/a>\u201d]<\/p>\n