Causality Quotes - Page 2

• If time is treated in modern physics as a dimension on a par with the dimensions of space, why should we a priori exclude the possibility that we are pulled as well as pushed along its axis? The future has, after all, as much or as little reality as the past, and there is nothing logically inconceivable in introducing, as a working hypothesis, an element of finality, supplementary to the element of causality, into our equations. It betrays a great lack of imagination to believe that the concept of "purpose" must necessarily be associated with some anthropomorphic deity.

  Arthur Koestler

  Believe, Reality, Past

  "The Sleepwalkers: A History of Man's Changing Vision of the Universe". Book by Arthur Koestler, 1959.

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• Moreover, joint occurrences tend to be better recalled than instances when the effect does not occur. The proneness to remember confirming instances, but to overlook disconfirming ones, further serves to convert, in thought, coincidences into causalities.

  Albert Bandura

  Doe, Joints, Coincidence

  Albert Bandura (1986). “Social foundations of thought and action: a social cognitive theory”, Prentice Hall

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• It seems to me that whatever else is beautiful apart from asbsolute beauty is beautiful because it partakes of that absolute beauty, and for no other reason. Do you accept this kind of causality?

  Plato

  Beauty, Beautiful, Kind

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• There are for man only two principles available for a mental grasp of reality, namely, those of teleology and causality. What cannot be brought under either of these categories is absolutely hidden to the human mind. An event not open to an interpretation by one of these two principles is for man inconceivable and mysterious. Change can be conceived as the outcome either of the operation of mechanistic causality or of purposeful behavior; for the human mind there is no third way available.

  Ludwig von Mises

  Truth, Learning, Knowledge

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• To pry into the secrets of this world, we must make experiments. But experiment is a clumsy instrument, afflicted with a fatal determinacy which destroys causality.

  Banesh Hoffmann

  Secret, World, Instruments

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• When confronted with a demand that the universe have a cause, infidels have usually pointed out that God was not much of an explanation. This is true enough, but not really a positive argument. After mechanistic explanation became popular, infidels liked to restrict causality to the chain of causes in an eternal material universe, pointing out that no supernatural cause was then necessary. Plausible, but still rather defensive. Today's skeptic can do better. In all likelihood, the universe is uncaused. It is random. It just is.

  Taner Edis

  Religion, Demand, Today

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• The thesis that the universe has an originating divine cause is logically inconsistent with all extant definitions of causality and with a logical requirement upon these and all possible valid definitions or theories of causality.

  Quentin Smith

  Religion, Definitions, Requirements

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• Leadership is the name that people use to make sense out of complex events and the outcomes of events they otherwise would not be able to explain. In other words, people attribute leadership to certain individuals who are called leaders because people want to believe that leaders cause things to happen rather than have to explain causality by understanding complex social forces or analyzing the dynamic interaction among people, events, and environment.

  Joseph C. Rost

  Leadership, Believe, Names

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• And what is 'art'? - a firestorm rushing through Time, arising from no visible source and conforming to no principles of logic or causality.

  Joyce Carol Oates

  Art, Rushing, Principles

  Joyce Carol Oates (2009). “The Faith of a Writer: Life, Craft, Art”, p.154, Zondervan

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• This isn't about 'causality' but about 'influence'. The evidence is clear that human-induced climate change is influencing the drought, no matter the cause.

  Peter Gleick

  Matter, Causes, Climate

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• As long as the firmament of the You is spread over me, the tempests of causality cower at my heels, and whirl of doom congeals.

  Martin Buber

  Long, Tempest, Firmament

  Martin Buber (2013). “I and Thou”, p.78, eBookIt.com

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• ...the proliferation of luminous fungi or iridescent crystals in deep caves where the torchlessly improvident hero needs to see is one of the most obvious intrusions of narrative causality into the physical universe.

  Terry Pratchett

  Hero, Needs, Caves

  Terry Pratchett (2008). “The Last Continent: (Discworld Novel 22)”, p.383, Random House

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• a perception of the cosmic unity of this higher level. And a feeling of timelessness, the feeling that what we know as time is only the result of a naive faith in causality - the notion that A in the past caused B in the present, which will cause C in the future, when actually A, B, and C are all part of a pattern that can be truly understood only by opening the doors of perception and experiencing it... in this moment... this supreme moment... this Kairos.

