RE: causation in theory

["Harry Veeder" <veed0001@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

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>From: David Gleicher <104201.2301@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
>To: jonathan <jdh11@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
>Subject: Re: causation in theory
>Date: Sat, May 27, 2000, 4:35 pm
>

>If I may briefly intervene in this very interesting discussion of causality
>and prediction, it seems that the post-modern critique of science is
>apposite here (found in for instance Lyotard's The Post-Modern Condition);
>that is, there is no scientific way of proving the truth of scientific
>findings.
>
>Once causality is stripped from the 'laws' of science, then the lawfulness
>of those laws is stripped away as well.  As Hume observed, what is the
>predictive import of a statistical correlation if one does not infer the
>(unknown) future, i.e., causality, from it?
>

No, the lawfulness of physical laws is not stripped because it was never
causality that made them lawful in the first place. The lawfulness of laws
is a matter of what they forbid not what they cause. Under a set of laws,
prediction is accomplished by combining a causal explanation (making use of
those laws) with appropriate boundary conditions. In other words we *use*
laws to predict *effects* on bodies or to *affect* bodies. Laws are still
laws because of what they they say is impossible. It is the explanation
which tells what is possible. Sometimes conflicting explanations might
arise which account for the same observations. This conflict may be
resolved by identifying the boundary conditions or the scope of
the explanations.

Harry Veeder