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To: donh

Defining the question is critical.

Getting the flu may be caused by a number of things. The flu itself is a result of the interaction of the relevant virus and the infectee.

For instance one may be infected (have the virus setting up housekeeping) but not sick (a killer immune system)

Too many effects or too many causes usually mean a carelessly phrased question.

I am attempting to learn about causeless sub-atomic effects, courtesy of another poster, so on another level you may be right. Maybe I should modify my statement to include only the Newtonian world.


431 posted on 10/20/2005 9:47:25 AM PDT by From many - one.
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To: From many - one.
Defining the question is critical.

If "defining the question is critical", you probably aren't dealing with a law of nature, so much as you are with how to wrap your mind around the question.

Getting the flu may be caused by a number of things. The flu itself is a result of the interaction of the relevant virus and the infectee.

That's your viewpoint. A CDC field manager's view is that the flu is caused by chinese livestock.

Too many effects or too many causes usually mean a carelessly phrased question.

Which professional is "carelessly phrasing the question"? The micro-biological virologists or the demographic epidemiologists? Is starlight caused by fusion, stars, coagulating stardust, or the Big Bang?

I am attempting to learn about causeless sub-atomic effects, courtesy of another poster, so on another level you may be right.

Well, sure, you have to pretty much wean yourself of causality to engage in quantum physics, but you don't really need to peer down into the Heisenburg limit to realize that causality is really more of a convention, than a physical law. As my examples should suggest, what you choose to regard as causing a particular event, depends on what fish you wish to fry.

Maybe I should modify my statement to include only the Newtonian world.

Maybe you're just carrying around high-fallutin' metaphysical baggage attached to the idea of causality that isn't needed either in the classical world or the quantum world.

476 posted on 10/20/2005 4:15:29 PM PDT by donh
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