Ming the Mechanic:
Cause and Effect
The NewsLog of Flemming Funch
 Cause and Effect2003-06-29 13:08
10 comments
picture by Flemming Funch

Max rants about the widespread but not very useful meme of "Cause and Effect" and quotes Nietche:
"Cause and effect: such a duality will probably never exist. In truth we are faced by a continuum out of which we isolate a couple of pieces, just as we perceive a motion only as isolated points without really seeing it but then infer [a motion]. The suddenness with which many effects are standing out, misleading us; but it is only a suddenness for us. There are an infinite number of processes in this second of suddenness which elude us. An intellect that could see cause and effect as a continuum. and not see it in our way as arbitrary division and dismemberment, would reject the concept of cause and effect and deny all conditionality."
Well, I agree with both Max and Nietsche. Cause and Effect only makes sense in a cartoon world in our minds. The world doesn't really work that way. Everything is connected. It is a continuum. Does an egg cause a chicken, or does a chicken cause an egg? Neither - they're different aspects of the same system.


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10 comments

29 Jun 2003 @ 22:53 by ashanti : And that's one of the reasons...
...why I am a fan of Max. However, this is entirely uncausal, and rather has to do with an eddie in the time-space continuum where we keep bumping into each other, as I am holding onto a non-existent copy of Max's {link:http://www.etext.org/Fiction/PurpleNotebook/|Pnohteftu}. :-)  

30 Jun 2003 @ 05:19 by jstarrs : So...there're no causes...
...for you moving to France, it's just that everything is connected, come ON?????????!!!!!!!!!
Is light made up of a continuum or is the continuum made up of waves and/or particles?
Is the thought process just one continuum or is that continuum imputed upon a series of thoughts that follow one another?
Do these thoughts make up a continuum and are the thoughts and the continuum separate or one or neither?  

30 Jun 2003 @ 12:37 by ming : No cause ... for alarm
Heheh, I guess the point I'm trying to make is that it isn't just one thing that causes everything else. Like, why am I moving to France? It isn't because there's no reason at all, and it just sort of happened by itself, I'll grant that. But there's no one thing we can point out that caused me to do it. We can say it is my decision that caused it, but I only made that decision based on a bunch of things that 'caused' me to feel like doing so. It is just that we can't easily separate which things are the cause and which are the effect. And, yes, of course we're living in a world where lots of things are seen as separate at one point or another, and that is generally quite useful. It keeps the sargasso sea out of my refrigerator, and it allows me to walk around and think abstractly, imagining it actually makes sense.  

30 Jun 2003 @ 15:39 by waalstraat : Hey Jeff
Your arguement is completely analagous to the guy who says don't tell me the wooden chair I'm sitting on isn't solid...you want me to hit you on the head with it...on this "local" level or dimension of reality for all purposes it is solid, but on a more non-local level, its absolutely lacks substance. This is a good Buddhist concept Jeff...everything is interpenetrating and co-dependent in sort of a holistic reality. What is interesting is through meditation Buddhist were able to comprehend that through some type of direct non-cognitive knowing without the aid of Atomic accelerators etc....  

30 Jun 2003 @ 15:56 by waalstraat : Cause can't be verified
The whole idea of cause is a hypothetic construct, and a given. It is a belief upon which the whole construction of "Science is built" however utilizing the scientific method to test that belief is impossible. One, you would be involved in a circularity, and two, you would be making an inductive fallacy. Just because the sun comes up everyday doesn not mean it will come up tomorrow although I wouldn't bet against it because its probability is very high. And just because you can show a cause behind every event, does not mean that will go
on indefinitely....however cause and effect has been a very effective construct within certain borders and we have now started to approach those borders, when an event that seems to effect a photon, can effect another photon 20,000 miles away, it doesn't seem like we are talking about the same type of cause and effect sequence...What we are talking about here is what Bohr calls a holo-reality or the interpenentration and co-dependence of all events in a event horizon....or field or what...but the main point is science is a quasi religious system, in as much as it grounded in a belief (a very effective one) that can't be tested by its own methodolgy...  

30 Jun 2003 @ 19:23 by FallacyBasher @63.226.55.9 : "beCAUSE the sun comes up...."
???

I'll bet that the sun doesn't move relative to us at all.  

5 Jul 2003 @ 07:14 by vaxen : a more...
useful meme, perhaps, would be; stimulus-response? good old pavlov! ;)

http://www.exoploitics.org/  

10 Oct 2003 @ 03:03 by Lion @168.209.98.35 : Jargon
Why oh why do you twitts all write such non-sensical jargon. Get a life man.  

11 Jan 2004 @ 22:11 by swanny : The Rooster
Well actually I think the rooster
does play a part in the chicken
egg thingy

*smirks*

swanny  

30 Apr 2016 @ 01:09 by Randi @188.143.232.32 : rOpLNcCZjMdSFxkHjBse
Draga Floriana, sper ca dupa alegeri sa citesc in revista ta mai multe pagini deiudate..frcmosului ..Poate chiar in numarul de Craciun .Pentru ca recunosc, desi astept anchetele pe social si politic, ceea ce ma relaxeaza sunt recomandarile si impresiile din paginile dedicate operei, calatoriilor, cartilor, filmelor.Si cele pe care de altfel le rasfoiesc chiar si dupa ceva timp.  

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2007-11-09 00:55: The ends justify the means
2007-09-19 00:36: Fractal brains
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2007-03-26 21:12: Ken Wilber stops his brain waves
2007-03-21 14:45: Free Thought the simplicity of life
2007-03-09 23:46: The ends justify the means
2007-01-29 21:44: Free will in a ten-dimensional universe
2007-01-24 20:42: Assuming Somebody Else's Viewpoint
2007-01-16 16:28: Free Will


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