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Single Idea 8433

[filed under theme 26. Natural Theory / C. Causation / 5. Direction of causation ]

Full Idea

Lewis claims that most events are over-determined by subsequent states of the world, but not by their history. That is, the future of every event contains many independent traces of its occurrence, with little prior indication that it would happen.

Gist of Idea

There are few traces of an event before it happens, but many afterwards

Source

report of David Lewis (Counterfactual Dependence and Time's Arrow [1979]) by Paul Horwich - Lewis's Programme p.209

Book Ref

'Causation', ed/tr. Sosa,E. /Tooley,M. [OUP 1993], p.209

A Reaction

Lewis uses this asymmetry to deduce the direction of causation, and hence the direction of time. Most people (including me, I think) would prefer to use the axiomatic direction of time to deduce directions of causation. Lewis was very wicked.

The 19 ideas with the same theme [explain the past-to-future direction of causes]:

5861 People assume events cause what follows them [Aristotle]
11207 A cause can exist without its effect, but the effect cannot exist without its cause [Aquinas]
8410 A theory of causal relations yields an asymmetry which defines the direction of time [Reichenbach, by Salmon]
8363 p is a cause and q an effect (not vice versa) if manipulations of p change q [Wright,GHv]
8364 We can imagine controlling floods by controlling rain, but not vice versa [Wright,GHv]
8351 With diseases we easily trace a cause from an effect, but we cannot predict effects [Anscombe]
8413 Cause must come first in propagations of causal interactions, but interactions are simultaneous [Salmon]
15278 Humean accounts of causal direction by time fail, because cause and effect can occur together [Harré/Madden]
8405 A theory of causation should explain why cause precedes effect, not take it for granted [Lewis, by Field,H]
8427 I reject making the direction of causation axiomatic, since that takes too much for granted [Lewis]
8433 There are few traces of an event before it happens, but many afterwards [Lewis, by Horwich]
8393 We can only reduce the direction of causation to the direction of time if we are realist about the latter [Tooley]
8401 Physical laws are largely time-symmetric, so they make a poor basis for directional causation [Field,H]
8400 Identifying cause and effect is not just conventional; we explain later events by earlier ones [Field,H]
8402 The only reason for adding the notion of 'cause' to fundamental physics is directionality [Field,H]
4210 If the concept of a cause says it precedes its effect, that rules out backward causation by definition [Lowe]
10375 At least four rivals have challenged the view that causal direction is time direction [Schaffer,J]
10389 Causal order must be temporal, or else causes could be blocked, and time couldn't be explained [Schaffer,J]
10390 Causal order is not temporal, because of time travel, and simultanous, joint or backward causes [Schaffer,J]