Causality Quotes

“The invention of the ship was also the invention of the shipwreck”
― Paul Virilio

“Thirty years ago, we used to ask: Can a computer simulate all processes of logic? The answer was yes, but the question was surely wrong. We should have asked: Can logic simulate all sequences of cause and effect? And the answer would have been no.”
― Gregory Bateson, Mind and Nature: A Necessary Unity

“I have tried to read philosophers of all ages and have found many illuminating ideas but no steady progress toward deeper knowledge and understanding. Science, however, gives me the feeling of steady progress: I am convinced that theoretical physics is actual philosophy. It has revolutionized fundamental concepts, e.g., about space and time (relativity), about causality (quantum theory), and about substance and matter (atomistics), and it has taught us new methods of thinking (complementarity) which are applicable far beyond physics.”
― Max Born

“The only simple truth is that there is nothing simple in this complex universe. Everything relates. Everything connects”
― Johnny Rich, The Human Script

“They say truth is the first causality of war.”
― Captain Price

“Nothing’s random. Even if it looks that way, it’s just because you don’t know the causes.”
― Johnny Rich, The Human Script

“If you are reading this Libellus, you are a Dreamer, whether you have recognized this or not. Being a Dreamer carries responsibility, one most people are not willing to accept. Responsibility implies that one cannot blame another person for their actions, effectively avoiding causality. However, this is futile and childish to consider. If you are a Dreamer, you are creating the Waking Dream around you. If your life is good, it is because you have made it so and if it is bad, it is because you have made it so. No one else is responsible for your life other than you.”
― Michael Hibbard, Immortal Memories: Volume I

“The sum of the particular intentions of God is the universe itself.”
― Simone Weil

“Spinoza was the supreme rationalist. He saw an endless stream of causality in the world. For him there is no such entity as will or will power. Nothing happens capriciously. Everything is caused by something prior, and the more we devote ourselves to the understanding of this causative network, the more free we become." ... "I'm sure he would have said that you are subject to passions that are driven by inadequate ideas rather than by the ideas that flow from a true quest for understanding the nature of reality." ... "He states explicitly that a passion ceases to be a passion as soon as we form a more clear and distinct idea of it--that is, the causative nexus underlying the passion." p.269”
― Irvin D. Yalom, The Spinoza Problem

“In the chain of events, it is arbitrary to be sentimental about the passing of any one link.”
― Johnny Rich, The Human Script

“Thus he has two standpoints from which he can consider himself...: first, as belonging to the world of sense, under the laws of nature (heteronomy), and, second, as belonging to the intelligible world under laws which, independent of nature, are not empirical but founded only on reason.”
― Immanuel Kant, Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals

“I don't really believe that people can predict the future,' he admitted.

'People predict the future every day, Stenwold Maker,' she replied, studying the rainbow carefully as the glass panels shifted slightly on the creaking wooded framework. 'If you drop a stone, you may predict that it shall fall. If you know a man to be dishonest, you may predict that he will cheat you. If you know one army is better trained and led, you may predict that it will win the battle.'

He could not help smiling at that. 'But that is different. That is using knowledge already gained about the world to guess at the most likely outcome.'

'And that is also predicting the future, Stenwold Maker,' she said. 'The only difference is your source of knowledge. Everything that happens has a cause, which same cause has itself a cause. It is a chain stretching into the most distant past, and forged by necessity, inclination, bitter memories, the urge of duty. Nothing happens without a reason. Predicting the future does not require predestination, Stenwold Maker. It only requires a world where one thing will most likely lead to another.”
― Adrian Tchaikovsky, Salute the Dark

“Maybe I'm wrong; I might not believe in fate but I do believe in causality and who's to say fate isn't just a sort of social mathematics that brings like-minded people together.”
― Simon Pegg, Nerd Do Well

“Current research in any field of Science has not yet reached the point where we could start exploring the existential question regarding God as a Supreme Entity driving causality in the universe. However, as modern Neuroscience progresses further and gets more advanced, we shall get to dive deeper into the physiological processes underneath the Qualia of God in human mind. What we have seen so far through our studies in Neurotheology, is that it is not God himself/herself/itself, rather it is people’s perception of God that influences the human life. The Qualia of God impact all aspects of human life by altering the body chemistry at a cellular level.”
― Abhijit Naskar, What is Mind?

“The belief in causality is metaphysical. It is nothing but a typical metaphysical hypostatization of a well-justified methodological rule- the scientist's decision never to abandon his search for laws. The metaphysical belief in causality seems thus more fertile in its various manifestations than any indeterminist physics metaphysics of the kind advocated by Heisenberg. Indeed, we can see that Heisenberg's comments have had a crippling effect on research. Connections which are not far to seek may easily be overlooked if its continually repeated that the search for any such connections is 'meaningless'.”
― Karl Popper, The Logic of Scientific Discovery

“Like physical events with their causal and teleological interpretations, every linguistic event had two possible interpretations: as a transmission of information and as the realization of a plan.”
― Ted Chiang, Stories of Your Life and Others

“We are particularly concerned with the question to what degree approval and implementation of an explanatory model minimising collective or institutional responsibility for certain problems and emphasising individual responsibility promotes detrimental perceptions and behaviours amongst individuals, who adopt and adapt similar explanations to justify their own lack of responsibility. For instance, admissibility of diminished responsibility arguments in criminal sentencing can be viewed as a direct consequence of a broader public acceptance of explanatory models purporting to prove a direct causal relationship between pharmacology, mental health and/or diminished ability to function.”
― Daniel Waterman

“Everything has reasons, even if they’re not good ones. And the reasons have reasons.”
― Johnny Rich, The Human Script

“Causality is a pointless superstition. These days it would take more than one book to persuade anyone of that.”
― Arif Ahmed, Evidence, Decision and Causality

“Insofar as it is true, the idea that our actions or beliefs are merely one link in a causal link that runs back to the beginning of the universe is making a trivial claim. Insofar as it is saying something profound, the claim is untrue.”
― Kenan Malik

“Natural Sciences are all about fascinating causality.”
― Abhijit Naskar, What is Mind?

“To imagine the way we think is the singular causative agent of all we go through is to practice cruelty toward ourselves.”
― Sharon Salzberg, Real Love: The Art of Mindful Connection