Here, I explain how all fundamental causation is simultaneous and continuous.* This is one of my better papers, but it’s somewhat neglected because “simultaneous causation” is treated as a fringe topic in metaphysics, which means that few people, even among those working on causation, would even look at the paper.
I'm no physicist so I could be misunderstanding, but isn't it a common hypothesis that spacetime is quantized and there's a minimum amount of time related to Planck's constant (see Planck time)? What happens to your hypothesis if so?
A simultaneously causes B and B simultaneously causes C. It's not metaphysically necessary that A cause B or B cause C. B could cause not-A. But then A isn't a sustaining cause of B. Simultaneous causation is incoherent for the same reason causal loops and backward causation is incoherent.
All I think you've shown here is that the effect has to overlap with the cause. That's not simultaneous causation in the interesting sense. Of course if A causes B then event A has to overlap with event B. But that period of overlap isn't any interesting sense of simultaneous causation.
A still has to exist at a time prior to its effect even if there has to be a time where A overlaps with B.
I have a weird paper about this same topic, but I conclude that the acceleration of an object is not a fact about the object *at* that time, but rather a fact about the object over any neighborhood (no matter how small) *after* that time. I also suggest that the velocity of an object is not a fact *at* or *after* that time, but a fact about the object over any neighborhood *before* that time. I suggest that this sort of neighborhood property is needed for time to be properly understood as continuous, and fundamental laws have to govern a second derivative in order for both past and future neighborhood quantities to play a role, and that this gives a (probably too powerful to be true, tbh) explanation for why the fundamental laws of physics all govern second derivatives.
I see some problems in the physics analysis on this reasoning.
If we are going to follow the models of the world that we currently have, there are some problems. First of all, the Einstein relativity theories, which so far didn't fail a single empirical test, tells us that evens that two observers can perceive as simultaneous can not have a causal connection and be completely independent.
The other difficulty is that forces are in the end exchanges of energy between two "particles" (it is actually between the particle "fields" that fill all space)... and all succesful models show the exchange to be quantisized, not continuous. There are no continuous effect of one thing on another, the quantum of energy is first in one particle, at a next "time" (next measurement) it is fully on the next particle field. And that seems to be what defines the emergence of time in the microscopic world, as a non-continuous set of interactions between particles. Macroscopically time looks like a continuous average of those events, but as more closely we observe the more granular it becomes.
How could we think of a simultaneity of events (exerting a field and being affected by it) if simultaneity and causal relations are forbidden in relativity, and how to say they happen at the same time, if the energy in the force field is not there anymore after turned into momentum on the other field, but never measured in both on the same observation?
There are two senses of causation. In one, the moving ball causes the stopped ball to begin moving. But in the same sense, the stopped ball causes the moving ball to stop, or at least to move in a different direction at a lower speed. In the other sense, I cause the moving ball to move by hitting it with the cue stick. And the free will debate is about whether those are different senses.
The balls each are subject to forces of gravity and friction. As they approach each other, they are attracted gravitationally to a tiny degree, and finally start interacting “directly” when their relative motion requires them to either break their molecular bonds that hold them together or to exchange energy. If they were subatomic particles instead of billiard balls, they might destroy each other, or bounce off, or stick together, or both be transformed into something else. But this just indicates that we haven’t come to the most basic level. If the particles are transformed, they exchange something. Everything that is involved is the cause, and everything that remains afterward is the effect. But what isn’t involved to some degree? And don’t we think it is the case that everything remains, just in a different form?
The question whether time is discrete or continuous is an empirical one, not metaphysical. Contrary to what you are claiming, modern physics doesn't give a definite answer to it. We know that time (as well as space) is sort of continuous up to the Planck scale, but we don't have a good idea of how it works beyond that. For all we know it could be some weird cellular automaton, or it could be continuous all the way down.
Assuming that the space is continuous, your argument makes sense, but it seems like it confuses different levels of abstractions.
On a purely physical level, as you say, everything is just some differential equations and e.g. position of the particle immediately affects it's acceleration or something. However I don't think it makes much sense to talk about cause and effect on this level, since what you have are just some functions and it's difficult to extract from them different entities between which we could establish causal relationships.
To me it makes more sense to talk about causes and effects when you identify some objects and events. Think of billiard balls. A ball is hit by a cue, hits another ball, which rolls into the pocket. On this level of abstraction you can talk about causal relationships between various events. But on this level the effect does come after the cause.
The question is, does it really make sense to speak of cause and effect at *any* level, or does it inevitably involve some hand waving to make up for things happening at a smaller scale? Why do billiard balls mostly bounce off? How fast do they need to go to smash each other, and why? If they are going at relativistic speeds, what sort of smash will happen? Then we need to speak of the things the balls are composed of, and the forces holding them together. And the things those things are composed of, etc.
Okay, the entire system at t causes the entire system at t+1 in some sense. But that is not how we use the concept of cause and effect in ordinary speech.
It is useful to sometimes think in terms of models that are not completely reductionist. When you are playing billiards, you aren't thinking about the relativistic speeds and the compositions of the balls, you are thinking in terms of relatively simple game model. In that model cause and effect sort of make sense.
