Wonderful lecture. I like the way Talbot lets students speak.

This series of lectures is excellent. I didn't quite make it through before... I can't wait for the rest of them to be reposted.

She mentions 6-part series. Would you please post the other 5 parts as well? Excellent lecture, thanks!

An exemplar of a good student lecture.

Very good lecture.

52:00 Rain causes the pitch to be wet. There is neither a necessary connection (the pitch could be covered and thus not get wet), nor a counter factual dependence (the pitch could be wet because of the sprinklers). But neither of these objections would make us say that "Rain doesn't cause the pitch to get wet" other things be equal.

Very nice.

The first ever acronym I actually like; INUS . It even says what it is and where we find it. :)

Why is the U in INUS? Why does it have to be the case that the fire might have started for other reasons? I get the I, N, and S pieces.

@Philosophy_Overdose

Жыл бұрын

Why? Because it is obviously true that there are other possible ways that such fires can be started. So to the extent that the account is correct and adequate, it has to include this component. Otherwise it is simply mistaken.

What about the necessitarian theory?

But we know that correlation is not causation. It's difference (which we can experience and measure) and not constant conjunction that allows us to identify a causal connection. 42:16

34:00 - But it is necessary - momentum has to be conserved, and furthermore it has to be *locally* conserved. The first ball can't simply pass through the second ball, so at the very least it's necessary for the second ball to begin moving, and at at least half the velocity of the first ball (and not more than the full velocity of the first ball). Exactly which of those cases you get (one of those extremes or in between) depends on the precise physics of the collision, but something in that range is required.

@JosephFlatt

6 ай бұрын

It’s only necessary if you take the regularities of physics to be necessary. But why consider the regularities of physics to be necessary? Why couldn’t they change at the moment that one billiard ball hits the other? The only answer we can give is “because those regularities have always applied previously”. Which I think is Hume’s point.

give me HUME or give me death... i swallowed my tongue with glee as i listened through the blind dark hours of the night... gimmegimmemoreMORE!!!...

I think causality is systemic! Meaning every event is caused by all of reality both past and future. It will be interesting to compare that to the regularity theory.

@ionutandrasesc2376

8 ай бұрын

why future?

@Anders01

8 ай бұрын

@@ionutandrasesc2376 I learned recently that causality is still an unsolved problem in philosophy and in physics. By having a holistic causality I think it can explain it.

55:10 - Better: A is not the only required cause. It's part of a set of things that all must happen to cause B. The light bulb has to be working. The circuit breaker has to be on. The wires have to run from the right places to the right places. The electrical utility has to be supplying power to the site. It's not a very long list, actually, but it is a list. You could *model* this as a probabilistic relationship, but that's a poor model. You're really just working with an incomplete causal set.

You really have to have the sense knocked out of you in university to hold to Hume's "theory" of causation. It's "explained" by ingeniously constructed (or not) arguments designed only for this purpose. She says, if you were to strike a billiard ball, you can imagine it doing all sorts of things. I can also imagine pink elephants flying on the moon. Given the same state and conditions: the same exact billiard ball struck with the same exact pool cue at the same exact angle on the same exact pool table under the same exact conditions (atmospheric, gravitational, etc.) and assuming no breakdown in materials (the felt of the pool table, etc.), the same exact thing will always happen, whether you do this five times or 500 billion times. The billiard ball won't do all sorts of things, and pink elephants don't fly on the moon.

@RalphBrooker-gn9iv

4 ай бұрын

The issue is whether the beliefs you form because of the regularities you observe are *justified* beliefs. But the only justification you can cite for your regularity-based beliefs is that nature is uniform. However, Hume points out that the only evidence you can cite for the *uniformity* principle is the regularity you observe. So, the riposte to Hume is viciously circular. It doesn’t matter if the argument adverts to causation since for Hume causation is literally nothing over and above *contiguity* (one ball strikes another) and *temporal succession* of events. Moreover, a parallel principle is available to a Humean (parallel to the principle of the uniformity of nature). Rather than predicting *more of the same* because of observed regularities a Humean reasoner might use those same regularities to predict an irregularity (along the lines of my torch has shone brightly 100 times, so the beam is likely to dim next time I turn it on). There is no fact of the world that *justifies* ‘more of the same’-type reasoning over ‘time for a change’-type reasoning. This is Hume’s devastating conclusion. The obvious fact that we typically reason in the ‘more of the same’ sense has no tendency whatsoever to tell against Hume. Indeed Hume explains precisely why that is so.

