Of Ex and Why? (Part IV)

Foundation 3: Causation

Look at this photograph. The photograph consists of two people facing each other chest-passing a basketball back and forth, such that the ball is exactly in between both players. Both players have their hands extended outward toward each other, one throwing and the other catching. Consider, for the sake of argument both players stances are essentially a mirror image of the other and the photo was shot with a high-speed shutter, such that there was no motion blur. Which player threw the ball to whom? Not so easy.

Let's change it up a bit, imagine that the ball was filmed this time, such that all you were allowed to see is the ball move one inch from left to right. Do you think you know who threw it now? Are you sure?

It's nearly impossible for anyone to know with any absolute certainty who did what in the photograph. However, in light of the video we are a little more confident in guessing that the player on the left perhaps threw the ball to the person on the right. Contrary to what would seem obvious there could be an unbelievable amount of conceivable instances that set the ball in motion that had absolutely nothing to do with the players actions. It's just that from our experience and the context of the picture, we assume we know what's going on.

Surprisingly, it turns out all of phenomenal experience is like this. We see things contact each other, we assume they actually contact each other and energy is transferred, but can we actually see the mechanical action where the energy of one object causes the other object to move. Put another way, if everything devolves into or evolves through this primordial substance, whatever it may be, the primordial substance being fundamental reality is beyond the scope of typical human observation. It is assumed by common sense that if contact is made between one object and another, that the contact is made at the most fundamental, primordial level, that is assuming symmetry all the way down.

Furthermore, even if we attempt to analyze it through our most sensitive devices, there still exists a perceptual event horizon; another side we can't see where the energy transferred through contact forces is made. Since we can't see this level of contact action, we assume there must be contact being made somewhere, in some way.

It is assumed that like objects can interact effectively with like objects. After all if everything points to a primordial substance and all motion is known only through what was created by way of the primordial substance, then all contact motion is possibly due to the similarity in fundamental substance (e.g. notched cogs interlock with and move equally and opposed notched cogs).

In addition, apart of what we observe can only be described as instantaneous. Think of a movie, it is comprised of instantaneous pictures that move at so many frames per minute. Is there motion, or is there not? Is motion a true appearance of reality, or is it an illusion? Going back to the movie analogy, what provides motion for these pictures? One could say that the projector provides the motion. This is correct in so much as it is the apparatus providing the rapid sequential display of images, but what provides the motion for the projector? One could point to the various mechanisms within the projector, but what provides their motion? One could do this reductively ad infinitum and only come to find some corpuscle (simple billiard-ball like atom) or point like particle (a mathematical hypotheses) that is a simple substance but yet we're left with nothing but itself providing its own motion. As we explored stasis before, a rock left on a level surface will not move on its own without an outside force acting upon it, wouldn't this simple realization give pause to the thought of motion by a substance, sui generis. Living forms are even more interesting, especially since they're dependent upon simple substances (corpuscles or point-like particles, whichever is suitable). What is it that moves these basic substances into a form, no less an enduring form while undergoing so many rapid changes?

It is from this point we employ physics to propose various hypotheses for how this mechanical action happens as explained through the language of mathematics. However, even with the explanatory and predictive success of physical theories employed, the destiny is ultimately asymptotic in nature. Empiricists are aware of this human limitation, and this realization is the fundamental idea upon which all modern scientific inquiry rests, namely, we can't know any natural phenomena (i.e. the cause/effect relationship) with any absolute certainty, but only a certainty asserted in probability.

From this, theoretically, everything makes sense when mechanical action between objects shows an object in constant contact with other objects, much like most things we perceive to work on earth. Where the mechanical contact concept gets sticky is when conceiving things as traveling through a void. After all, if everything devolves into a finite primordial substance, there must be a space where things are not (i.e. the void). What is the mechanical action which maintains the motion? Is the energy manifested through motion carrying the object (perhaps through an energy field), or the object carrying energy made manifest by resultant energy transfer from object to object? These are the harder, open-ended questions of physics, that still pose a fundamental challenge to modern physicists.

Next, we'll modernize all the topics we've discussed thus far to create a measuring stick of sorts to analyze the peaks and troughs of scientific history.