Are causal links part of the environment?

[Boojatta]

Are causal links part of human genes?

Are causal links part of neither the environment nor human genes?

If causal links are part of neither the environment nor human genes, then is human behavior fully determined by the interaction of genetic and environmental systems that don't include any causal links?

[DavidDvorkin]

1. What?

Define causal links.

[Boojatta]

2. It's a fundamental concept. Perhaps I should simply clarify the terminology.

Think about randomized, double-blind tests of a pharmaceutical with some patients receiving a placebo to provide a baseline rate of spontaneous improvement of the condition of patients to be compared to improvement of the condition of patients who receive the pharmaceutical that is being tested.

As you know, the purpose of such tests is to gather evidence as to whether or not there is a causal link between taking (some specified dosage of) the pharmaceutical and improvement of the patient's condition.

[WheelWalker]

3. Yes & yes & therefore moot.

[Boojatta]

4. What kind of an object is a causal link?

At one time, the idea of a gravitational force was considered to be problematic on the grounds that it was mystical or occult, in contrast with push-pull forces produced by direct contact between particles. Nowadays, a gravitational force is accepted as an ordinary and genuine kind of entity.

It's possible to construct a statement asserting the existence of a causal link between two events, but is a causal link itself an object as real as a force? Is a causal link an entity with an actual existence? Alternatively, might it be that when we speak of two events as being causally linked, we are merely saying something about a human invention: a model of the universe.

Both possibilities are conceivable. For example, when people accepted Aristotle's physics, they were quite confident that the Earth is at rest. Nowadays such a statement is considered not so much false as meaningless, on the grounds that there is no preferred frame of reference and motion is relative. We thus seem to have an example of a statement that was a byproduct of a particular model of reality, but that doesn't inform us about reality. There is no speed vector of the Earth against the background of fixed space.

In contrast, forces are examples of actually existing vector quantities, and the past is both an aspect of reality and something that shows up in our models of reality.

[WheelWalker]

5. Agreed. I think you've captured the issues.

[Boojatta]

6. Thank you for the praise.

I'm still waiting and hoping for an answer to the question:

What kind of an object is a causal link?