FRIAM and causality

Posted by Marcus G. Daniels on Nov 13, 2007; 7:25am
URL: http://friam.383.s1.nabble.com/FRIAM-and-causality-tp525252p525255.html

Nicholas Thompson wrote:
> Let's try this:   To say that a probability attaches to an event at an
> instant is to commit this fallacy.  What we know is a past relative
> frequency of relevant conditions and relevant consequences.  Instantaneous
> probability is a fiction.  
>  
> "Cause" is just another one of those misattributions.  We saw the hammer
> hit the nail, but to say that the Hammer caused the nail to penetrate the
> wood is to invent an unobservable, an instantaneous "cause".    
>  
It might be useful to consider more stuff before we get too excited
about this whole hammer embeds nail story!
If we watch a bunch of nails real close, we might notice that
penetration in wood is sometimes preceded by being inside artifacts
called nail guns or inside artifacts known as IEDs.   Just grabbing on
to a larger nail and randomly swinging it around at stuff it might just
stick into something.   Then we might wonder what does swinging around
big nails and nailguns and hammers and improvised explosive devices have
in common?   Hmm..

Or we might notice that nails are taken away from these things called
hardware stores by people that give the people in the hardware stores
green pieces of paper.    Where do those green pieces of paper go?   Ah
ha!  Why do you bring the nails,  person that takes the money from the
person that goes to the hardware store?  You say you make that nail
thing and it is mostly used to hold stuff together using one-time
application of directed energy and friction?!  Glad I asked!  :-)