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From: norm@ariel.UUCP (N.ANDREWS)
Newsgroups: net.philosophy,net.sci,net.ai,net.books,net.physics
Subject: Re: Now and Then
Message-ID: <716@ariel.UUCP>
Date: Sun, 12-Aug-84 13:53:16 EDT
Article-I.D.: ariel.716
Posted: Sun Aug 12 13:53:16 1984
Date-Received: Mon, 13-Aug-84 00:53:07 EDT
References: <218@imsvax.UUCP>
Organization: AT&T-ISL, Holmdel, NJ
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>  Ahem.  Cause and effect may exist, and indeed, in order to function as
>  human beings, we seem to need to behave as if it exists, but I don't
>  think the principal of cause and effect can be *proved* to exist.  The
>  association of two events in time does not imply a connection between
>  the two.
>  
>  (For a more detailed argument, read Hume and Kant)
>  
>  --Ray Chen

The concept of proof depends upon the concepts of cause and effect, among
other things.  Even the ideas "anything" and "functioning" depend upon
the idea of cause and effect.  All of these concepts depend on or are
rooted in the concepts of identity and identification.  Here's why:

To be is to be something in particular, to have a specific identity, or
having specific characteristics.  What does it mean to have specific
characteristics or a specific identity?  It means that in a particular
context, the entity's existence is manifested in a particular way.  An
entity IS what it can DO (in a given context).

So what's causality?  The law of identity applied to action.  Things do
what they do, in any given context, BECAUSE they are what they are.
"What they are" includes or consists of "what they can do".
This is true irrespective of our ability to identify what they are.

Hume's and Kant's arguements re causality are the analytic-synthetic
dichotomy.  For the original presentation of the views that smash
this false dichotomy, see Leonard Peikoff's article "The Analytic-
Synthetic Dichotomy" in the back of recent editions of Ayn Rand's
"Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology".  For the epistemological
basis of Peikoff's article, read Rand's Intro.


(I almost posted this to net.cooks, but GOOD cooks know this already...)

-Norm Andrews, AT+T Information Systems, (201) 834-3685