Quotes About Causality

We are pattern seekers, believers in a coherent world, in which regularities (such as a sequence of six girls) appear not by accident but as a result of mechanical causality or of someone's intention. We

The associative machinery seeks causes. The difficulty we have with statistical regularities is that they call for a different approach. Instead of focusing on how the event at hand came to be, the statistical view relates it to what could have happened instead. Nothing in particular caused it to be what it is—chance selected it from among its alternatives. Our predilection for causal thinking exposes us to serious mistakes in evaluating the randomness of truly random events.

Gauß kam auf den Zufall zu sprechen, den Feind allen Wissens, den er immer habe besiegen wollen. Aus der Nähe betrachtet, sehe man hinter jedem Ereignis die unendliche Feinheit des Kausalgewebes. Trete man weit genug zurück, offenbarten sich die großen Muster. Freiheit und Zufall seien eine Frage der mittleren Entfernung, eine Sache des Abstands...

A good way to do econometrics is to look for good natural experiments and use statistical methods that can tidy up the confounding factors that Nature has not controlled for us.

Permitting statistical treatment and the hypnotic presence of numbers and decimal points to befog causal relationships is little better than superstition.

this determinism says that in every case the result is determined by the previous condition of the subject we are looking at. Our free will at the best is like that of Lucretius's atoms — which at quite uncertain times and places deviate in an uncertain manner from their course. the atoms can swerve so there's always the small possibility even for air molecules of not being forced to follow the determined laws. - ESSAY FOR THE ERANUS CLUB ON SCIENCE AND FREE WILL

What can be explained can also be predicted, if one knows the initial events and the laws covering their succession.

Anything that happens, happens. Anything that, in happening, causes something else to happen, causes something else to happen. Anything that, in happening, causes itself to happen again, happens again. It doesn't necessarily do it in chronological order, though.

The complexities of cause and effect defy analysis.

You know,' he said, sitting back, reflectively, 'it's at times like this that you kind of wonder if it's worth worrying about the fabric of space-time and the causal integrity of the multidimensional probability matrix and the potential collapse of all waveforms in the Whole Sort of General Mish Mash and all that sort of stuff that's been bugging me.

Todo lo que ocurre, ocurre. Todo lo que al ocurrir, origina otra cosa, hace que ocurra otra cosa más. Todo lo que al ocurrir, vuelve a originarse, ocurre de nuevo. Aunque todo ello no ocurre necesariamente en orden cronológico.

Anything that happens, happens. Anything that, in happening, causes something else to happen, causes something else to happen. Anything that, in happening, causes itself to happen again, happens again. It doesn't necessarily do it in chronological order, though.

Bir ÅŸey olacaksa, olacakt?r... Herhangi bir ÅŸey ortaya ç?karken bir ÅŸeyi ortaya ç?k?yorsa, bir baÅŸka ÅŸeyin ortaya ç?kmas?na neden oluyor demektir... O ÅŸey her neyse, olurken, kendi kendisinin yeniden ortaya ç?kmas?na sebep oluyorsa, tekrar olacakt?r... Bununla birlikte, kronolojik bir s?ra izlenmesi ÅŸart deÄŸildir.

Anything that happens, happens. Anything that, in happening, causes something else to happen, causes something else to happen.

Everything depends on everything else, doesn't it? That's interconnectivity for you – it's a bitch.

The Great War was nobody's fault - or everybody's.

There can be a reason for a reason already supplied and a reason for the reason for the initial reason.

It is intentionality that tears the seamless fabric of the causally closed material world.

We need to have an understanding of what causes what to happen in the world, and why.

When you make or study art, you are not exploring some kind of candy on the surface of a machine. You are making or studying causality.

I have always taught that things arise due to the conjunction of causes and conditions not that they arise without a cause.

How can we know whether the course of a life would have been changed by some particular alteration in its early history?

Why should anything happen when everything has happened?

You can't light a match, then act surprised when your house burns down.