Category Archives: Causality

“Levels” in Why-questions dont just occur in the sense of “chain of how many whys?” That is, one can ask a why to a why and a why to that why and so on, thus creating a chain and thus levels of why-questions. But there exist levels of another kind to a why-question – levelContinue reading ““Level” of a WHY question”

Suppose Jack praises John. The apparent reason is that he has appreciation for John’s deeds. But the real motive could be just to flatter him, to get some favor extracted from him. Any action will have a usual motive (like the first one above) and a real motive (like the second one above) which mayContinue reading “The motive behind any action”

Any process which is not completely i.e. from start-to-end, natural, involves 2 causes – the commonsensical cause and the scientific cause. (These aren’t what these names make them seem). Suppose I dip a cloth in flowing water, it will get wet. Now, if someone asks – why did the cloth become wet? The commonsensical everyday-lifeContinue reading “2 Causes”

An Analysis of Causality  The question ‘why?’ is applicable to any statement ‘S’. To the answer (say, ‘X’) to this question, there are 2 fundamental subtly different questions askable.  A – Why does X exist? B – Why is X the reason for S? Lets arrange this with an example of a real-world event-like scenario.Continue reading “An Analysis of Causality”

Cause and Effect An event i.e. the same event, can be the cause of something, as well as the effect of something else. But that doesn’t mean that cause and effect are equivalent elements, in themselves. Why? It is not possible to say that X is a cause of anything, till the effect is seen/knownContinue reading “Cause and Effect”

Commonsense Causality :  If there is a drastic/distinct change, and there are events seen immediately afterwards, which don’t happen otherwise, for a sufficiently long period, then you tend to attribute those events to that change. More so if the change is known to / it is possible for the change to, cause those such events.Continue reading “Commonsense Causality”

                   The basic structure of Subjective Causality –  Whenever we are asked a reason for a phenomenon, we “scan” through the subjective issue and hit at one or two prime reason(s). Then comes the question of explaining how it is the reason.  For that, there are 2 chains emanating from this reason – one ‘effects-chain’ andContinue reading “The basic structure of subjective causality”

The definition of ‘Cause’ –  If the converse of a statement relating A and B is not necessarily true, then it (the pair A and B) is like a cause-effect pair.  (This is since occurrence of a cause implies an effect, but the occurrence of the effect doesn’t necessarily imply the occurrence of that cause).Continue reading “The definition of ’cause’”