@me73941

4 ай бұрын

@@RalphBrooker-gn9iv Humeanism is subjective idealism that devolves into solipsism. It's really just obscurantism designed to fool the weak-minded.

@darrellee8194

2 ай бұрын

⁠@@RalphBrooker-gn9ivThe reason we think it will be more of the same, is because most of the time it is more of the same, and when it isn't more of the same we will look for and generally find a explanation for the change, which means the change is really just another instance of more of the same despite the difference. 46:02

@zakmatew

2 ай бұрын

You completely misunderstood her

42:00 - Then quantum entanglement comes along and rains all over spatial contiguity. But... only in a limited way. Not enough to let us actually communicate superluminally.

1:09:13 - Yes, exactly; the laws of nature seem like the CAUSES to me.

@JosephFlatt

3 ай бұрын

If the laws of nature are the causes, why does one clump of matter (you) think that another clump of matter (Hume) was wrong? Do you think that your matter obeys the laws of nature better than his matter did?

"if we want to bring about a B the way we can do it is to bring about an A." Yes, so in these circumstances in general, afterall I don't know the actual circumstances I'm in when A happens B follows. So that's the regularity. But we also want to know if we think B will happen any way, again in these circumstances in general. So that explains the counterfactual dependency. So both counterfactual dependency and constant conjunction are required. It's not either or. Plus thinking of "the circumstances" as these circumstances in general makes sense of it. So no need for concrete other possible worlds. Theoretical possible circumstances we could be in for all we know is all that's required.

Yes I think it seems like there is a necessary connection. It's logically possible for the second billiard ball to do something else but it seems that if it did that would not fit with the rules the universe follows. The necessary connection is not about every time one billiard ball hits another. That's a mistake. The necessay connection appears to be in the actual situation. Not across a number of different situations. We do tend to think it's physically impossible for the billiard balls to behave differently. If the balls behave oddly we think there is an undiscovered cause or causes. I don't think it is just habit. It's about the best explanation for what we see. Yes there is no cauation in individual situations. Causation is about what happens if the cause is added to a set of general situations and what hapoens without it.

@thejimmymeister

10 ай бұрын

Necessity doesn't appear just in an actual situation, although it does appear there because a single actual situation is included in the totality of possible situations. Things often appear as if, though they have happened in one way, they could have happened in another way. This is how we developed the idea of contingency and why "necessary" has a meaning that is something more than just "not impossible." If something happens sometimes but not every time, then most people wouldn't feel comfortable calling it necessary.

38:21 "To experience necessity, you have to experience every possible world". But there is only one possible world available to any given observer. So everything that happens is necessary. It couldn't be otherwise, because there is no "otherwise." Furthermore, we don't need to experience every possible world, we only need to experience a variety of possible scenarios in this world, and note the differences and similarities--what changes from scenario to scenario and what does not, and fron this experience we can deduce what is necessary or causal and what is not.

'Explanation' is an ambiguous term that is by no means always identical with revealing the causes of something. In this lecture, you are explaining causation -- its importance, its nature, philosophical theories about it, etc. How is any of this a causal explanation ?

I am shocked and disappointed to hear that David Hume gave credence to the idea of the “blank slate.” I’m too new to Hume to be surprised and shocked at anything he may have thought. I may learn that he never had close contact with a human child through their first year after birth.

40:00 - Ok, so all this accomplishes in my eyes is to make "necessity" a worthless, useless word. This is just becoming a word game. I would say that we are "certain" that our idea of causation is "necessary connection" because we don't define "necessary" as strictly as you are here. Technically you are absolutely right, but as I opened with, such a strict definition is essentially useless, so we don't bother with it. Generally speaking, what we mean when we say "necessary" is "highly to be expected, based on our experience." In that sense, it *is* necessary for the billiard balls to do the normally expected thing. As I noted in the earlier comment, conservation of momentum requires it, and that conservation law is pervasive in the universe. Most people just use words in a "useful for day to day life" way. Quibbling over this this really isn't a terribly "profound" thing.