Sure. But then philosophers try to figure out what exactly we are talking about when we speak of cause and effect. And if the same concept can't cover different levels, is it coherent?
Hume spent some ink debunking cause and effect, and even more ink on what the causes and effects of social phenomena might be. I've forgotten what he might have thought to accomplish by this, maybe to discover, if not the truth, at least a way to think about things that was not clearly self-contradictory. The publication of H's paper shows that the topic is still of some interest to philosophers.
Consider some system that evolves deterministically and has two states S1 and S2 in which S2 is observed later than S1 (and hence is determined by it). Also let's consider two properties P and Q of these states. Suppose initially S1 has property P and S2 has property Q. Now let's try to slightly modify the state S1 and see the effect of this change on S2. Imagine that if modified S1 loses property P, then S2 also with high probability loses property Q. Then we can say that P *causes* Q.
For example, let's again consider a game of billiards. A player hits ball 1, which collides with ball 2 and ball 2 falls into the pocket. Consider the state S1 when ball 1 collides with something or stops and S2 after the shot is finished. Property P would be that ball 1 connects with ball 2. Property Q is that ball 2 ends up in the pocket. If the player slightly modifies their shot in such a way that ball 1 does not connect with ball 2, then ball 2 will not fall into the pocket. (Most of the time — that's why I mention "high probability" and small modifications.)
The reality is a bit more fuzzy: the real systems that we might observe are not necessarily deterministic (for example they aren't usually completely isolated from the outside influences).
I have no idea whether this definition has any resemblance of any standard definitions of cause and effects, it just represents my understanding of the terms.
Haven't thought this out at all, but what pops immediately into my head is this:
Imagine S0 with property L that player 1 gets in a fight w his wife an hour before the game. If S0 has property L, player 1 mishits the ball which means ball 2 never goes in the pocket.
Which is the true cause of pocketed ball 2? Is it ball 1 hitting it, is it the non-fight with the wife, is it the billiard bill worker in Toledo who made ball 2, is it the farmer who made the factory worker's lunch, or is it everything all at once?
Obviously ball 1 hitting ball 2 means ball 2 goes in, but there are nearly infinite equally necessary causes for property 2 to occur.
Why would an event have exactly one cause? I doubt it is even possible to give a definition of cause & effect in such a way that you would always have just one cause.
"Time Is Continuous"
I'm no physicist so I could be misunderstanding, but isn't it a common hypothesis that spacetime is quantized and there's a minimum amount of time related to Planck's constant (see Planck time)? What happens to your hypothesis if so?
A simultaneously causes B and B simultaneously causes C. It's not metaphysically necessary that A cause B or B cause C. B could cause not-A. But then A isn't a sustaining cause of B. Simultaneous causation is incoherent for the same reason causal loops and backward causation is incoherent.
All I think you've shown here is that the effect has to overlap with the cause. That's not simultaneous causation in the interesting sense. Of course if A causes B then event A has to overlap with event B. But that period of overlap isn't any interesting sense of simultaneous causation.
A still has to exist at a time prior to its effect even if there has to be a time where A overlaps with B.
I have a weird paper about this same topic, but I conclude that the acceleration of an object is not a fact about the object *at* that time, but rather a fact about the object over any neighborhood (no matter how small) *after* that time. I also suggest that the velocity of an object is not a fact *at* or *after* that time, but a fact about the object over any neighborhood *before* that time. I suggest that this sort of neighborhood property is needed for time to be properly understood as continuous, and fundamental laws have to govern a second derivative in order for both past and future neighborhood quantities to play a role, and that this gives a (probably too powerful to be true, tbh) explanation for why the fundamental laws of physics all govern second derivatives.
https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.1093/bjps/axt022
I think F = m*dv/dt + v*dm/dt should be F = m*dv/dt * v*dm/dt
You’re thinking of the chain rule, but here the product rule applies.
> F = m*dv/dt * v*dm/dt
The units wouldn't work out. Force has units [kg*m*s^-2]. Multiplying those together would have to give units [kg^2*m^4*s^-4]
m*dv/dt and v*dm/dt each have units [kg*m*s^-2], so m*dv/dt + v*dm/dt is just adding together two kinds of forces.
I see some problems in the physics analysis on this reasoning.
If we are going to follow the models of the world that we currently have, there are some problems. First of all, the Einstein relativity theories, which so far didn't fail a single empirical test, tells us that evens that two observers can perceive as simultaneous can not have a causal connection and be completely independent.
The other difficulty is that forces are in the end exchanges of energy between two "particles" (it is actually between the particle "fields" that fill all space)... and all succesful models show the exchange to be quantisized, not continuous. There are no continuous effect of one thing on another, the quantum of energy is first in one particle, at a next "time" (next measurement) it is fully on the next particle field. And that seems to be what defines the emergence of time in the microscopic world, as a non-continuous set of interactions between particles. Macroscopically time looks like a continuous average of those events, but as more closely we observe the more granular it becomes.
