Closer to Truth: What is Causation?

Why does one thing ‘cause’ another thing? Is causation fundamental, primitive, real—not reducible to, or explainable by, anything else? Or is causation a human construct, derivative, artificial? At stake is what existence is about. Featuring interviews with Simon Blackburn, Richard Swinburne, Robin Le Poidevin, Huw Price, and Walter Sinnott-Armstrong.

See also this post.

See also this post.

It seems to me that the issue of what is causation can be looked at from the standpoint of design. The Universe and our reality strongly appear to have been designed by some vast and powerful Intelligence, a design important aspects of which are the fine tuning of the laws of physics and the intelligent design of living organisms. Design inherently implies a Designer or designers acting as causative agents in order to create. This implies that causation is a fundamental principle of reality and is not some sort of custom or property of our consciousness. It would seem to me that there being a Creator or creators implies that causation is fundamental to existence, since design is a fundamental element of creation.

It seems to me that the issue of what is causation can be looked at from the standpoint of design. The Universe and our reality strongly appear to have been designed by some vast and powerful Intelligence, a design important aspects of which are the fine tuning of the laws of physics and the intelligent design of living organisms. Design inherently implies a Designer or designers acting as causative agents in order to create. This implies that causation is a fundamental principle of reality and is not some sort of custom or property of our consciousness. It would seem to me that the existence of a Creator or creators implies that causation is fundamental to existence.

Only if the Creator/Designer has causal power themselves. I[t] would lead to an infinite regress save that we do have first-hand empirical evidence of causal power in ourselves - in fact when it comes to intrinsic properties such as Consciousness & Causation the evidence is our own experience.

Even the supposed primary qualities measured by the sciences are circular in definition until they are grounded in experience.

Part of why I believe the only Causation is Mental Causation. When one abandons the indoctrination of the Materialist faith the evidence of Psi & Survival becomes expected rather than "extraordinary", and silly ideas like "emergence" of Mind from "physical" non-mental processes is seen as nothing more than illogical Materialist belief.

It seems to me that the issue of what is causation can be looked at from the standpoint of design. The Universe and our reality strongly appear to have been designed by some vast and powerful Intelligence, a design important aspects of which are the fine tuning of the laws of physics and the intelligent design of living organisms. Design inherently implies a Designer or designers acting as causative agents in order to create. This implies that causation is a fundamental principle of reality and is not some sort of custom or property of our consciousness. It would seem to me that there being a Creator or creators implies that causation is fundamental to existence, since design is a fundamental element of creation.

I would consider Souls to be the Designers, the Creators, that are the source of physicality and consciousness-as-we-know-it, yet transcending both.

Consider dreams ~ we are the creators of them within our psyche. We can have shared dreams, so there can be co-creators. Others can enter our dreams, like deceased loved ones who come to give us messages.