@thejimmymeister

10 ай бұрын

I don't think that's how people use "necessary" in everyday life. We don't usually use it as strictly as logicians do when they work, but we often mean something stricter than your definition. (More often, probably, we mean something not about expectations but about importance.) Necessity in the sense of logical necessity is also far from useless. It's used by logicians and even in ordinary language, and logicians use it in ways that have significant impacts on everything from philosophy of science (which you do when you describe natural laws) to ethics. It would be quibbling to insist that people were misusing "necessity" any time they weren't talking about logical necessity, but it's certainly not quibbling to discuss a philosophical term in a philosophical argument.

Hume worked in the mid 1700's. The science revolution had been underway for centuries. How someone could advocate a position that so soundly rejects the program of science at that period in time is beyond me.

@Philosophy_Overdose

Жыл бұрын

Nothing in Hume rejects the program of science at that time. I think you simply haven't understood the view, at least judging from your numerous comments here...

42:36 - But this is just *dodging* the question of "why." We're interested not just *that* B follows A, but, if it seems like a highly reliable succession, then *why*? Why B and not C? That's an important question and it seems Hume had nothing to say about that. The way you're describing this, it just seems that the succession "simply is." That's unsatisfying compared to the sort of explanations provided by physics.

Pineapples 🍍 do not grow on trees!)

@TheMargarita1948

4 ай бұрын

Neither do coconuts.

The presentation could have resumed under 40 minutes. All the questions asked were stupid and time-wasting.

See, I guess I'm just too fair minded - it would never have even occurred to me to try to use an example where I choose just one of a set of causes to try to produce a problem for the theory.

46:49 - I *entirely* disagree. The entire program of science is the finding of these "why" factors behind regularities. That's what scientists *do* - they seek the simplest possible set of such connections. And they've been *remarkably* successful in so doing. I suppose I can accept that "this is what Hume advised" - I trust your expertise on that. But... well, that just leaves me thinking Hume was *wrong*. It's not enough.

One of the most common mistakes philosophers make is in supposing the way we come to know something is identical with what we come to know. Justified True Belief and Regularity Theory are two clear examples of this mistake !

53:30 - Because those children are too young to teach physics.

Well maybe your dad would have lived beyond 100 if he had such good genes, yet did not smoke 60 cigarettes per day. 🥱💤

@thejimmymeister

10 ай бұрын

That only addresses the claim that smoking causes premature death, not the claim that smoking causes cancer (which is the one she mentions).

Hume is very interesting, he is also very wrong.

@RalphBrooker-gn9iv

2 ай бұрын

Well that’s that settled! I feel almost rude asking you for the least argumentation.

@alwaysgreatusa223

2 ай бұрын

@@RalphBrooker-gn9iv I am planning to publish my own theory of the nature of causation, thus I cannot here present the entire argument against Hume without giving away my own ideas to others prematurely. However, I will indicate my reasoning in so far as suggesting that if something is called 'a cause' and another thing 'its effect', then a mere repeated observed sequence of the two, even if invariable, does not justify the language of cause-and-effect to describe them. Yes, I understand that we normally call things 'causes' when they invariably follow those things we call 'their effects'. But the problem is with the ordinary way of speaking -- which, like a lot of language-usage in common and practical everyday affairs is really just a short-hand way of talking, and by no means conceptually precise or adequate. It's not the conception of causes and effects being connected that is wrong, as Hume supposes, it is the language itself that is faulty and based on a misunderstanding of the true nature of causation. A mere empirical analysis of causation necessarily leads to a rejection of the real conception of causation, as a mere repeated sequence has no causative power whatsoever.

@alwaysgreatusa223

2 ай бұрын

@@RalphBrooker-gn9iv xyxyxyxy.. x cannot be a cause of y unless it suffices for the coming into existence of y. If x does not suffice for y, then it by itself cannot be the cause of y regardless of the repeated sequences invariability. There is something missing ! Moreover, without this 'something', it is simply wrong -- philosophically speaking, logically speaking, analytically speaking -- to call x the cause of y.

@RalphBrooker-gn9iv

2 ай бұрын

@@alwaysgreatusa223 unless ‘x’ is some compound or disjunctive cause of ‘y’ (I hope that’s intuitively clear, I mean not simply ‘x’ whatever the weather so to speak) then x necessitates y. And I don’t think anyone in philosophy believes that causation goes like that.

@alwaysgreatusa223

2 ай бұрын

@@RalphBrooker-gn9iv The point is there is no sufficiency for what we commonly call 'causes' to produce what we commonly consider to be 'their effects'.

What a boring life.