I'll answer the last question first. The glass shatters because it's glass. If it were a plastic container ("plastic glass," seemed oxymoronic) it would not shatter. It's not the event A (falling) that "causes" the event B (glass shattering), it is the nature of the entities that determines their behavior in any given context that is the, "cause," of events. The answer to your first question will explain.Terrapin Station wrote: ↑Tue Aug 24, 2021 11:21 pmThat seems like a curious view to me. Do you explain why you think that in another post somewhere on the board (that you can recall)?RCSaunders wrote: ↑Tue Aug 24, 2021 1:27 pmThere is no such thing as, "cause and effect."Eodnhoj7 wrote: ↑Tue Aug 24, 2021 12:31 am
A quality is a localization of one phenomenon existing across many thus necessitates a connection amidst these seemingly separate phenomenon. As a localization it is a part of the whole and exists as the point of change from one phenomenon into another. For example to observe the quality of "red" results in the phenomena of "brick", "blood", etc. with this quality of "red" tying together "brick", "blood" under the singular phenomenon of "red" in itself.
In these respects qualities exist as generalizations and as generalizations are causes in the respect they change into further phenomena which in turn are the effects of said quality. Cause and effect is the observation of some relationship where one phenomenon changes into another. The quality is the localization of one phenomenon, from many, with this localization being a generality.
So when, say, a glass falls onto concrete and shatters, why do you think it shatters?
The idea of, "cause," is a sound one, so long as it means nothing happens without an explanation or reason. There are no miracles, there is no magic, and nothing is serendipitous. Unfortunately, philosophers have completely corrupted that concept and have substituted two baseless ideas that have made the modern notion of cause absurd. The two wrong ideas are, "cause and effect," and the notion that cause means, "that which makes something happen."
The first bad idea came from Hume. He formulated it as, "the same cause always produces the same effect," supposedly meaning some event, "A," causes event, "B," and every, event, "A," will always cause an event, "B." Hume's exact words were: "From causes which appear similar we expect similar effects. This is the sum of all our experimental conclusions," Hume wrote, and used the illustration, "We only find, that the one does actually, in fact, follow the other. The impulse of one billiard-ball is attended with motion in the second."
Of course Hume handily refuted that cause in the sense of, "same cause, same effect," could ever be established and, since the world of philosophy accepted Hume's formulation of cause, without question, both philosophy and science have suffered from the resulting fallacy that no cause can ever be proved.
The other wrong idea of cause is that cause is some kind of "creative," or "motive force," or a "power that makes things exist or happen," a much older idea with roots in ancient Greek philosophy, including Aristotle. The origin of this idea of cause being some kind of efficient or motivating force is a hold-over from religion and mystic philosophies, which attribute everything to gods, spirits or mystical forces. It is a kind of animism or anthropomorphism, borrowing the idea from the fact the animals and human beings make things and make things happen. Cause does not mean what, "makes something happen." Cause is an explanation of the nature of those things, the behavior of which, "are what happens."
Hume's perversion of the concept, "cause," together with the assumption the science is, "inductive," made science as useless as religion. The view of, "cause," as that which explains, "why," things happen or exist, makes reality contingent on some inexplicable ineffable thing.
[Note on Humean cause and effect: The idea that cause (event A) always produces effect (event B), or that every existent in context A always behaves in manner B, is meaningless. Since events are only the behavior of entities, and since an entity's behavior is determined by its own response to its entire context, including all its relationships, identical "causes" would require identical entities in identical contexts, which is impossible. In the entire history of the world, there have probably never been two identical causes, or two identical effects.
It is true that every existent has its unique nature that determines how it will behave in any context but no context is ever identical with any other. Everything that happens is caused, but the cause is all that pertains to each event, which is always a unique combinations of elements and unique circumstances.
The principles by which the events of the world can be understood are not, "cause and effect," but the principles that define the nature of existents and their relationships to each other. From the behavior of the chemical elements to the behavior of human beings, the cause of the behavior is determined by the nature of those existents and their context (circumstances), that is, their relationship to all other existents, which will almost certainly never be repeated, ever. The idea of, "same cause same effect," cannot be salvaged, nor should it be.]