An era ago my best friend Jack and I were discussing cause. Sure, what we see as cause of action depends on how big of a picture we’re seeing. Sure, discarding relevant information morphs our perception of what causes observable action. Suppressed evidence. Begged questions. Options cut off, options missed, confused substitutions. We listen to why a person did what they did to another person, we riddle our way through fallacies.
“He hurt me first.”
Why did he hurt you first?
“His father hit him.”
Why did his father hit him?
“His dad had a bad day at work and the boss, short tempered, fired him.”
Why was the boss so short tempered?
“His dad’s boss was raised in an unhappy family. They were survivors of something awful that happened on somebody else’s turf.”
The blind why drill sees only one path, declining to examine the obvious: why did something awful happen on somebody else’s turf?
“Well, there was this conversation about economics, management of the masses and how to have a world that works for everyone. And then that didn’t unfold as anticipated. So this guy who hurt me, whose Dad hit him, whose short-tempered boss fired him, whose family was unhappy, their grandparents grew up in Siberia due to the conversation about making the world a better place for everyone. And there in Siberia their grandparents’ parents had this incident happen with…. “
According to the why drill, that’s cause. Why did this happen? Because it’s all… in Siberia.
False conclusion: there is no cause.
~~~
Cause exists. Many of us accept within our reasoning that if A is acceptable and if “A is necessary and sufficient to get B” is acceptable, then whenever we have A, we’ve also got B. The shorthand “if A then B” fails to distinguish between necessity and sufficiency.
Case: A is necessary and insufficient to get B.
Observation: When we have A we sometimes have B.
Conclusion: Sometimes the other sufficient conditions to get B show up. What are they?
Case: A is unnecessary and insufficient to get B.
Observation: When we have A we sometimes have B.
Conclusion: Coincidence.
Case: A is unnecessary and sufficient to get B.
Observation: When we have A we get B.
Conclusion: A is overkill. How much of A can we omit and still get B?
Any objections?
All the best,
Jennifer