How could we think of a simultaneity of events (exerting a field and being affected by it) if simultaneity and causal relations are forbidden in relativity, and how to say they happen at the same time, if the energy in the force field is not there anymore after turned into momentum on the other field, but never measured in both on the same observation?
Related?
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/01/business/dealbook/review-the-book-of-why-examines-the-science-of-cause-and-effect.html
There are two senses of causation. In one, the moving ball causes the stopped ball to begin moving. But in the same sense, the stopped ball causes the moving ball to stop, or at least to move in a different direction at a lower speed. In the other sense, I cause the moving ball to move by hitting it with the cue stick. And the free will debate is about whether those are different senses.
The balls each are subject to forces of gravity and friction. As they approach each other, they are attracted gravitationally to a tiny degree, and finally start interacting “directly” when their relative motion requires them to either break their molecular bonds that hold them together or to exchange energy. If they were subatomic particles instead of billiard balls, they might destroy each other, or bounce off, or stick together, or both be transformed into something else. But this just indicates that we haven’t come to the most basic level. If the particles are transformed, they exchange something. Everything that is involved is the cause, and everything that remains afterward is the effect. But what isn’t involved to some degree? And don’t we think it is the case that everything remains, just in a different form?
The question whether time is discrete or continuous is an empirical one, not metaphysical. Contrary to what you are claiming, modern physics doesn't give a definite answer to it. We know that time (as well as space) is sort of continuous up to the Planck scale, but we don't have a good idea of how it works beyond that. For all we know it could be some weird cellular automaton, or it could be continuous all the way down.
Assuming that the space is continuous, your argument makes sense, but it seems like it confuses different levels of abstractions.
On a purely physical level, as you say, everything is just some differential equations and e.g. position of the particle immediately affects it's acceleration or something. However I don't think it makes much sense to talk about cause and effect on this level, since what you have are just some functions and it's difficult to extract from them different entities between which we could establish causal relationships.
To me it makes more sense to talk about causes and effects when you identify some objects and events. Think of billiard balls. A ball is hit by a cue, hits another ball, which rolls into the pocket. On this level of abstraction you can talk about causal relationships between various events. But on this level the effect does come after the cause.
The question is, does it really make sense to speak of cause and effect at *any* level, or does it inevitably involve some hand waving to make up for things happening at a smaller scale? Why do billiard balls mostly bounce off? How fast do they need to go to smash each other, and why? If they are going at relativistic speeds, what sort of smash will happen? Then we need to speak of the things the balls are composed of, and the forces holding them together. And the things those things are composed of, etc.
Okay, the entire system at t causes the entire system at t+1 in some sense. But that is not how we use the concept of cause and effect in ordinary speech.
It is useful to sometimes think in terms of models that are not completely reductionist. When you are playing billiards, you aren't thinking about the relativistic speeds and the compositions of the balls, you are thinking in terms of relatively simple game model. In that model cause and effect sort of make sense.
Sure. But then philosophers try to figure out what exactly we are talking about when we speak of cause and effect. And if the same concept can't cover different levels, is it coherent?
Hume spent some ink debunking cause and effect, and even more ink on what the causes and effects of social phenomena might be. I've forgotten what he might have thought to accomplish by this, maybe to discover, if not the truth, at least a way to think about things that was not clearly self-contradictory. The publication of H's paper shows that the topic is still of some interest to philosophers.
We can define cause and effect as follows:
Consider some system that evolves deterministically and has two states S1 and S2 in which S2 is observed later than S1 (and hence is determined by it). Also let's consider two properties P and Q of these states. Suppose initially S1 has property P and S2 has property Q. Now let's try to slightly modify the state S1 and see the effect of this change on S2. Imagine that if modified S1 loses property P, then S2 also with high probability loses property Q. Then we can say that P *causes* Q.
For example, let's again consider a game of billiards. A player hits ball 1, which collides with ball 2 and ball 2 falls into the pocket. Consider the state S1 when ball 1 collides with something or stops and S2 after the shot is finished. Property P would be that ball 1 connects with ball 2. Property Q is that ball 2 ends up in the pocket. If the player slightly modifies their shot in such a way that ball 1 does not connect with ball 2, then ball 2 will not fall into the pocket. (Most of the time — that's why I mention "high probability" and small modifications.)
The reality is a bit more fuzzy: the real systems that we might observe are not necessarily deterministic (for example they aren't usually completely isolated from the outside influences).
I have no idea whether this definition has any resemblance of any standard definitions of cause and effects, it just represents my understanding of the terms.
Haven't thought this out at all, but what pops immediately into my head is this:
Imagine S0 with property L that player 1 gets in a fight w his wife an hour before the game. If S0 has property L, player 1 mishits the ball which means ball 2 never goes in the pocket.
Which is the true cause of pocketed ball 2? Is it ball 1 hitting it, is it the non-fight with the wife, is it the billiard bill worker in Toledo who made ball 2, is it the farmer who made the factory worker's lunch, or is it everything all at once?
Obviously ball 1 hitting ball 2 means ball 2 goes in, but there are nearly infinite equally necessary causes for property 2 to occur.
Why would an event have exactly one cause? I doubt it is even possible to give a definition of cause & effect in such a way that you would always have just one cause.