Correlation vs Causation

Don’t you just have to show that interventions on the brain change ‘mind’? What am I missing, here? If I can show that H. pylori can cause gastric ulcers, why am I not allowed to show that syphilis can cause dementia (ethics aside, of course).


Linda

I think Malf is pointing out that philosophers with their philosophizing make things overly complicate.

No idea what you’re going on about. I’m talking about direct experimentation, not playing around with models. For example, we think aspirin prevents some heart attacks because of randomized controlled trials, not because somebody plugged some numbers into a model of a cardiac cell.

Also, the ‘causal inferences’ you refer to are attempts to infer causation from correlation when you lack the ability to do what I described in my first post - perform interventional experiments.

Linda

Higgs boson was discovered because someone plugged numbers into a model and realized it had to exist. Same thing with dark matter / energy.

Don’t you just have to show that interventions on the brain change ‘mind’? What am I missing, here? If I can show that H. pylori can cause gastric ulcers, why am I not allowed to show that syphilis can cause dementia (ethics aside, of course).


Linda

I’m not entirely sure of the rules. I suspect that some would question whether the brain pathology in dementia could be either a) interrupting a signal from a remote consciousness or b) disrupting the regular local whirlpool of consciousness in a river of consciousness.

Higgs boson was discovered because someone plugged numbers into a model and realized it had to exist. Same thing with dark matter / energy.

Postulated, rather than discovered, I would say in these examples. But I get your drift.

Don't feel my question has really been answered, especially by proponents of dualistic/idealist models of consciousness? Maybe I'm just missing something here

Don't feel my question has really been answered, especially by proponents of dualistic/idealist models of consciousness? Maybe I'm just missing something here

Maybe you might share some of your own thoughts and ideas on this topic in more depth, make it a joint journey of exploration.

I’m not entirely sure of the rules. I suspect that some would question whether the brain pathology in dementia could be either a) interrupting a signal from a remote consciousness or b) disrupting the regular local whirlpool of consciousness in a river of consciousness.

Even those ideas concede that the appearance that the brain causes mind needs some sort of explanation, though (never mind the trees in Paul's yard). Which still brings us back to the point brought up in the OP. The kidney's role in filtering toxins is not "correlation" pending proof that the kidney is not merely a conduit of the cosmic toxin filtering entity. Why are we treating the brain differently?

Linda

Even those ideas concede that the appearance that the brain causes mind needs some sort of explanation, though (never mind the trees in Paul's yard). Which still brings us back to the point brought up in the OP. The kidney's role in filtering toxins is not "correlation" pending proof that the kidney is not merely a conduit of the cosmic toxin filtering entity. Why are we treating the brain differently?

I think it's because, unlike filtering toxins, it's not understood how physical processes in the brain produce consciousness, and some people find it unbelievable that they can.

I suspect some folk aren’t happy unless you can present a causation chain all the way back to to the Big Bang. Thus philosophy.

But that is exactly my point!  Causation is a term of analysis not empiricism: hence it is entirely in the realm of Philosophy of Science.  There is no standard of measurement of causality; however in science reporting there are measures of the sigma value of the data patterns.  There is measurement of the accuracy of science theories.  It is not in % causal. 

The idea of causation being an actual property of matter is like the perception of a flat earth.  Your "sense" of science rests possibly on a magical belief in "material causes", as a deep ontology.

Empirical data doesn't speak truthful causes to the minds of those practicing science.  Causes are not Platonian forms.  Physical causes are defined by math and carefully measured standards. Organic causation is typically expressed as propensity, like aspirin causes a 10% reduction in a specified outcome.

The chain I think is the tool for parsing data correlation with assignments of casual propensity are Markov Chains.

But I get your drift.

You do? Perhaps you can explain it to me then, since it seemed irrelevant to what I said.

Linda