Knowledge Requires Causality

Once again I’ve been having a “debate” with someone who is asserting that determinism and knowledge are incompatible. And once again I’ve been pointing out that all determinism means is that every event is causal, and that causality is actually a requirement for consistent and coherent thought and knowledge obtainment.

Most people who argue against determinism based on the thinking that people wouldn’t be able to think, learn, and obtain knowledge, never really seem to think deeply enough about what it takes to obtain these things.

In my book I thoroughly go over acausal events (events without a cause) as well as what they imply. And make no mistake about it, rejecting determinism is no different than saying “some events don’t have a cause” (which I have no problem with such being considered “possible” by the way). The problem is that many don’t recognize this. They seem to think there is some middle ground between an event having causes and an event not having causes. Perhaps such is based on a misunderstanding about quantum mechanics (where terms such as “probability wave” causes confusions). Or perhaps they have misunderstandings about what the word “determinism” means. Or perhaps they’ve just never given much thought about the fact that X having a cause and X not having a cause are in opposition. That means if one is false, the other is true, and vice versa.

Some might criticize the use of bivalent logic here (either X or not X). But such is a mistake  that goes into the heart of when bivalent logic can (and needs to be) used and when we can use others such as many-valued logic, which really ties into what we can or cannot know at a given time  – rather than what is true or not in reality. In other words, fuzzy logic and other many-valued logical approaches are used to address vague concepts. I don’t want to go off on this tangent too much (perhaps another post), but thought it important to note for those who are somewhat familiar with terms such as bivalient and many-valued logic.

Needless to say, when someone argues against “determinism” that are arguing for acausal events (which if some acausal events happen, that is indeterminism). And when it comes to the obtainment of thinking, learning, or knowledge, such events are not in any way helpful. In fact, the chances are, if an acausal event has any connection to what we think, such would be a great detriment.

In chapter 11 of my book I give this brief analogy about acausal events:

Imagine, if you will, a computer with a monitor and keyboard. As you type in letters, they show up on the display. The computer translates the letter you type with accuracy and you begin to write a story:

Once upon a time there was this person who thought that events without a cause could grant free will. He bended logic to the point that he was able to fool himself and others into believing that this was possible.

Now imagine, as you continue typing, acausal events kept popping into the computer, forcing random letters in.

At that poiknt a fl<urry of acausdal eBvents wenddddt into his brvain that changed the strupture of hisZ brain so mqch that he no lolger beli9eved that acausal eveSnts wo&uld grant bhim fr3e will.

You can see the problem here. The causal structure of the computer gave the computer consistency. As soon as we incorporate in acausal events, all consistency is thrown out the window. The computer no longer has a mechanism for controlling the output. In a person, the mind would no longer have a mechanism for controlling the output.

Not that such acausal events have to necessarily output such mind you. It might, by happen chance, be that an acausal event produces the correct letter on the computer (the same that the causal event would dictate) and was benign to the output of such a letter. If so, that’s just a matter of luck. What must be understood is that whatever comes about from an acausal event is something that isn’t and can never be “caused”. That means such an event can have no relation to the events around it.

And it’s those relations that give things consistency and make them coherent!

This is important. It is causal relations that make things make sense. And that’s everything that the obtainment of knowledge relies on.

So not only is determinism not a problem with the obtainment of thinking, learning, and knowledge, it’s way better for these things than indeterminism would be. A person may learn logic, and assess things based on that logic, by entirely causal means. In fact, it is those causal means that produce all of the coherence and consistency we see. We don’t learn things without taking in information and processing it. Knowledge doesn’t just “pop” into our minds from nowhere. Information is spread from one person to another in various ways. Learning how to read, write, and talk does not just happen without a cause. In fact, the very place that you are born will most likely dictate the first language you will learn.

What you believe doesn’t just “pop” into your head either. Rather, the way your brain develops and the information that becomes “stored” within it is dictated by your genetics and environment. If you happen to be raised by parents who are a specific religion and teach you to be, the chances are you will probably believe in many of those things until some other causal events get you to question them. The events that can lead to a change in thought may be you communicating with others, learning something new in class, learning something on the Internet, reading a book, and so on. All of these events can and most likely do happen entirely causally.

You reading this very blog post is not something that there are no causal reasons for. You have been led here, either by seeing a post on some social media site, or by doing a search in which it came up, and so on. And all of those acts, for example, you turning on your computer, have reasons to them. And the reasons for those reasons have reasons. Everything you know comes about through causal means. Everything I know does as well. If I write a book on breaking the free will illusion, it’s because that is where causality has led me. Causes have led to the coherent understandings of the topic, to the passion and drive I have for it, and to the desire to disseminate such to others.

And no, free will isn’t a requirement of any of this. We don’t need to be able to have chosen otherwise than what we have coherently and reliably assessed through causal means. And yes, causality can and does lead to misinformation, poor thinking, and to us thinking we “know” something that is entirely not true. But that only shows that one couldn’t have chosen otherwise at that time. That we didn’t have the free will to be correct in our thinking.

But think about what having the “free will” to correct such poor thinking already implies. It implies we already have the information and ability to see where we were mistaken. And if we have such information, that implies we obtained such information by some means. It implies that such information causally happened in us. And of course if we recognize we are mistaken and change our belief based on that, such is entirely causal as well. No free will required.

In other words, it’s causality that can and sometimes does correct for these things. It can and does bring people who don’t know how to think critically into a realm in which they do know how. And that new knowledge creates a new system that can now parse information it once couldn’t. But the entirety of this process stems from causal events. It doesn’t come from events that have no relation to others. It doesn’t stem from some mystical “free will”. It doesn’t stem from multiple (actual) possibilities we can choose from, but rather the one possibility we will choose dictated by causal events.

There is not a shred of knowledge that you have in your head that doesn’t rely of the events that cause such. Sure, causality and acausality are both incompatible with free will, but that doesn’t mean causality is incompatible with the obtainment of thinking or knowledge. In fact, causality is a requirement for these things.

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'Trick Slattery

'Trick Slattery is the author of Breaking the Free Will Illusion for the Betterment of Humankind. He's an author, philosopher, artist, content creator, and entrepreneur. He has loved and immersed himself in philosophy since he was teenager. It is his first and strongest passion. Throughout the years he has built a philosophy based on analytic logic and critical thinking. Some of the topics he is most interested in are of a controversial variety, but his passion for the topics and their importance drives him to want to express these ideas to others. His other passions include pen and ink line art and digital artwork.

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