Full Idea
It is not just that the earlier member of a cause-effect pair is conventionally called the cause; it is also connected with other temporal asymmetries that play an important role in our practices. We tend to explain later events in terms of earlier ones.
Gist of Idea
Identifying cause and effect is not just conventional; we explain later events by earlier ones
Source
Hartry Field (Causation in a Physical World [2003], 1)
Book Reference
'The Oxford Handbook of Metaphysics', ed/tr. Loux,M /Zimmerman,D [OUP 2005], p.436
A Reaction
We also interfere with the earlier one to affect the later one, and not vice versa (Idea 8363). I am inclined to think that attempting to explain the direction of causation is either pointless or hopeless.
Related Idea
Idea 8363 p is a cause and q an effect (not vice versa) if manipulations of p change q [Wright,GHv]