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"Red sky in morning, sailors take warning"
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From the vantage point of the observer, the red sky occurs before the storm, and, in fact, can be used to predict it. Does the red sky, therefore, cause the storm, or does the storm (which comes later) cause the red sky? This is not really a difficult question to answer, but it does nicely demonstrate some of the pitfalls to be aware of. This is especially true when observing cause-and-effect in phenomena that are closer to the limits of our current understanding. In short, there is more to observing cause-and-effect than apparent sequential precedence.
The Pharisees to whom Jesus spoke about this (
Mathew 16:1-3) clearly knew of it as a rule of thumb, or common knowledge. Did they, as individuals, discern the true causal direction back in Jesus' day? Perhaps, but there was likely a time in our knowledge of this, that we did not know. In other words, there may have been a time when we only knew that there was a correlation, and that the red sky came first. In those times, all but the deepest thinkers probably thought of the red sky as causing the storm which came after it; even if only tacitly, because they never really gave it much thought.
Obviously, in this day of radars, and satellite-pictures, our observational vantage-point has expanded well beyond this particular problem. It is probably true, however, that many newer observed correlations, as well as many observations throughout history have a similar local-sequential characteristic early-on. One can certainly understand, for example, how it would have been easy to conclude that the heavens revolved around the earth. This tendency, which may include correlation with no, or wrong, causal direction, probably continues to occur in many present-day, cutting-edge observations.
In a more present context, this effect (or something similar from a perceptual stand-point) may happen when we try to analyze one or more individual parts of a complex interacting collection of parts, in isolation. This tendency to analyze things from too small an aperture may happen more often than we'd like to admit. I have noticed many papers, from otherwise prestigious institutional origins, which seem to make this mistake.
Sometimes, the mistake is made overtly, clearly missing an obvious causality. Usually though, we tend to make this mistake tacitly, and very subtly. In this case, a causality-direction is simply assumed in a discussion, or even in the conclusion of a particular paper, without any consideration for other possible causal directions. Alternate causal-directions may, for example, be made possible by interactions with components that have been mentioned, but deliberately excluded from the analysis. The intentional exclusion will often be justified in the name of rigor, or reductionism.
Here is an example:
In the above story, a correlation is observed in individual human subjects, between power and hypocrisy, which leads to the conclusion that power causes hypocrisy. This may, in fact, be true, but no experiments seem to have been performed that would rule out that the particular society or culture within which the subject had obtained power, rewards hypocrisy.
In this study's conclusion, the assumption is fairly overt, but could it be wrong? Power is, after all, a characteristic, not only of the individual subject, but of the society and culture with which he or she interacts.
On the other hand... This is not to say that analysis in isolation is a bad thing. Breaking an observation problem down into workable parts is often the best way to obtain, catalog, and classify information about a complex system. To be sure, insisting that reductionism should never be used, is itself a form of reductionism.
The problem is not so much with analyzing things in isolation. It seems to be that humans tend to equate directly-observed sequential precedence with cause at a deeply subjective level. That is, if we observe something that always follows something else, our first reflex is to assume that it is caused by the thing that happens first in our observations (like the red sky in morning). This may be because cause follows effect so often in our universe —even from our extremely limited vantage points— so we have developed a top-down cognitive adaptation. On the other hand, it is possible we express this tendency merely because our perspective is so restricted.
That is, from the standpoint of learning, we really only care about the effect, and whatever phenomena always (or almost always) precede it. From a purely associative standpoint, at the cellular level, it becomes indistinguishable, and so cause becomes a synonym for, "always, or almost always precedes that thing with which it is associated."
In any case, it is an observable human tendency, and so it has something to tell us about how we think.
This is a parenthetical question. This article is
not about instances in which effects might actually come before their causes. We all assume that causality is such that a cause must ALWAYS sequentially precede that which it causes. I don't know if this assumption has been proven, or if it is simply taken as an axiom.
In any event, it is merely a matter of speculation to consider that there may be instances in which an observed cause could come after (in time) its observed effect. Again, it's fun to speculate, but that is not what this entry is about.
One section in the article linked below (
see: "Time In Three Parts...") also suggests (speculatively) a possible way in which cause might be able to occur outside of sequence, but it is not the central idea of that paper either, just a speculative aside.
- Time In Three Parts A practical definition of temporality
This is an earlier version of an article defining ratio-temporality.
The book contains an updated
version of this article (Appendix C), which adds sections discussing how ratio temporality is employed in,
and is central to, Netlab's concept of neural network functionality.
- Rhythm Perception Timeline Important Durations and Interonset Intervals
Background: A very nice listing, by Miriam Tumeo, of many known human perceptions of various intervals.
- Evaluation of Response Time for
Speech, Visual & Bi-Modal Cues
Background: perceptions of audio vs. visual information.
- Downward Causation
A very well explained discussion by Francis Heylighen that includes connections to reductionism.
- Follow-up/added 22-May-2011 - Breaking Rules Makes You Seem Powerful
A paper that works on a similar perception as the paper used, above, as an example. It begins to speak to my concerns about the original paper's conclusion. Though, in retrospect, it is becoming increasingly evident that these studies were just part of a good ol' fashioned political dog-wagging.
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[Notes:]
* "Count me out... In" Beatles, Revolution (White Album version)
D. J. Repici
Stand Out Publishing
