On 11/15/2003 10:12 PM, Bernard Cleyet wrote:
> "I am not aware of the condition that a cause has to
> precede its effect. Can anyone provide evidence that
> the word "cause" necessarily implies precedence?"
>
> The OEED ('91) certainly agrees w/ you. i.e. None of the five noun
> and 2 verb definitions include precedence.
>
> Evidently the students have coined a neologism; disabuse them.
That's quite a leap, from peeking in the dictionary to
accusing the students of coining something new and
abusive.
1) The dictionary is not the right place to look for
definitive information on so deep a subject. If you
look up "chess" in the dictionary, you won't get the
definitive rules ... and even finding the rules
wouldn't in any practical sense tell you how to play
the game well. So the dictionary is at least two
steps removed from practicality.
2) The idea that causes ought to lie in the past or at
least in the nonfuture is neither new nor abusive. E.g. http://users.bestweb.net/~sowa/ontology/causal.htm
speaks of
a region of the past with respect to p called
the cone of causal influence.
3) Causality is a complex creature with many properties.
By way of analogy, African elephants are known for
their large, floppy ears. But often one can recognize
an elephant as such without seeing the ears, and the
ears are not definitive, because a mutant elephant
with no ears at all would still be an elephant.
So it is with causality. One can define causality in
such a way that it is possible to infer causality
without looking at the timing data. This may be the
best way to define causality ... or it may not.
The task of finding a good definition of causality has
bedeviled investigators for centuries, and remains a
topic of current research.
It is safe to say that any definition that tolerates
causes in the future, when timing data is available,
is outside the mainstream.