An extra thread to @metadiogenes about causality - months delayed. It's a demonstration of my claims that

- causality is real but 'causes' are not found in nature
- telelogical framing gives rise to causes

And we shld
- use the word 'conditions' more
- machine metaphors less

Imagine an automatic toy that shoots a marble at a target, which falls over when hit.

We cld say marble causes target to fall. (And saying the toy causes the marble etc, in a sequence doesn't change that).

But now consider a net in front of the target, blocking the marble.

If we remove threads of the net one by one, a point comes at which a single thread is the difference btwn the marble breaking through + knocking the target, and the net blocking the marble.

So what is now causing the target to fall: the marble, or the removal of the thread?

What we learn here is that every 'apparent cause' is only effectual to the extent that 'anti-causes' are not apparent.

That is: the marble when flying is only a cause of knocking the target in the absence of anti-causes, it's not an inherent cause of ... anything.

As such, we see that a 'mesh of causes' is the stateof the universe - things clearly influence each other, but one thing doesn't not cause another thing without the highly particular nature of 'causal context'.

Buddhists talk about this in terms of 'causes and conditions'

In that ontology (which extends to epistemology and metaphysics), there are no causes without conditions.

It is easy to see how causes and conditions are reversible. Just change the point of reference. This ought not to be possible if causes were definitive in their role.

Is the cause of the target falling the marble, with a removed thread as condition; or is the cause the removed thread, with the marble as condition?

Or is the position of the target the cause, with the marble and thread as conditions?

The causal mesh extends in all directions.

What defines the 'causes' is thus the /telelogical/ story that an observer puts on a specific causal environment: in other words what what result is /intended/ and what conditions are /arranged to achieve/ that result.

This is meaningless outside out of teleological projections.

We also learn from this that machine metaphors in science are bad.

This is bc: machines demonstrates that a specific chain of 'causes' is strictly teleological: it only makes sense when you have, and know, the 'goal' of the causes.

Machines are made this way. Nature is not.