====== Causality ======

On a simple level, the 'laws' of 'cause and effect' seem to be straightforward and self-evident - if you drop a 'priceless' ceramic vase onto a concrete floor, it will very probably break. ([[https://www.guggenheim-bilbao.eus/en/learn/schools/teachers-guides/ai-weiwei-dropping-han-dynasty-urn-1995|ref.]]) But examined in greater detail, and on larger timescales, causality reveals many levels of uncertainty and vagueness.

For example, in the broken vase scenario, what processes lead to the existence of the vase in the first place? The ceramic was presumably fired from clay in a kiln. Where did the clay come from? What provided the energy to melt it? So, on timescales longer than the second or two in which the vase broke, the problem unravels into an infinite examination of every single possible detail of how the scenario arose. A clearly impractical task. And, looking forwards into the future, can we accurately describe every possible consequence of the vase's destruction? Again, impossible to say.

Such questions have been examined since the time of the Ancient Greek philosophers. And, more recently by thinkers such as Bertrand Russell - who in 1912 wrote [[https://archive.org/download/1912RussellOnTheNotionOfCause/1912%20Russell%20-%20On%20the%20Notion%20of%20Cause%20OCRe.pdf|On The Notion Of Cause]] {{:oa_padlock_grn.png?16}}for the //Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society,// Vol. 13, pp. 1-26

>In the following paper I wish, first, to maintain that the word "cause" is so inextricably bound up with misleading associations as to make its complete extrusion<sup> [ //sic.//?]</sup> from the philosophical vocabulary desirable; secondly, to inquire what principle, if any, is employed in science in place of the supposed "law of causality" which philosophers imagine to be employed; thirdly, to exhibit certain confusions, especially in regard to teleology and determinism, which appear to me to be connected with erroneous notions as to causality."

Since Russell's time, the picture has become even more complicated. [[content:physics:quantum_physics:quantum_mechanics]] has proved that - at least at the scale of atomic particles - effects don't necessarily //have //to be preceded by causes, and all effects are simply questions of probability. In addition, [[content:mathematics:chaos_theory]] has shown that effects can very dramatically change due to imperceptibly small variations in starting conditions. For example, if you were to roll a large round stone down a very rocky slope, it will quite probably end up in a different position each time you did so. Again, subject to probabilities.

For a modern-day plain-language essay on some of the many current viewpoints and uncertainties about causality, see [[https://aeon.co/essays/does-chaos-theory-square-classical-physics-with-human-agency|Chaos and cause]] at //Aeon.//