  Tom Wolfe

  Past, Doors, Feelings

  Tom Wolfe (2008). “The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test”, p.163, Farrar, Straus and Giroux

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• Why God has instituted Prayer:— To communicate to his creatures the dignity of causation.

  Blaise Pascal

  Prayer, Dignity, Communicate

  "The Thoughts on religion, and evidences of Christianity, of Pascal; tr., with intr., notes, etc., by G. Pearce".

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• But thought is one thing, the deed is another, and the image of the deed still another: the wheel of causality does not roll between them.

  Friedrich Nietzsche

  Doe, Deeds, Wheels

  "The Portable Nietzsche".

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• In truth, one cannot, it seems, oppose mechanism and finalism, one cannot oppose mechanism and anthropomorphism, for if the functioning of a machine is explained by relations of pure causality, the construction of a machine can be understood neither without purpose nor without man. A machine is made by man and for man, with a view toward certain ends to be obtained, in the form of effects to be produced.

  Georges Canguilhem

  Men, Views, Long

  "Knowledge of Life".

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• Things worthwhile generally don’t just happen. Luck is a fact, but should not be a factor. Good luck is what is left over after intelligence and effort have combined at their best. Negligence or indifference are usually reviewed from an unlucky seat. The law of cause and effect and causality both work the same with inexorable exactitudes. Luck is the residue of design.

  Branch Rickey

  Good Luck, Law, Design

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• Knowing Chris Bennett's Writing as I do, I expected Only Superhuman to have an imaginative plot and a compelling superheroine in Emry Blair. What I hadn't expected was for the backstory to make so much sense. Usually science is the first causality of superhero stories, tossed aside with the breezy rationalization: 'Hey, it's comics!' Only Superhuman is, to my knowledge, the first hard science superhero story. And the Story is the better for it.

  Mike W. Barr

  Writing, Knowing, Superhero

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• Karma exists within causality. It is three-dimensional. Free will exists outside of causality; it is not bound by karma.

  Frederick Lenz

  Karma, Three, Free Will

  Frederick Lenz (1994). “Surfing the Himalayas: conversations and travels with Master Fwap”, Interglobal Seminars

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• Free will exists and operates outside causality. It is not hooked to karma. Free will is like a well that is on your property. You can choose to draw water from the well or not.

  Frederick Lenz

  Karma, Water, Free Will

  Frederick Lenz (1994). “Surfing the Himalayas: conversations and travels with Master Fwap”, Interglobal Seminars

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• Is the world ruled by strict laws or not? This question I regard as metaphysical. The laws we find are always hypotheses; which means that they may always be superseded, and that they may possibly be deduced from probability estimates. Yet denying causality would be the same as attempting to persuade the theorist to give up his search; and that such an attempt cannot be backed by anything like a proof.

  Karl Popper

  Giving Up, Mean, Science

  Karl Popper (2005). “The Logic of Scientific Discovery”, p.244, Routledge

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• The quantum hypothesis will eventually find its exact expression in certain equations which will be a more exact formulation of the law of causality.

  Max Planck

  Science, Expression, Law

  Max Planck (1959). “The new science: 3 complete works: Where is science going? The universe in the light of modern physics; The philosophy of physics”

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• Hitherto the principle of causality was universally accepted as an indispensable postulate of scientific research, but now we are told by some physicists that it must be thrown overboard. The fact that such an extraordinary opinion should be expressed in responsible scientific quarters is widely taken to be significant of the all-round unreliability of human knowledge. This indeed is a very serious situation.

  Max Planck

  Taken, Knowledge, Responsibility

  Max Planck (1959). “The new science: 3 complete works: Where is science going? The universe in the light of modern physics; The philosophy of physics”

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• Climate change hype has grave real world consequences. It gets rich countries to adopt silly policies and to impose devastating eco-imperialism on poor countries. The world's rich millions can afford environmental extremism; its poor billions can't. Climate change pseudo-science about human causality has been exposed repeatedly. What's less appreciated is that there aren't more natural disasters in need of an explanation.

  Leon Louw

  Country, Real, Silly

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• This is where I think the psychedelics come in because they are anticipations of the future. They seem to channel information that is not strictly governed by the laws of normal causality. So that there really is a prophetic dimension, a glimpse of the potential of the far centuries of the future through these compounds.

  Terence McKenna

  Thinking, Law, Dimensions

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