I. Causality, Reversed Causality & Coincidence
Causality is a term for the relation of cause and effect, or for the principle that nothing can exist or happen without a cause.
Reality is mostly complex, too complex for us to understand. One cause can generate many effects; one effect can be the result of many interacting causes; some effects are becoming new causes, generating further effects, and so on in long chains. All this at the same time. To keep us sane, our brain tries to simplify reality, to break it down into simple structures which we can grasp.
This simple model of cause and effect has proven to be very useful for human progress, and it is at the very heart of science.
The human brain likes this pattern, maybe a little too much. Its eagerness to identify a causal relation can sometimes lead to serious errors and mistakes. Such errors can also be created deliberately for manipulative purposes, which is not uncommon in political rhetoric.
The most common error is to assume a causal relation where none exists. That assumption is mostly (subconsciously) based on two events or phenomena coinciding in time or place, or following close after each other. That is not a sufficient condition to identify a causal relation and it often leads to a wrong conclusion, which the brain is very tempted, however, to accept. This is often used in political rhetoric, to present the electorate with the mental associations that the politician desires.
(To explain coincidence, Carl Gustav Jung developed a concept of "synchronicity". He suggested an "acausal connecting principle", where events lacking a causal connection could still somehow be linked by time and meaning.)
A second type of error is what I would like to call reversed causality. That is to say, a causal relation is assumed and is also at hand. The error lies in that which is assumed to be the cause really being the effect, and what is assumed to be the effect really being the cause.
At first sight this might seem ridiculous. If you kick a ball and it goes away, it is rather clear which is the cause and which is the effect. Trying to reverse that would be absurd. In such a simple example it would indeed be ridiculous. In a slightly more complex context, however, it is far from being as clear - and the mistakes are legion. It is very easy to end up in a paradox, similar to the question about which was first, the chicken or the egg.
Incidentally, reversed causality in a completely different meaning - not as here, an error of thought - but as a physical reality, seems entirely impossible from a common-sense point of view. Nevertheless there are signs suggesting such a possibility within the world of subatomic physics. Discussing that, however, goes beyond the scope of this article.
II. Examples from Politics
In the middle of the 1900s, there were places where they thought an airport would bring wealth, because wealthy countries had airports. So, one built an airport and sat down waiting for the wealth to come – which, needless to say, it didn't. This is called cargo cult and is an example of erroneous assumptions of causality.
Another common (and cherished) misconception is that democracy (as it is commonly applied) causes wealth, because in the West wealth and democracy coincided in time. The truth rather seem to be the opposite. Wealth came first, as a result of colonialism, democracy followed, but is then gradually eroding the wealth.
III. Causality, Age & Ageing
Let us also see what this means for health. It is commonly accepted that ageing causes unhealthy, degenerative disease and a general decline of physical and mental ability. I want to reverse that: You are not getting ill because you are old, but you are getting old (aged) because you are ill. Just as people do not stop playing because they are old - they get old because they stop playing!
What people commonly mean by "age" is a number assigned to you, which is determined by the number of years that have passed since you were born. This is a numerical or calendric age.
Ageing should then be the adding of numbers to your numerical age, one at a time, year after year. Yet it is not wrong to say that people age at different speed. Some age fast, some slowly. This is another sort of age though, which is determined by physiological, mental, emotional and other factors. Let us consider "ageing" as the decline of these factors, ultimately leading to death! It is impossible to set a number to such an age. Contrary to numerical age, it can be affected by yourself - or is affected by yourself and your lifestyle, whether you want it or not, whether you realise it or not. There can be more than 100% difference in ageing speed between two individuals.
Health and ageing are closely related. It is widely thought that high numerical age causes disease and a general decline, physiologically, mentally, etc. The problem with this reasoning is that IF it is true, almost no individual ever reaches such a high age! The person declines and dies far too early, mostly directly or indirectly as a result of (mainly self-inflicted) degenerative disease (I have earlier described this as slow and gradual suicide). So, I suggest that the common paradigm is wrong, it is an example of reversed causality. Illness causes ageing and declining functions, not the other way around.
(This article is partly based on material previously published in Meriondho Leo/TMA and in my e-book, “Reality & Mind”, 2018.)
Related articles:
Beware of Being Normal, it can Be Worse than You Think!
The Essence of Health: Food & Thinking
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Thanks for this enlightening post. But you said somewhere that it is wrong to say that people age at different speed, does that mean that ageing differs? Or does the pace at which people grow differs?