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BBC.EFFECTIVE AND FINAL CAUSE
NOTE: neologies and ambiguous terms clarified in GLOSSARY
are marked "[G]".
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NOTE: RECONCILE WITH CAUSALITY
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Causality is one of the most usual, if not the most usual Orderer.
All rational systems are at least partially ordered by Causality
either Effective or Final.
Let event(s) P determine (*) event(s) Q.
If Q's time is past
P is Effective Cause of Q and
Q is Effect of P.
If Q's time is future
P is Final Cause of Q and
Q is Purpose or Prediction of P.
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This definition of the Final Cause differs from the usual philosophical
definition, where Q (Purpose) is called Causa Finalis and P (our Cause)
is disregarded. Such definition of Q "pulling" the "reality" towards
itself with disregard of Effective Causes implies clearly a metaphysical
postulate of some Absolute creating the "reality" by virtue of his
arbitrary caprices.
Such metaphysical definition is unacceptable for us, as, on the one hand
we don't discuss Metaphysics and, on the other hand it is incompatible
with any rational Model, at least in our sense ("Structure of Scientific
Theories).
Our definition of Finality or Teleology encompasses:
-Conceiving Purpose Q,
-Searching Final Cause P believed to effectively determine the Prediction
Q in future experiments,
-Carry out experiments.
-In case of experiments confirming prediction incorporate into the Model
the couple P/Q as Effective Cause/Effect.
Thus Purpose drives research of Final Cause which, after verification
becomes Effective.
NOTE: A Cause may of course have several Effects and vice versa.
That's why only a full Network structure may support Models of Causality.
In Network terms Cause and Effect/Prediction are respectively "Aggregate"
and "Part". (See "Crisis of Logic", "The Post Carnapian Situation"
and "Fuzzy Inferencing".)
Causality has within RD simple and rigorous meaning. In order to
consider it in this context, let us shortly review the difference
between Phenomenon #space (PS) and Model #space (MS). (See STRUCTURE
OF SCIENTIFIC THEORIES or GLOSSARY for more details.) PS is a set
of contingent observable events or observations. MS is an abstract
structure. PS may be considered as a unique territory (**) and MS -
a particular map. In "MATTER, MASS, ENERGY" we said:
-Mass never appears in PS which encompasses only observable events
and entities such as force, displacement, speed, acceleration, etc.
Having observed and measured force F acting on body B and acceleration
A of B, we insert their values into the MS postulating their
proportionality and satisfy this postulate by associating with B an
abstract coefficient m(B) = F/A. Consequently, mass has no autonomous
phenomenal existence (is not an element of PS), but is a pure abstract
mind's construct, a coefficient allowing to correlate events of PS
coherently and in a way supporting reliable predictions. Now, within
the theory we refer to mass FOR SIMPLICITY's SAKE as if it were a
phenomenal quality and say that B has the mass m(B).-
Analogically, the very concepts of Order and Orderer and in particular
that of Causality are not elements of PS, but pure abstract mind's
constructs allowing to correlate coherently events of PS.
With respect to Effective and Final Causality we said in "Foundations
in Ontology":
-Temporality has three aspects: Present, Past and Future.
Past is the domain of our "Object" (***), which is a contingent
Datum inaccessible to any intervention and change. We
coincide here exactly with Sartre's "En soi" and Heidegger's
"Wesen", which he described with one of the best sounding
phrases of Philosophy: "Wesen ist was gewesen ist".
Objective order is deterministic, based upon effective
cause related to its effect. Future is the domain of our
"Subject" (***) which, as Heidegger's "Dasein" and Sartre's "Pour-soi"
has the nature of "Project".
Subjective order is teleological, based upon causa finalis
(final cause) related to its purpose.-
Let's stress again that Causality is a pure mind's construct destined
to map contingent events of PS into coherent structures of MS. RD
does not admit any feedback projecting MS structures backwards via PS
to transcendental reality supporting metaphysical speculations about
the "world out there" such as Determinism, Cosmic Objective Purpose
Oriented Thought or Intelligent Design.
We deal daily with Models investigating past events ordered with
Effective Causality and with others, planning or forecasting future
events and ordered with Final Causality. We shall discuss Final
Causality in more details in the chapter "Freedom".
(*) We say that event P determines event Q when the certainty of Q
may be deduced from that of P following inference rules of the
Cognitive Network (in "Crisis of Logic", "Fuzzy Inferencing" we have
defined "certainty" variable as degree of certainty ranging from 0
to 100% replacing the 2-valued true/false logical variable of Exact
2-valued Logic.) Our "determination" has clearly nothing to do with
the metaphysical "Determinism" whatever that may mean.
(**) PS should not be confused with "world out there" or transcendental
reality whatever these terms may mean. As we said in "Glossary",
PS is the #space of the most elementary Model which we called "Naive
View" created by subconscious mind from perceptions. PS is the "first
degree" map of the transcendental non cognizable reality.
Transcendental reality is accessible to cognition only via its "reality"
map into the NV. As such, it stays outside of cognition and, consequently,
outside of the scope of RD. Still we often drop inverted commas and talk
about reality when no ambiguity will be possible and always keeping in
mind that we mean by it the "reality" of NV.
(***) For "Subject" and "Object" see chapter "Foundations in Physics"
Section "FUNDAMENTAL DICHOTOMY: SITUATION (SUBJECT / OBJECT)"
