Quotes About Causation

In the traumatic neuroses there are two outstanding features which might serve as clues for further reflection: first that the chief causal factor seemed to lie in the element of surprise, in the fright; and secondly that an injury or wound sustained at the same time generally tended to prevent the occurrence of the neurosis.

Why does causation run always from past to future, or does it make sense to think that the future might influence the past?

when we talk about the Background we are talking about a certain category of neurophysiological causation. Because we do not know how these structures function at a neurophysiological level, we are forced to describe them at a much higher level. There

Besides the propositions which assert Sequence or Co-existence, there are some which assert simple Existence; 36 and others assert Causation, which, subject to the explanations [pg 083] which will follow in the Third Book, must be considered provisionally as a distinct and peculiar kind of assertion.

When we predicate of any thing an abstract name, we affirm of the thing that it is one or other of these five things; that it is a case of Existence, or of Co-existence, or of Causation, or of Sequence, or of Resemblance.

By that which is self-caused , I mean that of which the essence involves existence, or that of which the nature is only conceivable as existent.

It seems to me that evolution adds greatly to the wonder of life because it takes it out of the realm of the arbitrary, the exceptional, and links it to the sequence of natural causation.

Fate is the endless chain of causation, whereby things are; the reason or formula by which the world goes on.

I don't blame it on the Hell's Angels. I blame it on the people who were there.

causation is what creates the appearance of meaning. "The queen died, and then the king died" (E. M. Forster's famous formulation) describes two unrelated events occurring in sequence. It doesn't mean anything. "The queen died, and the king died of grief " puts those events into relation; we understand that one caused the other.

So, to generalize a bit here: in a highly organized system, the causation is more pronounced and intentional. The elements seem to have been more precisely selected. Things escalate decisively; everything is to purpose.

Every attempt to solve the laws of causation, time, and space would be futile, because the very attempt would have to be made by taking for granted the existence of these three.

Internal and external nature, mind and matter, are in time and space, and are bound by the law of causation.

This ground itself needs to be properly accounted for by that for which it accounts, that is, by the causation through the supremely original matter – and that is the cause as causa sui. This is the right name for the god of philosophy. Man can neither pray nor sacrifice to this god. Before the causa sui, man can neither fall to his knees in awe nor can he play music and dance before this god.

Nowadays a lot of what was wrong with me would no doubt be ascribed to Attention Deficit Disorder, tartrazine food colouring, dairy produce and air pollution. A few hundred years earlier it would have been demons, still the best analogy I think, but not much help when it comes to a cure.

everyone assumes causation when they should be thinking coincidence, and correlation when they should be asking whether Twitter is really a reliable source of information.

Abigail gave me a withering look. But everyone assumes causation when they should be thinking coincidence, and correlation when they should be asking whether Twitter is really a reliable source of information.

It's an iron rule of mine that I never argue correlation versus causation in the middle of the night, especially when I had an alternative option.

But everyone assumes causation when they should be thinking coincidence, and correlation when they should be asking whether Twitter is really a reliable source of information.

We may lay it down as a general law applying to all social phenomena that multiple causation is invariably at work and nowhere is the law more clearly applicable that to prejudice.

Cars with flames painted on the hood might get more speeding tickets. Are the flames making the car go fast? No. Certain things just go together. And when they do, they are correlated. It is the darling of all human errors to assume, without proper testing, that one is the cause of the other.

There is a difference between correlation and causation - many people mistake one for the other.

Unless you have more information, however, it's hard to say what's causing what.

Correlation does not equal causality.