Thursday, August 14, 2014

Bertrand Russell on searching for causes

From the debate with Frederick Copleston: 

I think — there seems to me a certain unwarrantable extension here; a physicist looks for causes; that does not necessarily imply that there are causes everywhere. A man may look for gold without assuming that there is gold everywhere; if he finds gold, well and good, if he doesn’t he’s had bad luck. The same is true when the physicists look for causes. 

10 comments:

oozzielionel said...

Russell was unwilling to even consider a transcendent cause to the world. He would only accept that particulars had phenomenal causes. He had categories to discuss the causes of trees but not the forest (although this analogy is too small to encompass the concept of a cause for the world).

Copleston was clear in describing the concept that a series of contingent objects is not sufficient to explain something sufficient to itself (uncaused cause). He also differentiated this from a squared circle.

In my mind, there are causes that the physicist won't find because he lacks the necessary instruments or senses. If the physicist finds causes, he will only find the causes that he has the capabilities to find. He cannot find the causes that are beyond his capacities.

The metaphysicist has tools at his disposal that the physicist does not have in his toolbox. So we should expect different successes for each. We should also expect a sense of confusion and disagreement between the two.

Ilíon said...

VR: "I think — there seems to me a certain unwarrantable extension here; a physicist looks for causes; that does not necessarily imply that there are causes everywhere. A man may look for gold without assuming that there is gold everywhere; if he finds gold, well and good, if he doesn’t he’s had bad luck. The same is true when the physicists look for causes."

Perhaps you didn't write exactly what you meant. Nevertheless, what you *did* write is non-sense.

The "unwarrantable extension" is not that "there are causes everywhere" (*), but rather that "we don't see the cause of this event, therefore it has no cause".


(*) for to deny this is to deny that the world *is* a world.

Victor Reppert said...

Bertrand Russell wrote it.

Ilíon said...

See? It's non-sense (from a vastly over-rated jumped-up ape).

William said...

Nevertheless, I agree with Russell here that there is a difference in the category of explanation, and a difference in the type of reasons needed when we feel the need to explain an over reaching category like "the whole universe" rather than explaining a single, easily manipulable object within our world.

I don't agree with BR that the world is off limits to discussion as an inexplicable language object, but I think that to explain it well, we would need to precisely define the world, and a world we can precisely define is not really the world I think live in.

Ilíon said...

"I don't agree with BR that the world is off limits to discussion as an inexplicable language object, but I think that to explain it well, we would need to precisely define the world, and a world we can precisely define is not really the world I think live in."

Mathematics cannot -- logically, canot -- be "precisely define[ed]" (*). There is even a mathematical proof of that. Does this mean that mathematics is open only to vague, inconclusive discussion, seeomg that we cannot "explain it well"?


(*) At any rate, not by anyone other than God.

B. Prokop said...

The universe as a whole experiences change. It does not appear today as it did one second after the unfortunately-named Big Bang. It will look radically different a few trillion years from now when new star formation has ceased, and still different thousands of trillions of years later when all matter has basically ceased to exist. It is therefore by definition contingent, and requires an explanation - a "cause", if you will.

Not just the little bits that make it up, but the thing as a whole.

William said...

Iion: what is the cause of mathematics? It is causality that is being discussed.

Bob: yes, but that explanation is of a different, much less clear cut kind than explaining one rock, I think.

B. Prokop said...

"a different, much less clear cut kind"

I will agree that the definition will be "different", but as to "much less clear cut", I suspect the reverse is the case. A single rock has so many, varying "causes", stretching back to the make-up of the proto-stellar nebula out of which the solar system and our planet formed, to the entire geologic history of the Earth, to the very specific tectonic, erosional, and even meteorological influences upon the unique rock that we might be examining.

In contrast, the universe as a whole likely has one, single "cause". Different, yes - but far more clear cut.

William said...

It may be possible to reach a level of abstraction where everything is clear cut but nothing is actually relevant.